7 Months Old

Besides being Imogen's first Christmas Eve, today is another special day: her 7th month birthday! She has grown by leaps and bounds since the first day we saw her as a tiny bundle of joy. At 7 months, Imogen weighs about 17 1/2 pounds. She is typically wearing 6-12 month clothing, but depending on the maker, some of those size clothes are too tight. And she does lots of fun things too, like:

* She can sit up without support

* She gets on her hands and knees and rocks
* She scoots her body backwards and sometimes gets into precarious positions
* She says 'da da da da' and 'ba' and (for the first time today!) 'ma' !!
* She can now sit upright in the bathtub
* She likes to put everything in her mouth
* She definitely knows what she wants, when she wants it (and we are good at reading her!)
* ...and so many more there is too much to name!

We look forward to what she will do next every single day and are enjoying our precious baby girl so much! She is such a blessing :-)

Must Be Santa

Okay, so upfront, I must say that I know these aren't the best photos, but I don't have my camera cord so I had to take a picture of a picture with my cell phone.

We went to visit Santa yesterday at the mall and besides being much more expensive than I ever imagined, it was a good time. Imogen was a big girl and sat very nicely on Santa's lap. He even told me that it was a relief because he had just been through a slew of crying children. Imogen just stared at him, trying to figure him out, as she does to everyone new she meets. She whispered to him sweetly and quietly what she would like for Christmas and what she said, only Santa and Imogen will ever know.

Merry Christmas Eve!!

Phipps Conservatory

This weekend our cousins came to visit from Ohio and we took them to Phipps Conservatory. It was gorgeous all decorated for Christmas, and they even had a great train exhibit set up. Imogen had a good time looking at all the plants, but seemed pretty tired most of the time. The first picture above was taken towards the beginning of the tour and the second was taken towards the end when she had fallen asleep. In the second picture, the Christmas tree behind us was planted in water and it was so cool -- I thought it was a really super tall tree before I realized I was looking at a reflection! It's a great place to visit when you're in Pittsburgh :)

Knitting and Hands & Knees

This is what the evening of Thanksgiving looked like. My sister, Lisa, taught me to knit! I have wanted to learn for awhile now and we were finally able to be together so I could figure it all out. At this point I was just knitting a rectangle and practicing the stitches: knit, purl, knit, purl....
I was so proud of my first rectangle!!
The Sunday after Thanksgiving I knitted my first hat for Imogen -- not this one -- but a practice hat with quite a few mistakes in a not-really-cute yarn. After I did it and got the hang of the pattern, I decided to buy some nice yarn at a local knitting store and go for it! Tonight I finally finished her first real hat that I would let her wear out in public!! I love it! (and as a side note, I just wanted to thank my wonderful husband who braved JoAnn Fabrics on his own to get me the right size needles earlier today to be able to finish.) It fits Imogen perfectly and is so soft...and I didn't make any mistakes on it. I am really proud of it! I did a garter stitch around the brim, which is alternating rows of knitting/purling and then stockinette stitch for the rest. I knitted in the round for most of the body, but then switched to double pointed needles to close the top.
Up close of the hat!
For those of you who made it this far and haven't fallen asleep, I have some other exciting news: Imogen now can hold herself on her hands and knees! Chris mentioned that she did it here and there the past couple days, but tonight, she was up and holding it! I could not believe it! She is growing up so fast! I'll post a picture of it when I get one.

Updated

Due to popular demand, I've changed the photo to the right under Imogen's name to a current picture. Enjoy!