Six Months!

My little dude is half a year old!  Time to start planning the 1-year birthday bash!

Big deals right now:

• Sitting!  Avery LOVES LOVES LOVES to sit up and always looks at everyone with a big smile on his face as if he's uber-proud of himself.  And why shouldn't he be?  Sitting is cool!
• Swimming - he had his first swim in DC (video posted earlier) and was apprehensive, but didn't seem to HATE it.
• Raspberries and other assorted noises.  Remember when we were excited that he was saying "coo!"?  Well, now he's blowing raspberries, yelling, and making all kinds of racket.  It's hard at the moment to say what's crying and what's not!
• More visits!  We got to meet almost all of the rest of Jon's family in St. Louis as well as spend more time with Nana and Grandpa Hanger.  Excited to meet our new Hanger cousin, though!
• The Exersaucer.  He was not so sure about this contraption the first time we stuck him in, but now he jumps so hard I'm worried it's going to break apart!
• Lots of food choices now.  He loves his spoon food, and when he sees the spoon and jar, he starts shaking, panting, and opening his mouth like a little baby bird having a seizure.   He's even eating broken down little food puffs.  I won't let Jon feed him big pieces because I don't know baby Heimlich. 
• Still hates Jon's laugh, which scares him to death.  Will post a video soon showing this - hysterical!
• I'm not much for percentiles, but his head is in the 94% range while the rest of him is 50 or below.  So, Jon has named him "The Nugget"
• Much more fond of baths now, because he gets to grab the faucet, and he loves to grab and move things from one hand to the other.
• Drooling like..well...like a monster who drools a lot.  Probably expecting some teeth pretty soon.
• Still sleeping through the night in the car seat, but that's our fault.  The crib is all packed up for our move. He has been taking long naps flat on his back if he's wedged in between some pillows.  Progress!
• He'll be starting day care pretty soon in Maryland, so that'll be fun for him to play with other babies. He's probably getting tired of that baby in the mirror.

Even with all of the work we are doing on our house, Avery is very patient and entertains himself with his toys and DVDs while we get stuff done.  What a great kid!