Little girl, it’s hard to believe you are already half a year old! Happy 6 Months, Choongie. You still seem like a tiny baby until I look back at your pictures from September when you joined our family. You’ve changed so much. And my arms and back can verify that you’re getting heavier. In fact, you’ve already grown out of most of your 6-month size clothes—especially the pants and sleepers. Shortly after Christmas (and your 5 month birthday) you started sitting up on your own. Now your balance has improved so much that you’ve started rolling from your back to belly and back more frequently. The same week you started saying Dada for real. We’re not sure if you know what it means yet, but you get a positive response when you say it, especially from your Daddy. When he kisses your cheeks you still get a speckled red rash from his prickly face and everyone can tell he’s been kissing on you. Now that you’re 6 months old, we have the go-ahead from your doctor to start you on solid foods. We’ve shelved the bland rice cereal and moved on to avocado and carrots. There are sweet potatoes and bananas waiting in the wings. It’s fun to watch your reaction to new tastes. You’re still sleeping like a champ through the night, even though teething pain wakes you up from time to time. You’re great at putting yourself back to sleep sucking your thumb. You’ve been napping less, sometimes just two naps a day now for an hour or two a piece. It’s getting harder to get anything done when you’re awake because you’re so much fun to play with!

It sounds really complicated but really Homemade Baby Food is just fancy words for softened (steamed, baked, mashed), blended food frozen into small portions. It’s easy and it’s inexpensive. For Christmas, Precious got this wonderful Baby Bjorn bib that my friend recommended. It’s made from a stiff silicon-ish material so the food catching lip doesn’t collapse. Also, the neck is adjustable so it will fit for a while. Perfect for Precious’ reintroduction to solid foods. (We started on rice cereal at 4 months old but neither of us was really ready yet. Now, at 6 months she’s ready. And I am, too.)

She also got some great Oxo Tot baby food freezing containers for Christmas. Oxo is my all-time favorite kitchen gadget brand. This Oxo Tot freezer tray pretty much just looks like any old ice cube tray but it has a lid—a pretty green lid—with a special function. It’s curved at the ends so you can dump just one ice cube out at a time. Smart, huh? It makes 1 oz. portions. Perfect for introducing new foods. Once the cubes are all frozen, I’ve been popping them into freezer bags so I can label and date them.

The Oxo Tot baby blocks six pack tray and 2 oz. containers are handy for taking larger portions on the go. I haven’t seen these in action yet but the first batch of pureed carrots is freezing right now. So far I have made avocado, carrots and bananas for Precious. Next on my list are sweet potatoes, green beans, broccoli, apples and pears. I’m curious to hear from you: What were the first foods you fed your kids? What foods were their favorites? Did you make baby food at home, blend up whatever you were eating or buy baby food pre-made?

One bedroom in our house—the kids room—has wood paneling. Thankfully, it was already painted when we moved in. I wouldn’t choose it for my new house but I have thoroughly enjoyed the texture it creates on the walls, the striped effect. Also, it’s solid wood which makes hanging art and shelving super easy—hooray for no hollow wall anchors!

Our house plans are developing and our excitement is increasing. I think we’re almost there with the floor plan! Again, I’m purposely obscuring this photo so our architect’s intellectual property can’t swiped (as easily). We figured out how to incorporate a fourth bedroom that we’re calling the den. It’ll probably be more of a playroom, creative space for Precious and other kids to hang out in by the time we move into the house. It’s crazy to think that our little 6 month old baby will be walking by the time we’re in our new home. Also, the laundry room grew into an office/craft room for me. Yay! Now the trick will be finding a GC (general contractor) who will build this house for $100/square foot or less.

I like the philosophy of Rachel Peters, interviewed on Design Mom, about her custom built dream home—she intentionally had their architect make the bedrooms and closets small to encourage the kids to go outside and to make it harder to hoard junk. We’ve had a similar philosophy for our new house: keep the bedrooms small and the common areas big and open to promote togetherness. The minimalist in me likes the small closets idea but the thrifty part of me wants to organize and store anything we might use in the future.

I know it’s silly but for the past 36 hours, since I first saw it at Kroger, I’ve been in love with Mom’s Best Naturals cereal. Now I’m not typically a cereal lover. Lucky Charms was the only cereal I would eat growing up. My breakfast of choice in high school was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. But I’m a graphic designer by trade and what-can-I-say, I was sold by the packaging. I walked 3 steps past the end cap in Kroger, pulled out my camera and went back to take a picture. As I walked away, posting it on Instagram, I decided I should buy a box and try it. Back at the display for the third time, I was pleasantly surprised that it was only $1.50 a box. I  found raisin bran to try. I’m happy to report that it tastes as good as any raisin bran I’ve ever had, though I’m admittedly not a cereal connoisseur.

I have been struggling to keep up with blogging the past week or so. I think this happens to every blogger from time to time. Real life takes priority, but I also aspire to keep up with documenting and sharing. Here’s a little bit of what’s been going on lately:

• Jason finished recording his lullabies album last week. I’ve been working on the album design. We had a little photo session yesterday with Precious, Jason and his guitar. Hopefully I captured something that will work with what’s in my head.

• After being home for a solid month, Jason’s tour schedule starts back up this week. It’s been so great to have him home. But I’m also incredibly thankful that he’ll be back to work soon because he loves it and it’s how he makes a living. That makes us both very happy.

• This month the guys are going on a Florida Snowbird Tour and Precious and I are going to join them in the Tampa area for a few days. I am  SO EXCITED about this mini-vacation that I’m willing to fly with a 6 month old, pick up bags and rent a car all by myself. I’m a little nervous but it’ll be oh-so-worth-it. I flew alone with Ladybug once and it was OK. The first flight was great and the second flight was mix of bad and torture. (It started out with her smacking me in the face when I tried to contain her on my lap after the last passenger to board the plane took the last available seat next to the lady flying alone with a toddler—me—and said “Oh no, this is going to be a long flight!” I wanted to spit back, “You have no idea what this child has been through! We’ve only known each other for 2 weeks!” But I kept my mouth shut. The flight ended with a screaming tantrum. Thanks for the curse, mean old lady sitting next to us…ANYWAY…I’m sure these flights are going to be great because Precious is the most easy-going baby in the world.)

• Our house has been on the market about 6 weeks and we’ve had around 20 showings. Nuts! Showing a house when you have a baby and a dog is not easy and I’m not a fan of the one-hour-notice showings. What the heck, people?! It’s all good though. We pull it off with smiles on our faces and we’re praying for an offer soon. It’s nice to not have any rush, we’re just excited to move forward on our new construction. We’re hoping for breaking ground in March and moving in by the end of summer or early fall but it’s impossible to say at this point.

• On Saturday Jason and I stopped by a new string of shops in East Nashville called the Idea Hatchery. It’s a bunch of small studios for start-up and small businesses with more affordable leases, funded by the art gallery next door called Garage Majal. Cute little area. (Pictures above and below.)

We’ve got plans! However, I want to protect the original work of our architect so I’m not going to fully share the plans at this point. We are thrilled! We wanted a lot of mid-century influence but figured it was going to be a modern twist, since it is 2012 after all, and we’re not planning to try to trick anyone into believing our home was built in the mid-1900s. Jason and I were hoping Ryan, our architect, would not just take our (many) ideas into consideration but also throw in a good mix of his own ideas and creativity. We were not disappointed. The exterior is different than what we expected and anything we’ve seen before. “Stunned” is the word that comes to mind with my initial reaction. Stunned/stunning are pretty similar words, right? Now I think it’s stunning.

The front of the house, according to these plans (which I’m sure will change some), will be a mix of cinder block and stained wood. I scribbled in the landscaping to help me visualize it. The most notable elements are the roof line—Ryan’s idea to let a ton of light flood into the great room which will have vaulted ceilings with exposed beams—and the lack of apparent front door. There is a front door, of course, but it’s concealed behind the wall of a courtyard.

I woke up early one morning walking through this house in my head and getting ideas along the way. I had to get out of bed to fetch some tracing paper and start scribbling down my ideas. We’re still waiting for our house to sell—we’ve had 13 showings in the first month!—which means we can take our time in the design and planning phase for now.

Here’s my “Dream House Wishlist” in case you’re curious:
• great room (kitchen, dining room, living room)
• wood-burning fireplace
• 3 bedrooms minimum
• 2 full bathrooms
• 4th bedroom that will serve as a den/playroom/guestroom for now, until/unless we need it for more kids
• studio for Jason
• laundry room/office/craft room area for me
• courtyard or atrium
• mid-century design influence
• great natural light and big windows
• garage
• wood floors
• lots of other little ideas

Oh, it’s exciting! It will be sad to say goodbye to this house that we love so much but having a new place to look forward to helps. We’re also anxious to get back to fostering kids. I’m glad we’re finally not getting placement calls anymore because it was heartbreaking to have to keep saying no, but we’re still very aware of the need and that every day there are kids that need a safe place to go. We’re feeling like this year and transition time will go by very quickly, or maybe we’re just ready to jump ahead to moving into our finished house.