6 months - let the baking begin

Stats:
Height: 2' 4" / 0.71m (90%)
Weight: 18lbs 14oz / 8.6kg (75%)
Head circumference: 44cm (60%)

We celebrated Nathan's 6 months birthday last weekend by making a "half birthday" cake. It was a carrot cake with lots of cream cheese icing to hold the two layers together. This was my first time baking a cake from scratch so James had to teach me how to use the food processor. The icing was difficult to put on (kept getting crumbs everywhere) so we ended up using quite a bit. Now I know why store bought cakes always have too much icing.

The doctor's checkup went well today. Nathan enjoyed rolling around on the exam table and looking at his reflection in the mirror. One question we had was what and how much solid food to feed him and Dr. Brown gave us a rough outline of what to expect in the next 3 months. I was surprised to learn that we should introduce meat at 7 1/2 months. So far Nathan has only had rice cereal and banana (which he hated), so feel like there's a lot fruits and veggies we need to introduce to him in the next 6 weeks.

We were also warned that this is the time to introduce proper sleeping habits. James was glad to hear doctor taking his side that but I've always been against the "cry it out" approach. Nathan seems to be getting more and more comfortable with sleeping in our bed, which I don't mind that much. He still wakes up once a night usually for a feed (again not a good habit according to doc) and these days I just feed him while he's lying next to me so he falls right back to sleep.
One improvement is he seems to prefer sleeping on his back over his front now. He can also fall asleep by himself (instead of getting carried around), but only when he's in our bed. I know that we should "teach" him to sleep in his crib, but he doesn't like being left alone in there (can't blame him) and I don't have the heart to either.