Sippy Cup

I know she's too early for her sippy cup but I have been giving it to her just to hold and get used to lately.



She has also figured out how to suck water up a straw. She usually spits it right back out but it's pretty cute!

5 Months Old

Lauren turned 5 months old last Thursday! Prepare yourself for a long post :)










She loves to look at herself in the mirror!

We went to the Dr. for a shot and found out she weighs in at 16 lbs and 9 oz!

At 5 months she can roll from back to front, almost sit up totally unassisted, scootch backwards on her tummy and she wants to grab anything and everything mom or dad is holding.

She has figured out how to throw a fit. If she has something she's focused on and interested in and we take it away - immediately crying. If I lay her on the floor - immediate crying - then when I say her name and snap her out of it she's fine. The other day I was walking past her and she was screeching (I don't think I've told you about that yet. It's fun for mommy.) and I continued walking and she started immediately crying then when I turned back around and walked up to her she started smiling. Stinker.

The Screech



According to the books, by five months she should be able to:

- hold head steady when upright: CHECK

- on stomach, raise chest supported by arms: CHECK

- pay attention to an object as small as a raisin: CHECK

- squeal in delight: CHECK

- smile spontaneously: CHECK

- smile back when you smile: CHECK

- grasp a rattle held to backs or tips of fingers: CHECK

- keep head level with body when pulled to sitting: CHECK

…probably be able to:

- roll over (one way): CHECK

- bear some weight on legs: CHECK

- say “ah-goo” or similar vowel-consonant combination: CHECK

- razz: CHECK
I assume this is what this means - she tries! :):


- turn in the direction of a voice: CHECK

…may possibly be able to:

- sit without support: Getting Close


…may even be able to:

- pull up to standing position from sitting: Just with our hands. She hasn't tried on to grab anything else yet

- stand holding on to someone or something: CHECK

- object if you try to take a toy away: Just starting to throw her fits.

- work to get to a toy out of reach: Just starting

- pass a cube or other object from one hand to the other: She's only done this once.

- look for dropped objects: Not really.... yet!

- rake with fingers a tiny object and pick it up in fist: Not really.... yet!

- babbles, combining vowels and consonants such as ga-ga-ga, ba-ba-ba, ma-ma-ma, da-da-da: Sometimes

She's getting to be a pretty big girl!

Confession

We have lived in our house for over a year now and I have never deep cleaned our entry way.

I've never scrubbed the tiles and front door and lord knows they needed it. I really should have done that.

Because this winter has been so horrible our entry has finally gotten a makeover. The front door wasn't insulated around the frame, it wasn't set quite square and since I like lots of light we decided it was time to get a new door which spurred the mini makeover. It just needed to be freshened up.

Before: (this pic is after the new front door so it is much lighter than it used to be)


After:


New Front door:

Brown Thumb

I have a brown thumb. I think in the last 3 years I've killed probably 4 houseplants. One of those was sentenced to death by my sister in law and just wouldn't die at her house. For some reason, a while after it came to live with me it died.

A house needs plants though. Right? I have not given up yet. I have a peace lily which is one of my favorites and it has somehow survived my wrath. This plant came from Adams grandpa's funeral so maybe that has something to do with it. It is by no means in great shape. It hasn't gotten much bigger from when I first got it and there are usually some leaves that are brown.



Lately it has been getting sadder and sadder. But there was an actual reason that I could see happening. The soil was washing away when I watered it. I always thought that you were supposed to put rocks in the bottom of the pot to help the water drain.



Google however tells me different. It says that rocks are bad because the soil will wash away. Hmmmm. So it was time to re-pot. I went out to my shed and found a pot with this black thing in the bottom. Looks like it'll let the water drain but maybe keep the soil in so I tried it.



I learned that after you re-plant you are supposed to fill the sink and set the bottom of the pot in the water to let it soak up as much as needed for about 1/2 hr. So I did that and here is my poor plant now.



It has a much better environment to live in now and hopefully it can start to grow and flourish instead of just try and survive.

Lauren carefully watched over my work so hopefully she can help me turn this brown thumb green.

Airplane

Lauren still can't get from her tummy to her back. But she loves to roll from back to tummy. She just can't quite figure out how to use her arms or something. She spends most of the time with them straight out to the side like an airplane. Since this means that she's putting pressure on her stomach it usually ends in spitting up.



I sure do hope she can figure this thing out soon.

Happy Valentines Day

Happy Valentines Day Ya'll!

Wooden Name Letters

I finally got around to making Laurens name to put above her crib. These seem to be the cool thing to do for nurseries and they are super easy to make so I jumped on the bandwagon.



I bought these letters from Hobby Lobby for like 50 cents each.

I glued scrapbook paper to the letters and then roughly cut the paper away. I just used a thin layer of Mod Podge.


Then I took fine sandpaper and sanded the paper along the edges of the wooden letters. This "cut away" the paper to the exact letter shape.



Added some ribbon and you are done!

Jump, Jump, Jump, Jumperoo!

Now that her feet touch the ground without the help of photo boxes or books, Lauren goes to town in her jumperoo! I got hers at a garage sale. Definitely worth the money even if you have to pay full price!



This was her almost two months ago already!

Such a big girl

Not only can Lauren roll over these days she is getting pretty good at this sitting thing. I wouldn't exactly call her an unsupported sitter because she can't do it for very long but I think they call what she's doing in the last image "tripoding".



She also thinks it's pretty fun to help mom out with Laundry.



She better enjoy the ride from the basement to upstairs because soon she won't fit in the basket anymore! Of course I probably shouldn't start this habit because soon she'll be 20lbs and still wanting to ride in the laundry basket. I'll have arms of steel by then right? It's really the only way to get things done around here though. She's high maintenance enough that if I leave her hangin' out upstairs while I run down to get the laundry, 90% of the time she's screaming by the time I get back upstairs.

Trust me, I try to leave her alone so she doesn't feel the need to be attached to me constantly but she's already too smart for that. She's recently developed this whine/screech in the back of her throat that she does whenever she isn't happy about something. It's very annoying after hearing it off and on all day long. Daddy thought it was funny at first (I think just because he knew it bothered me) but he tired of it after...oh 2 minutes :)

Rolling Over

Lauren finally decided it was time to be a mover and a shaker!

I knew that she could do it if she really tried so we have been working on repeatedly showing her how to do it (pushing her over that is...not us rolling over). Friday night was the big night! She is rolling from back to front now. She still can't quite figure out how to roll from front to back though. Front to back is what most babies master first I think.

She still has to do it with her diaper off. I don't think she can use her abs as much as she needs with a bulky diaper on.

This is a video of her second time rolling over. She's much more efficient now.