Whitney Ann

Congratulations to Pete & Emily on the birth of their daughter Whitney Ann! We had the pleasure of meeting her today and she is beautiful! We have been telling Claire all about her new friend and she can't wait to meet her as well!

Delivery Day

We received two very exciting deliveries today:

1. A new laptop, which is allowing me to make this post
2. Foam alphabet letters for Claire to play on instead of the hardwood and ceramic floors

Claire and I had a busy day today. My sister Amy visited us this morning and was nice enough to bring some clothes and toys that Ella and Austin had outgrown. Claire was very excited to have some new big girl toys. She really enjoyed playing with them on her new foam letters. We also made a quick trip to the mall, went on a walk, and went swinging at the park. All in all a great day!!

Ready, Set, GO!!

Claire gets closer and closer to crawling every day. Here are some pictures of her scooting to get her keys. Next up...BABY PROOFING (can someone convince my husband that we need a baby gate?!?!).

working up an appetite

We were planning on waiting until 6 months to start Claire on solids, but she apparently had other plans. Over the last week she has seemed both increasingly hungry and extremely interested in watching Art & I eat. She has also been doing some pretty intense workouts lately...about 90% of her awake time has been spent on her stomach as she desperately tries to scoot across the room. She pushes her body up on all floors (basically a push-up position) and even drops down into a crawling position, but has yet to move more than a few inches forward at a time. She is still most successful moving around in a circle. Saturday morning she must have done 5 full circles...she was even making me dizzy!

Her intense cardio sessions prompted us to feed her rice cereal a few weeks prior to her half year birthday. While very little of the cereal make it into her stomach, she enjoyed her first feeding session.

outdoor fun

Claire and I spent most of Friday outside. We took a morning walk to Starbucks, discovered the grass in the backyard, went for a swing ride at the park, and finished the evening with a walk to the grocery store and dinner on the deck. Here are some pictures from the day. As you can see, Claire was really enjoying herself.

Grandma Cindy came over for the afternoon

'So this is what the outside of our house looks like."

"I'm not so sure about this grass stuff, Mom."

Relaxing in the stroller

Standing with Mom

Happy Mother's Day!!

Happy Mother's Day to all you moms out there! I hope that you all had a great day!

It is still hard to believe that I am actually a mom. I am still amazed by how much I can love, care and worry about another person. I guess it helps me understand just how much my mom has loved me over the years. I only hope to be as great of a mom as she has been to me all of these years...thanks Mom.

Baby Food!

I am going to attempt to make at least some of Claire's baby food.

While she isn't quite eating solids yet, I decided to get a jump start and made some sweet potatoes and acorn squash today. The whole process was really quite easy. I cut up the potatoes and squash, boiled them in some water until tender, pureed them using a food processor, froze them in ice cube trays and then put them in a ziploc bag in the freezer.

The real test will come when she actually tastes them. Lets hope she likes them!

Five Months Old

Happy 5 Months, Claire!

Claire continues to grow and learn everyday. At five months, Claire...

• FINALLY sleeps through the night. We are going on two weeks and it is like heaven.
• Is still a very inconsistent napper. We have tried time and time again to get her on a nap schedule, but have not had any luck. I guess I can’t complain too much since she is sleeping well at night.
• Is allergic to milk-based formula...several bottles and rashes later, we switched to soy. She now has 1 bottle of formula/day, in addition to 4 bottles of breastmilk. We are trying to hold out until 6 months for solid foods. Claire LOVES to watch Art and I eat, so we will see how that goes.
• Refuses to lie on her back unless she is REALLY tired. We put her on her back and she immediately rolls to her tummy. It makes for some very challenging diaper changes.
• Rolls from back to tummy to back to tummy...tonight she did 3 full rolls across the room.
• Is trying really hard to scoot around on her tummy. She can do a full 360 on her tummy, but has yet to make any real forward progress.
• Can sit up for very short periods of time. She is still a little wobbly and doesn’t have the greatest posture, but it is a start.
• Is starting to giggle a lot more. It is so darn cute!
• Loves the song ‘Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes’…especially when we do the actions on her.
• Continues to love all things that rattle.
• Enjoys stroller rides several times a week.
• Has a touch of stranger anxiety.

Girls Weekend

This past weekend I headed out of town for my annual girls weekend with 3 of my good friends. We spent Friday night on Rochester, MN and Saturday night in Decorah, IA. We spent the weekend shopping, eating, drinking wine and catching up with one another. While time and distance have certainly changed our friendships over the years, we still have a great time together. Looking forward to our 5th annual next year!