5 months old

Audrey is 5 months old today. I tried so hard to get a good picture of her with Raggedy Ann, but it was just not happening. She did everything BUT look at the camera and smile!

She made lots of funny faces.

Then she became very interested in Raggedy Ann. First she stared her down.

Then she went in for the attack. Here she's saying, "I'm going to get you Raggedy Ann!"

And then she tries to fit Raggedy Ann into her mouth (unsuccessfully!)

These next two would probably be my favorites from today, if I had to pick.

Whew! All of these pictures make for a tired little girl! (OK, she's not sleeping in this picture, but it does look like she could be!)

And if you are interested in seeing how much she has grown, click on the following links for previous month's pictures: one month, two months, three months, four months.

Last week, Audrey started to try to blow raspberries. She can't really do it yet, but she tries pretty hard. It cracks us up every time. She had stopped doing it, but today she was back at it again and has been doing this all day long. The only bad part about this new trick is that she thinks it is so fun to try to blow raspberries while she is eating cereal. And that's not a lot of fun for mom and dad!

This week's update

I haven't taken very many pictures of Audrey lately (insert shocked expression here!). So today I decided it was time for a blog update with lots of pictures!

She is starting to spend more and more of her time sitting upright...either in her jumper or in the Bumbo or being held/supported by one of us. She really likes to be able to look around at everything. Here she is in her Bumbo seat playing with (and trying to eat!) some toys.

These next pictures were taken a little later today. Notice the new outfit, that's because she kept spitting up all over herself today! I don't understand why, but on certain days she will spit up a lot. But then other days, she won't spit up all day long. And sometime she spits up after she eats and sometimes she spits up hours later...she is a very unpredictable when it comes to spit up. What we have learned is this: always be prepared with a burp rag nearby because you just never know!

In this next picture, She's staring, mesmorized, at a ball I was holding up. Notice the fingers in her mouth. She's been putting her fist in her mouth for a while now, but this week it has been her fingers or her thumb. And then she chomps on them like crazy and drools all over the place. I think there's a good chance she is working on her first tooth (she's also cranky and not sleeping well!). It was almost impossible today to get a picture of her without her fingers in her mouth, unless I distracted her with another toy!
She makes this face a lot when she is playing with her toys. I think she is really concentrating and trying to figure out the best way to get them in her mouth!

After a long day (with very little napping!), we chilled out tonight and watched a Baby Einstein video before bed.

Eating Cereal

We gave Audrey cereal for the first time yesterday. She did pretty good with it, although I don't really know what she is supposed to do the first time she eats it. She played with it a little bit and spit quite a bit back out. But she did suck some of it off the spoon and I think she swallowed at least a little bit. Plus, she smiled and was happy through the whole experience. So, all in all, I consider it a success! We will have to see what she does as we continue to give her cereal. It's so crazy that she is now big enough to sit in her high chair and eat from a spoon!

And here's a video of her first few bites. She wasn't quite sure what to think at first, but as the feeding went on, she did seem to enjoy it more and more.

4 month checkup

Audrey finally had her 4 month checkup today. It seems like she's been 4 months for a long time before we had this appointment, but it's only been 2 weeks. Technically, she is 4 1/2 months today (19 weeks). She weighed in at 13 lbs, 5 oz (45th percentile) and 24.5 inches long (71st percentile). She screamed the entire time both the medical student and the doctor did an exam on her. And this was all before she even got her shots! It was awful! To her credit, she was asleep when it was time to go to the doctor, and when she woke up at the doctor's office, she was ready to eat and mad because we weren't feeding her. Instead these strange people were poking and prodding her...twice! We probably should have woken her up and fed her before we left for the office...lesson learned!! I felt like the Dr. wasn't able to really give her a thorough exam because she was screaming at the top of her lungs the whole time.

And now for some more pictures! Daniel took these really good pictures of Audrey this morning.

Cute outfit!

Audrey got this outfit for Christmas from Grandpa and Grandma (Mott). She wore the whole ensemble yesterday for the first time and looked pretty cute!!

After I dressed her, I realized that we matched! It wasn't on purpose, but I had on a pink sweatshirt with a grey shirt and she had on a grey sweater with a pink shirt. Aww, how cute!

Maggie vs. the Squirrel

We have evil squirrels in our backyard that torture Maggie endlessly. They will come down the tree and egg her on so she will try to chase them. But when she gets close to them, they dart back up in the tree, as if to say, "Ha, ha, you can't catch me!"

Here is the culprit today:

Here is Maggie, staring down the squirrel.
Next Maggie runs around the yard barking (i.e. screaming) at the top of her lungs and chasing the squirrel. Unfortunately, it rained a lot here the past 2 days, and it's not quite cold enough for the ground to be frozen. The result: a really muddy Maggie.So then Daniel had to give Maggie a bath. And neither Daniel nor Maggie like it when she needs a bath, so nobody was happy about that.

A nice and clean Maggie after her bath.

Now Maggie has to stay inside for the rest of the day and be content playing with her stuffed squirrel. The moral of this story: Don't let Maggie play outside on muddy days. Or: Find a way to get rid of all the evil squirrels in our backyard.

Florida Trip

On Monday we took off on a plane for Florida to visit Daniel's parents and enjoy some warmer weather. Well, we had a good visit with Daniel's parents, as well as his aunt and uncle and my aunt and uncle and cousins. As far as the warmer weather goes...well, it wasn't ideal, but I guess it was better than the freezing temps here when we left.

Here are just a few pictures from our trip. For more pictures and details, go to my Facebook album: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=230197&id=521110244&l=80588

Swagbucks Update

2 weeks ago I wrote a post about this website that I signed up for to earn points for searching the internet. Now that I've been using it for 2 weeks, I thought I would update and let you know what I think about it.

I love it!! I already have 107 Swagbucks. You can exchange the Swagbucks for free stuff or gift cards. I think the best value is to get an Amazon gift card. It is 45 Swagbucks for a $5 gift card. So in 2 weeks, I have already earned more than enough points to get a $10 Amazon gift card. And I haven't done anything out of the ordinary. If you want to try it for yourself, click the link (that says Be the Next Winner or something like that, Facebook readers you will have to click View Original Post at the bottom first, then click the link on my blog) to the right to sign up and try it. I really think it is the coolest thing. Here's what I've learned in my 2 weeks of trying this:

1. Doing a ton of searches in one day does not increase your chances of winning Swagbucks. They are awarded at random so you never know when you will get them. Your best bet is to just keep using Swagbucks as your search engine as you normally would with any other search engine.

2. My only complaint with the search engine is that several paid advertisers show up in your search results. However, I think it is pretty easy to distinguish between these sites and the legitimate search results, so this doesn't bother me too much.

3. The best way to get more Swagbucks is to tell your friends about it (which is what I'm doing right now!) You earn Swagbucks every time they earn Swagbucks. So thanks to all of you who have already signed up through me, I earned 47 Swagbucks this week while I was on vacation in Florida and totally away from my computer. I did nothing and earned a $5 Amazon gift card. It's the greatest thing. SO keep signing up with the link to the right. Then once you have signed up, pass the news on to your friends and you can get even more free stuff!

Alright, I just had to share that because I'm so excited about how easy it has been! I'll be posting pictures soon from our trip to Florida!

4 months old!

I think that today Audrey is officially 4 months old (kind of hard to know when that happens this month since her birthday is on the 31st!). We won't have her 4 month appointment for another 2 weeks, but we think she weighs about 13 pounds. She's moving into the 3-6 month clothes and is getting to be such a big girl! Here are some of her 4 month pictures we took today. And if you're like me and you want to see how she is growing, you can find her other pictures here: 1 month, 2 months, 3 months.

And here's the video Daniel took of her rolling over last night.