Happy Friday!

Here are some photos from last weekend that I didn't get a chance to post yet.





Next week we are having our bathroom redone, so Claire and Mommy are going to stay at Nana's and Papa's house to avoid the dust and noise. Have a great weekend!

Your Baby Can Read

OK, maybe not...but anybody who has seen an infomercial in the past year has seen the ads for the product, so I decided to take some photos of Claire reading. Or at least looking at the picture of the babies in magazines.




Two quick sleeping stories, two nights ago we heard Claire fussing from a pacifier that had fallen out, when I went upstairs to replug she had the a pacifier in each of her hands and looked at me with the expression, 'What you aren't going to give me a third?'
Last night same squawk about 8:30, I went upstairs to replug and much to my surprise she didn't want it. She has been sleeping on her side for about two weeks, and she was laying on her side, and when I went looking for her other pacifier to make sure she wasn't sleeping on it...I found it.... in her ear. She must of spit it out then rolled on top of it. Once I removed it from her ear, she was much happier and went back to sleep.

Happy Thursday Everybody!

5 months

Claire at 5 months:

• Loves to stand, it is her favorite position. I no longer have to lift weights for exercise, holding a 15 pound baby upright all day is doing wonders for my biceps.
• Going along with standing up, Claire loves her Exersaucer. She is working on moving herself around to the different stations. She likes her Jumperoo as well, her feet can't quite touch the bottom so we provide the bouncing.
• Sleep went a little off track last month, lots of night-waking on top of stopping the swaddle. Apparently there is this thing called the fourth month sleep regression, who knew? Well we do and it wasn't pretty. But things seem to be turning a corner, which is good because Cory and I were sleep-deprived zombies for a good 2 weeks.
• We successfully stopped the swaddle and survived.
  
• Moves all around her crib, we lay her horizontal on one side of the crib and she wake up vertical on the other side.
• Went through a major growth spurt from 4-5 months and was outgrowing clothes overnight. She is outgrowing her 3-6 month clothes and is on to 6-9 months.
• She loves to pick leaves and flowers in the garden. While we love this game, she is quick at putting everything in her mouth, so we have to watch her closely.

We love our water baby!

On Sunday the weather was gorgeous; the perfect day for Claire to test her kiddie pool. After some initial hesitation she loved splashing in the water.

Claire in her bitty bikini:

All ready to go:
Not so sure about this....
After a few splashes Claire was smiling and giggling:
Her favorite was 'swimming' on her tummy:

Drying off:

Busy Weekend

We have all been enjoying a four day weekend with many visitors and adventures. On Thursday night, Dan and Grandpa came down to visit before our walleye fishing charter on Friday. We had an amazing day catching all of our limits. We boated 20 walleyes, losing another 12 or so...Dan and Grandpa were tied with losing 5, I only lost two...or so. We also boated several small-mouth and stripped bass. Grandma came down to visit on Saturday, allowing Julie and I to celebrate our 6th wedding anniversary. Claire had fun with all the visitors. On Sunday Claire took her first swim in her kiddy pool (pictures will follow later in the week).












Julie said that we need to include some Claire photos as well...





Happy Monday Everybody!

Naps are back on track

....at least for now. Claire's naps have been returning to normal, yesterday she took at 2 hour morning nap and today's naps have been great! Now that she is not swaddled she sleeps on her side with her lovely blanket in her hands, it is adorable.

Mom's toes are fun:
What do you mean I can't eat your toes?

Progress

Pop can = ultimate tummy time motivator


So swaddling progress, this past weekend we dropped the swaddle cold turkey, no more swaddling at naps and bedtime. While we dropped swaddling at night about a month ago, we definitely cheated and re-swaddled during fussier times. I was resistant to stopping the swaddle during naptime, but it had to happen. Claire is strong enough to bust out of her swaddle suit (which defeats the purpose of swaddling) and she is rolling more so it had to go. Claire for the most part is a good napper, her naps typically last about 2 hours , so I was concerned not swaddling would ruin her naps. Also, Claire starts daycare at the end of August, I couldn't imagine explaining to her daycare provider that they would need to swaddle my then 6 month old.

On Saturday and Sunday her morning naps were awful, 30 minutes, not good. Claire was fussier both days but her afternoon naps were much better - around 2 hours. Bedtime, not so hot, the lack of good napping made for fussy, wakeful nights. On Monday the morning nap was just over an hour so a definite improvement, but the afternoon nap was bad. Night time was a total surprise, not a peep until 6:45am! Today her morning nap was an hour and twenty minutes and her afternoon nap was an hour and a half. Bedtime is in progress.....and we will see how the night goes. I know we will probably have a few more set backs, but it feel good to be making progress.