sleeping beauty

I put her down for some tummy time & it turned into nap time. As far as Rachel is concerned, anytime is good for nap time.

aren't those fuzzibunz cute?

This week, Rachel has started sleeping longer at night -- to the tune of 7 or 8 hours. Last night, however, she broke the pattern, so she's not totally transitioned. But, I'm excited at the prospect. This means she goes from midnight to 8:30 or so between feedings. Hopefully, she'll keep up the good work.

some firsts . . and other miscellanea

First hold. Pure joy on Laurie's face as she got to hold "Ray-ful".

First (ish) smile -- or a moment or two after a smile. She does really well with Josh, and I have gotten a few *real* smiles, as well. I put this down to Josh being WAYYY sillier than I am.

More thumb sucking goodness. She is getting so big & I'm having to adjust straps & things on her car seat & the little pillow in her swing because she's taking up more space.

At a recent family gathering & behind clothes doors. TA-DA!!! Snow ballerinas!

While the older cousins are getting into mischief. . .Laurie finds a baby to mother. She can't wait until she has Rayful to play with!

5 weeks

We've got a little weed growing at our house, but unfortunately, I don't have any recent pics to show you how much she's grown. And, I'm not sure you could tell from a picture. But, this morning when I got her dressed for church, and she's wore a dress that didn't fit her no way no how just last week. And, she's got little rolls on her geggies (legs in Aunt Jenny-ism).

Amazing feats & interesting facts:

She's rolled over from tummy to back at least 3 times that I can think of. I think it's pretty accidental, but it's still funny to find her in a different position than I put her in!

No more swaddling! We ditched that routine about 3 weeks, and she loves sleeping on her back. Sometimes, if I'm trying to rock her into sleepy state, she might be really awake & chatty if I've got her up on my shoulder, but the second I put her down on my lap or on some horizontal hold in my arms, she's out like a light.

She LOVES her bouncey seat. She spends a lot of the day in it, sometimes on, sometimes off. Have I already mentioned that I completely underutilized the "bouncey" aspect of this seat last time through this. Sometimes I sit at the table & use my foot to "bounce" her. She also loves her swing, but bouncey is #1.

She has an outie belly button, still, and I'm wondering if it's going to stay that way.

She has a dimple, I think. We don't see it too often, so I'm looking forward to seeing lots more smiles & really getting a good luck.

She's smiled "for real" at her dad a few times, but I mostly get the dreamy smiles (also cute!)

She's got some cute jouncey cheeks!

She likes her cloth diapers. And I'm liking them too.

Her hair is in a natural faux hawk.

We don't go for her next appt until 2 months old, so I don't have an update on her weight, but she's a chubby, especially in comparison to sister at 1 month. It's like night & day.

She can sleep for long periods of times, but usually during the day or even at night, but her stints usually start at 8 or 9, and as you can imagine, I'm not leaping into bed at that time of night, so I don't always take advantage of the full 5 hours or so. And, as you can tell by the time of this post, tonight I decided to stay up folding laundry & watching Lonesome Dove until her next feeding. :-)