Sunday Morning...

We were able to accomplish a lot before church on Sunday:

Lounging on the couch...

Working on CRAWLING...

26 Weeks Old

Lauren tried sweet potatoes for the first time. She is now eating rice cereal, oatmeal, sweet potatoes, and bananas. I roasted half of a butternut squash just for her that will last about 5 days and each morning she gets about 3-4 slices of banana mashed up. This week we are going to try carrots too!

I was eating an apple that she kept staring at so I gave her a slice to chew/suck on, she loved it!

Taking a little snoozer. We are going to have to invest in a side rail on our bed pretty soon.

So happy when she wakes up! Notice her fingers...hehe

Since she never sleeps in her crib...she uses it as a play-pen when I am spraying off her diaper!

We have been house hunting lately and hopefully will get good news soon! So far we have looked at about 10 houses and are going to put an offer on one (a low one though so we probably won't get it). We are looking forward to our own place and a KING SIZE bed for us all to sleep in!!!

6 MONTHS Old!

How can my little baby be 6 months old? That my friends...is HALF a year old!!

Look at those chubby little cheekers!

Lauren went in for her 6 month check-up today. She weighs 16 lbs. 1 1/2 oz., head circumference of 17 in. and 25 inches long. She eats 1 tbsp. rice cereal mixed with about 1.5 oz. in the morning and 1 tbsp. oatmeal mixed with breastmilk at night. Last night she had her first taste of squash with her oats( only 1/2 tbsp)! I nurse her before she eats. She practiced a little with a sippy cup since she refuses to take a bottle. Hopefully she will have the sippy or cup mastered by this summer when my class is longer and she will have to eat while I am gone.Waiting patiently for her food to come. We started baby sign language and she recognizes what 'eat' is when we do it to her. She loves when we place her in the chair and get her food ready and do the 'eat' sign.

Caught off guard, hehe!

24 Weeks Old and Why I Hate Diets!

Lauren is now 24 weeks old, almost 6 months (that is half a year, ugh!). Some fun things that have been going on...dancing (a.k.a. swaying back and forth), squealing at the top of her lungs, laughing a bunch, starting to understand peek-a-boo, and able to activate her toys that make noise. She is still nursing about every 2-3 hours during the day and sometimes gets rice cereal in the morning (I need to be better at being consistent). She was having some mild issues with constipation from it which doesn't contribute to my eagerness in feeding her...plus she doesn't need to eat food at all at this point in her life. A lot of families participate in the baby led weaning (BLW) or baby lead solids (BLS) in which they let their children decide when they want to start eating solids instead of introducing purees. From what I have read, the majority of children start to eat solids around 13-15 months that participate in BLS/BLW and are exclusively breastfed until that time. Ideally this is what I would like to do but it is not realistic for us since I have to go back to work in the Fall and she refuses to take a bottle so I need her to be eating more at that time and drinking the breastmilk from a sippy or cup.

I finished nursing her and laid her there to put my shirt back together...she completely passed out, must have a full belly!

Lauren was being really fussy so Kyle rubbed lotion in her hair and combed it, she was delighted! She just sat there and kicked her legs like a puppy wagging it's tail!

So onto the next topic: Why I Hate Diets! I grew up watching far too many people go on diets that were never successful. The idea between dieting is good: eating healthy, changing your portion size, etc. but the the concept really sucks: the majority are only temporary. What is the point of only watching your portion size for one month or eating grapefruit exclusively for a set amount of time? Instead of going on a diet, we think of it as a lifestyle change. We eliminated tons of processed food almost two years ago and slowly have been getting rid of more. Honestly, I do not crave a single bit of what we have eliminated...who would want Hamburger Helper when you can make the the same thing with fresh ingredients and have it taste better! Yesterday I made 3 batches of fresh egg noodles, fresh spaghetti sauce, and homemade meatballs (even the breadcrumbs were homemade). The only thing that came out of a can was the tomato paste for the sauce. On the menu later this week is homemade gnocchi, tacos with homemade tortillas, and homemade pizza.

Two of the three pasta dough balls, Kyle has to roll the dough out because I am not good

After rolling out the dough you roll it up like a jelly roll and cut into pieces

Then you roll out the pieces and lay them on papertowels to dry

Finished product! The best pasta ever!

This entire meal was under $3.00 including the hamburger!

23 Weeks Old!

We hit 23 weeks last Friday and Lauren had some major milestones...we tried Rice Cereal! The pediatrician said that we could start anytime between 4 and 6 months. We decided to wait until closer to 6 months to start so she would still be exclusively breastfeeding. Babies do not get much nutritional value from the cereal but it helps them practice eating. Lauren would try and grab our food when we were eating and was bringing a lot of things to her mouth so we decided it was a great time to start.

We mixed 1 tbsp. of rice cereal with about 1.5 oz. of breastmilk. She doesn't eat all of it yet and I stop feeding her when she starts to spit it all out. She ate the Rice Cereal for 3 days to make sure that her tummy could handle it and then we started Oatmeal this morning. Just in case anyone wonders: we used the Gerber Rice Cereal with added DHA and HappyBellies Organic Oatmeal with Probiotics (Dr. Sears brand). She has been struggling with a cold for some time so any added probiotics are great!

Waiting in her chair to eat...I am hungry Mommy!

Not so sure yet...the consistency is really soupy so it is just like spooning breastmilk into their mouth

"This is good, do you think I can fit my fingers in my mouth too?"

22 Weeks...last week!

Lauren is actually 23 weeks old today but we are a little behind in our posts. Kyle had a conference back in Des Moines this week so we tagged along and stayed with my parents. Lauren has really changed this past week and it is so fun to watch her grow and learn new things. She now has a 'D' sound and can be heard saying 'dadada'. She recently learned to dance and will sway back and forth while on her tummy or sitting up (which she does pretty good now). Here is the last in pictures!

Staring out the window at all the snow in Iowa!
Auntie Bethany got Lauren laughing pretty hard

The sunrise at my parent's house

Juggling all the Grandbabies

This is a sight you will never see again. I had a really bad migraine before the Superbowl and we were having company over. Lauren was getting really fussy and the floor needed to be vacuumed. She conked right out that is why the hood is up.

Sitting in Mom and Dad's bed. She loves our bed! If I am too tired in the middle of the night to stay awake nursing her I will just bring her in to sleep with us and she makes an old man laugh that sounds like 'hohoho' and gets really excited

Kyle gave her a bath for the first time all by himself. They were working on her breast stroke here.

21 Weeks Old

Lauren is 21 weeks old and turns 5 MONTHS OLD this week! She is getting way too big and is starting to move around and explore a lot more. I couldn't get her to sit still with the monkey stretched out this week which I am sure is only going to get harder. She has been drooling up a storm and sticking her finger in her mouth while I am nursing. We are pretty sure she is teething and hopefully that little tooth with hurry up and provide her with some relief. Tummy time is now an enjoyable experience, yea!

She loves playing in her jumper!

20 Weeks Old

Lauren is changing so much everyday. Lately she has been able to stay awake for three hour stretches between naps instead of two hours. She usually has two good naps and a mini nap sometime during the day and goes down for bed around 8. She must be getting over her cold too because she has been only waking up once or twice a night and then goes right back to sleep after nursing. She loves playing in her jumper and being propped in the sitting position and has really developed her little personality...a loud one! I will have to post a video of her squeals, she is so cute!

She must be pretty relaxed sleeping here! Her outfit looks silly because I took her dress off after church.

Her is a little trip down memory lane...car seat style! Heading home from the hospital.
Around 3 weeks old
Around 10 weeks
12.5 weeks
I had to put the car seat straps in the next position because it was getting too tight on her shoulders. 20 weeks old.

19 Weeks Old and Back Carries

I must admit, I am already a week behind on my weekly photos. Hopefully tomorrow I can get back on track with posting her weekly pictures on time. I take them on time but just don't get them posted!

This week we tried some back carries in the Ergo Baby Carrier and Moby Wrap. She really loved hanging out on my back and sleeping plus it was a lot easier to get things done around the house and cook! We will definitely be doing some more back carries but not quite out in public yet since I am checking her out in the mirror all the time at home and don't have that luxury out in public.I took her off my back while she was sleeping and she stayed in the hug position, leg in the air...