4 1/2 Months Old

This was a crazy busy week with Adam & Cade's birthdays. Rachel also started eating rice cereal this week (or at least attempting to eat it!)...I am still not sure after 7 days if we've had many successful swallows yet!...but she'll get there. It just takes a little time:o)



Here's Rachel playing on the quilt Christy's mom made for her...

Here's some pics of Adam showing off his b-day presents...Eric Clapton's Crossroads Guitar festival DVD...

and a body pillow...

Pa came to visit on Adam's b-day too and went to eat with us and Adam's family at The Hermitage Steakhouse...yummy!

Here's Rachel giving her lamb some love...this is still one of her favorites!

All smiles and giggles these days...

Rachel playing on her exersaucer...she still can't reach most of the toys with her pillow holding her up (we have to put the pillow in front of her still so she doesn't just fall over)...so she's still not enjoying it too much...but she's liking it more and more seems like...

Here's Rachel (our little flower child) as I tried to make a funny pic of her looking through her teething ring this week:o)

She is loving to suck on her fingers these days...even more than her paci! She's even put herself to sleep a couple of nights this week by using her fingers to pacify herself rather than me having to rock her in my arms until she's completely asleep. Hopefully this will continue to the point that I can put her to bed drowsy but not fully asleep every night!

Just a cute pic from the week...

Rachel has also found the little roll of fat right behind her hand. She has embarrassingly started giving herself arm hickies this week by sucking on it. We can't make her stop!

She went swimming again this week. She seemed to enjoy it a little more than before because she could sit up better in her Bumbo seat. However, I think she'll like it even more when she can sit up on her own down in the water...it will only be another month or so!

Alison came over and went with us to Members Only Night at the Zoo. Here's Rachel and Big Al before we left...

Here we are on the carousal at the zoo. It was free on Members Only Night!

We sat on the non-moving bench for the ride...but got a pic on one of the animals after it stopped!

Here's a pic of the clouded leopard that Adam took while we were listening to a zookeeper speech about them...

...and then there was Cade's 2nd Birthday Party. The theme was cows (his favorite) if you couldn't figure it out by looking at the pics. Christy went all out with the decorations, etc. We even had Purple Cow Juice, cow balloons, cow tattoos, cow cake, Christy's toenails were painted like cows....craziness! How creative! The party was a huge success and lots of fun! Way to go Christy!

Here's Rachel making the meanest face she could muster with her bad girl cow tattoo...

...and Laura with her cow stockings...and "cowgirl in charge" t-shirt...

...Nana and the girls....

Me and Christy with our famous tattoo pose:o)

Rachel with all her party favors from Cade's party this morning...

She loves this little rattler that came from the Cow pinata no less!

Rachel also helped me make cupcakes for Adam's b-day this week. Here she is helping me in the kitchen...

Family pic on Adam's b-day...

We had Richard over for dinner tonight to celebrate his b-day (which is the same day as mine). Here's Rich with the cool dessert I made...we had white chocolate and plain chocolate "cups" with ice cream scoops garnished with bananas, strawberries, and chocolate sauce...Alison helped make them pretty...

Close up of Rich's dessert...