3 1/2 months

     Cupcake's had a lot of social time lately! Bunco, Katie and Dawson about a week or so ago, down to Corvallis to see Uncle Carl, Grandpa Leniger (while Chris and I did our 5k), Grandma Leniger.

Gotta have cupcakes in Cupcake's room!

      She's starting to wear less and less of her newborn clothes (yes, she still fits in some of them!) and more of the 0-3 months and 3 month outfits (they're a little baggy on her). I think I'll have to officially pack away her newborn outfits in a week or two, though.

Randomly found her pinkie during a nap one day

     Since we're living in a town home now (upstairs/downstairs), Chris and I decided to get a baby monitor. My thought was so that if we were on the opposite level of where she was taking a nap, we could hear her if she started to wake up (instead of waiting until she got to full blown crying mode. I try to prevent that when at all possible. It's unnecessary, upsets her and makes me sad). Chris' idea for the monitor was so that she could start sleeping in her own room at night. I didn't know this until the first night we had the monitor and he asked if she was going to sleep in her room. You can imagine my response. I was shocked, first of all. And then I got really sad and did NOT want to put her in her crib before I went to bed. I know she has to sleep in her own room eventually, but it was kind of sudden and unexpected in my mind. Plus, she's either been with me, in bed with us, or right next to our bed for basically a year (during the pregnancy and her 3 1/2 months up to this point). I'm not going to lie, I cried a little bit while I held her in her room. She slept fine and we heard her when she woke up about 6:30 to nurse. It felt really weird though to hear her on the monitor and not right next to our bed. It felt really unnatural. Despite that, she's been in her room the last 3 nights and last night we were even able to close both our bedroom doors (otherwise Java gets in our bed and I didn't want him finding him way into her crib. He's pretty oblivious to her and I didn't want him sleeping on top of her or waking her up). I guess it just makes me realize that she is going to keep growing and become more independent eventually and not be completely just mine. For so long, everything I did was done with her in mind. What I ate, what I drank, how I slept, how much exercise I did. It's hard having her in the "outside world" where I can't be with her all the time.

Oohhhh yeah! She loves her nap times. Total relaxation.

     On a happier note, she's been sleeping pretty consistently through the night (I know, I know, some of you hate me for that). She used to be up from about 10 or so until 2 in the morning, but lately she's been going to bed about 11:30 or 12 and waking up around 6:30. There have been a few times when she'd done that before (sleep for long stretches at night), but only one or two nights in a row before throwing it all out the window. As soon as I noticed that she'd slept well for two nights, she'd be up 1-3 times the next night. Luckily, she's really good about nursing in bed with me and falling right back asleep, so really, even when she does wake up, I can't complain. I told you she's made everything really easy. 

    We took her to her first concert on Wednesday evening! We got free tickets to Big Bad VooDoo Daddy with our gym membership. It was a great night for it, too! The weather was great and we got there early enough to get a nice shaded seat on the lawn. She fell asleep right before the band started to play and slept through about 4 or 5 songs (man, all the things she's slept through... part of this concert, Pirates of the Caribbean 4 in the theater, dog park trips, Bunco nights with some noisy girls :) .....) Funny thing is, as soon as she passed out and the music started, Chris and I whipped out the nail clippers and file and gave her a manicure. I'm sure the other people/families around us were either wondering what the hell we were doing or knew exactly why we doing it. It's so much easier to trim those baby claws down when she's asleep! No fuss, no arm flailing, perfect! When she woke up, I walked around with her for a bit. We got to see the elephants (which was awesome, because they were no where to be seen when we went to the zoo a few weeks ago with Omi and Icen and Zoe and her gaggle of kids).

Chris rocking the carrier Zoe gave us. She's in backwards so she can see.

We put  her pink "track suit" on and I believe this is what caused her immediate delivery into sleepland. We couldn't stop laughing at her, the outfit was way too cute (and unplanned. We keep a jacket and a random pair of pants in her diaper bag. They both just happened to be bright pink this day)

     Speaking of Zoe, she did a mini photo session for us! While she took pictures, I played with Lotus (7-months! It's so funny how just a few months in the first year makes a huge difference) and Simon (4 years, I think)

Happy baby!

Head lifter extraordinaire!

"Clutchy" hands and curled toes

Definitely one of my favorites!