Smiles and Mud Puddles

Ali's latest milestone is smiling. She is really focusing on our faces and as Brad puts it, "It's like she's waking up to the world." What a great feeling when your little baby finally "sees" you and can express happiness! She is still holding her head up really well. She is sleeping about 5 hours at night before she wakes up to eat again. She usually falls back asleep after that feeding pretty easily and then stays asleep for another 3-4 hours. She does not seem to like to lay flat on her back so usually I have to hold her until she falls asleep or else spend some time comforting her before she will fall asleep for the night. She has gas a lot more than Cameron did and she wiggles her whole body to get her farts out. I can't believe some of the farts that come out of this precious little girl!

It is funny because Ali and Cameron are able to "tune eachother out." When Ali is crying, Cameron will say, "It's okay, shhh," and she'll talk to her the way that I do to try to get her to stop crying. If Ali continues to cry, Cameron just continues to sing and talk to herself while she plays, not even bothered when it is extremely loud. On the other hand, Ali can sleep through the super-tantrums that Cami has been known to throw. She also isn't bothered by Cameron's loud singing and setting toys on her while she's in her seat.

Cameron is becoming a toddler. She has been perfecting the art of whining lately (I know. We're working on it.). She is very happy for the most part but she gets pretty fussy if she doesn't get a nap. She has been singing along with songs we hear on the radio and she tries to sing along with me. The songs we sing are the ABCs, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and a song off Yo Gabba Gabba that has a lot of La-La's in it. Yesterday I heard her singing Twinkle Twinkle to herself and she was getting a lot of the words! She knows some colors (mostly just when something is pink, she likes to point it out), some shapes (circle is the one she likes the most), and we are working on counting (mostly she will say "2, 5, 2, 5...."). She is loving Elmo right now and loves watching episodes of Elmo's World. I discovered that her last two bottom molars are halfway in. She is putting words together more often and every day she is adding words to her vocabulary. Sometimes I surprise her because I get so excited when she says a new word on her own.

I had my first day back at work the other day and it was great because my kids were so happy to have me back. Ali stayed home with Daddy and did great for him. She took the bottle like a champ and they definitely bonded while I was gone. Cami went with Oma to Woodland to see the cows and have a picnic. She was exhausted by the time they got back! I have three more days of work this week so Cameron and Ali are going to Gina's for a couple days.