Curacao trip

My parents decided to take a trip to Curacao and suggested that all their kids and grandkids to join them.  So we did!

We had an 8 am flight out with a connection in Miami.  So it made for a long travel day but everyone did well.  We stayed at a Marriott resort on the beach and it was beautiful.  We spent a lot of time on the beach or at the pool but we did get out an see a bit of the island as well.

At the beach!

Jeff playing with Claire and Audrey

Ellie hanging out in the shade

Beach babes

Ellie gets a little lunch from Paaps

Ellie's first experience with the ocean

Us kids plus my mom went on a ATV ride while my aunt and my dad stayed back with the three girls.  We had a blast riding around various neighborhoods, to an aloe plant farm, by the water and viewing a bat cave.

The line of ATVs

Island vegetation

Off we go!

A little hike up to the cave

Jeff checks out the bats

Brandi pretends there are no bats

View from the top

Mom and her kiddos

It was a little dusty

The ladies get a spa treatment -
little fishies eating the dead skin off our feet

It felt a little funny

You can see how much Jamie enjoyed it  :)

We went into town for dinner a few evenings and had some delicious seafood and steaks.  The guys even took babysitting duty one night so the ladies could have a ladies night!

The view from our first night out

The family

View from the second night out

Ladies' night!

The floating bridge.  We got watch them move it
out of the way and have tugs pull in a giant ship

The bridge at night

Jeff and I, our girls, and Mom and Dori did a train tour of the town of Willemstad and went to an aquarium on our last day.

Getting ready for the train tour

Dolphins!

Sharks and fish

Ellie enjoying the aquarium

Flamingos!

We had a great time!  The girls did well traveling.  Sleeping all in the same room was a little tough but we survived.  Ellie did okay napping on the go or in her little tent on the beach.  Claire was afraid of getting in the ocean but enjoyed playing in the sand.  She did get a little more comfortable with the pool by the end of the trip.  So hopefully after a summer of pool time she will be good to go for our beach trip in September!

5 months old

5 months old!

5 months was a big month for Ellie!  Lots of new experiences plus a trip out of the country to Curacao.

Sleeping:
We have the 3 nap thing down.  A morning nap, an afternoon nap, and a quick nap in the evening right before or during dinner time.  Then in bed by about 8:30.  Night time sleep continues to be kinda crappy.  She's back to eating twice a night plus another one or two wakeups some nights.  Now that she's figured out how to roll she has become a tummy sleeper.  Settle her on her tummy, pop in the pacifier, and she'll often go right to sleep for her nap.  After we got back from Curacao we started to work on her sleep a little bit.  First we let her cry for a little bit at night instead of feeding her.  That wasn't too bad.  I think there was one night of about 25 minutes of fussing/crying around 11:30 before she got the hint and went back to sleep.  And some similar but shorter instances on other nights.  That helped reduced the frequency of her wake ups from 4 to 1 or 2.  So a step in the right direction!

Big happenings in the world of food!
Ellie got her first bottle of formula on January 3rd.  Mommy tried to avoid it but finally had to concede.  Ellie slept for 7 hours straight that night so we were thinking maybe we had an answer to all the wake ups.  But it was just a fluke.

We also introduced some solid foods this month!  We started the week of January 6th with avocado and banana.  After we got back from our trip she got to experience sweet potato, peas, carrots, and puffs (cheerio shaped rice snacks).  She loved banana, both in chunk form and mashed up.  She wasn't too sure about avocado but liked it a lot more with some banana mixed in.  Sweet potatoes were a big hit.  Peas took a little time to warm up to.  She's getting a mix of purees and finger foods.  She's done very well with her motor skills and being able to pick up food and feed herself.

Development:
Still growing and growing.  She's in size 2 diapers and 3-6 month or 6 month clothing.  The cotton sleepers that are more tight fitting are getting too small.  At the beginning of the month she was just mastering rolling back and forth.  Three weeks later she was rocking on all fours and doing an army crawl!





Oh, hey mama! You weren't paying attention
so I rolled across the living room to eat this box.

Just spinning and scooting around

Mmm, thumb!

Am I adorable or what? 
Thanks for the hat Grandma!

Avocado?  Meh.  Spoon?  Yes please!

Mmm, banana!

Exploring her room

Bananas and avocado make me happy!

Peas?  I'm not sure about those.

Maybe they're better if I blow them all out with a raspberry

Help!  I've rolled myself up in this blanket!

Arr, matey!

May I have some more?

Funny Claire-isms about the new baby

Since Ellie was born, I've written a few cute things Claire has done related to the baby.

There was a whole thing with Ellie's umbilical cord stump.  Claire was fascinated by it.  We talked about what it was and how it would fall off.  And how she had one when she was a baby and hers fell off.  One day she told us her umbilical fell off and she needed to go to the store to get a new one!

She was sure that Ellie was eating from mama's tummy.

Early on, she was confused that we were calling the baby by a real name.  She would tell us "Not Elizabeth, baby sister!"  Then as we began calling her Ellie regularly, she would correct me if I tried to say Elizabeth.  "No, not Elizabeth. Ellie!"

She loved to comment on Ellie's "tiny toes!"  She also loved to see Ellie's "lello (yellow) poops."

Claire would look at Ellie and say in a cute, high voice "Oh, she's so cute!"

When Ellie was a few months old, we pulled out the play mat.  A pink square with bars arc-ing over it, with toys attached.  Claire was sure that this was a toy for her.  It soon became a tent for her. She would have us help her put a blanket over the top and play in her tent.

Claire has also enjoyed trying to teach Ellie new skills.  When Ellie was working on rolling, Claire would get on the floor to teach her how to roll.  Once Ellie could roll, and was getting attention for doing so, Claire would roll all over the floor and say "Look at me!  I'm rolling!"