Hey everyone! Lilli and I have had a busy week of getting out and about. Finally the weather is warm enough for it not to be miserable to get out and go somewhere. Yesterday Lilli and I walked 3 miles at Centennial Park after lunch out with my coworkers. We did 3 laps of the 1-mile loop, enjoying all the flowers and ducks. Ok, so I enjoyed all the flowers and ducks and she pretty much slept the whole time. But I know she enjoyed it.

She's also been to see my doctor, to an Esther Bible Study at work, to visit all my coworkers, Kroger (ick), and church a couple of times. She's been great for most of it, she got taken out a couple of times last night but managed to last through most of church. Sometimes the transition between quiet and loud singing makes her a bit angry and knocks her out of her sleep, but a little rocking and back patting usually fixes her up.

In sleeping news, she slept for the first time in her crib on Monday night. Until now she's been in her pack and play, 2 weeks in our room, then 3 weeks in the living room right outside our door. With Brent back at work, it seemed like the noise he generated was starting to wake her earlier than I'd like in the mornings, so we got the monitors all set up Monday night. I wasn't sure if I would hear her or not, so we probably had the volume a **little** loud Monday night. As in, you could hear her breathing and Brent said it sounded like we were sleeping with Darth Vader in the room. (And he sneaked and turned it down later while I was up with her.) She slept fine, right to sleep and then up for her usual 3:30 snack. Then she slept until 8:30 which was AWESOME because she normally gets up between 6:30-7:30. She also slept pretty good Tuesday night, and then last night she slept from 11 until 5:30 without being hungry!! It was great and hopefully a good sign of longer sleeps to come. I think she would've slept even longer but that's when Brent's RAISE THE DEAD alarm clock goes off, and she woke up immediately after.

In milestones, she's really starting to smile a lot this week and it's getting a lot easier to make her smile. She's also starting to not think having her diaper changed is a form of torture, which is nice and makes diaper changes more pleasant. She's a lot more aware of her surroundings, and can really hit the hanging things on her little gym and bouncy seat. And she's starting to be more opinionated with how she wants to hang out - as in she'd prefer to be carried around by me all day so she can look around at all the exciting things she's starting to see and drool on the 3 shirts I can wear as much as possible. (Which is cute and all but I'm pretty sure she's going to break my back already at just over 9 lbs). I ordered both my running stroller last night and one of the stretchy sling wraps so I can wear her and it won't hurt my back as much. The stretchy thing comes by priority mail from CT so hopefully it will be here on Saturday. We have a nice front carrier but it doesn't let her lay sideways and in 500 different slingy positions.

Here she is in her crib, a vision in coordinating polka dots:

And here she is at Centennial Park, in front of the Parthenon:

-Rachel