Holy Jeez-It's Been 7 Months Since Our Last Post!!!

Good Afternoon Family and Friends, I sincerely apologize for my 7 month hiatus (that's really ridiculous) from writing on our blog. Baby Lauren is doing great and making all her milestones thus far, so things are going pretty awesome...except for my ability to keep everyone updated as a mother--FAILURE! :(

But let's stop dwelling on my gross neglect of keeping y'all informed, and go through the list of what Baby Lauren can now do since we last posted (since September 2010-yikes!):

- Rolls over (though she hates her tummy time, so she sits up ASAP)

- Sits-up

- Feeds herself finger foods/snacks(not with spoon just yet, but she sure makes Nate "excited" when she grabs the spoon mid-feeding)

- Sleeps through the night

- Waves "hello" and "good-bye"

- Got her first tooth (bottom front two actually!)

- Just started crawling (just last week, I'll post the footage right after this post)

- Says "Dada" purposefully

- Pulls herself up on furniture

- Walks with two-handed assistance

- Claps

- Purposefully grunts for attention (Nate and her get in grunting matches, it's quite entertaining actually)

I'm sure this is not an all inclusive list, but it's what I've brainstormed right now. I'll add to the list as I discover what I'm missing and as Lauren continues to develop.

Speaking of Lauren developing, her neurologist, Dr. Smyzer, at STL Children's Hospital is very pleased with how well she's doing developmentally. We last saw him in February for Lauren's 6 month follow-up, and he's very positive about Lauren all around! He said that he cannot find anything major that she's lacking developmentally, which is the concern with her two brain hemorrhages she suffered from oxygen deprivation during birth (minor refresher on her HIE she suffered during labor/delivery). So Dr. Smyzer said that he's "knit-picking" when he discussed her slight favoring of her right hand and lack of desire to use her upper body. But as you'll see from pictures I'll post, as well as the videos, Lauren no longer appears to favor either hand, and she is starting to crawl, so her upper body appears to be coming along just fine! :0)

Lauren will be 9 months old as of tomorrow, 12 April 2011, and man is she a big baby! We went to her 9 month well baby appointment today, and she' measuring 29.5" long (between 75th-90th percentile) and weighs just under 22lbs (between 50th-75th percentile). She's definitely a sturdy baby, and people aren't quite so baffled about her age compared to her size when Nate's holding her; but when I'm holding her, no one every believes that she's just 9 months old--as if I'm confused about my baby's age?!?! Silly people! :)

We are heading out to Colorado on the 22nd of this month to see Grandma Olsen and also to catch up with Nate's siblings! We haven't been to Colorado in many years, so we're stoked to be heading back for a week-long visit! We haven't seen any of Nate's family since Lauren's baby blessing in October...I'm pretty sure they'll be surprised and overwhelmed by Lauren's girth! :) But she's so fun and smiley, they'll only be taken aback for a moment or two! ;0)

Speaking of Baby Blessing, we've had the following events occur since the last post too:

- Lauren's Baby Blessing (October)

- Lauren dressed as a cow for Halloween (October)...and she was accompanied by her farmer dad--quite the cute duo :)

- Lauren went on her first airplane ride (March)...and finally met Auntie Mimi and Uncle Boomer back in Arizona. And she did amazing on the plane ride!!! We heard quite a few comments from other passengers that they "didn't even know there was a baby on the airplane!" Woohoo

- Found out we're expecting Baby #2 (on/about 1 September 2011); I know what you're all thinking, that's not very long between babies-yes, you're correct! Only ~14 months, and we were just as shocked as all of you probably are right now reading this! :P

Okay, that's enough for y'all right now...too much information at once leads to low information absorption...I'll post again soon-PROMISE! I can't do much worse than 7 months in between posts, right?! :)

FIRST CRAWL



COOKIE MONSTER - Lauren's First Cookie