5 Months

Etta turned 5 months old yesterday. It is nearly impossible to believe that my tiny newborn has been replaced by this little creature that interacts with us.

In the past month, Etta has:
-started giggling, although it's really hard to predict what will make her guffaw. It is the cutest sound ever, though.
-started motoring using her feet and knees and sort of sliding along on her face.
-started playing with toys. She goes after a toy and really enjoys her rings and other little toys we give her. -she's also started sitting in her exersaucer. She REALLY enjoys it now. When we first tried it a month ago she was not into it.

-found her feet and added them as another "toy".
-started enjoying and lapping up her cereal! This is a very recent development. For the first few weeks, she was not into the food at all. Then last Tuesday, she started eating the cereal with gusto, but she'd spit it back up (the "I don't know what to do with this yet, but I sure want more of it!" syndrome). Yesterday she attacked that bowl like she'd never eaten before and cried when there wasn't anymore. AND most of it stayed in her mouth. This is very exciting.
-started grabbing our plates when we try to eat. Yesterday she picked up fistfuls of greens from my salad, and tonight she shoved her hand into Tim's refried beans. Dining just got a lot more interesting!
-her hair has really thickened up and grown in. Stella described the color of it best as "grey", although I'd call it more silver. It's definitely very blond with some darker light brown (or silver) strands thrown in.

Etta is the most beautiful, happy infant, at least since Stella. She may be even more happy than Stella. She and her sister get closer every day. The look that Etta gives Stella is the closest thing to worship I've ever seen. I can't help but feel a little pang that my sweet tiny baby is growing up so fast, but I'm excited to see the little girl she'll grow into and to watch her and Stella develop their relationship as sisters.
Looking like twins at different ages.

Money to Burn

I was not aware of this, but apparently the City of Austin has money to burn. That's the only explanation I can think of for this:
This is a bag of crap that was left hanging from my front door and presumably the front doors of all my neighbors. The city paid some employee to walk around and deliver a CF bulb and a silly booklet full of "no duh" ways you can conserve energy. Did you know that you can buy energy star appliances that use less energy? And you can save $7 a year by using a CF bulb! Even if these were useful bits of info, they could have packaged the booklet in with our City of Austin bill and paid no additional postage. And they could have included a coupon for a free CF in the bills if they were so gung-ho about it. This is just a disgusting waste of money at a time when we are closing city pools and the libraries are each closed for 2 days a week.

McKenna Children's Museum

We went to the McKenna Children's Museum in New Braunfels Saturday. Stella had a great time:Etta, not so much:

I do NOT want to ride the horsey!
That's not fair, really. We put her on the horse just as she was starting to melt down to let us know she was hungry. We just wanted to snap her photo before I whisked her away to feed her. But it really cracks me up!

Etta's Peculiar way of Crawling

Stella's Quote of the Day

I was trying to remember this for yesterday's post, and luckily Tara has a better memory than me and remembered the story!
Yesterday morning, Stella was standing up on our bed, yelling "I'm the Party Pig!" and then crashing onto our bed (like she was jumping into a mosh pit circa 1993.) I was like, "what's a party pig?" and she said, "the store I went to with Baba to buy Daddy's balloons for his birthday". I have no clue how she was a store. I asked her what Party Pig's wear and she said, "nothing. I'm the naked Party Pig!" and then dove onto the bed once more. Then she said, "I'm the Party Pig soldier!" before diving again. Sometimes that child is so weird.

Cute Quote from Stella

I was trying to convince Stella to watch Sesame Street (rather than Curious George or Franklin, her favorites of late) and I said, "don't you miss Elmo and Big Bird and everyone?" And she said, "I don't miss them, Elmo and everyone misses me!" Then she decided to go ahead and watch it and she said, "So they won't miss me anymore!" Too cute!

Stella and Etta got the chance to model some more clothes Wednesday morning. Check them out. Make sure to scroll through to see all the pics (and all of Becka's adorable clothes). Pick up an outfit or bib while you're there!

Etta has started really motoring lately. She will use her foot or knee to push off and really is getting places. Guess it's time to start baby-proofing!