Lauren got a baby radio from her Aunt Holly for her birthday and she LOVES to tote it around the house, bopping and dancing to such tunes as the "Lowercase Alphabet Song" and the "Days of the Week" song. These have become the new songs that Chad and I often have stuck in our heads during the work day :) Okay, who am I kidding? These songs are also songs I happen to play in my classroom each day as well. Maybe the real reason they are always stuck in my head is because I hear them at home AND at work. 
Cuddling with Grandma and a good book~
Who needs a sippy cup when you have Daddy's famous Bulls cup?
Giddy'up Lauren!
What a goofball!
"Hmmmm, what shoes should I wear today?"Things are good but super busy around here. Chad is back in the midst of a busy grad school semester. I am knee-deep in my school year with my kiddos but I have a student teacher for the first time, so I'm getting a lot of extra help in the classroom which is SO nice. Lauren is doing better sleeping at night lately. Last week my parents stayed with us for a few days and Lauren ended up waking several times during the nights while they were here. In fact, last Wednesday night, she was up crying from 3-5am!! (And yes, Chad and I both got up for work at 6. Yuck). Well, my mom suggested that maybe she is hungry at night. So I've started letting her have a bowl of oatmeal or rice cereal mixed with whole milk right before bed and she's slept through the night nicely since then. The problem is that she refuses bottles and I'm weaning her from breastfeeding. So...I don't nurse her at bedtime anymore. That plus the fact that she won't drink milk from a cup yet (again, she refuses just as she does with bottles) means she isn't getting much to eat after her regular 5:30 dinnertime. So the cereal has helped alot so far. Keep your fingers crossed for us!
Have a good work week!
Love,
Mindy and Lauren
As you can tell, this is a scanned image of my 8x10 collage of her birthday cake devouring. It's kind of hard to see each picture here. Guess you'll have to come visit our house to see it better in person :)
Just before she dug into her smash cake.
Yep, she's stomping in it!
Here's an action shot of some serious bed jumping with Porter, Tess and Maddie. Of course Lauren had to get in on the action.
Last week, the temps here dipped down to 40 degrees BELOW ZERO. Yes, you read that right. It was negative 40 around here for a few consecutive days, so school was cancelled and I ended up with an unexpected but very welcome four-day weekend with Lauren. We stayed in our jammies until nearly 3pm on both days and we had a blast cuddling and playing together.
Lauren insisted on wearing her new pair of rainboots with her pajamas. What a goof.
My little drama queen burst into tears when her dolly stroller crashed into the wall.
Having fun playing with Joey.
Lauren "built" a play table and a toy chest for the family room. Here she is working on putting it together.
Checking out her new toy chest.
They also gave her a sled for Christmas. Here she is, enjoying it for the first time!
Enjoying a bagel with cream cheese for the first time :-).jpg)
