Five Months

Yes, I'm writing Kate's five months post at five and a half months.  I figure that's close, right?  Kate turned five months the day she and I (JE) left on our first road trip without Daddy along to help out if things went poorly.  It went really well, but I didn't get right to her post and then it quickly fell to the bottom of the list.  

So first, let's look at the progression picture:

The top two pictures (left to right) are her one month and two month pictures.  The bottom two are (left to right) three and four month.  I picked that four month picture because she'd just discovered her toes and kept grabbing them.  If I could have gotten one, her five month picture would have shown her toes in her mouth, as they spent much of her fifth month that way.  I chose the center picture for her five month picture because, in fact, she spent the month with whatever she could get in her mouth.  Fingers (her and everyone else's), toes, teething rings of all kinds, and even chair arms are likely to end up in her mouth!

Kate's fifth month was mostly one of recovery from her busy fourth month.  We did take a weekend trip to Nashville to meet her uncles D and E (J's best friends from childhood) and their wives, children and their mom, as well as another of J's friends from college and his wife.  By Sunday's drive home, Miss Kate was rather worn out, and we had our only rough road trip.

At five months, Kate was 15.4 pounds.  She is quite vocal, having discovered her shriek.  Mama's not exactly a fan of that. She also started to enjoy Sophie (her rubber giraffe) and Lambie (her Lord's Prayer stuffed lamb) more.  Kate finally settled in to going to work with Mama every day, together with Thomas (our mother's helper/babysitter) on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  She loves the volunteers at church, and is fairly sure that people come to the church just to see her!

Productive Weekend

The one thing I love most about summer is the empty weekends.  The activities that keep us busy throughout the year tend to take summers off, which leads to quiet and unscheduled weekends like this most recent one.  This one in particular started off when J got home from work and practically tripped over the extension cord and drill that I'd strategically left right in the path from the front door through the living room.  Turns out, as handy as I like to think I am, I simply don't have the muscle power to wield the big drill while simultaneously holding a screw and a mailbox number plaque.  So he changed clothes and ran out front to install our numbers--the last step to calling that project complete!

Then, after he cooked me dinner, I convinced the poor guy to accompany me to Home Depot to look at flooring options for the kitchen (lucky him, I know!).  We came home with a bunch of samples and started crafting our weekend to-do list.  Chief on the list?

My clothesline!  When we started talking about adding a pergola to the deck plan, I got excited about adding a retractable clothesline to make it easier to sun Kate's cloth diapers (among other things).  We bought a 50' line that easily wraps all the way around the pergola when we need that much line, then conveniently coils away (and even comes down completely if we want) when we don't!

The rest of the weekend included a shopping trip to Sam's, prepping the week's lunches, baking cookies and muffins, walks and watching movies.  Oh, and a fair amount of staring at this little angel, seen here snoozing through church.

In all, a rather productive and especially enjoyable weekend.