A Small Sample of Us: October 2014

I cannot believe that Claire is already 5 months old. That makes her only one month away from 6 months! (impressive math skills, huh?).
She is still a chunky monkey with thighs that won't quit. She's still a rock star sleeper (although this week she's struggled a bit). She is still super chill (a trait obviously inherited from her father).
She is working really hard at sitting up unassisted.
She smiles a ton and laughs a lot too (mostly at her big brother).
She's tried some sweet potatoes, but I'm not really pushing solid foods at the moment. Her doctor says she's fine until 6 months, so I'm not putting too much pressure on myself right now to make that a part of her daily deal.
She went on her first camping trip last month. It was an adventure. Have you ever been camping with a 3 year old and a 4 month old? It really could have been worse, but just confirmed that I am not the camping type. In the future, this can be something Dane shares with the kids. I'll just find something else obviously much more awesome...any ideas?

Claire was also dedicated at church last week. We made a covenant before our church to raise her in the knowledge of the Lord. To pray for her and to teach her to pray. To love her as Christ loves us. And our church made a covenant to help us and support us in those efforts. Of course we will fail, but thank God for forgiveness and grace and the opportunities to show that to our kids as well.
My dad, Pat and Pop were able to attend and it was nice to share that with them.

Claire will have her 6 month check-up in November. She will also have another MRI (although this has yet to be scheduled). We continue to praise God for her completely "normal" development so far.

In other news...we took our house off of the market. We don't need to sell it and so when given the option of a price drop or taking it off the market, we chose the latter. We'll just try again in the spring...maybe. And since we're not moving right now, I've decided we need to do some small renovations (changing some paint colors, updating window treatments...) to liven the place up a bit. Dane's on board, so hopefully we can get started on some of that stuff next month.

Lots of pics for you today :)