Kenley at 5 months

It is clear that you are a social baby, little Kenley. You connect with everyone around you, smiling, cooing, and blowing bubbles. Several people have exclaimed "she's batting her eyes at me" when talking to you, so I think that makes you a flirt! You are also working on some new sounds, including a very loud, shrill scream, and a low growl. Lachlan is still the main attraction for you. When he is in the room, you are always watching him, and he gets laughs from you easily and often.

You are still rolling from back to tummy, but not really the other way yet. It's not for lack of leg strength, though. When you are in your bouncy seat or car seat, you kick them so much that you getting rockin' and rollin'! The chewing and drooling continues and I'm convinced a tooth will pop through any day now. You still sleep pretty well at night, but you are definitely a cat-napper during the day. Sometimes I feel like I spend more time walking and bouncing you to sleep than you actually sleep.

Unfortunately, you're having an issue with your birthmark right now. We've been to see a pediatric dermatologist because it started bleeding (or as they say, "ulcerated"). The doctors are not too concerned, but it sure is hard for us to see you in pain! Luckily, a few smiles and extra snuggles is all it takes to cheer you up again after it is hurting.

You had your first Halloween experience this month. Lachlan suggested that you dress as a baby mermaid, so I sewed a sparkly green tail for you, and stitched a couple felt shells to a onesie for the top. You looked adorable, and were a big hit at my preschool parade at work. Not many people got to see your costume while we were trick-or-treating, since you were all bundled up and sleeping in the stroller.

Halloween fun

We had a fun Halloween weekend around these parts. Saturday we visited the Iowa City Farmer's Market for the last time this season. It became part of our weekly routine to go have breakfast and wander the market this summer. I know both Lachlan and I will miss it until next year.
After the Farmer's Market, we stopped to visit dada at work and show off Kenley and Lachlan's costumes. Lachlan wanted to be a robot and when I questioned him about the details, he said "a yellow robot, like Plex". So Plex from Yo Gabba Gabba was what we went for. I sewed the costume using black and yellow fleece, some great silver fabric, and heavy duty interfacing to hold the shape. His headpiece was just attached to a headband.

Lachlan also suggested that Kenley should be a baby mermaid. That ended up being a perfect costume to fit into our annual teacher theme at Preucil this year - characters from Peter Pan (I went as Wendy for the Friday parade). I found the perfect green scale fabric, cut it into strips, and sewed them to another piece of green fabric before making the tail with an elastic waist. For the top, I just sewed two felt shells onto a pink onesie. I did contemplate making a mermaid headband of some kind, but ran out of time and motivation for that.


We left our pumpkins uncarved until yesterday, so we worked on cleaning them out and designing and carving them in the afternoon. Lachlan was so funny, he insisted that the smallest pumpkin was his (I had pictured that one as Kenley's) and he wanted it to be "scary" and have a mustache. I had seen the carrot nose somewhere online, so we added that for some additional personality. Kenley observed the whole ordeal from her bouncy seat, which she can really get rocking hard these days.
When trick or treating time rolled around, we met up with our neighbors who have a little boy Lachlan's age and a brand new, two week old baby boy. The boys did a great job knocking on the doors, saying "trick or treat" and "happy halloween" and even "thank you"! They also brought home quite a haul of candy - our neighborhood doesn't have very many trick or treaters, so everyone is very generous with their candy.