Today was Jon's birthday. Laurel and I decided to let the "guys" take him out for a beer and some wings. So Laurel and I dressed up like boys and took daddy to Athens for a whole bunch of wings. (I had no idea Laurel would make such a cute boy!) The picture is of Laurel and Jon at the wing place. Jon and I ate more wings then I care to mention, and Laurel ate some cheerios and babyfood. (Actually she ate the off-namebrand cheerios that I lovingly mock Jon by calling cheepios.) Get it? Cheepios...like cheep cheerios...I slay me.

Anyway, after the wings we walked to Big City Bread for dessert. I had only been there once, and didn't realize how far of a walk it would be. I also didn't realize it was going to be over 90 degrees. Yipes. It was hot. By the time we got there we were just happy to be in the air conditioning. I got a white cake filled with blueberries and lemon curd with a cream cheese frosting and Jon got a chocolate cake with chocolate mousse on the inside and covered in chocolate ganache. They were great. They were so rich we couldn't even finish them. (Ok, that's a partial lie. Jon couldn't finish his, I totally finished mine)

After walking back we were so drained from the heat and the huge amount of food we consumed we pretty much just hung out for the rest of the day. Hooray for lazy Saturday afternoons. (And hooray for Dish Network for having hour after hour of mind numbing movies!)

This week Laurel learned to tie her shoes. No, really...look at the picture. You can't refute evidence like that. This has been an easy week. And while there have been no huge jumps in development, you can tell she's getting stronger and smarter everyday. It's the little things. I was thinking this week about when she couldn't sit up by herself. We would sit her up and she would just slump forward. Now, not only can she sit up, she's sure of herself doing it. She's got the feel for her range of motion, and feels comfortable moving into different positions. She's a natural yogi I think.

Tomorrow is her daddy's birthday. We have big plans for him...but we can't tell you what they are just in case daddy reads the blog tonight. But in the next post we'll put a picture of the days events and tell everyone how it went. In the meantime, it's bed time for babies.

I guess I should apologize AGAIN for taking so long to post. I thought I would be better at doing them more often, but like everything else (cleaning, dieting, etc) good intentions don't always materialize. But, once again this means we have more to tell.

Since the last post, Laurel can now say "uh-oh." She spent an afternoon in the Target dropping Jon's sunglasses on the floor and looking at him innocently and saying "uh-oh." She can also stand for long periods of time. She isn't venturing in any direction, but she'll stand forever. This proves once again that my kid, so far, is a lot like her father...she gets comfortable and doesn't like change.

I feel like a lot more has happened this week, but now that I'm sitting down to write it, nothing much is coming to mind. She's still sleeps all night. How lucky are we? We went to the doctor this week and found out that she's in the low percentile for height and weight. The doctor wasn't concerned, especially since she looks so healthy. The funny thing is, she seems to have taken it to heart. The same afternoon after we left the doctor she started eating like a champ, and hasn't stopped yet.

The picture is of her eating a tomato-pasta-beef baby food mix. She painted some of it, and mommy painted some of it. (It looked like fun, how could I resist?) Lesson learned however, the orange-red sauce all over her face stained. It's been two days now and there is still an orange tint to her eyebrows.

It's been over a week since our last post, which is good because it means there's more to tell. Laurel still isn't crawling. It doesn't seem like she ever will. I don't say that to be self defeating, it just seems like she doesn't want to crawl. I've never seen anyone so content to be in the spot she's in. I will try to tempt her by moving an exciting toy slightly out of reach, she'll look at the toy and then look at me as if to say, "no thanks, I'm not in the mood." Then she'll settle down into her little piece of the carpet and play with whatever is at hand, even if it's just her own foot.

The progress we have made this week: she waves to anyone and everyone, she claps and makes an "ay" sound (we think this means yay...but we're partial to thinking Laurel is a genius too), she's also started eating more variety of solid foods, including fruit puffs. (Which is dangerous because as the Dorman's will remember...Jon likes them too.) We certainly can't afford to buy enough fruit puffs to feed them both.

She actually just started eating them last night. But she started with a bang. She still won't put them in her mouth herself, but if I'm holding one anywhere in her visual area she will find a way to get it in her mouth. (This is how I found out she really liked them) I had given her a couple of broken pieces to see if she liked them. I was sitting there next to her with one in my hand, not really paying attention and all of the sudden she nose-dived into my hand and ate it the whole fruit puff. I guess they really do tell you when they're ready to move into different foods!

She's also got a new game she plays. She will make two little fists and then scrunch her face up and tense up her body. Then she'll release all the tension, smile big and wait for you to laugh and mimic her. This will last pretty much as long as you let it. It had Jon and I laughing at the dinner table for quite a while. I'm not sure what you call this game, but I found out it's good for releasing tension.

Oh, and of course the biggest event of the week...drum roll please. Laurel now sleeps through the night...in her crib...alone. I never thought that would happen. (Well, actually I didn't want it to happen) You'd think I'd have slept very well this week, but instead I just sit and wait for her to make noise. But she doesn't. So I spend all night turning the sound up on the monitor to hear her breathing. (Of course when you do that, it's so sensitive it picks up everything) I about had heart a heart attack when the dog layed down on the ground in the living room...it sounded like an earthquake. After that I turned down the volume a little.