The Saturday 7

1. We've all been fighting colds this week - but Lena got it the worst. On Tuesday night, she was an absolute wreck. She would not sleep in her bed and just cried and cried and cried. We ended up on the couch downstairs where she slept on my chest all night. The poor baby was burning up (she actually made me so hot, I didn't even use any blankets - unheard of for me!) and miserable. :-( She fought the fever all day on Wednesday, but woke up fever-free by Thursday, and has been on the upswing since then. Thank the Lord.

2. I tried 2 new recipes this week. The first one was baked penne from Pinterest. It definitely falls under the category "Delicious but Time Consuming."  And it could've benefited from some extra garlic . . . or bacon! 

The second was garlic parmesan crusted chicken from plainchicken. She gave it absolutely rave reviews on her blog, so I was excited to try it out. Again, it required more time/effort than I usually put into dinner, but it was pretty amazing. Two thumbs up from me! (Although next time I'll use a little less Worcestershire sauce.)

3. Speaking of eating, I worked harder this week on Lucy's eating habits. 

On Monday morning, I found some spinach in the fridge, and got the bright idea to make Lucy a smoothie with it. I blended a handful of frozen banana slices, a few canned pear slices (plus their juice), and a small handful of spinach. I took a sip to make sure it was sweet enough. It was absolutely delicious! Lucy begged to differ. She took one sip, pushed it away, and refused to try it again. Sigh.

We had baked penne on Monday night. She helped me make it, and saw the heaps of cheese we put in, so she knew it'd be good. Also, conveniently enough, Monday was Justin's and my wedding anniversary. He brought home a couple Reese's Peanut Butter cups for me, and Lucy desperately wanted one. I told her she could have one, if she took 3 bites of dinner. She's never been so willing to eat anything in her life! Haha. She took exactly 3 bites, gobbled down her Reese's PB cup, then asked for her kind of macaroni. It's a start.

But then later on in the week, I sliced up some cucumbers. Lucy's obsessed with ranch dressing, so I figured she'd be willing to try a cucumber slice if I let her dip it in ranch. I put a piece on her plate and she looked up at me in disgust and said, "Seriously! I am not eating that!" It took everything in me not to burst into laughter. Ugh. That kid.

4. We worked on the letter R this week and made a super cute Rainbow craft. I also tried to get Lucy to do a paint by number rainbow. She was not a fan of being told which color she had to put where. Oh so free-spirited. ;-)

5. Lena had carrots for the first time this week, and also started saying, "mama." She's just babbling - she doesn't really know what she's saying, but it's so adorable. She has such a soft, sweet voice. Well, at least when she's talking - she can also scream like a little banshee!

6. We've heard plenty of that screaming lately, thanks to my decision to start "Cry it Out" with her. The kid absolutely cannot self soothe. If she ever wakes up, I have to either nurse her or rock her back to sleep. And she's decided that she needs to eat every 3 hours - around the clock! So I decided that I'll feed her at midnight and 6 am, but I'm done with the 3 am feeding! Justin has Fridays off, so we started on Thursday night. She screamed absolutely psychotically for an hour and a half. I couldn't take it anymore, so got up and nursed her. She didn't immediately settle down afterward, which surprised me. And then she puked allll over the place. Not a little spitting up - all out puking. Ugh. I felt so guilty. 

But then last night, she didn't cry more than half an hour before going back to sleep. So she made it from 11:00 pm to 7:00 am without eating! I think that's her longest stretch ever! Woot! Fingers crossed that we can keep doing that, and soon eliminate the crying altogether!

7. I posted these pics on facebook, but I can't think of a 7th point, so I'm going to put them here too. On Thursday, I was standing in the computer room with my mom and Lucy when all of the sudden I looked out the window and saw this:

Justin and Lucy ran out there to shoo them away:

Ha! You know you live in the country when . . .