Usually January and February are my least favorite months out of the year, they just always seem to drag on forever and there is so little too look forward to. This year has been moving along quite nicely though, and while I am mostly happy about it, I'm also like "Whoa! What? My baby is already 5 months?" So February, you have my permission to slow down just a tad this year, mmk? Thanks.

• No doctors appointment at 5 months, but we know she is getting bigger! She's wearing 3-6 month outfits and even fitting into a lot of 6 month sizes as well. 
• Night time can still be a challenge at times. Some nights she goes down without a fuss and sleeps all night (about 10pm-8am) but if I try and put her down any earlier than 10, she usually spends a couple of hours fussing with Mark and I taking turns going in to soothe her, before she really falls asleep. I'll confess to being frustrated by this. We'll try this month to slowly back up bedtime with a goal of getting her to sleep by 8:30. (It doesn't help that 2 nights out of the week I don't get home from work until 7:30. Usually I'll feed her right when I get home and then she's not ready to eat again and go to bed until 10. I'm not sure how I'm going to figure this one out!)
• The upside of her late night tendencies is that if we are visiting with family on the weekends and out late, she is generally a happy, easy going girl and doesn't get fussy if she's not in bed by a certain time. I'll admit that I like this flexibility.
• We have officially cut out her middle of the night feeding though, so if she does wake up in the middle of the night, I just go and put her paci back in her mouth, pat her on the back for a few minutes and she (99% of the time) falls easily back to sleep. 
• I love getting her up from her crib in the morning! She usually wakes up happy and "talking" and gives me the brightest smile when Piper and I go to get her up. 
• She has been taking a 1.5-2 hour nap in the morning and the afternoon in her crib when we are home, which is great! She can also maintain a happy disposition if she is napping in her carseat for shorter amounts of time if we are running errands. Again - I love that she is able to follow a schedule when we are home but flexible enough that I don't HAVE to be home for nap times to keep her happy.
• She rolled over from belly to back for the first time! She is a pro at it now! Still hasn't figured out back to belly yet.
• We are practicing sitting up independently. She has held herself up for about 7-8 seconds a few times but she still needs lots of practice before we can officially say she can sit up on her own.
• She loves to play with her toys, loves to look at herself in the mirror and loves to put anything she can grab right into her mouth. 
• She had her first little cold. Babies with stuffy/runny noses are so sad. She had trouble eating and sleeping and was just overall pitiful. Poor baby. 
• She is mesmerized by polka dot patterns! Anything I show her with polka dots instantly captures her attention and she gets the cutest concentrated look on her face!
• She has quite the sassy personality, she'll let out shrieks if she is not happy with her current situation. It is definitely different than her cries; she likes to make sure we know that she would rather be doing something else. 
• We've noticed that she has started to really watch us when we eat. Our plan was to wait until 6 months to start introducing solids, but not sure if we'll make it another month!