5 Months Old!

Already? I can't believe Elsie is 5 months old!
Here's Elsie's daily life in a nutshell.. She is full of smiles and now giggles when her neck and shoulders are tickled. She's always keeping her eyes peeled for Kilen and whatever shenanigans he's up to. Her favorite things to do are lay on her play mat or her monkey chair to bat at the hanging toys. She now has conversations with them, in addition to Mom, Dad and Kilen. She loves to be cuddled, but definitely enjoys playing more now. We recently brought up the exersaucer and she loved being able to play sitting up! She's good at sitting supported but not ready to sit on her own yet.
She eats about 5-6 times a day; once before school, 3 6-oz bottles at school, and 1-2 times at home before bed. She is a good nurser, and we are so thankful to be over that hump now. Our pediatrician congratulated me for being incredibly stubborn... I'll take that as a compliment in this situation. :) As much as I wanted Elsie to be breastfed for her benefit, I also needed it for me too.
I suppose we'll be moving into the world of cereal and mushy foods soon, but I'm not in a hurry to start that before 6 months. (Is it bad that I want her to stay this age a while longer? It's going way too fast!)
Bedtime is between 7:30 and 8:30 (same as Kilen), and she sleeps 11-12 hours a night with no interruptions. Unless she has a cold, and then Mom suffers along with her. She takes one big nap a day (2-3 hours) and a bunch of little catnaps at other times during the day, depending on what we are up to. She likes her nuk, but is perfectly happy with her hands or thumb too. Most of the time we find her in the crib, having spit out her nuk and chosen her thumb instead.
I love to dress her in a comfy dress and tights because she is both cute and comfy with warm toes... but she has started a trend of blowing out her diaper any time I do that. We haven't figured it out yet, but it's been the case for the last few weeks. It's our joke with the ladies at school, I think they are almost ready to start betting on it.
She loves to have conversations with us, and with her toys. Bathtime is fun for her, she's starting to splash around and looks amazed that her limbs can do that. She's awfully fun to interact with these days.
The whole family is completely smitten with our little girl!