5 on Friday

1.  It's not even Halloween yet but I can't stop thinking about Christmas. Collins was only 4 weeks old last Christmas so I'm anxious to decorate the house and see what she thinks of the tree and all the lights. She loved the lights as a newborn and I'm sure she'll love them just as much this year. 

Wah!! My baby isn't so little anymore :(

2. We are going to make sugar cookies, eat soup and carve pumpkins on Sunday.  My mom, Amber, Mike and Aiden are going to join us. Carving pumpkins always sounds fun but I always pick the hardest thing to carve and it kills my hand.  Think I'll stick to a jack o lantern this year. 

3. Mama and baby are going to be matching in our leggings this fall/winter. I ordered these off Groupdealz and I'm anxious to bust out my fleece lined leggings. Collins is sporting some of her leggings today. Their comfy and cute so it's win win in my book. 

4.  Operation get Collins to sleep through the night is in progress. The girl sleeps worse then she did when she was 3 months old! Wednesday she woke up at 10:30 and I finally gave in and fed her at midnight. Last night? 9:30!! She didn't even sleep 2 hours before she woke up. Luckily she put herself back to sleep after an hour. And then I fed her at 3:30. Starting tonight, no feeding. I'm scared and tired thinking about it. Kills me to hear her cry because she is usually so so happy.

5.  I got Derek a smoker for his birthday last month and we have been, in the words of my brother in law "smokin shit." We've done ribs, chicken and brisket. We're gonna do beer can chicken tomorrow. For someone who isn't a huge smoked meat fan, everything has been pretty tasty.  It's nice to have a bigger variety of meat to cook  

 Happy Friday!!

365: Days 253-273

I'm glad I'm doing this challenge but man, it is a pain to do! I get way behind so here's up until October.

Sept 10- Future fire fighter

 

Sept 11- Playing with glow sticks

 

Sept 12- Changing the channels in a diaper

 

 Sept 13- Fun outdoors

 

Sept 14- Cheering on the cats!

 

Sept 15- Sundays are for relaxing

 

Sept 16- Wish I was this happy on a Monday

 

Sept 17- Bedtime stories

 

Sept 18-  Evening walk

 

Sept 19- Hang on tight!

 

Sept 20- Slowly getting enough hair for clips

 

 

 

 Sept 21- 10 months old

 

Sept 22- Meeting 2nd cousin Taegen

 

Sept 23- Don't let the bows fool you, she is a mean and tough

 

Sept 24- No bow, comfy park day

 

Sept 25- First plane ride! 6:30am flight= VERY early morning

 

Sept 26- Beach babe at its finest

 

 

Sept 27- Livin the dream at the park on the ocean

 

Sept 28- I can't even handle this cuteness

 

  Sept 29- Burning energy at the airport...oh the germs!

 

Sept 30- This tiny area at the top of the stairs? Her favorite place in the house

11 Months

I'm having a hard time swallowing this one.  I started crying as soon as I realized on the 21st that she was eleven months.  I'm going to go ahead and press pause till I'm ready to let my baby grow up.  Which may not ever happen.

Neither one can possibly be right but our home scale says she weighs 18.5 lbs and the handy dandy tape measure says she is 27 in.  Supposedly she hasn't grown since her 9 month appt. No way.  She fits in 9-12 month clothes best but we mostly have 9 month OR 12 month clothes.  The 9 month shirts are too short and the 12 month clothes have to be rolled. 

 

The week before she turned 11 months we started the weaning process.  I'm going to do a whole post on that but we are down to only nursing before bed and the 1-2 times she wakes at night.  I had a good stash of frozen milk so she is getting that mixed with whole milk, twice a day.  She is an amazing eater.  She loves all fruit, most vegetables and pretty much anything you put in front of her. She is on table foods 100% of the time.  When we go to restaurants I'll bring a squeeze pouch for her to eat while we wait on our food. She usually just eats some of whatever we ordered but she's had a kid meal a couple times as well.  Hard sharing food when she eats so much!

 

 Like I mentioned above, she is still waking 1-2 times a night.  Usually I just feed her and she goes right back to sleep. Sometimes I have Derek rock her instead of me feeding her and she does fine with that too.  Operation no milk in the middle of the night is going to happen soon.  Please send all night weaning and sleep prayers our way. She still goes down around 7:30 and wakes for the day around 7:30.  Morning nap at 9:30 for an hour and afternoon nap at 1:30 for 1.5 hours.  For the past 2-3 months she's only had her binky for naps and bed.  Now when she wakes up, we pick her up and tell her to put it in her bed. She'll pull it out of her mouth and drop it into her bed. 

 

She said "mama" with meaning for the first time on Sept 29 and "dada" with meaning on Oct. 1.  It sounded like she said the word "on" on Oct. 8 and sometimes it sounds like she says "no no" but I'm not sure on that one.  Between her, the dogs and the daycare kids, it's a very spoken word around here so it wouldn't surprise me if that's what she's saying.  She has 3 bottom teeth and I swear she is working on some more.  She has been cranky and chewing on her fingers so hopefully some top teeth are coming in.  Otherwise I know what she'll be asking for, for Christmas :)

She's been able to go down the stairs on her belly but now she can go from standing up, to sitting down and getting on her belly to go down herself.  I don't fully trust her to not be right there by her but she's getting it down.  She can climb on and off her fisher price ride on  fire truck and can push herself backwards on it, she can climb into her baby doll stroller and she is getting pretty fast when she "runs." She tries to put on her socks and shoes and absolutely hates getting her diaper changed and getting dressed.   Books with flaps are the only ones that keep her attention and she loves taking the toy from the dogs and then giving it back to them.

 

She got her first fever on Oct 16.  She wasn't acting normal all morning and I checked her temperature after lunch and it was 102!  In true first time mom fashion, I freaked out and took her in as soon as the daycare kids were picked up. Poor girl had pink eye and an ear infection.  We knew she had pink eye the weekend before and we gave her eye drops Amy had since we were in El Dorado.  We thought it was cleared up but guess we were wrong.  She had a fever for 3 days and wasn't herself for 5 days.  She got lots of love and snuggles from mommy and daddy.  So glad my happy baby is back. Along with her first illness, she had her first plane ride and trip to the ocean.  You can read about it here.

She has the best personality and is so easy going. Watch the video below for her new face she makes.  Freaking hilarious. She can throw quite a fit though.  Arched back, throws herself on the floor and all. Daddy put her down the other day and she was less then thrilled about that.  She through herself over and smacked her cheek on her ride on fire truck.  Now she's rocking a nice bruise on her face.

She was NOT happy about taking these pics. I have 20 more of these

All is good when she gets the phone. Notice the finger, crazy  how early they learn what to do. And this bow makes her hair look red.  It is most definitely not red.

 

I love you baby, forever and ever. 

And their off

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T_LE5bf-aI&feature=player_detailpage

 

9 and 10 month favorites

Dinner mat-  We use this daily. At home or at restaurants.  It protects her food from germs when we are out and about and it catches the majority of the food that gets dropped.  It rolls up for easily transporting in the diaper bag.

Plates- When we got her new high chair (see below), we wanted plates that would suction to the table so she couldn't throw them.  I had to buy the section thing separately for these but we are a big fan.  And I love the 3 sections so the juices from her fruit don't get the other food soggy.

Puma's- The perfect shoe for new walkers.  They are super easy to put on and they stay on! They fit almost like a sock and she can walk very easily in them.

High chair- This is the 3rd high chair we have tried and it's perfect.  Now that we don't have to spoon feed her, I wanted her to be right at the table with us for meals.  It's also ssooo easy to transport when we go to someones house or a restaurant that doesn't have a high chair.  We got black so it shows food like crazy but nothing a wash cloth can't clean.

Picnic basket- The girl loves shape sorters.  I'll barely put the shape in the lid and then she pushes it in and claps for herself.  It's got some catchy songs too.

Ride on fire truck- Or any ride on toy for that matter.  But we keep this one inside and she rides it daily.  She can get on and off it and has figured out how to push herself backwards on it.  She likes the tricycles outside and the cozy coupe too. She is going to be thrilled with the present we are getting her for her birthday.


Push walker-  I owe her early walking to this thing.  She pushed this around a couple days before getting adventurous and letting go of it to walk on her own.  Before she could walk, she enjoyed playing with the front of it too.

Me and CC go to Georgia

 Collins and I traveled to Georgia at the end of September and met my friend, her girls and her mom at her parents beach house. Must be nice to have a beach house huh? And it was straight out of a magazine, sssooo beautiful.  To see Ashley's Georgia  post, click here.  She has some really cute pictures posted. 

To get to said destination, I had to travel solo on 2 flights with a mobile 10 month old. I was terrified at how she would do since she would rather walk then be restricted to my lap.  She did amazing though. Napped on both flights and snacked and played when she was awake. We lucked out and both flights weren't full so we got a whole row to ourselves. 

It was pouring down raining when we got to Georgia and rained off and on the first and second day. When it wasn't raining we went on walks, to the park and out to dinner. 

On the third day, it was finally nice so we packed up and headed to the beach. I was so excited to take Collins to the ocean for the first time and she LOVED it. I texted Derek and said we needed to move to the beach. She was walking in the sand, chasing birds and had no fear of the water. Thanks Ashley for capturing these moments for me. 

That afternoon and the following day we stuck around the house and spent lots of time in the pool. No sand eating and sand in every inch of the body when you stick to the pool. And we ate at home the last 2 nights cause the babies didn't do so well at the restaurants the first 2 nights. Good thing their so damn cute cause they didn't sleep so well either. 

The day before we left we climbed to the top of the light house. Didn't seem like such a big deal till they told me the night before that it was the 3rd most haunted light house! But I sucked it up and climbed the darn thing. No ghost got me and I got to see the amazing view from up top. 

We flew home with Ashley, the girls and her mom and lucked out again on the first flight and had an extra seat between Ashley, me and the babies. The babes got to sit together and play the whole flight which we thought for sure meant napping the whole next flight. WRONG!! A jam packed flight and 20 min. naps. Luckily they did pretty good anyway and kept each other entertained. 

Thanks so much for inviting us, Ashley! We will wear our St. Simons shirts with pride and hope you'll ask us back