5 months old!

This post is about two weeks late, but better late than never, right?
Lucy is 5 months old! I know they say that time flies, and the first couple months of her life are starting to get a little blurry in my memory. So much so, that I thought the other day after packing up her newborn and 0-3 month clothes (and feeling nostalgic about tiny babies), "hmm...maybe we should have another sooner rather than later." Then I thought, "Are you crazy??  What are you thinking?! You are sleep deprived- she is still not sleeping through the night. Let's wait a little longer on baby #2." Good plan.

 Lucy-loo is so sweet and cute and talkative...and she loves to scream. Happy screams, but still screams that I feel might be damaging my hearing. She's been rolling from back to front for over a month, and now she is getting up on all-fours and rocking back and forth, like she is so ready to take off and crawl. She will sometimes scoot a little, especially when she is on the carpet. I was playing the piano this afternoon and had a quilt next to the piano for her to play on...I looked over about a song later and found her no-where near her quilt, on her hands and knees. I have a feeling that once she starts crawling, life will never be the same.

See my fun skills! I can get up on all-fours and rock back and forth! Mommy had a hard time capturing my tricks because I move so much!!

 We have started multi-grain cereal, once a day so far, and she's been doing pretty well with the cereal. Still 100% breastfeeding and doing well. Still continues to do well when at school. Still not a great sleeper. Currently, she is taking 3-4, 30-45 minute naps (although, twice this week she's had 1 1/2- 2 hour naps, so maybe we're turning a corner?!). She goes down pretty consistently at night between 7:00-7:30pm, I dream-feed her around 10:00pm, and then she wakes up usually once between 2:00-4:00am to eat, and then up for the day around 7:00am. Now during the sleeping part of the night, we typically have to get up 3-4 times to put her paci back in, but she falls right to sleep. I'm thinking that we're going to have to do some sleep training to help her figure out she can settle back to sleep without the paci, but neither Mike or I have the heart right now to let her cry it out. I know, we're turning into softies. It's terrible.

My mom gave me these baby scrubs from when I was a baby. Thirty years later, they fit Miss Lucy! Maybe one day she will follow in her mommy's footsteps and work in the medical field...we shall see...

For those of you who are Dallas-ites, you know this is logo is old!!

Birthday weekend

This year, we decided that since there are so many people in our family with several birthdays around the same time, that we would have a seasonal Birthday Celebration Weekend! So, about three weeks ago, we celebrated all the fall birthdays- Paige, Mike and myself. Lane and some of her friends came up for the occasion and we had a grand 'ol time!
Activities for the weekend included a big family breakfast at our house on Saturday morning to start off the weekend. Then the girls went to go and get pedicures while the boys watched the kiddos. We had dinner together Saturday night at Mom's house- pork carnitas and all the fixings! Then we had a pinata, just like old times, followed by cake and presents.
Sunday, we met up at Mom's house for hamburgers and more hang out time with the fam. Lovely times!

The Birthday Peeps!

We are old. Both turning 30 this year!

Lucy loves her Papi!

The delicious strawberry cheesecake and the fabulous chocolate pastry cake Mom made. SO, SO yummy!!

And, what type of birthday party isn't complete with a pinata??

For my real birthday weekend, I took off Friday from work and enjoyed a massage, my first pumpkin spice latte of the season and a little shopping while Lucy was at school. Mike took me out that night to this awesome wine and cheese place called Scardellos- AMAZING! You walk into this cute cheese shop, sample as many different cheeses as you want and then create your own cheese board, paired with some wine. I loved it! We then went across the street to Pappadeaux's and had dinner and dessert. My sweet parents watched Lucy for us while we were out, and she promptly screamed bloody murder for them for 30 minutes or so while we were gone. Awesome. 

On Saturday (my real birthday), Mike went and got me Starbucks and we had breakfast at The Original Pancake House. We went on a walk in the cool fall weather with Lucy, laid low around the house, opened presents, and then went to Watermark's Volunteer Appreciation dinner that night at church. 

I can't believe I'm the big 3-0. I remember in college thinking that people who were 30 were pretty old. And now, here I am. Pretty crazy to think about, but so thankful for what the Lord has allowed to happen over the last 30 years. Lots of surprises along the way, that's for sure, but thankful for the way life has unfolded.

And I did find my first gray hair a week before my birthday. And I plucked it out. :)

Rice Cereal...

You start with this...

 Get yourself situated in your Bumbo with a giant plastic bib,

And try it....

Yummy!

All done! (and sleepy!)

A shmorgusboard of things...

I think that's how you spell schmorgusboard....

Anyway, one of my favorite things about the weekend is Saturday breakfast. I usually get up, get some coffee started and then make either cinnamon rolls from a can, homemade biscuits or the Frizzell family coffeecake. I'll be honest, usually it's the cinnamon rolls from the Pillsbury can because they're super easy and I'm usually still tired.

BUT, they are so not good for you and the 3rd or 4th ingredient is partially-hydrogenated oil of some sort, along with a list of other ingredients I can't spell or know what they are.

Enter in Immaculate Baking Company. No hydrogenated oils, no high frutose corn syrup, no bad stuff inside.  These are my new favorite things to make for breakfast! The scones are really yummy and the cinnamon rolls are super-cinnamony and tasty! I've tried the chocolate chip cookies and they're pretty good. Plus, I was super-excited about seeing that they also make crescent rolls for dinner, as we have those frequently- haven't made them yet, but I'm sure they are great.

Best of all, you can find them at Target!!

 Here's Miss Lucy in her exer-saucer (thanks to the Solomons for letting us borrow theirs!). We had tried it about a month ago and she just wasn't ready for it yet. I tried it again this week and she LOVES it! It's also kind of funny to see her little skinny legs sticking out of the bottom....

She also loves watching the TV, so I have to be careful how often I have it on. Here she is trying to watch it while playing in her exer-saucer. She thinks Channel 8 news is so interesting....

Can you tell what's on the agenda for this weekend??

Pictures to follow.... (as well as a bath, I'm sure!)

Community Group Retreat

We had such a great time with our dear friends this past weekend on our community group retreat. It was supposed to be sans kiddos, but since Lucy and Case are still nursing, they both came to join in on the fun! They both did great!

On Saturday, we went out on Lake Whitney on a boat (Lucy's first boat ride!). I had to get her some sunglasses for the occasion...she actually didn't try to take them off!

Of course, the only pics I got were on the boat....

We had a great time, though!

4 months old!

 A year ago today I found out I was going to be a Mommy! I still remember that morning so very clearly- going to Walmart early that morning to get the test, coming home to take it, since Mike was working at home that day, and what a shock it was to see "pregnant" on the stick, to even begin to imagine what life was going to be like with a baby, and to wonder if I was ready for such a big change. Well, one year later to the date, our sweet Lucy is 4 months old!!

What a wonderful blessing she is and how thankful I am that she is here! Here's what we've been up to lately:

Smiling and cooing! She has the best smile and is happy most of the time. She also loves to grow and has gone through several growth spurts lately, especially when she learned new tricks, like rolling...

Learning how to sleep- let's just say we need a little more work in this department. She goes to bed between 7:30-8:30 pm, I dream feed her around 10:30pm and then she wakes up around 2:00 am to feed, then goes back to sleep until about 7:00 am. She takes 2-3, 45-minute naps a day (not a great napper). We're in a quandry regarding whether or not it's time for her to sleep train and eliminate the 2:00 am night feed. Neither Mom or Dad is super excited about sleep-training and crying-it-out, but we'll see... We have done some sleep training for the times she would wake up in the middle of the night when it wasn't time to eat- she would cry for about 5 minutes, then go back to sleep, for the most part.

We spend most weekends in the pool- here she is with Oma (she looks chunkier in this pic than I really feel like she is). Lucy does great with swimming/being in the pool for about 30-45 minutes, then she is done. :) Better than at the beginning of the summer! (And it doesn't hurt that the pool water feels like bath water because it's been so stinking hot!)

Rolling!! She learned how to roll from her back to her tummy, which she constantly does when on her blanket. It used to scare her at night when she'd roll over, and I did find her stuck in between her crib rails several times (scary for Mom!!), but she's getting used to falling back to sleep on her tummy.
She's already pushing with her feet when she's on her belly and Mike tried to teach her to crawl this past weekend. I truly believe she will be crawling by the time she is 6 months old! She is constantly moving, kicking her legs, trying to scoot, rolling....very busy girl!

 She still continues to do great at childcare twice a week while I'm at work. She is also a great little side-kick when shopping and running errands. We go on Monday to the pediatrician for our four-month visit, so we'll get her official stats (and her 4-month shots!).

How to talk to little girls

Very interesting post I found on a friend's Facebook post....

Read it.

Very challenging, as it's easy to make cute comments about how cute that little girl is, how pretty her dress is, how nice her hair looks...all true statements, no doubt.

But to ask what she is reading, how her summer vacation was, what she likes best about school, etc...to not put the focus on the external but on the internal. Reminds me of 1 Peter 3:3-5 .