Houston, we have a tooth!

Kayleigh got her first tooth on Saturday! Because of that last night marked my first time of getting four consecutive hours of sleep in over two months! The night leading up to the tooth were horrible - she would wake up crying every half hour to an hour, which make for one tired mommy.
This tooth had been coming in for a while but apparently wanted to wait until after Christmas to make an appearance! No photos of the little tooth, though, because Kay won't let anyone near her mouth right now (unless you have food)

Merry Christmas!!

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas!! I was super busy due to the fact a week before Christmas I had my mom, sister and friend all call and ask me to make them some family signs for Christmas presents.

I did get them all finished just in time on Christmas Eve. I am going to be opening another Etsy shop for them sometime soon for them so I will keep you updated!

Christmas started with us going to my parent's house for breakfast! We had bacon, eggs, pancakes, biscuits & gravy and hashbrowns (My dad kind of goes all out!)

Kayleigh just had eggs but I did let her try a pancake (which she loved, off of course)

Then it was present time!

Kay was interested in unwrapping presents for a whole 2 seconds before she tried to climb the Christmas tree.

She did get a fun shape block toy she loves as well as tons of clothes.

Then we went to my aunt's house for more family time

Here are my grandparent's with their sign! Although they don't look too excited in the picture they really loved it!

Merry Christmas to everyone and Happy New Year!!

IT'S SANTA!!

I don't know how I forgot about this, but last weekend Charlie, Kayleigh and I were hanging out in the living room when we heard sleigh bells outside.

Apparently we are right on Santa's route!!

Santa listened to what she wanted for Christmas and gave her a Mickey Mouse toy! It was really cold outside so we just got one picture and headed back inside.

I can't wait until next year when Kayleigh actually knows what is going on!

7 Months

Kayleigh is 7 months old today!!

She has gotten so mobile this month! She had been 'crawling' for a month but it was more of an army crawl. She has gotten the hang of using her knees and now is going everywhere! Into everything too! We are currently looking for a new TV stand because if you give her two seconds she'll be over there pulling all the cords.

She also learned how to pull herself up as well!

She is constantly pulling up on anything and everything and in the course of a week figured out how to walk along things as well. I am thinking we might have an early walker.

As far as eating goes, she is still breastfed but does get a bottle of formula on occasion on the days I work. This is because I just can't seem to get the hang of pumping. I pump almost every single night but it seems no matter how hard I try I can only get a few ounces a night. Then, if I miss even one night I am back to starting over again! So at most she'll get just one bottle of formula three days a week. Its not ideal but it's better than letting her starve.

She is loving solid foods! She currently eats either Sweet Potatoes, Butternut Squash or Avocado every night. Most mornings she will get plain yogurt but she doesn't like that as much so I may switch it for something else. We also bought her some Gerber Graduates Puff when she started getting interested in feeding herself. They are little puffs, similar to Cheerios, but they dissolve quickly so babies won't choke on them.

She has regressed in her normally awesome sleeping habits this month as well. Normally, we would put her down at 7 and she would be out until she wanted to eat around 2am and then again around 6am. This month she has been a terror get asleep (she'll obviously be tired but refuse to sleep) and wake up every other hour or so through the night.

Last night I think was the worse by far. I tried to FIVE HOURS to get Kayleigh to stay asleep but she would wake up every half hour crying. At one point she was awake, screaming, for an hour straight. I broke down in tear and eventually woke Charlie up to calm me down. (He's such an amazing guy! I don't know what I would do without him!!) I finally did get her to sleep around 12:30am, though.

No teeth yet, either. We are hoping that all this trouble sleeping is caused by some coming in since Kay's poor gums do look swollen, but then again they've been looking like that on and off for the last three months so who knows.

Black Friday 2013 Haul

I recorded a video of my haul from Kelly's Closet Black Friday sale! In case you can't watch it, I bought a Rumparoo in Charlie, a Blueberry in Mint Blue and Grovia in Drift, Wheatgrass and Poppy.

Thanksgiving Fun

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday!! We had a great time with the family. Of course Kay was passed around like a hot potato but she loved the attention!

 

I also got an early Christmas present on Black Friday!!

A Canon 70D and two lenses!! I have been wanting a camera upgrade for a few years now and we finally bit the bullet and got me one!

The best part is that it can record video so I am going to try vlogging as well! I've been wanting to do it for a while but the only thing we had that shot video was our camera phones, which aren't that great.

 

Playtime

My mom recently bought an excersaucer from my cousin for Kay since she started 'crawling' and won't stay in one place for long. I just have to say, She LOVES the exersaucer! If she isn't playing in it, she's playing under it.

She's also getting much better at sitting on her own (although she still refuses to try to sit up and rather crawl instead)(Ignore the box in the background... I still need to ship a broken mixer to Kitchenaid! Talk about procrastination.)

Six Month Photo Shoot

When Kay was born my mom proudly gave me her hand-me-down christening gown. It was made from my Grandma's wedding dress and her, her brothers and all her cousins were christened in that gown. However, Hubby and I are Christian, not Catholic, so we don't christen babies. My mom was very upset when I told her this. However, I promised when she gets big enough I will take photos of her in the gown.
Last week I held up my promise. I can't wait to show them to my mom!



Kay kept trying to eat the dress so it was a very short 'session'. The dress is very delicate and I didn't want to risk any stains or rips.

I am in love with how they came out!!

Homemade Baby Food - Avocado

Second installment in my Homemade Baby Food series! This time I am going to talk about the easiest food I've had to make so far - Avocados! They require absolutely no cooking and can be fed right out of the shell.



I normally pick up two avocados from the store at a time which is enough for around 5 meals, give or take. To tell if an avocado is ripe it needs to be  soft (but not squishy) when you squeeze it.

With a knife, cut open the avocado. (There is a large seed inside so you'll have to cut around it)

Open the avocado, remove the seed and using a spoon scrape out all the insides. You can literally scrape the everything off the 'shell' (skin? I don't know exactly what it is called)

Mash with a fork and you are finished! Freeze or refrigerate. If you refrigerate, the top may turn brown overnight. Just mix it up and you are good to go!

Wordless Wednesday - Nov 20

Six Months

Half a year. Twenty-six weeks. One hundred and eighty four days.  (...yes, I may have had to look that last one up...)

It's hard to believe Kayleigh is six months already! It seems like we just brought her home not that long ago. In another six months we will be having her first birthday party. (which I may or may not already be getting ideas for...)

Kay is loving her solid food - she's up to about 3 ounces  (3 frozen cubes) a night. I have been toying with the idea of giving her some solids for breakfast too but just haven't started yet. So far she has had carrots, sweet potatoes, avocado and sweet peas. Carrots are by far her favorite.
On a whim one day I put a glob of sweet potatoes on her tray and she managed to pick it up and feed herself. Thinking it was a fluke, I tried again with the same result. It's still hit and miss but we are working on it!!

No teeth yet, although the one tooth is still making its way in. I keep saying it should be in any day now for the last couple of weeks but she is still all gums.

She can sit up with help and keep herself propped up for a while but she can't balance herself well enough to stay for a long time. She still can't sit up on her own. She use to try and try until she would get frustrated and cry but found out its easier to wiggle around, roll over and crawl over to whatever she wants to see instead.

She is starting to crawl! Last week she started getting up on all fours and rocking back and forth. She army crawls all over the living room, heck on time I found her in the hallway when I left the room for a whole two minutes!

She is starting to have a favorite toy, as well!



Krabby is a crab stuffed animal that my cousin bought for Kay when she was born. Whenever Kay would get really cranky we would grab Krabby as a joke and say "A crab for the crab". It soon became the only stuffed animal that would produce huge smiles for her for the weekly photos I take and now, whenever she sees him, she gets a gigantic smile and wants to hold him. It's so cute! She enjoys chewing and sucking on his legs and playing with his eyes.

Homemade Baby Food - Sweet Potatoes

Hubby and I both agreed that when our children became old enough for solids we would do homemade. Mainly to save money but also because baby food isn't just what is says on the label. At first I thought it would be a little hard and time consuming but it really isn't! I thought I would start sharing what foods we feed Kay and how we prepare it.



I have found sweet potatoes to be one of the easiest foods to prepare so far (next to avocado) Here are the simple instructions:

Take your sweet potato and stab it with a fork all over
Place in microwave for 5 minutes (may vary depending on how large the sweet potato is but I found 5 minutes works well)
Flip it over and cook it for another 5 minutes
Take it out, cut it open and scoop out the insides and mash it up
Either let it cool and feed baby or scoop it into an ice cube tray and freeze.

One average sweet potato is enough for roughly 2-3 meals for a 5-6 month old

When Kay was a little younger I would mix breast milk with the sweet potatoes to make it not as 'chunky'. You can also cook it in the oven for 45 minutes or so but this way is faster for me since I sometimes don't realize we are out of baby food until it's dinner time.

Workin' out

Almost six months old and this girl can do push-ups way better than I can!



Kay likes to get up on all fours and rock which means were in for a crawling baby very soon!

Sleep strike

This past week Kay has been on a night time sleep strike. She has trouble going down, then sleeps fine until around midnight. After that, she wakes up every hour or so. I'm really hoping its because of a tooth coming in and nothing permanent.

In other news, someone is starting to figure out how to crawl. Time to start baby proofing!!