Cambry's First Wedding

This past weekend we went on a little road trip to Austin to attend a wedding for one of Greg's college roommates. We stayed with our cousins who live on Lake Austin. They were so sweet letting us stay with them.

Cambry slept pretty much the whole way to Austin. We got in around lunch time on Saturday and ate at Trudy's. I love their migas. It is great when restaurants have those baby slings you can set the car seat in.  She was pretty good at lunch but was quite vocal at the end. Then she took another short snooze on the way to our family's house.

We visited with them for a while, and then got ready for the wedding. I wasn't planning on attending the ceremony because I didn't want Cambry to be disruptive. It worked out that when we got to the Chapel she was asleep so I just stayed in the car with her while Greg went in for the ceremony. Then we headed over to the reception and brought Cambry in. She was perfect the whole time! She just looked all around and was happy in our laps.

It was so loud in there but after a while Cambry just started to dose off. We put her in the car seat thinking she could just sleep but she ended up just looking around. We finally got in the car and got her ready for bed and fed her before leaving the reception. It was way past her bed time and we thought she would just pass out but for some reason she was all smiles!

They cooked us up the most delicious breakfast on Sunday morning before we left - eggs, sausage, grits, homemade biscuits, and fruit. We had a great time.

When we got back to Houston we got to see some sweet friends from Missouri. They lived on the same street as us growing up and we have kept in touch over the years. I can't believe I didn't get a picture of them, so I am stealing Christine's picture off of facebook :) This is Christine and her Mom Rita. They are just the sweetest.

DIY Headbands

I may have a slight addiction to making headbands for Cambry. It is just so much fun dressing up a little girl.

Here is my most recent headband.

I started with the following supplies - white knee highs (50 cents from Walgreens), pink flower (a pack of 2 attached to bobby pins was in the dollar bin at Walgreens), green flower from a Hobby Lobby hydrangea I had, needle/thread, hot glue gun.

I cut off the thick elastic part of the knee high and then just stitched the ends together. Yeah it is messy, I don't know how to sew.

Then I just glued the green petals to the back of the flower for a leaf, and sewed the flower onto the headband. 

There are also so many great tutorials online so I'll share the ones I have found that I like.

I used the tutorial found here for this white felt flower. For the center I used a button and covered it with fabric using hot glue. I also added a leaf made out of scrap fabric. I don't know how to sew, so I just folded it and hot glued it until it looked like a leaf. I glued a clip on the back so I can just clip it on the stretchy headbands from Hobby Lobby.

I used this tutorial for the yellow flower. 

The link to the template is here. It makes a really huge flower so instead of starting with the biggest size on the template I think I started with the third biggest size. Then I cut out two of each size starting with that one and getting smaller.

I used this tutorial for the white satin flower.

I love doing crafts and I am always on the look out for more easy tutorials. And preferably ones that do not involve any real sewing!

Waco Trip

Last weekend we went to Waco to celebrate Hollyn's and Michelle's birthday. We had a great trip. Cambry was such a wonderful traveler. She did so good the whole time. She loved having lots of attention and so many people to entertain her.

Cute cousin picture - Hollyn 4 years, Cambry 4 months

Cambry likes it when Pops plays the guitar for her.

Uncle Jamo and Aunt Mel Mel holding Cambry.

Look at that cute birthday girl!

She is really getting after that pinata.

Hollyn kept wanting to see magic tricks. So Jameson and Greg looked online for some magic tricks, and put on a little show. It was hilarious. If you watch Arrested Development and know the theme song that Will Arnett uses for his magic shows - well Greg played that in the background. He flashed the lights and made a grand appearance. He also decided to put on all these random things he found in Jameson's closet. Hollyn loved it!! What a fun Uncle!

Coffee Please

One of the girls in the youth group gave me that cup. Isn't it cute?

Lately I have been needing coffee. I like coffee and used to drink it almost every day at work. Greg doesn't drink it though and I don't have to have it so we never make it at home.

But lately I am having trouble getting going in the mornings, so I have been making coffee.

I wish I had a good excuse, but I guess I am just lazy. I am getting pretty good sleep. Cambry has been waking up twice a night but I am not up long during those feedings. I think it is because she wakes up so early - around 5:30 AM. I am not a morning person and no matter how early I go to bed 5:30 is just hard for me. That's what time I had to get up for work and it was always painful. I guess that's why I drank coffee at work!

Sometimes I go back to bed when she takes her first nap (around 7) but most of the time I don't. Sometimes Greg will take her for a bit if he hasn't left for work and let me sleep a little more, which is nice.

I can't really complain because she is really a good baby and a pretty good sleeper so I just need to be thankful for the sleep I am getting. And for coffee too!

Monthly Photos: Month 4

Our baby girl is 4 months old today! I can't believe we have only had her for 4 months. It feels like we have had her for much longer. She has brought us so much joy! I love her more every day.

Size: Weight is 15 lbs. 14 oz. - 92%, Height is 26 1/4 in. - 98%, Head is 16 1/2 in. - 77%. She is maintaining her adorable chunky figure.

Likes: Running errands (especially facing out in the Bjorn), walks, baths, her play mat, putting anything and everything in her mouth, Greg playing the Harmonica (calms her down when she is crying), reading books, being swaddled from the chest down, Paci (only for naps), and story time at the Library.

Dislikes: Going to bed at night, getting out of the bath, her swing (only sometimes will she like it and for very short periods of time).

Working On: Rolling over - She rolled over for the first time this past weekend at Greg's parents house, although they were the only ones to see it. So far she hasn't done it again. That's ok with me, I don't want my baby growing up! She still doesn't do much of an all out laugh, just little chuckles here and there. It is adorable when she does it though.

Sleeping: We usually put her to bed between 7 and 7:30. She still cries most nights for a bit before falling asleep, but it isn't very long. She wakes up once or twice a night to eat, but then she usually goes back down without crying. Most days she wakes up in the 5's, but is only up for about an hour before she is ready for her first nap. She normally takes 4 naps a day. They range from 20 minutes to 3 hours.

Eating: Eats about every 2 - 2 1/2 hours. No solids yet.

She is not on a schedule during the day. I tried for a week to write down every day all of her eating and nap times to see if there was any kind of trend so that I could help give her a bit more consistency. Every day was completely different! So I am not going to push it. For now I will just things be, and maybe eventually a pattern will develop.

She is such a sweet, happy baby! She is so much fun. I love taking her out and about with me and especially love all the smiles and compliments she gets. Makes this mamma so proud!

Bath Play Set

This weekend my niece turned 4! We went to Waco for her birthday (and my SIL Michelle's birthday as well). We had a lot of fun. I will have to do a separate post on that later when I have time to go through all the cute pictures.

For Hollyn's birthday we gave her a bath themed gift. One of the items was a foam bath set. I saw this idea on Pinterest and thought it was so cute. Here is the original post that I copied the idea from.

She did different fun shapes like flowers, sun, clouds etc. Since I have a love for cake decorating I decided to do a cake theme. I just cut out a bunch of pieces from the thin foam sheets from Hobby Lobby, and then they stick to the walls when wet. I also threw in some ice cream cones and scoops for fun.

Don't you love our awesome Aggie maroon bath tiles?

Ah, I just love Pinterest. There are so many brilliant ideas. I have used so many ideas/recipes/crafts/etc. from there over the past couple of months. Who ever came up with that is genius!

Easter

We had a great Easter celebration this year. We stayed in town and went to our home church service. Then we met my parents and we had a picnic at a park with 2 girls from the youth group as well. The weather was great - nice and warm but not very humid.

Holidays are one area where I struggle with trying to make them truly about their meaning, instead of just cultural traditions. I think this will be something we especially need to be intentional about as Cambry gets older because we will be laying a foundation for how she views holidays. I think it will be hard to find a balance of including some of the fun secular traditions like egg hunts and baskets/gifts and also focusing on Jesus Christ's resurrection.

I was thinking I still have a few more years before Cambry is old enough to start understanding, but I need to also focus my own heart on the true meaning of Holidays now. So hard to do when Christmas is turned into a gift giving day and Easter is just about dressing up and dying eggs (which we did both and had fun!) and other fun spring time stuff.

This year our pastor challenged us to spend the week before Easter reading John 19. So I tried to do that as well as read the other gospel accounts of the crucifixion. I also focused a lot on Pilot. I think it is so interesting how he didn't agree or want to kill Jesus, but because he wanted to please the crowd he went against his better judgement. He didn't stand up for what he believed in (not that he believed Jesus was the savior, but he did believe he was innocent). How many times have I been like Pilot, wanting to please others, so I don't share my faith?

Anyway, there are a couple traditions I want to keep in mind to try when Cambry gets older. I got these from my friend Amy's blog. She is such a creative, God honoring mom!

First are resurrection rolls. These look so yummy and would be a fun way to have a visual representation of the resurrection.

(Photo from The-Girl-Who-Ate-Everything.com)

The marshmallow represents the body of Jesus

The melted butter represents the oil of embalming

The cinnamon sugar represents the spices used to annoint the body

The crescent roll represents the wrapping of Jesus's body

The oven represents the tomb

The empty middle represents the empty tomb/grave clothes

Amy also posted this link which has detailed instructions for a fun treasure hunt which goes through the crucifixion and resurrection.

Similarly, there are lots of sites/blogs that have instructions for resurrection eggs. So fun!

To Cry or Not to Cry?

That is the question.

We have started letting Cambry cry it out to go to sleep. She is getting close to 4 months old and I think she is ready. We started this last Thursday. We have always had to rock her to sleep. And then sometimes when we have gotten her to sleep and lay her down she will wake up minutes later crying and we have to start all over.

So now in the evenings we give her a bath, read a couple books, sing a couple songs, then lay her down awake.

By the way, Greg and I really need to work on our songs and review the lyrics or at least get on the same page. When we sing Joyful Joyful we are singing very different words and are both looking at each other like "you are singing it wrong". Then it's like, forget it let's just move on to Muffin Man.

Anyway, so we lay her down awake, kiss her and walk out. Then the crying begins. So we go in every few minutes at increasing intervals to comfort her without picking her up.

The first night it took 40 minutes total for her to go to sleep. The next night it took one. One! Whoa parenting experts! Ha, but then the 3rd night it was back up to 20. Not parenting experts. Last night I think it was 20 minutes as well. Update: tonight was 20 minutes also.

I still feed her when she wakes up at night. Since we have started the crying it out thing she has been waking up twice a night. Actually last night she only woke up once! This is an improvement over the past few weeks where she had been waking up about 3 times a night to eat.

Maybe once she is better at falling asleep at night we will work on naps. For now though I still rock her. But evenings are really nice right now. Cambry is down before 8 and Greg and I can enjoy relaxing time together. We may or may not look at the monitor every so often cause we already miss our little chunk :)

Sunday Mornings

Sunday Mornings are a bit chaotic around here.

I am not sure why.

We only have one child.

It should not be that difficult.

I feel like I can never remember everything. I unpack my normal diaper bag/purse combo and redistribute everything into a small purse and a travel bag that I can leave in the nursery at church. I have to find a back up church outfit and a back up matching bow for Cambry (crucial, obviously). Along with all the other baby essentials, I have to pack several snacks and a drink for me because I cannot go more than an hour without eating. I am always hungry. We finally make it out the door a few minutes late.

Wait, I forgot the youth lesson!

And my nursing cover! (Have had to turn around and go back for this one)

Do we have time to take a picture? But she looks so cute...

Ahh, where are my sunglasses?

Greg has now implemented the rule that we have to have Cambry's bag packed the night before. I think this will help our Sundays go smoother.

This Sunday I spent a crazy amount of time looking for one of Cambry's flower headbands. She has 10 others she could wear but come on, she needed the yellow one!! Greg was searching the house up and down too. It was no where to be found. Complete tragedy. We still have not found it and I am so frustrated. I just made it and she has only had it for 2 days. I guess I have to make another. That is another thing we need to start doing Saturday night - locate the perfect matching headband.

Maybe one of these weeks we will have it all together.