Lainey 6 Months

Happy 6 months Lainey! I love you so much little one! Well well well...we have turned a corner this month! Just in the past week or so you have suddenly become the best and sweetest baby! I suppose you have always been the best baby but your poor little tummy just hurt all the time for so long that we are finally seeing the real you. We just switched you over to Nutramigen formula (I may write another post on that hard decision later) and things are going great so far. I suddenly have such a content baby!

Size: I will update weight/height after we go to your check up on Thursday. According to our scale at home you weight 15.4lbs so we will see how accurate that is. You wear about 6 months clothes (some bigger, some smaller), and size 2 diaper. You have started to chunk up this month! I love love love baby rolls. I am curious to see if you have gone up much in weight percentile.

Likes: Well we discovered you like to swing. You like to chew on toys and my shoulder, but most of all your feet. You get really happy/excited when we lay you on your changing pad and act silly with you. I hardly ever change you up there because it is just easier to do it on the floor in the playroom. But for some reason you love laying on your changing pad in your room and you start kicking like crazy. You love your paci still. You love when we sing silly songs to you or do ridiculous voices. You really love Pop's silly voice. You enjoy bath time - although you don't smile or wiggle much - you mostly relax. You are great at running errands and you never make a peep in the Bjorn.

Dislikes: You still aren't a big fan of tummy time. You start fussing after a minute or so. Maybe one day you will like it!

Working on: You are making progress at grabbing and holding things, but you haven't made much progress on rolling over. I am not gonna throw out the L word (lazy), I'll just say you are more "relaxed", ha! I try to get you to practice sitting up, but you aren't close to doing it on your own yet. That's ok though - you can take your time staying a baby :) Plus it is easier with you not being mobile yet since I don't have to worry about you getting in to anything. 

Sleeping: Your sleeping has gotten so much better! I am amazed that I can just swaddle you, give you your paci, and then lay your down. You go right to sleep most of the time. You take about 3-4 naps a day. The length of time varies drastically. But usually at least one of those naps is a pretty long one. You go to bed between 7 and 7:30pm. You only eat once a night now and have even slept through the night a couple times - YAY!!! Your wake up time varies - but usually between 6 and 7:30am.

Eating: You are completely on formula now. The switch was hard and it took a few weeks of slowing mixing formula and breast milk since you hated the formula. I was very sad to stop nursing you, but I think this is for the best. We are still trying to establish an eating pattern, but lately you have been taking a bottle every 3-4 hours, about 4-5oz each for a total of 20-25oz a day. We have tried some baby food - pears, apples, sweet potatoes, and also rice cereal. So far you hate everything. Cambry was the same way though so I know you will come around eventually.

I am so very thankful that you are feeling much better. You are such a joy! You haven't had tummy issues and you are spitting up a lot less. You are smiling more and more, and even give us little giggles sometimes. All of this is such an answered prayer. It feels like we have had you forever, and yet I can't believe you are 6 months already. We love you so so much Lainey Bear!

Easter 2014

Christ is Risen! Happy Easter! We had a great weekend celebrating Christ's resurrection and having fun family time.

We started off with some Easter fun earlier in the week with our small group. We had an egg hunt for the kids and they were so cute running all over the backyard. Kristen read them the Easter story while they all (sort of) sat on the couch. 

Then on Friday Greg's mom came to visit and stayed the night with us. We did a little shopping on Friday and then went to a fun park in the Heights on Saturday. Cambry had a blast and we discovered that Lainey loves to swing. She stayed in there at least 20 minutes completely relaxed and then started to doze off!

Sunday morning we somehow made it to the 8am service at our church. We knew the 9:15 would be super crowded so we went early. It was a great service and not crowded at all. Cambry was the only one in her classroom when we dropped her off.

We came home and attempted to take a family picture. It did not go well. I won't name names but someone was not in the mood to take a picture. The pictures only got worse from here.

Later we gave Cambry her Easter basket. Lainey had one too but wasn't aware of it. I shared their DIY Easter baskets on Houston Moms Blog recently here.

My parents came over and brought a ham. I made the sides - scalloped potatoes, lima beans (a Grosse tradition), salad, and Nana's chocolate chip cake. We dyed eggs, Cambry had an egg hunt, and then she had fun crushing the confetti eggs that Gigi brought. Cambry was in just a diaper pretty much all day. I think it started when she used the glitter paints she got in her Easter basket. So much for cute pictures hunting for eggs. And Lainey was so good the whole day. In fact she has really become a different baby lately. But more on that in her 6 month post coming soon.

Doesn't Cambry look thrilled to be taking a picture? She was all wet and cold after being hosed off due to chocolate everywhere.

We had a great weekend and are so thankful for Easter. I saw this video someone shared online and I thought it was great.

Wimberley Weekend

I am a little late in blogging about this because I have been trying to sort through the pictures and get them uploaded (Greg took a ton of great pictures). A couple of weeks ago we went on a little vacation with Greg's family. His parents rented a big house in Wimberley which we all stayed in - 8 adults and 4 kids. The weather felt great, the scenery was beautiful, and we had such a relaxing time.

There was lots of space for the kids walk around and explore the outdoors.

The river water was extremely shallow so it wasn't the best for fishing, but they did catch a few. The kids had fun wading around in it.

While we were there we celebrated (a little early) Hollyn's and Michelle's birthdays. They opened a few gifts and enjoyed some cute mini cupcakes.

The first night we were there we relaxed in the hot tub, and the second night we hung out around the fire pit. It was pretty chilly the second night so the fire felt really nice.

Of course we couldn't leave without attempting to take a family shot. This is the best we could do. Not bad considering we are all looking at the camera!

The Bryants are looking good and everyone is smiling!

Cousin pictures turned out awesome as expected.

 We had a great weekend together - thanks Nana and Pops!

Bluebonnet Pictures 2014

It's that time of year - to take pictures of your kids in the bluebonnets. I love a good bluebonnet picture. Luckily there were some great patches about a mile from our house. The good news is that Lainey did not cry at all. The bad news is that Lainey did not smile at all. You win some you lose some. We still got a few cute shots.

Right here folks, is the closest we got to a smile!

When did Cambry turn in to such a little girl?!

The weather is so funny here. In October when we were taking our "fall" pictures in the pumpkin patch we were all sweating to death, and now we just took these "spring" pictures but it was a little cool - more like light jacket weather. Oh well, the flowers were still beautiful!

Mom Style: Stitch Fix

I decided to try out Stitch Fix. If you haven't heard of it, it is like an online personal stylist. You answer tons of questions about what kind of style you like, your size, etc. Then for $20 they send you 5 items they think you will like. You decide what you want to keep and mail the rest back in a pre-paid package. If you don't like anything then you are out $20. If you decide to buy 1 or more items then the $20 goes toward your purchase.

Since I have less time to shop for myself these days, I thought it would be fun just to try once. I was kind of skeptical about what they would send me. But actually it was pretty fun and the pieces they chose were not bad.

I thought it would be fun to look back on this in 10 years or so and see what kind of styles were in. This is one of the shirts they sent. I didn't like it on the hanger but I thought it was kind of ok once I put it on. I wasn't in love with it though so I didn't keep it.

I didn't really like this dress. Someone else could probably pull it off but I felt like the print was sort of old ladyish. And the dress was a bit short on me. 

I really liked this navy sweater. I know it is sort of a boring purchase but I liked it, it was a very flattering fit, and I figured hey I might as well get something instead of losing the $20. The necklace was also one of the items they sent. I loved the necklace but it was a lot more than I like to pay for jewelry. I like to buy cheap stuff. (The white tank top is mine)

I actually loved these light pink skinny jeans and they almost fit perfectly but they were a bit too tight. Maybe I can try to locate these elsewhere in a different size.

I thought it was neat how they sent a little card showing how I could style each piece they sent me.

So in summary, I thought this was really fun, but kind of pricey. It was definitely exciting getting my package and seeing what was inside. The pieces themselves were kind of pricey, but I understand that I am paying for the convenience and obviously they want to make money on this service. I would like to do this again, but I will probably wait a little while since I just did it. 

If anyone decides to do this you can use this link so I can get a referral credit.

Greg was giving me a hard time that it was a pyramid scheme. He thinks everything is a pyramid scheme, ha! It isn't actually one, but anyone can share their link with friends and get a $25 credit. So if I do end up getting any referral credit, I will probably do this again sooner than later!