Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Turning 6 months...

This is pretty delayed but here goes! I can't believe we have a 6 month old! She is now closer to 1 year than her birth! The days are flying by. We grew up always having a special day on our 1/2 birthday. No presents or anything, but we always recognized the day and got to pick where we went out to eat that night. I want to do the same for our babies. So on the morning of October 2 we went and got our little girl out of bed and told her "Happy Half Birthday!!!" We spent the morning doing our usual routine and played! We also did our 6 month photo shoot!

Later in the afternoon we headed to Dallas for cousin Mack's 2nd birthday party! I cannot believe my little nephew is 2! Where does the time go? He had a sports themed party so we all wore our Rangers gear in honor of our Texas Rangers! The bottom 3 on the left were all born about 3 weeks apart and all had little cheerleader outfits on. So cute!


Reese and Alyssa in their zones...


the Birthday Boy!


Mack's party fell right in the middle of afternoon nap time, and Tooter decided to just completely SKIP her nap all together and partied hard! So by the time we left around 5 she was asleep the minute the car started.


We stopped at Firewheel Mall to get her a cookie cake. While they were making it we walked around for awhile and enjoyed the wonderful weather. We took some pics by the fountain.




When we got home we decided to give Reese her first taste of rice cereal! I had everything all ready and had big dreams of her just loving it and begging for more! Well it was pretty anticlimactic. She didn't love it, but she didn't hate it. She took a few bites and then clamped her little mouth SHUT. My baby is getting so big. She can eat now!!! I will have to do another post on our adventures in solid food.



We let her put her little fingers in the icing of the cookie cake and then devoured it after she went to bed. Actually it took us a few days to eat it haha. It was such a special family day. It seemed like such a simple day, but with Reese now with us I will never forget simple days like that! Happy Half Birthday Baby Girl!


Monday, October 25, 2010

Pumpkin Patch Time!

A few weeks ago we did what every new parent does this time a year! We took our baby to the pumpkin patch! Mack went too! I have been dreaming of doing this and was so excited to get to take part finally! Our little pumpkin was sooo cute! Here are some faves from our fun and HOT day.












I am looking forward to doing all the fun holiday things with Reese for the first time!

Nightly walks

We always go for a walk each night. Last nights was sweet! There were some strong storms to our East so we took a different route to see the awesome clouds. We also stopped to say hi to the horsies and longhorns behind our house! Reese really noticed them for the first time! I LOVE experiencing life all over again through her eyes. There is truly nothing like it! Oh and you'll notice I chopped my hair off! A little shorter than I intended but I am loving it!

This was the view from our front yard! Amazing!

There ended up being a tornado in one or maybe even 2 of these cells!








I love this little girl so much!


We literally watched this storm grow by the minute!


I love simple family evenings like these!

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

6 months!

My wittle bitty baby isn't so wittle any more! She has opinions, a voice, and she knows what she wants! We are loving this age! We have so much fun together all day long, and look forward to my weekends off when the 3 of us have so much time to be all together! It is truly amazing to experience the world through your baby's eyes. Things you might not take notice of before, suddenly become new and exciting just b/c your baby thinks they are new and exciting!!!! Here is my precious girl at 6 months...


16 lbs and 9 oz (65%)

27 inches (90%)

Head circ: 17 inches (70%)

teeth count: 0

Size 2 diapers (size 3 at night)

Mostly 6-12 month clothing

Rec'd 3 injections (one of which was the flu shot) and her last oral vaccine.

The pedi wrote on her paper "She is perfect!!!" I couldn't agree more! :)


She eats 6 oz bottles every 3-4 hours. Her night time bottle around 8ish has 7.5 oz in it! She can put it away too!

We started her on rice cereal on her 6 month birthday. She didn't love it, but she didn't hate it. She really didn't know quite what to think about it! We are still working on the mechanics of eating from a spoon. She would rather grab it from me and play with it. The pedi said as long as she is eating 24 oz of milk a day we are all good, and to just have fun with it.

We weaned her off prevacid a few weeks ago and she did great! No more reflux!



Sleeping beautifully in her crib. I usually have to go in there around 5ish to help her locate one of the many paci's in there. I usually find them all at the end of the bed. One time I went in there she was asleep with 1 in her mouth and 1 tightly gripped in each hand. She is usually in bed around 8ish, and is up bright eyed right at 7 am each morning.

One of our favorite things to do together is go get her out of her crib in the morning. She is sooooo happy to see us! Her eyes are all sleepy still, but she has the BIGGEST grin on her face when she see us! She makes these funny noises and will pull her legs up into the air and slam them down onto her mattress really hard! It cracks me up everytime! And then when we pick her up she always "hugs" us and studies our faces as if to say "Are you really here to get me out of my bed??? Thank you!!!"

She has discovered her bows. And she has discovered how to take them off!


Takes a longer morning and afternoon nap with a little catnap in there somewhere at some point throughout the day.

This past month she has perfected what we call lovingly "the face". She gives this face when she is surveying the situation, not thrilled with what is going on, or trying to figure out something. My mom calls it her "pensive look". I have sooo many shots of this face. It makes me laugh so hard!!!! Here is "the face" below... Her lips are always very pursed when she does it.


Things that make her laugh: when we kiss her neck, throw her up in the air, dogs barking in her face, play peek-a-boo, and just act really silly and dance around her. All Jack has to do is walk by and she cracks up!

She makes this really funny noise now when she sucks on her paci. It's kind of hard to explain but its like she is mumbling as she sucks on it. She does it when she is really tired, and sometimes we hear it randomly over the monitor at night. I think it helps her fall asleep when she makes this noise.


She sat in a highchair and rode in a shopping cart for the first time! She looked like such a big girl! She had "her face" on the entire time we were at Target when she rode in the cart!

She is really great at outings, as long as she gets her morning nap. We usually head out right after she walks up and has eaten around 10ish. I will bring a bottle with me and as long as we are home by 2:30 for her afternoon nap it goes really well!!!

Obsessed with: tags, paper (especially the grocery list), the pump tubing, my keys, Jack, cell phone covers, anything I'm eating, her paci pod. She gets very intense when she spies something that she wants really badly. She starts breathing really fast and reaches her little arms as far as she can stretch them to get the coveted item!


If she is not having a good day then my go to activities are the baby bjorn or a walk in her stroller. Those 2 things are usually the only things that will help when she is being very fussy, which isn't very often.



She attended her first sporting event and was a dream to take there!!!! Even though the Rangers lost we ended up watching her have fun more than we watched the game!


She is starting to like to stand up on our legs more and more and will keep her little legs straight as a board!

I have really enjoyed pulling out some of her fall clothes since the temps have been a little cooler especially in the mornings. She looks soooo cute all bundled up!


She had another fun playdate with the boys! It was so fun to watch all of our sweet babies playing and interacting with eachother. I keep telling myself that it won't be long before she is off and crawling with them!


I love her big open mouth smile! All I have to do is talk to her and she flashes me her sweet smile! I can't get enough of it!


She is getting soooo vocal!!! We recently started putting her in the cart at the grocery store and she loves it! She does these hilarious "happy screams" all throughout the grocery store! I am constantly laughing when we grocery shop!

She has seriously never met a stranger. She LOVES smiling and laughing at people she has never met before! We'll probably have to work on "stranger danger" alot later on. Even if she is in a little funk with me she will still perk up and smile really big and make eyes at random people that walk by! She gets lots of compliments from strangers!

It seems her eyes are a greenish brownish color. I'm thinking they are going to be hazel like her daddies.

Her hair is really coming in and getting fluffier! It is still a coppery red color in certain lights, but then looks brownish to me in certain lights. Will we have a redhead?


She is pretty much sitting on her own, but occassionally will go flying backwards. We found her a cheapo blowup pool at target and sit her in it to play. That way when she looses her balance she pops right back up when she hits the pool edge!


Daycare is continuing to go great! The main thing I wanted out of a provider is to never have to worry about her while she is there. And I can honestly say that other than the first day I have not worried once! When I am at work I can focus on work and not sit there worrying about how she is doing. I am very confident in her sweet babysitters! They are without a doubt an answered prayer!

And no we are still not rolling over! She sleeps on her back and hates tummy time still so the pedi said she'll do it when she's ready, and not to worry about it. Time after time she gets soooooo close and I think this will be it, but she'll pop right back over. I think she could probably do it if she wanted to but she really doesn't want to!

I got to pick her up at daycare last week for the first time and she completely melted by heart by reaching out for me!!!!

She is getting quite skilled at blowing raspberries! It's so funny! Spit usually goes flying! If we start doing it she will usually do it right back to us.


Mommy Update:

  • Pumping now for 6 months!!!! This was my main goal was for her to only have breastmilk for 6 months and I am sooo proud of myself! Pumping is just a way of life for me at this point and I do not see myself stopping anytime soon!
  • After being on weight watchers for 5 weeks, I have lost 10 lbs (it's actually 12 now!) and am 5 lbs BELOW my pre-pregnancy weight! I even went to the fair and pigged out! Weight watchers is really teaching me about what I put into my body. I am really liking it!

Sweet girl, we love you soooo soooo much!!!! And we can tell how much you love us! When you look at me like I have just hung the moon I seriously cannot think of anything better in this life. Days with you are full of fun and adventure and I LOVE LOVE LOVE spending all day with you! I love the little lady you are becoming. I love seeing the world through your eyes. I love when we have "conversations" just you and I. Thank you for the best 6 months of our lives!!!! How did we ever make it without you??? We Love You Reese Elizabeth!