6 Months Old

It's so hard to believe that is the title of this post! WOW! I can't believe our girl is already six months old. She is getting so big so quickly. The past few weeks she has had tons of fun! She is always wanting to try new things, experience fun and see the world. She still loves to swing all of the time, so this week we bought her a new to us swingset. We had bought her a little one, but that wasn't doing the trick since she swings on the big swings at the park all of the time. I can't wait to get it all set up. She has also had fun picking strawberries, feeding/watching the ducks at the park, going to Bouncin' Bears and the zoo for the first time. She really is getting to be lots of fun! Other kids always make her smile and I think she is starting to really recognize some of her regular playmates. It's adorable!!

At our six month check up Lainey was 26 inches long and 16 lbs and 10 oz. What a big girl!  She is sitting up by herself and has been for almost a month, and is trying to crawl. She scoots backwards and in circles, but can't go forwards yet. She also loves standing up and holding on to things but isn't pulling up by herself yet. Lainey loves music and singing songs and also loves to read. On rainy days we really can read and sing all day long and she loves it. Lainey also has said, "hey" numerous times. Since that is a regular greeting of mine, I really think she is saying "Hi". It's so cute. We are working on waving, but haven't mastered that yet.

 She still is not sleeping through the night, although our doctor suggested that I make her at this point. Last night was the first night I made her cry it out in the middle of the night and she did go back to sleep after about 20 minutes. She woke up poopy and it killed me! I couldn't help but wonder if she needed a diaper change when she had cried at 3 am. :( Poor kid. She does need to learn to sleep better though so we are going to try to help her start learning that a middle of the night feeding is not really necessary. We have moved her crib mattress down to the bottom level because she was trying to pull up. She moves so much now that I came in one morning and she had wedged her arm through her bumper and between bars. We have quite the wiggle worm.

Lainey still loves to be held and cuddled, but she is starting to want to sit and play as long as I am near. She still does not love when I walk away. (Another thing we are working on.) We are still breastfeeding and I'm getting sad about the thought of weaning her soon. I know we would like to try to get pregnant again before too long though so it's going to have to happen. She is eating baby food like a champ and has finally started eating her peas. :) I am so thankful for this time that I have with Lainey. I know that while it has never been easy, it is so special and would not trade it for the world. Here are a few of our most recent pictures. Hope you all have a blessed weekend!

Lainey's six month photos. I love them! Thanks Jennifer Battjer photography!

She was such a trooper. It was so cold outside!

Love this!

Getting ready to crawl!

Sweet girl! We are so blessed!

Swinging girl!!

She was so tired she fell asleep with Seth behind her. Love it!

Feeding the ducks with friends!

Lainey's idea of feeding the ducks.

Sweet friends

I'm six months old!!

Precious girl's half birthday

Fun at the zoo

The adorable baby elephant

Missy loved the petting zoo

Lainey's first Easter

We loved having Brian off a few days over the Easter Break. We enjoyed going to dinner, going to the park as a family and I just loved getting to see Brian. He has been so busy with his Master's program that he has worked pretty much non stop the last month. We are so blessed to have such a hard working husband and daddy, but I will really love when he gets a break! He's exhausted!

On Friday we were able to finish Lainey's play area in the back yard and I am thrilled that she will have a special place to play the next few years. It was a ton of work, but it looks great.

Saturday morning when Lainey woke up she was super fussy. I thought maybe she just needed to go back to bed, so I tried to feed her and then she was asleep in my arms before I could even get her to bed. Since Lainey is not a sleeper I knew something was wrong. Brian kissed her and noticed she felt hot. We took her temp. and it was 101.7. I gave her some tylenol and then we watched her the rest of the day. Her fever got up to 103 and she slept about 20 hours. She wouldn't go to any one other than me and sobbed about everything. When I called the doctor they said if she still had a fever on Sunday to bring her in.

When she woke up Sunday her fever was 101.8 so I called and made her an appointment at the after hours clinic. I'm so thankful they were open on Easter. She seemed to be feeling better and even played with her toys from the Easter Bunny, but still had the fever. We went in and they ran tons of tests. Her throat was pretty red so they did a strep test, a flu test, a urine test, and a blood test. After two hours at the doctor we were told it had to be viral so to just keep doing what we had been doing. I was so thankful that it wasn't something serious, but totally sad that our baby spent her first Easter at the doctor's office.

We came home and my parents and grandparents were here for Easter lunch. Brian and my mom got everything ready while we were at the doctor's office. We came inside and Lainey saw all of her favorite people in one place. She warmed up and laughed and played for a good hour. She was super happy. Right as they were leaving she started feeling bad again and slept most of the afternoon. She had fever through the night, but as of Monday morning she is back to 99.5. I'll take it!!

All in all it was a very different Easter than I expected, but still great to see family and for us to remember that Jesus died and was raised from the dead so that we might have eternal life with him. What a blessing! As I was praying over my sweet sick baby I couldn't help but think about how much God must have hurt seeing his son on the cross. My heart was breaking because my baby had a high fever, I cannot imagine the pain God felt the day Jesus was crucified. We are so blessed to be his children. Hope you all had a wonderful Easter as well!

Sweet girl loved all of the things the Easter Bunny brought her!

Happy Easter!

She was so happy when her Joyz, Papa, Mimi, Grandaddy and Nannie were here. She just laughed and laughed.

This girl knows that she is loved!

Mimi and Grandaddy and Nannie came over for lunch too!

Precious baby in her Easter Dress. Brian would not let me make her wear it all day because it was hot,
but we had to take a photo. :)

Park Adventures

This week has been a blast. We went to the park four different times to get Missy out of the house and she loves it. She still loves swinging more than anything and will sit and swing for over an hour if I take her right after her nap. It is so nice to be outside. The weather has been beautiful!I absolutely cannot wait to get her play area set up outside so we can play outside all day if she wants.

One of the parks we went to has a splash pad. On Monday when we went I didn't put her bathing suit on but she seemed very interested in what all of the kids were doing. We went back on Friday and I decided to let her try it. Needless to say, she was not a fan. She cried!! The water was pretty cold so I'm hoping when it warms up a little she will like it more.

We also took Lainey to meet the Easter Bunny and Easter Egg at Chic-Fil-A this week. We met the Dawsons and the Colemans there and got to take a few quick pictures. It was a fight to get her there after her evening nap and before bedtime, but she did GREAT!  This was our last week of having Brian home before soccer season started so now the count down to summer begins. We are so ready to have him home. Here are a few pictures of our fun filled week.

She went right to the Easter Bunny and didn't cry at all.

The funny looking Easter Egg and bunny were so sweet to her.

Lainey loves Mrs. Jess!

I really am thankful for Kinley! She takes such good care of our babe. 

She squeals with joy when she swings. I love it!

This is so much fun mom!

You can see the splash pad was not such a hit  in her opinion.

Sweet girl was just unhappy.

This was the biggest smile we got at the splash pad. Hopefully she will like it more in a month or so.

Easter Egg Hunt

Lainey went to her first Easter Egg Hunt today at church and really had fun! I didn't think she would get in to it, but she LOVED it. She loved the eggs because there were things that made noise inside and really liked all of the bright colors. Plus, it was outside, which she loves, and tons of people were there. She did great. It was so fun to watch her. It was a beautiful weekend and we enjoyed going to the park as a family on Saturday and spending time with friends. What a blessing! We truly are loving this time of year and all of the fun things Lainey is starting to do.

Five Months Old

I can't believe it's only been five months since we met our little Lainey. It's so hard to imagine life without her. She is a joy and a challenge and we grow daily because of her. We truly feel so blessed to get to be her parents.

Every day she is learning new things. She is rolling from her tummy to her back, she loves to stand up with help, she is pretty close to sitting up by herself. Lainey loves to sing songs and look in the mirror, she is eating three meals of baby food a day and nursing about 5-6 other times,  she has started drinking a little apple juice mixed with water, and she is napping much better. She takes about four 30 minute to an hour naps a day. We were sleeping from about 10-around 5:30 am, but this week she has started waking up again. Her poor gums are killing her so I usually give her a little orajel, feed her and put her back to sleep. She does not go back to sleep unless I feed her. We have tried introducing a sippy cup since we started apple juice, but she kind of makes a mess, so we are sticking to the bottle for now. I didn't really want to start juice this soon, but poor baby was having trouble going to the bathroom so we had to do something to help her potty.

Lainey weighs a little over 15 lbs. and is still wearing a size two diaper and 3-6 month clothes. I've already boxed up an entire bin of her clothes she has outgrown so I hope she can wear her 3-6 month stuff a little longer. 

Right now she has started noticing when I leave her and immediately starts crying. It's heartbreaking, but I do want her getting used to being around others and learn to entertain herself so I have to let her cry a little. She still does not love the car, but she loves going new places so it's usually worth the trip. She loves being around other kids and is laughing and talking so much more. Her talk is more what I would consider a yell, but if you know her daddy, her loud voice makes sense.

Lainey is so much fun and although I've never been able to say she's an easy baby, she is such a joy!! We have our hands full, but I wouldn't have it any other way. I can't wait to see what she starts doing in this next month.

2 days shy of five months old in her Bluebonnet pictures. What a big girl!!

Fun filled week!

We have loved this week. It has been so nice to enjoy time as a family. We have also enjoyed catching up on sleep and I've loved having an extra hand to pass sweet girl off to as she has had some rough days. :) She still doesn't have any teeth, but is eating everything and just really uncomfortable. My mom kept her for us on Tuesday so we could go on a date night and even she mentioned that Lainey had a hard night. (That's a lot for a grandma to say.)  We did have a fun week though and had so many fun "firsts" with our girl.

We loved going to LaToretta Del Lago Resort on Lake Conroe. We decided we would have to go back once Lainey is older. It is SO kid friendly. They have sand castle building, arts and crafts, s'more making, kid movie night at the pool, free putt putt golf, a lazy river, kids pool, water slides and more. It was a blast! We did take Lainey swimming in the heated pool and she did ok. She loves her baths much more, but she also doesn't have kids splashing water in her eyes and the sun in her face during bath time. I'm hoping she will just LOVE the pool this summer. She didn't cry at all, but she looked around trying to figure things out the whole time and crashed in my arms as soon as we got out of the pool to lay out.   She did great once she hat a pool side nap. :)

After we got home from LaToretta we spent some times with friends Friday night and then had bluebonnet pictures on Saturday. It was so fun to watch Lainey checking out the flowers. She loved them. We've said for months that blue may be her favorite color and she really seemed to like it on the flowers.

All in all it was a WONDERFUL week. We are so ready for summer. It's been a LONG year with Brian working crazy hours subbing as AP, working on his masters and coaching. We are very ready for him to get to spend time with us soon. That is one of the perks of him being a teacher and coach. It's so nice to know that we only have to wait 10 more weeks. YEA! Here are some of our pictures from this fun filled week.

Ready to swim!

Super fun kids pool!

So tired after swimming!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Bluebonnet Photos!! Thanks Jess

I love this! She was taking it all in. :)