We've been busy, busy, busy lately. I'm sure most of it is recovering from vacation, but it also seems like we hit the ground running once we got back, all with lots of fun things.
Bucket list update: Boating on Geist - Check!
This wasn't on the original bucket list, but it's definitely something Ben and I have wanted to do - a couple weeks ago we went out with our friends the Nurmi's on their boat. We had an awesome time and feel so thankful to know so fun, generous friends. I'll be adding and crossing this off our list!
I also went out with Beth and Courtney on Beth's parents boat for my birthday. I forgot to take any pictures, but it was a fun day... Thanks Beth (and of course the Kinney's for letting us use their boat!)
Tour de Carmel - Check!
We also did our "Tour de Carmel" date night a couple weeks ago but I forgot to take any pictures again... boo. But we had a fun time going out with Erin, Dave, Kristy and her new boyfriend Jason the night before my birthday. We went for drinks and appetizers at DeTour, dinner at Bazbeaux's and dessert at Huddles. It was a great night with great friends!
For my birthday, I volunteered in the morning and then spent the rest of the day being pampered by Ben. He got us lunch (we were supposed to do a picnic but Hank didn't get the memo and decided to go to sleep when we were supposed to be leaving), let me read my book (oh yeah, maybe that's another reason we've been so busy, I've been so in to reading lately, I love finding a good book!), and then took me out to dinner AND had a babysitter all set up... now that's what I call a great night!
Our sweet friends Heather and Christian babysat for us - we are so blessed to have such great friends nearby! (I stole the below pictures from Heather's blog...)
The next day was Father's Day - I didn't plan much because I know ben's style is to be more laid back and if I would have done more stuff it would have just stressed me out, so I guess I gave Ben the gift of not being stressed out! We went to church, Ben hung out with his dad and brothers in the afternoon and we had my dad over for dinner. I asked Lucy what we should get Ben and he said clothes, so I got him a shirt and swim trunks.
Happy Father's Day to one of the most incredible men that I know!
This post is long over due, has way to many pictures, and I'm pretty sure all of the pictures are out of order... oh well! Here are pictures from our vacation! We drove 13 hours through the night to St. George Island. Both babies did pretty well on the trip down, Lucy didn't sleep as much as normal, but when she wasn't sleeping she was happy in the car, so we were happy. Hank would wake up every hour or so and let a couple little cries out and then go right back to sleep. What a dream. When Lucy would wake up, she was really disoriented so we had to comfort her, but otherwise she did great too.
Both kids were great in Florida as well. In fact, since Hank had been sick the 3 weeks prior to vacation he was actually the best he'd been all month... we got lucky! I was expecting the worst, I know how kids usually get thrown off on vacation, but Hank actually slept better. He slept in a walk in closet in our room, so we didn't disrupt his sleep at all and Lucy had her own room to sleep in too.
We spent most of the week going to the beach every morning and swimming in the pool in the afternoon. For our family it was the perfect set up, it was a couple minutes walk to the beach but the house we rented had a pool, so we could relax and lay out while the kiddos slept.
We went with Jadyn, Jordyn, my mom, her friend Donna, and Donna's grandson Gavin. I'm not going to lie, the idea of going on vacation with 5 kids and 4 adults stressed me out a bit, but it actually ended up being perfect. Lucy loved playing with all of the kids, and the older kids loved playing with her and Hank, so it was fun to have them all there.
My little dare devil was actually afraid of the water. It would take her a bit every day to warm up to the waves.
Surprisingly Hank didn't love the water as much as I remembered Lucy loving it. Most days he would camp out in a baby pool we had blown up next to the big pool. He was happy there. He did however love playing in the sand and eating it!
We rented a golf cart for the week - it was the best decision! The kids loved it (and by kids I mean Ben) and it made getting around so much easier.
The Saturday we left for vacation, also happened to be the day I hosted 27 women in my house for Courtney's baby shower. Woops - poor planning on my part. Luckily I had two co-hosts (Beth and Linda) and tons of help from all of the ladies in Courtney's Bible study, so besides having to juggle a little between packing and party-prepping, it really wasn't too stressful. And we actually couldn't get into our vacation rental until Sunday and we drove through the night, so the party didn't actually interfer with vacation at all.
I was really excited for this shower - Courtney is one of my best friends, and you only get to host a baby shower for your best friend once so we went all out! Courtney and Ian have been calling their baby "Blueberry" since they found out they were pregnant, so I thought having a blueberry themed shower would be absolutely perfect! (It helped that they are having a baby boy of course.)
So here's a few details from the party (most of these pictures were taken by Esther Schwander, one of the big helpers from Court's Bible study)
The beautiful mama to be! Banner made by Esther
I'm not good at coming up with things on my own or designing anything, but luckily Beth happens to be amazing at designing things and I was able to find an adorable apple themed party online (my main talent is copying) - so I sent Beth a bunch of ideas and she came up with all of the printables for the party. Aren't these little tags adorable?!?
We did a brunch shower - which was perfect for our blueberry theme, and perfect for serving a huge crowd on a small budget. I found this pseudo cake ball idea on pinterest, they use a donut hole instead of having to make the actual ball. Esther made these for us and I thought they turned out perfect (and she said they were much easier than regular cake balls). We also served blueberry muffins, egg casserole bites and hash brown casserole.
We also had a yogurt bar - this was the only food item I was responsible for.
And of course, brunch would not be complete with out lots of coffee!
Another pinterest idea - Beth and I made these yarn balls a few nights before the shower.
Blueberry candy sticks
Courtney's family and friends are spread out across the county, so it made the most sense for her to just do one shower and invite all of her loved ones in to town on one day. She made sure Beth, Linda and I were up for the challenge, which of course we were, but let me just tell you that our house was full! I was a bit worried about space, but I think everybody ended up fitting nicely, and even though it was a big group, hopefully things still felt somewhat intimate for Courtney. And again, since we had so much help, it was actually one of the least stressful parties I've thrown.
You can't tell fully by this picture, but this girl was surrounded by presents!
Oh man - I think this is the latest I've been on a monthly update...
between hosting a shower and vacation (pics to come on both of those
soon!)I got a little behind. I thought about just combining Hank's 6 and 7
month posts, but that just didn't feel right, so even though Hank is 10
days away from turning 7 months, I am still going to post a 6 month
update! Hopefully I'll be more on top of his 7 month update.
STATS:
Weight - 18lbs, 8oz (67%)
Length - 27.8in (90%)
Head - 16.9in (38%)
If I were to give this month a title it would be: SICK... that pretty
much sums up how Hank felt most of the month. He went from a growth
spurt to a cold to an ear infection to a cold. Luckily it was all
cleared up at the end of the month in time for vacation but prior to
that Hank was not sleeping well and would sometimes sneak in an extra
nursing at around 1-2am because he was so fussy and would not be calmed
down any other way! I literally think he was on Tylenol for two weeks
straight. His ear infection was minor, but I was so thankful they found
something at the med check (I've taken him to the dr. before thinking
he had an ear infection, only to find nothing was wrong!) - although he
was extremely happy and smiley while at the doctor, I could tell he just
wasn't sleeping the same and would always be really cranky while I was
trying to rock him... not like Hank at all.
EATING - I think Hank's nursing schedule is about the same... he still
eats about every 3.5hours, but crams the last two nursing sessions
together before bed time. I played around with the amount of solids
this month. Hank went from eating a jar or two of baby food 3 times a
day (I think he was in a growth spurt when we first started!) To not
wanting to eat anything at 1 meal a day. Towards the end of the month
though, Hank was eating a solid "dinner" and would eat a little at
breakfast. I couldn't remember how and when to add meals, but our
doctor reminded me that you do it once they are really established
eating at one meal. She also recommends feeding solids and hour before
or after nursing (which I did not do with Lucy bc Babywise doesn't
recommend this) so I've been playing with the timing a bit. I usually
nurse Hank right when he wakes up (as usual) and then I feed him solids
whenever we are all sitting down for a meal. So, If he nurses at
7:30am, I usually feed him breakfast around 8am, when we are all eating
and then he nurses around 5/5:30pm and I usually feed him solids around
6/6:30pm or whenever we are eating dinner. He nurses at 7:30am, 11am,
2:30am, 5pm, 7:30pm, and 5am (approximately). So far he has liked most
things, or I should say tolerated... he only seems to really like sweet
potatoes. We have had to stay away from bananas, apples and rice and I
go heavy on the peas and pears as he's not having the easiest time
pooping... hoping this passes with age!
On a random side note - we did go through about a week when Hank
wouldn't take a bottle, we tried a bunch of random things (changing
temperature, changing nipple size, doing it in the middle of the night,
etc.) but I think ultimately Hank was just sick and cranky and that's
why he wouldn't take one. Once he was feeling better he got right back
into the swing of things. One day during his bottle strike I was gone
volunteering and Ben ended up making really milky rice cereal and spoon
feeding Hank a bunch of milk!
SLEEP - so the sicknesses through off our schedule a lot, typically I
would say hank took two 1-2 hour naps a day, and one 45 minute nap, but
while sick it was kind of random. I like the longer two naps to be his
first two naps because then it lines up that he is sleeping while Lucy
is sleeping, but he would often only take 45 minutes for the first
and/or second nap and then be super cranky between naps (so I know he
wasn't getting enough sleep!) and make up for the lack of sleep during
his third nap. Normal nap schedule is 9/9:30am, 12:30pm, 4/5pm... I try
to push him for at least 2 hours of wake time, or to stick close to the
nap start time, otherwise he was giving me weird cat naps throughout the
day. At night he is still going from about 7/8pm - 7/7:30am. He still
lays down very easily and rarely fusses when going to sleep (except of
course during the ear infection period).
MILESTONES - Hank continues to army crawl. He gets up on all fours, but
then I think he realizes that would not be as fast as just going to his
belly and crawling, so he goes back to his tried and true method. Part
of me wonders if he will regular crawl because he can get places pretty
fast doing the army crawl. Towards the end of the month he learned to
go from crawling to sitting and has been working really hard on pulling
himself up. He can't quite do it, but I can tell all he wants to do is
stand. He had not started babbling yet (he started while we are on
vacation) but was smiling and laughing way more this month. He is
always watching and observing everyone else in our family (especially
Lucy) to see what is going on, and loves to be a part of the all the
action.
When he isn't sick, Hank continues to be an extremely happy baby. On
vacation, my mom and her friend commented all the time on how happy and
smiley he was and when we were back the nursery volunteer at Grace said
he was one of the happiest babies she has watched (of course he isn't
like this all of the time because of sicknesses, teeth, etc... but
that's why it is easy to tell when something IS wrong, he's normally not
cranky at all). He is almost always smiling. He loves grabbing stuff,
and I often find him crawling across the floor after having spotted a
crumb or piece of dirt (thanks for the reminder that I need to vacuum
buddy!)... he's very determined, much like his sister.
So, pictures were pretty difficult! This guy did not wan to sit still. I think these first couple pictures are the best I got.
I tried to get his normal pictures laying on the blanket, but he was not having it. One second he was laying. The next...
he was off!
and on to better things. It's hard to keep him on his back these days.
Pictures with teddy were about the same. Hank was not wanting to sit still. And teddy was certainly not going to last sitting next to him.
Then he heard somebody coming...
Luc decided to join in the fun after her nap time.
From then on, there was a whole lot of this
And a whole lot of this.. (see video for more of the fun!)
