Easter 2012

We went to my brother and sister in law's house for Easter weekend.  They live about three hours away from us and we hadn't been up there in a while.  We drove up on Saturday and spent all afternoon playing outside.  

Me, Syble, and Blakely

Collier, Lonnie, B, and Syble

This is seriously the best baby toy ever...

This was Blakely's first time to swing and she absolutely loved it!

Big smiles!

We went to church with them on Sunday morning.  We never go to church so this was a little bit out of our norm.  We had a good time and Blakely did so well...she only talked a few times and it wasn't loud or anything.  

 I love her...

Me and Marshall...Lonnie's brother

My little family...I love them so much

 Blakely checking out her Easter basket

 What?  A new Soph.ie the Giraffe teether???  I don't care what else is in there mom!

 I told Syble to be very careful when Blakely was sitting up because she still falls over sometimes and she put her arm around her.  She was also reading the Bible to her because she wanted to.  melt.my.heart.

 Her fun new toy...a huge hit!

After church we had a huge lunch that Marshall made for us.  It was fantastic and I was so ready for a nap after all that food!  Before we left we tried to get a picture of all the kids.  It didn't go so well because Blakely super hungry and sleepy...not good.  Here is how they turned out :)

Sophie Grace is looking at Blakely like why the heck are you crying??

Also, I had some Easter pics of Blake taken last week.  I haven't placed my order yet...need to do that like now.  But here are the preview ones she put on Fac.ebook.  Can you even believe the cuteness?????  I nearly died....

I'll post a few more when I get them...   Happy Wednesday!!!

Just a day....

This post will be seriously boring to most.  But, I just wanted to document a random day in my life with an almost six month old.  This was my day yesterday...

6 Blakely wakes up.  I change her, feed her, and then put her back to bed.  

630 pump (usually about 4-5 oz)

645 crawl back in bed

730 B wakes up for the day

745-815 fix me and Blake some breakfast.  We are both having oatmeal (different kinds thank goodness....have y'all tasted that crap???)  I eat mine and she spits hers out.  

815-830 clean her up from the crazy mess she made!

830 diaper change and breastfeed

830-900 I go through some of her old clothes while she plays on the floor.  I'm making piles to give away and then storing the other stuff.  

915 she gets sleepy and goes down for a nap in the crib.  She goes down easy this time...miracle!

915-945 I straighten my hair (because I didn't have time after my shower the day before), clean up the living room and kitchen.  I also start a load of towels.

945 B wakes up.  I let her play in her crib for 15 minutes while I finish putting on a little makeup

1000-1020 change her diaper.  I get dressed.  I also start the diaper laundry.

1020 We walk down to the dock to pay the guy who is cleaning our boat (YAY BOAT!)

1030 I put B in the Jumparoo.  I move the straps on her car seat...been meaning to do that for a week!  Start cold wash on the diapers.

1045 She decides she hated the Jumparoo.  I take her out and feed her a little early because she is fussy.

1100 Blakely in bouncer chewing on Sophie.  Hot wash for diapers.  I make me some lunch.

1110-1130 I eat my lunch while reading a few blogs.

1130 Put dishes in dishwasher.  Wash the bottles and pump parts from the day before.  diaper change.

1200 Leave house to run errands.  Have to turn around twice because I left something at home..

1215 Actually leave house!  I had to take a phone to my brother and we went to see Lonnie at work...he loves that!  I also ran into Belk to try and find a top for Easter.  Usually Blakely loves this but for some reason she screamed the whole time I was trying on clothes.  Not crying....just yelling!  She slept on the drive to see Lonnie and on the drive home.  About 30 minutes total.

215 Get home and breastfeed.  diaper change.  

230-330 We play in her room.  She practiced sitting up.  I organize more clothes.

330 We go upstairs and I make a snack.  I have to resist the urge to eat everything in my house because by this time I am starving...every day!

345-415 NAKEY time!  She loves this and she rolls over two more times!  (Only her 2nd and 3rd time ever going from back to belly)

415 Diaper change and nap

415-500 I hang up the diapers and start a load of B's clothes.  I also do my sit up's and some Pil.ates.  

500 She wakes up.  Breastfeed and change her diaper.  Also change her clothes and get ready for a boat ride when daddy gets home.  

500-600 Play on the floor...waiting for daddy...should have been home at 5!  I also start another load of laundry.

600-715 First boat ride of the spring!!!

715-800 Diaper change.  Let the dogs up and feed them.  Entertain a fussy baby who is so so sleepy since she only slept 1.5 hours total all day.  

800-830 Diaper change, pajamas, feeding (bottle), and put down to bed.  

830-845 Fold laundry and stuff the diapers

845-945 Eat dinner leftover from the night before and watch Bo.nes with Lonnie.  

945 Pump (about 4-5 oz) and get ready for bed.

1000 Lights out!  Mama's tired!

This was just a random day for me.  I feel like I did a ton and I didn't even cook dinner!  It was Blakely laundry day though...

Have you ever written down what you do in a day.  I was kind of surprised!  Everything seemed so small but it took up my whole day!  Best part of the day?  The boat ride!    

Blakely's First Vacation!

So a few weeks back we went on our first vacation with the babe.  We wanted to go to a place that wasn't cold and where we could walk around with her in the stroller a bunch.  I was okay with flying but we decided to just drive since we needed to take so many things for Blakely.  pump, stroller, car seat, packn.play....

We picked New Orleans.  It is about an 8 hour drive...without a 5 month old.  I have been twice but I was a teenager when I went.  My husband has been many times.  We have been wanting to go there for a while so this seemed like the perfect opportunity.  

We decided to bring my mother in law with us just so she could stay in the hotel and watch Blakely if we needed her to.  This turned out to be an AWESOME idea :)  

We drove down there on a Sunday and it took us about 9 hours...not too bad with a baby!  Blake did GREAT in the car.  I was totally prepared for her to be over the car seat after about 4 hours, but she wasn't.  My mother in law stayed in the back with her and entertained her and played with her.  They had a blast.  When we would stop, I would nurse her and change her diaper.  Then Lonnie would walk around with her while we got gas and all went to the bathroom.  Once we were done it was back in the car seat for the next 2-3 hours.  She only got fussy once and that was when we were 20 minutes away from our hotel.  But, who am I kidding, I was fussy too!

Sunday night we just got room service and let B play on the bed way past her bed time.  Since she had been in the car seat all day, she was really wanting to stretch out and play.  So we let her.  We took the pack.n.play for her to sleep in. I was a little worried about this too since she hasn't slept in it...oh, EVER!  But she did great every night.  She woke up a little earlier than normal a few mornings but I just put her in bed with us and she would go back to sleep.

Monday morning we walked all over the Fren.ch Quar.ter and then stopped at a little place and had lunch.

It was great and B slept through our lunch.  Then we walked along the river and enjoyed the beautiful weather.  

That night, all four of us went out to dinner.  We had a great time.  We took a cab so me and Lonnie got to enjoy a few adult beverages...YIPPEE!!

She got beads...

Mama got beads too ;)

This is the first time we had to take her out of her car seat at a restaurant...she did so good once we did!

On Tuesday we decided to go to the aquarium.  But first we needed lunch.  Bob (mother in law), me and B went and found a place for us to eat along the river while Lonnie stood in line to get the BEST.MUFFALETTA.EVER....  I do not kid...it was badass....and huge... 

The line to get in the aquarium was 43586 people long.  I don't know if it was like spring break in Louisiana or if it was because it was kinda rainy that day but GEEZ...everyone was there.  They opened up some new lines and we got in pretty fast.  Then all of the sudden I got totally stressed out.  It was hot in there with absolutely not air circulation.  There were a million kids and all I could hear were coughs and sneezes.  Blake was completely asleep and I started wondering why in the hell we were even there.  Why were we exposing her to all of these unnecessary germs?!?  So we left...after we paid to get in.  Lonnie wasn't all that happy about it and I'm sure Bob thought I was crazy.  I kinda thought I was crazy.  But, I just had no idea there would be so many people in there!  So we walked around some more and did a little shopping.  

 She did wear her fishies to the aquarium for 5 minutes :)

That night Lonnie and I went on a date.  Bob stayed in the room and put Blakely to bed.  We had a fantastic dinner and an even more fantastic bottle of wine.  It was so so so so nice!  We then went out on Bour.bon Street for a little bit...that was interesting :)

The next morning we went to Bren.nen's for brunch.  I ate so much I was sick...seriously.  It was so yummy I just couldn't stop eating!  We took B in the baby bjorn and not the stroller.  Bad idea.  We were there for a really long time (my only complaint) and she got sleepy.  She didn't get TOO fussy but we had to entertain her for most of the time.  

After brunch, we ran back to the hotel to get the stroller and then went shopping on Maga.zine Street.  Blakely was out before we even got out of the hotel.  

We did a ton of walking that day and were all worn out so we decided to stay in for dinner.  Lonnie went to the store and made us and awesome cheese plate, with salami, apples, 4 cheeses, almonds, and a few other things.  We enjoyed it on our balcony overlooking the Fren.ch Quar.ter.  It was a great evening in!

This was the view from our balcony.  

The next day we got our car and drove through the Garden District.  It was so beautiful...the houses, the trees, all of it!  

Then we were going to tour a cemetery but it closed at 3...we got there at 310.  Sad face...  I was looking forward to that...

Lonnie and I went out to dinner together that night as well.  I had shrimp and grits....LOVE!  

We drove home on Friday, the day before my birthday.  Blakely did great on the trip home as well!  I was so proud of her.  It was a great trip leading up to my great birthday!  B was such a good traveler and I know we will be taking her many more places.  I am already trying to decide where to next!  She spent a lot of time in her car seat and her stroller but she was just happy and looked around at everything...taking it all in.  

 I am so glad we took this last minute trip.  It was great to spend time with my little family.  It was especially great to see how well Blakely did when she was out of her normal routine.  I didn't stress about keeping her on the same schedule...I  just tried to go with the flow, we were on vacation after all.  It was also great to have 2 date nights with this handsome guy...

I am so lucky...

How I spent my birthday

I have like 451 posts that I have been meaning to write...just no time!!!

I've been meaning to post about my birthday!  Life has been such a whirlwind but I want to remember what I did for my big 30th birthday.

Blakely slept until 7 that morning and then I fed her and brought her in the bed with us.  She fell back asleep and we all snuggled for 2 more hours!  It was so awesome!

I can't think of anything better to wake up to...

We decided we wanted to go to breakfast....sort of a late breakfast.  We were driving around and nothing sounded good so we just decided to go to the store and get stuff to make breakfast at home.  

Lonnie cooked a huge breakfast and we ate outside on our deck.  It was so very nice.  Then we all took a nap together..glorious!  

Happy Birthday Mommy!  Seriously, that is what she is saying....

We have a pretty cool parade downtown every year.  I felt like we should go but I didn't really want to.  I just wanted to spend time with my baby.  We didn't want to take her because it is kind of a wild parade and not for little babies...if you know what I mean ;)  

This is my most favorite picture of us ever...We are all smiling so big!

We did get a babysitter for just a few hours and Lonnie and I went.  We met up with some friends and hung out for about an hour and a half.  Then we decided to come home.  I just wanted some B snuggles and I wanted to be the one to put her to bed.  

After we played with her for a while I put her to bed.  It was hard to put her down because I was just so thankful to have her.  I spent a few birthdays longing to be rocking my baby to sleep and I was finally doing it.  I can't really even put in to words how grateful I am to be her mommy.  

Lonnie cooked us an amazing dinner and we ate outside.  It was so lovely.  It was such great weather we ended up laying on a blanket looking up at the stars for a few hours!  What a wonderful way to spend my 30th birthday.  I wouldn't have wanted it any other way! 

Oh and I did get an awesome present from Lonnie.  We are waiting for it to be delivered and then I will post some pics :) 

Up next, our trip to New Orleans!!!