isla - 6 months

isla turned 6 months old on december 17th.  how has it seriously been half a year since my life changed again!?  i can't believe i have a baby who is old enough to start trying food, sitting on her own and learning to crawl... not that she's doing any of these things, but still... what?!

isla celebrated her first thanksgiving.  this year we decided to have thanksgiving with my family in georgia since we have not been there on thanksgiving since right after dave & i got married.  i really dreaded how isla was going to do on the trip, so we decided that it would be best to leave in the evening after her last feeding and then just see how it went from there.  we had dinner at our house with dave's mom, fed isla, then we got the kids in their pjs and hit the road.  she actually slept pretty well until we hit some road construction in indiana where we of course couldn't pull off.  she cried all through that and then went right back to sleep.  she slept pretty much from then until her normal wake time and we stopped for breakfast and fed her and then were back on our way.  we had a great week(end) and isla just loved being spoiled by everyone!  she woke up in time to see georgia beat tech and managed to stay calm while everyone lost their mind when auburn beat bama.  oh, college football.

that's about all i can think of for this month, but the pictures are the important part anyway.

hanging out with her buddy sophie.  isla loves sophie way more than ian ever did.

sitting with pop on thanksgiving morning

chatting with gigi

 giving adam and heather a little baby practice (!!)

 

6 months old!

this is about how pictures go these days...

isla - 5 months

i am not sure what i've been doing for the last month, but it hasn't been blogging.  we moved into a new house just over a month ago and we love it.  we are almost completely finished unpacking- and if we ever finish peeling the wallpaper border down from the master bedroom- we might actually paint in there and move our furniture in instead of sleeping on the floor on our mattress. i might write a post about our house one day- so stay tuned!

isla turned 5 months old on november 17th.  this was a rough month for us.  i don't know if it was the move, a wonder week, or what, but she was crazy.  things have settled (esp with her) and now she is just the happiest baby ever- but this past month her sleep schedule was all jacked up, she was fussy and just plain crazy.  no doctor's appointments this month, so i am guessing that her weight is probably around 12 lbs.  she finally mastered rolling over from her back to her belly- but the first time she did it was in her pack n play at 1 am in a fit of rage.  she's let us see her roll over since and now, just like ian, she prefers to sleep on her belly.  she is still nursing well- but is starting to show an interest in what we are eating.  she doesn't really sleep much during the day, despite my efforts, but she does sleep at night for maybe 10 hours?  we almost have her room ready- so i think she'll be moving in there pretty soon, but we've got to figure out how to get it warmer in there.  it's an icebox! 

i can't believe it's been 5 months already.  it seems crazy that it's been that long, yet it seems like it's been forever.

 someone did not like trying out the chair for the first time...

 almost 2 feet tall!

 halloween cheerleader

 post-trick or treating exhaustion

 cute little georgia fans during the auburn game!

5 months old and full of smiles!

long weekend

sorry if i upset any of you with my previous post- we are not expecting.  again.  sorry. 

i have been very lazy with the blog lately.  mostly because i do not budget my time wisely, plus i have a crazy house & a crazy son- plus i feel like i have a lot less time to do these things now that he is bigger- he requires a lot of my attention.  plus.. potty training. 

for memorial day weekend, we headed to ft. wayne, in to see dave's family (gma, aunt, uncle, cousins) & to have some family/ian photos made.  having photos made of a 2 year old is kind of a joke.  he wasn't having it.  dave's cousin's wife, julie, is a talented photographer though, and i'm sure she was able to make some magic happen somewhere.  other than the photos we just took it easy.  we did spend one day out at dave's aunt & uncle's lake house- heaven!  ian loved going in the water and playing in the sand.  lakes kind of make me nervous, but i went in a couple times and we had a lot of fun just enjoying a gorgeous relaxing day & spending time with the family.  plus.  we want a lake house now.  ahem parents & in-laws....  i definitely wish we could have stayed longer b\c i hate that you spend almost a whole day driving... which is a bummer.  plus, i secretly (or not so secretly) love ft. wayne.  definitely love it more than here.  i don't know what it is about that place-  but i just want to live there! 

it's another busy weekend for us.  dave's sister & her husband are in town from philly & saturday we are celebrating the family may/june birthdays + mother's/father's days.  6 birthdays + the moms & dads.  luckily, we already had a bday party for the nephew & the other nephew is only a month old- so it's actually only 4 birthdays.  best part- one of them is mine! 

i am throwing in the towel on ever losing weight & being thin ever again.  i might as well just have the rest of my children and then let the biggest loser take care of me eventually.  actually, i'm going to have some blood work done soon.  we'll let that be the deciding factor. 

i've been looking for this necklace ever since i found out i was the last person on the planet to know of its existence.  i've found some that i like on ebay.  they may not be of the best quality, but i can't argue at those prices.  thank you china & hong kong!

i'm off to bed for now.  another crazy toddler day.  fits & potty training galore tomorrow. 

steppin' out saturday: mother's day weekend

 on ian: top- target, jeans- sonoma, shoes- nike.  on me:  top- trinity (via zulily), jeans- old navy, sandals- urban outfitters, earrings- modcloth.

we took it easy this weekend.  we decided to have our mother's day dinner saturday night to avoid the crowds on sunday.  and while i named off about 50 places i really wanted to go- we decided to put those on a "date night" list & go somewhere family friendly so that ian would enjoy himself, which means we would enjoy ourselves.  sunday we all had breakfast in bed & i got to open my mother's day gifts- chocolates, a gift card to ulta (new makeup!!) a cd and some hello kitty workout headbands.  we lazed around for a while and then decided to head out for the day.  we had lunch at panera, took ian to target to get him a new car, played for a while at the neighborhood playground & then headed out for ice cream (sorbet for him, of course).  when we got home, ian napped while dave & i just relaxed.  when everyone was awake again we headed to dave's parent's house to have dinner.  i made sure to give my mom a call (they're in florida)!   after spending time with them we came home & crashed.  perfect days spending lots of meaningful time with my boys.

how was your mother's day?

tomorrow is a big day for us...  i am going back to work!  it's only 1 day a week, but i think it will be nice to have a few hours out of the house to get my work done and ian will make some new friends & have lots of fun.  we found a great place for him which i'm sure i'll talk more about later.  i'm so nervous, and a little sad.  as much as i want time to get my work done, i don't want to leave my boy this long.  so keep us in your thoughts tomorrow- but i'm sure everyone will be just fine!!

easter weekend

we spent our 3rd easter week in atlanta in a few weeks ago and we had a blast, per usual.  our drive down went pretty well- it was actually the best ian has ever done on one of our trips.  there was minimal crying & screaming.  he was pretty content watching his movies ("monsers" (monsters, inc), "cool cars" (cars), "twains" (the little engine that could), gabba & george).  we made it in about 13 hours with 2 big stops, and ian took 2 really good naps.  on our last big stop, we turned off the dvd player, got him a little snack & told him it was time to rest & he could listen to the brothers and rest.  he actually fell asleep for a few hours- if it weren't for a stop for gas, he probably would've slept until we were at my mom & dad's house.

i was really excited to visit with my grandparents while we were in town.  they were hoping to make it up to visit us at my parent's house, but my grandmother ended up having to have surgery a couple weeks before and she was staying in a rehabilitation house.  ian was excited to see his "pop & gigi" too, although he had a hard time b\c he wasn't allowed to just run around and do whatever he wanted.

 ian and gigi (look at that sweet face)

 mommy, ian, pop & gigi

frustrated mommy, crying baby, pop & gigi.  my face is so full of concern.


that evening we took ian to see the easter bunny.  the photo speaks for itself.

ian likes the idea of the easter bunny- in fact, every time he sees the picture he gets all excited and says "bunny!!"  the bunny himself, not so much.

then we met friends for dinner at gladys & ron's chicken n waffles.  omg- delish.

love you heatha 4eva!

jacket: loft
top: modcloth bonbon voyage top
jeans: old navy rockstar jeggings (love them)
sandals: seychelles

since i already talked about coloring eggs and the hours of throwing the football, i'll skip right ahead to easter.  the easter bunny came to visit our family, and we headed to church at the horsepark for an easter egg hunt and the easter service.  

easter is so fun... but exhausting.

 little easter stud!

lots of easter egg hunting fun!

family photo time- notice how everyone is looking in the full family photo- it's an easter miracle!

 ian's easter outfit:  blazer, polo, pants, tie- target.  sandals- old navy

my outfit (i love, love, love this dress):  dress- modcloth (swapped).  belt- forever 21. wedges- seychelles

fun with uncles

my dad set the backyard on fire in the middle of the last round of the masters, much to everyone's dismay.  luckily, it went to a playoff and we didn't miss anything.

ian tried to learn how to escape from the packnplay.  he didn't.  thank goodness.  i'll have none of that back at home. 

there's always time for coffee, donuts, and wedding talk with a friend!

whew, atlanta trips are fun.. but exhausting.  we got back & were home for less than 24 hours before we were off on our next adventure... more on that to come later!

super easy easter craft

it goes without saying that i am probably one of the least crafty people in the entire universe.  which doesn't seem very fitting with the fact that i'm southern- it's like you're supposed to be born crafty.  every once in a while though, i make feeble attempts at being craftastic. 

we didn't go to church this weekend b\c ian was just so tired and spent most of the weekend screaming at the boths of us.  i wanted to still do something leading up to easter, so that he would maybe have a little bit of understanding about what the meaning of easter is.  one of ian's favorite books right now is his children's bible.  i know he probably likes all the colorful illustrated pages, but it's pretty funny to have him chasing you around the house screaming "biiiiblllle."  i wanted to read the bible easter stories this week anyways, so we decided to do something fun to prepare for easter & learn about palm sunday. 

i had green construction paper on hand, so what could be easier than making palm branches out of them- plus, they're lots of fun to dance with (ian is currently doing the elmo slide with them... help us).  they probably won't make it to tomorrow, but they're still lots of fun! 

1.  find green construction paper and draw your palm branches.  i used one page for both branches.  my first one was way prettier than the second- so i had to improvise to a make it look a little more normal.  this is my ugly palm branch...

2.  cut out the palm branches- easy enough- just takes a little time. 

3.  next i got him to sit with me and i read him the palm sunday bible story and taught him to wave his palm branches and say "hosanna" which sounds more like "aaannna"

see, that was so simple.  ian enjoyed listening to the story & then running around like a wild man waving his palm branches...

and then the palm branches took an airplane ride- it's probably too cold here & they needed to go back to their own climate...

any fun easy easter crafts that you do in your house?