Punkin' Carving

We have just had the best week with the best of friends. I feel like we haven't had one second of free time, but it's been SO worth it!! 

On Monday night, the Martins invited us over for pizza and pumpkin carving. The Schneiders were there and so was Whitney!!!! It was her first time to meet Miss Cami....way overdue. 

Liz was so smart and had some extra little pumpkins and stickers to keep the boys entertained while the adults carved pumpkins. 

This pregnant momma has got some pumpkin carving skills!!!

Jeffrey was getting pretty serious

They turned out so cute!!! (Jeffrey's, Liz's and Trav's)

Thank you, Martin family!!!!!

Halloween Art Party

Have I mentioned lately how blessed we are to have the sweetest friends ever? 

Chandler decided she wanted to have an "art party" and do art with the younger kids, so her sweet parents decided to have a Halloween art party!! It was way too much fun. Lots of food, decorations, pumpkin painting, cookie decorating, pinata, pumpkin carving and dance party. We decided they need to make it an annual event. :) I already can't wait until next year!!!

 I think I have about 20 pictures of these 3 baby girls....and this is the best one...haha

The guys had a pumpkin carving contest....not sure how I missed getting a picture of the final results ( I was probably feeding or rocking a baby or chasing after a toddler...imagine that!) But they were all really good!!! Patrick came away with the 1st place prize. :)

cutest pumpkins in the patch!

A few weeks ago, we headed out to the Silo Christmas Tree Farm pumpkin patch with the Schneiders. It was Cami's 1st pumpkin patch experience and we had lots of fun. It definitely did not FEEL like pumpkin patch weather....I'm pretty sure it was about 95 degrees, but we made the most of it and crammed lots of activities into a short amount of time so that we weren't out in the heat for too long. Colby and Rhett always have so much fun together. I can't wait for Jaleigh to join in the mix next year!!! We'll have 2 big boys and 2 toddlers....it will be all hands on deck for sure! :)

10 years?!??

How could I have graduated over 10 years ago if I'm only 24 years old?!???

Travis and I had SO much fun celebrating 10 years with my classmates at Oscar Store last weekend. (ok, I'm not sure if Trav had SO much fun, but I think he did enjoy himself)

Thank you to my mom who kept both of our kiddos OVERNIGHT by herself!! She is a rockstar. It was the first time that I was able to turn off Camryn's monitor and just sleep. 

I pretty much spent every waking hour with these girls for 4 years. I love them so much and was so glad to catch up and spend the evening with them!!!!

 couldn't let the night go by without a stunt....we've still got it (ok, it's only a thigh stand....but we rocked it!)

 I do love those Wildcats :)

FUMC preschool

Colby LOVES school so much!!!! On Monday/Wednesday/Friday mornings he literally jumps out of bed and yells "It's a school day!!!!" I'm so thankful for First United Methodist preschool, Ms. Tammy, and all of the other teachers there for loving on my baby. I could not ask for a better school experience for him this year. 

October is probably one of the best months at school thanks to fire safety month and the pumpkin patch!!

I pray that Colby always has a love for school like he does at the sweet age of 3. 

love these munchkins!!!

Our precious (yes, I said precious....the 5 month mark has been good to us) baby girl has STILL not rolled over, but she can almost turn her head 360 degrees to see whatever she wants, so I guess rolling is not necessary. She has TWO bottom teeth, she is sleeping 9-10 hours at night, she has the happiest smile I've ever seen, her brother is her favorite thing in the world and she is his. 

Life is good. We are blessed to call these two angels our babies. 

 

She tries so hard....she can get her entire body turned over except for that shoulder. :) Keep trying, baby girl!! 

**UPDATE**

A lot has happened since our doctor's appointment a week and a half ago! (I just realized that this really isn't exciting for anyone but us, but oh well)

Camryn is officially unswaddled during sleeping times. We are using a zip up sleep sack just so that she won't get chilly in the middle of the night. There is no way she'd keep a blanket on. She's a kicker! 

She is sleeping anywhere from 8-11 hours on a good night (usually around 9 hours). There have been a few night where we have still had to let her cry it out for an hour or so in the middle of the night, but she is definitely done with the 3-4 hour stretches- THANK goodness! 

She usually wakes up around 4:30 or 5 which is REALLY early, but I'm usually getting up soon after that to get ready for work anyway, so it's ok. It's better than waking up every 3 hours for sure. 

Cami has eaten squash and apples....she's not a huge fan of either, but manages to eat a little bit before she devours a bowl of oatmeal. 

She's SO close to rolling over....she's been SO close for about a week or 2 now, so I'm beginning to wonder if she ever will! :) 

4 month check up

YAY! We finally got to go visit Dr. K. for Cami's 4 month check up....only 2 weeks late.

We have a healthy and growing baby girl on our hands...praise the Lord for a good report!!

Thankfully, I had time to feed her a bottle right before Dr. K. came in to see her, so she was in the best mood for him. :)

Here are the highlights:

Weight- 14 pounds 10 ounces (50th percentile)

Length- 24 1/4 in (25th percentile...sorry sister, I think those are mommy's genes)

Eating: I have been really concerned about Camryn's eating habits. She is a snacker and about 3 weeks ago I had a really hard time getting her to eat much at all. She's supposed to be getting 24-32 ounces per day and she was getting around 18 ounces on a good day. We switched to soy to see if it would help. She continued her weird eating pattern for another 4-5 days and then finally started eating again (although it was still probably not 24 ounces per day). I'm not convinced that it was the formula switch. I really think she was just having an "off week", but Dr. K. assured me that it really doesn't matter what formula she's on. There are babies all over the world on all different types of formulas that are healthy babies. We may try to switch back to cow's milk based formula at some point, but for now we'll continue with soy. We looked at Camryn's growth curve and she has steadily been gaining weight, so Dr. K. was not concerned at all. 

He gave us the go-ahead for cereal, fruits and veggies. It's totally up to us as far as how much and how often, but by 6 months she should be getting 3 "meals" a day.

Sleeping: So....I've finally got Camryn sleeping pretty consistently at night in her crib. Occasionally I will put her in swing for the 4/5am-7am shift, but she is usually in her crib. (Don't ask about daytime naps....that's another story....one step at a time)

Dr. K. was pretty adamant that she should be sleeping through the night. There is no nutritional reason for night feedings anymore. She is most likely just waking up out of habit, and he recommended that we let her "cry it out" when she wakes up at night. We should go in every 15 minutes to pat her back, make sure she's safe, and then leave her alone to hopefully learn to self-soothe herself back to sleep. He did warn me that this will probably mean a week of hell. I'm definitely wishing I would have done this before going back to work, but there's no going back now....we can do this!!!

It was such an easy concept with Colby, because he was already out of the swaddle by this time and loving his paci. Camryn is still dependent on being swaddled and pretty much refuses the paci, so there's not much I can do to help her calm down other than feed her. 

Fingers crossed and prayers going up that I'm building this up in my head to be a much bigger ordeal than it will actually be. :)

Head: I had concerns about Camryn's head/neck, because she ALWAYS turns to the left. She sleeps with her head to the left, and it constantly straining as far to the left as she possibly can. 

Dr. K. stretched her head to the right to make sure that she could turn the other way and checked for symmetry. He said she looked fine, but we should definitely make an effort to  encourage turning to the right as much as possible. 

"mom, do I really have to get more shots today?!??"

 Colby and I decided tonight was the night to start some veggies. She LOVED the first few bites of squash....and then gagged on the last few...haha...we'll keep working on it! :)

Great way to start off the week!

September supper club- family picnic at Lion's Park :)