Avery's Second Month

Avery,

As of this past Saturday, you are 2 months old! I can't believe my sweet girl is 2 months old already!! I will probably say this every month, but it just goes by so darn fast!

 Weekly photos for weeks 5-8. (You can see her weeks 1-4 pictures in her 1 month post here.)

 

You gained a few more pounds this month! At your 6 week check up you weighed 11 pounds 12 ounces and were 23 1/4 inches long. This is just about the same weight and height that your brother was at, at his 6 week check-up! You are wearing your 3 month and 3-6 month clothes now and have even wore a few 6 month sleepers! We bumped you up to size 2 diapers this month as well.

You are still eating great. Since Mommy has gone back to work we are exclusively formula feeding and that seems to be working well for all of us. You eat 5-6 ounces every 3-4 hours throughout the day and then you generally take your last bottle of the evening between 8:30 and 9:30 and will then sleep until around 5:00 a.m. the next morning. Mommy gets up and feeds you then and then you'll usually go back to sleep and sleep until around 8:30 or 9:00 a.m. This schedule is working out perfect now that I'm back to work because you sleep while Mommy is getting ready for work and that is so very helpful. :-)

You are smiling all the time now and will even try talking to us. You have a lot to say and I just love hearing you "talk". :-) It's got to be the cutest thing ever. You study our mouths when we are talking to you. I think you'll be an early talker. ;-)

You officially slept through the night this month! On June 16th you slept til 5:30 in the morning and then the next night you slept til 6:30 a.m.!! You've been sleeping through the night ever since! You still like to be swaddled up to go to sleep and your new thing is that you like to bury your face in my arm to fall asleep. It's so sweet!! You are starting to like your binkie more and more and I always use it to get you to sleep. You don't really want it throughout the day, but you do like to have it when I rock you to sleep.

You are still loving bath time. I put your little bath tub in the big bath tub so that I could give you and your brother a bath together and you both seem to enjoy this. Jackson likes putting his cars in your tub and you like watching him play!

You celebrated your third holiday this month... Father's Day. :-)

(You and Daddy)

(You and Papa)

We also had you dedicated this month at church! I will write a more detailed post about this special day in the next week or two, but you looked so pretty and did so good.  :-)

Well, I think that just about sums up month 2! You are such a sweet girl and I just love being your mommy. You are so pretty and we get compliments all the time about how beautiful you are. You get lots of love from family and friends. People line up at church to hold you. :-) You are certainly a blessing from God! Mommy loves you to pieces!

 XOXO - Mommy

Explore St. Louis: Purina Farms

Back in April, 2 days before I had Avery, we took a Saturday and went to Purina Farms with Jake's Mom, his Brother and his Brother's family. It was a great day and we all had a lot of fun. It had been years since I had been there. I was probably still in elementary school, so it was fun to go back and take Jackson!

My nieces even got to milk a cow!! Jackson wanted no part of this, Ha!

After spending some time in the barns with the animals, we headed over to watch the dogs compete in the pool! As a dog lover, this was so much fun to watch!

Jackson sharing some popcorn with his cousins during the show.

After watching the dog jumping show, we took a wagon ride around the farm!

And of course, we couldn't leave the farm without getting a picture of Jackson with the STL250 Cake that is there!! (He was too busy to pose for a nice picture so this was the best I could get, Ha!)

It was a super fun day spent with family!

Avery's Birth Announcement

I finally got Avery's birth announcement out a week or so ago! They have been received by all our close friends and family so I thought I'd go ahead and share it here as well. :-) I am SO happy with the way they turned out! I used mixbook.com as I have for Jackson's yearly photo books as well. I love this company. Their website is so user friendly and you can do so much with your books/cards. I was able to coordinate the colors of the writing on the announcement to match her tutu, and when her name banner didn't match, I was able to recreate it using picmonkey and upload it onto the announcement itself! They always have coupon codes and great deals, in fact they have a coupon code for up to 50% off right now! I've never paid regular price for anything I've ever ordered from them. I highly recommend them!

 (front)

(back)

Back To Our Regularly Scheduled Program!

Sadly enough, my 8 weeks of maternity leave ended yesterday as I went back to work and had to leave this pretty girl at home with Maw Maw.

 It went better than expected and we're trying to get back into our routine. Thankfully, Jackson went to Vacation Bible School every day last week, which started at 9 a.m., so that was a good way of easing back into a morning routine. 

(Jackson's first day of Vacation Bible School)

Avery is sleeping really well through the night, only waking up once between 4-6 to eat a bottle and then she goes back to sleep until around 8 or 9! So that's super helpful because both Jackson and Avery are asleep while I'm getting ready for work! That makes life a whole lot easier for me. Just hopefully this schedule continues! Anyone with a baby knows that their sleep patterns can change in an instant.

Avery sleeps great at night, however, she doesn't take very good naps. :-( So in the evenings when she's fussy, I have been putting her in the stroller and taking her and Jackson for a walk up to the park. She loves being outside and going for walks and will often fall asleep, so its a win win because it calms her down and it lets Jackson get rid of some energy!

So hopefully now that things are sort of back to normal, I'll be blogging a little bit more often. I have a lot to share from the time I've had off with the kids. We tried to do as many fun things as possible and hope to continue that the rest of the summer with some fun things we have planned. :-)

Explore St. Louis: The Old Chain of Rocks Bridge

As I've mentioned in a previous post here, the city of St. Louis turned 250 years old this year and they have placed 250 cakes around the city and surrounding areas to commemorate the city's birthday. These cakes are at historic locations and cool places to visit and eat. Many people around the city are searching for these cakes and trying to find all 250 of them. Jackson, Jake and I are doing the same and are now up to 53! 

I say all of this to say that The Old Chain of Rocks Bridge is one of the 250 locations that has a cake. So a couple Sunday's ago, I decided to take Jackson, Avery and two of my nieces to walk across the bridge. 

The bridge is a mile long and was built in 1929. It was a significant landmark for traveler's driving Route 66. In 1967, the new Chain of Rocks Bridge was built just 2,000 feet upstream and the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge closed in 1968 and just sat there and deteriorated. It was originally going to be demolished, but in 1999, they decided to reopen it to the public as part of the Route 66 Bikeway.

It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon, so I took my camera along to get some cool pictures on the bridge. Here are some of my favorites. 

The city of St. Louis from the Bridge.

Avery was such a good sport on our 2 mile walk. She slept the whole way. :-)

Jackson Lately

 Now that we have Avery in the mix, she's been the center of attention lately. However, I have been extra careful to give Jackson extra attention so he doesn't feel any ounce of neglect or that we're not paying as much attention to him. So I thought I'd write a post all about Jackson today. :-)  Jackson is getting so big and I don't want to forget all the fun things in his life right now.

Jackson had his last day of pre-school on May 20th. He had a great time at pre-school and we've even signed him up for some summer camps at his pre-school because he loves it so much. He had his first School Picture taken back in April and I just have to share it because it's so darn cute!

(His teachers name's were Miss Nima and Miss Laura)

Jackson has been talking up a storm lately and I love being able to have full conversations with him now. He says some of the funniest things and I wanted to get some of them written down before I forget. :-) Some of the funniest things he says are...

"Cream Cream" for Ice-cream

"Botcher" for Diaper

"Wear Wear" for Underwear

"Ginkie" for Binkie

"Pee-a" for Pizza
"Goosy" for Goofy

"Sone" for Phone

"Sork" for Fork

"Soon" for Spoon
"Yeah Yeah" for Yes

"Free" for Three and "Sore" for Four

When he counts, he says "One, Two, Free, Nine!" Nine seems to be his go-to number for some odd reason.

Anytime we're with my sister, he always wants to ride in "Ashee's Car". (She drives a mini van and for whatever reason, he just loves riding in her van.) He has cried to ride in "Ashee's Car" when he doesn't get to because we're not going to the same place.

We've been recently working on potty training. We tried the method where they wear nothing but a t-shirt all day and that has gone alright. We brought his little potty into the living room and he definitely recognizes when he needs to go and will say, "Pee Potty" but he doesn't want to sit on the potty for some reason. He will just hold it for as long as he can, even dancing around because he needs to go, but doesn't want to sit on the potty. We had several successful times that he went on the potty, he even pooped once, but after a day or two of potty training he just wanted to wear his diaper again. I even got him new "wear wear" that he got to pick out, but he still doesn't want to go on the potty. I've tried promising snacks and toys and it doesn't seem to help. Any suggestions are welcome if you've had this same problem. :-)

He absolutely loves "Mee Mouse" also known as Mickey Mouse. Ha. He's always loved Mickey Mouse, but it's all he wants to watch now. He use to be pretty happy to watch anything on Disney Jr. but now he only ever wants to watch Mickey Mouse!

He's still eating pretty good these days. He loves pizza! That's probably his favorite meal. He also eats fish sticks, hot dogs and chicken nuggets well. He eats corn, peas, carrots, pickles, mashed potatoes, french fries, apples and cheese well too. His favorite snacks are fruit snacks, peanut butter crackers, licorice, cinnamon rolls, white long john donuts and nutty bars!

His favorite things to do are... play with his cars, play outside, go to the park, go to church, dance to the DJ Shuffle song on Disney Jr. and watch Mickey Mouse.

He still takes one 3 hour afternoon nap, which he absolutely needs or he's a terror! He's wearing 4t clothes and size 8-9 shoes. He's doing a great job with his new role as big brother! He loves his baby sister and wants to hold her briefly throughout the day. 

Jackson, you are such a sweet boy! Mommy and Daddy love you to pieces and enjoy every second we are with you. You make our lives so much better and we love watching you grow! You are such a blessing in our lives and we are so proud to be your parents! ♥