Monday, May 20, 2013

Menu Plan Monday - Week of May 19th



We have been busy, busy, busy around here!  Nothing special, just the day-to-day things, but with only one of me and two little ones, plus other tasks to do, it's enough to keep me busy all day long!  The weekend went by far too quickly (it always does!) so alas it's Monday again.  Here's what we'll be eating this week:


Sunday:  Grilled Burgers with Zesty Oven Fries

Monday:  Cobb Salad

Tuesday:  Grilled Steak Fajitas

Wednesday:  Mom's Night Out!

Thursday:  Leftovers/Freezer Meal

Friday:  Smoky Tex-Mex Sloppy Joes with Baked Sweet Potato Fries

Saturday:  Out


I'm linked at Menu Plan Monday hosted by OrgJunkie.com

Monday, May 13, 2013

Menu Plan Monday - Week of May 12th




Sunday:  Out for Mother's Day

Monday:  Mexican Quinoa with Chips and Salsa

Tuesday:  Grilled Burgers with Oven Fries 

Wednesday:  Asian BBQ Chicken with Lime-Cilantro Rice with Pineapple

Thursday:  Leftovers/Freezer Meal

Friday:  Asian BBQ Chicken Pizza

Saturday:  Out


I'm linked at Menu Plan Monday hosted by OrgJunkie.com

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Molly - 3 months



Little Miss Molly has turned 3 months old!

Not too much to report this month as we've pretty much been doing more of the same.  Molly is growing like a weed, I swear she looks bigger every day!

She's still doing great with night time sleep.  The last handful of days she's slept clear through the night!  And not textbook sleeping through the night (6 hours), which she has been doing for a long while, but REAL through the night meaning like 8pm-8am.  Blissful!  And this little lady is starved when she wakes up in the morning!  It's no wonder with going that long between feedings, but I guess she likes her beauty sleep more :)



She's still taking about 4oz of formula at every feeding.  She tends to eat every 2-3 hours during the day.  When she was still getting up once overnight she would typically take a 5oz bottle then and when she wakes up in the morning after sleeping ~12 hours she's taking more like 6 oz.  This 12 hours of sleep thing is still new and this momma forgot just how much she was eating first thing this Monday morning (and just how quickly she was eating it) and I accidentally let her suck her whole bottle down without a burp.  She's fine with this when she's drinking her daytime bottles, but 6oz is just FAR too much at once on an empty stomach and before I knew it she was spitting up all over herself, me, and the fresh sheets that had been put on the bed a mere 8 hours ago.  I'll bet I don't make that mistake again!

Naps are still okay.  I think my babies just aren't early nappers.  Molly just eats and sleeps whenever she wants still (although she has put herself on a pretty regular schedule/routine) and she tends to nap for about 30-40 mins at a time.  Seems pretty typical for her age though.  I would like to see longer naps, but I'm pretty thankful for what we have.  Jack would nap for about 30 mins at this age, but he would only sleep ON me.  At least Molly takes her cat naps laying down on her own!  I'm sure this will evolve into longer, more regular naps just like it did with Jack.


Now that she's sleeping a 12 hour stretch she's waking around 7-8am, taking a bottle, and then going back to sleep for a couple of hours, which is similar to what Jack used to do.  It's nice, except I can't go back to sleep with her :)  She's usually up by 9-10am and eats again, then is up for a while.  Around 11am-12pm she naps again.  Then again around 1-2pm.  Then she's usually up for quite a stretch and sometimes takes a little cat nap around 4-5pm and then is ready to start winding down for bed around 7-8pm.  It's a pretty great schedule we're working with right now!  

Also on the topic of sleep, we've finally hit the point where she's more aware of what's going on around her while she's sleeping.  Used to be that she would just sleep through anything, but she's more easily disturbed now.  I know this is developmental.  So I've started recently putting her back in one of the bedrooms for her naps and last night she slept in our room before we headed to bed rather than out in the family room with us.  I miss being able to just look over and see her sleeping, but it's better for her this way! 

Something new this month is laughing!  She first laughed a couple of weeks ago, but I wasn't really able to get her to do it again.  She's doing it a little more frequently now, but she has to be in the right mood.  I can't wait for those huge belly laughs that I know are headed our way!

Right now, Molly is still wearing her 0-3 month clothes, but she's close to outgrowing them.  This month I picked up some new, girly cloth diapers and they're just adorable and I'm way too excited about them :)

She had her 2nd and 3rd vaccines recently and she seemed to do better with them than her 1st.  Not sure if it's because they were different vaccines or because she's done it before.  With her first shot she was just out of sorts for a few days.  With this round she was out of sorts for the rest of the day, but seemed back on track after that.  I sure hope that's how subsequent vaccines go as I really hate to see her affected by them.  I'm always worried about what's going on in her little body after an injection.

Catching some extra sleep snuggles after she got her shot.

She's so much droolier than Jack ever was and she always has her hands in her mouth.  Jack was never big on chewing on things (including his own hands), but that kind of presented problems down the road a bit when he was time for him to start feeding himself.  I know he was the atypical one, but it's just different now that we have a baby who does put things in her mouth!  She also tends to suck on her hands and fingers as she goes to sleep.  It will be interesting to see if she ends up being a thumb/finger sucker.

Molly has definitely started to reach and grab for things.  It's not super intentional at this point and she doesn't seem to quite be to the point where she's intentionally reaching for things to bring to her mouth yet, but she's getting there!  It's so fun watching her development.

She's still very content and seems to still really like to watch me do things.  Even if she's starting to get fussy, if I bring her seat outside while I'm hanging laundry, or into the kitchen when I'm working on something, she's happy to just watch what's going on.  I hope daily minutiae is entertaining enough for her :)  And she still loves to catch a snuggle in the wrap.  She often surprises me by not falling asleep while being worn, but just being quietly watchful of what's going on around her. 

I was able to interest Jack in getting his picture taken as well!

Overall she's still just a happy, smiley baby.  She loves to catch everyone's attention with a big, bright gummy smile!

Monday, May 6, 2013

Menu Plan Monday - Week of May 5th



Sorry it's been so quiet around here.  We've been busy living life and I haven't been able to keep up with documenting it :)  We've had some lovely weather {finally} so we've been spending lots of time outside!  Mark spent a good bit of the weekend working on our landscaping out back and it looks great!  It's a little drizzly here today and I'm actually thankful for a break in the nice weather.  Gives us an excuse to have a lazier day and get some things done around the house.  Here's what we're eating this week:


Sunday:  Grilled Burgers with Baked Potato Wedges

Monday:  Pork Carnita (Crock Pot) Tostadas

Tuesday:  Kentucky Hot Brown Panini with Salad

Wednesday:  Chipotle Chicken Pasta

Thursday:  Leftovers/Freezer Meal

Friday:  Grilled Sausages with Cheesy Potatoes

Saturday:  Out


I'm linked at Menu Plan Monday hosted by OrgJunkie.com

Monday, April 29, 2013

Menu Plan Monday - Week of April 28th




Sunday:  Chili Cheese Dogs with Veggie Dippers

Monday:  Breakfast for Dinner - Bagel Sandwiches with Fruit

Tuesday:  Chipotle-inspired Chicken Burritos

Wednesday:  Freezer Meal

Thursday:  Shredded Buffalo Chicken Sandwiches (Crock Pot) with Ranch Potato Wedges

Friday:  Crab Rangoon Pizza

Saturday:  Out


I'm linked at Menu Plan Monday hosted by OrgJunkie.com

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

We're goin' to the zoo, zoo, zoo!

I took my first trip to the zoo today.  Let me tell you all about what I saw!


Yesterday, we took our first trip of the year to the zoo.  We are lucky to have a wonderful local zoo and we all love visiting!

It was not only our first visit of the year, but Molly's very first visit as an outside baby!  The last time we went to the zoo was in December to see the Wildlights and I was pretty pregnant! 

Visiting the zoo is usually a pretty tiring trip, even when it was just Jack and me.  There's a lot of walking, things to schlep along, etc.  I've found that visiting (anywhere really) with TWO little ones is exponentially more tiring!  AND Molly is still extremely portable so I'm sure it will get even more difficult from here! 

Okay, well, I slept through most of it, but I did see fish in the giant aquarium and thought it was pretty cool!


It was a pretty good visit.  The weather was perfect.  Jack was excited to go.  Molly ate shortly after we arrived and then pretty much just slept in the wrap the rest of the time.  New this visit was Jack wanting to walk more than he wanted to ride.  It makes me nervous that I don't have him contained in such a big place with so many people, but he is getting older (and pretty big for the stroller) so it's going to happen.  I feel like I was on anxious, high alert the whole time, but he did pretty good with it overall.  We'll work on it. 

Molly pretty much saw the aquarium and then slept the rest of the time.  Jack was more interested in running around than seeing any animals and had a few episodes of 3-year-oldness, but he got over it and enjoyed himself most of the time. 

I thought for sure after all that walking and running around that Jack would take a nap when he got home, but unsurprisingly he did not.  *I* was more than ready for a nap, but Miss Molly slept the whole time we were there so she was bright-eyed when we got home!  On top of that, Mark is out of town so I'm flying solo with both kids for the first time.  At least we all slept well last night!


Monday, April 22, 2013

Menu Plan Monday - Week of April 21st



Happy Earth Day!


Sunday:  Smoked Ribs with Corn Pudding and Southern-Style Green Beans (Crock Pot) 

Monday:  Grilled Burgers with Baked Sweet Potato Fries

Tuesday:  The kids and I are own our own for dinner so we'll do leftovers, something quick, or maybe some soup from the freezer

Wednesday:  Homemade Tomato Soup with Grilled Cheese

Thursday:  Freezer meal - didn't get to this last week because we had an extra leftovers day

Friday:  BBQ Chicken Pizza

Saturday:  Leftovers/Out


I'm linked at Menu Plan Monday hosted by OrgJunkie.com