3.5 Month Schedule

As I've said before, we've been following Babywise since Kate was about 2-3 weeks old.  It has been GREAT for our family and Kate is a happy, healthy baby who sleeps very well at night and for naps.  This post probably won't be interesting to anybody (except for the video at the bottom) but since this blog is sort of a journal for me, I wanted to remember what Kate's schedule is at this point in her life.  Plus, if at some point down the road we decide it's time for Kate to have a sibling, I'd like to be able to remember specifically what worked and didn't work with Kate.  Although, I do know that all babies are different! So- here is Kate's general daily schedule at 16 weeks old. Of course this is just a general schedule.  We don't let her schedule rule our lives.  She doesn't HAVE to wake up at 7am on the dot, or be in bed by 8:30, and honestly most Friday and Saturday nights she's not in bed by that time, but for the most part we like to follow this and it has worked out well so far!

7am- Wake up and eat a 7oz bottle. Kate plays a little, and is almost ALWAYS in a good mood, but she's still pretty sleepy.  She might only stay up for 30-45 min before she's ready for a nap.
10am- Eat 6-7oz bottle.
1pm- Eat 6-7oz bottle.
4pm- Eat 6-7oz bottle.
7pm- Eat 6-7oz bottle.  Bath time. Bedtime between 8 and 8:30.
*Kate normally ate again between 10 and 11 (before we went to bed) but we recently dropped this feeding. In BabyWise terms, that feeding was called the dream feed.  She's done great this week without this feeding and has been sleeping from bedtime at 8pm until she wakes up at 7am.

And now a short video that I took a few mornings ago.  She is getting so big.  I put her in 9 month pajamas tonight. WOW! :)

Oyster Roast & Rivalry Weekend

And here is what we were up to the rest of our Thanksgiving weekend.

After all of our Christmas Tree shopping and train riding we headed home to eat leftover Thanksgiving food for lunch.  The guys got home from golf and then we all started getting ready for an oyster roast.  :)

Some of our friends came over and Kate got to meet her future boyfriend, baby Bennett!

While the rest of the crowd was outside eating oysters and standing around the fire, my cousin's little boy was my little helper with Kate.  He got to give her a bottle and help with her bath.  He LOVED it...

And after bath time, Kate got to spend some quality time with my Uncle Jay and her Gigi.

And then it was bedtime... for Kate! The next day, all of the family headed home.  Some were on their way to the Clemson/USC game (which did not turn out well for us Clemson fans).  Our family has both Clemson AND USC fans so we had to get a picture of us all decked out in our collegiate gear...

And of course we had to get one last picture of the cousins...

After everybody headed out, my mom, Kristi, and I put all of the lights on our Christmas tree and then Kevin and I packed up our car to go home.  We had a busy few days, but it was so much fun seeing family and spending time with sweet friends.  So, that was Thanksgiving 2011!  Hope you all had as much fun as we did.  We have LOT to be thankful for.  God is good!

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree...

I'll get back to my Thanksgiving recap posts tomorrow but I wanted to put up these pictures of Kate under our Christmas tree.  I the tree up on Sunday. It's nice that it's not even December yet and the Christmas decor is DONE. :)

Easy Sweet & Salty Treats

My mom wanted me to bring something for the day-after-Thanksgiving Oyster roast, which of course meant some type of finger food.  I saw this recipe on Pinterest, and thought I'd give it a try.  It looked yummy and there didn't seem to be any way to really mess it up since there are just three ingredients:

1. Mini Pretzels
2. Hershey Kisses
3. M&M's

They turned out great, so if you want to try them yourself, here is all you need to do...

Step 1: 
Preheat oven to 275 and lay out pretzels on an un-greased cookie sheet. Place 1 Hershey Kiss in the middle of each pretzel.  I used my oldest cookie tin because I wasn't sure if the chocolate would melt through and make a mess.  I didn't want to mess up one of my good cookie sheets, but it didn't melt through so that wasn't a problem.

Step 2:
Place in the oven for 3-4 minutes, until Hershey Kiss is soft but not completely melting. Remove from oven.

Step 3: 
Press one M&M into the center of each Hershey Kiss.  Refrigerate until eating.  I actually placed the entire pan in the refrigerator.  Since it was only in the oven for 4 minutes, it didn't even get that hot.  By the time I'd pressed M&M's into every one, the pan wasn't even that warm to the touch, so it was fine to put into the refrigerator.

That's it!  They were so easy.  The hardest part was unwrapping all of the Hershey Kisses!

Enjoy!

Day After Thanksgiving

On Friday, we headed to my home town to visit with my family for Thanksgiving.  Like I said in my last post, Kevin met up with the guys to go play golf.  The girls, plus my cousin's little boy Christopher, decided that we would go pick out a Christmas tree.  So me, Kate, my sister Kristi, my mom, my aunt Cathy, my cousin, her son, and their dog Kobe all piled into 2 cars and headed to the Christmas tree farm.

We started off walking around and taking pictures, while Kristi sought out the perfect tree.  She narrowed it down to a few for us.  

She showed us our options and we picked out the best.  We found our tree! Of course we had to take a few pictures with our tree.

And then we watched the tree farm people cut our tree down for us, drill a hole in the bottom for our stand, shake it up so any dead needles fell off, bag it up, and load it in the truck.  Afterward, we went to check out their small animal farm.

After that we went into the Christmas shop to look at their decorations and get some hot chocolate and candy canes.  It wasn't too cold outside so it's not like we NEEDED hot chocolate, but it was still yummy!

On our way back home we stopped by Emerald Farms.  They had a HUGE model train set/display.  It took up the entire top floor of the building.  According to the guy who took us up there, it's been a work in progress for 15-20 years. WOW!

And then we had to take a train ride ourselves!

 By the end of the train ride, it was past our lunch times so we headed back to the house to make some sandwiches with the leftover turkey and ham.  YUMM!

What a fun day already, and it was barely 1 o'clock! We did a lot more things on Friday, but this post is already getting long and I've got some stuff to do around the house so I'll save it for tomorrow! :)

Until then....

Kate's First Thanksgiving

Like I said in my last post, I've been a little MIA lately.  I have been so busy at work lately, and honestly just haven't felt like getting on the computer once I've gotten home.  This 4 day weekend was much needed.  I did promise an update though, and here is Part 1.  The Clemson/Carolina game just started so I'm going to keep it short and finish the update tomorrow! :)

We had a GREAT Thanksgiving!  I was a slacker and only took 2 pictures on Thanksgiving day, which were both of the same thing, BUT we had a great day. We didn't have to travel on Thanksgiving day, so I got to spend some time at home that morning and finish up some cooking, while Kevin went over to our church to check out the Turkey Shoot fundraiser.  Then we went over to Kevin's Dad's house for a big family lunch.

Kate with her Great-Grandma Betty

We came home to finish up some laundry, relax, and pack for the next day, when we would head to my parent's house.  We left bright and early (7:45ish) Friday morning so we could make it to Ninety Six in time for Kevin to meet up with the guys to play golf at the Patriot.  I dropped him off and then made my way to my parents house.  They couldn't wait to see Kate, and my cousin's little boy couldn't wait to meet her for the first time!  He's 5 and was GREAT with her.  He wanted to help do EVERYTHING. 

I'll post some pictures tomorrow of what we got into in Ninety Six, but for now I'm off to watch the Clemson game.  Go Tigers!  Don't disappoint me!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I've been on a bit of a blogging break.  Not on purpose but because, let's face it, life gets BUSY sometimes.  I'll be back later this week to post about Kate's first Thanksgiving.  We've got all kinds of things planned with both sides of our family, so this long weekend should promise to bring lots of fun.  But for now, here's a picture of Kate- who woke up super pumped about her first Thanksgiving!

Sorry it's a bit grainy. It was taken with my phone. 

Happy Thanksgiving to all!  Hope you have a wonderful day filled with family, fun, and of course lots of food!  Don't forget that while Thanksgiving can be filled with all of that good stuff, it is most importantly a day to reflect and be thankful for all that God has given us.

"...May you be filled with joy, always thanking the Father. He has enabled you to share in the inheritance that belongs to his people, who live in the light."
-Colossians 1:11-12