Happy 1/3 of a year!!!

Ok, so I'm a total slacker when it comes to these monthly posts. Poor baby has only been with us for 4 months and I've already missed a month of posting!!! Ugh! Two kids makes being productive REALLY hard!! So please excuse me if this post is a bit longer (yes, longer than my usual long-winded self) as I try and update 2 months of her amazing accomplishments, the little lady has been busy!!!

APRIL:
In Parker Pearl's third month of life, she was very busy tagging along with older sister!! We celebrated Easter, visited the zoo, and had so much fun playing! Parker accomplished rolling from tummy to back (although she will never perform this on video for me!!), started playing more actively with her toys, started reaching out to try and grab toys, can track objects back and forth, and wants to move and chase her sister SOOOO bad!!

 

 I probably neglected to post in April because I was in a constant state of exhaustion!! We officially moved Parker into her room full time this month. I was hoping it would lead to her sleeping for longer periods of time... but I was wrong! haha. April was filled with 2 and 3 hours of sleep at a time and little to NO napping! I was laying her down for bed around 7:30pm and was then feeding her at 11, 2, 5, and finally 8am!! Whew, its exhausting to type! Part of the problem was that she WOULD NOT stay swaddled! I have tried every swaddle available (SummerInfant, Halo Sleep Sack, and the Miracle Blanket) and my little hulk baby always busts out! But, cannot figure out how to sleep without being swaddled!

Photo evidence...

 MAY:

OK, so on to May!! We continued on with no sleep this month, yay, haha. We started to move back towards 4-5 hours, but still nothing substantial and nothing regular. Parker continued to have tons of fun with sister, we went to lunch with Pops, celebrated Mother's day, went to her first Kentucky Derby party, explored new toys, and took our first trip to the pool!! Yes, we like to stay busy!!!

Accomplishments in May:

~ On May 24th, Parker rolled over from back to front (see proof here!!!)

~ After months of little to no sleep, we have had 5 nights of Parker sleeping 7-8 hour stretches!! Don't want to talk about it much so I don't jinx it!!! 

~ On May 22nd, Parker finally was able to get her feet into her mouth!! She has been trying so hard and could just never stretch far enough, haha

~Still going strong with breastfeeding!! This is a huge deal for us :) 

Speedbumps:

~ I'm hoping to not have to put sleep in this category for much longer!! But, naps are still a daily struggle. She is taking a pretty good morning nap, normally 1-1 1/2 hours, but other than that, its little 30 minute cat naps, the girl just doesn't want to miss anything!

~ Still trying to figure out what to do about the swaddle situation. I would love to just ditch it and never look back, but she has trouble sleeping without it, those darn arms always wake her up! So I've been trying to wrap her with one arm out for a while and then we'll try 2 arms and go from there. Fingers crossed!! 

Stats:

Diapers: Still in size 1!!

Clothes: Parker is solidly in 3 or 3-6month clothes, I was so sad to pack away newborn clothes, shes soo big!! I'm sure we will be fast approaching 6 month clothes soon!

Food: I am proud to say we are still going strong with breastfeeding. As many know, it was such a struggle with McKenley and we had stopped by 2 months.  I nurse Parker probably 70% of the time and she takes a bottle of formula the other times. We give her 6 oz of formula before bed to try and fill her little tummy up as much as possible!!

Sleep: Currently, and hopefully it stays like this, Parker is sleeping from 7:30 - 3am and then after being fed 3am - 8am. Sometimes Casey will do that 3am feed and I get an ENTIRE NIGHTS SLEEP!!! It's kind of amazing! Naps are still a struggle, but she is sleeping about an hour to an hour and a half in the mornings and then her other naps are about 30-45 minutes. Hopefully this too will improve. Part of the problem is that we are always on the go with sister, so its hard for her to be on such a set schedule like McKenley was.

Not headed to the doctor til next week and I will update these stats!

Weight: 14 lbs. 3 oz (75%)

Length: 25 1/2 inches (95%)

Head: 16 1/4 inches (75%)

Since this post is getting super long, I'll post her four month pics in a different post :)

Til next time~

McKenley's Green Thumb!!

Back in December I posted about McKenley and Mimi's adventures in our front flower beds... take a look here!!  Well... said flowers were NOT supposed to bloom until April, but thanks to good ole warm Texas weather, we have tulips in February!! ERGH!! Thankfully, McKenley didn't know the difference and was so excited to see them with blooms, we HAD to take some pictures!!

BEFORE:

 AFTER:

How to plant bulbs -- with McKenley and Mimi!!

This past Saturday, Daddy and Grandpa David laid the pretty hardwood floors in Parker's room (pictures to come!!). While they were hard at work, we had to keep the princess busy, so her and Mimi headed outside to plant tulip and daffodil bulbs so we would have pretty flowers in the spring (fingers crossed I don't find a way to ruin them!!). Here are some step-by-step instructions on how its done McKenley style!! haha

FIRST... you should make sure you are very educated about flowers and the bulbs... McKenley told me all about them :)

THEN... dig a hole and toss the bulb in!

 Make sure to cover up the hole.

 Its ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY to stomp all over them to pack in the dirt... this was probably one of McKenley's favorite parts!!

 DON'T FORGET they need lots of water!!!

 This was her other favorite part...

 can ya tell :) haha

We can't wait until these bloom (again assuming my "brown thumb" doesn't find a way to mess them up before then!!) McKenley is going to love visiting them everyday. We love our little gardener and are so lucky her Mimi loves to do things like this with her!! Thanks MIMI!!!

And a "Good Friday" it was!!

Friday before last (aka, Good Friday, haha) McKenley's Mimi, Aunt Rachel, and Aunt Katy, and I loaded up and headed to Fort Worth for the little princess's first trip to the zoo!! She has started to take such interest in animals of all different kinds, we thought it couldn't be better timing. It was a bit on the crowded side because all the schools had out for Good Friday, but since its such a big zoo, the crowds weren't that bad.

McKenley had THE BEST time!!!! She couldn't stop staring at all the animals. She would point and point and make the only animal noise she knows, "ruff! ruff!" -- and no, they weren't all dogs, haha.

First stop, PRIMATE HOUSE!!

The gang!

Loved standing at these exhibits and "talking" to the animals!! haha

Had lots of fun playing with the fun souvenirs!

 On to more fun in the African Safari!!

 We were actually in front of the lion exhibit when he started roaring!! In all my years of visiting the zoo, this was the FIRST time I'd ever seen the lion roar!

McKenley was SPEECHLESS!!

 She loved the penguins!! I think they reminded her of watching Happy Feet! haha

 FISHEES!!! She loved all the bright colors, Casey says now we need an aquarium, haha!

 Last stop... Flamingos!!! And boy were they entertaining!! They were making so much noise and we even saw some of them fighting!!

Thanks Mimi for taking us to the zoo!! Can't wait to go again :)

And can you believe, that was only the FIRST part of our day!!  As we left the zoo, our little adventurer didn't even make it out of the parking lot before she passed out!! We headed back to Mimi's house and decided to take our adventures to Southlake Town Square for some shopping! Of course McKenley got a treat from her Mimi, she said it was a "pre-Easter gift" an adorable stuffed chick that baby LOVES!! Aunt Rachel got a dress for graduation and we had a great afternoon walking around and enjoying the weather!!

Finally, we were off to dinner! It wasn't the smoothest experience, but all in all, McKenley LOVED the Mexican food (like her mommy), the company, and most of all the live band!! She danced the whole way through dinner.

I have to say that I am so happy that I have such a trooper for a daughter. She was in great spirits all day, no matter where we took her! We were EXHAUSTED by the time we finally got home! But we sure did have a "Good Friday"!!! :)

Christmas #5 - Mimi's house!! and Christmas cookies

On Christmas Eve we had the BEST time decorating Christmas cookies!!!! And of course, we had to get McKenley involved, and YES, she got a bit dirty!!

And after we baked the cookies, we definitely had to taste them!! Here's McKenley's first taste of Mimi's gingerbread!!

I think she liked it!!!

And Mimi even gave McKenley her OWN drawer in the kitchen to keep herself busy while the rest of us cooked!!

Okay, on to the presents and more pictures!!

McKenley got some amazing gifts from her aunts and Mimi and David! At one point I almost couldn't find her because of all the bows and boxes surrounding her!!

SNUGGIES!!!!

Aunt Rachel helping McKenley play with her new toys!!

 

And then it was time for a mini-photo shoot in front of the tree!!!

 

These last few days have been AMAZING!!!! I can't wait for many more family-filled holidays to come with our little princess!!

Happy 4th of July!!

This past weekend, McKenley celebrated her first Independence Day, and BOY did she have a blast!! Thanks to Debbie, she had a FANTASTIC outfit to start her day off!

Once we got out to the lake, it was time to try out the pool. This was her first time in a baby pool so it took her a minute to figure things out, but once she did, she loved it!

After some time in the pool, it was time to lay out and get a tan! For being a quarter Vietnamese, this girl sure is white!!














After a short nap, because lets be honest, with all the commotion, she wasn't going to sleep for very long, it was time to go back outside and play. I was super hot though, so why not take advantage of being a baby and strip down to the diaper!

We had such a good time out at the lake!!! Thanks Virginia for hosting! McKenley had great time seeing her Mimi and Gigi and meeting her cousin Jaime for the first time!! I can't wait until the next Fourth of July, she will be a year and a half and all over the place!