In no time...

Reece has gone from crawling around the room

to crawling all over the house,

drinking water from a sippy cup,

 

 riding on Daddy's shoulders,

 sitting in a shopping cart,

exploring everything,

and now pulling up!

 

It's all happening so fast! What's next?!

Reece is 6 months!

Half a year! He's really been here for half a year already?! Reece Anthony is 6 months old!

 We go for our doctor's appointment on Friday but I think he weighs around 17 pounds. Reece is wearing 6 month clothes and a size 3 diaper. He has his two bottom teeth and we're still waiting on those top ones to break through. He's had a temp of 99.4 for almost a week because of those nasty teeth.

***Edited: Reece weighs 16 lbs 10 oz (32%) and is 26.25 inches tall (32%). His head is 43 cm (45%)

Sleep has gotten a little better this month. He usually goes to bed around 7 each night but the last week or so has woken up around 9:00. We burp him for a few minutes (just to make sure he's not gassy) but then put him back in his bed and let him cry/fuss himself to sleep. We have had to start letting him cry some at night or we would be up constantly. He just wants us to hold him at night, and while I love him to pieces, I need sleep too. ;) So after the random 9:00 wake up, Reece usually sleeps until around 12:30 or 1, then eats and sleeps until 4:30ish. This is the part we have to work on now...He just wants to be held at 4:30 so lately Ryan has been taking him downstairs and letting him go back to sleep on the couch with him, but I know we have to break that. It's just so hard when I want to go back to sleep! He still only naps for 30 minutes every 2 hours during the day.

Reece gets a bottle first thing in the morning (for reflux meds), eats a solid breakfast of oatmeal with some fruit mixed in then nurses about every 2 and a half to 3 hours during the day. He gets a 3 oz bottle around 5:30, a baby food dinner around 6 and then another 3 oz bottle at bedtime around 7. We've spread out his "bedtime" bottle to try and alleviate some of the reflux issues that were resulting in lots of gas at night.

Reece still loves his veggies! He has tried sweet potatoes, green beans, peas, carrots, and squash and likes them all.  He will still only eat fruit mixed into his oatmeal. We've done bananas, pears and peaches. He still doesn't like apples. He tried puffs for the first time last week and loves them. He doesn't have the concept of picking them up himself yet.

All within about 3 days time this month Reece went from supported sitting to sitting independently, to crawling! And I've caught him pulling up a few times too! He can crawl anywhere he wants to get and I've found him in a few weird places. He likes to be where the action is but is also very curious about everything. If he can get his hands on something he will try and pull up onto it...which earned him his first fat lip yesterday. (He was trying to climb on Ryan's weights in the living room and fell). He only cried for a second though, tough little guy.

Hailey can still make him laugh the easiest and he loves to watch her.

He still hates the car and screams 99% of the time he is in it.

He tried the swing at the park this month and loved it.

We had to lower his crib, and put away the bouncy seat, bumbo and swing this month because he was trying to escape them. Ryan pulled down the walker from the attic but he isn't a fan of being in it because he is confined. His love for the bouncer/jumper has also waned because he doesn't want to be confined.

My little man is quite the explorer! Who knows what he'll get into next month!

We love you Reece Anthony!

Fun in Charlotte

This past weekend the kids and I went to Charlotte. Ryan was on a leadership retreat and we decided that with how Reece has been not sleeping and the vast amounts of screaming he's been doing, that it was better if the kids and I didn't go with him. So we went to Charlotte instead!
Reece did SO well in the car on the way there. I was expecting 2 solid hours of screaming but the Lord was so gracious and he slept for an hour and a half! That never happens! He did cry the last 20 minutes or so because Hailey threw Hippie into the back of the car and she started crying, so he had to go along with it and cry too. ;)
We went to Mimi's house first! We asked Hailey what she wanted to do with Mimi and she said throw a Frisbee to Beau and have a tea party. She got to do both...

Plus Mimi had gotten some of Daddy's old Ninja Turtles and cars out of the attic for her to play with.

Little man enjoyed showing off his sitting and crawling skills.

Friday afternoon we went to Grams and Das'. Of course Hailey wanted to swim as soon as we got there! The water was a little chilly from the cool nights so she didn't last long but she enjoyed it! And we blew up the baby pool for Reece. I promise he had more fun than he looks like here.

Hailey got pampered by Grams that night

On Saturday Julie and the boys came over to play...and I didn't take any pictures because it was wild! They had SO much fun and as they were leaving Hailey said "I miss Tucker and Mack". She loves playing with her cousins.
The kids and I came home that afternoon. Reece only slept for 30 minutes (boo) and then screamed for the last 2 hours. Needless to say, we were all so excited when we pulled in the driveway!
We all slept well that night and got up bright and early to go to church on Sunday. It was a little more difficult getting everyone ready from start to finish by myself (normally Ryan is home long enough for me to get a shower before he leaves for church) but we did it! He came home Sunday afternoon and we were so glad!

I love that we have family close enough for a quick weekend trip!

Weekend in Review

We had a busy weekend! It was a lot of fun but we are all a little worn out. One nice thing that happened from all of the busyness is that Reece has had two good nights of sleep in a row! Woohoo! (Good being a relative term compared to how he had been waking up at least three times a night.)

Saturday we went to the Durham Museum of Life and Science. We had been wanting to go for a while but just hadn't had a chance to check it out. Our neighbor and friend, Ms. Sarah, gave us some free tickets so it was time to check it out! It was a perfect day to enjoy being outside. The weather was barely in the 80s and a little breezy. The museum has a lot of outdoor stuff to do so we were looking forward to being outside.

True to form, Reece screamed the whole way there so we were all more than excited when we got there. They have some indoor stuff to do but because the weather was so nice we headed right outside. The first thing we found was a farm exhibit. They had goats, alpacas, a donkey, pig, bunnies and all kind of fun stuff to look at.

Then we found Hailey's favorite, "the bug museum". Ewwww! They had all kind of bugs and things to make your skin crawl: bees, spiders, cockroaches, crawdads, colorful frogs, and a whole butterfly room. Hailey said she liked the bees the best.

Then we headed back outside for a train ride! It was such a nice day to sit and relax on a little train and look at all they had to offer. Hailey had a blast and even screamed going thru the tunnel!

Reece enjoyed it too!

Next we found the dinosaur trail. Hailey was super excited about the big dinosaurs. At the end she even got to dig for fossils!

Miss Sarah and a few of her friends came and found us to take silly pictures on the dinosaur.

We also went thru an "In the Wild" exhibit where they had lots of natural areas with different animals. Even two black bears, two wolves and lemurs!

After all of that walking and excitement we decided to head home and see the rest another day. Hailey was getting tired and hungry and so were the rest of us. We will definitely go back and check out the rest another day!

Sunday morning these two goobers were being silly during my picture taking.

Reece had a rough morning in the nursery. When I came down to feed him, he was being held by one of the pastors! They said he was having a tough time calming down. :( Well I fed him, took him back to the nursery and headed down to the college class because Ryan was teaching... not 20 minutes later I got called back because he was screaming...poor baby.

We went home for lunch and naps after church and then that afternoon headed out to New Life Camp for our Leadership Appreciation Picnic. We had a great dinner and lots of time to hang out with friends. They had bounce houses set  up in the gym for the kids, one big one and one smaller one. At first I only let Hailey go in the smaller one because there were lots of bigger kids in the other one. But Ryan came to find us and let her in the big one (most of the bigger kids were gone). He said she climbed in and started screaming, "I'm a big kid!" over and over. Ha! This was the only picture I took. That girl bounced for an hour.

After the bouncing we decided it was time to go home and head to bed. They both slept so well!
We had a great weekend spending time as a family and hanging out with friends!

Picture Catch-up

I realize that I am sooo behind in blogging so here is my attempt to catch up...with pictures. That's what everyone likes to see anyways, right?!

My cuties ready for church

Hailey now makes her bed in the mornings! It's not perfect but it is a good lesson in responsibility

Reece is all-but crawling. He is so close! He will get up on all fours and rock then move one leg forward. He sometimes gets a hand up there too. He just hasn't found the coordination yet. His sister is the best encourager. He loves to go for the remotes, phones and my little ponies. :)

He can totally get to almost anywhere he wants to with his inch worm crawl though. Evidence: I was making breakfast in the kitchen and left Reece on the blanket in the middle of the floor and came back to this...him on the other side of the room exploring the ab roller. Ha!

He is almost sitting up too! He has already figured out how to get from "crawling" to sitting and usually ends up like this: propped up on one arm.

 One Thursday it was just not going so well. You know that kind of afternoon? Well we decided not to let Thursday win and enjoyed eating (or letting melt) a popscicle on the porch. Who cares that it was about 100 degrees outside?

One day I was folding clothes in Reece's room and Hailey asked if she could help. Of course! I took the burp clothes out to show her how to fold them and she surprised me with this...she already knew how! She is watching everything I do...a good reminder to me

We hadn't done an art project in a while and Hailey was asking to use "contact paper" so we decided to make an aquarium.

blue tissue paper for the water

cut out ocean animals

How pretty!

Daddy preached all three services at church last week and while we were at home waiting on the city to come fix our water (yeah...AT&T was digging in our neighborhood to put in new lines and cut our water line. Long story short, 24 hours and about 1000 phone calls later it was fixed...we made it in time for the last service!) we watched Daddy thru our livestream on the website. Gotta love technology!

Daddy went to a conference in Nashville earlier this week. We were home alone for one night before Mimi came to rescue us and it was a rough one! Reece was up about 1000 times and up for good at 4 AM! Hailey got up at 5! So we went for donuts at 6:30...that's aloud, right?!

We were SOOO glad Mimi came to hang out with us! Sadly, the only picture I took was of them making cupcakes...Hailey absolutely adores her Mimi and was so glad to see her. She kept telling me, "Mommy, I want some Mimi-time. Can you take Reece upstairs?"

Last night I was making stuffed peppers for dinner and Hailey wanted to help. This turned out to be the perfect job for her!

Shew! I think you're caught up! Thanks for sticking with us! I'll try to get better...if only Reece would sleep...