The Goody Life

Stewart's birthday weekend

I always tend to inadvertently add two or three years to Stewart's age.  But not this year....35 is old enough on its own!  (Just kidding honey)  His birthday was on the first day of a three day weekend, which is always nice.  He decided he wanted to take Cooper to his first baseball game, so we headed down for an Atlanta Braves spring training game at the Disney Wide World of Sports complex.  Stewart's grandparents live fairly close to Orlando and the rest of his family came with us, so it turned into a fun family weekend to celebrate Stewart's birthday! 

First thing is first for a birthday...cake!  Grandmama made this Paula Deen strawberry cake, which I have definite plans to make myself.  Someday in the far distant future....since I start Weight Watchers today.  :-P

Miss Priss is scooting all over the place, so she loved Grandmama's plush new carpet.  Although she tends to scoot backwards, which usually ends up with her under some sort of furniture.

On Saturday the boys (Stewart and Cooper, Grandaddy Howgie and Uncle Justin) set out for the game despite a threat of rain. 

The rain held out, but I didn't have high hopes for their day when Stewart texted me that Cooper was "done" after the first inning.  I spent the rest of the day fretting about it, but it turns out that he actually did reasonably well.  It was bright and hot but they made it to the 8th inning.  Cooper did watch the game, but he just doesn't quite have the attention span needed to sit for that long.  But I guess a couple concession stand breaks and whirls through the souvenir shop helped get him through.  Overall Stewart said that they had a very good time.  Here are some of the pictures they took at the game. 

Apparently they set off fireworks when the Braves hit a home run.  Cooper wasn't quite a fan of that.  Stewart said whenever he heard the crowd start to cheer or there was a solid crack of the bat, he thought there would be fireworks and would cover his ears. 

Daddy couldn't resist a little Braves hat for Cooper!

And yes, the Braves won the game.  Even Georgia wanted to celebrate!

It was a fun weekend but too short, as visits with family always are.  Love these pictures of Georgia and her Great Grandmama (and Grammy looking on.)

 

Baby food. Yay.

I am NOT a fan of the baby food stage.  I haven't really looked into the baby led weaning thing, but maybe I should if I can avoid the purees.  Anyone have any experience with it? 

We started off giving Georgia Cate some iron fortified oatmeal (since Cooper always liked that better than the rice cereal.)  That didn't go over too well- I mixed it with breast milk straight from the fridge, and I don't think she liked the cold.  Tried peaches too, got about the same reaction.  She didn't spit it out, she just didn't seem too impressed with any of it. 

Here's the required documentation...

She may not have wanted to eat it, but she sure wanted to grab the spoon! 

If you like to talk to tomatoes....

One of Cooper's birthday presents was tickets to see VeggieTales Live, which was last week.  It was Cooper's first real sit-in-a-seat show, and he did great.  Didn't even want to get up and walk around at intermission.  It was fun and I'm so glad we took the kids!

The prerequisite photo before we left for the show...

We had to wear blue wristbands and they even put one on Georgia.  She looked so cute with her itty bitty wristband!

Mesmerized...

Six months old

Georgia Catherine is six months old!  These types of milestones are always bittersweet because I love watching the kids grow but hate how quickly the time passes.  Stewart made fun of me for how many pictures I took of GC yesterday. Just trying to avoid the trap of not taking enough pics of the second child!

Chomping on the taggie that grams made for her

Cooper and I made her half a birthday cake.  (This is the one we made.)

Gimme that cake....

Here is what Georgia is up to at six months!

• Sits up like a champ!  She eventually topples over, but definitely is good on her own for several minutes.
• Does not like to be in a reclined position!  Even on the changing table, she tries and tries to sit up.  Exhibit A:
  
• Still getting up once per night....at least.  We are convinced we are never getting a full night sleep again.
• Lots of squealing and vowel sounds, but no true babbling yet. 
• Grabs EVERYTHING!  I always severely regret it when I start nursing her without putting my hair up first.
• Saves her poops for the nighttime, so we wake up to a diaper blow out every. single. day.  We have yet to find a solution for this dilemma.  
• Is learning to be quite the tough little girl, as I imagine that all sisters with big brothers are.  Cooper is still sweet as can be with her, but now that she is getting bigger he's not quite a careful with her.  His kisses and hugs tend to get a little aggressive (we are working on it) but she takes it in stride!
• Doesn't seem to have a huge appetite, but obviously she is growing right on track!  I have been putting off starting solids because she just hasn't seemed hungry enough!  We're going to start sometime this week. 
• Just a super happy disposition and basically only fusses when she's sleepy.  She is my joy!!

(oh man, those cheeks!)



Progression over her first six months....

(Here is Cooper's six month post.)

We love you baby girl!  Happy half birthday!

Why?

Cooper has entered the "why" phase.  With a vengeance.  Answering the why questions honestly doesn't bother me too much, but we inevitably get to a point where either I don't know the answer or Cooper is unsatisfied with my response.  Here's a typical conversation from yesterday.

Cooper (from the backseat): *mumbles something under his breath*
Me: "What?"
Cooper: "Why did you say what?" 
Me: "Because I didn't hear what you said."
Cooper: "Why didn't you hear what I said?"
Me: "Because you said it very quietly."
Cooper: "Why did I say it quietly?"
Me: "I don't know."
Cooper: "You DO know!"

....and it typically goes downhill from there.  Lord, give me patience.  Amen.

Double fail

We gave up Facebook for Lent.  We are also not spending any unnecessary money for 3 months so we can get a handle on our finances.

I just went on Facebook to order an outfit for Georgia for Fourth of July.

Just felt the need to confess....

Craft time fail

Cooper has been going through kind of a rough patch lately.  He has been kind of- for lack of a better term- a pill.  He doesn't want to DO anything.  He doesn't want to play with his toys; I have to coax him into playing any sort of game, etc.  What he does want to do is play with Georgia's baby toys, watch TV/iPad/computer, or go outside and ride his bike.  Unfortunately I have a hard time letting him ride his bike when it's just me and the kids at home.  He's so dang fast on that strider bike, especially on the slight hills we have in our neighborhood.  It's just not safe for me to try to run after him with Georgia strapped in the baby carrier.  When Stewart is home he's good about taking him out on the bike, but when it's just me we end up butting heads because I just can't get him into any activity around the house. And if Georgia is asleep and I'm trying to keep the noise level down??  Forget it.  All he wants to do is walk around the house banging things and making noise.  He used to really love doing crafts, but I've kind of let that slide since Georgia arrived.  We have been baking a lot during Georgia's naptime, which Cooper loves, but let's face it there's only so many baked goods that I can handle having in the house.  Especially since it's time to get rid of the baby weight.  Anyway.  I decided to make sure that I got back into doing some good crafts with him this month.  So I scoured pinterest and found some St. Patrick's Day and Easter crafts that I thought he would like.  I made lists of all the supplies I'd need to make sure we were prepared ahead of time.  I talked up our first St. Patty's craft, and was excited to get this month started on the right foot!

Well, the morning started with him literally SCREAMING for orange juice at 6:15 and pitching an all out fit when I told him that it wasn't time to get up yet.  The screaming woke up the baby, and the morning was off to a bad start.  He literally whined every word, wanted to be carried to the bathroom, I could go on and on.  In his defense, he has been fighting a bad cough and a respiratory virus.  But still.  Stewart is working all weekend (which I dread), so I decided it was time to get started with craft #1!  I talked it up all morning until Georgia went down for her nap, and then we jumped right in.  Shamrock light catchers!!  Bam!!  Gonna be awesome!  Requires no coloring (since C has no interest in coloring!)  No cutting (not quite mastered yet!)  This craft was gonna be epic! 

Yeah right. 

First of all, did you know that tearing tissue paper can be so traumatic?

"Momma, YOU do it!!

OK, fine. 

Then the directions were literally  "Stick these pieces of tissue paper and mesh to this sticky paper.  Cover the whole thing."  No way to go wrong, right?

Uh-huh. 

He literally would dump a handful of tissue paper in a pile and then go back to inspecting the seam on the table.  No.  Interest.  Whatsoever. 

I was literally on the verge of tears.  I just kept thinking about his teachers at school and how they must be saints to accomplish survive daily crafttime with my ambivalent child along with eight other children. 

Over and over....."One piece at a time.  Flatten it out.  Hey, over here!  Put it on the sticky paper!  Do you even want to do this???"  Basically the craft ended with me basically throwing an immature tantrum and then finishing the craft myself. 

Like I said.  Rough patch.

But guess what...the craft actually came out pretty cute!  So here's how to make it, in case you think your child might care!  Oh and don't be fooled by the rest of the pictures, which were totally staged.  ("Here, hold this piece of tissue paper while I take a picture.") 

• Lay out a piece of contact paper. I used self-laminating sheets, which are a fantastic thing to have around the house.  I bought a box for my job back in 2007 or so, and still have over half a box.  
• Cover with pieces of tissue paper and whatever else you can find around the house.  I cut up some leftover deco mesh from a wreath I made at Christmas.
  
• Add some glitter.  $0.99 Martha Stewart glitter on clearance!  Whoop-whoop!  This may have been the one part Cooper enjoyed.
  
• Cover with another sheet of contact/laminating paper.
  
• Cut into shamrock shapes, and you are done!
  
  
  
  
  Hope you have better luck than we did!