Frontier Order-February

I've looked back at my previous posts and realized that it would probably be helpful if I tell you how much I spend. My monthly Frontier budget is $50 (give or take a few dollars). Here is a list of what I got this month:

• Ecover dishwasher powder
• Nutrition Now Rhino kid's multivitamins
• Nutrition Now Rhino kid's calcium with vitamin D
• Nature's Gate shampoo and conditioner
• Happypuffs strawberry puffs
• Surf Sweets organic jelly beans (2 bags)
• Aura Cacia Cheering Foam bath for kids
• Aura Cacia Tea Tree oil
• Kiss My Face natural deodorant
• Happy Baby organic food pouches (6)

Carnival Magic Cruise

Sunset in Galveston, TX

 What happens when you go on vacation with 20 members of your family!?! A lot of fun happens! My oldest nephew, Brendan turned 18 this year and he is also graduating from high school (home school), so his parent's decided to invite everyone to join and celebrate with him on a 7 day cruise.

We made the drive down to Galveston, leaving early on a Saturday morning. I was a little nervous about making the drive in one day with a baby, but it was better than expected. We made several stops, one including a tour of Buc-ee's. We had never been into one and it was pretty amazing. Tae watched movies and I tried to keep Hensley entertained. We made it to our hotel about 5:30pm. We were right on the beach and the views were breathtaking. We walked over to the beach and let the girls play for a bit. Tae couldn't have been happier! We went to dinner at a local restaurant called Casey's. The calamari was yummy! We then headed back to the hotel for some much needed sleep.


First sighting of our ship!

We woke up the next morning, had breakfast, and headed over to the beach again for a bit before we checked out of the hotel. We then all headed to the port. After we unloaded all of our luggage and got our bags checked, the men in the group took the cars back to the hotel where they were going to be parked for the week and got a taxi back to the ship. We then checked in and waited for our boarding number to be called. Once our number was called, we made our way onto the ship. Here is were we had our first photo op of the whole group, haha!

The photographer took a bunch of pictures trying to get us all to be in frame and looking at the camera. I guess this was the best one he got.

Here is the first shots of inside the ship. It was such a pretty boat with lots of entriquette details. It was a bit crowded during those first several hours and it was also really hard to use the elevators. This came to also be true on port days! We went to our rooms and unloaded our stuff. We then walked around the ship and checked out all the things to do. We went to dinner with the family and then went to the opening show. We were all pretty tired at the end of this first day and went to sleep easily!

This is how we did baths while on our vacation! Hensley loved the shower head and Tae loved helping give her sister a bath.

 

We had another full day on the ship and enjoyed tea time and a formal dinner. There was lots to do while on the boat, so we were never bored. Tae loved to play mini golf and they also had ping pong and outdoor exercise equipment. They had a huge screen over the pool that played movies throughout the day. It was a bit chilly on some of the days, so we didn't get to use the pool or water slides. Hensley couldn't have swim anyways since they don't allow diapered babies in their pools for health reasons. Here is a picture of us all on our formal night. The dinner was really tasty and we all left stuffed. I had prime rib and lobster tail. I loved the food on the ship. They had a lot of variety and it was all very delicious. They also serve food at all times of the day. They have ice cream machines all over and 24 hour pizza. They have a late night grill even with hamburgers and hot dogs.

 

My girls on formal night. I'm in love :)

The next day we arrived bright and early in Key West, Florida. It was sunny and warm (I think it was in the mid 80's for the day). We walked through their little port area and walked quite a ways to Ernest Hemingway's house. Tae was super excited to see all the cats (I think they said there were well over 60 cats on the property). After touring the home, we walked down one of the main shopping streets to get to the port were we ate at a yummy open air restaurant. We enjoyed some conch fritters and had fresh fish sandwiches. After leaving the restaurant we walked along the pier. We got to see giant tarpin in the water and fisherman feeding pelicans fish parts. It was pretty cool! We then headed back to the boat for showers, dinner, a show, and bed!



My family in Key West

Breastfeeding for the win!

Eating in the open air restaurant!

Key West sunset

The next day we were in Freeport, Bahamas. We have breakfast and get off the boat where it is raining and a little chilly. There are lots of people milling about and we try to find a taxi to take the whole family to the beach. Freeport is very industrial and the beaches are no where near the port. Getting a taxi was a bit stressful. The drivers are trying to make the most money in the least amount of time. We were all quickly shoved into two taxis (which is not easy with all the kiddos) in the hopes that we would be taken to the same beach. It was about a 15 minute drive to the beach. When we got there it was pouring at this point, but quickly stopped and the sun came out. It ended up being a beautiful day. This was the best beach day and the kids had a great time building sand castles and playing in the crystal clear water. Hensley had a great nap in the carrier and then had fun eating sand and splashing in the water. We stayed for a few hours, but had to catch a taxi back to the ship earlier in the afternoon. Once back on the boat, we got lunch, walked around a bit, and had some nap time in our room.

A lot of the kiddos (and Aaron) enjoying the water!



 The next day we arrived in Nassau, Bahamas. It was a bit chillier, but super windy. The water was pretty choppy also. When you get off the ship, you walk through a straw market and then are in the middle of town. We walked around a bit trying to find our way to the beach. It was a pretty good walk! Once we got there, Tae played in the water a little bit, but ended up getting way too cold and laid on a beach towel for the rest of the time. I didn't think it would be as cool as it was, so we didn't bring extra clothes to cover up with. We ate some yummy local jerk chicken and then headed back to the ship after stopping in the straw market to shop.

Jerk chicken!

Atlantis hotel we could see from port!

Hensley did a lot of napping in the carrier!

 

The next two days were "fun days at sea". We went to a towel folding class, saw ice sculpting, watched some family do the ropes course, and enjoyed time together. We had lots of yummy food and enjoyed a few shows. We went to a magic show where Tae volunteered to be the star. She was super cute and did such a great job assisting the magician. She received a "Carnival Magic" medal for her efforts. After the show, we went to the arcade where one of the workers gave Tae a stuffed animal from the machine. She had a great day!

Tae and I snuck off to tea time while daddy and Hensley took a nap. It was fun having tea with my little girl and I think she enjoyed it also.

 





The best way for a baby to nap while on vacation!

 On the last day, we were delayed getting to port due to fog. This put us behind a couple hours. I didn't feel very good this day and was ready to be at home (come to find out, I ended up getting really sick the next day and had a high fever for 5 days!). We got on the road after 1pm and stopped for a quick lunch at Chipotle right outside Houston. We drove for a while longer and made a much needed stop at a Starbucks. This is where things got bad. Hensley pulled my coffee over on top of her and myself. She screamed so bad and I felt horrible! We went out to the car to change and the nice barista's made me a new coffee. I checked Hensley over and didn't notice any bad burns, just some redness. I nursed her and we headed back on the road. It seemed like it took forever to get home and I don't think Hensley enjoyed riding in the car at night. She cried a lot and finally fell asleep about an hour out. We got home at about 11pm and all passed out within the hour.

We had an awesome vacation and I know Tae will have wonderful memories of it for a lifetime. I can't wait until we go on another vacation when Hensley is a little older so she can share some of these fun memories. 

 

 

Hensley: 8 months!

Weight: I'm not sure her exact weight, but I'm guessing she is somewhere between 21-22 lbs. She is a healthy girl, but she still is pretty short.

Food: Hensley is still nursing about every 3-4 hours, but boy does she love table food. I pretty much will give her whatever we are eating. She's had fried rice and lasagna (lactose-free) even! She loves to feed herself and is really good at smashing her food with her gums. There really isn't anything that she hasn't liked. I've given her a few of those organic pouches with the puree's and she isn't a big fan of those. It's probably because she is used to chunkier food that is also fresh.

Clothes: She is fitting well into 12 month clothes now. She can still fit in a few 9 months, but 6 month clothes are out. I'm really looking forward to the Just Between Friend sale coming up in April, so I can get her some cute summer clothes!

Sleep: This girl just loves to sleep with mommy and daddy. We haven't tried to put her in her crib since before our cruise, but hoping to try soon. I was even thinking about taking the rail off the crib and scooting it right up against our bed. I'm just ready to have our bed back! She sleeps really good and takes a two hour nap at between 11-12pm and then another nap at about 4-5pm that usually lasts an hour or two. She then is ready for bed about 10pm and sleeps (with about 1 or 2 feedings) until 8am.

Movement: This girl is full on crawling. She can get to wherever she needs to go with no problem. She pulls up on whatever she can and has even started letting go and free standing. She can lower herself from a standing position and also get onto her knees. She does not like to sit still for nothing and even crawls away mid diaper change :)

Product: Since she has started eating, we have really enjoyed feeding her these puffs. She loves to feed them to herself and gets so excited when she sees the container. She also really enjoys these teething biscuits too. She also loves water and will drink it non-stop if we let her. We have two stainless steel sippy cups that she loves!

Highlight: Her biggest highlight is the crawling and standing. She has also really started to talk. She says "dada" and I am almost certain she is referring to Aaron. She has said "mama" a few times, but not as much as she says "dada"!

Taelyn: These girls just mean so much to me. Tae is super sweet, but sometimes a little to overwhelming for Hensley. Hensley has learned to push Tae away if she is being too smothering. It is kind of funny. One of Hensley's favorite thing to do is play in Tae's room. She will just sit in there for ever and crawl around and play with all the toys. So fun!

Blessing: We had so much fun on our cruise with our family. I'm working on a blog post about it and hope to post it soon. My sister, Jennifer made these cute fox shirts for all the cousins with their first initial on them. My mom took pictures of all of them together at a recent family dinner we had. So blessed to be able to spend time with all our family!

All the cousins!
Mavy (18 months), Bella (7), Tae (5), Hensley (8 months), Cait (3), Lily (almost 2), Cameron (7), & Jack (4)

Hensley: 7 months!

Hensley with the onesie she wore home from the hospital

Weight: At her last check-up, she weighed 20.8lbs and was 26 inches long. She is in the 92% for her weight and 40% for her height. I can't believe how much she has grown!

Food: Hensley has had her first "bites" of food. So far she has tasted banana, avocado, carrots, and egg yolk. She seems to be really interested in eating and now gets really excited if she sees us eating and even starts jumping up and down if she sees a banana. She is still nursing really good and of course still gets ALL of her nutrients from breast milk.

Clothes: She is mainly in 9 month clothes. There are a few 6 month pieces that fit her though. Her cloth diapers make a big difference and she fits really well into 12 month pants. We are taking a vacation soon and she will be in disposables. It's going to be weird seeing her without all that extra padding!

Sleep: We are still mainly co-sleeping. Once or twice a week I can get her to sleep in her crib up until her first feeding, but other than that, she wakes up if I try to lay her in her crib. I don't really mind her sleeping with us, I just don't want it to be a forever thing! She is down to two feedings during the night and even sometimes just one. She usually takes two naps during the day, sometimes 3 if one is short.

We'll be crawling in no time!

Movement: Oh boy! This month we have become very mobile! Hensley can now sit up totally unassisted. She can roll from belly to back and vice versa. She can go from sitting to the crawling position or from sitting to laying down. She loves to pull up. Her favorite is to pull up onto her knees to pull things off the coffee table. She has started rocking back and forth on her hands and knees and has even taken 2-3 crawls forward at a time. She can definitely get to where she wants to go!

She sits up all by herself in the bathtub now!

Product: We got so many great things for Christmas. She got a sit to stand walker, activity table, and a whole bunch of other things that she has been enjoying playing with. Tae also loves to play with Hensley's toys and is usually pretty good at keeping Hensley entertained for awhile!

Highlight: I think the biggest highlight for this month is her mobility. She is also learning new sounds and loves to blow raspberries. She is growing and changing so much, it seems like there is something new every day!

Friends forever!

Taelyn: Tae seems to have a lot of patience with her sister. She really loves to play with her and will try to distract her if she gets upset even without me saying anything. When we are in the car, Tae will sing to her if she starts getting fussy. Hensley just adores her big sister and I'm so excited to see how their relationship blossoms as they get older.

Blessing: We are so excited to be taking our first "real" family vacation. Tae has only ever been to Texas. We can't wait to spend time as a family together and create great memories. Look forward to a blog post on our return!

Checking out sisters tricycle

Frontier Order!

My order was fairly small this month. I didn't need or order as much as I normally do. This month I got:

Ecover dishwasher powder
Ecos laundry soap
Burt's Bees Calming baby lotion
Yummy Earth organic suckers (for Tae) and organic vitamin C drops (hubby loves these things)
Frontier "Mama Garlic" organic seasoning (smells delicious and can't wait to use it!)

Christmas Pictures!

I have to brag a little about my friend Cassie. I've known her for about 2 years now and she is such a sweet and caring person. She is also great at taking photos. The pictures on my blog are ones that she took and we just recently had some Christmas pictures taken of the girls with her. Her prices are totally reasonable and she is great with kiddos and pretty quick at taking memorable pictures. If you live in the Oklahoma City metro area, you should definitely check her out. You can find CD Photography on Facebook or on her website here.

 

Hensley: 6 months!

Weight: I think we have to be close to 20lbs by now! It's hard to get an accurate weight on her because we just have a regular scale. She is still a short little muffin though.

Food: Obviously she is having no problems growing on mommy's milk! She seems to be acquiring the food readiness cues. She is able to sit unassisted and she has a killer pincer grasp. I think she may be losing her tongue thrust reflex and she is becoming a little more interested in what we are eating/drinking. I'm not ready to rush it though. I want to make sure that her tummy is good and developed and capable of handling table foods. Maybe in a month or so we will put a few dices of avocado in front of her to see what she does, but right now she is growing just fine without anything other than breast milk!

Clothes: 6 month clothes are getting a little tight! 9 months fit her pretty good and she is fitting into some 12 month clothes (gah!). I just can't believe how big she is. Tae always wore exactly what her age was. She was in 12 month clothes AT 12 months. Hensley's closet consists of 6, 9, 12, and even 18 month clothes and she is only 6 months old!

 Sleep: We have been having a few hiccups in our sleeping since last month. Her naps are pretty much the same. Usually 2-3 naps during the day. Two short naps (about an hour long) and then a longer nap in the evening (maybe 2 hours). At night she has been going to sleep easily as she always has, but she has only been sleeping in her bassinet for about an hour before waking up. I then nurse her back to sleep and she stays in the bed with us. I *think* she nurses 2-3 times during the night. I say *think* because we dream feed and I never fully awake. I'm not too upset about it since I'm still getting just as much sleep, but I don't want her to become accustomed to our bed. We just moved the crib into our room and moved out the bassinet. We will see how well she sleeps now that she has a little more room!

 

Movement: She is sitting up so well! She hasn't toppled over hardly at all. Sometimes she will kind of do this leaning thing until she rolls onto her side, but I think she does this when she is tired of sitting up. She doesn't seem to have any interest in crawling. She can roll anywhere she wants to go and most of the time she is just content sitting in one place as long as she has some toys around her.

Product: Hensley has been taking a bottle in the morning while I'm at work for about 3 months now. Tae never took a bottle and she fought us when we tried. Hensley seems to enjoy her bottle with her daddy and even tends to fall asleep during her feeding. We only have one kind of bottle, we actually only have 2 of them since she doesn't get a whole lot of bottle feedings. You can find them here. They are glass bottles that are natural flow. I really like them and Hensley does too!

Highlight: She is learning all sorts of different noises. She has learned to complain, whine, giggle, and babble. She sounds like she says "mama" a lot, but I'm sure it's just baby talk. We have taught her to sign milk (or what we call "milky"). She does it randomly and does it a lot when she sees me, haha. I guess that's why she loves me so much, I am the milk!

Taelyn: Tae is continuing to do great with being a big sister. She is learning patience and even tolerates when Hensley grabs a big chunk of her hair. She likes to "watch over" Hensley while I'm going to the bathroom or loading the dishes. She loves to be my helper and get me the things that I need.

Blessing: These two girls bring so much joy to my life and to everyone else's. I worried so much about how far apart they were and even just having another child to begin with. I don't know why I wasted so much time worrying over nothing. God has definitely shown me to have faith in His plan. I am so happy to have Taelyn and Hensley in my life, they make me complete.