6 Months

I was surprised when I woke up this morning and realized that it's the 30th of the month. Brian has had a busy month, traveling to Seaside and down to St. Pete. He has (as you probably know) found his tongue, which he continues to love to show off, he can sit up for a good length of time, and occasionally rolls over, but those rolls are few and far between. He usually gets close to rolling all the way over, but forgets what to do at the end. I still don't have him eating a lot of food. He'll eat table food a couple of times a week. He doesn't need to eat "real" food, so I don't worry about giving it to him each day.
We are working on getting him to sleep longer at night. He went from being a great sleeper to a terrible one. I'm not sure what to do, but if you have some suggestions, I would love to hear them!

Dyeing Easter Eggs

I thought this year would be a good year to start dyeing Easter eggs with Kayleigh. I got a very basic set from Walmart, because I knew she couldn't do too much this year. I hard boiled the eggs at lunch time, knowing that they would be ready to go after her nap. What I didn't anticipate was how boring it is just to sit and watch eggs change colors! Oh well. At least we had stickers to put on them!
After we were all done with the eggs, Kayleigh picked one off of the table while Erik and I weren't looking. "Look," she said, "I'm being careful!!" "Oh no, Kayleigh," was my reply, "put the egg back." CRACK!! Yep, that was the sound the egg made as it hit the floor. Oops! She was careful for a minute. We took the shell off and ate that egg. It's funny because usually Kayleigh will say that she doesn't like eggs, but she enjoyed this one.
If I was really smart and thought more ahead of time, I would have made dyeing the eggs a science lesson and would have double dipped more eggs to show Kayleigh how the two colors combine to make a new color. Hopefully I will think of that next year.

Brian in the bouncer

Erik and I bought a bouncer from some friends last week. Brian has really gotten into it, although I think he does better when he has someone to show off for. I was going to just do a short video of him in the bouncer, but he kept laughing and having fun, so I didn't stop the video until the 1 minute mark. I think it's hard to hold people's attention after that! :)

St. Pete

Whew. This weekend was the first time I attempted the 5 hour trip to St Pete with the two kids by myself. The trip was surprisingly easy, except for the amount of traffic. Kayleigh is becoming such a big girl that I didn't even put a diaper on her for the ride. Here's a breakdown of our time away:
Saturday: We got to St Pete around 3 PM. Valerie and Matt were there, so we got to hang out with them for awhile before Grandma, Barbara and Jack came over for dinner. Matt was nice enough to take Kayleigh outside to play (and get D-I-R-T-Y!) so that Valerie and I could play our favorite game, Farkle. We had a delicious meal thanks to Mom. After dinner, Kayleigh wanted to go with my mom to take my grandma back to her house. Grandma loved that Kayleigh wanted to go with them AND hold her hand while they walked down the hall to her apartment!!

Sunday: Today was the reason we went to St Pete. We were there to go to Jill's baby shower. She had a really nice shower, and got some great gifts. Poor Jonathan had to watch his kids, plus mine since my dad had to go out of town. Kayleigh loved her time with her cousins, and I don't think she was ready for us to come home.

Monday: Mom had to go to work. :( But, after Kayleigh, Brian and I got up and going, we went to visit Chat, Mia and Nathan while Jonathan worked. The girls had a great time together. We stayed until after Kayleigh should have gone down for a nap, but it was worth it, and Kayleigh took a little bit of a later nap. That may have been a good thing since Mom and I took over her room that night to watch Dancing With The Stars!! My dad and Abuelo came home that evening, and Kayleigh loved hanging out with her abuelo.

Tuesday: We went to see Granny and Aunt Ola this morning. (Erik's side) Kayleigh took a little time warming up to them, but eventually became her usual, bubbly self. Granny made a yummy lunch. I always look forward to that part of the visit! :) After lunch it was nap time for the kids, so we headed back home to my parents' house. Mom got home a few minutes after we did, and after saying hello and goodnight to Kayleigh, Kayleigh took another good nap. When Brian woke up, he discovered his tongue!! It was so funny, and he's hardly had it in his mouth since. That night my parents watched the kids so I could get together with some high school friends. We went to the Cheesecake Factory. I was so excited because 1.) I LOVE cheesecake, and 2.) I've been wanting to go there since my birthday in November! We had a blast hanging out and were there until after 10! Mom and Dad had fun with the kids, and you can see the picture of Kayleigh floating in the tub while with my Mom. My parents were also nice enough to stay up until I got home so I could see them a little longer.

Wednesday: Sad day--it's time to leave. Kayleigh was the most unhappy about this! Mom went to work late so that we could have a few more minutes together. Oh, and so she could make me my favorite breakfast--french toast! YUM! This morning, Brian rolled over by himself from his back to his stomach!! I'd been telling people all weekend that he was almost able to do it, and I couldn't believe it as I watched him make the whole turn! Erik is trying to get him to do it again.

So, we're home now, and I'm happy to be back. I think our next trip is to go see Valerie and Matt at their place and go to the zoo. But, before we go there, I think we will stay in our own beds for a little while.

Outside play

Our neighbors invited us to play outside, but before they came out, we were out enjoying the day. I got some good pictures of Kayleigh and Brian, so I thought I would share them with you. I also thought the dogs would like being outside with us, but I think they would have preferred to be out there withOUT their leashes on!! They looked a little miserable at times, and REALLY wanted to go after a couple of cats and say hello to another dog, but they were stuck.
Brian is almost sitting up by himself now! It's pretty amazing. He can do it for a little while, but he will eventually either fold over himself and fall down, or just fall to the side. He thinks falling is pretty funny as long as he doesn't hit the floor too hard. :)

Website

I have to tell you that I have been tuned into http://phoebeallens.com since yesterday afternoon. It's a site about a hummingbird whose eggs are about to hatch. I, along with everyone else watching last night, thought at least one baby would come out last night, but when I went back this morning, both eggs are still there.
The person who started this site did it because this hummingbird kept coming back to their rose bush to lay her eggs. He/She has a webcam on the nest, and people from all over the world (at least as far as England and Colombia) are watching these eggs. They were predicted to hatch anytime between the 13th and 16th. I hope the site owner will keep up with the webcam after the babies hatch so we can watch them grow and leave the nest.

***********EDITOR'S NOTE: The website has stopped working for some reason. I'm going to continue to try to view the hummingbird, but right now it keeps sending me to some other site. Sorry if it does that to you, too! I'll update if I can get it to work again

Seaside weekend

We all had a wonderful time in Seaside this weekend. I couldn't believe that it's been years since all of my siblings and I had been together in the same place, and all of a sudden it happened twice in the matter of months. Of course, Taylor and Kayleigh had a ball playing together. Thankfully, Nick and Robyn let Taylor stay up past bedtime on Friday so the girls could play for a little while before going to bed.
On Saturday, we went to the beach. I couldn't believe Kayleigh wanted to keep putting her hands and feet in the water. Last summer she decided she didn't like the ocean. Now that the water is freezing, she decides she can't get enough! Someone please tell me what's up with that girl! That afternoon, everyone wanted to see the town. The girls and Brian needed to take a nap, so I volunteered to have some quiet time and stay with them. I'm not sure how much Kayleigh slept, but when Taylor woke up to go potty, I knew naptime would be over for Kayleigh as well. I'm pretty sure I could have gotten the two of them to go back to sleep in bed with me, but everyone came home and the noise (and seeing Robyn) overruled my plans for a nap.
Sunday was quite chilly in the morning, but I just knew it would end up being a perfect day. Sure enough, it was! I ended up setting a personal record for myself in the 5K, running it in 36:56. I beat all of my goals for the race: I ran the whole time, I ran faster than my goal of 38 minutes, I beat my dad, and I finished before any of the half marathoners did! My treat for the race (besides the Vera Bradley tote all of the runners got) was a huge shaved ice. It was delicious, and definitely hit the spot! I think next time I'll get it BEFORE I eat, so it's the first thing to hit my stomach.
Erik also ran an awesome race. He finished his half marathon in 1:45:31. He had wanted to break 1:50, and thought breaking 1:45 would be even better. He sure came close! I think he was pleased with his race overall.
After enjoying the awesome weather and hanging out for awhile, we knew we had to head back to our rental house and shower and clean up before leaving. Minus the Alabama bound folks, we all drove here and ate dinner before Valerie and Matt had to finish the last leg of their journey. Mom, Dad and Jonathan stayed at our house, and I'm not sure any of us were much company. It was a fun but tiring weekend, and we can't wait to do it again!

Bumbo buddies

Brian sits on the table in his Bumbo while we eat dinner. The other night, Kayleigh decided she wanted to sit with him. This is the picture Erik took. Cute, huh?

5 month pictures

Do I even need to bother saying that I can't believe Brian is 5 months old? I should say I can't believe he's ONLY 5 months old. Everyone who meets him thinks he's older. He's still such a happy baby and smiles all the time. He squeals more than he laughs now which is pretty funny. His sleeping is not great, but that's not the worst thing to deal with. When I got home from the cruise on Sunday, I saw him grabbing his feet for the first time. I'm not sure if he started doing earlier in the weekend, but I hadn't seen him do it before. That's a trick that he likes to do a lot now, especially is seems while I change his diaper.