6 Months!

Pretty Princess is 6 months old! I cannot believe how fast time is going by. It makes me sad to think she is 1/2 a year old, but excited to see what the future holds for her. At her 6 month appointment she weighed 14lbs 1oz (10-25%) and 26 inches long (50-75%). The doctor said her top 2 teeth look like they are close to coming in. I'm not sure I'm ready for more teeth she seems to think biting is quite funny. She has become quite the wild animal as we call her. Changing her diaper takes an army. Holding still just isn't her style. She flip flops all over the place grabbing everything in her reach. The doctor appointment was quite entertaining too. I couldn't wait for the doc to come in because it was all I could do to keep her still. She ripped the paper off the exam table then tried to eat it, then she pulled everything out of my diaper bag as I tried to fix the exam paper and then as soon as I could hand her toys she was throwing them on the floor. She keeps me laughing that is for sure. This past Sunday we had Claire's dedication. It meant so much to us to have all our family standing with us and committed to helping us raise Claire to be a Godly woman. Claire's Mimi and Aunt Kayla spent most of Spring Break with us and Claire sure had fun with them. Then over the weekend Claire's Nana and Pappaw and Uncle Eric and Aunt Jessica came in. Claire didn't know what to do when Monday came and all she had was Mommy. Mommy was quite boring to her and she decided to fuss at me all day asking where all the fun people went! Here are a few pics from Claire's dedication and some of her 6 month pictures that my wonderful friend Bekah took!

Loving Life

Not a lot of super exciting news to report, but life sure is good. Pretty Princess is growing and changing so quickly. I cannot believe she is nearing 6 months old. It is bittersweet how fast time is going. I love each new stage she is in, but I also miss her being so little and snuggly. She is trying so hard to get on her hands and knees and gets so mad she can't go and do what she wants. She is sitting so good all by herself and prefers sleeping on her belly which makes Momma so nervous. Within 5 minutes of being in her crib she has already rolled to her belly and fast asleep. I am curious how much she will weigh at her 6 month appointment.  I can tell she has grown because my arms sure are getting tired. She thinks her Daddy is the funniest person she has ever seen and has a special squeal she does only for him. It melts my heart watching those two interact and play.

We have a busy week ahead of us. Claire's Mimi (Eric's Mom) and sister Kayla are coming to visit during the week and then over the weekend my brother and his wife and my parents are coming to visit. On the 13th we are doing Claire's dedication at church and all our family is coming in. We are super excited to spend time and see everyone. I apologize in advance to anyone coming if Claire is not on her best behavior. She is in a bit of a stage right now where if Momma leaves her sight for too long she tends to freak out.

My little bugger will probably kill me for this when she gets older, but she loves her some nakey baby time. So of course Mommy has to snap all the cute naked baby butt pictures so I leave you with this picture of my tiny hiney!

Valentine's Day!

I've never been one to think too much of Valentine's Day.  Yes I am the synical one who calls it a "card company holiday" and thinks how special is it if everyone else is celebrating too.  Of course we always celebrate in some way. This year seemed different. I don't know if it is because of Claire or what, but I did appreciate it more. We got Claire a sweet card for her scrapbook and a soft doll that says "My First Valentine's". She loved the card and wanted to eat it and loved her doll.  She talked and talked to it. These days are talking is more screeching, but still adorable. Claire and I got Eric a frame for his desk at work with several pictures of Claire. Eric got me some candy (which if you know me that is the best present, I have a terrible sweet tooth) and he totally surprised me with a little bag from Victoria's Secret. Now before you start thinking you don't want to hear the rest of this story I promise it's nothing risque, lol. The other day he noticed my "sexy" (sarcasm) bra. Now this bra is special. It is black, but the strap has a lovely piece of white elastic sewn on part of it. My dear mini Cooper decided that the last time I bought bra's they would make a nice chew toy and chewed the strap of my brand new Victoria's Secret bra in half. Well these new bra's were bought 2.5 years ago. I am not one to complain. I try to make due with what I have, but my sweet husband felt bad it had been so long since I had a nice new bra and that one of the few I have looks terrible that I needed a new one. He did so good picking one out too! I must say this really was the best Valentine's Day ever!

Claire will be 5 months on Wendesday! I cannot believe how big she is getting and how fast time is flying. She is so goofy, but I guess she gets that honestly, lol. She has started sitting on her own for 20-30 seconds at a time and trying to push up on her knees when she is on her belly. She thinks Cooper is the funniest thing she has ever seen. She talks and laughs at him all day long. Poor guy is so good with her as she pulls his ears and drools on his head. We are also slowly introducing solids to her. We have given her cereal a handful of times which she could care less about. She is always staring at our plates and trying to grab food off them, but when we feed her cereal she looses interest so quickly. My original plans were to wait to start solids until 6 months any way so I am backing off, but she does love to drink out of sippy cup. She thinks she is such a big girl. I have also been doing some reading on another way besides purees to introduce solids. I had all intentions of pureeing all Claire's food and not buying any of the typical jars. What I have started reading though is the "Baby Led Weaning" approach. I am quite intrigued by it and may actually try it with Claire. Here is a link to more information about this approach if you are interested.
http://www.babyledweaning.com/

Here is my Pretty Princess!

4 Month Stats and teethies!

I'm just a little behind as always, lol.  Claire had her 4 month checkup last Monday and she is growing growing!  She is 12 pounds even and 24 inches long.  Doctor said that puts her weight between the 10-25 percentile and her height in the 25 percentile.  She said she was well proportioned and even called her petite!  Who would have thought I would have a petite child? The doctor said she is in the teething stage, but it may be several months before we see any teeth.  I of course assume it will be several months before we see any teeth. Boy was I wrong!  All weekend Claire was in a terrible mood.  I felt so bad she was in such a bad mood.  My parents were in town to play and Claire was a turkey.  She didn't have a fever, but seemed to feel better after a dose of Tylenol.  She also sure liked to gnaw on my Dad's hand.  Again never thought there would actually be any teeth.  Well this morning I decided to check her gums, so I rubbed my finger on them and I felt something rough!  Sure enough not one, but two of her bottom teeth are starting to come in!  My baby is growing up way too fast!

This was taken right after her 4 month check up.

Stay At Home Mommy!

Yes it's true! I am officially a stay at home Mommy!!!! I am so behind so I will try and give you the short version. The first part of December I met with my boss and poured my heart out to her that God was calling me not to work full time or at least full time away from my daughter. I was as open and honest as I could be. Eric and I had been talking and crunching numbers and determined we would make it work on part of my salary. More importantly we felt that God was calling us to take a step of faith and trust that he would provide on half of my salary. The meeting with my boss went good I thought. She said she understood as she herself is pregnant and wanted to work with me and she would get back to me the week before Christmas. The week before Christmas was a busy week. My Dad had major back surgery so Mom, Claire, and I spent most of the week back and forth from the hospital. Eric was in Houston working half the week. I really didn't expect to get a call back from my boss I figured I would have to call her back. Well she did call back, sort of. HR ended up calling to inform me that all they could offer me was my full time position and nothing else. I asked HR (who was fabulous throughout the entire process) to try and negotiate something partially from home and partially from the office and I would do full time hours. Again HR called back and said the only position she as willing to offer was full time from the office. I was baffled. So many people before me were allowed to at least go part time. I knew the work at home request was a long shot, but what was so wrong about part time? I was even more baffled because I knew in my heart God did not want me to be away from my daughter full time. I started second guessing myself. Maybe I wasn't hearing God correctly maybe I was supposed to work full time since that was the only option. We had done the numbers in our budget a 100xs. Part time was going to be a stretch so at that point quitting wasn't an option. Eric and I decided I would have to go back to work full time until I could find something part time or from home. Eric and I prayed and prayed for an answer. I knew that I would have to suck it up and go back to work. Eric kept telling me it would only be temporary. In my heart I just didn't have a peace about it. The thought crossed my mind that maybe I should quit my job. Every time that thought came into my head I quickly shoved it out because that was just not financially possible. I had not mentioned that thought to Eric because of how completely impossible it was. We had so many people praying for us. One of my dear friends told me that maybe God was asking us to take an even bigger step of faith, even bigger than working part time or waiting it out until something part time came along. Maybe God was giving us the clear answer we asked for and that answer was I was supposed to quit completely. For several days I pondered what she had told me and spent countless hours talking to God. I did not say anything to Eric until after Christmas about this thought. Part of me was afraid of what he would think. I have always been so financially cautious. Saving as much as I could. Coupon clipping, deal hunting, 401k saving. I was afraid he would think I had completely lost my mind by discussing quitting completely. Finally on our way back to Houston after Christmas I shared the conversation my friend had with me. I told him I did not want a response or even to hear his thoughts yet. I wanted him to spend the next day or 2 praying about it and then we would discuss it. I told him I was not trying to sway him one way or the other and made sure I presented it unbiased. I had already asked God that if what he wanted was for me to quit that my husband ask me to quit. I did not want to have to convince Eric what I felt God was asking. I wanted Eric to feel the conviction I felt. Guess what, Eric did feel that conviction. He came back to me after several days and said he knew financially it didn't make any sense, but he had a peace that God was going to take care of us and what God wanted for our family was for me to stay home with our daughter.

In order for me staying at home to remotely work out we first had to arrange some of our finances. We both have a lot of student loan debt. We have been paying diligently for the last 4 years on them. Paying quite a bit extra than the minimum due. Again the financially conscious part of me wanted to pay them off as quickly as possible so we paid substantially more premium. When we looked at our budget again the exact amount needed for me to stay home was the exact amount a month we pay on these loans. We decided that we would call all the lenders and request a break in payment for several months since we had paid so much extra. Not a permanent fix, but it does give us several months to figure something out. Unfortunately this could not be accomplished overnight and I had already told work I would be back January 3. Oh how I dreaded January 3. Cried and cried Sunday night. There was no avoiding it. I was going to have to go to work Monday. We had been paying the sitter for months to hold Claire's spot so Monday rolled around and I went to work and Claire went to the sitter. I have never felt so awful in my entire life. My stomach was in knots. It didn't get any better when the sitter text me that she couldn't get Claire to eat and finally got an ounce down her using a medicine dropper. Work also had changed a lot of my job duties and there were several other hiccups that morning that made the day even more stressful. We used our lunch hour to call as many lenders as we could and somehow managed to arrange everything with all, but 2 of them. 2 of our loans do not have any alternative payment options and therefore have to continue our monthly payments. Monday evening I picked Claire up and she had been screaming for hours. She was starving and refused to eat most of the day. In 10 hours she had only eaten 4 ounces. I immediately burst into tears when I saw her. She was hoarse from crying so much and inconsolable. It took me nearly and hour to get her calm enough to eat. At that moment I knew we had made the right decision. Eric and I decided Tuesday I would give my notice to work. This was not what God wanted for our family. Work told me that I could not come back anymore if I didn't want to. I tried to give a 2 week notice, but they told me it was not necessary. I decided I would finish the week out. It did not feel right to leave mid week without a word to anyone else. Almost everyone at work was supportive of our decision. Several people did say I didn't give it long enough and that it does get easier. I know we would have gotten into a routine and things would have gotten easier if I would have stayed, but I also know that God didn't want that for our family.

We all survived the week. I don't think I have ever been so stressed in my entire life as I was last week. We both feel such a peace about our decision. For something that financially doesn't make a lot of sense for us to have such a peace can only be God's doing.

On another note Claire's first Christmas was so much fun. We had so much going on with my Dad's surgery, my grandfather was sick in the hospital, my work drama, but Christmas was so fun. Claire is so blessed to have so many wonderful friends and family. It looks like we robbed a toy store. That kid should not be bored for a very long time. Every day she is more and more fun. She has started to giggle and laughs more and more everyday. She has also mastered rolling over from back to tummy and now thinks that little bit of mobility is super fun.

Here is our most recent picture of her. My Mom got her this dress and I think she looks beautiful in it.

Sorry this post is so long. If you made it this far, thanks for sticking with it! I promise I will try and not go so long between posts. I also promise to get some of the Christmas pictures uploaded in the next week. There are some really cute ones of Claire and the family!

Amazed

Every day I become more and more amazed watching my little girl. My favorite part of the day is waking up to her smiling face. She is full of smiles in the mornings. She is not an early riser (lucky me), but when she does get up she just smiles and talks. It breaks my heart to think I might have to miss or cut short this part of the day in a few weeks. Some of you know the struggle going back to work I am having. I did have a meeting with my boss today and the rest is in God's hands. Please be praying that God's will be done. I want to do what is best for my family.

Another thing I sit in amazement at is when I think back to a year ago. Every year Eric asks me what I want for Christmas. I have never been one to want presents. I enjoy giving much more than receiving. Last year the only thing I wanted was a baby. He would get so annoyed with me because I wouldn't tell him any material thing I wanted because I truly didn't want anything other than a child of my own. I dreamed and hoped to be pregnant by Christmas last year. I had these grand dreams of a special way I would tell the whole family Christmas morning. Several weeks before Christmas nature told me that dream would not come true. I was crushed and did my best to smile through Christmas when all I could think about was the Christmas I had planned wasn't going to happen. As I look back to a year ago I smile. God in is perfect timing did give me my Christmas wish I just didn't know it yet. Little Claire was conceived the week of Christmas (I'm sure you really wanted to know that, lol). God answered my prayer just not in the way I thought it should be answered. Now I am so thankful God answered my prayer the way he did. For so many reasons. Her birth was perfect timing. I may have been overdue and anxious, but God knew what he was doing. I feel so blessed this year. I don't want or need a single thing in the world. I have my perfect baby girl and look forward to sharing her first Christmas with her.

Her new favorite thing is to play in her jumperoo. She loves this thing and will jump and jump and the next thing I know she is asleep. She isn't quite long enough to touch the floor, but a pillow does the job nicely.

Almost 10 weeks!

Wow I cannot believe my pretty princess will be 10 weeks this week! It's breaking my heart how fast time is flying especially since I know I will have to go back to work soon. I am talking with work about taking off a few extra weeks and not going back until after the first of the year. Fingers are crossed they will let me. There is a lot going on at work and several people are out for various reasons. Also please be praying about work in general. It is getting harder and harder every day to think about leaving Claire. Eric and I are praying for an alternative. We know I have to bring in some income (thanks to our wonderful student loans, sure wish I had a crystal ball about the future when I took those out :-) we are trying to figure something out. We just want what is best for our family and both feel that Claire going to daycare full time is not what is best. I know the sitter we are planning on sending her to will treat her wonderfully, but it breaks our hearts to have someone spending more time with her than one of us. Please be praying for our little family.

Claire had her 2 month check up last week. She now weighs 10 pounds 7 ounces (50th percentile) and is 23.5 inches long (90th percentile, go figure she is taking after her Momma). Doctor said she is growing great!

We are heading home tomorrow morning for Thanksgiving! We are very excited to see our families and for Claire to meet everyone else. We are hoping she isn't getting sick. She has been really stuffy today and coughing. Praying she isn't coming down with something.

Here is our little bit hanging with her Daddy. She is pretty sure he is the funniest person she has ever met. Already a Daddy's girl!