8 Months

Ainsley turned 8 months old today. I cannot believe it! She is so much fun, but can be a handful. Literally. She wants to be held ALL. OF. THE. TIME. She does okay playing in the floor, if you are down there playing with her. But if I put her down and walk around the counter where she can't see me (but I can see her), she throws a fit. So we have been using the Baby Bjorn a lot these days. What a great invention. Ainsley is a delight. The love of our lives. Our pride and joy. The best blessing from God given to Brantley and me. We love her more and more with each and every day.

At 8 months, Ainsley:

*is sitting up all on her own

*reaching for EVERYTHING in sight, including my dad's green bean off of his plate at Pei Wei (she's lightning fast, but wasn't a fan of the tast!)

*very much an observer (my mom and I were just talking today about how she definitely has my personality right now)

*is nowhere near crawling yet. She hates to be on her stomach and would much rather stand than sit. We joke that she is going to walk before she ever crawls.

*is very attached to her momma

*loves her baby food and LOVES crackers and Mum-Mums

*eats cereal in the morning and a stage 2 veggie and fruit for lunch and dinner

*wears size 2 diapers

*in size 6-9 month clothing, but depends on the brand (for example, Baby Gap can still wear 3/6 months, but Polo wears 9 months)

*still loves her feet

*working on getting her to say "momma". All I get is a big ole smile when I tell her to say it. Oh well. Someday.

*loves her blankets. She will hold onto them and rub her face with them when she is sleepy

*gets a big smile on her face when daddy gets home and walks over to talk to her

*is a paci girl

*is just beginning to be able to wear small bows in her hair without the use of a headband (she's gonna have dark thick hair like the both of us).

*sleeping 10 to 12 hours a night consistently. A couple of times in the last week she slept 13 hours! She goes to bed between 7:30-8:00 every night. On weekdays she is up at 7:00 to eat and, here recently, on the weekends will get up anytime between 7:00 to 9:00. However, I'd say 2 to 3 times a week she still wakes up during the night crying. We are working on that...

I think that about wraps it up. Here are her 8 month photos, which we took yesterday on our wonderful "Snow Day" at home! Speaking of "Snow Day", don't miss my other new post below this one!

Getting so big!

Giggly girl!

I Love Snow Days!

*I wrote this Sunday night and am just now posting it due to picture taking and uploading. So keep this in mind when reading...

Nashville got it's first big snow of the year today. And I just found out that I don't have work tomorrow! This is the best news because I have so much to do that didn't get done this weekend (one of those being catching up on some blogging). And it's not because I was doing other things that needed to be done. It's because I did NOTHING! So this day off is going to be my catch-up day. I'm also SO EXCITED to have a day home with Ainsley! For those of you who don't know, I am going to get to start working part-time in a few weeks when we come back from Christmas break. I will only be working Tuesdays and Thursdays and it's only 6 hours each day! I cannot wait to be a stay-at-home mommy and tomorrow will give me a good taste of what it will be like because on the weekends I have always had Brantley around to help :) I am so excited about this and thankful that I am going to get to stay at home with Ainsley most of the week. We will be getting closer and closer to her toddler stage, which will be both fun and tiring! But when is it not tiring? I mean fun? Haha. Here are some pics from Ainsley's first snow and hanging around the house with Mommy. I just love this sweet girl!

View from our porch Sunday evening.

Our little monkey :)

Thanks Mimi for my cute monkey hat!

Daddy and his baby girl.

(This was my snow suit from when I was this little. Glad I had it around!)

Playing before bedtime and keeping warm in my snowman pj's!

Thanks Mimi for my pj's. They are so comfy!

(Monday morning)

~One just for kicks, also from tonight~

"Mmmmm. Crackers make me tired...."

Daddy's Birthday

This is a bit overdue, but if I've had any free time in the past week the last thing I felt like doing was sitting in front of the computer for an hour! So here we go. A week ago Friday (the 3rd) was Brantley's birthday. We actually celebrated (just he and I) the weekend before. I surprised him Saturday morning with tickets to a concert he was really wanting to go to and we also went to dinner beforehand. After you have kids, what better gift to give your husband than a date night! So we went to eat at Longhorn Steakhouse and headed downtown to the Tennessee Performing Arts Center to see Ben Folds play with the Symphony. It was really good, but I only have a couple of pictures because cameras were not allowed. (Although the girl sitting directly in front of us didn't mind to take a million pictures while we were trying to enjoy the show...) It was a nice relaxing night. Then last weekend we had my parents and Michael and Emily over to our house for dinner to celebrate Brantley's and my Dad's birthdays. My mom provided the Godiva Chocolate Cheesecake from Cheesecake Factory, which is to die for. We had a great time with everyone eating and talking and just chilling.

Happy Birthday Dad and Brantley/Daddy! We love you!

This is from the concert taken with my camera in the dark.

Ben Folds playing with the Symphony

Making Enchilada Casserole. It was a hit!

Sitting with Pop waiting on dinner to be ready.

This cracks me up!

Opening gifts...

Thanks Lili for the fun Christmas outfit. So cute!

Christmas Time is Here

We have slowly, but surely been getting our house looking like it's Christmas. It was so fun to have Ainsley around this year to watch us. But honestly we did most of our decorating during nap times. I love this time of year. Fall is my favorite season, but when Thanksgiving is over I feel like it's Christmas time. To me all of December is Christmas! We hope you and your families have a wonderful holiday!

Ainsley was happy to be putting up our Christmas tree!

Half way there...

Bella checking things out.

Mommy helps Ainsley add her first Christmas ornament to the tree. I think she likes it!

(The back side)

All together now

Brantley's Nanny paints. She paints a lot of wood pieces/furniture and this is one she gave to us just before Brantley and I got married. It is beautiful and was the perfect storage space for our ornaments and the bows I made last Christmas. It definitely adds a nice touch to our living room right now!

The Mickey Mouse stocking was Brantley's first stocking as a baby and is now Ainsley's first stocking. My goal next year is to have all matching stockings, but I felt that this was important and special for her to use this year.

I wanted A's presents to be girly and different from every one else's. Here are most of her gifts wrapped and ready to be opened. I still have a couple more to wrap, but I felt like the tree was really bare underneath, so I did as much as I could at the time. The paper is pink with poodles, ornaments, and "Merry Christmas" on it. What I learned during the wrapping process is that baby toys are very hard to wrap! The packages are so oddly shaped.

"Good morning!"

(Taken just before heading to church this morning.)

We were running late for church (because someone was too busy taking the picture you see above), so we get Ainsley in her car seat put a blanket on her and rushed out the door. We had no idea when we opened the door we would see a pretty heavy snowfall! So of course I made us even more late because a certain someone ran back in to grab the camera to snap this picture while a certain someone else was saying, "Hurry we need to go". I didn't want to miss Ainsley's first snow! Although it didn't stick, it snowed all morning and was so pretty to look at on our way to church. (Don't worry I put a hat and coat on Ainsley before I got her out of the car and carried her into church.)