One Hundred Days of Summer, Week Four

Our first official week of summer and it was a rough one. Quinn got her first cold turned ear infection and passed it along to me! We still had some good times, but  I am hoping next week will be much better!

{Day 22:June 20}

Baby's first mac&cheese...macaroni, cauliflower puree, sprinkle cheese, and a little butter

{Day 23:June 21}

The first book I've read in a LONG time! 

{Day 24:June 22}

Roof repairs...let's hope this is the last time for a long time.

{Day 25:June 23}

Bullfighting with dish towels and a walker. A favorite pastime.

{Day 26:June 24}

Quinn's new, cutest summer outfit from our neighbor! Ashleybug.com has the CUTEST, and better yet, well made and tasteful baby things!

{Day 27:June 25}

Ugh! I forgot!

{Day 28:June 26}

Q Ginger!

Eight Months

Eight months...mathmatically, that is two thirds of Quinn's first year! We did not have a well check for eight months, but I would estimate that she is about 18 pounds and 28 inches. We did have a trip to doctor's office after a reaction to peanuts and later found out that she definitely has a peanut allergy. We are also currently in the middle of Quinn's first cold! Not fun at all, but she is taking it pretty well. I also think that she is working on popping out two more teeth. She currently has six (two on the bottom and four on the top). All those factors and somehow she is finally back to the GREAT sleeper she use to be. The trick? In my opinion she finally figured out that the best sleeping position is on her stomach! I really believe this has made all the difference!

She is busy developing quite the personality. I consider her a very happy and pretty easy going baby most of the time, but we have seen her become slightly more demanding this month. This mostly has to do with Q's desire to be moving around to get where she wants to go, but not actually being able to do it on her own. She still shows absolutely no interest in crawling, but does consider herself an expert at walking. I really think she thinks she can walk on her own. We currently spend a lot of time hunched over walking her around the house. We wish our house had more hard flooring so she could get around in her walker. She can get up on her knees and pull up on furniture, people, and toys. She stands and holds on to furniture and can take a step or two while holding on before she gets a little too confident and turns around to walk across the room when we have to grab her and help her. She can go from sitting to all fours, but then either flops on her stomach or goes back to sitting.

In addition to the high pitched screaming and singing that we hear all day, Quinn has become proficient in the /b/, /d/, /m/, /n/ consonant sounds. We are excited to hear her say "dadada" and "mamama," and we can't wait until she actually understands what she is saying.

Quinn is still eating two solid meals a day most days, and some snacks here and there too, in addition to milk four times a day. She is still a big fan of cereal, and loves yogurt. We are becoming a little more adventurous with our meals, including the introduction of macaroni and cheese this week. She is doing great with her pincer grasp. She would much rather feed herself than have one of us spoon feed her. It's definitely a lesson in patience for the mother. Another major mealtime struggle is the high chair. Quinn will not eat in the high chair unless she is starving, and even then only a few bites until she starts trying to struggle loose. I am so hoping this improves very soon.

Other big news this month includes taking real baths in the real bathtub and drinking water from a sippy cup. It took Q a pretty long time to figure out the whole sippy cup thing, but I think she has it down now and she gets pretty excited when it is offered to her. We have some exciting things coming up this summer and we are excited to watch Quinn continue to grow!

100 Days of Summer, Week Three

{Day 15: June 13}

Waking up to find out about the Stanley Cup Champs!

{Day 16: June 14}

Checking out her pinwheel

{Day 17: June 15}

My Lisa James! One of our last days working as co-counselors. I will miss her!!!

{Day 18: June 16}

Last graduation practice for Bennett Class of 2016.

{Day 19: June 17}

Last day of School

{Day 20: June 18}

Wild Saturday night making baby food: broccoli, garbanzo beans, asparagus, cauliflower, yellow squash.

{Day 21: June 19}

Pear lovers on Father's Day!

The Bennett Wave, 2016 Edition

It's been a big year. Best part of this school year: Quinn and my three month maternity leave. Worst part: losing a very dear friend. Yesterday I said goodbye to my 5th grade friends, and Quinn said goodbye to her Somie. I only cried over one of those. I'm really looking forward to time at home with Q this summer. I'm sure you will hear all about it. For now...my 8th Bennett wave :) 

100 Days of Summer, Week Two

{Day 8:June 6}

Grilled chicken salads, summer staple

{Day 9:June 7}

Skin Prick Test. Peanut allergy confirmed. 

{Day 10:June 8}

Broccoli Lover!

{Day 11:June 9}

Quinn is getting a boy cousin...much to my dismay. Note my reaction is not pictured. 

{Day 12:June 10}

Friday nights at Wegmans. Seriously a life changing decision. 

{Day 13:June 11}

{Day 14:June 12}

First day at our pool!

A Day in the Life

Back at the {end of December} I documented what a day looked like for our family. I have been wanting to do a second post since returning to work, and I am finally getting to it now just before school lets out for summer. So here is what our days look like right now, this particular day was Monday, June 6, 2016.

5:40: My alarm goes off. I get in the shower pretty much right away and when I get out I can hear Quinn starting to stir. I continue to get ready, getting dressed and putting on make up. Quinn keeps chatting away happily so I don't get her until I absolutely have to.

6:15: Quinn is getting louder so I go get her out of bed and change her diaper. We wave goodbye to Matt as he leaves for the train. I take Quinn into our room and put her in her pack and play to entertain herself while I dry my hair.

6:30: Quinn's breakfast.

7:00: We go downstairs. I put Quinn in her walker while I pack bags for the day. I need my lunch, pump, pump parts, school supplies, bottles, ice packs. Quinn takes her diaper bag with bottles and her solid lunch for the day. Side note: to make day to day things easier I pack all my lunches for the week on Sunday and take them to work on Monday. Quinn pretty much has a second set of everything at her sitter's house and I lay out her clothes for the week Sunday night too. I also take the bags out to the car at this point.

After packing up the car, I make my breakfast. We eat my breakfast on the couch and listen to the today show while playing with toys.

7:25: Get Quinn dressed for the day and change her diaper.

7:30: Get my coffee ready and any other little last minute things.

7:35: Last minute diaper change, load Q in her car seat.

7:40: Get everyone and everything situated in the car and leave for our Somie's house.

8:00: Arrive at Somie's! I have mentioned a few times in blog posts about how we totally lucked out this school year with our babysitting situation. Quinn LOVES her babysitter and it has just been the best thing we could have hoped for. It's also getting to the point in the year where I don't feel like going to work and we stand around chatting for too long in the morning.

8:25: Arrive at work.

9:00: Somie drops her kids off at school and I sometimes get to see Quinn in the drop off lane.

During the school day I get lots of picture updates and texts about how Q is doing. We each do our own thing. These pictures are not all from this specific day, but I wanted to include some of Quinn with her first friends :)

4:10: I pick up Quinn in the school parking lot.

4:30: Arrive at home. This day Q fell asleep on the ride home and stayed asleep when I brought her inside. This rarely happens anymore. I unpack her bottles and get new ones ready for tomorrow. Unpack all my dirty pump stuff and pumped milk. Refill water bottles and get coffee prepped for the morning. I start getting dinner ready.

4:50: Quinn wakes up. I change her diaper then go upstairs to change my clothes. We play for a little bit.

5:15: Quinn's dinner. Oatmeal, green beans, and carrots. Quinn hates her high chair. She hates her car seat too. You can kinda see in the high chair and car seat pictures that she is complaining and trying to escape the shoulder harness part. So half the dinner is in the high chair and the other half I put her in the exersaucer.

5:45: Play inside with toys.

6:10: Play in the walker outside on the porch.

6:50: Matt gets home. I finish making dinner while Matt plays with Quinn.

7:10: Eat dinner.

7:30: Start bedtime routine. First we all read a book on the couch downstairs. Then we go upstairs for a bath. Matt says goodnight after she get in some pajamas. I feed her before putting her down for the night, usually by 8:00.

8:00: Laundry. Pens Game. Doing some emails. Chatting with Matt. Getting things ready for the allergist appointment the next day. I think this night I fell asleep on the couch at like 10:30.

I would say this is very close to about our average day right now. It was so crazy to look back and read over the post in December and see how much had changed. It should be interesting to see what our summer days will look like in just 1.5 weeks!

100 Days, Week One

{Day 2:May 31}

Saying goodbye to peanut butter and hello to life with a peanut allergy.

{Day 3:June 1}

Last day teaching locks to my 5th grade friends

{Day 4:June 2}

Waiting to see dad and his blue car after work

{Day 5:June 3}

Rainbow after a rainstorm Friday evening

{Day 6:June 4}

Quinn's first 5k!

{Day 7:June5}

Lunch at Mod Pizza...new obsession, water from a straw