A Busy 4th of July Weekend

We had such a fun and busy long 4th of July weekend that I had to make a separate blog post with all of our activities!  We started off the weekend by grabbing some donuts at Krispy Kreme and hitting the pool at the M!  It was Acelyn's first time in a bathing suit (which she looked absolutely adorable in) and Nolan's first pool day of the season.  He was a bit nervous at first, but finally warmed up a bit and had so much fun swimming around and playing in the shallow deck area.  After she had a little nursing sesh, Acelyn joined us in the water since the water was warm enough, and she stayed awake and talked and cooed to me while she floated around!  Lots of people came up to us to talk to her, and she gave them more coos and smiles.  I'd say she enjoyed her first experience in the water!  

When we got home, Acelyn was pooped from her busy morning and looked super sweet falling asleep on my shoulder.  Nolan also took an awesome nap that afternoon and we all got to rest and relax around the house together.

The next morning, we decided to check out the Discovery Children's Museum.  Nolan and Jason had checked this out last year, but it was my first time and was excited to see how fun this place was!  We spent a good couple of hours there and Nolan had a blast exploring each different exhibit area.  His favorite was by far the water area, and he loved wearing the smock and running around placing the balls in different parts of the exhibit to discover what they would do.  

We ventured on, where he used his imagination to be a pirate on a pirate ship and a king in the castle.  He also loved playing veterinarian and shopping in the grocery store! 

Another favorite area was the temporary Clifford exhibit.  He's never watched a day of Clifford but was totally into the different parts, especially the dog bowl of bones.  We spent a good 15 minutes watching him load up bones and dump them into the dish.... so simple, yet so fun for him!  

My phone then decided to die, so I wasn't able to take many other photos, but we had a blast and even ran into nap time because we were having so much fun.  Luckily, Nolan barely made it home awake, went straight for his nap and took another great one for the afternoon (always a good sleeper... just extra long with all these fun days planned)!

Monday was the 4th of July, so we obviously had to take an obnoxious amount of pictures!  

I made a fun 4th of July flag jello poke cake that we chowed down on after dinner, before fireworks!

I had been talking about 4th of July and fireworks all week with Nolan (as we learned about this through our Tot School theme for the week), and tried to prepare him for what the fireworks would be like, knowing that he is very timid around loud noises and anything remotely "scary".  I showed him videos of fireworks as well as videos of him playing with the poppers and sparklers from the year before, hoping this would help him be a little bit more brave than I expected for this year's experience.  After dinner, he was excited to go outside to "do fireworks", and we gathered our Pop-its, sparklers and smoke bombs.  We started with the sparklers, and although he kept his distance, he enjoyed watching Daddy light them up and spark away.  

We tried out the Pop-its, and he was instantly afraid, but slowly warmed up once he realized it was kind of fun to throw them himself!  After throwing a box of those around, Jason lit up a smoke bomb and tossed it into the street.  I thought for sure Nolan would enjoy these, especially with all of the different colors.... and I couldn't have been more wrong.  He.was.terrified.  He screamed and cried bloody murder and I'm surprised our neighbors didn't come outside to see what was going on!  We tried to convince him to go back to the Pop-Its or sparklers, but he was convinced that fireworks were awful and chose to go inside and to bed! 

Fast forward through bath time and our bedtime routine, as we were getting ready to head off to bed, Nolan saw some fireworks going off through our bedroom windows.  We allowed him to stay up and watch some through the windows, and as we saw most of our neighbors outside lighting their own off in the street, we convinced him to come back downstairs and outside to watch (since that's exactly was he was doing inside!)  He agreed, and although he was hesitant at first, he actually warmed up to watching the fun, tamer fireworks in the street and loved that he was staying up past his bedtime!

Our neighbors had some "big" fireworks that they started lighting off a little before 9PM, and I thought that would be the end of Nolan's calmness and that he would freak out with the loud bangs, but he was excited about it and was proud of himself for being so brave!  Acelyn was outside with us for most of the night, and slept through everything.  Such a great baby!

We lasted until 9, when the Mission Hills fireworks started going off, so we watched from our driveway and had a great view of an amazing show!  The pictures didnt come out well at all, and looked much better in person.   I'm so glad they moved their fireworks so close to home- we have a great view and can't wait to be so close to a fun, traditional event when the kids are older!

Although fireworks and such didn't go exactly as planned, I'm so proud that Nolan decided to enjoy the end of the night and hope that each year gets easier for him and more of a fun experience!  We had an amazing busy weekend, and it's the on-the-go moments like these that make long weekends so  enjoyable!

Acelyn: Two Months

We're continuing to love on our new little lady, and I can't believe she's been with us for two whole months, already!  Jason and I always are amazed at how it's felt like she has been in our family forever, yet she's only been here for two months (that are flying by, I might add).  

Acelyn continues to be a great baby and is starting to learn new things and show them off daily.  She loves to talk and with each coo and goo, I usually can get a bunch of smiles out of her, too.  Her voice is much deeper and louder than Nolan's ever was, and she lets out large growls and roars in between her chats that have led me to call her my little dinosaur!  She let out her first big giggle this month, which surprised me while I was filming her "chatting" one afternoon, which made for an awesome moment to catch on camera!

Acelyn's favorite thing is to snuggle with Mom (she's totally spoiled and is held quite often, especially after big bro goes to bed), and she's also a fan of her play gym, hanging toy butterflies, Sophie the Giraffe, and watching everything Nolan does.  She adores him already, and I know they will share an amazing bond, but the road has been rough thus far, and Nolan is still adjusting to having Acelyn in his life.  He loves his little sister very much, and can be super sweet and lovable towards her, but he also has his moments of meltdowns while learning to be extra gentle with Sissy that have popped up since bringing her home.  We know it's a process and he'll grow out of it, so we're just trying to help him along this tough transition as best we can!  

This little girl is a mover (just like she was in my belly) and she's constantly kicking her legs and feet, and most recently has started to reach and hit her hanging toys on her play gym.  She gets so excited when anyone talks to her and becomes even more physically active when she hears music.  She absolutely loves her hands and sucks on them constantly!  Nolan never did this, so I find it adorable to watch her fit her fat wrists into her tiny mouth, and we have lots of pictures (or attempts of pictures) with her shoving them straight in and sucking away!  I'm loving that we are starting to see her personality come out, and am so excited to see her grow into her own little person, and what similar and different traits she will share with her brother.  We couldn't love Acelyn any more, and I find myself snuggling her so tightly, knowing she's only going to be this small for so long!  It's bittersweet to know she's growing and learning so much already but how quickly this stage flies by!  

{Sucking on those hands!}

Here's what else Acelyn has been up to this month: 

Height, Weight & Sizes:

Acelyn continues to gain great weight, and measured in at 10 pounds, 3 ounces (21st percentile) at her two month well check.  She is a longer girl, measuring 22 3/4 inches long (63rd percentile) with a tiny, tiny head circumference of 14 inches around (3rd percentile).  Her head percentile freaked me out at our appointment, but her pediatrician said she's fine.  She does have a flat spot forming, exactly like her big brother's around this same time, so we will watch this closely and try as hard as we can to keep her off her head when she's awake... but we are already mentally prepared for another one of our babies to sport an awesome cranial helmet in her upcoming months!  Based on how similar her and Nolan's flat spots are, I'm convinced they both were squished in my womb in similar positions or we have some weird flat head gene in our family!  Either way, it's one small problem with an easy fix, so we aren't too concerned!

She has grown out of all newborn sizes in clothes, and wears mostly 0-3 onesies, rompers, dresses and bottoms.  Her pajamas are strictly 3 months, and she continues to wear size 1 diapers, for now.  I've yet to pack away her newborn clothes and can't stand the thought that she's already growing like a weed!

Feeding:

We've continued exclusively breastfeeding and Acelyn likes to eat every 3 hours during the day and 4 hours at night.  I thought I would try to stretch her to 4 hours during the day come her 2-month birthday... but no way!  Her hunger cues go off right at the 3 hour mark, so I know there would be no way she'd allow for the extra stretch at this time.  She still nurses quickly and is done within 10 minutes, but also has started to linger on the breast at times and has started to enjoy comfort sucking, especially at nighttime.  I'm careful to be aware of this so we don't form a bad habit early on with only wanting to suck on my breast for comfort, but also don't want to deny her of it so early on, either.  We've gone through two new brands of pacifiers, since she's only just okay with her Soothie pacis, but no such luck with the new ones.  We'll keep trying on those ugly Soothies, still, since she takes it, but just doesn't looooove it!  She's gotten a little bit better at burping immediately after she nurses, and her spit up has slowed down quite a bit (hooray)!

Sleeping:

Acelyn still continues to be a solid sleeper, and we've formed a pretty decent schedule based on a loose E.A.S.Y. template that we followed with Nolan (Eat, Activity, Sleep, "Your Time"... although Your Time doesn't exist with a toddler in tow).  In the morning, Acelyn usually wakes a little before 7AM, and nurses either before Nolan wakes up or immediately after he gets up and changed.  She's awake until about 8:30AM, when she usually takes her first nap of the day in her swing while Nolan and I play or eat breakfast.  Soon after, she's up again to eat around 10:00-10:30AM, and depending on our plans for the day, will stay awake or dose off quickly.  If we're home, she hangs out with us and plays, but if we run errands or go places, she usually passes out in the car or as soon as we get to where we are going.  Her next feeding is around 1:30PM, right around when Nolan goes down for his nap, so we get some quality awake time and this is when I get to snuggle the heck out of her and take lots of pictures and videos!  She falls back asleep around 3ish, up to eat again at 4:30PM, and then has a crazy evening of sleep/no sleep/fussiest time of the day.  She isn't quite sure what she wants to do during this witching hour, and usually ends up passing out around 5:30-6ish, right before we eat dinner or while we are eating (if we're lucky!), and then wakes back up to start bedtime routine and eat around 7:30-8:00PM.  We typically do bath time and jammies for both kiddos, and books with Nolan while I feed her, or she eats immediately after we put him down for bed.  Her bedtime starts right after she eats and typically sleeps in the Dock-a-Tot with us on the couch while we watch TV or catch up on the computer.  I feed her again before we head to bed around 11PM, and again in the middle of the night around 3AM.  At night, she still sleeps in her Dock-a-Tot inside her Halo Bassinest next to our bed.  She loves the Dock and can sleep so well in it, wherever it is, and I have zero plans on weaning her out of it until she's outgrown it!

Likes:
Snuggling with Mama
Smiling and holding conversations, lots of coos and goos!
Ceiling fans
Solly wrap
Sucking her hands
Playgym toys (hanging turtle and hanging butterflies) and watching herself in the mirror
TV- she legit watches it already....
Snuggling swaddles, but not being swaddled (not tightly, anyway)
Watching her big bro and Harley, trying to reach for Harley's fur 
Sophie the Giraffe, hearing her squeak 

Dislikes:
Carseat, still HATES getting in it
Putting herself to sleep 
Pacifiers
Two month shots... obviously, but she screamed bloody murder... Way worse than Nolan ever took his shots!  I'm not a crier at those kinds of things, but she definitely almost had me in tears.

Her Mean Muggin' Face

Tot School: 4th of July + America

We're back!  We attempted a quick, last minute attempt at some Tot School activities to ring in the holiday week for the 4th of July and learning all about America and Patriotism!  This was our first week back at Tot School since Acelyn has joined our circus, so it was all over the place and we didn't do quite as much as we are used to.  Yet, Nolan was thrilled to have some fun learning time back in his life!   I really need to set up our monthly routine by mapping out some activities and themes for our future weeks... life has just gotten a little bit crazy with another little person in the mix!  Here's a look at our 4th of July + America activities:

We started off the week by reading the book, You're a Grand Old Flag, which Nolan quickly picked up on identifying on each page.  Throughout the week (and even still) he can find a flag and usually says, "Flag of America!" as his way of saying the American Flag.  It's pretty adorable.  We also created our own "Fireworks in a Jar" which Nolan absolutely loved watching.  We did this four times in a row, and he enjoyed helping me drip the dye into the bowl and helping pour into the water and oil mixture.  Our first attempt was with baby oil, which was a fail, so we quickly switched to canola oil and it made such a difference.  The colors separated so much better and we could really see the droplets spread throughout and make some cool displays!

Afterwards, we played a game of 4th of July Scavenger Hunt, found here.  This was a huge hit for Nolan and he really liked finding things on his own and feeling super proud when he figured out it was the correct, matching item!  He was able to identify everything, including an American Flag on our book we had just read, and the stripes on his own shirt!  The only thing I needed to help him with was the picture of a President, which I showed him a penny with Abraham Lincoln.  We played this multiple times, also, and he even asked for it again later in the week.  

Our craft for the day was making our own Fourth of July Fireworks, using a fork!  We've done fork art before, so I knew Nolan would enjoy this and be able to do it himself with little help.  He managed to make his own firework after I guided him for the first ones, and gave his own special touch with lots and lots of glitter!  

Our books for the second day were not super interesting, so Nolan didn't quite pay attention to them as they were way over his head and too detailed for him to care.  Instead, he learned how to play Bingo for the first time, and with lots of instruction throughout the game, successfully beat Mommy his first time!  He would pull out the picture, and I would have him find the matching picture on his card (if it was there).  He then placed a coin over his picture, and we continued on, taking turns picking out the cards each time.  I had to remind him that he was getting closer and closer to having a "Bingo!" by forming a straight line across his card, and when he won, he was thrilled to yell it out... "BINGO!"  We played multiple times after, and he really loved sorting out the coins as his Bingo markers and carefully selected each coin every time.  I loved that the pictures from this printable were super intricate, so he had to pay extra special attention to details to match the correct image.  

Our craft for the day was creating our own American flag.  I had Nolan use his Do-a-Dot markers, and he (roughly) marked up the colors in the appropriate areas.  I covered the corner and created stripes by placing paper and tape over the current paper, and lifted each section as we went on.  He was able to place the star stickers where he liked in the corner, and got to dabbing, again.  When he was finished, we peeled everything off and glued his stick on, and he was stoked to wave it around and was sure to show Daddy his creation when he came home from work.  

On our last day, we read O, Say Can You See, which was a cool book that identified lots of patriotic themes and things through history and landmarks!  Nolan enjoyed learning about different American icons, but the book was a little much and over his head, so we created our own little story as we read. Afterwards, we sang along to the Star Spangled Banner printable, and Nolan helped me learn the words by identifying each picture!

We had another fun fireworks art project planned, and Nolan was able to do this project completely by himself, which he thought was pretty cool.  We used toilet paper rolls cut up to help create our fireworks, and of course, couldn't finish the project without some more glitter!

Here's to our first week back at Tot School with a great fun and interesting theme to celebrate our country and holiday!  Happy 4th!