just hanging out

chunky little legs in leg warmers...

 

a little auntie love...

 

 ...and library books!

 

Who could ask for more?

 Spent my day doing nothing else but hanging out with this adorable baby girl?!

 

 

75 degrees in January?!

Four days ago we had freezing rain and ice;

the weekend before that we had snow.

And today?

70 some degrees and sunny!!

 

take a deep breath

It's the best smell in the world!!!

Fresh out of the bath.

 Squeaky-clean baby!

FOUR months!

Dearest little Mayson Pearl,

Is it even possible that you are four months old now?

I can't believe how big you are getting! 

You no longer look like a premie or a newborn- but like a regular baby!

At your four month appointment yesterday you finally managed to make it onto the growth chart.

You are exactly 12 lbs and 23 1/2 inches long!!

Which means you are in the 11th percentile for weight and the 14th percentile for height.

(Just for fun I looked at my baby book and when I was your age I weighed 15lbs but was only half an inch longer than you. Your momma was a short fat baby!!!)

You wear mostly 0-3 month size clothes and are about to graduate out of your size 1 diapers and into a size 2!

Thankfully you seem to slowly be figuring this sleep thing out. 

I put you in your crib around eight and you put yourself to sleep and usually stay asleep for 5-6 hours! 

After that you're back to wanting to eat every two to three hours or so and once 5:30 hits you are up and think it's playtime. 

Obviously you got this trait from your daddy and not from me!

It's so neat to watch as your little personality slowly starts emerging.

You can be a bit of a diva.

 And you're a rather feisty baby.

During the day you fight sleep.

You like to be up and moving, watching everything that's going on!

You've become quite the "talker" and love to carry on a conversation with anyone who will listen.

You love to imitate sounds and at any given time you say things that sound similar to- hi, uh-oh, oh god, who, and even no!

So far your favorite thing to play with is your hands.

You put them together, watch them move and love to chew on them.

Plus, just this week, you figured out that you could also use your hands to hold things- which is great because now you have even more stuff to chew on!

Though personally I'm most excited that you've finally started to enjoy books. 

Your favorites are books with high contrast black and white pictures, ones with pictures hidden under flaps and the baby sign language books that grandma checked out for you from the library. 

You love to watch us sign to you.

A few of your other faves are...

your soft touch and feel blocks

Captain Calamari and your playmat

baby radio

singing 80's & 90's hits with mom and grandma

your light and sounds puppy

playing peek-a-boo with daddy on skype

sticking out you tongue

walking around (aka- making someone walk you around)

stroller rides

and

snuggling with mommy, grandma or grandpa during naptime

 

Plus a few things that you don't like...

tummy time

getting out of the bath

coats and hats

being in your swing

sleeping during the day

sitting in your bumbo chair

being swaddled

and

not getting your way! 

(I'm afraid you've got your mommy's temper!)

 

 You'll never be this size again, so I'm soaking it all in and enjoying every precious moment that I've got with you.

I've only been given so much time with my adorable baby Mayson Pearl before she grows up and changes into a little girl!

Mayson's First Snow!!!

It might have only been half an inch but any true southern gal knows that any amount of snow is a snow day!

(Though I'll never understand why even the threat of snow sends us running to the grocery store for bread and milk, lol! We love our "snow"days but they sure cause us southerners to act like idiots!)

Luckily Mayson took it all in stride-

 but I gotta say I think was much more excited about the snow than she was!

Ps- Please ignore the fact that this momma forgot poor Miss Mayson's mittens inside!! We were only outside for 5 minutes tops! Luckily I think we're in the clear- no signs of frostbite yet. We still have all eight fingers and both of our thumbs.

Snow Day

All day I was excited about the prospect of Mayson's first snow! 

At first the weatherman predicted several inches.

It was supposed to rain the majority of the day;

then switch over to snow around six.

But by noon the forecast had changed to only a dusting;

and the snow wasn't supposed to start until after eight.

So we wore our penguin shirt to try and usher in the snow!

Perhaps I should have paid closer attention to the fact that the poor penguins needed an umbrella!!

Mayson Pearl was excited about the snow until I warned her that it would be cold!! She's a Florida baby- she doesn't like being cold!

 She felt better about it though, when I gave her a soft adorable snowman to play with.

 And of course she loves her penguin rattle that Uncle Joshua got her for Christmas.

We watched while it rained (with a few snowflakes mixed in!) until my poor little baby couldn't keep her eyes open anymore. 

She had her bottle,

I tucked her into bed,

and at 8:30 right when she was drifting off to sleep it started to snow!

Here's hoping that there's still a little snow around in the morning when little miss wakes up so this can officially be called her first ever North Carolina snow!

Poltergeist baby

One second Mayson is happily playing on her blanket-

and the next second-

puke is streaming out of her mouth like a geyser 

and running out of both of her nostrils in a flooded stream!!

I shrieked.

Which scared her.

So now she's covered in puke and crying.

I scoop her up

And suddenly I'm covered in puke and gagging.

 All of which somehow became the highlight of my day!

 

Oh how I love this baby and the fun of a free online photo editor!

 

playmat fun

Mayson Pearl is not a fan of tummy time.

So a certain mommy that I know (perhaps me!) has been slack about making her do it. 

Lately I've been making more of an effort to make myself, make her, to at least give tummy time a try each and every day.

And as a result we are slowly improving!

But there are still plenty of times that 

this

turn into this

Like everything in life it's a lot of trial and error.

But with ever face plant we are slowly learning!!

(At least that's what I keep telling myself as I try to calm my now crying baby!)

 Luckily she really loves playing with her playmat when she's not on her tummy so we usually resort back to that!

Mayson's First Christmas

 We started off the day on skype with daddy!

 

The wonders of technology allowed daddy to see what Santa had brought Mayson.

 After we said good bye to daddy Maysie was understandably mad :(

But luckily she cheered right up when we opened presents with grandma and grandpa.

Even Grandma's silly cat joined in on the fun!

 

 When you have this many presents under the tree you are one very spoiled little baby!

Of course we would have traded ever single one of these presents to have daddy here with us!! It's sad that he is the only one missing from our Readling-Stewart Christmas day photos :(