Eight months (already?!)

Oh-so-feisty Mayson Pearl,

On May 24th you officially turned 8 months old.
(and yes I realize I am only posting this 1 day before you turn nine months but we've had quite the busy month!)

I would guess that you weigh somewhere between 16 and 17 pounds.

You wear a combo of 3-6 and 6-9 month sizes,

 and are still in a size 2 shoe.

I'm finishing up your last pack of size two diapers and plan to bump you up to threes when we run out!

You drink 4-5 bottles a day,

plus have three "real" meals- fruit for breakfast, puffs or some other finger food for lunch/snack, and a veggie for dinner!

You usually take two short cat naps earlier in the day and one longer nap late in the afternoon;

But what you do best is sleep at night- 10 to 11 hours straight through to morning!

(my only complaint is that according to you morning equals 6 o'clock!) 

You learned and experienced so many new things last month.

You've slowly been trying some "real" food. So far you've had bananas, strawberries, a french fry, oranges, cantaloupe, sweet potato, hash browns, and a pickle. You liked everything but the pickle!

You've been finger painting more and you LOVE it!

You've learned to "walk" and want us to help you "walk" constantly. Along with us helping you to walk you are starting to cruise holding on to furniture and have begun to figure out how to pull yourself up to standing.

You don't have much interest in crawling and so far the only crawling you do is backwards, which makes you mad!

Grandma and I took you on your first trip to Dan Nicolas Park.

 You've been enjoying splashing around in your baby pool.

Absolutely love your doll house.

 And helped me celebrate my very first mother's day!

Throughout your seventh month you loved...
standing and "walking"- both require you to hold on to something
puffs
trying new foods
shaking and banging toys
nodding yes
mirrors
books with flaps or different textures to feel
opening cabinets
being outside
bubbles
your jumperoo and activity table
and
listening to the duck song

you disliked...
being in your carseat
crawling
if someone wouldn't walk you around when you wanted them to
your V-Tech move and crawl ball
and
getting dressed 

Your personality is emerging more and more everyday; and while you are a totally fun and entertaining baby I do have a feeling that you are going to be a handful!!! At least for the next eighteen months I won't have to tackle the job of raising you alone. Your daddy will finally be here to watch you learn and grow... not to mention I'll finally have someone else to help "walk" you around!

Water Blob!!

I saw this idea on pinterest a while ago and finally got around to trying it out.

All you need is some clear plastic sheeting, duct tape, and a water hose and you can make your very own water blob too!!

It cost less than five dollars to make and it was fairly easy to put together. You fold the plastic sheeting in half (I doubled mine up because I thought for sure it was going to be to thin to hold the water but surprisingly it held fine) and then duct tape all of the sides together (again I doubled the tape!) leaving an opening just large enough to fit a hosepipe in. I added star confetti and a few plastic bugs, filled it with water and then taped off the last little bit and voila.... 

I'll never underestimate the power of duct tape again!!

This little girl loves to paint!

(ps: please ignore the yucky leftovers from her dinner on her highchair. every time i turn around i feel like i'm washing her seat cover again and again and again. she's definitely not afraid to get messy!)

ice and spoons

Some days the preschool teacher in me begs to be let out!!

Today we did a little sensory experience with colored ice.

(by the way I was way more stoked about it than she was!)

She would have been happy with just the bowl and her spoons!

heartwarming and heartbreaking

For the past five and a half months this has been our routine.

I sit the iPad up and my precious little girl gets so excited-

 it's Mayson Pearl and daddy time!

Seeing them together,

interacting, "talking", laughing and playing- 

is both heartwarming and heartbreaking.

I feel blessed that Gregory is deployed to a location where he is able to skype with us almost daily.

Blessed that this technology even exist.

Blessed that we get to start our mornings with him, while he ends his day with us! (that's what a 13 hr time difference gets you!)

Blessed that he's been able to see Mayson growing up.

Blessed that Mayson is still able to hear and therefore recognize his voice.

Blessed that I get to see them both so excited and happy to see each other.

And while I am daily trying to count my blessings, its hard not to long for the day when we finally get to have our favorite guy in person.

I know that throughout much of this deployment I have kept this blog fairly superficial.

I've really tried not to delve into my feelings and if I'm being honest I haven't really had to many of them.

I've been sort of numb and keeping things buried.

But as deployment winds down I feel like I can finally start letting things to the surface.

Because there is finally a light at the end of the tunnel!!

My little family is finally going to be whole again and that's the biggest and best blessing of them all!

 

Homecoming?

Wanna know when the hubby is coming home?

Ha! Wish I knew!

We know the schedule for the various flights back but they have yet to assign who is on each flight. And the not knowing is beyond frustrating.

He could be home as early as a couple of weeks from now or not until early June.

I want to be able to start counting down the days.

I need to start planning our move back to Jacksonville and figure out where we are going to stay if he comes back before June 1st.

I need to pack.

Get a haircut.

Shave my legs and wax my mustache!

Buy a new outfit for his homecoming.

And I'm finding it hard to start on my to do list without having a date for his return.

With the military you can't count on it being real until u get the official date (and even then it can change).

I don't wanna get my hopes up and then be disappointed.

So i'm simply trying to pass the time, waiting for them to assign him a flight and give us a date.

Because Mayson Pearl and I are dying to know when our favorite guy will be back in our arms to stay!

dollhouse fun

Grandma bought Mayson her first dollhouse.

We pulled it out for the first time today and I couldn't get over how BIG she looked while playing with it.

Where, oh where does the time go!