Michigan Trip: The Wedding and a Whole Day Away from Baby Girl

Last month, while in Michigan, I was honored to be part of the most beautiful wedding. It was perfect. And magical. And fun. And gorgeous. And PERFECT.

Every detail was carefully thought out and executed. It was a dream.

I had the BEST time and will never forget it.

S and A were getting hitched and I got to be the matron of honor. I am so happy that I got to spend this day with them. I admire them and their relationship very much. They make it look effortless and seem like they truly have a BLAST together. I love it. They are perfect together and there is nothing fake or forced about it. They will still be this happy and in love in 60 years, I know this for sure.

A little bird poop on the groom right before the ceremony ain't no thang...

While I was at the wedding my dear friend M came and watched my baby girl. I've been away from Makaela before but this was the longest stretch (about 15 hours). At this time Makaela was new to foods, and was still drinking quite a bit of breastmilk. I was nervous about having enough milk for her, because as you may recall, some leaked on the plane. But I knew, worst case scenario M could always bring Makaela to me at the wedding for a quick feeding. Fortunately, it didn't come to that and there was plenty of food and milk to keep my girl going while I was away.

M was such a doll. She took Makaela swimming in the pool, took her on a walk at the beach, brought her tons of toys to play with, went out to lunch with her, facetime'd with Daddy and kept her happy all day long (all while she was teething! her first two teeth popped through 3 days later). She is a miracle worker. I never worried and knew that she was in good hands. I am so thankful for what M did. I am always blown away by my wonderful friends' kind hearts and generosity.

It was really nice to have this day be baby-free. I mean, I love spending time with my girl, but this day was for spending with my favorite bride!! We drank delicious coffee and ate yummy sweets while getting our hair did, we took a "detour" to the wedding venue which was full of laughs, we got ready in the bridal studio and jammed to old school Christina and other late 90s/early Y2K hits, and had a blast with her amazing photographers (they were so sweet, they even worked around my need to pump! haha).

Once the wedding started, the fun continued. S and A wrote their own vows, and they were the PERFECT (I know I keep using that word, but it's true) balance of funny and sentimental. They even snuck in a surprise tribute to their mamas. They made me get teary eyed in front of the whole crowd.

The reception was the best party ever. I didn't pass out or choke during my speech, so that was good. There was delicious food, yummy cupcakes, tasty local craft beers, late night pizza, smores at the fire pit, cigars on the balcony....I told you....every detail was perfection. The music was awesome and we danced the night away. That bride and groom know how to throw a par-tay.

Afterward, a giant school bus came and shuttled anyone who needed a ride back to their hotel or to the after party at Applebee's. Holla! I skipped out on the after party, but heard it was awesome. I'm not surprised.

Michigan Trip: Makaela's First Flight

Earlier this month we went to Michigan for a friend's wedding that I was lucky enough to be part of (the wedding was phenomenal and I can't wait to talk more about it in a special post). We weren't sure if Tim would be able to go or not due to his school schedule, and unfortunately at the last minute it ended up that he couldn't come. We toyed with the idea of making the 13 hour drive, but since me and Mak were going solo we thought flying would be the better bet. Thirteen hours probably would have turned into something like 20 hours, road rage and lots of tears and headaches.

Of course we've all heard the horror stories of flying with infants. The ear pain. The screams. Exploding diapers. Glares from fellow passengers. Man, I'm getting anxiety just thinking about all that COULD go wrong.

Honestly, I think I was most nervous about the logistics of traveling alone with a baby. Two extra hands would have definitely put me a little more at ease. Babies have A LOT of crap. I seriously had nightmares about toting all the baby necessities, plus normal travel necessities AND a little one through the airport....oh and then onto the shuttle to the car rental site. Hives anyone?

Sit here while mommy gets everything situated, okay?

Now that I've set the stage for a disastrous experience, let me blow your mind by saying the trip went better than I could have EVER imagined. Like blue skies, sunshines and little-birds-chirping good.

There were several things that got me through the travel...

1. I packed very lightly for myself. Normally, I'm indecisive about my outfits. But this was CERTAINLY not the time or place to be indecisive. Everything I brought I would have to carry. I planned each outfit carefully and matched things so that I wouldn't need to bring many pairs of shoes.

I kept reminding myself that worst case scenario, I could just buy what I needed when I got there if I left something out. I also checked with those I was staying with to see if I could do laundry at their homes.

2. I arranged to borrow the big stuff from friends and family. I would have had a serious meltdown if I had to tote a stroller and a pack and play through the airport. Thankfully, family and friends stepped up and offered to let little Mak borrow theirs while we were in town. They also offered toys and other helpful items like bouncers. I couldn't have survived without this help!!

I bought diapers and a majority of her baby food when we got to Michigan so I only packed what I needed for the flight and first day.

3. I checked her carseat with my luggage. Carseats are heavy and awkward and I complain just carrying it into the grocery store, so I knew I didn't want to lug the baby in that thing through the airport . We had a short layover, so I also knew gate checking would be a hassle because I would have to wait for them to unload the carseat, and then re-gate check it. Since our layover was only 40 minutes I had JUST enough time to get off one plane, change the girl's poopy diaper and jet over to our next gate (which of course was in an entirely different concourse, thanks Atlanta, thanks.)

I complain about Delta all the time, but I have to give them props on this one because they allow you to check carseats for free.

I wore Mak through the airport and it was easy-peasy and it freed up both hands. Hallelujah.

4. I accepted help when offered. Nine times out of ten when people offer assistance I respond without thinking and say "Oh that's okay I've got it, thank you though!" Not this time! On the way back when a Detroit Airport employee offered to have someone get me a cart and transport all of my stuff from the rental car shuttle to the ticket counter and oversized baggage drop, I jumped on the offer.

5. I let the TSA agents know I would be carrying on baby food and breast milk. I'm sure they probably figured I had that kind of stuff since, after all, I did have a baby strapped to my chest, but I gave them a heads up anyway. On our way there they tested some of the milk in their little bomb testing machine. It took about 5 minutes and then we were good to go.

6. When I booked my flight I told them I needed the "infant in arms" stamp on my ticket. On our first two flights (Dothan to Atlanta and Atlanta to Detroit) I had NO ONE sitting next to me. Yes, you read that right. The first flights I've been on in YEARS that weren't overbooked. On the first flight there were only two open seats, so I felt very fortunate to have one next to me. On the flights home, I did have people next to me, but the seats next to me were the last ones to be filled (they got taken by standby passengers). So here is what I think: If you have the "infant in arms" designation on your ticket early on, I believe that the airlines do their best to keep a seat open next to you if at all possible.

7. I let the baby do whatever she wanted on the plane as long as she wasn't disturbing others or harming herself.  That meant letting her look out the window, playing with the tray table, chewing and crumbling SkyMall, playing with her toys and nursing. I'm relieved to say she didn't have any meltdowns. I also had nice passengers behind me and in front of me that would make silly faces at her. She loved that.

8. I took my time. Slow and steady wins the race keeps their sanity. I didn't rush at all. I made sure to allow much more time than I would have normally needed. At one point when I was unpacking the rental car the representative started to take my luggage to the shuttle. Normally, I would have gone into panic mode and just quickly through everything together to catch that shuttle, but instead I told him I was going to need another 5 minutes and would rather wait for the next shuttle. No biggie!

The airport nearest our house is super small. Like, I'm pretty sure the ticketing agent also runs the gift shop and cafe. There is only 1 gate, and 4 flights a day. All of which go to the same place. With that being said, it made things less stressful on travel day. I didn't have to worry about crowds of people rushing, as I figured things out.

On one of our flights she decided to sing and entertain the whole plane. It was nice to hear everyone laughing instead of seeing glaring eyes. The girl is SUCH a ham though. She was literally hanging over the arm rest and flirting with anyone who would make eye contact with her.

On our very last flight, I do believe that her ears bothered her at one point because she pawed at them and fussed for a couple minutes. My ears bothered me almost that entire flight, which is odd for me, so I'm thankful that my little girl wasn't in too much pain.

Now the flights and airport adventures weren't completely flawless, don't get me wrong...

The plane we took from Dothan to Atlanta was SMALL and I mayyyyy have accidentally knocked Mak's head into an overhead bin as we were trying to find our seats. Oops.

And then on the plane ride from Atlanta to Detroit one of her bags of frozen milk some how thawed and leaked all over the floor of the cabin. Of course I didn't realize this until I picked up the cooler when we were deplaning and saw milk dripping all over the place. I was able to clean it up, but was stressed about losing milk!! I already was freaking out that I might not have enough to get her through the day she would be away from me, but more on that in another post, this is getting wayyyy too long.

Oh and I can't fail to mention the fact that Mak pooped on each flight. She's a master at pooping in the most inconvenient places at the most inconvenient times. She'll go days without pooping with no problem, but put her on a plane and apparently multiple poops in one day are absolutely necessary. Thankfully our flights were short, and she didn't poop until the end of each flight, so I was able to change her in the airport bathroom. Phew.

So there we have it. Mama and baby survived baby's first airport, flight, rental car extravaganza. It went so well that I'm not afraid to do it again. I mean, don't expect Mak to become a frequent flier just for the heck of it, but we definitely won't be afraid to get out!

6 month photos! (for real this time)

We are back from our Pure Michigan adventure and baby girl is finally starting to feel better so we got to work on those long overdue 6 month photos in a hurry.

This little lady is seriously my favorite person to hang out with these days.

She has me laughing all the time. She's been doing lots of babbling (especially to her puppies or other little peeps) and has taken more of an interest in learning to crawl. We aren't there yet, but motivation is 75% the battle, right?

She's now tried numerous foods, mostly purees but also a few treats that she chews on. Big girl in tha houuuuuuuse. She officially has bananas, apples, pears, pineapple, squash, peas, sweet potatoes, carrots, avocado and a few sauces and other condiments under her belt (or should I say - all over her face)!

Mak loves variety in her day. She likes us to switch out the toys and change up her environment often. She is so curious and you can just see her thinking and figuring things out non-stop. It is super fun, and also exhausting at times!!

She has also figured out how to take selfies. The girl is a natural. Just say NO to duck-lip-selfies in public restrooms please. C'mon say it with me. 

And she has discovered that playing some toys with her feet is just as fun, possibly even more fun than playing them with her hands. 

She has made some major leaps and hit some pretty cool milestones lately that we can't wait to share as soon as possible!!

Things I loved about this photo above....OBVIOUSLY the out of control mullet, those big honkin' feet, and how her baby onesie (the same one used for all of her monthly photos) can hardly hold her empty size 3 diap.

First day of Daycare

So I guess this title is a little misleading because Mak's first day of  real daycare was actually back in August and since then she has gone a couple more times. (She's been babysat a few hours here and there with family and friends ever since she was itty bitty).

We are fortunate to live only a 3 minute drive from the daycare. In fact, if I stand in my driveway I can actually see the building from my house!

The daycare offers hourly care so it is perfect for what I need it for....dropping her off when I have meetings or appointments or heck, if I just want to get a pedicure.

I like the daycare and feel comfortable leaving my little girl there. There are several adults in the room at all times, and cameras running 24/7. They give me a sheet upon picking her up that details every diaper check, every bottle and every nap. They also give me verbal updates when I pick her up, which is sweet.

If a child takes formula, they offer several kinds that they supply for you. Since Mak is a breastmilk girl, we just bring labeled/dated bottles of breastmilk for her.  They also offer age appropriate food for your kiddo if you're interested. All included in your hourly charge.

Before I took her the first time they told me I have to label EVERYTHING of hers. So I put together a "daycare diaper bag" and labeled her bottles, her pacifier chain, and her clothes.

After I picked her up, I saw they had also labeled her LOL. Guess I didn't know she was included in the "everything."

By golly, gotta label that baby!

The first time I took her she did GREAT, but this most recent time she struggled a little. She's been a bit of a mama's girl lately, so she didn't like mama leaving her. But I have decided that daycare is good for her and for me. I like that she gets used to being around other adults and children alike.

After I picked her up last time she was "talking" much more than usual. I like to think she gave me a run down of her day. She gets to socialize and see how other babies and adults work, which is great. The added bonus is I get some time to do my own thing.

The plan is to start taking her at least one day a week for 2-3 hours. Independent woman, holla.

6 month photos! (but not really)

These are going to be more like 6.5 month photos. My little girl had the sniffles on her 6 month birthday, and I just couldn't stand to make her do a photo shoot. She looked miserable and pathetic. We'll get some great shots when we get back from our MI trip though. Wish us luck on my baby girl's first flight!!

Sensory Sunday Funday: At the Beach!

This weekend we took a little day trip down to Destin, FL (which is right on the Gulf) to enjoy the sun and the beach. It was one of those last minute trips where you wake up in the morning and decide to go for it. See you can still be spontaneous with a kid, hahah.

I do love that we are only 1.5-2 hours away from some really great beaches. The drive is just the right length for a Makaela car nap :)

Last week we played in fake sand (brown sugar) and this week she got to play with the real deal. Man did she love it. She picked it up, dumped it, pushed it around and ate it, of course. 

The weather was great. Warm water, a nice breeze, quite sunny but not too hot. We rented an umbrella so we could seek refuge from the hot rays. We didn't explore the area TOO much because it was just a quick trip, but we'll definitely be heading down there again. I did notice lots of places that cleverly had "destin" incorporated into their name. "Destin-y's Landing" "Destin-y Villas" etc. Har har har. 

We tried going to a restaurant that had been recommended by several people but that was a total fail. Wah Wah. Apparently on Saturdays they don't serve food? Bummer! So it was basically a bar and people looked at me awkwardly as I fed Makaela applesauce while Daddy finished his beer, lol. 

So...we ended up elsewhere for dinner. When in Rome Florida....

I mean, if you're going to go to Hooters you may as well do it in Florida where it all began. Notice how Makaela is not looking at the camera....just like Daddy she was checking out the umm hooters. And can I just say I don't think this will be Mak's last time here. Those Hooters girls swarmed the table like flies to play with my girl! Daddy was in heaven. I must say, they all were really sweet and the food was actually quite delicious.

Destin, I can't wait till we meet again. I want to get to know you inside and out. 

Baby mullet!

Since she was born, most people's first reaction upon meeting Makaela is "oh my gosh look at that hair!" I totally expected to have a baldy, but this girl has got.some.hair.

Because I see her every day I didn't notice how much it has really grown since she popped out. Here she was in the early days...

And this is what we wake up to now...

Talk about bed head! Truth be told I think the messy look is adorable. I often take her out in public with crazy-girl hair. I do have to be careful to brush it every day though because it gets knotted. She's got fine hair like her mama.

I didn't think I would have to worry about knots until kindergarten....sheesh! I see some detangling spray in our very near future.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE that we can even style the nugget's hair into pigtails. I mean...come.on.

Long hair, don't care. 

 Baby mullet for the win!

Sensory Sunday Funday: Edible Scented Summer Mess

According to the ol' calendar summer is over, and even though I don't think summer ever ends in Alabama we decided to do a summer themed project.

We decided to get dirty in the "dirt," "mud," and "sand."

It was the most delicious smelling and tasting mess I've ever played with. We used chocolate pudding for the mud, cookie crumbs for the dirt and brown sugar for the sand. 

It was definitely sticky and messy but oh so fun. And don't worry I took on the awful task of eating the oreo creme to free up the cookies to be smushed into dirt. 

Makaela loved smelling the delicious scents (who wouldn't?!) and had fun feeling the different textures. We even pretended to exfoliate our hands with the course brown sugar and cookie crumbs. Girls rule.

The brown sugar was similar to the texture of perfect sand castle building sand. At first the coldness of the pudding took her by surprise but she got over that in a hurry. And of course, she immediately dumped the cookie crumb dirt....just on the blanket, not on her head. Victory. 

I like doing these projects and making them edible because she is very much in the everything-goes-immediately-to-the-mouth stage. I wouldn't let her eat gob-fuls but I may have encouraged her to get a little pudding in that mouth of hers. 

After this adventure she just went straight in the bath and got hosed down, which she thought was great. Thank goodness the girl loves water. 

Did I mention that I reserved some pudding and cookie crumbs beforehand so I could indulge in a delicious dirt cup later? Yes, that happened. I stand by my judgement that dirt cups are NOT just for kids. 

Edible Scented Summer Mess

Chocolate pudding

Chocolate cookie crumbs

Brown Sugar

At least containers or bowls

A don't-care-if-it-gets-messy-blanket, or something similar to cover the area you are playing on.

I like using clear containers because it is easier for the little one to see into and I also prefer shallow containers so she doesn't have to reach to deep!

Bananas and Boobs

Bananas and boobs. That is Miss Makaela's meal of choice these days. Yep, we started her on "big girl" food. At her four month appointment her doctor gave the go ahead to start foods, but I didn't feel she was QUITE ready yet. As the weeks progressed she started to show serious interest in what mommy and daddy were eating and became better at sitting up on her own so we figured it was time to give it a go.

I went back and forth on whether or not I wanted to start her on purees or do a baby-led weaning approach. Ultimately, I decided to start purees but am totally open to baby-led weaning down the road.

I've been making my own purees which is super easy (which I didn't expect) and super cheap. All of this was made from ONE sweet potato. Each "cube" is about an ounce, so the whole tray will supply many, many meals for her little tum-tum.

The first food she tried was bananas and that was a hit right out the gate. I don't freeze those because I had read they don't freeze well, so those are a make in the moment kind of meal, which takes all of 75 seconds. 

Next we moved onto sweet potatoes, apples and sweet peas. Sweet peas have been the least favorite thus far. 

We try one food at a time and eat that food for four days. Eating one food at a time helps rule things out if she has a reaction or shows signs of a food allergy. (Fingers crossed she doesn't have any food allergies like mama or worse!). I also like the idea of doing it over the course of four days because the first day she was not liking peas at all, the second day she was a good sport about it, and day three she was pretty much on board with them. 

During the first few days of eating, lunchtime always happened to fall right after bath time. Not my best idea. Now I know that bath time AFTER meal time is certainly the way to go (even though I think sweet potatoes smeared in eyebrows is totally in right now ;-)

Oh and I should also note that diaper activity has gone up a notch since starting purees, if you catch a whiff my drift. 

Look at that full belly!!

Can't wait for her to try more foods! I think avocados may be our next endeavor. Looking forward to the day when she eats more food and drinks less boob milk. Yep, I said it. 

Sensory Sunday Funday: Colorful scented water activity

While we would normally want our daughter to steer clear of yellow water, last week we encouraged her to play in it. Say whaaaaaaat?!

We decided to do some splash-splashing last Sunday. Using the left over kool-aid packets we had from the week before, we made ourselves some colorful and yummy smelling water to play in. Red, yellow and purple were our colors again... our hands did turn a little red after playing in that pool of water but it was nothing a little soap couldn't fix. 

I used cold water in one and warm water in the others to spice things up. She definitely seemed to prefer the warm water, or perhaps she was just more attracted to the red color and cherry scent, who knows!

We also brought out some smaller plastic cups and some bath toys for a swim. They were fun to play with and liked splashing too!

We kept the water pretty basic this time but I think it would be fun to add things like bubbles and glitter as she gets older. Honestly, there are few things in life that I DON'T want to add glitter to. 

Miss Mak enjoyed splashing, making waves and pulling mommy's hand through the water and mommy realized it's not super easy to photograph an activity when your hand is wet :)

 Fun, easy and F-R double E. We used the same set up on the floor as last week...plastic covered boppy  plopped on top of our don't-care-if-it-gets-messy blanket.

Colorful Scented Water Activity

H2O

Powdered drink packets (for color and scent)

Containers or bowls (we liked using clear ones)

Spoon to stir water

Toys, cups or whatever else you want to splash with

Pretty self explanatory. We filled up the water high because it was easier for her to reach. You could totally use food coloring instead of kool-aid to color the water; kool-aid just appeals to our lil noses around here.