Wow, how they grow!

I know I have been bad about blogging lately, but it has been hectic around our house! Spring break and a babysitter with the flu= NO Break for mommy! Anyhow, I just wanted to show how quickly our little girl is growing up! Henley has decided to boycott the rolling over phase and go straight to sitting! This week she started sitting up by herself and is just getting better and better everyday! I am so happy for this milestone because now I can plop her on the floor and she is so much more content then lying on the floor! Her is some video I took this week! Enjoy!

Wow, how they grow!

When Irish eyes are smiling...there always up to something!

If you are lucky enough to be Irish... then you are lucky enough! With a maiden name of Murphy could I be anything other than Irish? Alright so I have a little mix of other things, but I am mostly an Irish girl! My father's grandfather came over on the boat and I wish I could have met him! I grew up hearing stories of leprechans and hearing old Irish wives tales...with an Irish accent :>)!!! This makes our children part Irish and so of course I will pass on the stories and traditions that come with this fun Holiday! I hope to travel with my family to Ireland one day and meet family that is still over there! My Cousin Bill has done this huge family tree and has tracked down and met relatives in Ireland! My family actually traveled over there two years ago, but I could not take Christian out of town for two weeks that young!

Well we started our day dressing in green! Christian had a shirt that says, "kiss me I am Irish", but he refused to wear it! I did get him to wear green...finally! I had a little dress for Henley that has green shamrocks all over it and she did not fight me to wear it!!! It was a beautiful day in Birmingham and we wanted to get out of the house! When we had finished breakfast we headed out and about to run errands. Christian was being so well behaved I decided to stop at Edgar's Bakery and get him a cookie for St. Patrick's Day! They had green Shamrock cookies and green cupcakes and Christian did not know what he wanted to eat! We finally settled on a cupcake and sat down to eat it outside! We played at the park in the afternoon and headed over to my parents for dinner! I have been without any help for two weeks and dinner at my parents was a much needed break! I do not have to cook and my father entertains the kids!

There was nothing Irish about our dinner, but we did have green beer! Christian had a green drink too ( non-alcoholic)! He thought he was hot to trot with his green beverage! Christian would click our drinks and say, " Cheers...Happy St. Paddy's Day!" I have a sneaking suspicion that he will one day love this holiday too! Henley had no clue what the fuss was about, but she took interest in the green drinks! Here are some pictures!

Food, Food, and more Food

If there is anybody that knows Christian than they know what a terrible eater he has always been...since birth! I have been blessed the second time around with a wonderful eater! Go figure... it would be my girl who loves to eat! I have to worry now that she will grow up and be over weight because of her love for all things edible! In February I started Henley on rice cereal and did that for about a week. Henley soon was bored with that and wanted to move on to bigger and better things! I had spoken to her doctor at her 4 month checkup and he gave me the ok to give her any baby food I would like within reason! I would start with the #1 baby foods and go through those a week at a time. I wanted to make sure there would be no reaction to them. We started with applesauce and she loved it and then we moved on to bananas. Henley seems to love the baby food and literally will eat the whole jar at a time! Whoa big girl...calm down! Christian never did that! EVER!! I guess that is why she is going to weigh more than her brother in a few months! Seriously, I am not lying! There is less than a 10lb difference between them right now!

We had a little set back with the food department because she was given some medicine for colic by the doctor! Yep, lucky me my daughter is a little colicky and it rears its ugly head in the early evenings! The medicine made her very constipated and with the addition to food in her diet she did not poop for five days. I gave her a suppository and yikes, lets just say, GROSS! I decided that I would take her off the medicine and just deal with the fussiness. They wanted to add a laxative to her daily dose of zantac and other meds. I refused to give her all that stuff when she is 5 months old! That is way too much for my little girl! I just increased the zantac dose and deal with her crying! I promise that it is not that bad. In fact, I never would have thought colic until the doctor said it! Everyone tells me that by six months the colic goes away and that is not to far off from now!

Back to the food thing... I am still solely nursing and I feed her solid food once a day in the evening for dinner! I will start increasing that to twice daily in a month or two. I do not think I will try formula with her because it seems to be easier and less time consuming to nurse when she eats food. I can also leave her for longer periods of time because she will eat food and be satisfied! I am trying this out and it is not set in stone! I could change my mind. It would definitely save money to not have to buy formula and she still refuses to take a bottle! I must be doing something right because she is a little chunk! Today we went for a five month check up and she weighed 15lbs and 12oz! I almost fell over because she just turned 5 months and weighs almost 16lbs! Here are some pictures of her eating rice cereal in the beginning and I will post some more later!

Is that...SNOW?

I like everyone else in the city of Birmingham, Alabama laughed at the thought of snow this past weekend! Yeah, right I told Brian I will believe it when I see it falling! Well Sunday morning we woke up to the flakes falling down and falling hard! The weather people forecast 2-4 inches in our area and I think we got it all! Christian was so excited because he had just played in the snow up in Indianapolis at my sister's house! The first thing that he said was "snow, snow...it's cold!" Then he went running to tell his daddy what was going on outside. It took awhile to coax him to go outside and play in the snow. He is not dumb and had remembered how cold it was up in Indy! However, up in Indy it was a blistering 4 degrees without the windchill! Here in Birmingham it was 30 degrees and was not to bad to be out playing in! We suited Christian up in lots of clothes and put on his rain boots! What can I say, we do not own snow boots down here! We played in the backyard and threw snowballs which the dogs loved going after. They all tried eating the snow and did not think it tasted to much like anything! It did make for cute pictures.

We played on the swing set and Christian went down the slide FULL of snow! He thought it was so fun that he made Brian go down too! It was fun to watch them running around in it. I wish sometimes that we got an annual snow just because it would be a blast tp play in for a short time. When Henley woke up from her nap we decided to take the golf cart and check out the neighborhood! Everyone was out and building snowmen and sledding on the hills! We joined them of course and had a great time. It was quite chilly driving around so when we got back to the house we had hot chocolate( a favorite of Christian and I!) It was a wonderful time and by the afternoon you never would have know we had a couple of inches of snow!