13 Weeks Old

This has been an exciting week at our house...from new toys to visitors to Rachel's first swimming experience!

Adam got Rachel a new toy called Jacque the Peacock. She has been mezmerized by him since we've put him on her play gym. She has spent countless amounts of time just staring at him this week.

Rachel is also starting to grasp toys more easily and has more control about holding on to them and even attempts to chew on them at times...so she's moving on up the learning scale!




Early in the week we had a visit from Nana and Aunt Phyllis. They brought pecan crusted tilapia for dinner and it was delicious! Then Aunt Phyllis gave us loads of fresh garden vegetables like squash, zucchini, and cucumbers...yummy!



Then midweek, we had a visit from Aunt Brenda and Uncle Larry. They took us out to PF Chang's! It was crazy good eatin'! Then Papa stopped by the same night as he didn't know we had company...and that was ok. We love it when he makes a surprise visit to spoil Rachel a little on his way home from work:o)






On Thursday, we put some of Aunt Phyllis' veggies to work by making a squash casserole, bbq chicken, and green beans. Here's Rachel helping me in the kitchen since she decided she only wanted to take a 30 minute nap that day!


We don't want to forget Mimi who came over to help with Rachel all day Friday so I was able to get some work done around the house...but I was so thankful for the help and had so much to get accomplished, I didn't even get her picture with Rachel! We'll have to get one the next time she stops by.

Rachel had her 3 month pics made at JCPenney on Saturday. I wasn't very happy with them. We honestly have 100's of pictures of her that are better than the ones they took. Needless to say, we ordered a few prints of 3 different poses (the only 3 that were even good enough to warrant getting copies). Our plan is to take more pics of her at home this week or next and get some of them blown up to give to family. At least we had a coupon for a free sitting fee and a free 10x13 print in addition to a discount on the pics we ordered. The girl tried really hard, but I guess it's just that I am home with Rachel all day every day and can get pics of her when she's at her best and take 100s of them. Our sitting was only 30 minutes and Rachel wasn't very happy by the end.

Pa came to visit on Saturday and we had a special Father's Day surprise for him since we didn't get to see him last weekend. He's an avid outdoorsman, so what better gift than a picture of Rachel sporting her camo onesie from Bass Pro Shop! We also gave him a "normal" picture of her in behind this one in the frame so he can change it out if he has "civilized" friends coming to visit...that way they won't mistake him for a redneck:o)






A small miracle happened and we were ready for church early on Sunday morning, so we took a couple of pics...we were the first people to arrive at Sunday School too...crazy! I think it must be because I usually get frustrated on Sunday mornings when I try to sleep a little too long and have to rush getting myself and Rachel ready...this week I decided I wasn't going to let that happen...so I got up and got a shower even before Rachel woke up! It seemed to work out much better this way!



Sunday afternoon Rachel took a swim in her new pool! It's crazy cute and so was she in her new bathing suit that was on clearance at Old Navy:o) The little ducky with her name on it is from Mimi...she bought it this week for Rachel to have to play with in the bathtub and she had no idea we were getting her a pool...so it worked out great! We weren't sure how she'd like the pool as she's not the most avid bathtime baby...but she didn't cry at all and seemed to love it!

Here she is drying off after she was finished sun bathing...

Little ducky from Mimi...


Rachel just chillin' with Adam...

Nimbus was very curious about her new pool...

Happy Father's Day

Rachel and I worked on a special picture for Adam to put on his desk at work for his Father's Day gift. It turned out pretty well! Our goal was to do handprints and footprints, but if you've ever tried this before, you'll know it is quite difficult to get a baby to stretch out their fingers to get a good handprint...in addition, the drooling and putting the hand in the mouth is kind of an issue and makes for a mess! So, we decided we'd just use a footprint! She had black ink under her fingernails for a couple of days, but Adam didn't notice thank goodness! We also worked on a special gift for Pa for Father's Day, but we don't get to see him until this Saturday to give him his gift, so I'll have to post pics of it next week (so we don't ruin the surprise if he gets a chance to follow up on the blog before then!)

We had a special surprise for Adam on Saturday. We took him to the Nashville Zoo! He's always talking about wanting to go so we figured it would be the perfect Father's Day outing (a day early). We ended up getting a zoo membership (as it was less than $100 for all of us to go as much as we want in the next year plus take one guest on every trip!)...that way we can go several times for shorter periods of time. Thank goodness we did that becuase it was hot on Saturday and we only stayed a couple of hours. Then we made Adam one of his favorite dinners: homemade pizza! It was delicious!

Here are some animals that we saw....

It was alot of fun and we can't wait to go back. Ashley's coming to visit us next week, so maybe we'll take her one night if it cools down a bit.

12 Weeks Old

Rachel had one milestone this week: Sitting up in her Bumbo seat by herself. I've been wanting to try it for a while, and I finally did this week. She did ok. She liked it for a few minutes, but I think she got tired quickly becuase she's still probably not quite ready to sit unaided for very long.

Here she is on her first try in the Bumbo seat...



Here are some pics in a cute outfit that my mom bought Rachel for Easter. It's just now fitting so she wore it on Father's Day. The hat is the cutest!

She's really close to rolling over from her back to her stomach...as you can see in this picture. She's can roll over from her stomach to her back easily and has been doing that for several weeks now, but I think we're close to another milestone: rolling over both ways!

Here's Alison holding Rachel last Monday night. Alison comes over to watch the Bachelorette every Monday night and to help with Rachel. We cook her dinner...so it's probably a pretty good trade off:o)

Here's a random picture of Rachel with her Octopus. It is one of her favorite toys!

11 Weeks Old

It's hard to believe that Rachel is already 11 weeks old (almost 12 weeks old since it's taken me so long to update the blog this week)! Needless to say, we've had a fun, but busy time the last week and a half since I've posted an update.

Here's Rachel just hanging out with Adam (and Nimbus) some this week.



Christy, Cade, & Laura came to visit us this past Tuesday. We met at Providence and went to JCPenney (since we both had $10 off coupons), HomeGoods, & Target (of course). We also ate at Chick-Fil-A...yummy! Here are some pics of the kids and Rachel in one of her new outfits. I found two cute skirts and two cute matching onesies to go with them. Each piece was only $3.19...and with my $10 off coupon, I paid a whoppin' $3.02 for 2 really cute new outfits! That's my kind of shopping!

Cade really can't wait until Rachel is big enough to play with his cows with him...that boy loves cows!!! He brought them over to her one at a time:o)

It's not fair for only Rachel to get to play on her playmat...Cade wanted to lay on it too (even though he's bigger than the whole mat!)...and we couldn't leave Laura out...so here you have it...then there were three little munchkins playing on the playmat!

Here's Rachel in one of her new outfits enjoying a little kitty lickin' from Nimbus. I think they're starting to become better friends now that she's noticing him more:o)

The other new outfit...

We also had a surprise visit from Dana and Ashley on Saturday! Pa also came to visit on Saturday, but apparently we didn't even get a pic of him with Rachel. We'll have to get one next time.

We went to hear our friend Justin's band on Friday night at the Cafe Coco. Nana came down to watch Rachel. We had never been to the Cafe Coco before, but it was alot of fun! The band is Feedback Revival and they rocked the house! Go to http://www.feedbackrevival.com/ if you want to listen to some of their stuff. Here's a pic of Justin on the far right jamming down on the bass guitar as no one else can!

We also went to the CMA Music Festival on Thursday night this past week with Nate and Lauren. We ate at Rippy's before the show and had some awesome onion rings and BBQ. It was fun, but it kind of got "stormed" out. We only got to hear Brooks & Dunn and a couple of songs from Reba before they cleared the stadium due to some bad storms that were heading that way. Needless to say, we were very glad we had gotten on the club level because our "wait" was at least in the air conditioning. We waited for over an hour until about 10:45PM, then decided to head on home after seeing a weather radar showing the storm was still a ways away. The show did actually continue around midnight and lasted until 2:30AM, but we didn't want to leave Rachel that long. Her Mimi was watching her back at home. We figured she might not be too happy with that 2AM feeding:o)

Here's us and Nate & Lauren waiting on the the big show to begin...

Here's some pics of Brooks & Dunn & Reba...you have to look at the TV screen to actually see them:o)

Here's Nate, Lauren, & Adam waiting for the CMA Fest to start back up again...they look pretty happy considering we had been waiting for almost an hour at this point and it hadn't even started raining outside yet!

Adam had taken off work on Friday since we figured we'd be getting in late from the CMA Fest. Turns out he could have worked probably, but instead we had a fun day going out to Longhunter State Park and strolling around Couchville Lake. Here's some pics we took along the way...there were lots of the tiny frogs everywhere!

Here's Rachel just hangin' out one morning this week playing.

Ten Weeks Old

Overall, this has been a great week (except for the fact that our air conditioning went out and we had to spend lots of money to get a new one put in...but at least it's cool in the house now!). We had several outings and events to keep us busy. Below are just a few:o) I started keeping Rachel on a very strict schedule this week and I think it's helped alot with her overnight sleeping. She's been eating at about the exact same times every day and going to bed at the same time every night. What can I say, she's going to be a little schedule keeper like her mom! I always have to have things very organized and planned out...and I think she's going to be like me:o)

Last Friday night we went to Cracker Barrel and ate, then headed to Opry Mills. We only had time to visit Bass Pro Shops and Off Broadway Shoes before it was time to get Rachel home for a bath and to bed.

How do you like Adam's new shoes?!?!? Just kidding! He tried on these boots just for kicks, but I don't think you're supposed to wear them with shorts:o)


Here's Rachel near the hunting section and then me and her in the fishing section on her first trip to the Bass Pro Shop.


We also had my cousin Martha's wedding this past weekend. Here's a picture of us at the reception and then of Martha, Meghan, and Ashley. Martha made such a beautiful bride!

We can't forget about our 4th family member Nimbus. I took this picture last night when he was curled up in the laundry basket:o)

Here's Rachel on our deck this week. She absolutely LOVES the outdoors...from stroller rides to just sitting in her bouncer on the deck and looking at the trees. When she gets fussy, if it's a nice day, I just take her outside and she usually goes to sleep in the peaceful breeze on the deck.

Mimi came for a surprise visit on Monday night while she was waiting on her prescriptions to get ready at the pharmacy...then Papa stopped by too...but we didn't get a pic of him holding Rachel.

We also went out to the the greenway last Sunday. We started at the Wave Pool near Opry Mills and went across the bridge. It was so pretty. Here's me and Rachel on the path.

Rachel has started to hold on to things more lately. Here she is holding on to a butterfly on her playmat for the first time. She's learning to pull it a little and it buzzes up and down.