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Saturday, February 06, 2010

5 months

Well, a month later...Since my last post a lot of things have changed on the Charleigh front. She is growing up and learning so fast that it actually scares me. I look at her newborn pictures now and get very sad because it is extremely obvious that she is NOT that little any more and never will be. Those are days we will never get back. Just memories now, but it all went so fast that it is hard to remember...ahhhh, it only reminds me to cherish the moment she is in right now, because it too will be gone soon. We got a few of our newborn pictures from our photographer this week (Rae Leytham). Here are the ones we have for now, I may post more later :)


She definitely takes up the WHOLE changing table now :(



Well, she is growing up so I will embrace it and tell you about all the cool new things she is doing. So, she just recently started "sucking" her thumb. She doesn't really suck it though, just chews on it (for teething purposes I'm sure). She is eating so much that I was certain at 4 months that I was running out of milk. When I would try to pump at night, I would only get a few ounces, when I had been getting 6 or 7! Turns out, she was just eating that much more all of a sudden. She has been showing signs of readiness for cereal but her stubborn mommy really wanted to wait until she hit the 6 month mark to start that ordeal. Our pediatrician said she was at a good weight to start cereal and that we should start looking out for the "warning signs". She showed all of them: She started watching us intently as we ate every bite of our meals, she stopped having the thruch reflex when I would put something in her mouth, and she was eating over 32 ounces in a day. So, when she hit 5 months....we decided to try rice cereal! Here she is the first day.



By the second day she was cracking up at each bite, and now, a week later, she says "Ah" and opens her mouth wide for me to put the spoon in! she didn't poop for 2.5 days after starting her cereal but I'm proud to say, she is back to a normal pooping regimen now. She is also doing really cute things now like, trying to pick the pictures off of fabrics...she doesn't realize that they are stuck. poor baby. She has also started playing with her bottle at her 8pm feeding, that is the only time of day she gets a bottle. She used to gulp it down and now, she piddles and gets distracted with it. She acts like she isn't that hungry anymore, but a few minutes later she gulps it down...crazy girl.


Another milestone she hit accidentally at about 4.5 months...she said mama! Well, I was in her face one day saying MA-MA...over and over like I do every day :) and I said, "Charleigh say, Ma-Ma". Right afte which she said, "Ma.....Ma". It was totally an accident and she was suprised by my outburst of screaming laughter afterwards but, it was my moment I tell ya! It has been a month and she has yet to say it again :) I'll just keep brainwashing her for now. She has also learned that she can actually bounce in her exersaucer. Up until now she just sat in it and played with the toys, now, she gets her little legs going and bounces a bit, it's cute! She still has a long way to go until she gets to the bouncing capabilities of Lucas! She has become quite the talk-a-holic. She just sits there and jabbers away to herself. The ladies in the church nursery are constantly telling me stories of how, 'No, she didn't take her nap this morning because she was too busy talking to everyone who came in"...she has a little of her daddy in her I'd say. Okay, and she started doing this really weird thing on her changing table (started at about 4.5 months), BACKBENDS! She pushes her little heels into the table and balances herself on her head. It actually helps me change her diaper, as she lifts up her butt so, I'm not complaining. And she laughs while she is doing it. So, I guess I won't worry but, it's just weird and I haven't seen any other babies do it.


Well, the last thing I posted about a month ago was her 4 month checkup so, I'll start from there. The next day my sweet babies Caroline and Kathryn came to visit us and meet Charleigh for the first time. These are two college girls that I mentored way back when they were in 7th grade! They will always be my first little babies that I loved like a mother. We chatted it up and I made sure to get the dish on their current lives...they're gonna be okay! haha. One reward to working with the youth is that one day you get to talk to them as an "adult" and realize that, they're okay. I just worry about all of them so much, you know, like, you can't control what any of your "children" do, so you just worry. I love them ;)


The month of January has been sad for me, a little. January is the last month of hunting season and also the month that Justin's company does their inventory so...needless to say, we missed Daddy a lot this month. I know he has cut his hunting down a lot from the days of old but, I HATE when he is gone even one day. I think I must be extra needy, oh well, since I am writing this in Feburary...he's back! yay!


Also happening this month, we celebrated Prissy's 5th birthday! I cannot believe it. We actually forgot it was her birthday until that night...so I gave her like 5 treats to make up for it. She had no idea what she did to get all those treats! haha We also threw Joanna and Nuggette (no they STILL have not picked out a name) a baby shower. I made her a basket full of sewn and monogrammed goodies (which is hard to do with NO NAME) but I forgot to take pictures of all of this. Well, one thing I did make her was her own hospital gown :)She is not as over-the-top with the pink and sparkly as me so I made her a more "sophisticated" gown. It turned out sooo cute. It's a green on green damask print with green binding to match and a chocolate brown ribbon. This picture was taken with her phone so may not be the best quality ;) Just know, it was CUTE! And we celebrated our 5 year anniversary! Woo hoo! Best 5 years of my entire life, and I mean that with all my heart. I have many epiphanies a day realizing that I am very lucky, that God hand-built this man for me, and that I am so thankful that he dances with me in the kitchen :) We decided to re-live our first date and go to Tokyo! Not the nicest place ever but, I've learned that sentimenal is better than "nice". We were looking forward to making out in Jill's parents garage too but, decided that would just be weird (haha). Don't worry, it wasn't the same kind of "making out" that folks do today...just a little VERTICAL kissing! (I felt the need to explain that in case some of you pictured a dusted spot on the top of Dennis's car). Anyway, I feel I have divuldged too much information...The next morning we headed out to Stillwater Spa for a couples massage. Justin schedules these things solely for me I know. I LOVE going to the spa and sipping their flavored hot teas and nibbling their dried fruits, wearing their robes and flip flops...I just love the experience. I make Justin sit in the "realaxation room" for such a long time when he is just ready to go...haha, but he does it and he giggles (and makes fun of me) because he knows how much I love it. This was our first time at Stillwater spa and they had couples' changing and shower rooms...Justin was impressed by that :)


Okay, so in case you weren't uncomfortable yet, I'll change the subject. Also at the end of january Charleigh and I made a trip up to Bama, my little sister Jessica was having her gallbladder removed. Everything went well and she gave birth to a 2 ounce gallstone...yay! I'm knitting him a toboggan. just know.


So, at the beginning of feburary I had the pleasure of MCing the Miss PHS pageant. It was fun to see all my students again and some fellow teachers. The pageant was GREAT and we ran out of seats for all the guests! It was a fun night but I was REALLY ready to get home to my Charleigh girl :)


Later that week we threw Whitney and baby Isabella a baby shower too! We had it at the church and had such a great turn-out!I also made her a basket of goodies. This onesie and burp cloth are my favorites:

I also made her a hospital gown out of the fabric below so that she could match baby Isabella's burp cloth in the hospital :)

That night we raced to Ben and Sam's house for a big bash they were throwing to celebrate Ben finishing school and getting a promotion! Everyone was so proud of him and even gave him sweet little tearful speeches...so cute! Justin joined in the fun by starting "He's a Jolly Good Fellow" like 20 times. As soon as the room would get quiet, he's start it again.

Speaking of parties, we've been animals lately. We had a superbowl party at our house on Sunday (which squeezed one MILLION people into our house!) and that Friday we all met back up again at Jaime and Adams for some Rockband, Trivial Pursuit, dinner and discussion. I LOVE our SS parties (which consists of tons of folks who don't even go to our SS class...haha, that's the way we like it!)


Oh, Valentines Day has also been celebrated since I last updated (I'm posting this on Feburary 22nd even though the date up top says the 6th...I started writing on the 6th). We tried to keep V-Day low key this year, since we just celebrated our anniversary AND we are on a major budget!
We had heart shaped pancakes that morning, we all wore our red to church that morning (Charleigh in her v-day dress I made her).Funny story. I told Justin, "Hey babe, Charleigh and I are wearing black and red this morning for valentines day. Why don't you match us too?" So he went to get dressed and came out with khakis and a blue pullover..."Did you not want to match us today? We're wearing red for Valentine's Day" To which he replied, "Uh, I made sure the little horseman on my pullover was red..." hahahaha....at least he tried. He went back and put on a red shirt after that. I helped Charleigh make her daddy a V-day card.


That's her actual traced hand (hard to get from a 5 month old), and while I was gone that day, Justin had Prissy make me a card...it was hilarious because he tried to draw her paw print on there and use the hot glue gun...totally worth it!


The next day a bunch of us mommy's and babies were supposed to have a play date at Solutia park but, it started raining and one of the babes had a fever so, we cancelled it :( Instead Charleigh and I met Kennedy and Jill for chik-fil-a and Target. I bring my camera with me always, but NEVER get any pictures...aghhh!


This week we got to meet Audrey's boyfriend Jarred! they are so cute and I can tell they adore each other. They are SOOO getting married! One day of course!

Now onto some CRAFTS I've been doing. I've worked on several dresses and bows for little Charleigh (I basically make her a bow every day, I'm obsessed). But, I do not want to upload all those pictures so, here's what I already have uploaded:
I stinkin' LOVE appliquéd shirts and onesies!I'm also loving to coordinate burp cloths with the appliquéd onesies.

Here are the pettiskirt and tutu I made for Rae Leytham's little girl. I cannot wait to see them on her (get to it Rae, I hear you are pretty good at the picture taking thing...)


So, some cool things God has done for us this last month...So, as I mentioned above, we are on a major budget! We are doing very good because my husband is a heck of a salesman, but, there are some months that the ecomony just keeps people from buying from him. So, those months are the major budget months. One of those was January (I guess after Christmas no one can buy anything) so as I am paying all our bills and working out our budget, I realized that we WILL NOT have enough to pay our tithe or 10%. Now, this is just not an option, we HAVE to tithe. How dare we keep that money for ourselves, God gave us what we have and all he asks is to give back 10%, we get to keep 90% so what do we have to complain about right?? Well, we decided that it was just not an option, we prayed for God to come through in a big way and we dropped our offering in the plate. That Sunday Paster Ted said from the pulpit, "Is there anything in your life that you are trusting God for? Anything that, if he doesn't come through, then your're sunk?" I thought to myself, "Oh yeah, if he doesn't come through for our bills this month...we're sunk!" The next day, THE NEXT DAY I tell ya...we recieved an overpayment check for the EXACT amount! He provided, we weren't sunk! I don't know why this always suprises me, that he keeps his promises, that he WANTS to give us good things. After that, we had more good news. We own one credit card. It is only used for Justin to put his business expenses on and then his company pays him back every month. So, by using this card and paying it off every month, we have been earning World points...who knew? So, the credit card company calls and tells us that we have over 62,000 world points and should use them. I start looking up what this means and it turns out that 50,000 points translates into $500...sweet! In the bible Jesus quotes the scripture, "You should not put the Lord, your God, to the test". But, there is one topic that God says he wishes we WOULD test him on, it's finances! He says give and I will give to you immeasurably more...he says, 'Test me in this!' Well, we tested this month and wow, he wasn't lying :)

So, speaking of finances, we are back on the house building kick. We had put it on the backburner for the last month because some changes were happening and we didn't want to throw moving in with that. But now, we THINK someone may be interested in our house :) and that means, we'd need a new one. So, depending on if we sell ours, we may be moving soon. We are soooo still gonna be in Pace, just a little nicer place I hope. It is actually a great financial move for us since we have sooo much equity in our house that we are in now, it would actually put some money in our pocket to upgrade...is that not so strange.

Well, I know I will take forever to update again so, here is what the Tyner clan will be up to this coming month:


This weekend we are headed off to the woods with The Nelson's (Ben, Ashley and baby Emorie).Justin took some hunting-inspired pictures.

She loves to play with her feet.


Then we have Justin's birthday and the Purity Ball (Girls' Ministry Father/Daughter Ball). I am so excited about all the hard work we've but into this ball, it is going to be awesome! I am also entering The Prissy Pink Polka Dot in the Mom2Mom sale at the Pensacola Fairgrounds (Mar 9-13th)...so come see me! We will be visiting fam in Bama mid-march and then Baby Nuggette, and Baby Isabella will be here at the end of the month! Busy month to come!

My two girls:



Alright, so when my family left last month after Charleigh's dedication. I found this post it note in our office:

hahahhhaha, I think one of my nephews wrote it! They always wrestle with Justin, he beats them (because he doesn't know that he is supposed to let them win), they get mad at him (and write notes like this), and then they wrestle again. It's a vicious cycle.