Annabeth's 6 Month's Stats

Weight: 20 lbs 94%
Height: 27 3/4 inches 95%
Head: 17 1/4 inches 82%

• My other babies did not to be 20 pounds till they were 1 year old!
• We have to keep an eye on her weight because if she gets to be over 22 lbs then we have to move her out of the infant car seat.
• December 17th she got her first real illness (she has been congested in her nose for the majority of her little life). She got diagnosed with a left ear infection and amoxicillin of course did not work so then on the 18th she had a bad double ear infection. We are so thankful to Jesus for this being her first infection. My other babies had multiple ear infections by this time. 
• She is a complete joy and so strong and so smart. As of now she says baby and signs it. 
• She started crawling the week before she turned 7 months. She is so fast now! She is also is standing some by herself now.
• She has a temper...sadly. 
• She is still not a great sleeper so pray for mama and daddy...we are little weary. I am not able to do some things I enjoy like blogging...haha. I can already tell getting her off the bottle is going to be a huge challenge.
• My Joycie is a Joy!

Any advice on how to get a 8 or 9 month old to eat more food and less bottle?

Movie Monday: Annabeth Enjoying Her First Christmas

Info on her 6 months stats soon!

Movie Monday: Abigial Climbing, Standing, and Falling

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Recent Pictures

Us eating at Rush's. Yes we normally get two high chairs when we go out to eat which is crazy.

Jackson playing at the playground at Sesquicentennial Park. It was hot! I love summer time. So many fun things to do!

Charlie meet us for lunch at the zoo and they got to ride the train there. Jackson really loves trains right now.

Jackson being funny at the playground at the zoo. Have a mentioned how much we love the zoo?

Jackson and his Grand. When they stopped by Jackson tried to get in their car and did not want to get in our car at all. He cried the entire way to the restuarant saying "Grand, Grand," over and over again. I think them keeping Jackson once a weekend a month has really made him attached. I am very thankful! They are like the same person.

And She Stands!

Last weekend Abigail pulled herself up on Jackson's potty and stood up. Time is flying with her. Here is a picture of Jackson standing for the first time around 8 months. We have already had to move her crib to the lowest level.

Around 6 months old I changed her to her new schedule and hope to keep this till she turns 1 year old. This schedule consists of two big naps a day. Of course it is different since I have a toddler at home and many days she does not get but a 45 minute nap in the morning because we are out doing fun stuff with Jackson.

Here is her schedule that works best for her and us

7:30 Wake up (Diaper change before each feeding) Eat 8 ozs and pears and many days 2 ozs of Pear Juice as well which helps with constipation

10:15 Nap till 11:30 or 12 pm (try for an hour and half nap but some days it is just 45 minutes if we are out)

11:30 6 ozs or 8 ozs sometimes takes her an hour here to eat her bottle, pears, cereal, etc.

3:30-5:30 Second Nap of the day. If she has only slept 45 minutes in the morning she will sleep when Jackson sleeps (2-4 pm is when he sleeps)

6 pm Dinner 6 ozs squash or some sort of vegetable here

8 pm Bath time for both babies

8:30 usually passes out in Charlie's arm

9 pm Last bottle of the day 6 ozs. The last few days she has stayed asleep for the 9 pm feeding so she is really going to bed at 8:30 pm. We are so blessed! I do keep my babies up latter because I do not want them up at 6 am ready to go.

The hardest part of the day for us is the second nap of the day. Jackson is already down and their rooms are right next to each other so I really do not like to let her cry it out like I do for the morning nap. Some days wrestling her down for a nap is like trying to wrestle a small alligator. She could stay up for 7 hours straight and be fine. Her VBS teacher could not believe how much she would not sleep because she did not want to miss out on anything. She hardly slept at all for her!

She is doing so much better now that she is not struggling with constipation. She is sleeping through the night!

Just pray she does not get hand foot and mouth disease. We did have to take Jackson to the doctor and he has blisters all down his throat and he is on motrin 2 or 3 times a day. It will be a miracle if she does not get hand foot and mouth disease since Jackson likes to secretly drink out of her juice cup.

Movie Monday: Abigail Crawling at 7 Months Old!

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Abigail is now a good crawler, I cannot believe it! Jackson was a good crawler at 7 months old as well. Here is video of him crawling. All I know is that Charlie and I create very active babies! Friday night while I was putting Jackson in the car, Abigail almost crawled out of the door into the garage!

PLEASE VOTE FOR ABIGAIL IN CHICK FIL A PICTURE CONTEST!!!!!!!!!!!‏

We participated in the Chick Fil a Cow Day Friday and we successfully entered a picture of Abigail and myself in their big picture contest. The top 20 pictures when eating at Chick Fil A for a year free. The picture that currently has the most votes has 300 votes.....ha!

We currently have 15 votes which is great, but we would love to have more.

Go here:
http://www.showusthecow.com/photos.php?view=browse&tag=ABIGAIL

Click vote for this photo: Our Photo Title is: "Abigail's first Cow Appreciate Day!"

You only have to fill out your first name, city, state, and email address.

Your vote will not count until you click on the link they send you through email.

You are not signing up for anything and will not receive any other emails from them.

We also can win more prizes now that are in the contest (like Chick-Fil A coupons). Yay! Tell all your friends to vote. Thank you so much!

Pictures of Jackson's First Beach Trip

Today we went to the beach with our good friends the Trauxs. It was our first beach trip with Jackson, and we had such a good time. We went to the end of Folly's Beach and it was beautiful! It only took us an hour and a half to get down there. We first went to a children's clothing shop "Once Upon a Child" that I highly recommend (they just opened one up in Columbia at Harbison). Enjoy!

This beach is also special because it was the FIRST beach that my grandmother, Molly, took me when to when I was 4 years olds. This area is where my dad is from so it was a very special trip!

Pictures from the Youth Fund-Raiser

Here are two professional pictures that were taken on April 20th, so Jackson was 7 months old. Our youth is going to World Changers and this was part of their fundraiser. Gretchen and I worked out today at Curves (which along with Weight Watchers has helped me lose the fun filled 50 pounds I gained with Jackson) and she scanned these two pictures on her scanner. She is the best!

Jackson attacks Kelly

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Little Flirt! I could not resist recording and posting this video

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More Video-I know I know

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My Little Talker/Video Taken Last Week

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Jackson 7 months and 3 weeks old (33 weeks old):

Milestones:

1. Can crawl very fast, and anywhere he wants to go.
2. Can balance on his knees, however, he is not interested in standing to much
3. He tries to stand up in his pack in play, but falls.
4. He waved to me with his left hand this morning in his highchair
5. Understands “no” and actually stopped grabbing a cord last night when I said no firmly. We are disciplining him when he can hurt himself or others. He laughs when we say no but usually stops. We sometimes have to isolate him in the crib for just a couple of minutes, and only when he has kept grabbing something that can electrocute him, and after we have said no.

Favorite Show:

• The Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, this is the only cartoon he will watch, and trust me we have tried them all

Favorite Toy:

• Tickle Me Elmo, Doctor one that talks (some sweet YMCA parent gave to us in Raleigh---I think they run like $50) He gets so excited when Elmo talks to him.

New Favorite Book:

• The Bible in Pictures for Little Eyes by Kenneth N. Taylor. We try to read this too him every night. This is a special book because Charlie’s dad read it to him when we was a little boy ( I think it was published in 1975).

Update:

• He is doing so much better. Babies and children are so resilient!
• Jackson did wake up Wednesday night in the middle of the night coughing, but we just gave him saline, and blew out his nose, and we all went right back to sleep
• He has slept through the night since Wednesday night
• We have stayed indoors, and he has gotten better. Today, me and Jackson did not go to morning church, but went tonight and he was fine.
• I do think he is starting to develop some allergies like his mom and dad
• We had a great visit with Charlie's parents Mimi ,"Doc,"Lauren, Scott, and Jake on Saturday!
  

Rough last couple of Days

Well this is how our last couple days have been

· Sunday night Jackson was awake from 1-3am, we went to the doctor Monday morning to find out he has an ear infection in both ears (the doctor said it looked like the ear infection had just begun). That night he slept with us propped up on pillows. We did not get much sleep because he is such a violent sleeper and our queen bed is not big enough for the 3 of us plus a dog.

· Monday night awake from 1-2 am, sleep propped up again on pillows

· Tuesday day:

1. Ran a fever even after motrin most of the day (it got up to near 102 at one point)

2. Got better after we gave Tylenol (cried for most of the day)

3. Threw up all of his 6 ozs of milk after daddy shoot decongestion in his mouth.

4. Got pedilight 2 ozs after it had been 1 hour since he threw up and he kept that down

5. Slept from 7:30 pm to 9:00, then ate well at 9 pm

Praise: He slept from 11 pm- 7:30 am! He slept in his pack in play with part of the bottom lifted up so he could breathe.

It was, however, a first, the first day that I was thrown up on, and urinated on all in one day. LOL.

Wednesday:

1. Could not breath, got a lot of mucus out of his nose by suctioning it out, and by sitting in the bathroom while hot steam came out of the shower

2. Could not get any medicine in him because he could not breath through his mouth

3. Finally mixed decongestion with formula and he drank it

4. I will hopefully get the rest of the antibiotics in him in the next feeding my mixing one oz of formula with the rest of it.

5. He had been asleep since 9:30 and now it is almost 11 am Praise: I have gotten in the shower and all dressed, and even have time for this post!

He did have bloody mucus and the doctor said for me to only blow out his nose 4 times today and to do saline drops before I do it (do it before the feedings) We also have done little noses which is like baby afrin

In Conclusion Jackson's:
1. Ears hurt
2. Teeth hurt
3. Nose hurts
4. Throat hurts
5. Stomach hurts from medicine
Wow, he is a mess.

Pray for Jackson:

Pray that:

1. He will be healed and feel better
2. That I will be patient with him, and have the strengthen to take care of him to the best of my ability
3. That we will become closer to our Savior through prayer and that God will get all the glory.
4. That our hearts will still be focused on God.

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Jackson says Good Morning!

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We left Jackson again for 2 nights

Well, we did it again...we left Jackson with Grand and Gigi for two nights. After falling off the bed and going to the doctors (do not worry - he is fine and landed face first---God gets all the glory), we met dad halfway to let Jackson spend some time with the grandparents. Trust me, him falling off the bed was one of the scariest moments of my life, and it was only after the second I left the room that it happened. Anyway, we had a great time Friday night and we both played in our church softball games. Charlie did well and had a couple of hits. For me, it was a riot, and I had a foul ball and hit the second pitch that was caught by the pitcher. We had a lot of fun. Then Saturday, we had marriage counselling with a couple Charlie is marrying in September, and then Charlie wrote an article for The Item. Today, I went to Columbia to get my Boo Boo, who I missed sooo much (we met at Kelly's apartment). Grand, unfortunately, ran a temperature Saturday night, and has a sinus infection, so yall please pray that Jackson does not get sick!

Jackson always comes back smarter from his trip. Last time he said "daddy," this time my mom somehow got him to say "The Gigi." I guess it is all that attention he gets. Also, his first tooth has really broke through the skin.

Ps-Jackson had his pictures taken at the church by a company for the youth fund raiser--I hope to get them scanned and show them to yall soon.

Pictures of my little man, April 23rd

Here is Jackson and Jenna at our church in the youth room (she calls him her boyfriend) I think she is a little old for him--she is in kindergarden!

Here he is again wooing the church secetaries:

Here he is meeting Clay's Smith little girl Madison (they are only a couple days a part in age)

My men!