First Flight

Two weekends ago I took Gracie on her first flight. It was a much more stressful experience than I thought possible, but luckily all the stress was due to pre-flight issues. Once we got on the plane, things went smoothly!

Since I knew we were traveling on the Friday beginning Spring Break, I decided to take a half-day off work. That would give me time to pick Gracie up from daycare, finish last minute packing, feed Grace, and leave for the airport with plenty of time to spare. Our flight was at 7:30, so I wanted to be at Love Field by 6pm to ensure I had plenty of time to park, walk the 1 mile treck with Gracie strapped to me, check our bag, and make it through security without being rushed.

Unfortunately, rush hour was terrible that day... lots of wrecks and generally more traffic. I left our house at 5pm and didn't arrive at the airport until 6:15pm. When I pulled into the four level parking garage, half of the level I usually park on was blocked due to construction! UGH! I quickly drove to the top level because it usually has the least number of cars and parked as close to the elevator as possible. I quickly locked Grace in the Jeep front-pack carrier and power-walked to the terminal.

The lines at check-in were shorter than I expected, and I thought my luck was finally improving... wrong. Southwest was only using about half of their check-in computers, and it seemed that every family that was in line before me was completely incopetent and not familiar with traveling. Finally my turn came to check in, and I was asked for Gracie's birth certificate since she was a "lap baby". WHAT?!? I had no idea that I needed to provide that for her! I had looked on their website to see if I needed to bring any type of ID for her, but I hadn't found anything. At this point, I was almost in tears. I was trying to figure out how to get Grace's birth certificate to me when the Southwest employee asked if I had her shot records. After about 30 seconds of hesitation, I remembered that I keep her records in her diaper bag! Finally, something had gone my way. Grace and I were checked in and on our way to security!

The security line was also short and getting Gracie and her bottle through security went much smoother than I expected. We didn't even get hand-picked for a detailed search and quickly made it to our gate without about 30 minutes to spare, which turned into an hour because of a flight delay. Grace and I spent the time waiting on our plane by talking to a group of older women. They loved watching Gracie coo and play.

Finally our plane arrived and they started the "A" boarding. As I held Gracie in our spot at A40, I noticed her overalls were wet. Of course she had a blow-out! I quickly ran to the closest empty chair, ripped her clothes off and changed one of the largest poopy diapers she has ever had in the least time I've ever changed a diaper! And I managed to do it all without getting any poop on her or me! Whew. Miraculously, I ran up to the boarding line and boarded with the other A40s.

We made it onto the plane!

We got a great aisle seat in the first few rows, where I put new clothes on Gracie and got situated for the flight. No one was brave enough to sit in our middle seat, so I had some room to leave a few toys in case I needed to distract her. But that wasn't necessary. She conked out before we'd even taken off and didn't wake up until we were at the gate in Midland!

The weekend in Midland more than made up for the crazy time getting there. It's so great to see Gracie spending time with Mimi and Pop, Granny 'Bouff, cousin Luke, and Nana and PopPop.

Playing with Luke and PopPop

The return home was much better, and Gracie did a great job of staying happy. She just jibber-jabbered to anyone who would pay attention to her. Needless to say, I'm glad our first solo flight is over and the next time around Trinity will be with us!

5 Months

Wow, I have let the last month fly by without an update on our sweet Gracie. Her 5 month birth date has come and gone, and she has learned so much!

She continues to become more and more aware of her surroundings. We are playing with lots of toys these days, and she loses interest in playing with them much quicker! The only way we can get her to roll over is if we entice her with a new toy! Gracie loves watching the dogs play, and they bring a huge smile to her face. She also loves to grab at their face or let them lick her hands. We are so blessed to have such great dogs that are accepting of our newest addition to the family.

In the past month, Gracie has learned that she can bend her knees to bounce up and down when she's "standing" on someone's lap. We like to call this her dancing because it looks like she is jamming to the music in her head. Speaking of what is in this little girl's head, I really wish that we could tap into her brain to find out what she is thinking. Sometimes she has the funniest facial expressions, so I wish that I knew what was going on inside there.

Gracie is almost able to sit up on her own for long periods of time. When we sit her on the floor, she can use her hands and arms to keep her chest up in the air for quite a while. It's funny for Trinity and I to watch her wobble back and forth and finally topple over when she's reaching for a toy or dog. She looks like a weeble-wobble as she learns her balance!

Grace has finally learned to enjoy eating rice cereal. She gets rice cereal twice at school and then again at home before her final feeding. She often hums as we feed it to her, which is a trait she got from me (I hummed when I ate anything as a baby)! I am hoping that her recent enthusiasm in eating will continue as she tries vegetables next month. Hopefully she won't get the veggie-adverse pallet from her dad!

Our one struggle continues to be getting her night-time sleeping schedule down. I never thought we'd have this problem since she slept so well for her first few months of life! We finally got her bedtime moved up to around 8pm, which means we dropped that last bedtime feeding, but Grace has been waking up anywhere from 1-5 times per night. It's mostly just small cries that are easily silenced if we stick her pacifier back in her mouth. Last week I was convinced she had an ear infection because she was waking up multiple times per night and crying harder than she's ever cried before. Well, her ears were completely fine. The doctor just thinks she's going through a phase; one we are hoping will be over soon!

Another Milestone

Grace has started to enjoy playing with the dogs, which really means Gracie grabs at their face and fur. Thankfully Duncan and Hazel have been very good with her, and they usually will let her grab at them without much notice. Once she has bothered them enough, they just run off, and she watches them from across the room!

This past Saturday, Gracie and Duncan were laying on the floor together, and I moved Grace to her tummy. She is not a huge fan of tummy time, but I thought she might be happier if she could look up and see Duncan. She immediately lifted herself up on her arms and turned her body to be able to see Duncan better. In the process, she flipped herself onto her back! I yelled, "Yay!" and started clapping, which brought a huge smile to Gracie's face. I think I would have jumped up and down if I hadn't been sitting on the floor with her.

That might seem like a drastic reaction, but we've been impatiently waiting for Grace to roll over. At Grace's 2 month appointment, our doctor mentioned that she'd probably be rolling by her next appointment, which was at 4 months. But her 4 month appointment came and went with no progress toward rolling over. It seems like Gracie has been ahead of her age for every other developmental milestone, so I was actually starting to get a little worried! We were putting her on her tummy a lot, tempting her to reach for toys just out of her grasp, and flipping her over ourselves to show her it could be done. None of it seemed to work, which I guess goes to show that we just need to be patient and she will do things when she is good and ready.

Already a stubborn little girl!

Happy Valentine's Day

Even at 4 months old, our sweet baby was kind enough to remember Valentine's Day.  Yesterday, when I picked Grace up, this was sitting in her cubby hole.

I would have loved to see how the creatino of this thing went.

Picture Perfect

I wanted to do a post of pictures to show how much Gracie has changed in the last few weeks. Enjoy!

Found my feet!!!

Big smile

Look at those thunder thighs

Helping Momma with the laundry

I can spin the ball

So true...no doubt who this girl's dad is!

Bundled up during the ice storm!

Four Months

Gracie continues to be the BEST baby ever (no, I'm not biased...she really is)! I just can't get over how good natured and content she is on a daily basis. As long as she's fed on her schedule, she's a happy baby. Her teachers have commented to me that she is one of the happiest babies they've seen, which makes me just that much prouder of her!


One of my favorite games to play with Gracie is being the tickle monster... she giggles and giggles and giggles. I love her little belly laugh, and we're getting to hear it more and more these days! It is also much easier to make her smile.


I feel like Gracie is changing so much every day! She's now able to grasp toys, and I've seen her transfer a toy from one hand to the other once or twice. It's amazing to watch how much concentration she has to use just to get her little hand where she wants it to go! She loves playing in her exersaucer. She often sits and talks to the toys on the exersaucer as she pushes the buttons that make music. She can also sit in her bumbo chair with its toy tray for a little while, but she often gets frustrated more quickly in that than in the exersaucer. She is also becoming much more aware of her surroundings, and she loves to focus people's faces, even when they are walking all the way across the room.

Gracie also found her feet this week! On Thursday morning I was changing her diaper, and her footed PJs looked like tigers on her feet. When she kicked her legs up, she noticed the tigers were moving and grabbed for them. She did this several times during the diaper change, which made it a little harder than normal for me to finish quickly! Later that evening, she was again kicking her legs up in the air and grabbing her toes. Too cute!

We're still waiting on her to rollover. She's not a huge fan of tummy time, although I think she is getting a little bit better now that she realizes that she can see more if she lifts her head and shoulders up. Once she starts to get mad that she's on her stomach, she'll kick and wiggle, but she hasn't done it hard enough to make her self turn over. And as far as rolling from her back to her stomach, I think she's just so happy staring at ceiling fan that she has no interest in moving from that position!


Gracie loves conversation! When she hears people talking, she will often chime in, sometimes rather loudly. In the last few weeks, we've been trying to put Grace in her highchair while we eat dinner, so she can watch us eat and listen to us talk about our day. At this month's check-up, her doctor mentioned that Gracie is one of the most talkative babies she's seen in a long time. Is it any surprise, knowing her parents?!?


Her four month appointment went well. She's now weighing it at 17 lbs 15 ounces and is 26.5 inches long, so she remains in the +95% for both her weight and height! She had to get three more vaccines this month, and they again made her scream. It is so hard for me to see her in pain, but thankfully she calms down rather quickly once they are finished. Gracie had a slight fever at her appointment, but there didn't seem to be anything wrong with her, so the doctor didn't seem too concerned. Her ears were a little pink, so they did some kind of test where an instrument blows air in her ears to measure how the eardrum moves. The test results were normal, so the doctor didn't think we needed to put her on any medication. Thankfully Grace's fever was gone by the next day.


In the last month I decided it was time to start moving Gracie's bedtime up. After playing at daycare all day, she is one tired little girl, but I was still nursing her at 6:30 and again around 9:30 before putting her to bed. She would often sleep most of the evening in her swing, so I figured she might as well be in bed getting good rest. I was so afraid that she'd stop sleeping through the night, so after consulting with some friends with older babies, I decided to gradually move her 9:30 feeding earlier until it merged with her 6:30 feeding. A few nights last week she only ate one feeding at 7pm. Those were rough nights where Grace would wake up in the middle of the night, but putting her pacifier back in her mouth was usually enough to get her to go to sleep. I'm hoping this gets better over the next month! For now, we're flipping between one and two feedings to try to find the right balance. It is definitely the most challenging issue I've had so far!

Dear Gracie - Revenge is a dish best served cold

Dear Gracie,

Remember on Saturday night, around midnight when you decided to wake up and start crying? And remember how I ran in and put your pacifier in your mouth and begged you to go back to sleep? And then remember how you did for about one minute before you started crying again and I had to come back to your room? And then remember how I pleaded with you to go back to sleep but you didn't and your mom came in and tried to calm you down but you wanted to eat so she fed you? Well, I hope you remember it because I do. And I will...forever. You interrupted your dad finally getting some and I am not a happy camper.

If you don't remember it, then maybe you won't understand when I get you back, but I will. Oh, this injustice will not be forgotten. Revenge is a dish best served cold.

Your Father