Five Favorites

Linking up with Hallie again today...

1. I've been meaning to try out a dry shampoo for awhile now and finally got around to buying this kind the last time I was at my beloved Target. I saw it in Parenting magazine rated as best/most affordable. It was only a couple of bucks and so far I like it.

I tell myself that I'm going to use it so I don't have to wash my hair every morning so my hair won't get dried out or something like that. Let's be honest, though. If I don't have to wash, blow dry and straighten my hair in the morning before work that means I can sleep in an extra 20 minutes! Twenty whole glorious minutes of extra sleep. Now I'm trying to decide how many days its acceptable to use the dry shampoo in a row instead of actually washing my hair. The most I've gone is two days but I might get desperate if one blue-eyed beauty doesn't start sleeping at night...

2. Roar by Katy Perry is a pretty solid song. I didn't love it at first but now I can't get enough. Every time I hear it on the radio I crank up the beat and jam out. I sing it to Gracyn and she just stares at me like I'm a crazy person. I didn't watch the VMAs and apparently I missed this performance along with the N'Sync reunion.

3. Today at work I listened to the Anna Kendrick radio station on Pandora just so I could hear the songs on the Pitch Perfect soundtrack. Lame, I know, but that movie is amaze-balls and so funny.

4. This girl and her toothy grin. You can barely see her two little chompers in this pic but they're there!

5. Labor Day is coming up. Three-day weekend. 'Nuff said.

Seven Sweet Months

Ok, was this not the fastest month of all time? Seriously. I feel like I just posted G's 6-month photos and here we are - SEVEN MONTHS OLD!

Our sweet girl at seven months is so. much. fun. She's mastered the "fake laugh" and prefers to fake laugh instead of actually laughing... She'll throw in a fake cough every now and then and after she does it she'll look at you and smile and you can tell she's pretty proud of herself. She's seriously only giggled out loud a handful of times and does this instead. Fake it 'til you make it I guess.

August 23, 2013

Faker.

She's a champion eater and is adding a new food to her palate every 3 days or so. Faves so far: sweet potatoes, butternut squash and (surprisingly) green beans.

Not so fave: carrots. Completely gagged.

Cheese ball.

Her sleeping habits have not improved since last month - she's still waking up at least 2 times a night. At least. Sometimes every hour or every 2 hours. G seems to be handling it just fine - she's happy at daycare and happy when we get home at night. But. This mama is tired. I'm not a nice person when I only sleep 4-5 hours a night. She's not hungry and hasn't needed/wanted a night feeding for awhile now but she has a hard time soothing herself once she wakes up. She either looses her paci or rolls into the side of her crib or sprouts a new tooth.

But she' still so darn cute.

We've let her "cry it out" a few times but I really hate that and usually end up crying right along with her. It's easier to just get up quick and give her paci back and go back to bed but I'm pretty sure that's going to create a bad habit (if we haven't already...) and I'll probably end up having to get up multiple times a night for the rest of my life and walk around being a zombie... me being dramatic? Probably. But I'm tiiiiiired.

Happy as can be.

Other than that though, she's a real peach. She's made our lives infinitely better and we lover her to pieces. Happy 7 Months, baby girl!

Okoboji Baby

Ah, the lake. We hightailed it out of town as fast as we could on Wednesday night and spent last weekend at Lake Okoboji in northern Iowa. Possibly the greatest place on earth.

Lucky for us Gracyn is good traveler and slept pretty much the whole 6+ hour drive. Unlucky for us, she wanted to party until the break of dawn when we rolled into town at 1:30 am. She finally went down and we were ready for vacation to start Thursday morn. We met my cousin and her hubby up there and and Saturday our parents all came in to spend some quality time with us the baby.

Except that it was cold. And cloudy. So we just ate and drank and sat around, which is still pretty perfect.

I love the lake.

The sun came out for approximately 47 minutes on Friday morning..so we took full advantage.

Diva. 

Lovin' life.

Saturday was glorious and sunny and warm and we got to take baby girl on her very first boat ride complete with an enormous life jacket which she tolerated fairly well...

I'm on a boat.

On a boat with my dad. 

On a boat with my ma. 

Baby fell asleep during the ride. So did my dad...

We HAD to make a stop at the Barefoot Bar for a refreshing cocktail and some appetizers. It's an actual bar but it's an outdoor bar so that makes it appropriate for kids...

You have a baby....in a bar.

G wasn't impressed but she humored her parental units and was a good sport about the whole adventure.

On the way back, we jumped in the lake (it was fuh-reeeeezing) and went tubing which was something I hadn't done since I was a kid. I forgot how much fun it was but I'm paying for it. My arms and back are sooo sore.

On Sunday, we stopped at Arnold's Park to ride the roller coaster, grabbed a hot dog at Bob's and ate lunch at the Taco House before we headed home. Pretty solid mini-vacation if you ask me. I almost needed a day to recover from vacation - work on Monday was brutal.

Many thanks to my aunt and uncle for letting us invade the trailer for the weekend! We had a blast.

Five Favorites

I love me a good link-up! Such a fun way to find and connect with other blogs. Linking up with Hallie at Moxie Wife for Five Favorites this week...

1. Can we just take a minute and talk about how obsessed I am with this song??? Seriously. So good. I'm constantly singing it to myself at work, in the shower, to the baby. My music taste resembles a pre-teen and any song on Top 40 radio ends up being my jam so I was so pumped when I heard this on my fave radio station on the way to work this morning.

2. Avocado, anyone?

Yum.

Avocado in the eye.

Gracyn tried avocado the other day and despite the pictures, she actually liked it and ended up eating what did not end up in her hair/ear/eye. She was really tired during her evening meal and was half falling asleep while eating. Silly goose.

3. Sophie! My mom brought Gracyn a little somethin'-somethin' this weekend and G is in LOVE. That Sophie will be chewed on until she can be chewed no more. Ma got a two-for-one deal so we have a stuffed version of Sophie too. Baby girl is in heaven...

nom nom nom

Hey, girl.

4. I had this brilliant idea to have my mom take some family pictures with her super duper nice camera on Saturday. Justin humored me and we got all dressed up in color-coordinating outfits (duh) and headed to the trail behind our house to take some professional looking photos.

Um, no. No one told me that it was 1000000% humidity outside.

My hair + any humidity whatsoever = one instantaneous hot mess.

We were outside for .2 seconds and I was sweating and regretting this whole cluster. My dad was in charge of getting and keeping the baby's attention and was yelling at my mom to take the picture which ended up just making everyone laugh and this was the best picture we ended up getting...

The Oakley Family

OK, so not TERRIBLE but not great- I'm laughing and my eyes are all squinty. G is just chillin' so that's cool I guess. I cropped my self out of this one:

Um, twins.

Ain't no denying that kid, Justin. She's definitely yours. Smirk and all. Minus G's pants all hiked up into her diaper, this one is my fave...

Blue eyes.

5. I'm going to jinx myself the second I say this.....but....Gracyn slept through the night last night for the first time in about a month. Slept all night - not a peep out of her. Went down at 7:30 pm and was playing quietly in her crib this morning at 7:00 am when I went to get her up.

She was a champion sleeper from 2-4 months. At 4 months she turned into a little monster at night and we had a rough couple of weeks. Then it got better. Then it got worse. Then she started teething. The teething monster is a big fat meanie and makes little baby girls wake up every 1.5 - 2 hours and it is not fun. She has 2 pearly whites to show for it, but it has not been easy. I know we're not done so I'll start mentally preparing myself now.

Any-who, I felt rested and rejuvenated this morning after 8 solid hours of sleep. I'd forgotten what that feels like...here's to hoping and praying we keep up the good work!

Adventures in Raising a Rufus...

We have a dog - Rufus. He's a 100 pound black lab mix and it is like Marley & Me on steroids at our house 24/7 because of him. He's more like a small horse but not nearly as cool as an actual small horse would be. He's the dumbest, smartest beast of an animal you ever did meet.

Before the baby was born and back when we had no clue what this whole parenting thing entailed I declared that raising an infant child would be infinitely easier than dealing with this hellion of a dog. Turns out I was right...

Hey Rufus, how about you DON'T rifle through my purse and eat Gracyn's note from daycare, my brand new pack of gum and my birth control all at once? I'd really appreciate it...

It is NOT okay that you make a horrible screeching noise and buck like a wild bronco every time a dog, cow, bird, squirrel or any other animal appears on the television. We can't watch Dog Whisperer or any other show that has commercials anymore because of you. And there is an infant playing under your feet nowadays so the level 10 freak out you display at the sight of another animal has got to go.

Seriously.

After ingesting an untold number of socks and pairs of my underwear and one abdominal surgery later you would think you would have learned your lesson by now. It is NOT okay that you still feel the need to snatch up articles of dirty (or clean, for that matter) laundry and swallow them whole. Also, your need to eat kleenex and paper towels is disturbing. I think you have pica and I think you need help.

Your "dad" did not appreciate it when you rammed your big ol' booty into the hallway and punched a Rufus-sized hole in the wall. I know getting a bath is a rare and rather exciting experience for you but really? You do NOT need to run out of the bathroom and turn the 90 degree corner at warp speed. It really is unnecessary...

You break it, you buy it.

And this afternoon when you baby sister was snoozing away after a non nap this morning and you broke into her room and took down the box of kleenexes? Not cool. It wouldn't have been SO bad except for the fact that you scarfed down the tissues and then hacked them back up (and what sounded like a piece of your lung) in front of her crib. She woke up, of course, saw me trying to wrangle you out of the room and started to cry. We spent the next hour trying to get her back to sleep. Baby girl needs her sleep. When she doesn't sleep, mama doesn't sleep. And when mama doesn't sleep..... well, you get the picture. So thanks for that.

You're only 4 years old and these aren't even a fraction of the trials and tribulations you have caused us. I need to write them all down because people would think I just made these stories up because they're so crazy and out there and there is no other dog like you in this world. You are always getting into something/eating something/barking at something/eating something again but I guess (complete with an eye-roll) that I would kind of sort of miss you if you happened to run away and leave us and find another family's lives to ruin. I'm pretty sure you're never going to die because I think you'll live longer than any of us just to spite me.

Mama loves you Rufus boy - if you could cut back on the shedding though you'd be doing me a solid...