Lucy's Staycation Vacation

So we really tried to make sure we kept up with our tradition of going on a vacation when the newest baby is 7 months old. Typically we go to somewhere with a beach. Traveling has been so difficult these days, obviously, so originally we had compromised on a Vegas Vacation (wasn't my choice, but when Larry mentioned it and found some really fun looking and good family friendly things to do I caved really quickly). When it came time to actually book the vacation we talked about our options and decided to switch it to a staycation and it ended up being pretty fun.

We had a fun time going to playgrounds (including bringing a training potty since there aren't any really close to the actual playground). I did some fun shopping for some holiday decor and craft items at Hobby Lobby (a favorite store). We also took the girls to the aquarium one of the days, always a favorite indoor activity.

I let Larry spend a day at Wendover to get away and I did some craft with the girls and set up an obstacle course. I thought that would take a bigger portion of the day, but I ended up scrambling for more things to do throughout the day...only a tiny bit stressful haha. Luckily that was on the Friday so I had a good excuse to put a movie on for our Family Movie Night and that took up some time.

I didn't realize I had planned this over Valentine's Day Weekend, so I made sure we celebrated it. I let the girls splash around our tub in their swimsuits as our "beach replacement". I got them some gifts for the day, of course, and we made our new recipe (homemade whole wheat bread). 

We also had some good snow storms so we were able to go out and build a snowman, make snowballs, and go sledding. This was my favorite day as I had always hoped to do that with my kids one day and it was just as fun as I had imagined it. Plus side, the girls had fun with it too!

What's a snow day without warm chocolate? Haha

Overall, while I miss family vacations I'm so glad we're able to have really amazing family staycations that almost make up for them. I definitely look forward to traveling again, one day.

Lucy is EIGHT Months!

I am EIGHT months old!

 

I like: moving around, trying new foods, when we make all the sounds at her, being in the middle of her sisters craziness (they love to run around and she likes to be in the middle of that)

I dislike: Being put down when she's not tired, when she's being left along too long

I am now: still in 6-9 months clothes

A Typical Day looks like: 

We usually wake her up around 8, she's GREAT at sleeping in until then!

 

7:45-9:30 - I give her her probiotic, change her bum and give her a 6.5 oz bottle. After she finishes that I'll put her down to play with toys and scoot around.

9:30-10:45/11  nap time in her crib. Still loves having the binky.

11:00 - diaper change and the next 6 oz bottle. Around 11:30 we'll do lunch and give her some baby food and finger foods

11:30 - 12:30 play time (sitting, scooting, walker, etc.)

12:30-2:30 nap time.

2:30-4:15 - next 6 oz bottle and diaper change then play time

4:15 - 5:00/5:15 nap time. If she wakes up early I will hang out while daddy works out with the older girls

5:15 - 5:30 - Play and hang time. She no longer needs a bottle at this point.

5:30 - 6 we do dinner. She gets baby food and maybe tastes of our food haha.

6-7 doing whatever for the night (aka free/play time)

7-7:45 we start our show for the night, at 7:05 she gets her last bottle of the night (I make 6, sometimes she'll eat the whole thing, sometimes it's just a few ounces. depending on how much food she ate at dinner time) and just relax at this point.  If it's bath night (Sunday and Thursday for her), that starts at 7:30 ish

7:45 get ready for bed. We change her diaper, put Vaseline on her dry spots, put on pajamas, take her upstairs, read a book, lay her down and give her the binky. I usually let her pick her binky (one with the monkey stuffed animal or one that's by itself).

This Month: Lucy finally became such a good napper and sleeper that my anxiety about having to put her down has completely disappeared. Not sure when that went away with the other girls, but Lucy really has been a harder one to gauge how she's going to be and I'm SO happy we got there still fairly early.

Update on last month's goals:

• Get her moving around more: this girlie scoots EVERYWHERE. And now that she's sitting herself up and used to scooting she's a MUCH happier girl
  
  
• Maybe take her vacation: We decided it's smarter to skip a real vacation this year and we've started a Staycation with her and decided next year we'll have to do something BIG (if I feel I can travel with - hopefully - 4 kids at that point haha)
  
  
• Get her used to finger foods: this is a big check! At lunch time we give her some puffs or other finger foods and she LOVES feeding herself. She seems to like eating real food more than her baby food. She reminds me of the fish at Thanksgiving Point, she sees food and her mouth immediately goes to a O haha.
  
  
• Work on getting her to say words: she says mamamama and other sounds like that and she loves when we tell her other words (baba, caca, dada, gaga, lala, nana, papa, tata, wawa, yaya...things like that).

Goals for next month:

• Work on crawling
• Work on pulling up and getting ready to walk soon?
• Get her used to the outdoors (if it's warm enough)
• Working on words and sounds
• Have a fund Valentine's Day
  

Witching Hour Activities

If you have kids you know what The Witching Hour is...the time between dinner and bedtime that kids tend to LOSE it and suddenly have ADHD or something. I used to think that with Larry and I working that we didn't really have a witching hour, we'd just do whatever learning activity we couldn't do during the day at night. However, kids do not have any attention span during this time and do not care to learn anything at the end of the day. Not to mention once they are in school it's totally going to throw them off to learn during the day so I figured we should switch more to that model and I started having Larry do flash cards during the day with the girls (now that I work from home I've taken that on myself and do more fun learning activities during the day). 

However, this does make it more difficult to fill up the 1.75 hours we have after dinner and so finding something to do was a bit of a challenge. It took weeks of trial and error to see what was possible and I think we have a good routine down now so I thought I'd share it:

Games: we have started to introduce easy board games to the girls at night. We feel it's great to teach them taking turns and being a good sport, even if they feel they are losing. So far Gwen is hit or miss when it comes to actually wanting to play games, but Cara absolutely loves it.

Fun Bath: We do regular baths Sunday and Thursday right now, but the girls are always wanting to stay in it longer. I came up with the idea we should let them have a night that is just a "play in the bath" night. Once they are outside more and playing this will turn into a regular bath and we'll just add in another fun bath night, but for now this works for Tuesday night. I made it even better by letting them have this in the big bath in the master bathroom. What's great is we hardly ever use this bathtub, so now we are actually getting use out of it, I get to do a puzzle or laundry or whatever while they play and splash around AND I can get ready for bed while they are playing so they get even more time and it doesn't push into my night activities. I LOVE fun bath night!

Paint Night: I started letting the girls have a painting activity night. We grab some paper from this BIG pad that someone got them for a birthday, I grab some acrylic paint from my stash and let them just go crazy. They are good at keeping the paint on the paper and not everywhere else. I've never been a creative type so it's hard for me to find creative activities for the girls, but this is one I'm proud of. They love having fun with it.

Science Experiments: This one shouldn't be too surprising. I have always talked about loving doing STEAM activities with the girls and so I find fun little science experiments to show them. most of them are things dealing with baking soda and vinegar, but they still have fun.

Story Time: I've been doing my best to incorporate a bit of story time before our show each night. I know reading is SO good for kids and even though we do read before bed, I know you can't ever expose kids to too much reading. 

Of course most of this will probably change once Spring/Summer hits and we can be outside more (when it won't be SO dark at dinner time), but I'm pretty proud of the fact that we've found ways to stay sane and inside while we have littles.