pre-wedding festivities

We had such a great weekend celebrating the marriage of Jon and Kelsey!  My only regret is that we didn't get more pictures of all of the fun that we had.  We were too busy having a great time to stop and snap pictures! So this is a hodge podge of pictures that I have stolen from other people :)

We headed to Charlotte on Thursday morning and checked into the hotel.  As soon as we got there, we were met by family members who had gotten in town from Louisiana.  Lucas got to meet Andy, Erin, Christine, Charlie, and see Kyre again!  

Then Mom, Dad, and I headed over to Dressler's restaurant to set up for the rehearsal dinner.  I am so sad I didn't get any pictures of the set-up, it was so beautiful.  Dressler's is settled in a cute part of Charlotte with an amazing view of uptown.  We set up the seating chart, pictures, and table markers.  Mom and Dad made these adorable little favors to put at the tables.  Lemon heads (Jon's favorite) and Reeses Pieces (Kelsey's favorite) were in the jars.  

Our table markers were bottles of wine that we put personalized labels from Etsy on that had the table number and "Jon and Kelsey 8-10-12" on them. I'm sad I didn't get a pictures of the wine bottles! It looked great.  We then jetted back to the hotel and got ready for the rehearsal at Amity Presbyterian. 

Rehearsing their I-do's!

Baby brother, what a good looking groom!

Bride and groom

Kyre, Mom, and Farrin. Pretty pretty.

Lucas with Uncle J and Aunt K at
the rehearsal dinner. Lucas wore an outfit
that was Jon's when he was a baby.

Father and son

Lucas was so good during the dinner and took little cat naps throughout, then was up and ready to party and be passed around like a sack of potatoes.  We were having so much fun at the rehearsal dinner that we didn't leave until 11:00 p.m.  When we went to leave the restaurant, it was POURING rain.  I mean, it was a stinking monsoon.  Thankfully the restaurant had valet parking so the unfortunate young guys went and got our car and we loaded our sweet baby up as quickly as possible.

The next morning, Mom and I drove to Matthews for a bridal brunch for Kelsey.  Here, we enjoyed good food and coffee and then Kelsey gave us gifts and spoke the sweetest words about each of us.  

Cute little chalkboard frames and clutch bags!

After the brunch, we went back to the hotel to get our things and head to the church to get ready.  Side note, while the girls were getting ready the boys were all out at a shooting range.  Nothing like preparing you for marriage by shooting guns, right Jon?

The beautiful bride to be!

(Sorry Kelsey, but I LOVE this Martha Washington styled picture of you!  Her hair did not stay like this, don't worry.)

Stay tuned for the rest of the wedding pictures!

5 months

Yesterday, we celebrated 5 months of having our sweet Lucas in our life. He has is growing and developing SO quickly, I don't even want to blink for fear I'm going to miss something! So here's what's new:

 * He is rolling all over the place, back and forth like a little maniac. A few days ago, in the time it took me to pour a cup of coffee, he had rolled off of his play mat and kept rolling until he landed about 4 feet from it.
* He is giggling and babbling, sometimes screeching...that's fun.
* His eyes are so smiley all the time and he is the happiest baby I've ever seen!
* He is this close to sitting up by himself.
* He has learned to kick and splash in the bathtub.
* He is putting everything in his mouth.
* It is his little heart's desire to grab hold of our sweet dog. Poor Lexi. She sees those outstretched hands and heads the other direction. But if Lucas is napping on the couch, you can bet your money that Lexi is sleeping right beside him.
* He smiles and reaches for us when he sees us. Be still my heart.
* He has been rolling over onto his belly to sleep the past 2 nights. Maybe this will help our sleep problem?
* He is fascinated with toys.  Rattles, links, stuffed animals, teethers, he loves them all.  And they all end up in his mouth.
* He has become a hair grabber.  And that also ends up in his mouth. I am getting a hair cut this week.
* He is roughly around 17 pounds of solid muscle (fat rolls).

You want pictures? I know you do. Here are a few from the past month:

Lucas, you are too much.  Every little stage you are in becomes my new favorite. How is that possible? It just keeps getting better!

hey strangers

Remember me? Yeah, it's been a while. I apologize for the lack of posts. I do have a couple of pretty good excuses for our recent absence. First of all, our life has been pretty boring lately, to put it bluntly. Work, eat, (don't) sleep, work, eat, (don't) sleep...repeat. Little man is still not doing so great on the sleep thing. We're working on it. The most exciting thing that has happened around here until this weekend was that I bought a new diaper bag. And was WAY too excited about it. When did my life become this way?!

However, this weekend was very fun! We celebrated the much anticipated wedding of my dear baby brother, Jon Eric, to the stunningly beautiful Kelsey Rice! Uncle J and Aunt K (as they are known around here) had a picture perfect wedding in Charlotte. I can't wait to tell you all about our festivities in later posts. But for now, let's just say that Kelsey was the most gorgeous bride I have ever seen and my heart melted into a big puddle seeing how Jon looked at the girl who is now his wife.

The night before we left for the wedding in an attempt to do some last minute laundry, our washing machine died. I mean DIED. In the middle of a load. We were a bit frantic, especially since we needed to do a load of stinky diapers before we left. So we called our neighbor at 9:00 p.m. who was out of town of course, and she graciously allowed us to go in to her house and use her washing machine. It involved Brandon putting her on the speaker phone to talk to the security company when he kept trying (and failing) to put in the right code on her alarm system. Thankfully, our sweet neighbor quickly answered "no!" when the alarm company asked if they needed to call the police. So, we came home to a dead washing machine. And also to a war zone of a closet. For some reason, the racks and shelves in our closet decided to fall. Like brackets ripped out of the wall and everything is in a massive pile on the closet floor still on clothes hangers.

Because for some reason, a broken washing machine just isn't enough to deal with when getting back in town. So...we have a new washer and dryer set being delivered on Tuesday. We splurged a bit and got the nice front loading HE machines. Sears was running a deal we just couldn't pass up. And we also have new shelves in our closet and the clothes are finally hanging as they should be.

This is real life, folks. Stay tuned for all the pretty details of J&K's wedding!

4 month stats

It's that time again.  A monthly update!  Our big guy had his 4 month checkup today.  Drumroll please...

Weight: 16 lbs. on the dot

Length: 25.5 inches

He had his second round of big shots, which was just as sad as the last time.  He sticks that bottom lip out and then cries alligator tears for approximately 3 seconds, it's terrible!  Nothing that a little loving from mama won't fix.  We came home, he ate, then took a nice long nap.

Real men wear sparkly bandaids.

Here are some 4 month highlights in pictures.

Lucas loves baths! He has learned to kick and splash.
We're in for a treat.

We have entered into the "everything goes
in my mouth" stage.

Like I said...fingers in the mouth.

Sophie in the mouth works, too.

He loves his jumping toys, but now
gets distracted by very interesting
things like lights on the ceiling...

Lucas is so expressive! He is smiling,
laughing, and babbling

Hey guys! Did you hear? I rolled over!

If you missed him rolling over, check out the video here.

If you missed his first big belly laughing session, check out the video here.

If I've said it once, I've said it a hundred times...time with this little guy is flying by.  We have definitely had our tough spots, battling a pretty stubborn eczema rash and the recent sleep strike.  But the joy that this little boy has brought into our lives is unbelievable.  We are so proud of the little person he is becoming and love to see his personality starting to form. 

We love you, Lucas!

cloth diaper booties are cuter.

I have a confession.  I used to be really grossed out by cloth diapers. Who wants poop in your washing machine?! Also, I was 'that person' that was secretly annoyed at the super trendy cloth diapering moms who snubbed their noses at people who used disposables (gasp!) and let everyone under the sun know that they were green and clearly love the environment more than everyone else....you know the kind. But as our good Lord gave me a dose of humility...again...here we are, cloth diapering.

If you have ever looked into the world of cloth diapering, it's intimidating and massive.  There are like 12 billion different products and brands and everyone has their opinion on what works best.  What we learned right off the bat is not to really listen to everyone else.  The "oh that system leaks" or "don't waste your money on that, it didn't work for my kid" comments don't matter.  It's what works for your baby and your lifestyle.  So what do we use?  The Gro-via hybrid/AI2 system!

Here's how it works.  The diapers have 2 parts.  An outer waterproof (very cute) shell and a snap-in organic cotton soaker pad.  The shell can be used for multiple diaper changes and the soaker pads can be switched out when wet.  The shells have a snap sizing feature so they can grow with your baby like this:

Hesitations (in no particular order) and how I got over them:

1. Poop in my washing machine? - I had to get over this.  First, breast milk is water soluble. I didn't quite believe this until little man pooped in the bath tub one night and it just disintegrated.  Literally.  I know this will happen in my washing machine.  And let's be honest, diapers aren't the only thing that gets poop on them.  Poop will be in your washing machine when you have a baby.  Period.  When we start solids and the poop gets most substantial (for a nice way of putting it), they make Bioliners that lay in the diapers to catch the poop, the pee goes through it into the soaker pad, so when you change it you just flush the liner and poop. Easy peasy. 

2. It's going to stink - no it doesn't.  We use a lined wet bag (and have a travel sized one) that impressively holds in the stench.  We have a little cloth that we keep in the bags that I dot with tea tree and lavender oils to keep it smelling fresh.

3. Volume of laundry - It turns out to be about 2-3 extra loads per week.  We wash diapers every 2-3 days.  Really not a big deal.

4. Fear of people thinking I'm being 'trendy' - Ashley, get over yourself.

A few reasons why we decided to do this (in no particular order):

1. Cost - diapers are expensive.  Period.  You buy them, they get pooped and peed on, and you throw them away.  OUCH.  The average family spends about $2000 per kid for disposable diapers until they are potty trained.  We got everything for our cloth stash for about $400.  And, you can use them for multiple children. Score!

2. It's nicer on the tooshie - Our little man has sensitive skin :(  And the fluffy cloth pads are way nicer on his skin.  It seems to wick away the poop so it doesn't sit on his bum.  

3. Mother Earth thanks us - Diapers sit in landfills.  I think that's gross.  (And no, I'm not a tree hugging hippy.)

4. Gro-vias give us a hybrid option - We chose the AI2 (all-in-2) system because it means less laundry, washing one soaker pad per change and one shell every 3 changes or so.  Gro-via makes an all-in-1 system as well, but we chose not to use that.  Also, we haven't tried them yet, but they make Biosoakers that are inserts to use instead of the cotton soaker pads.  These guys are disposable, but biodegradable.  Supposed to be really nice for traveling!

5. They are so.stinking.cute! - We oftentimes hang out in just a diaper because they are just that adorable.  And it makes you want to spank that squishy little booty. See below.

Lucas only a few weeks old, looking tiny in his owl print!

Timeout for this picture below... Can I just say that Lucas looks so happy to be hanging in his diaper, and also he looks like he's doing the soulja boy.  My kid is seriously such a stud.

 The shells also work GREAT as a swim diaper!!

In a nutshell, we love our gro-vias!  I was super intimidated at first, but really it's so easy.  If you want more information about Gro-vias, click here.

sleep...?

With a gigantic cup of coffee in hand, I'm sitting here wondering how on earth I have morphed into a person who (most of the time) functions on little sleep. Before Lucas was born, I was considered to have a grandma-inspired sleep schedule. Bed at 9:00 pm? Okay! 12 hours of sleep a night left me feeling well rested and ready to conquer the world. It was even a source of humor for my college roommates, right girls? Oh it's 8:30, better go home so Ashley can go to bed! It's sad, but true. Now...ha. Let's just say it's been an adjustment. For the first month or so, waking up every 3 hours to feed a baby at night wasn't so bad. I think that was with the help of adrenaline after having a new baby. In the meantime, we were working so hard to get Lucas on a good sleep schedule. Brandon read a book recommended to us by my cousin who has twins. My cousin referred to it as the sleep BIBLE for babies.

To this day, his toddlers are excellent sleepers. Sign me up!  So, following the book's suggestion, we started getting Lucas on a feeding schedule during the day, feeding him every 4 hours. Then we started eliminating nighttime feedings. The process for that was slowly eliminating one feeding at a time and reducing the number of minutes he nurses by 3 minutes every 3 nights. Sounds complicated, but it really wasn't. And it was actually working very well for us. Lucas would wake up in the mornings a little before 8:00, then eat at 8, 12, 4, and 8. So after the 8:00 pm feeding, we would put him to bed. We got to the point when he was around 2 months old where he was going to sleep after eating at 8 and would wake up around 3:30 and nurse for only 3 or 4 minutes, then go back to sleep until 7:30 or 8:00 a.m. Seriously! I didn't know how good we had it. This lasted for almost a month...then it hit the fan.


I think it may have started with a growth spurt. I was expecting that, so for a week or so I was okay waking up again with him to feed him every 3 hours again during the night. But now here we are, a day shy of him being 4 months old, and we are still having a really hard time at night. Last night? Every 2 1/2 hours. I don't think he necessarily wants to eat every time he gets up (although I know he would if I offered it) but it's mainly him just yelling! Not really crying every time, sometimes just yelling. I didn't know 4 month olds knew how to yell! So, what do you do?! First, we turned to the books. As intellectual as Brandon is, he was certain there was an answer and we could find it in a book. (I know, we are naive.) He did read something very interesting though. Has anyone heard of the 4 month shift? I hadn't until now. Apparently babies go through a big hormonal shift around 4 months old which can cause them to have major sleep regression. Makes sense. I compare it in my head to Lucas PMS-ing. Also, they said that 3-4 months is a big time of development, which we have absolutely seen. He is playing with toys, rolling over, jumping in his bouncer, etc. They say that can effect sleep as well with their busy little minds thinking of all of the new tricks they are mastering. So their advice, just stick it out and it will get better. But my fear is that we're forming bad sleep habits and it's not going to get better.


 Friends, we are exhausted. We have thrown the previously pictured "sleep bible" out of the window. Emotionally, it's so hard hearing my happy baby so upset at night. Physically, I'm wiped. And honestly, we are at a loss for what to do. Stick it out? Make a change? I'm not sure what else we could change. He has a great bedtime routine. We do a bath if it's bath night, then do our moisturizing regimen for little man's eczema, put on jammies, turn down the lights, turn on the sound machine and soft music, rock and eat, then sleep. And he goes down like a champ! No fighting, he goes right to sleep. We use a sleep sack and were swaddling him with his arms down, tucked in snug into the sleep sack. We started doing this around 2 months old when we got into our good routine because when he was a tiny baby he hated his arms to be tucked in. But once we started doing it, it helped. Last weekend out of desperation, I took his arms out and he slept like this:

He had 2 good nights last weekend and I thought we had fixed the problem by letting him sleep with those arms wide open. Nope. Maybe it was a coincidence. I don't think he's too hot or too cold. It's not his diaper. He is taking 2 naps during the day, we shoot for an hour nap in the morning and a 2 hour nap in the afternoon (although it's a battle, he fights naps.) I know some of you may be thinking maybe he's hungry because we're still on a schedule during the day. But I don't think that's it. Our 8-12-4-8 schedule during the day is great. He doesn't show any hunger cues in between feeds and eats like a horse during those feedings. That schedule has been a blessing because if he's fussing in between those times, we can eliminate hunger. It's usually either that he's tired, or he needs a diaper change. And besides, he's nursing for about 30 minutes before bedtime (his longest feed) and he still has been waking up yelling around 11:30 pm. And have you seen him? He is a big boy, so I don't think it's a milk issue. 


 So all of you mamas reading this...I am open to advice. Are we missing something? Is this just a phase? Y'all, I'm tired. I want my good sleeper back. Brandon and I say every morning to Lucas, "it's a good thing you're cute." Because wow, we're wiped. Our little guy still wakes up happy and smiling like this:

even though I know he has to be exhausted too. He has his 4 month checkup next week so I will definitely ask our wonderful pediatrician about it too. But in the meantime, let me know what you think. Suggestions, tips, hints, encouragement, and coffee are all appreciated.

keep rollin'

Lucas rolled over!  At 3 months and 2 weeks, our sweet boy achieved this milestone.  To prove it, watch this video that Brandon mixed...This is probably one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time.  Way to go, Lucas!

For your viewing pleasure...

Now if that didn't make you smile, I don't know what will.  You're welcome for brightening your day :)