Beach Baby

When we first moved to NC, one of the first pieces of advise I received from a fellow military spouse was that if you can plan for it, have your babies in the fall so you can enjoy the beach. We obviously were not able to follow that advise with Meredith but I definitely get it now. New baby + NC summer heat and humidity + sun + sand = a summer indoors. It is hard to live on the ocean and not take advantage of it! Once we hit the 5 month mark we have been trying to get to the beach more to start enjoying it. While the ocean waves are a little much for Mer, we go to a beach on the intracoastal side of the island that is a lot calmer. Meredith kicks those little legs like crazy when we put her in the water and Tyler is convinced that she will be diving with him by the time she is 16.

We are looking forward to our next 1-2 months of gorgeous beach weather!

July Goals

Since I am a major planner and list maker, I constantly have lists of things to get done and things that I want to do. Often times I end up rewriting the same things over and over again and never crossing them off. One of the bloggers I follow makes monthly goals for herself and I thought it would be fun to try! So here are the goals I made for July and how it turned out:

 

1) Go to the mountains:

Big check mark next to this one. We took a trip to Blowing Rock over the 4th of July weekend and loved every minute of it. Meredith did great on her first road trip and hotel stay. Now on to planning our next road trip adventure.
 

2 -3) These were work related goals. I met one and sort of met the other ;)
 

4) Take more pictures of Meredith:

And by this I mean on the nice camera. I did better but I am still learning how to use the camera. Now I just need to learn how to edit so I don't have to nag patiently wait for Tyler to get around to it.
 

5) Visit the turtle hospital:

We had plans to go and our neighbor who volunteers there was going to show us around but Meredith took a long nap on the day we planned to meet so it didn't end up working out. We still need to get there.
 

6) July workout challenge:

June and July were so hot and humid so it was miserable to try to run it the heat. Instead, to try to stay in shape and get a quick workout in, I decided to do at a minimum of 80 jumping jacks, 20 push ups, 40 sit ups and 50 squats a day. Although I skipped some days and had to do extra other days to make up for it, I made it through the month and have tried to work this into my daily routine.
 

7) Meal Plan:

I dislike grocery shopping and I HATE being hungry for dinner with no plan and no ingredients. I don't know about you, but I love food and I constantly think about my next meal. If we don't plan out our meals ahead of time, I cook way less (sorry, Tyler), we eat worse and we eat the same go to meals over and over again. Instead, we are working on getting in the habit of planning out our meals for the week and doing our grocery shopping on Sunday so we are good to go. We both love the results. Some weeks are not as planned out as the others but this has definitely been a success.
 

8) Host a BBQ:

I love planning and hosting. However, when we moved to NC, we enjoyed more of the quiet after always being so busy and we had so many house projects that we wanted to get done that we really haven't hosted much at all. So in order to change this, we hosted a BBQ for some of Tyler's coworkers before they moved. It was small, just us and 4 others, but it was a really fun night.
 

9) Get my haircut:

Yes, this was a "goal" because otherwise I go 6+ months between haircuts.
 

10) Plan a date night:

We failed at this. Tyler and I have been on ONE date without Meredith tagging along. It is hard to be away from family and finding/trusting other people to watch our baby. Our neighbor watched Meredith for our first date and we had planned to have her come again in August but after she watched Meredith when I had a work meeting and Meredith screamed the entire time for her (this was during the week she refused to nap), I didn't want to put her through it again! This is an item that I keep moving to my next to-do list. I think it is so important for Tyler and I to have time to focus on our relationship so hopefully we can get better at leaving Meredith and making plans.

I hate making goals and not meeting them! In fact, I almost tried to change some of my goals that I didn't meet at the end of the month. I know, pathetic. Short term goals are just what I need to get me motivated and accomplishing my never ending lists.

Meredith Rose - 4 Months

4 Months!

Happy 4 months to our curious little cutie! Meredith Rose you are always moving and can now roll back to stomach as well as stomach to back. Even though your sleep regressed, you are now sleeping in your crib overnight. You are currently loving your blocks and baby doll. Your hands are always in your mouth and you are the drool queen! Your big personality continues to come out more and more and we are loving it! In the words of your nanny, you know what you want! 

You kicked off your 4th month of life with being baptized and being a flower girl! You went on your first boat ride, took another plane ride back to NC, watched your first fireworks (4th of July), went on your first road trip to Blowing Rock and your first big hike in the ergobaby carrier. We also celebrated our first father's day! You are so lucky to have your daddy!

Your hands are CONSTANTLY in your mouth! You started drooling and haven't stopped. You also found your thumb and started sucking it - we still give you your pacifier for naps and in the car.

You can now roll to your stomach but your left hand gets stuck underneath you. You are also reaching for toys from your stomach and you reached to your mommy for the first time.

You are now napping and sleeping overnight in your crib. You started sleeping on your left side. Your sleep has majorly regressed. You started waking up 5-7 times a night to eat! You are eating anywhere from 1-3 hours this month so you must be going through a big growth spurt! When you take a bottle, you now drink 3.5 oz (used to be 3 oz.).

You love to look in mirrors and get excited when you see yourself! You are talking and cooing like crazy. You try to mimic us! You love watching and cooing at the fan. 

More pictures: 

 

You do 360's in your crib! Such a mover!

 

 

4th of July Mountain Trip

North Carolina had record breaking heat all through June. High temps + a 3 month old don't mix well so we spent the 2nd half of the month mainly indoors. I joked that I was experiencing seasonal depression similar to MN winters. So I thought a mountain trip was the perfect opportunity to escape the heat! We went back and forth whether we wanted to make the long drive for a short weekend with Meredith but decided we needed to rip the band-aid off and go for it as long as we had realistic expectations. Meredith normally doesn't do too well in the car. Most of the time we need someone sitting in back with her for a drive over 30 minutes to give her the pacifier when it falls out so a 5 hour trip was a little scary.

We planned to leave Saturday morning (4th of July) because our friend had a party on Friday night for dinner, drinks and fireworks. I expected to be home early to get Meredith to bed and avoid the fireworks since she has been more jumpy to noises lately. She fell asleep in my arms and woke up right before the fireworks were starting. Tyler took her outside and she watched the entire show. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised since she loves lights and shadows. The noise didn't seem to phase her.



When we got home we put Meredith to bed, packed what we could without going in her room and planned to leave after she woke up. Surprise surprise, we got on the road a lot later than we wanted to but it actually worked out perfectly because Meredith was about ready for her morning nap and ended up sleeping the first half of the way there. When she woke up we stopped for gas, food, and a little play time to stretch Mer's legs. 

 Daddy couldn't resist 

<3

We arrived at our hotel in Boone right at check in so we unloaded and jumped back in the car to head to Grandfather mountain.  We love the blue ridge parkway and the 30 miles west of Boone is one of our favorite stretches. At Grandfather mountain we made our way up the steep switch backs until we got to the mile high swinging bridge.  The bridge's elevation is 1 mile above sea level. We walked across and Tyler went on to hike up a little farther but since it was so windy and no real trail besides rocks, I stayed by the bridge with Mer.

After, we went to Blowing Rock village and enjoyed a beer flight and dinner at Blowing Rock Brewery and Ale House. Everything was so good! We also loved the vibe of the place. Our waiter convinced Tyler to order the dark chocolate pretzel dessert and it was delicious as well! By this point Meredith was overly tired and screamed most of the drive back to the hotel. We put her to bed and both enjoyed our books.

 

Sunday morning we slept in a little (besides getting up with Meredith all night ;)) and left to go to the blowing rock (the actual rock) after breakfast. We had such a great morning just enjoying the views and Meredith. The weather was perfect! 

We decided to go back to Blowing Rock village for lunch outside. I was holding Meredith while eating and towards the end of the meal I looked down and noticed something on my shirt. Turns out Meredith had a dirty diaper that was not only all over her clothes/legs/back but also on my shirt and sweater. When I held her away from me to see how bad it was she decided to also spit up all over me!  This resulted in lots of laughs, a long clean up in the back of our SUV and a run to Walgreens for some oxi clean. It actually worked out good to go back to the hotel because Meredith was able to take her afternoon nap there. 

When Meredith work up we drove the blue ridge parkway some more to take in the views. We decided to try a brewery in Boone for dinner. We had wood fired pizza and raspberry belgium beer at Lost Province Brewing Company and watched the US women win the world cup.

Monday morning we planned to head out earlier to try and get a hike in. The last time we were on the blue ridge we hiked to a waterfall so Tyler wanted to find another one to try. He picked the strenuous Linville Falls hike that went to the lower falls. On the hike in, I wore Meredith in our ergo carrier on my back (we paper, rock, scissored for it ;)). This was the first time wearing her this way and she enjoyed looking around at all the trees. The hike started out easy and ended with a lot of steep rock climbing. The falls were gorgeous and so was the weather. We took Meredith out of the carrier and climbed over more rocks to get to a better view. By the time we were ready to hike out, Meredith was ready for her nap so she fortunately napped in the ergo on the way out. 

 

 

Meredith slept for the first part of the drive home but the last hour and a half was a little rough. Poor girl was so sick of her car seat! We had such a great weekend away with our family of three. We love travel and adventure so we are so glad that Meredith did so well on her first trip! Now we can start planning our next adventure!