Journeys with the Johnsons

Friday, March 25, 2011

Bailey Beth - 9 Months

OK.....so I'm not even going to say how I can't believe our little Bailey Beth is already 9 Months....nope I'm not going to do that again this month.....ooops.

Bailey officially said "Ma-ma" on March 23rd - the day before her 9 month mark! Tyler heard it too, and ran up to me saying "Bailey said mama" so it was confirmed by my sweet little man. She's still a talker and enjoys testing out the extreme ranges in her voice. Her high note just might give Mariah Carey a run for her money.

She's still pretty much on the same feeding schedule as last month, but we're starting to add in more textured, table foods. Oh, Bailey learned to gargle liquids and LOVES it. Tyler is probably still her favorite person and I think Ben and I are in a close tie for 2nd place. No crawling yet, but she can pull herself up to a standing position while holding onto us. She is nothing short of thrilled with herself when she pulls up! She bops and sways to music which is cute to watch. Her favorite cartoon is far and away Blue's Clues. Her favorite activity is jumping in her doorway jumper. She waves back at us when she hears the word "hey". Bailey Beth's 2 upper front teeth just broke through which gives her a grand total of 4 teeth.

Bailey went to the peds office this morning for her check-up and here are her 9 month stats:
weight: 17 lbs. 11 ozs. (30th percentile)
height: 27.5" (60th percentile)
She dipped down pretty far on the weight chart, but our doctor isn't concerned since I'm pumping and we know exactly how much she's eating. After enduring the flu, a cold, and resisting the transition to the bottle I'm sure that she probably lost a little weight along the way, but we'll keep a close eye on her weight.

Monday, March 14, 2011

Bath Time Fun

Here are some pictures of Bailey Beth's first time sitting in the bath tub, like a big girl, without her bath seat. She's still a little wobbly, but loved it. Tyler seemed to like having a more interactive playmate too.....since the bath seat restricted her play.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Cute Pictures

he sure does love her

chillin in the bouncy chair

Daddy's girl

Wipe It Clean

Tyler says the funniest stuff all the time, and I just had to do a post about the latest thing. He loves Disney's "Cars" movie and is really into the characters. He calls Lightning McQueen "Wipe it clean" and it's hilarious. We've got to get it on video.

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Bailey Beth - 8 Months

Our Miss Bailey Beth turned 8 months old on Feb. 24th! Can you believe it....I can't!! We just moved her out of our room and into the nursery on Sunday evening. We never really intended to wait so long to move her to the crib, but with Christmas, our Vegas trip, then the flu things just kept getting delayed. She slept great in our room too so there wasn't any real rush to move her either. She made the transition perfectly! She acts like she's been sleeping in the crib since birth - I declare that Bailey is just the most adaptable and go-with-the-flow baby I've ever seen. We're actually still in the process of redecorating both of their new rooms so there'll be more pictures to come soon.

Bailey Beth is a serious talker. She's learning to be loud and talk often from her big brother, but hey she's got to be able to get a word in around here. She takes about 4 pumped bottles per day and has 2-3 jars of baby food. She's drinking her bottles much better and usually in one sitting now - whew that's a big relief too. She pretty much likes most every baby food (even peaches now) and has absolutely no problem polishing off each serving.

No crawling yet, but we're not exactly pushing it either. I like knowing she's gonna stay put. She's really into exploring faces right now, and she's not exactly graceful about it. Ben says that she thinks it's funny if we say "ouch". She likes to give hugs. She lays her little head on my neck and holds my shoulders with her hands - it melts me! She plays well with toys...picks them up, changes hands, moves things around, operates simple levers, buttons, and knobs. Bailey can hold her own sippy cup, but doesn't guzzle it....she's a lady.

Bailey Beth is certainly a Daddy's girl and gets so excited to see her Dada everyday when he steps in the door after work. Her favorite word is "dada" with "bah-bah" in a close second. I'm 95% sure she's said "mama" several times, but she only pulls that one out every now and then. The rest of her "talking" is just jabbering baby talk. According to our home scale she weighs 18 pounds.

Here are a few recent photos for you to enjoy:

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Valentine's Day 2011

We had a wonderful Valentine's Day and wanted to share some of our photos from the day with you! Hope you enjoy!

Bailey's flowers from Dada

Vegas

Ben and I went to Las Vegas to celebrate both of our recent 30th birthdays. I always thought of Vegas as kind of a "taboo" place that was only about gambling, but I learned that was far from the actual truth. There is so, so much to do in Vegas and it's such a fun place to visit. We've already talked about going back again sometime.

We flew out super early Wednesday morning and landed in Vegas around 10:30 am (going backwards 3 hours really let us enjoy a full day). We visited Lake Mead and Hoover Dam. The lake is the most beautiful color of blue and the Hoover Dam tour was cool and interesting. We explored our resort later that night....and definitely got "lost" a few times. The hotels are huge.

On Thursday we walked around the strip to some of the different resorts and visited some of the "must see" sites. We enjoyed the MGM Grand's buffet for lunch and saw the lion exhibit. These lions were cuddling and playing with their trainers - it was cute to watch, but also a tad scary. Later that evening we went to see Phantom (of the Opera) at The Venetian and it was nothing less than spectacular!! I LOVED it! After the show we had a delicious Mongolian beef dinner at Fin restaurant in The Mirage.

Ben surprised me on Friday by having made arrangements for us to get our wedding vows renewed at The Chapel of the Bells. It's the chapel in the movies: Vegas Vacation, Honeymoon In Vegas, and Indecent Proposal. It was such a wonderful surprise and I'll never forget it. After our ceremony, we explored more resorts and enjoyed the Bellagio's buffet. Friday night we went to see the comedian Frank Caliendo at Monte Carlo. He's an impersonator and he's outrageously funny. His show is really clean too which we appreciated.

Saturday we watched Clemson demolish FSU in basketball at MGM's Sports Book....and I visited the lions again. We spent a good chunk of the day at Mandalay Bay (enjoying their buffet of course) and checked out most of the other resorts we hadn't gotten to yet. We liked watching the Bellagio's fountains at night...it was really lovely. We flew out late Saturday night and landed back home in GSP around 10 am Sunday morning.

The funniest thing about the trip was most definitely watching Ben try to polish off the buffets.... only to be beaten every time. Most people know that Ben can eat much more than the average person (yet he stays thin) but he met his match with these mega buffets. I know that Ben's friend, Ryan, would have loved to see him struggling to try every single dish. Needless to say the food was amazing!

The trickiest thing about the trip was trying to keep up with my regular pumping routine for Bailey Beth. Thankfully I have our deep freezer stocked full of mommy's milk so she didn't have to go on formula while I was away, but this meant I had to continue pumping on our trip. It gets very tricky trying to pump in airports/planes. Luckily, we were on a couple connector flights that weren't full so we could move around to more "private" seats. I managed to stay inconspicuous so it was a success!

Ben's mom was so kind to fly out and babysit for us and the kids really enjoyed her company. It had been 3 years since we went on a trip together sans kids so we really appreciated it. Here are some of our favorite pictures from our trip.