Date Night With a Baby

Date nights are well, nights of romance, twinkling stars, wine, roses...wait that's not it at all.  Date nights now are kind of non-existent  We had one on our anniversary (thanks to my mom), one around Christmas time thanks to Chris' sister and mom, one on Valentine's Day thanks to a group of our friends (it takes a group of people who don't have kids to take care of one apparently) and a couple of days without the baby at all.  I guess I take back the non-existent because we have had a few after I laid them all out like dirty laundry but they are definitely more scarce now that we have little bit.  Many walks are taken when Brielle will nod off and we can talk a ton to each other or candle light dinners at home while Brielle bounces like a mad women right next to us in her handy little Jenny Jump Up (best toy EVER) but the really special dates are when we have picnics.
Downtown Tulsa has this really kick ass park now called "Guthrie Green".  It lays on top of geothermal wells that heat and cool a brand new museum we have now as well in the Brady district of Downtown.  Anyway, so this awesome park has tons of things going on.  They play movies (for free) on Thursday nights (date nights as well) and on Sundays they have free concerts and little shops set up for people to spend their hard earned money on $4 cups of coffee or tea and little handmade soaps they will never use but feel they must buy something to support these wonderful entrepreneurs.  The opening weekend of Guthrie Greens events was on a Friday this year so they had a free concert, which we didn't even know about.  We decided since it was such a gorgeous day we would have a picnic dinner in the park and let Brielle play.  When we got to the park and saw how many people were showing up we decided we had for sure made the right decision to have a picnic dinner date.  Brielle got to play with a little boy who was like a week and half older than her but he was a HUGE baby!  She was so fascinated by him and all he did was just sit there and stare while she tried and tried to touch his toes, his face his hands...everything.  We had a blast and can't wait to do more picnic dinner dates at the park.

7 Months

I sure love having our little girl.  I simply can't get enough of her......

Weight: I completely forgot to weigh her

Length:and obviously didn't measure her...

Favorite Toy: Stuffed animals, Jenny Jump Up, her soft foam like bath toys (she can't get enough of those especially when she was teething).

Favorite Food: Everything.  She is trying way more foods now and is loving all of them.  Still haven't found anything she will refuse to eat or not like.  She loves drinking water too especially out of her sippy cup.

Favorite Game: She is really loving her mommy only right now which I love but has made Chris feel kind of bad.  She does like to play this "punch and kick daddy game and he goes flying"  It is pretty funny.  He pretends to wrestle with her and she does the "Atomic Diaper Drop".  : )

Sleeping Habits: Sleeping at least 8 hours a night.  We get a random night here and there where she wakes up and stirs a little, has a little whimper here and there but usually goes back to sleep within a short few minuets.

New Skills: No crawling yet but rolls to where she wants to go.  She can sit really well for really long periods of time, reach forward to get a toy and only use her tummy muscles to sit back up. Holding her bottle which is awesome.  

Size of Clothes: 6 month clothes to 9 month clothes and size 3 diapers.

First Trip to the Zoo

After all our family left from a long Easter weekend, the Tulsa Bouldins needed some family bonding time.  What better time could be spent than at the zoo?  Brielle really enjoyed looking at the animals (while she was awake) and showed so much excitement.  She got her own hat, her very own leopard stuffed animal and lots of mommy holding her time.  Brielle is well into the "I only want mommy to hold me stage" which I have to say I don't mind so much right now.

Touching the kitties

Passed out!

Two Teeth-YAY

After what seemed like forever and ever and ever Brielle finally has two little teeth.  Poor girl has had an awful time teething, so bad that her doctor told me only 10% of babies get it that bad.  It's nice to see a product from all of the what seemed like unending pain for her.  I am also glad they both came in at once so hopefully we will have a month or so until she has to go through it again.

Half a Year

This was a huge month for me.  Brielle is already half a year old...where is this time going and why can't I be with her everyday : (  We did have fun doing Brielle's six month photo shoot though!!

Weight: 17.6 lbs

Length: 25"

Favorite Toy: Jenny Jump Up, Exersaucer, and Monkey stuffed animals

Favorite Food: There is anything that we have tried that she does not like, not one!  She likes peas, avocado, carrots, greenbeans, bananas...tons of food

Favorite Game: For some reason she loves to make a cough sound to get our attention then smiles a bunch when we look at her.  It seems to be a game to her.

Sleeping Habits: Sleeping at least 8 hours a night.  We get a random night here and there where she wakes up and stirs a little, has a little whimper here and there but usually goes back to sleep within a short few minuets.

New Skills: Starting to swing a little in her Jenny Jump Up, pretty cute.  Eating puff crackers and barely getting them in her mouth.

Size of Clothes: 6 month clothes and size 3 diapers .

Gigi Stays for a Week

February is a big travel month for Chris so to help keep me sane my mom came and stayed with Brielle and I the first week he had to leave.  Lets just say it almost felt like I was at home with them while I was at work with all the pictures and videos I got all day : )  My mom enjoyed every second of it.  I almost had to fight her when I got home to hold her in the evenings, ok maybe I am lying but still my mom is over the moon with having Brielle in her life.

It was a lot of fun having her in town too because we celebrated her 49th birthday while she stayed with us.  A full day of shopping, drinking wonderful coffee, eating bagels at cafe's, and a wonderful dinner at Shogun which entertained Brielle like crazy.  She especially loved the smoke as it would rise to the vents.  I did have to pretend I felt great all day because I had a MASSIVE headache but my mom said she had the best birthday she had ever had that day so it was completely worth it.

 Happy Birthday Mom

5 Months Old

5 Months, *sigh* and yet each second, minute, hour, day, week and month that goes by I am more and more in love with my beautiful little girl.  How can having such a small little human being be this much fun?!?! I mean really, each day and week that goes by it seems as if she is doing something new or trying something new.  She is amazing with all her little sounds, giggles, smiles, coos and playfulness that is BRIELLE.  She is by far my favorite little girl, with many close seconds, but I am sure every parent feels this way about their child.  If they don't then shame on them and I hope they get a change of heart.
Anyway, This past month we bought a Jenny Jump Up.  My question is, "Why didn't I get one of these sooner?"  Oh my gosh does she love to be in that jumper.  She will sit in it for at least 30 mins if not longer at a time and just twirl on her toes, walk around, jump and smile at us constantly.  She loves when the dogs run around her while she is playing in there because she can control where she looks and turn in any direction she needs to.  Making her smile is pretty much top priority for us so when we get TONS of smiles with this toy we feel pretty ecstatic.

Weight: 16.4 lbs

Length: I did not measure her : (

Favorite Toy: Jenny Jump Up, Leap Frog Dog that talks to her, Sophie until we lost her in the park

Favorite Food: Loving Rice cereal right now and all the new foods she is trying.  Carrots, butternut squash and a little avocado.

Favorite Game: She is really loving Peak-A-Boo and when the dogs run around her like crazy in her Jenny Jump Up

Sleeping Habits: Sleeping at least 8 hours a night.  We get a random night here and there where she wakes up and stirs a little, has a little whimper here and there but usually goes back to sleep within a short few minuets.

New Skills: She is really grabbing everything in sight, toys, mostly my hair and earrings, the mail off the counter, jewelry at stores and we almost walk out with it (thank goodness we didn't), ANYTHING SPARKLY, really everything.  She really likes sitting in her highchair now and plays while I cook or need to clean something.  Still kind of falls over after a little while of sitting up.  Not quite rolling over from her back to her tummy.  Sometimes at night when she rolls over from her tummy to her back she wakes up crying because she can't roll back over all the way. Yes she sleeps on her tummy...don't judge us...it's the only way anyone can get her to sleep.  We have tried everything and so has her caregiver during the week but we have an AngleCare monitor to make sure she is breathing so it makes me feel much better about it.  It took my mo a good week or so to convince me to let her sleep on her tummy so I could get some sleep.  She is scooting a little bit on the ground when she is on my tummy trying to move towards her toys so I feel like crawling is going to be within the next few months....nooooo I still want my little bitty baby ; )

Size of Clothes: I can squeeze her into a few last pieces of 3 month clothing that were "big" 3 months clothes but for the most part she is wearing 6 month clothes.  Finishing up our last size 2 diapers and then its off to size 3.  .