Our last month as a family of 5!
We are super blessed to live in an awesome neighborhood but yall I’m just sucky about having playdates and friends over. My issue is I just want to let kids come PLAY. Like I don’t need to entertain them. Their parents don’t need to come. I want my neighbors to just like have their kids run down to our house and hang out like we did as kids ya know? I’d totally be down for that! My struggle is that in today’s world it’s all about the playdate. Which requires all parents being present and it’s more like you’re hosting and entertaining rather than just having kids PLAY. Right?!?! Anyway our kids have made some sweet friends on the bus who live nearby and this month they got to have a real play play afternoon together 😉 Their mama did come for dinner but it was all super chill and I loved it! I know a LOT of my playdate issue is my intense need to have my house really clean for company so I tend not to want to go through all that hassle and just don’t invite people over as often as I should. Since I’d never hung out with this mama before I decided to set my standards low. I didn’t super mega clean. I just let her meet me as I am. And it was great! We all had a wonderful time!
Kye in the background CRACKS ME UP. Poor kid was left out!
This month was a LOT of visits to Jacksonville for me for Mama E’s appointments. I’m so thankful for everyone who stepped up and helped with the big three so I was able to go be there with her. Tessie spent a day with Robyn’s crew and Kye and Britt had a blast with Colt and Payton!
Book Club this month was the book Wonder and we went to see the movie! Both are GREAT for kids and while the movie wasn’t as good as the book, it was still a good one!
This month was a lot of limbo. Waiting for Tab’s birth meant not making any solid plans at all for the month because we didn’t know when we’d get “the call” The longer it took, the more family time we were able to get together which was great! A new baby means a LOT of downtime at the house (hello schedule) so going and doing prior to his birth was important to me!
Daddy made homemade pizza!
The kids had their first A&W Rootbeer Floats (Kye liked it best…which isn’t a shocker b/c he’s JUST like me with his food tastes and Britt is more like Daddy!)
Sweet siblings!
LOTS of pizza this month ha!
We tried our first three kids in one bed situation and it did NOT last. They all ended up needing to go to their own beds to sleep within 30 min of tucking them in! Tessie is just too young for that!
Date Night! We had a FABULOUS night out together which was our last before baby! I love my sexy man!
I got hardcore with the kids regarding their chores this month…you can see our new plan here!
I also worked on getting plenty of freezer meals made!
Here’s my list of the meals we have prepped and ready in the freezer!
I signed up with Young Living like THREE YEARS AGO and am just now really learning more about oils and starting to use them on a regular basis.
Breathe Again has become a FAVORITE for me. It’s a rollerball and I just roll it on the sides of my nose and it totally clears up congestion!
I really put the oils to the test this month. I have had two bouts of MRSA on my face (you can read about them here) And this month it came back. It was 11 months after my last issue with it and I know it’ s a stress related thing for me. My last time was when Zach was dealing with all his health stuff and this time was when we were waiting for Mama E to deliver. Stress = Staph in my life I guess!
I haven’t blogged about this yet (and I probably won’t in detail b/c it’s def crossing that line of TMI ha!) but I have been battling yeast issues pretty much my entire life. My mom always said I had issues as a child. I dealt with thrush with all my breastfeeding babies. And I just get yeast issues very, very easily. I have to be SO careful. It’s gotten worse and worse and worse and I finally decided something has to be done about it. I’ve done a MEGA round of meds (like a 6 week program followed by boric acid supplements for 6 months) and it’s just going to be a lifelong thing I have to be hardcore about. Part of that hardcore ness is avoiding antibiotics. ANYTIME I use antibiotics I have mega yeast issues. So a goal of mine is to avoid antibiotics at all costs. Hello oils 😉
When I realized I had MRSA again I didn’t want to go through the antibiotics. I have an ointment I applied from last time I got the staph and I applied thieves and tea tree oil (diluted) directly on the area. I have also researched and had help from friends in learning that R.C. is a great oil to use for staph. I was SO PUMPED that it all WORKED! It cleared up without any antibiotics! Big win for me and an even bigger push for me to learn more about this whole “oil thing”!
Me and my girls!
Y’all this is me on the REGULAR. #sorrynotsorry
An advantage of driving back and forth to Jax a lot is that I got to catch up on Up and Vanished! If you haven’t listened to it it’s an awesome podcast about the disappearance of Tara Grinstead and is a lot about South Georgia which made it even more interesting to listen to!
While we waited for baby…we prepped for baby 🙂
A big shift was getting the van loaded down with 4 car seats! I love the layout but once he was born we (we meaning Zach) did switch it all around. I quickly realized it was super dumb to have Tess on the passenger side because it meant I had to carry the infant seat all the way around the van to put him in then go all the way back around the buckle Tess. Basically we have just flipped everything so now Tess is on the driver side with Kye behind her and the open space leading to the infant base is on the passenger side with Britt behind it!
I joked that the longer this baby took to be born…the more I PACKED. Packing was my “nesting”!
I also tried to buy as much as possible in advance. I will say I was okay focusing on buying baby items but I didn’t buy a lot of clothes. I couldn’t really mentally think about the ACTUAL BABY. I think a lot of my fears about things not working out with him made me need a little distance. Like I was cool with diapers and wipes and generic baby things but things specifically for Tab were tougher to buy if that makes sense.
I did use my 15% off registry completion coupons on Amazon and Target!
I’m picked about my baby books and returned the first one I ordered and got this one instead!
Which of course meant pulling out the kids’ books and looking through them 🙂
I also bought this Beebo thing…anyone have one?
My sweet friend Elaine sent this to me 🙂
While at Mama E’s appointment (what ended up being the LAST ONE!) I started our book club book for Jan. I actually still haven’t finished it yet but it’s GOOD and it was weird b/c it’s adoption related!
Our last outing as a family of 5 ended up being at Wild Adventures! I’m so glad we were able to go one last time. We won’t be renewing our passes this year because it’s just not do-able with a baby on a schedule and depending on some Disney related things we may not ever renew our passes so I’m glad we had a fun-filled Wild Adventures Day since it could be AWHILE before we go back!
Tessie was SUPER disappointed that she wasn’t tall enough to ride a rollercoaster on our last Disney trip (we plan to do Barnstormer next visit for sure) so our top priority was a rollercoaster for Tess!
So funny that you can’t see her haha
SHE LOVED IT!
She’s our daredevil! She is still talking about the “shoe ride”
Yup. Tess wore this random infant baby hat all day with random gloves 😉
Britt’s fav is the Ferris Wheel.
Y’all know I always have to have a Wild Adventures complaint haha it makes NO SENSE how dang LONG they take to load the thing!!!
Yes Britt wore ear muffs all day at the park haha
Daddy, Kye and Tess rode together on the Ferris Wheel!
New ride we’ve never done before while the boys did a rollercoaster
Britt wanted to try something new too…
some ride where it’s like you are flying…so shocked she wanted to do it and loved it!
Petting farm for our animal lover!
The Hopper is THE fav though!
(It was funny hearing a random guy talk about how this ride is shown in Zombieland. If you’ve never seen the movie it’s awesome and it was filmed at Wild Adventures!)
Kye is hilarious
I love how much fun Tess had!
Yay for getting to be IN pics now that Kye can take ’em!
I love how into animals she is…it’s just so different from Kye and Britt and is a very “Tess” thing!
The jeeps is a must do for us girls! Especially while the boys ride rollercoasters!
I love walking around theme parks with him 🙂
This monkey was so interesting to watch…this random toddler was at the fence and the monkey was VERY territorial and MEAN. Like legit would have attacked that kid if he could!
Realized recently that we have a TON of pics of Kye with Zach and Britt with Me but need to do better about mixing it up 😉
Kye’s #1 thing was bumper cars. Ugh the LINE was INSANE for them. Well actually the line wasn’t that bad…it’s just SO SLOW. Whatever…he got to ride twice in the junior races before the rest of us even got to ride once!
She loved it!
On our way out we stopped by the Dizzy Dragons and OMG Tess and Britt FLIPPED OUT when we realized Tess is now tall enough to ride them! It was adorable!
I love quality time together and it helped make the waiting easier knowing we were making the most of it!
And we finished out the day with treats and Rapunzel!
The day before Mama E went into labor I had this big peace about me and just relaxed a lot. I laid out and went to a movie with Katie!
Here are some of my outfits from this month:
Dress is Old Navy, I love the dark denim and how it can really go with anything (link to similar dress here!)
I have to wear flats due to my foot issues and am so thankful I had luck with booties! Mine are from Kmart two seasons ago!
Rock Star Jeans are among my FAV!
Shoes (similar)
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My work has been featured on Love What Matters, Today Parenting and Babywise.Life. I'm also honored to be a member of the Babywise Friendly Blog Network.
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