Blog Mamas

As I have wrote about before, one of my favorite things to do is read other people's blogs. I just love reading about everyone else's lives! Since Caroline has came along, I am mostly drawn to mama blogs and my favorites are mama blogs tied with fashion, cooking, and life with kids! I have links on Safari on my phone and I spend my lunch time and night time reading away. Here are some of my favorite blogs to share with everyone…

Shay Shull- The Mix and Match Mama

My number one favorite blog- read every day! Shay has a family blog and a cooking blog... (seriously-she does it all) and one of my most favorite things about her family is the recent adoption of their little girl Ashby from China. There is a part of my heart that longs for adoption and I love to read about their journey with Ashby. She is also a Christian and has such a heart for the Lord. Anyways, this blog has everything! Fashion, cooking, kids, vacations..and sooo many helpful topics to read about. Love it. 

Andrea McAnally- Momfessionals Blog

I found all of these blogs from links on Shay's blog…and Andrea is the one that I can really relate to! She (like Shay) has three kids and writes some of the greatest posts about her daily crazy life. She is super honest and transparent as it gets, and not to mention her little girl is such a doll. Andrea also is a Christian and is always lifting another mama up in prayer. I love that! 

Kelly Stamps- Kelly's Korner

Apparently Kelly's blog has been around for years and I am still spending time reading her past posts about the most awesome things. My favorite part of her blog is "Show Us Your Life", where she posts a topic and fellow bloggers share about the topic in their blog. Kelly's daughters are so pretty and most recently one of her little girl got saved at VBS..it brought tears to my eyes! It is seriously such a good read! Kelly also had her third baby a few months after Caroline and I love that she is older than me but we are going through the same things in life right now. Through Kelly's blog I recently started reading Leslie's Blog and was thoroughly enjoying it until I found out today that Leslie had passed away yesterday and my heart aches so much for her family. She had two girls under the age of 18 months and her heart problems escalated and her heart gave up on her. Tears were flowing when I read about her passing and thinking about her husband and girls. 

Erika Slaughter- A Little Bit of Everything

Erika is friends with Shay and Andrea also and has three kids as well. She seems very down to earth and I love reading her posts about her kids and their new house. 

Sheaffer Sims- Pinterest Told Me To 

This girl is such a hoot. She does the funniest Bachelor/Bachelorette recap blogs and I have read them every week for a couple of years until this year…when I didn't really get interested in Kaitlyn or Britt as the Bachelorettes and life was busy with Caroline so I didn't watch. Sheaffer and Shay are sponsored by Nordstrom on their blogs so I love their super cute fashion posts. 

and there are a lot more that I don't really have time to link to right now…but I hope that you love these! My favorites are Shay, Andrea, and Kelly's blogs. Once you start reading, you will notice that Shay, Andrea, Erika, and Sheaffer are all friends from Texas. They all inspire me to write more about my life and to honestly share what's going on in my life. 

In other news, we are officially swaddling Caroline... again. We had stopped when she turned four months old and started letting her sleeping on her side. For a couple of weeks she did fine, still waking up once at night. I had weaned her from taking a bottle when she woke up and thought we were doing great... Until last week when she started flailing her arms everywhere and woke herself up 4-5 times a night. After a few awful nights and much contemplation, I went to Baby's R Us one night at 7pm to buy a large Swaddle because I just couldn't stand another sleepless night. I'm not going to post about our progress just yet because I just was telling my friend Jen about it and then got jinxed and had another bad night. So for now we will just say it's getting better.

And I just feel the need to mention that I have never been a coffee drinker, and since Caroline has been born I get a headache if I wait too long without it! We even resulted to getting out our coffee maker because we were saving more money buying a big bag of Dunkin' Doughnuts at Sams rather than spending nine dollars a week on K-Cups! 

Today is my off day so I'm getting some laundry and cleaning done and then after lunch we are headed out to do some light shopping! I hope that your Tuesday is great! I'm not looking forward to working Wednesday Thursday or Friday but as always looking forward to the weekend! 

XOXO- Laci

Sunday

This weekend was spent at home mostly. I was off on Friday and spent the day at home being productive, but I got called in Friday night so Kyle took Caroline to his parents while I worked for a bit. Kyle's mother had all three of her grandkids for the first time. 

Saturday we stayed at home all day and got some house cleaning done. Kyle watched Caroline while I went to get my toes painted and searched around for a good bookshelf to paint for Caroline's room... No such luck. Still looking. We went to the river for a family wedding and I thought Caroline would do well being that the wedding was outside. She was perfect for the ceremony and showed out for everyone. Then came the reception where she had a royal crying meltdown that lasted thirty minutes. I initially thought she was sleepy and she usually gives it up after ten or fifteen minutes. We loaded her in the car after eating, turned on MMCH and hoped she would fall asleep on the way home. After crying some more for about fifteen minutes.... She pooped in the diaper and was all smiles. Poor girl had an upset tummy the whole time! I knew something wasn't right. Anyways it worked out perfect because we were home and got in bed at usual time. 

Today Kyle had to work so I let Caroline take her morning two hour nap and then we headed to eat mexican with mom, dad, Andrew and Tori. Caro was post nap/bottle so she was all smiles!

Caroline has got to spend so much time

with both her great- grandmothers and I am so thankful for that. This very house is where I used to lay as a baby while Granny watched me. 

I hope everyone has had a blessed weekend with family. That is what the weekends mean to me now- family time! 

Life Lately

This is where I find her here lately... Rolled over and smiling! 

Could this face get any cuter? She is such a happy baby. 

Unclaimed Baggage with mom and gran!

Guitar Center with daddy and Home Goods with mama! 

Too tired to shop anymore. (First time wearing shoes)

Playing with daddy at home! 

Pictures from daddy while mama is at work. 

Visiting mama during her long ER shift! 

Quiet Time Devotion

This post is a little different…sharing from my heart today. The one day of the week I look forward to is Tuesday. Tuesday is my designated off day at work and I love to stay at home with Caroline and relax. This morning was great because the weather was cool enough this morning where I could read my Bible and have my quiet time on the porch while she napped in the living room. Side note- it made it even more awesome that I had coffee and pound cake for breakfast. I have a journal book that I take sermon notes and journal in as well. I decided to look back and read a sermon from Francis Chan from Passion this morning and it really spoke to me (again) and I thought I would share the scripture and the notes.

Exodus 19: 9-12

8 And all the people responded together, “We will do everything the Lord has commanded.” So Moses brought the people’s answer back to the Lord.

9 Then the Lord said to Moses, “I will come to you in a thick cloud, Moses, so the people themselves can hear me when I speak with you. Then they will always trust you.”

Moses told the Lord what the people had said. 10 Then the Lord told Moses, “Go down and prepare the people for my arrival. Consecrate them today and tomorrow, and have them wash their clothing. 11 Be sure they are ready on the third day, for on that day the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai as all the people watch. 12 Mark off a boundary all around the mountain. Warn the people, ‘Be careful! Do not go up on the mountain or even touch its boundaries. Anyone who touches the mountain will certainly be put to death.

I want to be very honest here and say that sometimes when I see Old Testament scripture like this, my first thought is that it won't apply to me. I was so wrong when reading this. Francis says that our generation questions God for setting any boundaries for us. It is very evident in this passage that God gave Moses and his people specific instructions for meeting him. How much do we actually take advantage of the fact that we do not have to follow a list of instructions nor go to the Temple to speak with God? I actually just did it on my front porch in my pajamas, at my own convenience. We tend to treat our encounters with God with so much carelessness and like it is such a burden! These people with Moses were in awe to see Moses have an encounter with God and we squeeze in 2-3 minutes for him each day? (This part really got me!) So today I am thanking God that he will meet me right where I am, no matter where I am in life.

5 Months Old

Happy 5 Months, Caroline Page!
Wearing 6-9 month clothes.
Brown hair, blue eyes.
Somewhere around 17 pounds.

Caroline is such a happy baby. We have really gotten into our routine during the day. She has been taking one or two long two hour naps with a few thirty minute naps in between.

She is rolling from back to front and from front to back!

She loves her bouncer seat the most! She screams and smiles while watching Mickey and Doc McStuffins in her seat.

She is eating five 6 ounce bottles a day and eating two vegetables a day. She likes sweet potatoes, carrots, squash and butternut squash. She was not a fan of green beans, but who is? She also gets a few bites of apples and peaches for dessert some days. She opens her mouth for every bite and gets cranky if I wait longer than 5 seconds to give her another bite. :)

Her little gums are just as red and irritated as ever. She constantly gnaws on things, mainly her big right toe when she's laying down.

Our night times have went from bad to worse….with some major sleep regression. We were doing so great for a while…and then the past few nights I have been awake every hour with her.

But that doesn't stop her from being as smily and friendly as ever! She loves people and loves to watch people and smile at them in public.

She goes to church on Wednesday nights and Sunday morning with mama and daddy. Daddy plays guitar on Wednesday nights and we like to watch him. She has been to the nursery quite a few times and I have been really good. I only teared up once.

She has been noticing Libby here lately and always smiles so hopefully she will be a dog baby. If she isn't she is in real big trouble around here. She also has been giving us open mouthed kisses. There is nothing that makes her daddy or I happier than her slobbery kisses.

We love you Caroline Reese Page! I can't believe next month you will be half a year old!

Emmaline, Saul, and some VBS!

On Tuesday we finally, finally got to meet up with Natalie and Emmaline! Natalie and I are distant cousins and our sweet babies are about 8 months apart. Emmaline is a beauty just like her mama! 

How about this sweet smile before going to Vacation Bible School at Nazareth, my home church? We had a blast. Caroline made her first craft and even made the nightly newsletter! I enjoyed getting to help in the kitchen while C napped, too. 

We got to spend some time with Saul, who is my brother's girlfriend Victoria's new baby brother! He and Caroline are completely opposite babies but they couldn't be any sweeter! I love spending time with him and his family so much. So when my brother got a new niece, his girlfriend got a new brother shortly after! 

Just back in January, Carrie and I were carrying these little babies at my shower. So so sweet! 

We had a great time this week with our family and friends!