Shelby's First Easter

Shelby's first Easter turned out fabulous.

We spent it with my parents at their house in Eastern NC.

We enjoyed our visit just wish we had tomorrow off so we could have spent more of today with them.

Here's a few pictures.

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Shelby had just a 'few' Easter outfits for the weekend.

My Mom has nearly as much baby gear at her house as we do thanks to her neighbors giving her items.

Keeps us from having to haul a whole lot to their house.

This was the first time Shelby had sat in such a contraption.

I think she liked it and it might be time for us to put our exersaucer together for our house.

She's mastered the Bumbo chair.

There are several pictures of her on tables and in chairs.

Just KNOW that we never leave her unattended.

The weather was pretty nice throughout the weekend so we took advantage of it and even went for a short hike in the neighborhood.

I can't wait to get Shelby out on more trails!

Mr. Buddy enjoyed Easter too. 

As he always does..

He's never left out.

Easter morning.

Love this one of Buddy looking up at her.

My parents are in love with Miss Shelby.

Checking out her basket from Gigi.

Of course, what would Easter be without an Easter bonnet.

Right??

I use to LOVE getting a new hat every Easter when I was a kid.

Such fun.

While most of Charlotte is now enjoying Spring Break this week, we'll be back to work and back to school.

How was your Easter??!!!

Happy Easter Weekend!

We're leaving in a few hours for my parents house for the weekend.

It's so surreal that this weekend last year we revealed to our parents that we were expecting.

This year we are enjoying our baby!!

Yesterday they had a little Easter event at Shelby's school. It was so cute and she was the Grand Marshall!!

LOL!!

Here's a few pictures of that.

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I put together a few treats for the teachers and staff.

I made 10 of these bags of chocolate dipped Peeps.

Much easier than the cutout cookies I generally do.

Shelby and a few of her classmates.

They had their coats on because they were getting ready to go outside.

I think this picture is just darling.

Shelby and her friend holding hands.

They have written us notes about them doing this before.

Cute!

They do art projects with the kids every week.

This is my favorite so far!!

Their feet as the ears! 

The hat Shelby has on in the picture was for their silly hat parade they had yesterday.

As I mentioned, Shelby lead the entire school!

Brad called he the Grand Marshall!

HA!!!

My sweet cousin Alayna sent Shelby the cutest Easter headband.

She'll be wearing this on the way to GiGi's house today!!

I just got finished packing and it's safe to say there is enough pink for the entire weekend!!!

Happy Easter to you all!

And, let's remember the real reason for the season!

HE HAS RISEN!!!!

Happy Easter Friends!!!

20-Year High School Reunion

It's all over Facebook.

Plans for our 20-year high school reunion.
Yes, I graduated in the year 1993.
A group has been created and old pictures are being posted left and right.
Some of which I'm going to be sharing in this post.
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My first reaction?!

I'm going to go!

I didn't go to my 10-year reunion because I didn't really care much about it and honestly, I didn't want to spend the money.

Not to mention, I didn't keep in touch with anyone I went to high school at that time.

(that was before Facebook and all the social media that there is now)

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First off, let me give you some background.

I grew up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

From age 4-years old until age 15.

That's when we moved to Arkansas.

Hot Springs, Arkansas to be exact.

My parents hometown. Where they had grown up and all of our family, to this day, still lives.

I was in the 10th grade.

So, I went from being with kids that I knew my whole life and thrown into a high school full of people who had known each other their whole lives.

I was the new kid.

I did pretty good. I had tons of friends and hung out with the 'in crowd.
But you know what?
When it was all said and done none of the people I hung around with in high school ended up being life long friends that I have kept in touch with in the last 20-years.
Yes, there's the Facebook posts and a couple of them even came to our wedding reception we had in Arkansas but for the most part my chilhood friends in Louisiana and college friends are my core group to this day.
That doesn't mean I don't still love the friendships I had in high school.

They were great.

Memories I'll have forever.

But the more I have given thought about going to my 20-year reunion, that is taking place this June in Hot Springs, the more I think I'm going to skip out again.

Why you ask?
I'm just not sure I care enough.

The money Brad and I would spend on plane tickets, a rental car and other travel expenses we could use to take a vacation somewhere we were really excited about going!

I initially thought we could use the reunion as an excuse to bring Shelby to see family but many of them are coming here this next month.

And, my Mom brought up a good point.
If you're going to spend the money to go anywhere you should use it to go down to Louisiana and bring Shelby to meet my close friends and my family(brother and his kids)down there.

So, as much as I would think it would be fun to reminsence about my high school days and the bad outfits, big bows and crazy talent shows I participated in(see below photo).

I'm not going to do it.

No 20-year high school reunion for me.

I'll just have to read about it and see all the pictures on Facebook instead.

I think we'll take our money and head to the beach instead.

Random and Getting Ready for Easter

Happy freezing, cold Sunday!

Ugh, I'm not sure about the rest of you here on the East Coast but I am SO over this weather!

The start of Spring may have been last week but it still feels like Winter around here.

Granted, it was in the mid to high 70's last week but this weekend the high has been 50.

Because of this crazy weather I've been fighting the onset of a cold.

I've been eating ZiCam like it's candy and today I've stayed in and drank Thera Flu like it's water.

UGH!!

Knock on wood, but Shelby hasn't gotten sick.

Sure hope it stays that way.

Girlfriend is so happy all the time it really blows my mind.

I think she has been happier since she started nursery school.

I know it sounds weird, but I think she was getting bored staying home with me all the time.

They say she loves being around the other babies.

Her teacher told me that she's great doing tummy time when all the other kids are down there doing it with her, but if she's by herself she goes bezerk!

LOL!

I'm thinking she's going to be a social butterfly like her Mom.

We treasure our time with her after work.

Playing with her.

Watching her smile and laugh.

And, grow.

She's getting stronger and able to sit her Bumbo for periods of time.

She still has a way to go in being able to sit up on her own though and she has yet to roll over.

I finally found a mall with a Easter bunny this weekend.

She wasn't scared at all but she wasn't enthused either!

At least she was looking at the camera!!

And, why do Easter bunnies have to look so darn creepy?!

We're ready for Easter!!

Shelby's dress finally came in a few weeks ago and because I ordered it so long ago I was worried it wouldn't fit but it does!

We're going to my parents house this weekend to celebrate the holiday and I hope to get some good pictures as a family with all of us dressed up.

Aside from visiting with the Easter bunny our Saturday included a play date with our neighbors and their son, Parker, who was born 10-days before Shelby.

Me and Parker's mom were actually due on the same day but she went early and I was late.

We were so excited to get pictures of them together!

Cute couple or what??!

I really like this one of them looking at each other.

Parker's mom, Ashley and I walked a lot when I was on leave.

We hope to get together with them more and more!

The big plan today was for all of us to go out to my BIL and SIL's house and have a sort of 'early' Easter with Brad's parents.

I started feeling worse overnight though and decided I should skip and stay home and rest to try and get well.

So, Shelby and Daddy went on their own!

How cute is this?

And, this?

Shelby's first Easter basket.

Brad's parents got her some cute stuff including books, candy, a stuffed bunny and 2 cute outfits.

Including this one!

Precious or what?

I just hope the weather warms up soon so she can start wearing some of her cute Spring/Summer clothes!!

That's all I have for today.

Hope you guys had a fabulous weekend!!

I May Have a Problem

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First off, thanks to everyone who commented on my last post about swaddling!
I have decided to wait and let Miss Shelby decide when it's time to stop.
We currently use the sleep sacks with the swaddle option so she's use to the sleepsacks for all of you who suggested that.
That's also what they have them nap in at school.

Onward to today's post.
I think I seriously have a problem!!
It's called being OBSESSED with dressing our baby girl!!
I would have never thought I would be more into dressing her than myself!!
I know a lot of you other Mommies on Instagram have expressed the same thing!

I really can't wait for the weather to get warmer because she has about 5, 768 cute outfits that she needs to wear before she grows out of them all!

At least she goes to school now so someone other than Brad and myself get to see her cute self all dressed up.

(And, of course those of you who follow me on Instagram)

Shelby has outgrown her newborn clothes but I'm keeping all the really cute outfits for her to be able to use for her baby dolls when she's older.

My Mom did the same thing and I was obsessed back then when it came to dressing my babies.

In fact for about 3 or 4-years, for every holiday that involved gifts, I asked for clothes for my babies.

I even had a baby shower themed birthday party one year.

I posted about that last year.

Click here.

I guess I should enjoy dressing her now because I know it's only a matter of time that she will decide on what she wants to wear.

My only hope is that she likes bows as much as I do!!!

Happy Thursday!!

Swaddling - HELP needed!!

I've mentioned on here before that we've been swaddling Shelby since the day she was born.
It's what they did in the hospital and it worked so why change a good thing.
Right?
Well, now Shelby is 3 months and one week old, or 14-weeks.
However you want to refer to it, and we are still swaddling her.
We only do it at night as they don't swaddle at her school for naps(and we had stopped that too).

Our pediatrician says it's okay to swaddle until 4-months so I feel the need to start the transition now.
But guess what??
Not sure it's going to be an easy one!!
We put her in a loose swaddle last night and she broke free twice and woke herself up and we had to go back in there and feed her to get her back to sleep.
(below picture was when Shelby was only 2-weeks old)

So, today I'm asking for advice!

What is the best way to transition?

Should I wait until she's rolling over??

She's sleeping 12-hours a night right now while swaddled.

Will she ever be able to do that without swaddling?

HELP!!!!!

St. Patty's Day Weekend

We had a great weekend full of family, friends and beers!!

HAHA!!

St. Patrick's day is always a crazy holiday and the past few years we've opted out of going out but this year we opted in.

It's a close friend's birthday so we obliged and my Mom came over to babysit for us.

Her birthday was earlier in the week so we threw a mini dinner party in her honor.

Brad made his family recipe of roasted red pepper pasta with vodka sauce and grilled chicken.

Everything was delicious!

My Mom bought Shelby several St. Patrick's day outfits.

One more casual for school and another for the parade the next day.

Charlotte's St. Patrick's Day parade is NO JOKE!!

Thousands of people pack Uptown for it.

We met up with LuLu and her hubby along with Katie and Josh.

Governor Pat McCrory was the Grand Marshall.

So great!!!

Shelby did GREAT at the parade!

I think she was fascinated with it all and she loves to be in the middle of all the action.

The parade was longer than I expected and included the party pedaler.

Can you imagine? 

A moving bar!! 

Brilliant!

The weather warmed up quick and Miss Shelby was getting warm too.

I'm talking nearly 80-degrees!!

Later in the evening, we went out for our friend Katie's birthday.

She's Irish and her birthday was a few days earlier so she blows it out every year!

We did dinner at Brazwells on the patio and went bowling afterwards.

That's right.

We avoided the bar crawl in Uptown Charlotte.

My friend Kelli met us out and if you're a loyal reader of this blog then you will know how curly her hair generally is!

Well, she got it straightened!!

Crazy!!

I suck at bowling but it's always a good time.

We probably stayed out a little late but it was a good time!!

I know today is actual St. Patrick's Day but we did nothing to celebrate.

We did enough celebrating last night.

Before my Mom headed home we decided to try my first Easter dress on Shelby.

Cute or what??

I plan on keeping some of Shelby's outfits just as my Mom did.

I used those clothes growing up, on my baby dolls.

I figure Shelby can do the same.

Let's just HOPE she likes baby dolls!!!

I had planned to take Shelby to get her picture with the Easter bunny at the mall, but who knew he wasn't there yet???

I guess he gets there next weekend.

Soo.. I plan to dress her in her Easter outfit next weekend and have a picture taken.

Instead, today we went and met a friend for lunch in a cute little dress Mermaid sent her.

Thanks again Mermaid!!

And, how adorable is her smile and laugh??!!

So, there you have it.

Not an exciting post but our weekend is documented.

How was your weekend???