Six-month favorites

Better late then never, amiright?

By far, Lainey’s favorite “toy” so far has been her noggin stik. I’m not even quite sure how I stumbled across this. It was probably one of those silly “how to make your baby smarter” pinterest articles that said to buy this thing called a noggin stik. Say wha? Anyways, we actually got it right around four months but the girl loved it and still does! So much so that it became the magic toy. You know the one. The one you hide when you are somewhere and save for when you really, really, really neeeeeeed them to make it just five more minutes. Yeah, that one. The noggin stik was that for us. So much so that we bought a 20-pack of batteries from Amazon. That is the only drawback to it, I would say. The battery life leaves a lot to be desired but is easy to replace!

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While this wasn’t a favorite, I’m going to put this right here:

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It feels like about (13) years ago that I put a what am I post out with a picture of this. This is a montessori interlocking disc. Great for teething, grasping (gross motor skill), etc. Adam and I are very interested in some of the montessori principles, not all of them, but many. We often discuss how to incorporate them into raising this little human we are responsible for. If any of you fine folks have any knowledge about montessori that you’d like to pass on to us, PLEASE DO!!!

This next favorite is very basic and is still a favorite!

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A mirror! Just an el-cheapo from Walmart and she loves it! Now that she sits or stands most of the time we have moved it and have it anchored up higher on the wall.

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This is how her mirror is currently set up:

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Last but not least! Her ride! This girl can’t get enough walks. She absolutely loves to go on walks. She’ll grab on to the front tray with both fists and won’t let go the entire time.

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Four-month favorites

Lainey Noelle is growing so fast. We can now officially look away and then turn around and she is on the absolute other side of the room. At not quite 18 weeks, rolling is her jam and she loves it!

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Here are a few other things we are loving:

You all undoubtedly have seen the milestone cards I use. I am very thankful for these as they force me to document certain things. I tend to be OCDlike and take photos of EVERY first that she does, but these cards make me stop and appreciate certain things more. For awhile we thought we were going to dress her up at each age milestone but she is so squirmy! The caterpillar has been our favorite!

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I will likely blog again about our experience with Lainey’s reflux. While there have been days that we have considered just carrying a beach towel around with us, for the most part we are still in love with these and because of that they make the four month favorite list AGAIN! Because of the reflux, we have used them as bibs a few times also so the snaps are so nice to have.

After we lost our fourth baby I mentioned (once) somewhere that I would love to have giraffes in my baby’s (someday) nursery. You would not believe how people picked up on this little piece of information. I can’t even begin to list the giraffe paraphernalia we got as gifts! Total awesomesauce. Which is why, of course, I had to have a Sophie. It turns out Sophie is the bomb. Lainey loves Sophie. She specifically prefers her hooves. I am really glad places like Target are selling Sophie now as it used to be only boutiques that you could get her. I will say, though, that you can get her cheaper on Amazon, fyi.

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As I have talked about in the distant past on the blog, we are probably the most unhealthy natural, organic want-a-be’s you’ll ever meet. We knew right away that somehow we wanted to use glass bottles. I know all bottles are BPA free but also believe there are other chemicals in plastic that the US has yet to ban. Luckily, one of the nurse’s from the hospital had three glass bottles she gifted to us the night we brought Lainey home to get us started and I ordered these for the rest. We’ve been very happy with them and have since ordered in the larger size. I don’t know if we’ll use them as sippy’s or not but they can be transitioned straight to sippy cups just by purchasing sippy lids when that time comes. Incidentally, Lainey’s most favoritest teether EVA’ happens to be from the very same company. We got ours at Whole Foods in Omaha and it comes in a set of two.

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The only time little missy has had a diaper rash was during her first week when all of her new little newborn skin was all peely and such. Otherwise if she is a little redness, we put this on and she has done amazing. I will also say that she has worn every brand diaper possibly known to man-kind. Well, probably not every…but close.

Have you heard of The Manhattan Toy Company? We love all of their stuff-in fact the first thing we got from them was off of Zulily and called the winkel. We put it in Lainey’s Easter basket and she loves it. It is easy to hold, to chew on & really light-weight.

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That’s it for four months!

May you have a blessed week! I hope we continue to have nice weather so we can keep going on our nightly walks-Lainey loves going on walks! We found out about an unexpected event this Sunday that will be very special to our little family. I will share about it soon!

Lastly, come on people….none of you have any guesses about this? None of you? For real? I’ll write a little more about what it is and why we have it soon also!

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WHAT AM I?

Two-month favorites

One of my favorite blogs regularly posts things that she loves and that make their lives easier with her kids. I always look forward to reading these posts…even when all I had were our dogs and cats! I may not keep up with it but thought I’d try to do something similar!

You all know about our fingernail/fingerchoppingoffphopia so mittens at our house are a must! The problem is that not only does little missy have cankles she also has nice chubby wrists and those mittens you get at places like Tar-jay just don’t cut it….or, I guess that they do, and that is the problem. They cut into her poor little wrists! Speaking of the blog I mentioned above, I discovered these through her and purchased these Satsuma mittens on Amazon.

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I would be remiss if I didn’t mention our activity gym. We actually have two, one upstairs and downstairs. These are an absolute must! We do tummy time, brain time, all sorts’a time on this thing!

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We love our art cards. We received a couple of sets as gifts and I ordered the metal mobile to hang above her changing table that will hold them once we get that part of her nursery finished. They are all black and white and when she sees them she is in awe. Her eyes get really big and bright.

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This next one gives kuddos to Daddy. This was all him. He wanted this diaper backpack. Mama wanted a fancy schmancy mucho expensive one. We both got our own. Mine is heavy and bulky. It didn’t make this list. Enough said. (hint…sneak peek to baby girl’s nursery!)

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Okay, this thing is not nearly as fancy as the next I will discuss but it IS magic at supper time. About 75% of the time it allows us to eat supper together! I believe it came from Shopko. Warning, it goes super fast even on the low speed, almost alarmingly so….perhaps this is why it works….

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This is a two-fer! Baby girl loves her Mamaroo! This thing is the cadillac of swings. We love that it plugs in to the wall (yay for no batteries!). It has so many options: tree swing, wave, rock-a-bye, car ride, kangaroo-this doesn’t even touch on the different sounds. All of the motions go five different speeds. The car ride is hilarious. Going really slow reminds me of driving around the block while going fast is like driving on the interstate. Three things I will say about the Mamaroo. First, get the mamaroo, not the rockaroo. Yes, it costs more but it also does more. Second, I wish the little mobile thing above moves…hint hint to 4moms. And finally, save your money on the newborn insert. That is the colorful thing she is lying on. You have to buy it separate and I think you can save some dollas’ and accomplish the same thing by rolling receiving blankets up beside her.

The second thing in this picture is the receiving blanket she is wrapped in. We have all sorts of fancy blankies but our go-to blankets day-in and day-out are these that were hand-made by Nana. We first got two that were this size from a friend the night Lainey was born. They were hand-me-downs that her Grandmother had made for her children. They are simple. Made from flannel and huge. Aden & Anais make blankets similar in size but you just can’t get them quite as tight….although we do love our Aden & Anais blankies, too…. At any rate, when Nana was here visiting she made us a bunch more and we lurve them!

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This may be silly but praise the Lord for this and for dishwashers!

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Again, another silly one….this was a request from Daddy when Lainey came home! We love Scentsy’s newborn nursery and even now this is what our home smells like!

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Plugs. Thats what we call ’em. My brother told me we couldn’t have too many. He and Auntie proved that by buying Miss Lainey bunches while they were visiting. Missy seems to have taken a liking to the Mam plugs.

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This picture is just for fun….and to make sure you are paying attention.

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Lainey loves bath time. Absolutely loves it. If she is a crab apple there are usually four things we can try. A bath, let her stand, put her in her straight-jacket or show her the Things That Are Awesome poster. We try to do a bath every night. We don’t necessarily wash to help avoid drying her skin out. We just let her sit in the warm water and she can’t get enough of it! Her bath seat is the best, it sits in two positions and I got it off of Zulily (which is quickly becoming a very bad habit!) but can also be found here.

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Again, a two ‘fer. We love white noise at our house. Adam and I sleep with the loudest box fan we can find. This little sound machine was a steal! We got it at Wee Cycle, the used kids store in Kearney but can be found new here.

The second thing on here is what we lovingly refer to as potty pads. They are water-proof and we have them in several places in the house where we change Lainey’s diaper most frequently. We try to give her tushy quite a bit of air-time. These particular ones were Zulily finds but we also have these.

(Oh! And, another nursery sneak peek!)

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Our most favoritest burp rags in the whole wide world are from Aden and Anais. These things will absorb like no other. They also have these little bitty snaps on the corners so you can use them as bibs when they get older….We got ours from a baby boutique but I’d recommend you get the less expensive version at Tar-jay (although now that I look closer I can’t tell if those come with the snaps or not so it may be worth the splurge to go with the other!).

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We discovered that our Things That Are Awesome poster settles Miss Lainey by coincidence. I supposed it is all the black and white detail. Whatever, not going to argue. We’ll take it all day long if she wants to stare at it, fine by us!

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Okay, last but not least. We were a little uncomfortable using these at first. For about the first 5 weeks or so we used the flannel blankies at night and just did a nice tight swaddle with two different blankies. We received a bunch of these baby straight-jackets, though so were definitely curious. Oncewefiguredouthowtousethem they were great! And, she really seems to like them. We joke how they keep “that mean little girl” from hitting her. “That mean little girl” also steals her plug sometimes. Such a meanie. Once her arms aren’t as flail-y I suppose we’ll think about trying something else….

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