We are entering uncharted territory this fall with Reaghan...

We've signed her up for dance class! We are entering into the world of organized activities with our kids. The world where you have to get them to a certain place every week, buy them certain items to participate in said activity and cheer them on as they grow and learn. All summer we were talking about signing her up for something this fall and we were trying to decide between soccer and dance. She loves to run and kick the ball (a girl after her mama's own heart!) but soccer meant games every Saturday... usually early games... SO we totally made a selfish decision and chose dance instead! haha We figure we have YEARS ahead of us of getting up early on Saturday mornings for sporting events so why not postpone it at least another year? Lucky for us, Reaghan is also really into wearing tutu's, twirling around, and doing anything that makes her feel like a princess. (This part of her is definitely not after her mama, but I'm completely on board with loving and promoting all princess activities in this house.)

Choosing dance worked out for us in the end because my sister in law also wanted to sign her little girl up for dance so now Reaghan will be taking taking ballet and tap with her cousin Brooklyn every Thursday night.

Their studio had an open house last week so we took the girls to meet their teacher and get fitted for their ballet and tap shoes.

Milestones
She is growing so fast! This past month she started pushing herself up into a little baby plank position on her arms and toes and now she can get herself into a quadruped position and rock back and forth. She hasn't figured out how to move her arms yet so she either flops forward or scoots herself backwards. She finally figured out the sitting up thing just days before turning 6 months, but I still have to be within arms reach of her because she's not great at it. Eating solid foods like I said before. I haven't tried sitting her up by herself in a cart or restaurant high chair yet but at home she sits in her high chair for dinner now and had her first time sitting in her big girl stroller seat. Starting to babble ma-ma-ma sometimes!

Sibling Love
My favorite thing is to listen to Reaghan talk to Lilly. When she's fussing she'll say "Oh whats the matter my sweet love?" If Lilly is being silly and grabbing her hair Reaghan will say "No no sweet girwl." If she spits up she says "Ugh! You are da spit up queen!"  hahaha it reminds me that she is listening to everything I say ;) Reaghan is so proud that Lilly laughs at her when she jumps around. She says "My sister likes it when I go cwazy." She loves to wear matching clothes with Lilly. She never gets mad at her, even if Lilly accidentally hurts her by grabbing her hair or pinching her.

Is it just me, or is Lilly's head the same size as Reaghans?! haha

Her official 5 month birthday was on July 3rd, but close enough right?

I'm still taken aback every once in a while when I look down and I've got two healthy, beautiful girls hanging out with me. That I have the sweet blessing of calling these girls my daughters. Lilly Jean continues to grow in personality and complexity. Her likes and dislikes seem to ebb and flow, all except for her need for her mommy, and she really, really, really wants to be a big girl like her sister! We love her big, bald, beautiful head and her squishy little thighs. We love her quick smile and blue eyes. We don't love her ability to leave your ears ringing when she is upset or her constant spit up.
Find out more about Lilly Jean's 5th month below!


Milestones
She can roll from back to belly and belly to back like a pro! She thought 1 in the morning was a great time to practice those skills last night while she talked and fussed. It was adorable, but also not because of the whole 1 a.m. thing. She is getting much better at using her hands to grab objects and bring them to her mouth. Sometimes she can find her paci and put it back in her mouth herself which is hilarious for some reason. She is JUST getting the hang of sitting up but still not able to do it on her own yet. She does fine sitting in her Bumbo seat though. She can scoot herself off of her play mat so quickly, I'm not even sure how she does it. I have to watch her very closely on changing tables, beds and even in her little bouncy and Bumbo seats because she's strong and if she wants to get out she can arch that chunky little bum right out of something.


Sibling Love
She thinks its hilarious when I'm holding her and she looks down to see Reaghan jumping and dancing. Laughs when Reaghan "roars" at her. Will listen to Reaghan read her books. Reaghan is always on high alert for spit up as soon as she hears Lilly burp. She is a big helper and will get spit up rags and bibs for me all day long and wipe up spit up on the floor for me... even if she mimics my frustration about it with some groaning! Reaghan always asks "Can I see my baby sister?" and always calls her "Baby Yilly" She likes to hold her but will tell me "I'm all done" or "I think she's too heavy for me right now" when she gets tired of sitting with her. She loves to talk about being a big sissy and I love watching her be a big sissy.



P.S. she's wearing the same 4th of July clothes that Reag wore at 9 months old ; )

• Exercise 3x a week
• Lose 5 pounds of baby weight
• Memorize Ephesians 6:10-18 that goes along with my summer bible study.
• Organize the Room over the Garage
• Organize my bedroom closet
• Use budget app consistently

I like this little inspirational quote at the beginning of July. Each day can be full of meaning and purpose if I'm cognizant of what the day has to offer. I am hoping this is going to help me be less "busy" and more intentional with my time and energy!

Reaghan has officially been pacifier free for 1 whole week!

She has only been allowed to use her paci at nap times and bedtimes for almost a year now, but for some reason we just couldn't get rid of it all together. Some of it was hesitancy on my part. I knew how easily the pacifier helped her fall asleep and I was selfishly worried that she wouldn't nap or sleep as well without it. Obviously as she's gotten older its become more and more obvious that she didn't really need it she was just used to using it.

When Lilly was born I tried to feel her out about getting rid of the paci, saying that now that Lilly was here she might need all the paci's and since she was a big girl she should give her pacifiers to Lilly. She was very matter of fact in that conversation, letting me know that Lilly had her own paci's and she could keep her big girl paci's. She wasn't really getting the whole "big girls don't use pacifiers" thing. Since she didn't jump on board with a positive connection between Lilly and giving up the paci's I decided to wait for a couple months so there wouldn't be any negative associations. Maybe I read too many blog posts and over thought the idea that she might be bitter towards Lilly if she was the reason she had to give up her paci because honestly, Reaghan has shown zero jealousy, bitterness, resentment whatever towards her baby sister. So it probably wouldn't have been that big of a deal, but wait I did. Also, I needed to come to a place where I was getting enough sleep that I could handle any toddler meltdowns in the middle of the night along with the newborn's needs! Once I felt like I could handle it if went horrifically wrong, I started telling her at night during her bed time routine that we were going to have to say goodbye to her paci soon, and then I said in a few days, and then one night I told her that if she gave up her pacifier she would get a special treat. {she sort of loves special treats!} She immediately pulled her paci out of her mouth and handed it to me! haha I told her I didn't have a special treat right then, and that she could sleep with her paci one more night and the next day we would say goodbye to the pacifier and get a special treat. She went to bed really excited about the idea. I went to bed thinking oh man, this is it. We have to go through with it now! This could be my last night of decent(ish) sleep for a while!

The following night at dinner we told her our plan. We said we would put her pacifier in a special bag, take it to the ice cream shop and throw it away and after she threw it away she could get her special ice cream treat! She was so excited! I l.o.v.e when she gets excited about things. When we got there she marched right up to that trashcan, took her paci out of the back and tossed it into the trashcan without a second thought! I was the one that got a little choked up when I saw that pink paci fall into the dark hole. I'm ridiculously sentimental. But you guys! My first baby is growing up!

See this guy? This is the one my 16 year old heart fell in love with 12 years ago. If you had told me then that I was actually going to grow up to marry him and have his babies I might have fainted from happiness. Okay, probably not cause I'm really not the swooning type of girl, but you get the idea.  My 16 year old self always wanted that to be the plan, but the fact that it actually happened?! Wow. God is good to me,

Last week was our annual Beach Week trip with Mark's family! We're starting to outgrow the little condo we stay in now that we have 2 toddlers and 2 babies filling the space up with all of the things, not to mention vacation with 2 kids is even more work than vacation with one buuttttt its totally worth it.

 We had some rainy days and some really nice beach days. We did some shopping, had a tornado warning one night, and I may have dressed the girls in matching outfits every. single. day.

We worked through some severe toddler anxiety regarding the beach with Reaghan. I wish I could say we overcame by the end of the week, but she was still terrified on our last beach day. Once we were down at the beach for a little while she would slowly start to relax and enjoy herself and even wanted to be carried down to the waves to SEE them {touching the water was out of the question} but her initial reaction at the top of the dunes was to have a meltdown because she was scared. So thats what I mean by work through. It completely caught us off guard because she's been to the beach here at home this season without any issues and even our first beach day on Monday in the OBX she didn't have any anxiety, but when we went back to the beach on Thursday she was a mess. Toddler's are super fun sometimes you guys.

Here's a little recap of our week:

Apparently I'm just going to continue my trend of posting about events weeks after they happened. ; )

We had a fun and full Mother's Day a couple weeks ago. We got home from our D.C. trip late Saturday night and we were up early the next morning for church! I bought the girls adorable matching dresses from H&M and I wore the dress I wore on my first Mother's Day 3 years ago. I looked a little more put together that morning when I only had one babe to get ready for church and we didn't have to be there an hour early for worship band practice but I still treasure my Mother's Day picture with my sweet girls.

Last weekend Mark and I celebrated our 5th Wedding Anniversary by taking a quick overnight trip to D.C. Mark really surprised me a couple months ago when he suggested going out of town for our anniversary and then he planned the whole thing out for us! We left early Friday morning and headed straight up to the Air and Space Museum's annex hanger outside of D.C. Neither of us had been there before so we were both excited to check it out. Mark was especially excited because he wanted to see the space shuttle!