Rhett-7 months old

It's no surprise that I am way late with this, but I will backtrack to what Rhett was doing at 7 months old. At  7 months, Rhett:

-Got his first 2 teeth at the same time-the bottom ones while we were at Disney World!  I should have known that Rhett would get his bottom first since Jackson got his top ones first since they are so different :) I miss my baby's gummy smile, but he sure is cute with his little teeth popping out! His two top teeth are bulging out of his gums and should pop through any day now. It is wreaking all kinds of havoc on his (and ours!) sleep. Now if only I could get him to stop nipping while he nurses!

-He is SO close to crawling. He can go from laying down to sitting up and everything in between. He really thinks he is something when he sit up and gets really proud of himself. He rocks on all fours and will lunge to get what he wants. He has moved forward a little bit, but I dont consider it crawling until he can crawl longer distances. We found out he can pull up to standing in his crib and pack and play so Justin has lowered both.

-He is not sleeping well AT ALL. I am incredible sleep deprived and it is wearing me down day by day. I guess it is combination of several things that have made his sleep so bad. And by bad-let me give you an example. On an average night, he goes down at 7:45, wakes up fussing at 8:15, 10, 11, 12, 2, 4, and then every 15 minutes or so between 4-6 AM. I am a zombie. He usually wakes up for good between 6:30 and 7 AM. I feed him at 11, 2, and 4 AM. The rest of the time I pick him up and rock him back to sleep. So that is my first mistake, I know. I have always been super responsive to him at night to keep him from waking Justin and Jackson and I realize that I have created a lot of the issue. Also, he got a cold around 6 1/2 months that messed with his sleep and then his teeth popping through at 7 months. I dont know how much longer and can keep it up but I keep hoping it will get like it was when we first moved him to his crib. I miss sleep so much :( I used to think that Jackson was a bad sleeper, but he has nothing on his baby brother!!

-He is increadibly social! He hasnt had any stranger anxiety and is always wanting to be part of every conversation, even if he is not invited..haha! He will stare people down with his beautifiul smile until they acknowledge him. I have had so many people tell me that I should put him on Youtube!

-He is so vocal and always hollering about something. He sometimes "sings" when he is nursing and is always talking to me. He will grunt at me and I will grunt back at him and we will go back and forth until he starts laughing. He is mainly still using vowel sounds and his new favorite is "ohhhhh".

-He remains feisty as ever. He refuses to be ignored and makes his precense known. He does not like it if I am out of his line of sight and will fuss until I reappear. He has masetered the "fake cry", which I am sure Jackson taught him well! He is definitely not as mellow as Jackson was as a baby. He is in constant motion and when he gets excited about something, he will move his wrists and ankles in circles over and over again, which is really funny.

-He's still doing great with baby food and trying new things. His current favorites are mangoes and sweet potatoes. He flat out refuses a bottle, and has decided that he would rather go hungry when I am gone all day to meetings than take a bottle. Thankfully I do not have many all day work meetings, but I hate that he wont take it. I cant wait for him to drink some water out of a sippy cup and eat snacks since he wont take bottles anymore.

-He got his first ear infection at almost 7 months, which is new territory for us since Jackson has still never had one. One day he started crying (screaming) and woudn't stop. We didnt know what else to do but take him to the dr and they found a very early and mild ear infection in one ear. Boo! On one hand I felt like a failure that he had to take antibiotics at almost 7 months old when Jackson was well over a year old until he needed them, but on the other hand I guess it is not so bad since he has had a few colds and has been exposed to so many more germs with big brother around. Still, I hope there are not any more to come!

-He weighs a little over 20 lbs and he is a solid little guy. I love this baby boy so much and I can't believe he is already 7 months old! I hope at the 8 month update I can report that he is sleeping better! :)

Here are some photos at 7 months old:

He is always smiling!

Disney World Vacation 2012

We had such a fun vacation! We left the last week of October and were there for our 6 year wedding anniversary and for Halloween. This is such a great time to go and the crowd levels are super low. We stayed in a Cars suite at the Art of Animation, which was fantastic! Our room over looked "Radiator Springs" and Jackson was in Heaven. He kept calling our room "home" and said he wanted to live there forever.  He had his own (Murphy) bed that he just loved. We also got the Disney dining plan, and we had some wonderful meals during our vacation. We spent 1 day at Downtown Disney, 1 day at Epcot, and 2 days at the Magic Kingdom. The weather was perfect and most importantly, we were all healthy!! Justin had either food poisoning or a stomach bug 5 days before we left, so it really is miracle that nobody else got sick! Here is our trip broken down by day:

Day 1-Travel Day to Orlando. As we got on the interstate, Justin played "Holiday Road" and we sang it to Jackson and Rhett to kick off our Griswold's trip to Wally World :) Rhett was fussy at times, but overall both boys did well. We took our time getting there and got settled in to the hotel. We had dinner at the restaurant on the resort. Jackson was wired and jumping around everywhere. Rhett had meltdown city when it was time to go to sleep for the night and cried himself to sleep in my arms. I thought maybe it was a combination of the long car ride, new place, etc. But a few days later his first teeth-the two bottom ones-popped through! Thankfully he was fine the rest of the trip and quite a happy little guy!

Day 2-This was our 6 year wedding anniversary! We ate breakfast at the resort and then set out to look around headed to Downtown Disney. It was still a little windy from Hurricane Sandy, but otherwise a really nice day. We rode a few kiddie rides with Jackson and had to drag him off crying every time. We tried explaining that we were going to have 3 whole days of nothing but rides at the park. This is when I knew he was going to really enjoy the rides at Disney. We let Jackson pick out a toy at the toy shop and then had a nice lunch. Rhett did great and was happy the whole day. We headed back to the hotel for nap time. After naps, we got up and went shopping for some Florida Gator clothes at nearby stores. Justin found a great deal on Gator flags for the car and a new Florida sticker for our car. Jackson got a really cute jersey and I got a new shirt. Then we headed to the Contemporary resort for our reservations at Chef Mickey's. It was a character dinner, so Rhett and Jackson got to meet Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, and Donald. Then we rode the monorail and went back to our hotel for the evening.

Day 3-We did breakfast at the resort and then headed to Epcot. We got there soon after opening and went straight to the Seas with Nemo and Friends ride, which Jackson enjoyed. We didn't wait for a single ride the whole day. We also rode Journey into the Imagination 3 times, The Grand Fiesta Tour (boat ride in Mexico), Turtle talk, Innoventions, and Jackson's favorite was Spaceship Earth. He rode it 3 or 4 times. Rhett rode with us on Nemo and Friends, The Grand Fiesta Tour, and Spaceship Earth. When we first rode Spaceship Earth (with Rhett), of course the ride stopped halfway through for a few minutes. We were pretty much in the dark in the caveman section and Rhett started fussing. I was in the seat with Jackson and Justin was in the seat with Rhett. Rhett was getting more and more upset and I knew he was probably getting hungry, so I had Justin hand him over and I nursed him as the ride finished up. haha. He finished eating about 30 seconds before we got off of the ride and nobody had a clue. Me and Justin had a good laugh over that-this is by far the most interesting place that I have nursed Rhett!! They also had a mothers lounge that I used at the park for nurse Rhett, which was really nice. We had lunch and headed back to the resort for naps. We had debated about whether to go back for naps for wing it and let them nap in the stroller, but since they are both still so young, we opted to go back. I enjoyed my naps SO much and so did Justin and the boys. After we woke up, we headed back to Epcot and did a few more rides before our dinner reservations at The Coral Reef. This was my favorite meal of the whole trip-it was fantastic, although both boys were a challenge to keep happy because it was kind of a long meal.

Day 4-We woke up early and set out for the Polynesian Resort to have a character breakfast with Lilo and Stitch at Ohana. The food was served family style and it was so good! They had a parade for the kiddos as well which was fun. We ate and rode the monorail into the Magic Kingdom and got there right after it had opened. There was no wait for any of the rides we wanted, so we were able to walk right on. I went and got some fast passes for some of the more popular rides later in the day. We took turns riding with Jackson or staying behind with Rhett for most of the rides. We did: Buzz Light year, Tomorrowland Speedway, Dumbo, Goofys Barnstormer roller coaster, Tea Cups, Small World (with Rhett), Winnie the Pooh, and Aladdin's magic carpet rides (with Rhett). We were worried that the kiddie coaster might be too much for Jackson, but he LOVED it. He rode it 11 TIMES in a row with Justin. They let him stay on over and over because there was no line. He rode most of these rides multiple times. Jackson was beside himself because he was having so much fun. Rhett seemed to enjoy it too. We watched a show with all of the characters in front of the castle and Rhett really liked the songs. I took advantage of the baby center with him where they have a nursing room that holds 4 mommies. Every time I went it was busy, which was great...except Rhett wanted to socialize with everyone in the room. He would stand up and "talk" to all of the other babies and mommies. It was so funny. They couldn't believe how social he was. I had to basically face a corner so that he couldn't see anyone just to get him to eat! What a ham! Also, we had a Mickey Ears hat that we got a Toys R US before our trip for him and everyone kept stopping us asking us where we go it. Disney would make a lot of money if they sold those in the park! We ate lunch at Casey's corner and for dessert, Jackson got his first taste of cotton candy, which he loved.! Then we went to the resort for nap time and came back to the Magic Kingdom for a character dinner at the Crystal Palace with Pooh, Eeyore, Piglet, and Tigger. The characters were great, but the food was just ok. Then we rode the rides some more and headed back to our "home" :)

Day 5-Halloween!! I dressed both boys up in matching Halloween pumpkin shirts and they were just adorable! We had breakfast at our resort and got to the Magic Kingdom before it opened. It was really fun to see the whole production of the park opening and the show beforehand. We rode all of the same rides with no wait, except this time I got to ride the Goofy coaster 8 times in a row! We did a few new rides on this day: Peter Pan, Carousel, Mickey's Philharmagic, and the Jungle Cruise in addition to riding all of the ones from the day before multiple times. We had lunch at the Main Street bakery and had some delicious Halloween cupcakes for dessert. Then we headed back for a nap and then back to the Magic Kingdom afterwards for more rides. I was getting sad as the sun was setting and the day was coming to a close because we were having so much fun together. We had dinner at the Liberty Tree Restaurant in the park and it was my 2nd favorite meal-so good!! Both boys did great and then we rode a few more rides and got Jackson picked out his Mickey ears, candy apple and rainbow lollipop. His favorite was the lollipop! On the way out of the park, we picked up both boys some Disney t-shirts and then headed back to the resort.

Day 6-Jackson woke up crying because he didn't want to go home and wanted to stay at the resort forever! So sad! We got packed up and said our goodbyes to all of the cars at the resort. Then we went to the gift shop to pick out our souvenir magnet and a few toys for the boys. We hit Bob Evans on the way home (Justin's favorite) and then made our way back home. We had so much fun and it was definitely a successful trip! We were all pretty bummed to leave. The nice thing is that we came home on a Thursday so we had the weekend to recoup. I know Rhett is too young to remember our trip, but I hope Jackson remembers what a fun time we had together as a family. Here are some photos of our awesome trip!!

Day 1:

Day 2:



Day 3:

Day 4:

 Day 5-Happy Halloween!

 Saying Goodbye..