Paw Paw's Girl

Hollis' first word might be "Paw Paw". My Dad LOVES him some Hollis and loves spending quality time with her. Paw Paw comes to visit us Hollis at least once a week and we love it! This week though, Hollis and I spent Wednesday night, all day Thursday and part of the day Friday with PawPaw! He used 2 vacation days at work to spend with Hollis.

Paw Paw took Hollis and I to Babie-R-Us and Target, and then to lunch on Thursday. He bought Hollis two different toys, a carseat mirror for his truck ( I can't tell you how many times he looked back at her in that thing), and a couple pairs of pants. She already has Paw Paw wrapped around her finger.

My Dad is a quality timer like I am and I love that! He will drop anything to spend time with his family...even if it's just a short 15 minute visit. PawPaw's favorite thing to do when he visits is to feed Hollis her bottle and rock her to sleep. On Wednesday I told Dad to just rock Hollis until she got drowsy and then lay her in the crib. Instead of laying her down, he rocked her for her entire 2 hour nap! SO SWEET!

I love my Daddy so much and love our relationship! I am so glad that Hollis will have a sweet relationship with him too.

Weekend In Pictures

We had a great weekend filled with a lot of family lovin'! Here's our weekend in pictures...

Friday during the day, Hollis and I visited with Mema & Grandad

Friday night, we headed to my Aunt Liz & Uncle Mike's for dinner with the entire family. It was a send off dinner for my cousins that returned to college the following day.

Saturday we celebrated the ENGAGEMENT of Keegan & Mandy!

Sunday we went to church, relaxed at home and then went to dinner at my grandparents! (no pictures)

Cousins

I LOVE this picture of these sweet cousins from our playdate yesterday!

To get this picture though, we went through some challenges...

We had to make room on the mat for 4.

We had some hair pulling by the little babes.

And a few tears.

These two sweet peas had fun hanging out on activity mat together.

Beach Ready!

In just a few short weeks, we are headed to Cape San Blas with the McIver clan! This will be Hollis' first beach trip and we are so excited about it! To get her fully ready for the beach, we had to put her in her most tropical outfit this past weekend! ;)

A few things we can't wait for:

- PIRATE NIGHT!
- Long days on the beach
- NAPS on the beach
- Quality family time
- Cousins playing together
- Dinner at the Indian Pass Raw Bar
- Seashell hunting
- Sandcastle building

and so MANY more!

Celebrate!

After 4 years, 1200+ hours of studying, and countless sleepless nights, Ryan has successfully passed all 3 levels of the CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst)! This has been a long journey for him and no one deserves this more than he does. Ryan is so incredibly smart, ambitious and hard working. There was not a single day that passed since January of this year that Ryan did not spend studying. I'm not going to lie, it was hard for me! I was pregnant and wanted my husband all to my self. How selfish of me when he was so selfless...bettering the future of our family!

You know what was REALLY hard? Watching Ryan stress and literally lock himself in the office for HOURS those last three weeks of my pregnancy. Want to know what was even harder? Watching him study hard and persevere through Hollis' first week home. THAT was hard and that makes this accomplishment so much sweeter. We know God's hand was all in this and we give Him the glory! How else could he have handled all of that stress and distraction, and still pass? We think Hollis was his good luck charm too!

Now Ryan will apply for the Charter and prove that he has at least four years of finance experience. Once he does that, he will be an official CFA Charter holder! He will be 1 of 110,000 WORLDWIDE that hold this Charter. Pretty awesome!

Needless to say, today we celebrated! We had a delicious lunch at Rico's World Kitchen as a family and then Ryan played a well deserved round of golf!

Ryan,

You make me so proud! Thank you for devoting so many hours of your time to better the future of our family. You inspire me and motivate me to find a passion for something and go after it! I look forward to seeing where this takes you! I LOVE YOU!!!

H's First Church Visit

Sunday, August 4th was Hollis' first trip to church! Ryan and I were so excited to be back and bring Hollis with us! We put Hollis in the nursery and she did great! She slept most of the time and was so smiley when we picked her up! I was NOT a nervous wreck or emotional about putting her in the nursery like I thought I would be. I think a lot of that peace comes from serving in the children's ministry and witnessing how LOVING, CARING and COMPASSIONATE the volunteers truly are. I love that our children are prayed over before we even step foot in the building. 12 Stone-Flowery Branch is our church and we have always felt so welcomed and loved there. I pray that Hollis loves church as much as we do and is eager to get there each Sunday!

I forgot to get a picture of just Ryan and Hollis! Next Sunday! ;)

H's Schedule

I'm writing this post so I can refer back to it for future babies...you can skip to the bottom if you'd like for cute pictures of Ryan and Hollis.

From birth until about 6 weeks Hollis was on a 3 hour schedule around the clock. I would wake her in the middle of the night and nurse/bottle feed her every 3 hours. At 6 weeks we decided to drop a night feeding and her feeding schedule looked something like this...9 AM, 12 PM, 3 PM, 6 PM, 9PM, 12 AM, 5 AM. For each night feeding (I considered 5 AM a night feeding) I was having to wake Hollis...I'm talking tickling feet, wiping her face with a wet wipe etc.

At 8 weeks I decided to drop the 12 AM feeding and feed her at 5 AM. We did this for about a week and again, I was having to wake Hollis to feed at 5 AM. I hated it for a couple reason... 1) I do not like waking her out of a deep sleep and 2) she would go right back down for a "nap" until 9:00 AM! I would have to wake her at 9:00 to eat too! The late start to our day was just not working and clearly she need more sleep!

This week (Hollis' 10th week), we dropped the 5 AM feeding and just let her sleep. I set an alarm for 7 AM because my goal start time for the day was 7 AM. Sweet girl slept through the night (10 PM -7 AM) on our first attempt! I did NOT have to wake her, she woke up talking in the Pack-N-Play. Once Hollis started sleeping through the night, I shifted her feedings to a 3.5 hour schedule. Now our schedule looks like this:

7:00 AM- Feed
8:00-8:30 AM--- Down for nap
10:30 AM--- Feed
11:30-12:00 PM--- Down for nap
2:00 PM--- Feed
3:00-3:30 PM--- Down for nap
5:30--- Feed
6:00-6:30--- Down for nap
8:30 PM--- Wake for bath time with Daddy
9:00 PM---Last feeding for day
After feeding, we swaddle her and read her a book before laying her down for the night.

We are doing a eat-play-sleep cycle. So after each feeding we will do tummy time, put her on her activity mat or just chill together. At the first sign of tiredness I take her up and get her ready for a nap. Our nap time routine is the same as at night...we swaddle and read. I am loving this schedule! Hollis is getting more rest and seems to be so much happier!

This week we are working on getting her to nap in her crib (she's still in our room at night in the Pack-N-Play and probably will be until 4 months). Before this week she would nap in her swing and does great there, but that's not a realistic nap spot. I want to be able to put her down anywhere and nap. We are going to the beach at the end of the month so this is the perfect time to start bc we are NOT hauling that swing to the beach! ;) I plan on writing a post about this transition soon so I can remember what works for Hollis!