6 Months

Yes, her thumb is still her best friend!

I can't believe little Ella Grace is already half-way through her infancy!  Her actual 6 month mark was 6 days ago and I took these pictures on that day, but am just now getting around to posting.  She has settled into a routine.  She usually wakes between 6:30-7:00, then goes down for her morning nap ~8:30/9:00.  She'll sleep for an hour or two, then will go back down for an afternoon nap usually between 1-2pm.  I put her down at night any time between 6:30-8:30.  Still loves to be held.  Started to roll over, but doesn't do it a ton.  She'll maybe roll over once and then cry to be picked up.  Loves to eat!  She eats a lot of yogurt. But whatever I am eating, she'll try to grab it.  I'm still nursing, but as has been the case with my others at this age, my milk supply is very low right now and I have to supplement with formula every day now.  Yesterday at work, I pumped and only got half an ounce :(  But I'm not ready to stop yet, so I'm going to continue for now with what little I have to give her.  I went to Babies R Us tonight looking for a "milk stimulant".  The only thing they had was that Mother's Milk Tea.  It was $6 for a pack of 6 and the directions said to drink 1-3 glasses per day.  I thought about getting it, but from what I've heard, it tastes pretty nasty and I don't like herbal tea to begin with.  And then I thought, if I end up drinking 3/day, that ends up being almost $100 a month.  Anyway, I didn't get it, but I'm still debating going back.  Then I went to the grocery store to get Fenugreek, but they didn't have any.  So, I'll keep plugging along for now.  Her 6 month wellness check is on Friday......

Addendum:  I wanted to add details about her 6 month check-up:  She was 26 1/4" (75%ile for length) but only 13# 13oz putting her in only the 5th %ile for weight.  Head Circumference was 43cm.  Clearly she is not getting enough to eat.  I decided to call a lactation consultant.  She gave me great advice, but truthfully, I'm not sure if I'm up to what will be required of me to continue to nurse.  She told me that in order to increase my milk supply, I need to be nursing or pumping 8-10 times/day for at least 15-20 minutes/session.  She also recommended I try a supplement (which I intend to order, but haven't done so yet) called Dom Peridone or motillum and to take that 3-4x/day.  She said if I did all of that, I should see an increase in my milk supply in 3-4 days.  That is a major commitment and a ton of time, considering I have 3 other children and work part-time.  But I guess I will give it a try and see if Ella and I can make this work.  In the mean time, I continue to nurse and supplement with formula.  I purchased her first container of formula 3 weeks ago and just finished it today.  On a complete side note.... I am so in love with that girl.  Love her big moppy head of blonde hair and big blue eyes.  Love her smile and her content disposition when I am walking around holding her.

Mitchell Visit: Day 5-6 (Fort McHenry and Happy Birthdays!)

Fort McHenry is a hidden gem in my opinion.  Not that many people, it seems, have even heard of it.  But it has great historical significance and I try to take my kids there on a regular basis (you can't beat the price - $7 for adults and kids are free!) and encourage all my visitors to go.  During the War of 1812 when the newly formed United States was getting bombarded by Britain, Fort McHenry was trying to hold on.  Francis Scott Key was on a boat out in the water where he was watching bombs going off all night long.  He had no idea which side was winning.  But then... in the dawn's early light, he saw the Star Spangled Banner waving and knew that America had withstood the assault.  He then penned the words to our National Anthem.  That flag is now at the American History Smithsonian in DC.  

Jace loving the cannons

Lacey turned 6 1/2 on Monday (Let's be honest - those "halves" make a big difference during these years!!) and Sophie is less than 2 weeks away from her first birthday.  So, we decided to have a little birthday party just for fun.  In case you are wondering.... Lacey, Tanner and Riley decorated the cake!

And yes, Sophie likes chocolate!

It was so fun seeing Ryan and Carrie and especially fun to get all the cousins together.  They had an absolute blast playing together 24/7.  But one of the major highlights of this trip was getting to meet cute Sophie for the first time and introducing them to our sweet Ella Grace.

Thanks for a great week, Mitchells!

(And if you're counting... yes, we had 11 people in our house this past week, 7 of which were ages 0-6.  It was CRAZY!!  But a good, fun kind of crazy!!)

Mitchell Visit: Day 4 (Rehoboth Beach!)

Saturday was another extremely humid day in the 90's.  It was a little unfortunate that we had this oppressive heat wave the week my brother's family were in town, but we were all in agreement that we weren't going to let that alter our plans.  And one of the things we definitely wanted to do together was the beach.  It had been years since Ryan and Carrie had been to the ocean and they said that none of their kids had ever been to the ocean.  So, to the beach we went!  It was Ella's first time.... she wasn't overly impressed.

Jace absolutely loved the beach and the waves

Watermelon break!

There are a ton of beaches within ~2 hours of our house:  Lewes, Bethany, Rehoboth, Dewey, Ocean City, Fenwick, Assateague, etc just to name a few.  This is our 4th time at Rehoboth and one of the reasons we keep going back and chose this beach over the others to bring Ryan and crew was because of this place: Funland!

Eli intent on his aim!

After spending several hours at the beach, it is always fun to end the day with a few rides!

Mitchell Visit: Day 3

After a long day at Hershey Park the day before and another day of mid-90's with killer humidity, we decided to do something in the air conditioning.  So, bowling it was!

Mitchell Visit: Day 2 (Hershey Park!!)

The last time Dave and I went to Hershey Park was 7 years ago when I was pregnant with Lacey.  So, we were so excited to have the perfect reason to go back - a visit from our cousins!!

Tanner and Jace on Frog Hopper

Tanner and Riley on the Red Baron

Tanner riding the Convoy

Riley, Jace, Sophie, Aunt Carrie, Lacey, Tanner and Eli

The whole crew on the Miniature Train

Lacey and Riley on Pony Parade

Howler

I love Jace's face in this one

We had a GREAT day!  

The Mitchell crew at Chocolate World

Most of my pictures are of the kiddie rides but we were able to do several roller coasters too.  Lacey, Tanner and Jace were all "Reese's" (42-48") and Eli and Riley were "Kisses" (36-42").  Baby Sophie (age 11 months) was a "Hershey's Miniature" (up to 36").  There were 3 roller coasters that Reeses were able to do (Comet, Sooperdooperlooper and Trailblazer) and one that the Kisses were able to do (Trailblazer).  And we did them all (a couple of times!!).  Hershey's has 7 areas with 64 Attractions - we did at least one thing in every area and did a total of 24 attractions.  It was a busy day!!  It was HOT (in the 90's again and humid as all get out), so we enjoyed a couple hours at "The Boardwalk" (the water area with pools, waterslides, etc) in the middle of the day, which was great.  And a special THANK YOU to my wonderful father-in-law.  Dave thought it would be way to hot to bring our 5 month old baby out in the heat for hours on end, so he asked his dad to watch Ella.  I'm sure Ella was much happier in her air conditioned house and getting her naps!  Especially since we left our house at 8:30am and didn't get home until 10:30pm!  But we all had a ton of fun!

Mitchell Visit: Day 1

My kids have 10 cousins in total.  But they are the only 3 that are their age and unfortunately for us, they live in Utah, so it's a definite challenge to get together!  In fact, it has been 1 year and 8 months since we last saw each other.  We were SO happy when my brother (Ryan) and sister-in-law (Carrie) called and said they were going to come out here and visit us for a week!!

So, Day 1:  Annapolis.  Here we are at the Naval Academy.

Next stop:  Feeding the ducks

After feeding the ducks, we got some sandwiches from the Big Cheese and went to the park where we ate lunch.

It was so stinking hot (in the 90's and extremely humid) that after the park, we came home and got the youngest 3 to bed for naps and took the oldest 4 to the pool.

It's Time.....

For a hair cut!  Riley J is now 2 years and 8 months..... and I finally took her to get her FIRST hair cut! She has such pretty curls in her hair, I just didn't want to cut them off!  But she refuses, absolutely REFUSES to keep anything in her hair for longer than 5 minutes.  So, I finally decided it was just getting too long and scraggly.

She did great!  She cut about 2 inches off.

As long as I'm doing a post about my Riley Jane, I had to post this picture.  We had some family pictures taken on Memorial Day and the photographer randomly got this picture.  It's my very favorite picture I have of her.  She's not much of a poser - she tends to prefer pouts over smiles and isn't one for sitting still!  BUT.... when she's happy, she is the cutest little girl ever :)  Actually, her pout is pretty darn cute too.....