Salado Wine Festival

Saturday we went to the Salado Wine Festival with Brendon's momma. The weather was perfect (spring in Texas, right??) and it was so much fun. TONS of local wineries, lots of food and goodies vendors, and live music! You bought a glass and sampling tickets and picked which wineries and wines you wanted to try. Very neat, we will have to go again next year for sure.

Again, spring in Texas. It's pretty unbeatable. Thanks to all that rain we got this winter, we're having the greenest spring and the wildflowers this year... DANG! Salado is a cute little town along a creek, lots of fun shops and restaurants. You'd never know it driving by it on I35, because that section of 35 is literally THE WORST. The construction... and there's an accident that shuts the whole thing down what seems like every other week. But just a block or so away from the highway, there's a cute little town! It's so close to Temple, but we always forget about it. Memo to self, venture down south more often.

Anyway, that awesome little grove of trees made for a perfect spot for our first outdoor nursing experience!

And we're finally figuring out the timing on feeding/bottles/pumping so that I can have a big girl drink every now and then! We're like, okay so if she eats now... and then I have a drink... and then she can have a bottle... and I can pump later.. Like I said, still figuring the logistics out. This was also our first real trip out with the stroller, she usually hangs in the sling. But the stroller was awesome! That thing is a smooooooth ride. She took a big ol' nap. Also, must give major kudos for my offspring for being such a champ out and about. She lost it a little at dinner, but I don't blame her. We played hard all day and she kept her cool until the very end. She's the best.

Holdin' those wine glasses down.

Deb spoiled us rotten all day!

After the festival we wandered down to some of the shops, Salado really is a cute town!

Daddy of the year. All day every day.

It was a very fun day! I can't get enough of this good weather. We only get brief bouts of this weather before the summer heat sets in, so we gotta enjoy it while we can!

Easter 2016

Easter! Indiana's first, obviously. We tried to get her to dye some eggs, but she wasn't interested. She did get a very cute floppy bunny from her Nana though! I foresee these two being buddies.

Cool thing alert, that blanket she's laying on was one of my baby blankets. There are pictures of me as a newborn in that thing! I think one of my great-grandmas made it, there's another white one too. So neat to use these for my baby!

That photo is kinda blurry, but I just can't handle that sweet face!

And as is tradition, egg dying! Although I just realized if the Easter Bunny is going to be hiding these eggs for a certain someone we're going to have to start dying them a day earlier!

I know I've talked about how much Indiana loves her daddy, but here's proof:

Is that baby not in love with her daddy?? I swear, she saves those looks for him. I'm going to have trouble on my hands with those two.

We did a "24 Carrot" egg dying kit this year. The gold stuff was mostly a pain, it was all sticky and bubbly. Maybe just regular eggs next year.

Typical Easter. Dye eggs. Take a few pictures with them. Peel those suckers. Devil 'em. Eat too many. And we tried to take an Easter selfie, but selfies with a baby are challenging! This is as good as it got:

We need to work on Indy's selfie game. But blurry or not, I still love it! Hope you guys had a great Easter if you celebrate!

Easter through the years, they're all pretty much exactly the same. Old habits die hard. Or should I say DYE hard. Har har har.

Twenty-eight

Twenty-eight! It seems like a happy number, does it not? Nice and even. Twenty-seven was a crazy good life changing year. I got pregnant, Brendon graduated, I quit my job, we moved to Temple, and then, duh, had the cutest baby in the world. Twenty-seven was pretty spectactular, but I suspect twenty-eight will be even better. Maybe has something to do with that little smooshy thing in my lap.

I had a wonderful birthday full of good things. I got to go on a run (thank you, Becky!), I'm up to two miles people. Woo. Indiana napped like a champ and was such a happy baby all day. I mean, she usually is, but dang, she was working those charms yesterday. I got to make a real lunch (pasta!), Brendon came home on time from work (!), he spoiled me rotten, we went out for dinner (pasta again!), and we got to watch half a movie when we got home! Oh and there was cake. Cake always means a good day.

Yellow cake with chocolate icing will always hold a special place in my heart. It's been one of my favorites since I was little bitty!

In between the previous picture and the next, Indiana spit up all over the both of us. There's even a photo of it. But it's gross. Funny, but gross. So no sharing on the internet.

Such a good day! OH and we forgot to bust out the birthday crown until we were basically asleep sooo:

For traditions sake. You're welcome.

I'm ready for you 28! I think you're going to be pretty dang amazing.

Two months

TWO MONTHS! Two months with the sweetest and cutest baby in the world. She's just perfect. Month two of life brought all sorts of fun things; she became less of a squishy sleepy bundle of newborn and more of an alert wiggly smiley baby. We're starting to see some personality and it's just THE BEST. She started giving us real smiles a few weeks ago and we're getting more and more of them everyday. Those smiles man. They rock your world. It's so reassuring to see her look into my eyes and really smile, because sometimes I'm like WHAT AM I DOING DOES SHE EVEN LIKE ME? But when she smiles and kicks her little legs and makes little baby noises at me, I just melt into a puddle on the floor. I am fully whipped by my daughter. 

Still working on smiling big for the camera. But man, no one has anything on how her dad can make her smile. When she was in my tummy Brendon's voice was my go-to when I hadn't felt her move in a while. His voice could get her going like nothing else. So I suspected she might like him, but I had no idea. The way she reacts to him, it's insane. She LOVES him. He makes these ridiculous voices and faces and she just eats it up. She adores him. Until she's mad and then she's my baby again. I win for soothing abilities, for sure. That's something I loooove, my ability to soothe her. She's a pretty mellow chick, but she has her mad moments. Usually in the evening after a long day of boycotting naps, during the "witching hour" when she's sleepy but wont sleep, she turns into someone else's angry baby. Sometimes nothing either of us can do will calm her, but usually I can cuddle that baby into peace. And that makes me happy. More reassurance that I can do this! 

Her eyes are still blue! Drooling is a new thing. All over the place. Head strength is impressive! She can hold that big ol' head up for a while. Eventually she loses it, but she's pretty strong! Hates tummy time. Still terrible at keeping a pacifier in, but she's super into trying to fit her whole fist into her mouth. Not a big fan of the bottle, but she's learning. Recently discovered her tongue, and if you're lucky and you stick yours out at her, she tries to return the favor. Which will basically break your heart with cuteness. Baby girl is still fitting nicely into three month clothes. Growing like a weed, at her (early) two month check up she was smack dab in the middle of all the percentiles. We have a very average sized baby, which I am not at all complaining about! As long as she is healthy, I am happy!

She's definitely got her days and nights straight. She's been sleeping really well at night! Most nights I only get up with her once or twice to nurse. (Keeping my fingers crossed and knocking on all the wood that announcing this to the world does not backfire on me.) Naps though, she hates 'em. It's a battle to get her to nap during the day, and napping in her crib is a rarity. She sleeps in a little crib in our room just fine at night, but during the day when I try to put her down in the big crib I'll get 30 minutes (like she has an internal timer, exactly 30 minutes) of napping action, max. And that's still rare. Napping on me, she's more a fan of. Oh and in the car seat. Still a champ in the car. We went to New Braunfels and Dallas the past couple weekends and she was awesome. Moments of fussiness, but for the most part she just snoozed. Thank goodness because Temple is basically two hours from anywhere.

So two months with Indiana! Soooo good! Brendon's last day working down in Austin is today, so we survived that mess. It wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. There were moments, but thankfully Indiana is mostly sunshine and rainbows. She helped me get through it.

We're pretty dang lucky that Indy is mostly laid back and goes fairly easy on us newbie parents. (Keep it up, girl!) She really is the best and it's just getting better every day. Love that little Seahorse! Beyond excited to watch her continue to grow and learn and steal hearts with her cuteness. 

Flashback to one month!

Happy Birthday Brendon!

Happy Birthday, Dr. Hogan! I'm a day late, but since it's a leap year I get a pass, right?

I felt like a major slacker this year on the birthday game. I love birthdays and I like to make them special, but this year... you know. New baby. I'm a mess. But, I think we still had a good day? I did anyway. ;)

I made Boy Wonder a breakfast taco feast, then we went to the mall in Killeen because I wanted to take him shopping at the Gap for some new pants, and then we get there and the Gap is closed?!? What the heck? That was the only decent clothing store near us and it's gone. Story of our life. So that was a bust. But we did get to nosh on veggie burgers at Red Robin. Brendon always gets burgers on his birthday. When we lived in Denton I think we went to Red Robin for multiple Brendon Birthdays. I want the fancy stuff on my birthday, he wants burgers, fries, and beer.

So after the mostly pointless trip to Killeen, we headed home. I made a deal with Brendon that we could watch whatever he wanted on his birthday (watching movies and Netflix is as crazy as we get lately) so he picked Conspiracy Theory and then we restarted watching the Office. Goodbye what little social life we had. And we set up the breast pump and Brendon gave Indiana her first bottle! She wasn't a fan.

WILDNESS, I tell you. The wildest birthday ever, surely. Well, maybe that one year we went to Black Eyed Pea for my birthday wins the prize...

Oh and of course there was cake! I made a ridiculously large lemon-orange chiffon cake. It was pretty good! Just reeeeeally big. Everyone at the VA, prepare yourself for leftovers. Aaaaand we dressed Indiana up as Stitch, which was dangerously cute. Brendon loves Lilo and Stitch. It's such a random Disney movie, I love that he loves it. I'm certain this is the first of many Disney dress up days for her.

Indiana snoozed through the par-tay. I can't blame her, being 5 weeks old sounds rough.

So happy birthday, Brendon! We sure are glad you were born 28 years ago. I could gush about you for hours, but I think everyone's sick of hearing about how much I adore you and how wonderful you are. (I LOVE YOU SOOooOOoooOOOo MUCH AND YOU ARE THE BEST AT EVERYTHING! THANK YOU FOR EXISTING!) Hurray for another year of life I get to share with you!