Month: March 2017

Kensie survived her first spring break and a whole weekend without me! (Okay let’s be honest – that’s code for I survived.) I somehow made it through with no tears. Kens made it through pretty tearless as well I was told!

Chris and I had a great weekend with friends and while I still had to be slightly responsible (like keep pumping so I can feed Kens…) I will admit it was a great “break” from 24/7 momming.

In my weekend away, I learned that since becoming a mom my ability to multitask/organize/remember things has gone straight to pro status, everything is much easier with 2 hands, I am still really good at sleeping, I am now extremely fast at things like eating and getting ready, I can tell time by the size of my breasts (TMI?) and the most valuable lesson: pumping helps you avoid hangovers. Mommas, you’re all welcome for the tip. 

Of course we missed her like crazy; but, Gramma kept us updated with lots of pictures, a few videos, and of course FaceTime. K rocked her outfits, as planned, with no blowouts and took lots of naps! Huge huge HUGE thanks to my momma for taking such great care of our little girl all weekend! She even sent her home with clean laundry, clean bottles and of course new toys (and clothes because we all know this child needs more clothes…)

Goodness gracious I missed this sweet face SO much. 

Now I’m just patiently waiting for her to wake up to eat so I can have a reason to get her out of her crib and keep her in bed with me tonight. 😉

I think Kensie knows she’s not going to see her momma this weekend! She was back to fighting her naps this morning unless I held her. 

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Just. Close. Them! 

Luckily she finally relaxed and took a long nap for me so I could pack the 5 million things she needs just to stay with Gramma for one weekend. 

I’m pretty sure going out of town without the baby is harder than with the baby. (Okay, maybe just emotionally harder. 😩 For me, not her. And it was tons of midnight pump sessions to stock up a milk stash for this trip!) 

I had a lot to get done to prepare for being gone, so when Kensie woke up she was a baby boss lady and helped me out. By helped I mean kept knocking things out of my hand, trying to grab my coffee cup and smacking the keyboard. 

All the work must have worn her out, because she took another nap for me in the afternoon all on her own!!

If you feel like seeing the same 5 snaps all the time of Kensie laughing, sleeping or pooping all over herself, feel free to add us! Snap: jnhall15

We had a long 5 hour afternoon at the gym and Kens was such a trooper! If I’m not holding her, sometimes she’ll settle for hand holding instead. I had to workout…so we compromised. 

Gramma is on daily photo duty, but the blog won’t be updated until we are back! Wish me luck. I sure am going to miss my little sidekick this weekend. 

This photo accurately describes how Miss Kensington feels about naps these last few days. 

It also describes how I feel. 

Normally Kens goes straight down for a nap. Today just as she’d start to fall asleep she’d start crying hysterically first. 🙄 

She fell asleep while I was holding her at the gym and I was able to set her down in her swing and start working out. 1 minute into the WOD I am out running and hear her screaming bloody murder. That was the end of my workout for the day. 

I pick her up – goes to sleep. Try to set her down – screams. 

Contrary to the first photo, K was actually a great, happy baby today. It was just the naps that she wasn’t a fan of. 

So months back when Kensie used to sleep in her vibrating chair at night I talked about a vibrating crib. Y’all. IT EXISTS!

I got this at Babies R Us today and put it under her mattress. It took a little longer to get her to fall asleep because she could turn side to side more than she can in her boppy, but it was a complete success!

She looked so big laying in there by herself! I really need time to slow down because I am not ready for this baby to turn into a little girl! 

Anyone who reads K’s blog regularly could probably guess how she started her morning off. 

I got smart today and didn’t put her actual outfit for the day on because she hadn’t gone yet and I knew it was coming!

Kens was an angel baby at the gym! She hung out like a baby kangaroo while I coached and when I set her down to workout the went to sleep. Phew!!! She tried to fuss her way into someone’s arms for a few minutes but it was short lived and she took a nap instead. 

Kensie got to stay up late and party with the girls for the Bachelor Finale! 

She had a blast, as you can tell by Sam’s shirt. 




I took a big step in momming today…I left my little Kensington with a stranger. 😳 

Okay, I actually made that sound way worse than it was. I put her in the daycare room while we went to church, LOL. 

Me at check-in: Hi! I need to register her, this will be her first time in the nursery!

Lady at check-in: Aww! Wonderful! Is she finally 3 months? 

Me: Umm, She’s almost 5 months. I just wasn’t ready. 😂

In my defense church is usually during her nap time so she sleeps. With the time change, it was now playtime instead. On the way I told Chris “I think she’ll be okay because she just ate and she usually plays for about an hour before her nap.” Chris goes “She’ll be fine. Will you?” 🙄

For the record, I was. They said she was great until the very end. They gave another baby his bottle and Kensie was not happy that it wasn’t hers. LOL. Chunk. 

The rest of the afternoon K hung with Daddy while Char and I worked on some goodies!

We finished out the weekend with steak dinner at the McGees! I think it’s safe to say Kens had a great time. 

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Gah. Complete parenting fail today. We took Kens out to an airshow with Chris’ company to see the Thunderbirds. It didn’t cross either of our minds to bring her noise cancelling ear muffs. (Stupid, I know. Shut up.) 

We were standing there chatting and out of know where, a huge truck came BOOMING down the runway in front of us shooting fire out the back that sounded like a bomb went off. Poor K lost. her. ish. 

The above photo was after about 5 different jets came by and I was racing back to the car with her since covering her ears with my hands was an epic fail. 

Nothing will pull at your heart strings like that little body freezing, her eyes getting huge and a look of terror followed by real tears and sad screams. 😔 I felt like the worst parent ever and was about to cry right along with her. 

It was the longest 3-wheeling, stroller pushing through dirt on uneven ground, trip of my life to get back to the car. 

Don’t worry guys, this story has a happy ending. 

I got back to the truck and fed Kensie and Chris showed up with ear muffs he bought. I was planning to just watch from the truck, but she was happy as could be like nothing ever happened so we decided to give it a shot. 

I strapped her on and this girl napped the rest of the day away. (While momma drank a beer because I might have been more traumatized than her…)

As a mom I’m quickly learning the answer is always yes. “Yes” – we need everything. I hate clutter and bringing extra things we might not need anywhere. If there’s a chance I can get by without it, it’s not coming. (This doesn’t apply to vacations, where 7 outfits are completely necessary for a 3 day trip.) But having a baby; “BRING IT ALL” is the new rule. 

Not sure if we need it? Yep, bring it. “Well I timed it out and logically we won’t need extra milk”…yep bring it. “Oh we DEFINITELY don’t need that!” Yes, yes you do. 

We decided to pack Chris’ backpack/diaper bag with all of K’s random things (sunglasses, sunscreen, earmuffs 🙄…) and keep it in the car from now on. Ya live and ya learn, right? 

Sorry Kens…I’ll make sure your younger sibling thanks you one day for being our test run. 😜

This is what Kensie thought about naptime today…

That whole “maybe she’ll sleep until 8a tomorrow” I posted yesterday…Bahahaha. Jokes on me. Homegirl was up at 6:30 ready to party and took 2 maybe 20 minute naps today. Thanks for that KB. 

Luckily, she was pretty happy and relaxed all day but of course that magical hour of 5pm hit…the time I workout and conveniently the one time of the day kens is overtired and only wants her momma this past week. 

I got her to sleep and tried to pass her off but it was a huge fail. She woke up and let those vocal chords get some air time. Luckily, we have the BEST friends in the world and Emily, Ashley and Will took Kens for a walk and got her to relax while I did 17.3 (a CrossFit workout). 

With her 5p clinginess/fussiness lately it’s been really hard to focus on a workout without anxiety or feeling really distracted. I know there’s a ton of people there that love her and will hold her but when I know she just wants momma it’s hard to ignore! 

When they disappeared I assumed she was crying. I started to walk over and Em told me they’d handle it and go workout. So, I did. Tonight they took the reigns and I was able to get my head in the game and hit a lift at my pre-baby PR (personal record – for my non-CF peeps)!! 

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When I finished, I walked outside to this:

They say it takes a village…and I’m pretty sure if I could handpick my village I wouldn’t change a thing! 

Kensie has had a busy couple of days! She made me mom real hard. 

Everytime I pick her up out of her jumper there’s a lovely surprise up her back. 

Oye vey. I think she just enjoys wearing 3 outfits a day.

This morning she had her first “sick visit” to the doctor. Yesterday her eyes were really goopy and it was yellowish-green so I wanted to make sure there was no infection. She is a-ok! Just mucus back up from the cold we both just had. Nothing a little snot sucking can’t fix…or so they say. This was yesterday and I didn’t take a photo tonight but it was way worse. Kensie doesn’t seem phased by it but momma isn’t a fan! 😔

Yesterday K got to hang out with her bestie, Harper! We missed the photo op, but it was the first time they actually interacted with each other and it was adorable. 

Last night we had round 2 of attempting her rice cereal off a spoon! It ended up all over her, but no tears this time. Progress. 

This next picture had me DYING! I put the rest of the cereal into a bottle with more milk to give her before bed and she held it on her own…so of course I needed a photo. 😂

We had a late night at the gym tonight and Kens was an angel baby as usual! She napped in her ergo baby for about 90 minutes then was bright eyed and ready to party…

She went to bed immediately when I laid her in her crib so I’m hoping all the late night entertainment means she’s gonna let momma sleep straight through until 8am! (Dream big.)

Kensie had a special visitor today! Aunt Sarah came for a visit and K was SO excited. Really. She was cracking up for about 10 minutes as soon as Sarah sat down and started playing with her. 

Sarah is convinced Kensie just likes to show off all her outfits because as soon as she took her out of her jumper to hold her, we had to make an outfit change. Shocker. 

I’m officially determined to get her in this damn outfit for a full day. I love this shirt. Call me vain, but normally shirts say “strong like daddy”. I think it’s pretty awesome that this says “Strong like Mom”! I actually bought it for her in 12m too because it’s the best. And my favorite color. However, K apparently hates it and has now pooped in it BOTH times I’ve dressed her in it in less than 10 minutes. 🙄

In other news, I saw a post for this “hands-free” suction thing for breastfeeding that is supposed to gather excess milk from the side you’re not feeding on. There were a decent amount of people vouching for it so I thought I’d give it a go. It isn’t a drip catcher – but same idea with added suction. Anyways, I’ll try it out and let all my momma friends know if it’s worth it!! 

I couldn’t have asked for a better baby today! Eat, sleep, party. Repeat. Also, only one outfit for the WHOLE DAY!! (That’s right folks. The poop stayed in the diaper. I know you were wondering.)

Kensie is going through another clingy “I only want my mama” phase. It’s been tough for my little FOMO girl to nap at the gym in the afternoons. She gets tired quickly from all the people and everything going on so she usually needs a nap during the 2-3 hours we are there. 

Recently she’s been pretty happy as long as someone holds her. Not today. Only momma. She fell right asleep. I handed her off thinking I could workout…nope. Woke up and cried. Took her back – back to sleep in an instant. Oye. Eventually she was out enough that I could set her in her swing and get a workout in. 

It may not always be convenient, but I’m trying to soak these little moments in since I know I’m going to miss them when they’re gone – and that’ll be all too soon!