6 1/2 Month

This month has flown by!! I can't believe this boy is going to be 7 month old in a weeks. Ay caramba! That sounds so grown up. And he is grown up! He's now facing forwards in his stroller-and he LOVES it. My runs are so much easier now because 1. It's 40 degrees outside and beautiful! No more boring indoor tracks. 2. Ry stays so content watching the scenery change in front of him. It's really encouraged me to go even further with my runs.

Not only is he out of his car seat carrier for the stroller, but also for carts when we shop. I caved. I'm totally one of those obnoxious mom's who bought a cart cover. Not because I'm worried about cart germs, but because I wanted a little extra padding in the seat for when Ryan tips. And guess what? The cart cover I got came with a mini Boppy-looking pillow that smooshes in there and holds him up. It's awesome!!! And, like with running, it makes shopping SO much easier when I have a content baby who just looks around all happily. I don't care how uptight it makes me look as a mom. However, I do gets lots of comments from other shoppers. I've had grandma's ask me where I got it for their expecting daughters and I had another woman tell me, well, she told Ryan technically that he has a great mommy who treats him like a prince. Fact. Plus, so many people love talking to him while he sits up like a big boy and they constantly tell me how cute he is. What's not to love about that?

This boy has been doing so well eating solids. I feed him once a day towards the end of the day when my milk supply is lower. He's been devouring avocado, bananas and rice cereal like it's his job. He'll yell at me between bites until he gets the next one. As for my milk supply, it's having it's ups and downs. I've been baking lactation cookies right and left trying to up my supply, and I think they have been working. The only thing is I wish there was something a little healthier to stuff my face with-although I do switch out the butter for coconut oil and I use less sugar than the recipe calls for. Yesterday, I even threw some blueberries in them with a few chocolate chips. They were good! But more importantly, they're helping me continue to feed my boy.

We are now officially at the disgusting poop phase. His diapers stink! I can no longer throw dirty diapers away in the garbage without the whole house smelling. They've been banished to the outdoors with the dog poop. I've seriously gagged a few times changing diapers. Not to mention the fact that every time he poops, there seems to be dog fur in it... poor kid. He's going to be ingesting fur for the rest of his life.

This week, my mom has been in town visiting for her spring break. We've had such a fun time! Our original plan was to drive up to Denali on Monday after my class and camp over night and come home the next day. Then I had to teach Wed night and we were going to drive back up to Fairbanks and Chena for the last 3 days of her trip. We were going to use these drives as practice for when we drive down to Georgia. So we drove down to Denali and by the time we got there, it was 7pm. We didn't see any animals, and we were only a couple miles out from Fairbanks, so my mom suggested that we just keep driving and come home Wednesday. We did! We kept driving. I passed out in the car and my mom and G woke me up at 1am. We were parked in some random truck stop (creepy) but the northern lights were out and they were amazing!!! They were across the entire sky. I watched until my eyes could no longer stay awake. At about 4, the dogs started barking so we were on the road again. We went to Walmart and shut our eyes for another couple hours.

That actually worked out well because Walmart was the only thing really open at 6:30 in the morning. We were able to stock up on groceries, toiletries and get some apparel to wear in the hot springs, since we had only brought camping gear. In fact, the only other clothes I brought were fleece footie pajamas. Not cute. We drove the extra hour up to Chena and my mom got to see a moose in the middle of the road! So that was exciting. I think she was starting to believe that there were no animals in Alaska.

Chena was a blast! We called them a few days earlier and asked if they allow dogs. They said yes, but only 2, so when we checked in, we didn't mention how many dogs we had. It was SUCH a relief that we weren't given a hard time or turned away. We went of a dog sled ride which was pretty awesome. It wasn't a long course, but it was still quite an experience. We visited the ice museum they have there, and it was very impressive. We even got to drive martini's from ice martini glasses. By that point, Ryan was extremely unhappy since he refused to nap if there were things to see, so we went back to our room and tried to get him down to sleep. Finally, my mom watched him while G and I had a date night and stuffed our faces with calamari and king crab legs then headed into the hot springs. It was so beautiful!!! You can't beat a natural hot tub in the middle of the snowy mountains. That was probably one of my favorite things we did in Alaska. Then again, I'm also a girl who's all about relaxing and pampering versus camping and four-wheeling.

We drove home Wednesday morning. We left Chena at about 6am to make it in time for my night class. It was a long ride but we made it. And most importantly, the baby and the dogs made it. They all did AWESOME. The dogs were so good in the back of the truck. They had their dog beds and Cato was a little king sitting on top of all the blankets we stacked back there. Denali didn't whine like I thought he would and he didn't throw up or jump out the window next to a highway like he did on our previous road trip. And Ryan was mostly content playing in his seat with his toys and instead of stopping to feed him, we gave him bottles while we drove and I'd pump in between-making our stops less frequent and shorter. We still had to stop for diaper changes and to let the pups out/feed them, but I think for the most part, our trip down to GA should be better than expected.

Speaking of, we FINALLY got our orders last week. You know, less than a month away from our moving date. We leave Alaska on the 24th. I can't believe it! That's 3 weeks away now. I'm going to miss it up here so much. This is where we got married-twice. This is where we spent the majority of our relationship. This is where our son was born (and Cato's son). This is where I got my Zumba license and discovered that teaching is my dream job. We've had SO many experiences here that it's unbelievable when you string those memories all together. I've made a lot of friends-most of whom have already left, but still a handful that are not military and live out here. As much as I've complained about how far away we are (which we are, I'm sick of paying so much money to leave the state), I truly am going to miss living here. And now, I'm going to spend these next three weeks busting my butt trying to get everything packed, cleaned, settled, organized, and just plain old ready to go. It's going to be so insanely hectic.

No pictures today. Until next time. Hopefully I find more time next week to update. I rarely have time to just sit and not be bothered. But I wouldn't want it any other way :)