DIY Infant Tutu

For the Alabama/Ole Miss football game, Brad and I agreed Melody should wear a "house divided" outfit.  I designed a onesie, and she had some red pants.  But I thought a tutu would be perfect.  So I made my own so that it could also be "house divided".  My best friend and I also have made tutus for all the holidays to wear with cute onesies we are making the babies!  Check it out below!

DIY Headband Holder

Melody has a TON of headbands.  When we first find out we were having a girl, all I could think about was how I wanted cute headbands.  I bought quite a few myself, but my cousin gave me a bunch of hand-me-downs too from her little girl.  So I needed a way to store all these cute headbands.  Check out what I did below!

Melody's Three Month (Transitional) Schedule

So for about 2 or 3 weeks, we decided to slowly get rid of one of Melody's bottles.  She was taking six bottles on her two month schedule, but one of those bottles, she barely would take an ounce or two (11 a.m.).  We took this as a sign that she needed to be reduced down to five bottles.  We did this by increasing the amounts of those new five bottles.  We call this a transitional schedule because when she was 3.5 months old, we went down to four bottles!  I will write about that later though!

Traveling with a Baby

So I did not want to make this post a "tips" post because what works for Brad and me will not necessarily work for everyone else.  However, we have found a few things that does work for us when we travel with Melody.  We have only taken three 'big' trips: two to Memphis (approximately 3.5 hours away) and one to Gulf Shores (approximately 6 hours away).  Each trip seems to go easier than the last.  I am sure as she continues to get older, we will have to tweak things.

Pixelmator Tips

I use Pixelmator for all of my "main images" on my blog as well as other images I create.  For instance, I created my website logo using it, my husband's blog logo, and numerous iron-ons for some DIY shirts (Birthday Shirt and Disney Shirt).  We spent approximately $15-$20 2 years ago on it.  I would say we have definitely gotten our money's worth.  I also have the iPad/iPhone versions as well.  I believe that cost around $10.  Since my husband and I have family iCloud on our devices, we were able to also share the use of Pixelmator on ALL of our devices (including our Macs).  

Spicy Lemon Baked Chicken

I rarely just come up with a recipe all on my own, but one day last week I decided to do just that.  We had two chicken breasts, and our original intent was to grill them.  However, I decided I really wanted some form of baked chicken.  Below is the recipe and instruction.  Brad said this chicken has a kick to it, especially after a minute or two after eating it.  You can see for yourself however!

0-4 Month Toys

So I find 0-4 months to be a boring age for toys.  I struggle to find fun things that Melody also enjoys.  I also hate to buy a bunch of toys that we will never use.  With that said, I decided to create a list of Melody's favorite toys right now.  Granted she is only 3.5 months old, these are still toys she has enjoyed since she was a mere few weeks old.

DIY Birthday Shirt

So for Brad's birthday, I wanted Melody to wear some sort of "Happy Birthday" shirt for her daddy.  However, with babies (and kids in general), they grow SO fast.  I knew that even if I bought her a generic "Happy Birthday!" onesie, it would be unlikely that she could wear it for my birthday...5 months later.  It really wasn't worth the $20 that it would cost to buy one from someone online.  I decided to make my own.

Melody's Two Month Schedule

When Melody was around two month's old, we decided to let her attempt sleeping through the night.  My best friend had just started attempting it with her two month old, and we were basically having to wake Melody up for her 2 a.m. feeding.  Her schedule did not change at all from her one month schedule except we removed the 2 a.m. feeding.  When we first started this transition, Melody would start stirring between 2 and 3 a.m.  I would give her her pacifier and see if that would put her back to sleep.  If it did, I would also go back to sleep.  If it did not work, I would get up and give her a bottle.  It took about a week or two, but eventually she started just sleeping through that time frame altogether.  Now she will not start stirring until around 4:30 at earliest.  Below is the schedule:

Formula Bottle Prep

When we transitioned Melody from breast milk to formula, I had to find a way to better prep bottles so that I was not making one bottle at a time.  I tried a couple of methods, but in the end, I found a solution that works great for us right now.  Currently Melody is taking 5 ounce bottles 6 times a day.  As her bottles get bigger, my method may not be the most efficient, but it works great now.