Little Gigglesworth

Last night we were playing with this little monkey toy and he was laughing so hard!
I had to take a video of it!

I love Twilight but I would never do this…..

or THIS! Ahhhh!
I’m going to my friend Bree’s Twilight Eclipse party tonight and I’m so excited! We are going to watch movies and have Twilight cake and everything! Recap tomorrow 🙂

Breastfeeding & Pumping 101

Here is Mr. Toot Toot who finally settled down after a 30 minute melt down last night. I can’t stand to hear him cry bloody murder like that and it drives me NUTS! He very rarely does that, but for some reason last night he let it all out. Terence will just shut the door or hold him while he’s crying no problem, but I cannot do that! It breaks my heart and he turns all red and the tears start flowing like a river….I’m weak I tell ya! W.E.A.K!!!!

BREASTFEEDING
(I am by no means an expert & I am only speaking from my personal experience)

A lot of you have asked me questions about breastfeeding on the blog and through Twitter. I thought it would be easier to write a post about it and tell you what I have learned so far.

1. It’s hard…VERY HARD. The first couple of weeks after coming home from the hospital I had breakdowns and crying spells specifically due to breastfeeding. While pregnant you have the best intentions to breastfeed your baby and desire to have that bonding experience with them.
After all that is what God designed your body to be able to do right? Nobody really tells you what it feels like when your baby has trouble latching on, or trying to feed every two hours to build up your milk, how long it takes for your milk to fully come in, how much it hurts & and the bloody and chapped nipples you get. Lovely….I know…..
2. I had trouble getting Connor to latch on. I decided after the second week I would invest in a good pump and strictly pump. I knew I would be returning to work in a month anyway so I started to pump and store my milk. While I was pumping Terence would get up and feed Connor with me. He was my main source of support and encouraged me the whole way…this was key and helped me more than you can imagine. Having a good support system is the only way I got through the first month.
3. Some of the best advice I got as far as helping me build up my supply was to DRINK WATER!!! Not just 8 oz every few hours, but chug it all day long. Water is key to building your milk supply and if your body is dehydrated then how can you produce milk? The more water you absorb, the more milk you will produce. If you are breastfeeding and want to pump to build your supply sit there and pump, even if nothing comes out continue to pump because your body will think your baby is still hungry & adjust to produce more.
I would sit and dry pump for an extra 15-20 mins. When I first started pumping it was only 2 oz-4 oz every sitting, now I produce anywhere from 9 oz-18 oz a sitting which is anywhere from 45-55 oz a day. At first you MUST pump every 2-3 hours, even through the night…and yes…it sucks!
You make yourself do it and have to push yourself through. Once you get through the first couple of months you are good to go! I only pump 4 times a day now and produce more at each sitting because your body levels out and will be on your set schedule.
4. I prefer not to use the lanolin cream. The best advice someone gave me was to use plain Vaseline to lubricate your nipples and it helped SO much afterwards! Also, if you are having a lot of dryness and your nipples are sore try using a bigger shield. I use a size large & just making that change helped a lot.
TO SUM IT UP: Breastfeeding is not what I thought it would be. This is my own experience, it’s been a rough road. I’m glad I am able to do it and it’s the best thing for Connor. I think everyone finds there own groove. If you weren’t or aren’t able to breastfeed I don’t think it is something you should beat yourself up over. It’s not something everyone can do or some people don’t feel it’s for them. You should never EVER judge someone if they can’t…because everyone’s life is different than yours. I hope this helps some of you a little bit & if you have anymore questions shoot me an email @ beckylbranch@gmail.com
Breast milk can last in the freezer for 3 months
In the refrigerator it lasts for 2 weeks

You will have LOTS of dishes and your sink may look like this 😛

Here is Connor after his bath last night…he looooves bath time!

And play time
Booga Booga Boo!!!
See ya’ll tomorrow!

XoXo – Becky

Miscellaneous Wednesday

Each day I wake up and know that I am fortunate to live another day and see another sunshine. And every now and then you will see one of these…..

(pic taken on my way home last Friday)
I love rainbows
It reminds me of God’s promises to us and how blessed I am to live this life.
Terence is such a blessing to my life and a great encourager, Connor is the sparkle in eye…the baby I dreamed about for so long! Even when he wakes up screaming bloody murder (like he did this morning) I try to think of how bad I wanted him and even through the rough times to love him even more.
Speaking of blessings….
I drove through Starbucks this morning *shocker*
The girl at the window said if you try this Starbucks VIA I will give you your drink for free or you can pay for your drink and not take it……..UHM…..Is this a trick question???? Apparently they are trying to get more people to try the VIA coffee!
DUH!
I said “sure” I would try it and she gave me both for free!
Woohoo!
Here’s little Mister in one of his “girly” outfits
Terence thinks anything with cute detail or smocking makes him look girly, I think it’s just precious! My mother-in-law took this pic of him swinging and I love him in this outfit 🙂
And just because I am feeling all nostalgic today
Ha..ha..here is me and Bonnie back in the day!

One of my cousins posted this pic on Facebook and we just about died!
Look at that hair, those outfits, and not to mention my Mom’s high water jeans in the background! LOL! Oh how times have changed!

There are SEVERAL new inductees to the Starbucks wall
Go check them out!
Email me @ beckylbranch@gmail.com with yours 🙂

Me & You & You & Me

This weekend Terence & I got to “officially” celebrate our anniversary. We dropped Connor off at my in-laws at 9 am and they were gracious enough to watch him until late that night. We drove to Dallas and walked around the mall some…. I didn’t buy anything but a pair of work pants that were on sale! Shocker! I did see some things at Brighton I loved though. We also saw SALT with Angelina Jolie. It was a pretty good movie, she’s a great female action star.

Here is our yummy dessert @ Italliani’s

We also HAD to go to Sprinkles Cupcakes
I have been begging to get some for months now 🙂

Of course we had our morning Starbucks run

Here is a pic of the delicious cupcakes
It didn’t take long to devour these!

On Sunday nights we have dinner with T’s family
We celebrated Granddaddy’s birthday Sunday evening
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO OUR SPECIAL GRANDDADDY!!!
Connor & his BFF cousin Arielle

We also spent a lot of time snoozing and cuddling this weekend 🙂
(If you follow me on Twitter then you may have seen a lot of these pics already)
My good camera’s camera card went kaput so I had to get another one the other day


HOPE YOU ALL HAD A FABULOUS SUMMER WEEKEND!!!

It’s Friday Woohoo!!!

Mommy & Connor were goofing around with the camera last night
You can see we goofed off a lot!

Here is Connor “reading” his books

Nana would be so PROUD of him 🙂

He thinks he is something else

Trying to pick those black birds off the page

CROCK POT CHICKEN

As I mentioned yesterday I made some great shredded chicken.
One of my sister’s blog friends posted this recipe on her blog. I wish I had the link to it, but I don’t know where it is!

Place 4 chicken breasts in the crock pot on low

Top with a stick of butter & a few tbsp. of water

Leave on for the day and it should be ready by dinner time

I stuck a fork in mine and it was perfect and started to shred on it’s own

You can season it with anything you want, I used the Frank’s Hot Sauce

But DO NOT use as much as I did! It was WAAAAAY too hot!

Use sparingly as needed and taste test

TOMORROW :

– Terence and I are going to celebrate our anniversary. We are dropping Connor off with his parents and he may spend the night. I haven’t decided on that one yet.

– Hoping to go see a movie. Probably Salt or Inception.

– Visit Sprinkles Cupcakes

– Eat lunch and dinner somewhere

– Hit up the mall in Dallas for some shopping

What are your weekend plans???

Family of Goobers

Last night Ter-Bear & I spent our anniversary in our jammies eating Italian and watching a movie. Last year it was all about US and what we were going to do for ourselves. I’m so glad it’s not just about US anymore…but US as a family now. We also took some pics while playing around with our little “toot toot” that is what my Papa used to call me & Bonnie.
I got this purple lips bazooka thing you put in your mouth and it makes a loud noise. Connor started freaking out and crying, but eventually he started laughing at it.

I’ve been trying to cook more things in the crock pot and I finally learned how to make that good shredded chicken that you can find at Mexican restaurants. It’s so good! I think I’ll post about that tomorrow.
What are your favorite crock pot recipes?
He sure does like to play with his Daddy
He’s a little rougher than I am…I guess that is just boys!
Being goofy
Bye! Bye!
I was peeking around the corner of the doorway and surprising him 😛

5 Months

Happy 5 months sweet boy – You are learning to grasp for things now and want to hold your own bottle
– You love to feel your Daddy’s whiskers with your feet
– You smile and giggle when Mommy chases you
– You love for us to read you books, especially “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom”
– You are so curious about everything and don’t want to sit still anymore
– Still love to drooooool all over everything 🙂
– Your favorite song is “You are my Sunshine”

We love you sweet boy!
Don’t grow up toO fast now…

HAPPY 9TH ANNIVERSARY TERENCE!!!
I LOVE YOU TODAY MORE THAN EVER & YOU ARE THE DADDY I ALWAYS KNEW YOU WOULD BE! I’M SO BLESSED TO HAVE YOU MY LOVE!

(We plan on celebrating Saturday because it’s hard to do anything in the middle of the week)

Hope you all are having a good week!

Remember…..

TODAY IS THE FIRST DAY OF THE REST OF YOUR LIFE!