The Disney Bug - Planning our Trip!

I haven't blogged about it in a while now that I am in the midst of our Spring Quarter for dance, but my Fairytale Journeys by Chelsea - Disney vacation planning, is really going well.

I have booked vacations for 4 families now, 2 of which have already had their trips. I am in the midst of booking my 5th vacation now and I really am loving it. Matt and I thought we really knew just about all we could know about Disney (well, at least Matt did) but now that I have started this new adventure, we have learned even more and of course that makes us that much more excited for our upcoming family vacation to Walt Disney World / Caribbean Disney Cruise! 

My Disney bug doesn't end here. I've just announced that my dance program will be offering 3 separate Frozen themed dance camps this summer along with our annual "Dancing with Disney" & "Pirates and Princess" themed camps. I just can't get enough! 

I just wanted to share a few fun items I've found on Pinterest and Etsy that I hope to make/buy before our big trip in December. I figure if I start now that maybe I'll get at least half of them checked off the list ;) 

On the Caribbean Disney Cruises, there is always the Pirates of the Caribbean deck party and our family will most definitely be dressing up for the occasion. I cannot wait to get Lilly Belle in a sassy little get up like the one below. I'll most likely make her something myself mixed in with whatever I can get together during Halloween. I just love this little tank with the lace & bloomers though. Too cute! 

This outfit is from the Etsy shop, RaeGun. 

I am so excited to walk around the park in matching family shirts! I found an adorable Etsy shop TiffanyandGirls that has the perfect iron on downloads. I cannot wait to make our shirts :)

This option is just one of like 5 I have saved right now. Can't make up my mind yet. 

I've always loved the idea of having the characters sign a pillowcase for Lilly Belle so that she can always bring it along on our Disney vacation. And...knowing she is our child, she will most likely want to sleep with it at home too ;)

This pillowcase is from another awesome Etsy shop, Monogram4me.

This item doesn't have anything to do with our specific trip but with our love for Disney...and Starbucks ;) I cannot wait to get this up in our kitchen! 

Yet another adorable Etsy shop (I'm only slightly Etsy obsessed...I love knowing I'm helping another fellow small business owner). Go check out DesignsbyNicolina!

And, last but definitely not least, my friend Jeni (real life friend) makes the cutest Disney Princess dresses! I just planned a Disneyland vacation for her sweet family and I loved seeing the pictures of her daughter (who is also one of my former students) all dressed up playing in the parks! Too cute! I cannot wait to get some of these for Lilly Belle. I think the Rapunzel one is my favorite. The Jasmine one is pretty spectacular as well but...no Jasmine allowed in this family ;) 

(Matt's pre-Chelsea girlfriend was "very close friends" with Jasmine at WDW in case anyone didn't know lol...)

Anyway...adorable dresses! Check out JeniRoDesigns.com. 

You can like Fairytale Journeys by Chelsea on Facebook now for Disney updates :)

Mommy & Lilly Belle's Summer Bucket List

I am so excited for this summer! I have been excited for this summer since last summer.

This is the summer that I will be a real stay at home mom with my sweet girl. I will only be teaching 2 classes/week at a preschool, who knows-she might even nap right through that each week and not even know I was gone ;)

Now that May is almost over, it became real a few days ago that, "Whoa...pretty soon I get to just play with Lilly Belle all day!" I have been brainstorming what I want us to do this summer and came up with our summer bucket list. There are even more things that I hope we do as a family (day trips, etc.) but these are just things that I know Lilly Belle & I can do during our days together.

Most of these things are free. If we can cross off even half of the things on this list I know we will have a beautiful summer together. 

Just 3 more weeks!

What are your plans for the summer? I'd love to hear some more ideas :)

Bedtime Giggles (Memory)

Being Lillian's mommy is seriously the best thing that has ever happened to me.

She is the best thing that has ever happened to us. I don't even know how many times a day I get text messages from Matt saying, "Oh man. I love her." We are just so in love with her.

Tonight (minutes ago), I was putting her down for bed. I did her usual bedtime routine: nursed, dinner, (skipped bath), story (tonight it was Mommy & Daddy's Alaskan Disney Cruise), lights off/noise on, jammies/diaper change, nurse/songs, swaddle, hugs/kisses and then I lay her down in her crib.

Well, tonight when I had her all swaddled on our bed, she had her fingers already and was falling asleep and I just loved her so much so I gave her a hug with my head on her tummy. Right away, fingers still in her mouth and eyes almost closed, she started giggling little quiet belly laughs. It was the best sound. I love when she belly laughs, but to know it was from me hugging her and she was just so happy and falling asleep was the best. So then I gave her a big kiss on her tummy and she giggled again. So then I just kept doing it and she was falling asleep while giggling from all the hugs and kisses. Ah, so cute!!  

I told her how much I love her and I think she really knew. She went down in her crib just so happy with a little half smile on her face. I didn't want to let her go. I gave her a big squeeze before laying her down and she had her head on my shoulder. 

I seriously cannot describe how much I love her and how much I soak up moments like that with her. 

She is the best thing that has ever happened to me. She really is my sunshine. 

.................

I love you, Lilly Belle! 

Girlfriend Loves Music Class!

Lilly Belle has shown us more and more each and every day that there is one thing she loves for sure...

MUSIC!

She loves to "sing" and now does a little wiggle dance whenever she likes a song. Girlfriend even wiggles to slow songs :) Every week now for the past 5 months, since she was 4 months old, I have taken her to Kindermusik. We get in the car and I tell her where we are going and she gets so excited wiggling all around waving her arms up and down in her carseat. 

 This week we started a new 5-week series at music class called "Peek-a-Boo, I love you!" So far it's pretty cute. Lilly Belle started a new day and time slot this week as well. Partly because of scheduling and partly so we could be with our friends :) 

Sierra & Lilly Belle were happy to be in music class together! Us mommies were together in our birthing class and now our sweet girls get to be friends :)

Lilly Belle also made a sweet new friend today, Reed. She was fascinated with him. She was probably excited to see another baby who has awesome spiky hair ;) 

This may be my new favorite picture of her - ever. I can't stop looking at it! 

(again..fascinated with her new buddy, hehe stinker!)

"Hehe mommy, he's pretty cute!"

Each session we get a new toy and book. This session we got these awesome balls. The babies were loving them! Daddy is going to be excited when he finds it too! The sweet little book they got this time is going to be a favorite. We have already read it 3x today and LB just soaked it UP. It's all about different members of the family hiding and then the next page, they pop out saying, "Peek a Boo!" She loved it. 

Also the first day we had a full pony tail! 

Lilly Belle: Nine Months!

Yay! Our sweet girl is getting so big - she was just a little excited about this mornings photo shoot ;)

This is one of my new favorites. I finally captured her. She makes this face all the time.

Excited that I let her hold Minnie :)

Couldn't wear our sticker today because I couldn't even get it close to her without her freaking out trying to get it from me.

Within seconds, she had flipped herself like this to get a better view of Pocahontas!

And...I wasn't fast enough (don't worry, she had this in her mouth for this exact captured second).

9 Months Old

Weight: 17 lbs.

Health: Lilly now has two adorable little teeth; both on the bottom. She had a bit of an ear infection/throat yuckies (pus on her tonsils) so she was on Amoxicillin and started feeling better right away. She is a trooper through teething too. Even when she was sick and teething, she was still always in her usual happy go lucky mood. 

Sleep: Whats that? Same as last month. Lilly's still waking up at least 3x a night to nurse. I - am - exhausted. I love nursing her in the middle of the night though, is that weird? Sometimes we fall asleep, and other times I let her nurse and then lay her down and pass out immediately...knowing I'll do it again in a few hours - Or sometimes...an hour later. We are just 24 days away from being back into our own apartment again so I'm crossing my fingers that Lilly & I will be getting sleep again soon! Matt sleeps through most of it ;) Unless I notice she needs a diaper change - then he's on duty.

Social: I cannot believe how much our little girl has changed this month in this area. She loves people. Matt thinks she will be outgoing like I am. She especially loves kids! Wherever we go, she waves at everyone (yes, she can wave now-it's adorable!) She is still pretty loud, but I think it is pretty awesome that she's not afraid to let everyone know she's there :) During music class, Lilly has become quite the little class entertainer (you know that makes me ecstatic!) Girlfriend loves to "sing" at all the most quiet of times. This includes in the middle of church, which Lilly Belle and I have now attended twice and loved it! Lilly Belle got to play at her friend Jax's house for a few hours this month and the report back was that she loved being with the kids. I need to schedule her more playdates! She is really "talking" now and makes all kinds of noises. We love our little conversations with her. 

This is a big section this month as I feel it's where she changed the most. Man oh man is she fun! Lilly Belle can now "dance" on command if there is music on. It's the best-thing-ever. She really doesn't get as much stranger anxiety as she did last month. As I mentioned above, she really loves to wave at everyone. At a recent trip to Costco I wore her facing out in the Bjorn and I'm fairly certain she waved at every single person in there ;) 

Schedule: We don't really have a set schedule, just more of knowing what she needs and making sure she gets that everyday. We know she needs a nice long (2 hours usually) morning nap and the same thing again in the afternoon. Then we do bedtime still beginning at 6pm and she's always down for the night by 7pm. If we have her up any more than that, girlfriend becomes our little monster.  

Diet:  Lilly still nurses all throughout the night and then every 3 hours throughout the day. She is now eating 3 meals/day. She eats Ella's Kitchen & Plum Organics pouches. I gave up on trying to get her to eat my homemade purees. I tried adding meat last time and she freaked so I just need to clean them all out and start over, but I'm waiting until get our own place to start over. We have really introduced a lot more snacks for her as well. She eats Mum Mums, Puffs, Cheerios, little squares of avocado & little baby cookies. I can really trust her a lot more with finger foods. It is amazing how quickly this changed from last month when I was spazzing out with it all. She also learned how to drink from her Lollacup this month and loves to drink water with her meals and on hot days. We are still working on getting better about this, but with her still nursing, I know she's okay when I forget. On the topic of nursing, she is fading a bit with it during the day. Our daytime nursing time is now only for maybe 5 minutes each time. When she nurses long during the day I soak it in and love it so much! I have a feeling she is going to be done nursing soon and I'm dreading it like the black plague. I'm not ready for that at all yet. Sometimes she will start nursing and after a minute or two be like "meh, I'm done" and push away all excited ready to play. I always try to offer it at least a few more times before I give in and let her be done. I really want to nurse her until she's one. Prior to this month and all of this happening, I wanted to nurse her until she was like 18 months but now I don't know if she'll let me. She is great at eating her pouches and we don't even use a spoon anymore, she can do it by herself with us holding it. 

Clothes: Mostly 9 month clothes now, but she can still fit in all of her 6 month onesies. 

Baby Gear Love: We still swaddle Lilly her. We were going to stop, but found it's how she knows it is bedtime so we still do it. Usually by the 2nd feeding of the night she has gotten out of it but we start out that way. She really loves to play with her toys now. We use our shopping cart cover, Ergo & stroller the most. She's still in her infant carseat & we still use her baby bathtub but she sits up in it. 

Crying: Lilly cries when it's nap time (about half the time). She also cries when she is over-tired. Same like last month.  

Likes:  I think her favorite things are still music, water & her Mommy/Daddy. She loves going to her Kindermusik class each week and could still stay in the bath for hours if we let her. Lilly Belle loves Peek-a-Boo & tickles. She is just such a happy baby. It's hard to pin point what are her favorites because she is just so easy going and happy. 

Dislikes:  She still freaks out when I drop her off and still (since she was born) doesn't like putting her arms in her sleeves. 

Milestones:  Wow. This month was full of them, once again. As mentioned above, Lilly now waves, claps & dances. I could watch her do all 3 of those things all day long. I get such a kick out of her knowing what we're saying. It feels good to communicate back and forth with her. We say "Yay Lilly!" and she claps or "dance dance dance" and she shakes her little body from side to side all happy. She is getting really good at standing while holding on to the couch & ottomans. She likes to let go to grab onto my hands. She still isn't moving her feet to "walk" with us yet, but I'm okay with that! She is still trying to figure out the whole crawling business. She can turn in circles and go backwards but has yet to move forward. And, once again, I'm okay with that. Finger foods was a big one this month. She is such a little talker as well. We are loving this age right now. I'm really starting to miss her being teeny tiny and have that "aw..." feeling in my tummy when I see tiny babies BUT I am soaking up every second of our sweet little Lillian right now and love having this one on one time with her so so much. Our life is just right, right now. Forgot to add- just this morning, Lilly Belle pulled from sitting to standing! She used her activity cube :) yay!!

These are only pictures from my camera, I'll post the ones from my phone later. Theres so many!

Changing her diapers has now become a daily rock paper scissors match ... doesn't this look like fun? Lots of rolling, arching...even when we take the basket down ;)

Enjoying some April sunshine at Redmond Town Center on Daddy's day off and...a pony!

Enjoying the water!

Ha, everyday. These two are always playing & Lilly always wins ;) 

Yay Jesus! First time going to church with Mommy!

Of course our child would have her own amusement park ;)

Daddy & Lilly play after Daddy gets home.

Done with pictures ;)

Every morning.

Deserves its own post: Lilly Belle's first time at the zoo!

Standing up watching the penguins..look at those perfect squishy legs!

Mesmerized with the carousel!...We went on next!

I have a feeling we will have many more photos with this little elephant! (elephants & LB are my fav)

Enjoying her big girl dinner of Cheerios & bananas

We love you so much, Peanut! You're our whole world!!