Rejoice and Repeat: Five on Friday!

What a week!!! I've been super busy despite being out of school (and I haven't even began looking at this upcoming year's lesson plans). I promise to take some personal time to enjoy family and this crazy beautiful life...starting now. This week has been packed with so much that it's almost hard to focus on just five...but, along with many others, here I go!

[one]
I have been working on aspects of a 250 wedding cake pop order this entire week. They are hopefully being or have been delivered upon you reading this. I hope to have pictures of their debut soon.

[two]
This week has begun a very big milestone in our lives as parents. We've gone full force on bidding the baby bottle goodbye. Our pediatrician recommended that we try to have her off the bottle by 14 months (which will be later this month). *She did tell us that if this didn't happen, we should give ourselves a free to pass to wait until closer to two years old because of the attachments they form during those months. With all that being said, we're in the midst of bottle weaning. Sunday night went okay. She was completely exhausted from her fun filled day that she went straight to sleep. Monday night...well, that was another story. I gave in after an hour of tears. Tuesday night was much harder on me than her. She did okay during her story but did not want to snuggle afterwards. Normally she would have her bottle and then snuggle to sleep. No more snuggles. It took her about 30 minutes to fall asleep once I laid her down. Wednesday night was much better...for her anyway. We read through her story...three times due to her persistence...and then I attempted to get in some cuddles. Nope. She just wanted to lay there with her blankie. I put her to bed after a while of rocking and she was asleep within 15 minutes-with NO TEARS! I hope we can continue on a positive note. Mommy confession: I hate her not having a night time bottle. It has caused me to face the realization that my sweet baby girl is growing up and things are inevitably going to change. I'm definitely going through the 5 Stages of Baby Bottle Grief. Thanks to some very supportive friends and our wonderful pediatrician, I know I'll survive this. I also found this post from Your Kid's Table to be very helpful throughout this process.

I love our current stage but I miss these days...

[three]
One perk to having some time away from school is the additional time I get to spend with my family. We took advantage of one of the sunny afternoons this week for a wonderful family walk along the Railway Trail. You can check out our fun here.