The Gillespie Family: Aunts, Cousins, and Poops. Oh My!

This past weekend we celebrated Grant's sister Gina! She is getting married to Javi this November and their engagement party was this past Saturday night. His entire family traveled from Atlanta and Tampa to spend the weekend so we did a lot of celebrating. Well, they did a lot of celebrating and I learned how hard and exhausting it is to plan 2 nights in a row around a newborn's schedule. Since we must get to 8 feedings per day, and I love the fact that Piper will seemingly sleep as long as I would let her at night, we are 'cluster' feeding her the last 2-3 feedings before she goes to bed. This means that we are doing the 1.5 hour long process every 2 hours (understand why I'm going crazy, right?) so that we can continue to have a 5 hour stretch at night. This has been going great (and has proven to be worth it), but when you try to throw in 2 nights out in a row....it's plain exhausting. {I now understand what all of my friends/family have gone through when I was so naive to how a 9lb baby that stays put can change your evening plans so drastically} But we did it and managed and we had a great time celebrating Gina and Javi!! And I didn't get a single picture of us from any of the celebrations...I guess that's what happens when you have a baby.

Avery wanting some M&Ms. That face!

Ashley and the family came into town Saturday morning to watch Piper Saturday night while we were at the party. We met them at the Soda City spring fling downtown on Main St. It was a gorgeous day and we enjoyed some good food and vendor shopping. We came home for nap time and Ashley and I enjoyed watching March Madness on the back porch with some champagne. Why not, right? We all spent the afternoon playing on the back porch because the weather was too good to not be in it. It was such a fun and relaxing day for us. Avery is growing and developing so fast that I can't keep up with her! She is saying new things and understanding more and more every time that I see her. I'm currently 'Buck' and Grant is 'Guck'. She still LOVES her Guck and would pick him over me anyday! She also is getting so, so big {like heavy-big}! I could hardly put her down in the crib without dropping her. It's amazing to compare her to Piper and think that there is only 1 year and 3 months between the two of them. But for now she continues to think Piper is a baby doll and wants to always be near her. She calls her 'Ba-be' and 'Pi-her'. Brady also enjoyed seeing Piper. He is going to be a great big cousin!

Javi's mom, Alba, gave Piper some cowboy boots since her daddy always wears his boots. They are size 18 months and Avery seemed to think they belonged to her. This girl loves some shoes and she kept walking around saying 'booooots'.

Piper is now 5 weeks 4 days and while I don't want my newborn to grow up she gets more fun every day. She has started smiling quite a bit in reaction to us (not just when she passes gas or takes a poop). Also, if she is fussing her daddy can always get her calmed down by holding her and playing 'The Man' by Aloe Blacc. It is amazing. EVERY time. My mom has now put a quick link to the song on her phone because it works so well. Our crazy girl.

We continue to have fun visitors come and play and this week we had Graham and his 2 girls, Carrie and Hayes, come visit. It was so fun to see them look at Piper in amazement. There is just something about a baby.

Graham and Hayes

And just because it gave us the biggest laugh all week I can't NOT mention the first poop in the bathtub. As usual Grant was giving her a bath and I heard a loud scream that had a laughing panic associated. I knew right away what Grant was probably freaking out about and I was right. Too funny!!Piper didn't seem to mind one bit.