David and Melissa

Happy Birthday Shayla!

2012-01-23T15:33:00.001-08:00

My baby girl is already two. I can’t believe how fast it goes. Well, I don’t have any additional pictures because I don’t really feel like downloading them off the camera right now. I just wanted to post a few things that Shayla has done recently before I forget about them:

She always holds Easton’s hands when they are riding in the car. Surprisingly, I think it actually keeps him happy. I’m pretty sure that’s the only time her loving on him doesn’t make him angry.
Shayla has been singing songs to herself alot lately. She does this alot when we are driving in the car. I have caught her singing: Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Give Said the Little Stream, Wheels on the Bus, Row Row Your Boat, and her newest favorite is the ABC’s. She is actually quite good at the ABC’s. She misses a few letters, but gets most of them. We have this on video. I will get it up one of these days.
She has been copying us alot lately too. Actually, I really only catch her copying David. He’ll be sitting at the dinner table with his chin in his hand, and pretty soon she’ll be sitting that way. We were all eating dinner the other day, and David and I were leaning over the paper doing a puzzle, and pretty soon she was leaning way over just the way David was. It cracks me up every time.

Shayla is a very sweet little girl, and very smart. She is not so good at cleaning up her toys, and only sometimes listens to Mommy and Daddy, but she is very loving to us and to her little brother. She is quite social and talkative with people that she knows, but completely clams up if she doesn’t know you.

We love our little girl, and are so happy to have her in our family!

Catching Up

2012-01-17T16:27:00.001-08:00

This is going to be a picture heavy post, but I think that’s what most people prefer anyway, right? We started painting Shayla’s “big girl” room back in November. It’s very hard to get painting done when she’s around, so we tried to give her her own paintbrush to “help.” It only worked for a very short amount of time, but she thought that “painting” was pretty great. Painting her room ended up being a pretty labor intensive project as we did stripes, and taping is a pain, but David finished up the last of it after Easton was born. We got the curtains up that I made back before he was born. Now we just have to get her a bed and dresser and we will get her moved in.

(11-12-11)

Here she is in all her ghetto glory. Talking on daddy’s phone with mommy’s shoes and no pants. (11-14-11)

These were taken the day we brought Easton home. (12-3-11) My parents came over to bring Shayla back.

I got Shayla a new doll so that she could have her own boy baby to take care of.

12-5-11 Shayla loves her baby brother.

12-7-11

12-7-11 Just trying to get some pics of the little guy, and he gives me some pretty good little faces.

12-8-2011 We each keep a pair of shoes by the bottom step. Shayla had brought them in the family room, and I asked her to put them away. This is what I found when I came by later. Not quite the way I meant, but she did a pretty good job.

12-9-2011 Easton likes to watch the lights and animals on his bouncer. He really likes the music it plays too. He often gets upset when it turns off.

12-9-2011 We ordered beef from the same company that we get the chicken in bulk from. David was impressed at the size of these.

12-13-2011

12-16-2011 This is the Lion King pose.

12-16-2011 I love his face in this picture

12-17-2011 Caught him sucking his thumb. Don’t think I’ve seen him do it since.

12-18-2011 Reading books with Grandpa Merrill

12-18-2011 Easton’s first visit to Grandma Reed

12-19-2011

12-19-2011 I put this beanie on Easton because we were going outside. It was a little big…and looks a bit like a turban. :)

12-26-2011 Easton in his new outfit

12-28-2011 I put Easton down for some tummy time, and it quickly turned into naptime.

1-1-2012 Little boy actually seems to enjoy bathtime.

1-6-2012

1-8-2012 Cute boy

1-8-2012 Cute girl

1-8-2012 Shayla was “helping” with dishes

1-9-2012 Shayla can’t leave Easton alone, whether he’s in his swing or bouncer. If he spits up, she runs to the bathroom grabs some toilet paper, then throws it in his lap. Here she was actually being very kind and sharing her baby and blankie with him. Usually she picks the random toys that she doesn’t care so much about to share.

1-11-2012 Shayla shared a book with Easton

1-12-2012 Shayla really loves to hold Easton and to give him kisses and hugs. He doesn’t always enjoy it as much.

1-15-2012 The little guy has been smiling at us for a couple weeks now. It’s just so hard to catch on camera, especially when our camera is so ancient.

Easton has been a very good little baby so far. He is easier than Shayla was. Not that she was a hard baby, but she had a hard time sleeping anywhere other than my arms. It was hard to get anything done because every time I set her down she would start crying. Easton is pretty content just about anywhere I put him. He really likes the music on both his swing and bouncer. He is still waking up several times at night, but he always falls right back to sleep after a feeding. The biggest problem we’re having is that he is a grunter just like Shayla was. Some days are worse than others, but there have been nights where he’s grunting and groaning for hours after a feeding. This often leads to a lot of spitting up as well, and tired parents in the morning. I’m hoping this part doesn’t last much longer.

Shayla has been adjusting fairly well. She has been sick with this cold/cough thing since before he was born, so it has been hard to tell if her grumpiness and temper tantrums are due to not feeling well or to the lack of attention. One funny thing she’s started doing recently after said temper tantrums, and she’s finally calmed down: she will say “Shay-ya happy now.” Mom and dad are much happier now too.

Right around dinner time she always starts whining “Mommy hold you” (which means hold me), and she repeats this over and over. and over. (Literally like 100 times). It breaks my heart (or makes me want to scream, depending on the day), but I can’t hold her and cook dinner at the same time.

She is still talking up a storm. She repeats everything that we say to her. After a particularly gluttonous meal, David mentioned something about being fat. Shayla says '”Daddy fat.” Then she points at me and says “Mommy fat.”

We have been having her say prayer at dinnertime, and her personal prayers at night (when we remember). She does quite well.

One funny thing with Easton. She calls him a “big girl.” She loves to mother him, even though she’s usually in his face and waking him up. She’s always giving him kisses, or shoving a pacifier (fac-fier) back into his mouth.

Shayla can be a really good eater when she wants to be. She has learned (from her daddy), that she likes to have ranch on everything. She usually licks it off the vegetable, and then asks for more. She also loves salsa (even when it’s hot), or cheese, or salt and pepper. Any sort of topping that you can put on food, she has to have it. She also cannot have her water without you putting ice in it first. At least she is good at telling us thank you afterwards.

She likes to dance and jump. Only recently has she actually started to get her feet off the floor when jumping. Most of the time, it was just a glorified squat.

Speaking of dinner. It’s that time…

Christmas

2012-01-15T16:02:00.001-08:00

We enjoyed a nice Christmas at home this year. It was actually our first Christmas in this house, since last year we were in CA.

We went out and looked at Christmas lights on a couple of different occasions. The first time we stopped to see Santa who had his sleigh parked in front of someone’s house every evening on the weekends. It was very kind of him. Shayla wasn’t upset, but she was her usual shy self and wouldn’t talk to him. Afterward that’s all she could talk about was Santa, and he was nice, and he gave her a “canny cane.”

This picture is of Shayla hanging up her ornament that she got from nursery. She hadn’t been to nursery since Easton was born because she had (and still does) a cough that refuses to go away. They gave the ornament to David, and she got to hang it on the tree. Shayla loves the lights on the Christmas tree. I kept telling her we look with our eyes, and we don’t touch, but she still couldn’t help taking off some of the ornaments. She did a pretty good job at keeping it together though. We were even able to keep a few of the presents under the tree without her opening them.

We also went and saw Christmas lights at the Mesa Temple with some of my family. Apparently she was too enthralled with the lights to actually look at the camera.

With her cousin Charlotte, and Uncle Matt, and her daddy of course.

We also made some goodies to take to neighbors, and friends in our ward. Shayla loved helping cut out the cookies (and sneaking bites of the dough in the process).

On Christmas Eve, we had a nice dinner with ham (smoked by my dad), funeral/cheesy/whatever-you-call-them potatoes, Margie’s Jello (made by David), and lots of Christmas goodies. We tried to do the nativity, but Shayla wasn’t too keen on getting dressed up, even though she had the coveted role of Mary. So instead, we sang some Christmas songs, which Shayla did enjoy.

Can’t leave out the little man…

Christmas morning, David got up and went to our 8 am church. I was still home with Easton, and Shayla still had her cough (plus David was going to be in the choir the whole time anyway). We ate breakfast (making sure to sneak Shayla down the stairs so she couldn’t see the bounty), gave Shayla a bath, and then we got around to opening gifts. Shayla got the hang of opening her gifts instantly. Sometimes we had a hard time getting her to open her gifts because she instantly wanted to unpack and play with the gift that she had just opened.

I bought a kitchen set off of Craigslist, and that was an instant hit (and still is a fave, although there are always pieces of plastic food strewn all over our whole house).

She also really liked this cell phone that she got from her Nana and Grandpa Snow. Mostly because it makes noise, but she also likes to pretend like she’s talking on the phone as well.

She also got some Little People toys, and some soft puppet stuffed animals, and an activity table (which she also loves). It was a little difficult to get her to take a picture with her toys, because all she wanted to do was play with them. That’s why I’m holding her in the picture.

As you can see, Easton was quite thrilled with the whole experience.

After opening gifts, we hurried on over for a late Christmas breakfast with all of my family.

This little dude quickly became the center of attention.

And this little lady doing her best to win that attention back.

Playing with her cousin Charlotte.

Her aunt Mariah made this cute hat for her, and she didn’t want to take it off.

Easton also got himself a hat. beanie. whatever.

This is a video of the little girls opening up a gift together. You can just ignore my dad listing off every. single. movie. When my parent’s get a bunch of movies, it’s like a gift to us because we all just take turns borrowing them. We don’t have to rent movies too often. You can tell that Shayla likes movies too.

Group shots

We got some family pictures since we were all dressed up. I won’t show you the first 50 where Shayla wouldn’t sit still, and/or smile. What finally worked was everyone else started singing songs to her. That’s what got the big grin.

Shayla loving on her little brother.

We finally let her hold Easton for the first time, since her cough seemed to be a little better.

Even Easton liked it.

She really does love her little brother.

After we finished exchanging gifts, we paid a visit to Grandma Reed.

We had an enjoyable Christmas. It was fun now that Shayla had a better idea of what was going on, and just nice to be together as a family.

Our little boy has arrived!

2011-12-07T19:46:00.001-08:00

Easton David Snow made his debut on Friday, December 2, at 5:57 AM. He weighed 7 pounds 8 oz, and was 20 inches long. Continue on if you want to read our story. More pictures are at the end. (Sorry, I got a little long-winded):

Shayla was a week early, which was totally unexpected to me. I actually kinda wanted her to be a couple days late. So with Easton, I planned ahead, and tried to be as ready to go a couple weeks in advance. I wanted my Thanksgiving dinner, but I was all ready to go Friday or Saturday morning. As the days approached, I kinda felt like it wasn’t going to happen, but I kept my hopes up. I was getting more anxious about going through labor again, getting more uncomfortable, getting more moody, and just generally just antsy and ready to be done with it all.

I had been working for months to get my Christmas shopping done early. I had also made the bumper pad, quilt, crib skirt, valance, and diaper stacker for the nursery, and also a car seat canopy. I made curtains for Shayla’s new room, and a quilt for her big girl bed as well. We are almost done painting her room.

I was caught up on laundry, and was working hard to maintain the cleanliness of our house as much as possible. We even got all the Christmas decor up. I felt ready, and honestly I was getting sick and tired of going to my doctor’s appointments because it always took like 2 hours.

November ended and still no baby. I was disappointed, because I wanted at least the month and year to be 11-11. I had my 39 week (and 5 days) appointment Thursday morning. We were actually in and out pretty quick this time. Dilated to 2 cm, which is exactly where I was a week before, even though I had been noticing more contractions. A little discouraged. The midwife informed me that she was on call that night, but I didn’t think it would happen that soon. I could tell the baby had dropped, and I was just generally more uncomfortable. I had even had a few somewhat painful contractions in the last couple days. Shayla and I went and bought the final Christmas gift. Can’t say where I was…but I gotta be honest that I was a little disappointed that no one offered to help the 9 month pregnant woman carrying large items with a toddler in tow. Hmm…maybe that actually helped me a little.

Day progressed as normal. While I was preparing dinner that night, I started having some sporadic contractions. I thought maybe this might mean something, but didn’t want to get my hopes up. David came home, we ate dinner, and by the time we were done, the contractions were regular enough that I figured this was probably it. I was still afraid I was jumping the gun, but about 7:30 we called my parents to let them know this was it, and they headed over to pick up Shayla. I called Marissa, who was our doula, and let her know so she could be ready whenever we left for the hospital. (Marissa is a friend of Tanner’s wife Jenn, and she so kindly offered her services to us to help her finish up her doula certification).

We finished packing up any last minute things we needed to add to our bags, loaded them up in the car, straightened up the house a bit, threw in a batch of laundry, I took a nice warm bath, and then just waited. Around 10 pm, David laid down to rest. I laid down for about half an hour as well, but the contractions were regular enough that I couldn’t sleep through them, and honestly, it just isn’t all that comfortable to lay in bed through contractions either. I got up and roamed the house, worked on the massive Thanksgiving crossword puzzle that has been sitting on our island since the holiday, folded some laundry, and continued to wait. I woke David up around 1 AM and decided we should probably head to the hospital. I knew it was still going to be awhile, but I still wanted to be able to deal with the contractions on the drive over.

We got to the hospital in record timing considering the time of day. We arrived at the hospital a little after 1:30 AM. You have to enter through the Emergency Room in the middle of the night, so we parked there and left our stuff in the car. They called OB, and we had to wait for them to come pick us up. It probably took about 15 minutes. We delivered at St. Joseph’s hospital and the place is a maze. They put me in a wheelchair and we roamed the halls for what seemed like a mile. When we got to OB Triage, we had to fill out a few more papers (we had already pre-registered), and then they took us on back. I knew my midwife was on staff that night, so I at least had the comfort of knowing who was going to be with me. They got the monitor on baby, who was doing just fine. I was dilated to 5 cm, which was exactly where I was at when I got to the hospital with Shayla. Then we sat in Triage for what seemed like forever. I’m not sure what we were waiting for, but when they told us the average time you were in Triage was an hour, they weren’t kidding. This was the point where I started feeling sick to my stomach and threw up several times. Once we got all that out, I felt much better except for the acid in my mouth.

They finally got us to the delivery room, and Marissa was already there waiting for us. The nurse put the fetal monitor on me and told me I had to wear it 20 minutes of every hour. What? How am I supposed to lay in bed for that long every. single. hour. Luckily the midwife came in a bit later, and she took it off, and they never made me put it back on until the actual delivery. They brought me in some cranberry juice, which helped immensely to keep me hydrated and keep the energy up. They never even tried to make me have an IV. David went to move the car to the parking garage at this time, and I just hung out with both the midwife and Marissa. The midwife really stayed in the room with us for quite a bit of the labor. Not too much to be overbearing, but there as a resource when we needed her.

I found the best way to handle the contractions this time around was to stand or kneel and lean over an exercise/birthing ball. It helped me to be able to relax my upper body, but also be able to sway and move around during a contraction.

I’m not sure what time we got into the delivery room, but after awhile, I had the midwife come check to see where I was at because the intensity had definitely started to increase. This time I was at 8 cm. It was 4 AM. They said I went from a 5 to an 8 in an hour, but I think it was a little longer than that because this was the first time I had been checked since triage, and we waited for probably half an hour in triage after they checked me before we moved to the delivery room. So, my guess is that it was more like 90 min. to 2 hours. The midwife said she would come back in half an hour to see where we were at then. They were all joking about how well I was doing at 8 cm, that they never would have guessed I was that far already. We would get serious during contractions, and then mingle in between, but that changed pretty quickly. This was the get down to business point, and I just hung out on the ball and tried to rest as much as possible between contractions. It was probably about 40 min. later that the midwife came back, and this time I was at 9 cm. She asked if I wanted her to break the water, and I couldn’t decide (I did want to move things along and get it over with, but I didn’t want to make it more painful if it was going to get there in the same amount of time anyway). She said there really wasn’t any need to do it because things were progressing just fine, and she would come back in another half hour. When she came back, I was still at 9 cm, but was really wanting to start pushing as I was getting tired and quite in pain at this point. I was starting to have some contractions right on top of each other, and was disappointed to see that we hadn’t made any progress. I told her to go ahead and break the water and let’s get this over with. I thought the intensity was already at about a 10, but it instantly shot me from 10 to about 100. I was beyond knowing what to do with myself at this point, and everyone started scrambling to get things ready for a delivery. It was a little bit before they really had me start pushing, and we tried several different positions, but what was most comfortable for me (surprisingly…I thought I would want to use the squat bar), was to lay on my back and have David and Marissa hold my knees to my chest. With Shayla, I don’t remember feeling any pain during the contractions at this point. I couldn’t always even tell when they had ended. This time, as soon as I took a breath, it was obvious the contractions were still going. Baby’s heartrate started to drop real low--I think they mentioned it was down to 60 bpm. They brought in a Dr., and the midwife said this would be an instance where we might need an episiotomy to get him out faster. With the next push or two, baby’s head was right there, and baby rotated. Apparently he had been occiput posterior, and rotated to the correct position at the last minute. At this point, he came right out as we pushed through the next contraction. He was born at 5:57 AM. According to Marissa, I pushed for 20 minutes. He was healthy, and I didn’t have to have an episiotomy (or worse). I did tear some, but the midwife said it wasn’t too bad (although I did get 8 stitches).

I held Easton for a little bit, David cut the cord, and then they took him to clean him up and check him over. He weighed 7 lbs, 8 oz. and was 20 in. long. This is the point where everybody’s paying attention to baby, and I’m delivering a placenta and getting stitched up. I am pretty sure they didn’t get me numbed up all the way for the stitches, because that part was pretty uncomfortable. I got a chance to breastfeed Easton, and he got it figured out pretty well. He did a lot better on one side than the other, but at least he latched and appeared to know what he was doing. Shayla had a really hard time at the beginning.

We were informed that there weren’t any recovery rooms open, and so we would be staying in the delivery room for awhile. Awhile turned into almost 7 hours after the delivery. I don’t think they really knew what to do with us that long. I got in trouble because I got up to go to the bathroom without telling anyone first, but no one ever told me I needed to. There were no diapers, and baby was dirty. It just felt very disorganized, and no one really ever came in to check on us.

Things were much better once we were transferred to the recovery rooms. At Banner Gateway, it felt like someone was coming in the room every hour and it was hard to get any sleep. They left us alone alot more here, which was nice. They didn’t give Easton a bath while we were still in the delivery room, and we had to ask several times after we were moved over to the recovery room. It seems like he was pretty close to being 24 hours old by the time he got all the way cleaned up. Our other complaint was that it took us forever to get discharged. We had to wait on the midwife to discharge me, and then it took the nurse another 2 hours after that to do the paperwork. When you’re ready to go home, you just want to go home.

Overall, the birth experience was much better this time. After I switched from the Dr. that was right by our house, with a hospital right by our house, to a midwife that was further away, I wondered if I would regret it. The office at St. Joe’s was not as welcoming feeling, and the appointments always took forever. But having a midwife instead of a Dr. at the birth made a world of difference. She was much more attentive, and was there the whole time, and did her best to allow me to birth the way I wanted to. Having a doula was sure helpful too. I made it through last time ok, but I felt much more calm and relaxed through it with the help of someone who could focus directly on me. Even David said how helpful it was. :) We are grateful for Marissa’s help.

I feel like I am recovering a lot better this time around. Really my worst pain is in my back, and my arm was sore for a couple days afterward from the Pertussis vaccination. Go figure that those would be the worst part of recovery.

Shayla has been very sweet with Easton. When she first came into the hospital room, she had a look on her face like she knew that her world had changed. But when we brought her up to see Easton, she instantly loved him. She always wants to kiss him, and pat his head (though her soft is not quite the same as ours). She is going to be a great big sister.

So far Easton has been a good little baby. He is eating well, and is generally pretty content. I think the boy would almost sleep through the night if I didn’t keep waking him up to feed him. I hope he continues that way. Life would be much easier.

We are so happy that all went well, and that Easton is healthy. We are doing our best to savor every moment with this sweet little addition to our family.

Shayla-isms

2011-11-13T14:29:00.001-08:00

Just have a few things to record that I don’t want to forget:

10-8-11

Yesterday, Shayla kept running over to look at her reflection in the oven door and kept saying “So good!” She repeated this over and over again. No idea where that came from.
She loves to look at herself. Often after I get her dressed, she runs to look at herself in the mirror, and always says “Pretty!” and then “Cute!”
Awhile back, Shayla picked up on saying “Shoot!” I didn’t really think that I said it enough for her to even pick up on. Everytime she would drop something, or if she tripped and fell (which is all the time), she would say, “Oh shoot!”. There were a couple days in a row where it seemed like she was saying that constantly. Luckily, she grew out of it pretty quick, because it did sound a bit like another word.
Lately, she has been saying “Oopsey” or “oopsey daisy”
We have been baby gate free for a couple months now. We probably could have taken it off sooner, but we were never convinced that she was good enough at going down stairs. For the longest time, she couldn’t figure out how to turn around on the top stair to start going down. Once she was in the right position, she would go down just fine. If we were carrying her down the stairs, then she would just run and jump into our arms. I was afraid she would try to do that if we didn’t have a gate.
Now that she can get down the stairs without a problem, sometimes she likes to go down by herself and go “fast.” She actually is quite fast. She basically just slides down on her belly, but sometimes she wants us to carry her down. She always says “I hold you?” or “Mommy hold you?” She can’t figure out how to change the “you” to “me.” She also says “help you?” When she wants us to help her do something.
She is really good at her ABC’s now. We struggle with a few of the lowercase letters (b and d mostly), but she is always pointing them out to us. She also knows her colors and shapes really well.
They must sing Row, Row, Row Your Boat in nursery, because lately she has been requesting that song alot. She says “whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, boat.” Then we have to sing it over and over and over. Oh, and OVER. She’ll usually sing along with the “Mewwy, mewwy” part. I love that sweet little voice. She also requests Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes alot.
She is suddenly starting to refuse to eat a lot more often. What baffles me, is that it is food that she previously loved. She still requests bananas, but then she’ll only eat a bite or two, and then just smoosh it up. If you don’t give her a “big” piece, then she gets mad and won’t eat it. She has loved ice for a long time, and likes just holding and sucking on it. Lately she has started to request ice in her water. Sounds like she’s getting a little spoiled to me. That will change soon.

10-16-11

She has always loved reading. She goes through phases of wanting to read the same books every time we put her to bed. We will read these same books for several days in a row, and then we will move onto something else. She especially loves it when I get “new books” for her.
Shayla has also gotten into the phase where she likes to put on our shoes. She thinks she is pretty clever.

10-1-11

This might be a little TMI, but I was at my weekly Dr. visit. Shayla was standing on the ground by the midwife while I was getting my “exam,” so she was seeing it from the angle of the midwife. When Shayla looked up from whatever she was doing she shouted “Sick!” I guess I’ve taught her right. Both the midwife and I got a good chuckle out of that.
When she watches me brush my teeth, she always freaks out when I spit out the toothpaste. “Eew, Mommy, eew!” It probably does look strange to see your mommy foaming at the mouth.
Awhile back she was eating dinner, and she started freaking out “Mommy hair, eew!” She must have learned that one from her daddy.
I think Shayla is ready for her little brother. She sometimes gets a little confused and thinks that daddy has a baby in his tummy too. But she will put her hand on my belly, and say “Baby moo-ing” (moving). “Oh baby, oh baby.” She likes to kiss and put her head on my belly. She knows it is baby brother, and we have been telling her that he is going to come live at our house soon. I think she will be a good big sister and will be very loving to her little brother.

Halloween

2011-11-06T13:53:00.001-08:00

I’ve kept very busy trying to get everything ready for this little boy that will be here soon. Trying to find clothes, getting all the baby girl stuff organized and packed away, and pulling out all the newborn gear. On top of that, I decided to make all the bedding for little boy’s room, and it has been quite the project. I am also working on trying to get a “big girl” room together for Shayla, because the baby will go in the nursery where she is at now.

Anyway, the point is that I’ve had too much to worry about and I wasn’t about to stress myself out trying to come up with Halloween costumes for us all like I did last year. We borrowed a costume from my Mom, that she made when we were little. I’m guessing it’s gotta be about 25 years old. It held up quite well, and we got lots of compliments. It doesn’t hurt that the little girl wearing it is quite cute too. :)

On Saturday, we took Shayla to Tolmachoff Farms, which is a local farm/pumpkin patch/corn maze place. At night they have the haunted corn maze, but during the day, there are family activities. Shayla loved looking at the animals. She enjoyed petting the horse, and thought it was hilarious when he started “Nay-ing” quite a bit. She also got to pet the goats. Her absolute favorite part was playing in the corn box. It is basically a sand box, but full of corn kernels instead. She had a blast rolling around and jumping in there.

That night was our ward party and trunk-or-treating. She did really well wearing her costume, and loved wearing the hat. I had to make the hat, because the original one isn’t around anymore. She saw me making it, and couldn’t wait to wear it. Everyone was surprised that she wore it the whole time. When it came time for the trunk-or-treat, she thought it was pretty neat. As soon as someone would put candy in her bag, she would pull it out and immediately put it in her mouth, wrapper and all. I gave her a sucker to eat after we got home. As soon as she finished it, she demanded “More sucka!”

David and I carved pumpkins on Sunday night, and Shayla watched us from her high chair. She had the most fun when we got to take them outside and light them up. Maybe next year we can actually let her “help” us a little bit.

On Halloween, we were invited to have pizza and trick or treat with several other families in our ward. We got a late start on the trick or treating, and all the big kids left us behind (which was better anyway), so it was just Shayla and her little friend Levi trick or treating together. He had no problem running up to the door and knocking on it. Shayla would go up and wait for the candy, but never quite trusted people enough with her bag to open it up for them to put the candy in. Again, she would pull it right back out and try to put it in her mouth. We all had a good time. Holidays are much more exciting when you have a little one to involve.

Camping

2011-10-30T17:17:00.001-07:00

This post is a few months late, but better now than never, right?

My parents recently purchased some land up in Forest Lakes, and we went up with them a couple times this summer, to help clear off pine needles and dead trees so that it would not be such a fire hazard.

Shayla loves being outside, exploring and just getting dirty. Here she is riding the ATV with “Paca.”

Shayla also loves playing with “Beshie.” (My sister Shelbie).

And reading books with Nana.

She loves swinging in her swing (though you can’t tell by the look on her face in this picture.

But most of all, she loves getting dirty. It rained and rained one of the days we were there, and we could only keep her restrained in her high chair for so long. I finally had to give in to the fact that her clothes would get ruined, and just let her be a kid. She just splashed and splashed for quite some time in the wheelbarrow full of muddy water. How do you resist a cute little girl with a Hitler moustache?

We went back later in the summer and chopped down some trees. All of the men were excited to get their hands on the ax and chainsaws to cut down these big pine trees. When they got the first one down, Shayla got real sad, and almost crying, kept saying “Twee down, twee down.” Apparently we’ve got a little environmentalist on our hands. My parents have some video of it, so I will have to get a copy of it to post one of these days.

Learning ABC’s

2011-10-06T19:07:00.001-07:00

We have several ABC type books, and we’ve been reading them forever. I never really thought Shayla was getting much out of them. All of the sudden in the last couple of weeks, she can identify every letter of the alphabet—the capital letters at least.

I remembered yesterday, that I bought these magnetic letters probably a year ago, so I pulled them out and she loved them. My fridge will never be free of fingerprints again. I only wish I had bought more than one set so we could spell out words with her.

Toddlerdom

2011-09-18T15:36:00.001-07:00

Shayla is at a really fun age right now. She is always learning and saying new things. I said something to her last night (I wish I could remember what it was), and she repeated the sentence right back to me. She repeats almost everything I say. She always points out to us everything she sees: “twee!”, “car”, “ball”, etc. She still loves her Baby Signing Time videos and sings small bits of the songs to me (very small as in a couple words).

One thing that I think is really cute, is anytime she sees someone not wearing an appropriate amount of clothing, she always says “clothes!”, as if, “hello, why are they not wearing clothes?” We have this picture on the cover of a church book I made for her:

She always points to the boy on the left and says “clothes!.” (It’s really more like “koes.” Maybe teaching her modesty will be easy?

The other day I sneezed, and without batting an eye she says to me “Bess you.” I wasn’t sure that’s what she said, until she repeated it the next time I sneezed.

She also has learned about things breaking. David gave her a piece of cheese the other day and broke it into smaller pieces. She had a fit “boken, boken!” and she refused to eat it. This coming from a little girl who obsesses over cheese. You can’t tear bread into smaller pieces or we have the same problem. She even gets upset when she is the one that does it. Not sure how you’re supposed to eat it without it breaking eventually.

Shayla is getting pretty good at her colors. Blue is definitely her favorite, and I think pink is probably a close second. She always gets those two colors right, and if she can’t remember what a color is, then it is automatically “boo.” I go to get her out of bed in the mornings, and she lets me know what color of shirt I am wearing.

She is also in a stage right now where she is very obsessed with herself. She can say her name quite well “Shay-ya,” and she loves to look at pictures of herself, look at herself in the mirror, or her reflection on the oven. She always points herself out whenever she can. When she wants us to take a picture, she gives us the camera, or our phone, and says “cheese.” Problem is, she can’t hold still long enough, and she won’t smile for us to ever actually get a picture of her. I feel like a horrible mother, but I have almost given up taking pictures, because she’s never looking, and they’re all blurry. This is the typical picture.

She is starting to get more imaginative and actually “playing” with her toys. She loves the Little People house. We have Mom, Dad, and baby sit on the potty, or take a bath. Sometimes even the farm animals come in and want to sleep in the baby’s bed. It gets a little difficult when she wants her baby doll to sleep in the bed too, because although to me it is obviously too large, to a little mind, it should fit just fine.

We also like to take her baby doll’s clothes on and off all day long. Sometimes she can get the clothes off by herself, but it is usually Mommy that has to do it. She has also started mothering her baby much more. She gives it a drink out of her sippy cup, or tries to wash the baby, or read it books. Shayla also likes to use the baby’s hand to do things: point to pictures in books, or push buttons. She loves to push the button to close the garage door when we come home. If she has her baby, then we have to hold her hand, holding the baby’s hand, to push the button.

All week long we talk about nursery. If we sing a song that they sing in nursey, then she get’s all excited and says “new-see,” then she goes on to tell us what she does in nursery: “nacks,” “bubboos” (bubbles), “stars,” (they have little stars on a stick that they hold while singing some of the songs). What a relief to us that she loves it so much. When I peek in on her during lesson time, she is almost always looking at the teacher and listening. She is usually more interested in the crayons than actually coloring her pictures, but she is getting better. As much as she loves it, she is generally pretty quiet and reserved, and just watches what everyone else is doing. It is such a relief to us that she does so well and we don’t have to worry about her in there.

I’m not pushing the potty training thing, but I feel like she is so close. She often tells me “pee pee,” or “potty, woo-wee” after she has done her business. I wish I could figure out how to get her to tell me BEFORE she goes. I try to sit her on her potty several times a day, and she thinks it’s great, but she never does anything in it. All she’s learned is that when I put her on the potty she is supposed to say “Pssss” and to grunt. Two and a half more months until little brother’s arrival….think we can get any closer before then? I’m not sure, but hopefully it won’t be too long afterward.

That’s the latest in Shayla-land.

Party time!

2011-08-30T21:45:00.001-07:00

Well, I have never had any intention of hosting a “party” because I don’t want people to come and feel like they are obligated to buy something they don’t really want. My sister-in-law hosted a Shelf-Reliance party that I went to a few months ago, and now here I am…hosting a party of my own.

I had heard of Shelf-Reliance before, and knew that they made the food rotation systems. What I didn’t realize is that they have their own line of food storage and emergency preparedness items. At the party, she had a bunch of food prepared using the products such as pizza, fried rice, cornbread, pancakes with strawberries and whipped cream, and coconut macaroons. It was surprising tasty for food storage. It really is amazing that you can make almost anything with food storage products.

Here is why we decided to start going with Shelf-Reliance for food storage products:

Problem: The biggest thing that has kept me from getting serious about food storage in the past, was that I don’t want to spend a ton of money on stuff that will sit around forever, and that I won’t know how to use if we ever have to rely on our food storage. We recently pulled out some flour that we had purchased through the cannery about 4 years earlier. It tasted awful. I really tried hard to make it work in our food, but we finally threw it all out because we didn’t want to eat anything that had been made with it. The oatmeal was the same way. I want to continually use my food storage so that it gets rotated and we don’t find out that it’s bad when we have a need to rely on it.

Solution:They have a wide range of products that you can use in your everyday cooking. This includes freeze dried fruits and veggies, butter powder, instant milk (that is supposed to be way better than powdered milk…haven’t ordered it yet), shortening powder, canned entrees, etc.

Problem: I had no idea where to start, or how much we really needed. Some websites have charts that give you a general idea of what you should have on hand, but they tend to be limited to grains and beans. They don’t generally include any sorts of recommendations for fruits/vegetables or other necessary products to cook with.

Solution: they have a food planner that tells you how much and what you should have on hand. You can go on their website and enter in your information: how many family members you have, ages, and gender (to determine caloric needs), what types of food you want to include, and then it will generate a plan for your family, for whatever length of time you want. You can easily add or delete things from this list. It gives you a good starting place in creating your plan.

Problem: setting aside the money to actually start buying the food storage.

Solution: This is ultimately why we are ordering through Shelf-Reliance. They have a program called the “Q” (kind of like Netflix). You create your food storage plan, and you create a monthly budget. They will automatically pick products that fit within your budget and ship them to you every month. I love it because it makes us do it! You can have them choose the products automatically, or what I do is go in every month and pick out items that I want to try (and that are on sale that month). You will never go over budget, unless you tell it to. If you ever have something come up where you don’t have the money, you can put it on hold for a time.

We’ve only been doing it for a few months so far, but we’ve been happy with the service and quality of the foods that we have tried. The consultant that did the party I attended has a website: thrivewithhemsath.blogspot.com. She has a lot of really good information about how it all works. She also has a lot of recipes using the products in her everyday cooking. She is upfront and honest with how well a particular recipe turned out, how she adjusted things, and what she would do differently.

So that’s my schpill. We’re hosting the party because this was new to us, and thought we would share it with other people. I’m sure we’re not the only ones that need to put more priority on building our food storage. Anyone can order through the party, whether you can attend or not. Prices are obviously discounted if you purchase through the party, or if you sign up for the Q. I will post a link when we have one to order through the party.

You can also order the rotation systems through the party as well. We ordered the large system for the 10# cans (it was almost 50% off at the time), and the smaller ones for the pantry (also on sale).I will be honest and say that they are a less efficient use of space than just stacking the cans up, especially when you are not completely stocked up, and aren’t using them to the full capacity. I generally keep my pantry pretty organized, but this makes it a lot easier. I don’t have to pull all the cans out to put the new ones in the back every time I buy groceries. They’re also not tipping over on me all the time.

I will probably still order grains and such through the cannery, and order more of the fruits, vegetables, freeze dried meats and other things that I can’t get through the cannery through Shelf-Reliance.

Anyway, sorry to make this so long. We are doing our party on September 17th, so if you think you are interested in anything, or have any questions, let us know.

Random thoughts

2011-08-21T16:15:00.001-07:00

Shayla loves to do puzzles, and she is actually quite good at them. She always knows where the pieces go, but can’t always seem to get them in exactly right. She loves to have us help her.
Shayla has a puzzle with a bunch of fish that are different colors. This has become her new favorite puzzle. I have determined that her favorite color is blue, though, because when we do the puzzle, she will never let you put the blue piece in. She has to keep it in her hand. She has a puzzle that she likes to do at my parent’s house, and the piece that she always hangs on to is blue as well.
Today Shayla was pointing to a bow on her clothes. I told her it was a bow. She pointed to her elbow and says “elbow!.” Not exactly the bow that I was talking about. :)
Shayla started nursery a few weeks ago. Mommy and Daddy love it, as we can now actually listen during a couple hours of church. Shayla really seems to enjoy it too. She is a little apprehensive and kind stands off to the side at the beginning, but she doesn’t cry when we leave. I peeked in on her this Sunday during lesson time and she was sitting at the table with her arms folded, and watching the teacher intently.
Another new word Shayla has learned from her Baby Signing Time videos is “opposite.” She says “oppits.” In the video t hey show two arrows pointing in opposite directions. There are some arrows on her high chair that look the same, and she always points to it and says “oppits." It’s such a random word, but so cute the way she says it.
Shayla calls buttons “butt.” :)
I bought Shayla a potty awhile back. She loves to sit on it, although it’s usually with clothes on. She will often tell us “woo-wee!” after she messes her pants, but she is not figuring it out beforehand. The other day I set her on her potty before she got into the bath. She only sat for a second and got up. Between getting up from the potty, and walking to the bathtub, she peed on the floor. We’ve obviously got a ways to go still. (This was taken on David’s phone, so the quality is less than perfect.)
Shayla now answers “No” to any question you ask her. If she really doesn’t want it, then it’s said angrily. “No!” If it is a yes, or a questionable no, then the answer is always “No-oo,” said in a very sweet voice.”
Shayla has started to say “OK.” It’s always said in a very happy voice. “Ka-ay!.”

Reading to her baby. She loves this “Mr Brown Can Moo” book, and does almost all of the sounds.

Playing at the park.

We were putting away laundry and Shayla kept bringing clothes to daddy to put on her. She had quite the large bum by the time we were done. :) It had to have been hot with all those layers.

Baby Boy!

2011-07-12T13:18:00.001-07:00

Even though I felt like it was a boy all along, it’s still a little surreal to finally know. What am I going to do with a boy? Am I ready for the destruction? Probably not. Everything appears to be okay. I guess there is a cyst in the cerebrospinal fluid, but they said it goes away 100% of the time. In rare instances it is indicative of Trisomy 18, but she said if that were the case, then there would be other problems she would have seen as well. We can do further tests if we want, but I’m not too concerned about it. I’ve heard other people mention that they were told this as well. I think all will be just fine.

I’m sad to pack away all the little girl clothes indefinitely. I’m really hoping there’s another little girl in the future. On the plus side, boys are not as exciting to buy for, so I won’t be as tempted, right?

When I look at the 4D face picture, I feel like he’s going to look a little different than Shayla, but we’ll see. We’re just excited to finally identify the baby as a “he” and not just an “it.”

Shayla was there at the ultrasound with us, and she enjoyed watching and saying “baby.” Pretty sure she wouldn’t have figured it out if we didn’t keep telling her, but it is fun to have her be excited too.

What a big girl!

2011-07-08T14:07:00.001-07:00

It’s been a little while since I’ve posted Shayla’s latest accomplishments. The last few months have been full of learning new things. Her language has exploded. We finally caved and bought Baby Signing Time and she loves it. That’s all she wants to do anymore. When she sees the TV, she makes the sign for “baby” and a made up sign that means “signing time.” If I tell her no, she throws a fit. She was already starting to speak more, and copy words that we said, but the BST has helped teach her even more new words. She is so proud of herself that she can sign them. Here are some of her new words (I add them as I remember them. Since I am so bad at keeping a journal, this is where it’s getting recorded):

cookie. This is her favorite and makes me laugh everytime because she says it in a Cookie Monster voice.
hat (with the sign)
grandpa (with the sign)
car (with the sign)
ball (she signs it but not right). She LOVES her ball, and loves to point out pictures of balls
owie (with the sign)
cracker (with the sign)
up
go
down
Elmo
Grover
She can sign banana but doesn’t really say it
She can sign cereal, but doesn’t really say it
Juice (with the sign)
Cheese. One of her all time favorite foods, next to cookies and crackers. We don’t know the sign for this yet.
Apple. No sign yet.
All done. She mostly just signs this one, but is starting to say it too.
She can sign please. Sometimes she’ll say it (but only if I ask her to of course!)
Thank you (with the sign)
happy
where are you (waa—ooo)
I don’t know (i no know)
what did you do? (do-oo?)
two, three (two, twee…hasn’t learned to say one yet)

There are a whole lot of other words that she’ll repeat once or twice after hearing us say it, but aren’t a regular part of her vocabulary yet.

She also knows a lot of animal sounds:

owl (hoo)
lion, tiger, bear, dinosaur (roar!)
cow (doo) She used to say it with an “m.'” Don’t know what happened.
dog (ruff, ruff)
cat (mnow)
monkey (my favorite because she scratches her underarms and says “ooh ah”)
rabbit (hop hop)

She has known most of her body parts for quite awhile now. She will also say some of them as well.

I think she is in for a bit of a shock with a new baby coming. She loves babies, and I think she will love it, but she will also have a hard time not always being the center of attention. When we ask her where the baby is, she lifts up my shirt, pats my tummy and kisses it. Hopefully that’s a good sign.

Now on to the pictures…

This is the first time I put her hair in a ponytail. As you can see, it was impossible to get a decent photo. (5-26-11)

Shayla has also decided she likes to “color” and began this new endeavor by tattooing herself. I hope this doesn’t become a habit. (4-17-11)

She loves to put things around her neck. Somehow she managed to tie this shoelace in a knot and get completely tangled up in it. (4-7-11)

Don’t you just want to smother that little face with kisses??? (Only because she’s sleeping right now and not screaming and throwing a tantrum).

Ready to go swimming for the first time this year. Unfortunately the swimsuit was a little small, but we made do. :) (4-23-11)

She found daddy’s scripture marker (5-23-11)

We went camping for the 4th of July weekend, and of course Shayla loved playing outside and getting dirty. I’ll try to post photos in the next couple of days.

Vay-Cay: The final chapter

2011-06-12T17:20:00.001-07:00

We had hoped to get out early Friday morning and head down to Yosemite. Like always, we left about an hour later than planned, but got on the road at 8:30. We had a 3-4 hour drive ahead of us. We had a very pretty drive through the mountain pass as we left Tahoe. I was anxious to keep going, but David kept wanting to stop and get pictures because “we will never be back here again.” I think those words cursed us.

We faithfully followed our GPS. As we came near to one of the turnoffs, there was a “Road C'losed” sign. Awesome. In doing our research, we knew one of the roads out of Tahoe was closed, and also the main road through Yosemite was closed, so we made sure to avoid them. This one came by a bit of a surprise. We hit the “alternate route” and kept going. No big deal. Well, not too far into that “alternate route,” we came across another road closure. Every road that we needed to take to cross back through the mountains was closed for the winter (even though it was the middle of May). We were about an hour and a half into our drive at this point. We decided to turn around and go back through one of the small towns and buy a map. GPS wasn’t helping us anymore. From what it was looking like to us, we were going to have to almost COMPLETELY retrace our steps, and go around a completely different way. There weren’t many places to stop and ask directions (basically nowhere). We finally saw DPS on the side of the road and pulled over to ask them. They confirmed our suspicions. Ugh. So, about two hours into the trip, we headed back to where we started. Back through the windy mountain pass that David said we would never see again. Ha.

So, what was supposed to be a 3-4 hour drive, ended up being about 8. We checked into our hotel, and decided to make a short trip to Yosemite before it got dark. We headed to the Tuolumne Groves. It was supposed to be a grove of sequoia trees.

Someone had built this snowman near the beginning of the trail. There was a lot of snow there still.

This was the trail. Muddy and wet. Who knew we needed to bring snow boots?

Sequoias

This walkway through the tree was cut out way back when (1895). They don’t tell you the top of the tree was destroyed. Hmm…as I’m looking at the postcard of it, it’s not missing the top half. Maybe this happened recently, although it really didn’t look recent.

We could have kept going further along the trail, but it was really just more of the same. Kinda disappointing if you’ve ever been to Sequoia Nat’l Park, and really the sequoias are scattered all throughout Yosemite.

The next morning we headed out to Yosemite Valley, which is the most widely known area of the park. We had to stop and get a picture by the sign on our way in.

The first view area we stopped at gave us a view of Half Dome (the pointy rock at the very back), and El Capitan, which is the flat rock just to the left of it.

Shayla was more interested in all the “ruff, ruff’s” (dogs) walking around.

A view of the valley. I’m not sure what waterfall that is, but it may be Bridal Veil Falls, because that’s the first one we came to.

We got started at a decent time that morning, and Bridal Veil Falls was our second stop. Already there was a line of cars waiting to get in to the parking lot. This was the weekend before Memorial Day. The place just got more crowded as the day went on. I can’t imagine what it would be like in the middle of the summer.

As we hiked up the trail and got closer to the falls, it began to get very wet from the mist coming off the falls. Shayla wasn’t so sure about that.

Yosemite is gorgeous.

This is a closer view of El Capitan. Supposedly there were people climbing, but we sure couldn’t see them.

Lots of deer that didn’t seem to care about all the people around.

That’s Half Dome behind us.

A closer view of Half Dome.

Next up, we took the trail to Lower Yosemite Falls. Didn’t get quite as wet on this one.

This is a view of both Upper and Lower Yosemite Falls. They’re really actually the same waterfall.

Pretty sure this was the most exciting part of the day for Shayla. Running around, climbing, picking up/throwing sticks.

That afternoon, we decided to do the hike to Vernal Falls. We couldn’t get there by car, so we had to take the park buses. Earlier in the day, we had parked our car by the main store (and got a really good spot). Shayla took a short nap, we ate lunch, and then went to Lower Yosemite Falls. We were originally going to go back to the car to get some snacks and water, but we had walked pretty far at that point, and decided to just head out to the Falls.

After the bus ride jam-packed with people (again, I have no idea how you would do this in the summer), we headed out on the hike. We decided to buy some water, since we had left everything in the car. I was getting hungry, but we only had enough cash for water.

When they (the brochure) say the hike is a little steep, they aren’t kidding. It was only supposed to be a quarter mile to the base of the waterfall, but it just kept going and going. We passed a couple waterfalls on the way and thought that maybe we had missed it. I was STARVING at this point. Like pregnant woman starving. I felt like I hadn’t eaten in days. Had we actually brought our food along, I would have been just fine on the hike, but I knew we still had a ways before we got back to the car. We finally asked someone coming back, and she said it was just around the corner. Okay, I can do that.

A view along the way.

There it is. Vernal Falls way back there.

Well, the sign said it was only 0.3 miles to the top. Everyone said we should do it. I wanted to, but I was SO HUNGRY. Not feeling well hungry. David convinced me, so on we went. Up, up we went. We got really wet on this one. Soaked through your clothes wet. Basically the whole 0.3 miles (which felt more like a whole mile), was just stair steps carved out of the rock. We survived.

At the top.

Looking down from the top of Vernal Falls.

And that was pretty much it. We had a twelve hour drive home the next day. Shayla actually took two naps, totaling almost 5 hours. That never happens, so it’s a good thing we got her nice and tired. It made for a much more relaxing trip for mommy and daddy.

Vacation is always nice, but so is getting back home and sleeping in your own bed.

Vay-Cay part II

2011-06-05T15:17:00.001-07:00

Next, we spent some time driving around Lake Tahoe and Emerald Bay.

These next couple pictures were taken on our way back from Donner Pass.

These were taken as we drove to Emerald Bay.

These are of the lookout over Emerald Bay. There is a tiny little island in the middle (tiny), and is apparently the only island in the whole lake.

The weather was a little better than it had been the last couple of days, so we decided to go on a little hike to Eagle Falls. The trail was quite wet with slushy snow, and it was impossible to avoid getting the feet wet.

Pictures don’t really do it justice. It looked much prettier in real life. Not huge waterfalls, but it did look a little bit bigger in person.

As you can see, I am not meant to be a photographer.

Shayla loves hiking on daddy’s back.

Some more views…

It is called Eagle Falls because supposedly there are eagles in the area, and you are supposed to be able to see eagle’s nests there this time of year. We didn’t see any. We did see several bluejays though.

We would to have liked to continue along the trail further, but it was covered in snow, and therefore uncharted territory to us. David tried to go for it, but since we had no idea where we were going, we decided it probably wasn’t very smart and turned back.

We ended up climbing on top of a rock as far up as we could go, and got a few more pictures.

This is one of those pictures where you hold the camera up and hope you get yourself in it. Unfortunately for Shayla, she didn’t make the cut.

But since she’s cute, we had to take one just of her.

The next day was the first full day of sunshine, so we took the boat cruise of Emerald Bay.

It was cold! Trying to stay bundled up.

Coming in to the bay. It is called Emerald Bay because the water is shallow enough that the way the sun reflects it makes the water look green.

Some lady in the 1920’s built this castle Vikingsholm to resemble a Norwegian castle. It is open to tourists part of the year, but it looks like they are doing some remodeling right now.

She also built a little tea house on the little island (Fannette island), for the servants to go have tea. I can’t remember what they said happened to it. I think was vandalized and only the walls remain. You can see it in the first picture below. It is on the right of the island just to the right of the cables.

After that, which was a little disappointing, we decided to head inside where it was warmer. Little did we know the madness that was about to ensue. It all started with this woman who stopped a couple of times to say how cute Shayla was. Then she wanted to hold her. Then she wanted to get a picture with her.

Soon after, a bunch of Indian teenage girls sitting across from us started smiling and waving at her. Pretty soon they came over and started touching her and taking pictures of her. Next thing we knew, the whole group of Indians was surrounding our table, taking pictures and hugging her, and trying their sunglasses on her. It was a little overwhelming, and they were very nice, but it was little odd, and honestly made me a little uncomfortable. It went on for about 20 minutes. Shayla never cried, but she never really smiled at them either. She kinda just sat there and endured it.

David got a little video of the escapade just as they were finishing up.

Alright. That’s enough for now. Part III…Yosemite.

Family Vay-Cay

2011-05-29T23:01:00.001-07:00

Well, I don’t think I’ll get our whole vacation synopsis posted all at once, but we’ll see how far I can get tonight.

We left on a Saturday morning, and drove 5-ish hours to David’s sister’s (Rob and Jennifer) house in southern CA. His parents and sister Allison also came by, and we had a nice BBQ, and watched all the kiddos play. Shayla loved having cousins to play with, and she loved swinging on the swingset and sliding down the slide. I was hoping to postpone that purchase a couple more years, but we may need to get one sooner than planned. Lydia gave all the adults a hula hoop lesson, and we got a lot of laughs from our failures, and from Grandpa’s attempts to hula hoop. (I’m lame and have no pictures of this. David did get one on his phone which is now dead from Shayla slobber).

It was just a short overnight stay (free bed and see family at the same time…can’t beat it!). We left early the next morning to head out to Lake Tahoe. It was about an 8 hour drive. We kept seeing signs on the side of the road that said chains were required, even though we didn’t see any sign of snow near us. We finally stopped somewhere and bought some “just in case.” As we started climbing up the mountain pass on the way into Tahoe, it did start snowing, but chains were not necessary. They were cheap, so we’ll keep them for any other “just in cases” in the future. There was some pretty scenery along the way. We saw Mt. Whitney, and stopped and ate our lunch outside at the visitor’s center there.

When we made our reservations a couple months previous, we checked the weather at this time of year to see how cold it got, and if it would be snowing at all. Average high was about 70 degrees. Perfect getaway from Phoenix. Well, as we did our last minute planning and checked the weather, we found out that it was supposed to snow almost the whole time we were going to be there. Awesome. (While it dropped down to the 70’s in Phoenix. It seems like all the good weather here happens when you go out of town).

We checked into our room, grabbed some groceries, and got ourselves unpacked and settled in. Not a bad view from our balcony, huh?

This is taken from the parking lot where we stayed, and is the gondola up to Heavenly ski resort. We were hoping to be able to do the ride up, but it doesn’t open until Memorial weekend. Boo.

Unfortunately our first full day up there ended up being a bit of a waste. We got talked into doing the 55-minute timeshare presentation for a $75 gift card. They swore to us it would only be 55 minutes. It was a least 3 hours. So not worth doing on your vacation, unless you get your whole stay for free. We did take Shayla outside to walk around the marina a little bit. It didn’t matter to her how cold it was. The kid just loves being outside and running around. Can’t you just see it in her face?

Playing in the sand. It didn’t bother her one bit that she had it in her shoes.

Another view of Lake Tahoe and the mountains. I think we only got about a day and a half where we actually had clear skies.

Family picture in front of the resort. It’s the back actually. Whatever.

Not sure what this was supposed to be, but we couldn’t pass up a picture with our name on it could we?

Another day we took a trip up to Donner Pass and the visitor’s center there. There is a really poorly made film (slideshow really), that is probably well over 30 years old, but it did it’s job and told the story. There are also some artifacts in the museum as well.

This is the memorial statue thingy. It is supposed to be 22 ft up to where the people are standing, which is how deep the snow got that year.

All bundled up. Poor kid. We live in AZ, and we do not own warm jackets for little kids that grow out of them in a couple of months. We tried to keep her as warm as we could, but the gloves, hat, and blanket never stayed on for very long.

This rock was the side of one of the cabins that they built for their stay. We were a little confused how they got to this if the snow was 22 ft. deep??

Donner Lake. We sat in front of this lake and ate our lunch in the car, pondering what it would have been like to have been here that winter starving and freezing. As you can see from the pictures, it was snowing and cold, and it was the middle of May. I can’t imagine what it would have been like for these people here in the middle of the winter, especially a winter that was one of the harshest ever.

Time for bed. To be continued…

11-11-11??

2011-05-29T22:01:00.001-07:00

Probably not. So, as most reading this have probably already heard, we are expecting another little Snow. My due date is December 3. Shayla was a week early, so I’m hoping maybe if I eat enough on Thanksgiving, we can get this little guy out at least a week early. What I’m really hoping for though is an 11-11-11 baby. 3 weeks early is probably pushing it, but I can still hope. Let’s be honest, though. The hospitals are going to be packed that day with scheduled c-sections and inductions and such. I would be much better off on another day.

I’m thinking it’s gonna be a boy this time around because this pregnancy is a lot different than my last. I am nowhere near as nauseous, and have not thrown up much at all. I still have a problem with the prenatal vitamins, but I can at least get them down. With Shayla, I threw up everytime. I threw up brushing my teeth. I threw up at the thought of eating a meal. With Shayla, I started feeling sick within a couple of days of finding out I was pregnant. With this one, it really didn’t start until about 8 weeks. My sickness is not so much nauseous, but just headaches and general feeling icky. I’m definitely tired though. That hasn’t changed. Between the ickiness and the tiredness, it can be hard to motivate myself to get much done. I will admit the house hasn’t been cleaned much in the last couple months. :) Even still, I’m a whole lot better off than I was with Shayla. I think it helps that I’m not working 10 hour days on my feet either. It’s nice to be able to lay down and take a nap with Shayla on days when I’m not feeling so great.

The other big difference is that with Shayla I didn’t break out the whole pregnancy, and for several months after she was born. Along with that, my hair stopped shedding during that time too. My bathroom floors were much cleaner. Not the case this time. Still breaking out. Still losing hair. I’m hoping maybe that will still stop? We’ll see. Those were the only benefits of pregnancy (except the baby at the end of course), and it would be a shame to lose those.

I’m seeing a different Dr., and will deliver at a different hospital this time since we’ve moved across town. We’re actually less than 10 minutes away from the hospital. It’s the same company as where Shayla was delivered, and I’ve heard good things about this particular hospital.

I had an appointment at 10 weeks, which is about the earliest they can hear the baby’s heartbeat. It is often too early depending on the baby’s position. We were lucky, and after a few minutes of searching, we were able to pick up the little one’s heartbeat. It always makes me feel better, knowing that the baby is still growing.

Photos

2011-05-01T16:45:00.001-07:00

These were supposed to be Shayla’s 12 month photos, but our “usual” photographer had just had a baby, and I had a hard time finding someone in a price range that we could afford. They ended up being 14 month photos instead.

Can I rant a bit? Why are so many photographers so unwilling to give digital copies of photos? It’s the digital age peeps. Get with the times. I get that it USED to be that that’s how the only way they made their money. I get that photographers spend a lot of time editing the photos. That’s fine. What we are paying photographers for now is for the time (and expertise of course). Charge the session fee accordingly. We take pictures to preserve memories, and in an era where it’s so easy to preserve digitally, I don’t get why photographers won’t let you do that. How could I share these photos with family and friends here, or on Facebook, if they don’t let me have the digital copies? One photographer that I looked at wanted you to buy $800 worth of prints before you got digital copies. I can’t afford that. Another made you pay $25 for every digital file you wanted. Can’t afford that either unless I only want to keep one or two photos. Another photographer wouldn’t give digital files because she felt like you couldn’t appreciate how wonderful her work was unless it was printed from a good lab and not Costco. I understand that more expensive labs are going to produce higher quality results, but if you do good work, it will still look good printed at Costco. And the affordability of Costco will allow me to print and display more of your work than if I were to pay $80 for every 8x10 I wanted.

That’s my rant. I just want digital copies of my pictures so I can actually preserve them for a lifetime, and be able to share them with others. Anyway, after some searching, we finally found someone who did just that. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the show…

I just love the look on her face in this photo.

This is one of my very favorites.

All Shayla wanted to do the whole time was to run around and play. It was very hard to get her to stay still long enough to get photos. Poor girl doesn’t know what it’s like to play in grass. You can see by the look on her face how much fun she was having.

She was also obsessed with the dirt, but what kid isn’t?

Another one of my faves.

What little girl doesn’t look adorable in a hat?"

That’s all folks.

Stuff

2011-04-17T17:34:00.001-07:00

Shayla went through a phase that lasted several weeks, (maybe even a couple of months), where she suddenly didn’t want to eat food that she had previously loved. Then she got 3 of her molars in, and things seem to be back to normal. I’m assuming that’s why she had been more of a pill after she turned 1 as well. Anyway, at almost every meal, she would give us this face:

This face means “Mom, this food is disgusting, and I can’t believe you would even think to try to feed this to me.”

She is back to eating much better now, and she seems to enjoy those foods again. When she is “done” eating, she starts to throw her food over the side of the tray. My kitchen floor doesn’t stay clean for longer than a few hours anymore. She knows she is not supposed to do this, so if we are watching, she will A) hold her hand over the edge of her tray and non-chalantly let the food fall out, or B) put the food on the edge of the tray and slowly push it off. I amazed at how “sneaky” they can be at such a young age.

I am really loving this age right now because she is so much more fun and interactive, but even more so because she can entertain herself. I can actually get stuff done with her around.

Now that she has been walking like a pro for close to a month, she is venturing away from us a lot more. She is not afraid to leave the room and go out on her own. Yesterday we couldn’t find her anywhere. We were calling her name and looking all over for her. We heard a little noise come from the bathroom where she had shut herself in. It was dark and she wasn’t even crying.

Here I was cutting and organizing coupons, and put all the expired ones on the ground for her. She sat and played in the pile for 20-30 minutes while I worked. Not complaining about the easy entertainment.

That’s about all here for now. We are almost done painting the family room, and we just have a few more pictures to put up in a couple of the other rooms, then I will be ready to show what we have done. (And we can take a break from the house for awhile…or start worrying about our weed infested backyard.)

Fun Run

2011-03-27T13:02:00.001-07:00

Last Saturday we participated in a 4 mile Fun Run for “Fix-a-Leak Week.” Since David works for a water company, they had a booth set up and encouraged employees to participate. So we got up bright and early and headed out to a recreation area in Peoria, which isn’t too far away from us.

Here we are with Wayne Drop (the mascot from David’s work).

We are ghetto and do not have a jogging stroller. (They are expensive, and I would much rather run without having to push a baby). I would like one at some point, but it’s just not a priority right now. I do run pushing the stroller sometimes, but not that often. This route also had more hills than I am used to. Add the 20+ pound baby, the 20+ pound stroller, trying to run a little faster because it’s a competition, more hills than I’m used to, and it equals one really worn out mommy after the race. I thought I was making pretty good time until I got to the finish line and saw my final time. Not so good as I used to be. It was a little bit of a bummer when they were giving out medals afterward, because if I had not had a birthday two months ago, I would have been in a different bracket, and would have a got a second place medal. In my “new” age bracket I was nowhere near placing. Hmm…you’d think as you get older, that it would get easier to medal, not harder.

You can tell this picture was taken AFTER the race. :) Shayla sporting her BYU gear for the game that night.

Here we are with the race mascot—the Toilet. That’s right folks.

We spent a few minutes playing at the park afterwards. Shayla loved it.

We had a fun morning. We always say we would like to get out and do more of these types of events (even though we never do). It keeps us more motivated to run (which for me means getting up early-yuck). Plus we want our children to learn to enjoy the outdoors and being active. You also come away with a bunch of free stuff like a chip clip, 3 reusable grocery bags, water leak testers, 2 water bottles, and water conservation tips. Good stuff. :)

Nothing like fresh powder

2011-03-13T17:37:00.001-07:00

It has been a couple of years since David and I went snowboarding, since we sorta had a brand new baby last year at this time. There was part of me that really wanted to go this year, and the other part of me that didn’t want to take a whole Saturday to driving up there, and waiting in line forever. But I knew that we would regret it if we didn’t go. We decided instead of dealing with the Saturday crowds (we often have to wait in line at the lifts for half an hour), that David would take a day off of work and we would go during the week. It was getting late in the season, and we were worried that the snow wouldn’t be so great.
We head up to Snowbowl (in Flagstaff), on Monday morning. The forecast said there was a 30% chance of afternoon snow showers. It was already snowing and foggy when we got there. People were turning in their passes and leaving, because they were cold and miserable. I was a little discouraged that our one chance to go this year was going to be miserable, but we were there, so we decided to make the most of it.
It ended up being an almost perfect day of snowboarding. The powder was perfect, and the snowfall all day kept it that way. There was NO ONE on the mountain. There was never a line at the lift. The only problem was the wind and visibility. At the top of the mountain, it felt like you were being blasted with sand in your face. The cold wasn’t all that bad either. All my years of doing nightboarding in UT in below freezing temps made this seem not so bad.
We had to drive pretty slowly getting out of there, considering we don’t have snow tires or chains, but we made it without incident.
It was so much fun to be back on the mountain. Good times.

Curls and other baby things

2011-03-13T17:09:00.001-07:00

As Shayla’s hair gets longer, her curls are starting to straighten out a bit. I had to get a shot of them now before they’re gone.

Hmm…that picture makes it look really greasy. I wash my kid’s hair. Promise.

She likes to “comb” her hair now. That and pull the rubber band out of her ponytails.

I finally bought Shayla her first baby doll. She loves it. She is constantly hugging and kissing her. The first day she got it, she dragged it with her everywhere she went. I love it because she loves it, and it keeps her happy.

Shayla also loves cell phones. She has made many unwanted phone calls.

She is also learning to hold the phone up to her ear and say “hello.”

She is also starting to learn the concept of putting things “in” instead of just taking out. She has a little shape sorter, and she has figured out how to put the circle in, take it out, put it in, take it out…She doesn’t quite have the coordination for the other shapes, but she is getting the hang of it.

Shayla is still not walking consistently. Her biggest problem is that she can’t figure out how to stand up without pulling up on something. Instead of pushing herself off the ground with her hands like most babies, she tries to stand up from a kneeling or sitting position one leg at a time. She has actually accomplished it once or twice, but most of the time she can’t do it and it really frustrates her. I have tried showing her how she’s supposed to do it, and she doesn’t get it. She is letting go of our hands a little more, and initiating walking on her own. She can definitely walk a lot further without falling as well. It will happen, but for a kid who’s been standing up for almost 6 months, she’s sure taking a long time.

Hugs, Kisses, and Trouble!

2011-02-27T12:35:00.001-08:00

When she’s not throwing fits, Shayla really is in such a cute stage right now. She has really taken to her stuffed animals lately. She has this little bunny that she especially loves because it is easy for her to carry it around with her. She picks up her toys and smothers them with lots of kisses and then gives them big hugs. She always knows right where she is supposed to kiss them (on the mouth of course)! Now we are starting to hug random things too…she hugs her sippy cup quite often, and this morning she was even hugging her banana (and getting it all over herself in the process).

Whenever she sees clothes on the floor, or I am putting away laundry, Shayla always picks up the clothing and puts in on her head and tries to put it on. The other day, it actually managed to get over her head, although she wasn’t so happy about me taking a picture (because she wanted the camera).

She tries to comb her hair whenever she gets a comb, and she puts the phone up to her ear (or calculator…pretty much anything with buttons).

And then there’s the trouble… (Don’t mind my paint testing).

Family photos

2011-02-20T12:25:00.001-08:00

If you haven’t noticed, I’ve actually been posting a little more regularly. We have early church now, so it seems as if we have a lot more time on Sundays. I have decided to make that my Sunday activity—to update the blog each week. I am getting close to getting caught up this week. We need to start doing something a little more exciting (and to actually take pictures of it).

Back in November, we took family photos with all of my family. We used the same photographer that took Shayla’s 6-month photos. We were able to get a few individual family photos, and photos of Shayla.

This is my absolute favorite, with Shayla and her cousin Charlotte. So cute!

When we actually get the family room painted (hopefully in the next couple of weeks), these are definitely going on the photo wall.

Here are some of my other favorites from the day…

So proud

2011-02-13T15:47:00.001-08:00

Shayla always surprises us with the the new things she is learning. I showed her how to put these rings on her arms, and she immediately picked it up. She is always so proud of herself at the things she can do.

A couple weeks ago, I just randomly asked her where her tummy was. She looked down, and patted it with both hands. I was a bit surprised that she knew it, but every time I asked her, she got it right. I’ve taught her this before, but I’ve really been trying to teach her “nose,” “eyes,” “mouth,” “ears.” Because I’ve really tried hard to get her to learn those, she won’t.

We’ve done very little baby sign with her. In fact, the only thing we’ve really done is the sign for “more.” We haven’t been very consistent either. Yet, we were eating breakfast the other morning and I asked her if she wanted some more (without signing). She put her hands together and did the sign. Totally shocked me. We really gotta start watching what we teach her. :)

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

2011-02-13T15:33:00.001-08:00

I found out about a deal on boneless-skinless chicken from a company out of WA. You order chicken in bulk (40 lb increments), and you can get it for a pretty good deal ($1.49/lb). They only deliver to each area twice a year, and this was their first time to AZ.

We ordered 60 lbs worth of chicken (my parents took half of our second box). It is a pretty efficient system they have. We ordered and paid for it online. We went to the pick-up location during the allotted time frame (4 hours). We drove through, they checked off how many we bought, and then loaded it into our car for us. It took all of two minutes.

Then we spent the rest of the afternoon/evening chopping up chicken. We canned 20 lbs of it, and bagged up the other 40 lbs. We did bags of whole chicken breasts (we actually cut it in half because they were massive). Then we had bags of sliced pieces for fajitas or salads. Then we also had several bags of chopped up chicken.

It took a lot of time, but definitely worth it for the price, and for being stocked up and prepared. It also makes food prep much easier when it comes time to make dinner.

Yeah, that’s 40 lbs worth of chicken there.

Canned chicken looks disgusting, but it’s great for throwing in soups, and it tastes far better than the store bought kind. I think we ended up with 17 pint sized jars for 20 lbs of chicken.

Hiking

2011-02-13T15:09:00.001-08:00

We enjoy hiking, but we don’t get out and hike too often. It seems like by the time you drive somewhere, hike, then drive home, the whole day is gone. Plus with a baby, it becomes more difficult. We recently bought a hiking pack, so we made an effort to get out and do it. Now that we live on the opposite end of town, we decided to try out a new area out by us—the White Tank Mountains. It was a nice area, with picnic tables and campsites as well. It was a beautiful winter morning, and we enjoyed getting out together.

Shayla especially loved riding in her pack. She just giggled and giggled at first.

Eventually she wore out and fell asleep. Poor thing. :)

Shayla taking steps

2011-02-09T19:48:00.000-08:00

First Christmas

2011-02-06T13:28:00.001-08:00

We spent Christmas this year in LA with David’s parents and some of his family. It was my first Christmas away from home (can you believe it?), but we had a nice time and ate lots of yummy food. David’s parents were kind enough to watch Shayla for us so we could attend a session at the Newport Beach temple. We forgot to bring our camera with us, so we did not get a picture of the temple, but it was beautiful inside and out.

Shayla enjoyed spending time with the Ford cousins, and we enjoyed seeing them for a little bit.

It’s kinda hard to get 5 kids to all look at the camera and be happy at the same time…

Shayla really loved having her cousin Hannah around. She always gets so excited to be around other babies. I’m not sure Hannah enjoyed it nearly as much, as Shayla took away all her toys and kept climbing on her and poking her eyes.

The cutest was the way they would talk to each other while they were in their high chairs. They just chatted away as if they completely understood each other.

On Christmas Eve, all the children acted out the Nativity for us, and Shayla was an angel…not literally, only in dress. :) Don’t make fun of the costume. We only a few minutes to put together.

Christmas morning, we lined up on the stairs before going to open our gifts.

Shayla struggled with the gift opening. She kept wanting to play with Hannah’s toys instead of opening up her own. Once she started playing with her own toy, she’d get upset if we took it away to get her to open another gift. Toy overload.

This walker was by far her favorite gift. It is so cute to watch her fly across the room with this thing. It also lights up and plays songs, which is cute to watch her dance to.

Shayla got books, books, and more books for Christmas. Shayla loves reading books, and I was getting tired of reading all her other books, so this was a good thing.

The day after Christmas, we attended the Christmas lights at the LA Temple and walked through the remodeled Visitor’s Center.

The day we left to come home, we all drove down to San Diego and visited the Mormon Battalion Visitor’s Center. It has been completely remodeled since I had been there last. It was quite the show with Harry Potter-like talking picture frames.

Panning for gold.

They even take these nice pictures for you. Not only do they give you a copy to take home, but they also email you a copy as well. Pretty fancy if you ask me.

Then we ate a nice lunch at a Mexican restaurant and headed home. It was a nice vacation for us, and good to spend time with family we don’t get to see very often.

Forgotten Post

2011-02-06T12:26:00.001-08:00

Sometimes I post things on Facebook that never get to the blog, and vice versa. Well, as I was going through old photos, I realized I never posted our Halloween pics.

Shayla’s little ponytail on the top of her head has always reminded me of Pebbles Flintstone, so I had it easy coming up with an outfit for her. And as it would have it, it worked out nicely for us to be Fred and Wilma.

So, meet the Flintstones.

For how easy the costumes were, they took a lot more time to put together than I thought. I could not find a green shirt (or onesie) that would fit Shayla that didn’t have print on it. I even looked in the boys section. I ended up buying the smallest youth t-shirt and cutting it down and sewing it back together. I also cut out and sewed on all of the spots, which made good use of my new sewing machine. I also sewed the little bone in her hair that you can’t really see anyway.

My costume was the easiest, since I already had the white dress. I just bought some styrofoam balls and threaded them into a necklace.

For David’s, I just bought an orange plastic tablecloth and stapled the spots to it. For his tie, I bought a cheap blue t-shirt and cut it up. It was a challenge getting David to dress up. Not sure it will happen again.

We attended a ward Halloween party on Saturday, but left before the trunk-or-treating because a certain little girl had had enough. On Sunday, we skipped the trick or treating due to eating dinner too late, and a little girl that needed to go to bed. It’s a good thing she didn’t care this year.

For FHE earlier that week, we carved our pumpkin. There were so many possibilities with this one, but we decided to keep it appropriate…

Don’t mind the little girl with no clothes on. She had been eating strawberries earlier, and I didn’t want to deal with stains. We used a template I found online. It ended up not turning out very good, and it was hard to tell what it was actually supposed to be (a ghost in a window).

Shayla’s 1st birthday

2011-01-24T13:51:00.001-08:00

Yesterday was Shayla’s first birthday. Everyone always says how fast it goes, but it’s really true. It went by SO fast.

I bought this little top on clearance about a month ago. I had the little pink skirt already and thought it would be the perfect little birthday outfit. She wore it to our 8 AM church, and after the first hour had leaked poop out onto her skirt and the onesie. Then to make it even better, she spit up all over me as I was grabbing the keys from David to take her home and change her. I had to hurry because I had to be back to teach YW’s. I got back just in time. Phew! That got me a little flustered. What a great start to the day! (I did wash it before the evening btw).

After church we fed her lunch and put her down for a nap. Lucky for us, she took a LONG nap, and slept until my family got here for dinner and birthday celebration.

When I bought this candle a couple weeks ago, Shayla grabbed it out of the cart and took a nice chunk out of it. Not the best picture, but you can see the teeth marks. Yum. :)

Why is everyone staring at me?

What am I supposed to do with this?

She ate the WHOLE thing!

Shayla still isn’t walking yet. She is standing on her own for longer, and we’ve even got her to take a couple steps on her own after we let go of her hand. She’s a little bit chicken I think. Crawling is easier, and she gets too distracted with other things when we practice.

She has finally figured out how to go get back down the stairs after she has climbed up, so I don’t worry about her there anymore. I’m still leaving the gate up though.

She knows that she gets in trouble if she throws food or her sippy cup on the floor when we’re eating. So she holds her cup over the edge, and shakes her head no. Sometimes that actually stops her, but most of the time it still goes over.

Her first real word was “uh oh.” She started saying mama first, but that only lasted a few weeks, and now she refuses to say it, so I’m not counting it. She also says “bottle,”, “daddy,” “bath,” and the best one is “Baxter.” Baxter is my parent’s dog, and she has a love/hate relationship with him. She loves to see him, but she doesn’t like him to get too close or lick her. Now if she approaches him first, then she is just fine. We really didn’t think that’s what she was actually saying at first (it sounds just like bottle and a few other words), but whenever she sees him, she says it consistently.

Shayla really is a good-natured little girl. She is generally very smiley, and can grin from ear to ear. She loves to read her books, and do anything that mom and dad are doing. We are so happy to have her in our family.

Warning: Lots of pictures ahead!!

2010-12-08T15:25:00.001-08:00

With all of the moving and trying to get settled in the new house, I’ve been really bad at keeping up on here. I’ve managed to post a few of the goings-on, but I haven’t really posted a whole lot of Shayla pictures. So here goes…

9-11-10 I just think this picture is so sweet. Uncle Taylor wanted a picture with Shayla, and she leaned in to give him a kiss right at that moment. I love my slobbery, wet baby kisses!

9-19-2010

9-27-2010

At 7 months, Shayla started getting up on her hands knees and rocking back and forth, we thought it would be any day that she would start crawling. It took her another month to be able to give up the army crawl. She would crawl on her hands and knees a couple steps, then drop down to her belly. I’m not sure what finally clicked in that little brain where she realized that crawling was a much more efficient way to get around, but one day she just gave up the army crawl and has been unstoppable since! Within a day or two of giving up the army crawl, she started pulling herself up and standing. It took her a few days to figure out how to get down from the standing position, but now we’re moving pretty good. Still not any sign of her walking though yet.

10-5-2010

This picture isn’t very good, but once she learned to stand up in her crib, she would spend a lot of time playing with her mobile, and less time sleeping. We’ve moved the crib to the lowest setting now, so she can’t reach.

Who wouldn’t love to be greeted by this after a nap?

10-6-2010 Standing so proudly

10-9-2010 First time in a big kid swing-she loved it!

10-15-2010

I realized that I hadn’t taken any bathtime pictures since we started bathing her in the big tub. Up until 2 weeks ago, she loved bathtime, and she loved playing with her duckies. (She can even say ducky, although it sounds just like daddy, and doggy). When I would lay her down to rinse the shampoo out of her hair, she would start singing. I thought it was pretty darn precious. Now suddenly she has decided she hates bathtime. I’m not sure what happened, but she screams bloody murder and stands up trying to get out the whole time. I’m really hoping this phase ends soon, because giving her a bath wipes me out.

10-17-2010 Shayla showing her cousin Charlotte how the jumperoo works.

How do you not laugh at this picture?

11-6-2010 First time brushing teeth. We like to eat the toothpaste more than anything.

11-10-2010 She got stuck on the chair and couldn’t figure out how to get through. I just laughed at her and let her figure it out on her own. It took her several frustrating minutes to figure out how to back out.

11-13-2010 We had a “reunion” picnic with some of the girls I grew up with. Shayla loved having another baby to play with. L to R: Natalie Hatch, Me & Shayla, Hollie Garrity and baby Natalie

11-13-2010

Modeling her pretty new dress

11-16-2010 I was making pie crust, and while I wasn’t looking, she grabbed the bowl and started eating the dough. Naughty girl! She thought it was “num, num,” although I would beg to differ.

11-18-2010

As soon as you start changing Shayla’s diaper, she rolls over and stands up on her changing table. It drives me nuts, but seeing this cute little bum hanging out of her clothes makes me giggle.

11-18-2010

The way our stairs are designed, we can’t put the gate on the bottom. It is up three stairs. Although Shayla has been capable of climbing the stairs for awhile, we are not in the living room much, and so it didn’t tempt her. Lately, she has been exploring more, and keeps climbing up. She isn’t smart enough to get down, so I have to keep a close eye on her.

11-25-2010

I’ve never thought much about Shayla’s “tongue tricks” because she does them all the time (and especially when she’s teething). This was on Thanksgiving, and everyone was so amazed at what she could do. She’s always twisting that little tongue around every which way.

11-25-2010

I just had to get a picture of the way she was sitting there reading her book. Shayla loves books, and she’ll open them up and start chattering. She loves turning the pages, and unfortunately she still loves putting them in her mouth.

11-28-2010 First time eating spaghetti

12-1-2010

I made Babylegs for Shayla, and I had to try them on her right away even though they didn’t match the rest of her outfit. She got mad because I was trying to make her sit still for a picture.

That’s a little better. :)

12-3-2010

Heehee, avocado booger.

We were at a wedding for David’s co-worker last month, and she got passed around the whole time. Everybody loves Shayla, and she’s quite good going to complete strangers. One of the ladies there mentioned to me: “You know all babies aren’t this good, right?” Yeah, I know. I’m very lucky to have such an easy baby (as easy as they come anyways). She’s a very sweet girl, and generally happy all the time. Whenever we are at the store, we always attract the attention of everyone around us. They always compliment her on her pretty blue eyes, “all that hair,” and the curls in the back. Even the random strangers always mention what a happy baby she is. I’m enjoying it while I can. She is growing up way too fast, and I’m sure all of our babies are not going to be this easy.

Shayla’s 6-month pics

2010-11-16T14:20:00.001-08:00

Yeah, she’ll be 10 months in just over a week. I posted these on Facebook, and kinda forgot to put them on the blog. I have too many I like, but I’ll try to not post all of them.

Universal Studios

2010-11-15T16:09:00.001-08:00

I have some serious catching up to do. Back in the beginning of August, we went to CA for David’s high school reunion (I won’t mention which one). David’s sister Cherilyn and her family were visiting as well, so we tagged along with them and Allison to Universal Studios.

This was Shayla’s first time riding in the stroller like a big girl.

The day started off with a long wait in line to go on the Studio Tour. It was a good thing we did it first, because the line was much longer when we were done. The tour was fun…getting to see where they film a lot of movies and how they do some of the special effects.

The Delorian (sp?) from Back to the Future

I don’t remember what movie this was from, but it was a pretty real looking plane crash scene

Next up, we went on a couple of rides, which weren’t really all that great when you’re comparing them to Magic Mountain or Disneyland. The rest of the day we spent fighting crowds and waiting in line for the shows which weren’t all that great. Let me tell you, I haven’t seen that many people and fought that bad of crowds in a long time. No fun when you’re pushing a stroller either.

Although the Studio Tour was fun, it certainly isn’t worth the money you pay to get in there. The rest of Universal Studios was pretty lame and we won’t go back.

At the “Dodgers game”

With a guy from The Mummy

Overall, we enjoyed a quick weekend away, seeing family, and David enjoyed getting to visit with old friends.

Yes, she is my daughter…

2010-10-22T22:55:00.001-07:00

I have no idea where Shayla learned to make this sound, but it cracked me up every time she did it. Unfortunately/fortunately, she only did it for a couple of days. A couple weeks later, we got a short repeat, so I had to capture it on video. What a nut!

Balloon Fiesta

2010-10-22T22:49:00.001-07:00

We’ve been talking about heading to Albuquerque for the balloon fiesta (I always thought it was a festival…it’s not, it’s a FIESTA). Anyway, we finally decided to make it happen this year. David was supposed to take a half day Thursday, we would drive up that night and have all day Friday and Saturday to go to the fiesta, and visit with family and friends. It ended up that David had to work all day at the last minute, so we didn’t leave until bright and early Friday morning.

Clark (David’s brother) & Liz were so gracious to let us crash with their family for a couple of days. We all went to the Glowdeo Friday evening, where they light up the balloons in unison. We knew traffic would be bad getting in, but it was much worse than we expected. By the time we got there, many of the balloons had run out of gas and they were packing up. There were SO many people everywhere. It was hard to keep track of each other, especially when pushing a stroller because you are constantly getting cut off and you can’t squeeze in between people. The fireworks show at the end of the night was best. Shayla was mesmerized.

We woke up SUPER early the next morning (as if we weren’t already tired from waking up early the day before). We did our best to keep Shayla asleep as long as possible. We waited in a line of cars to get into the parking lot, and then we had to wait in a long line to get our tickets.

The funny part was that even though there were people in line behind us, once we finally got our tickets, the line was gone. Nobody left. Hmm…

Just before sunrise. Balloons getting ready.

Our little sleepyhead waking up

The balloons don’t really go up all at once, nor do they really go in waves. They kind of just go up whenever they are ready. They’re all just laid out on the ground and you just walk around and watch them all.

There were a lot of fun shapes. David’s favorite was Darth Vader.

Spongebob and Haunted House

The crowd control police on horses were there, so we took Shayla up for a little one-on-one with some horses. She didn’t really care too much. She was much more interested in watching everything else go on around her.

It was a short trip, but nice to get away, see family, and do something that has been on our bucket list.

We were so tired, we were asleep by 9:30 when we got home Sunday night. At 2:30 in the morning we were awakened by police helicopters saying something about “We will find you.” This went on for probably about an hour. It finally woke Shayla up about half an hour into it. She fell asleep in bed with us. At 4 or so, I put her back in bed, and she immediately woke up and screamed for 30-45 minutes. I gave up and brought her back in bed with us where she cuddled up to me and whimpered for the next several minutes before falling back asleep. She has never woken up in the middle of the night, nor has she ever slept in bed with us. That meant that I didn’t sleep very well, fearing we would roll over onto her or something. It was about the worst night of sleep ever.

Goodbye Tempe, it’s been nice…

2010-10-05T17:27:00.001-07:00

I hope someone finds you “paradise.”

All I can think of is Michael Scott singing to Toby. Any other Office fans know what I’m talking about?

After all my ranting and raving last post, we got the call the very next day (Friday) from the mortgage company saying that they had the paperwork back. We went and signed papers that same day, and had the keys a couple days later (Tues 8-31).

It was about the worst possible week to get the keys. I was supposed to work 20 hours that week for the first time in months, and Saturday was Tanner’s wedding. We took several carloads of stuff over during the week, including borrowing my dad’s truck and taking a bunch of stuff over as well. Friday night we spent the whole evening setting up for Tanner’s reception, and then it was wedding all day Saturday. After church on Sunday, we spent the whole rest of the day (until 2 AM) packing up. Luckily Monday was Labor Day, so with the help of the ward EQ, a borrowed truck and trailer, my dad’s truck, suburban and two trailers, and Matt’s truck, we got it all over in one load. Several of the men were kind enough to trek over to the new house and help us unload. We were sure grateful for the help! David and I still had to make a couple trips for the last little bit of junk.

We spent a few evenings, and all day one Saturday over there cleaning up. Now it’s FINALLY up on the market. We just pray it sells quickly.

Here is what we will miss most about Tempe… (in no particular order)

Our friends in the Tempe 10th Ward
Location, Location, Location. Right by all the freeways, and everything you could need within minutes.
Kiwanis Park. This was right around the corner from our house, about a 3 minute walk. When Shayla was newborn, I would put her in her stroller and take her for walks around the lake. We always said we were going to do the paddle boats, and we never did. There were always activities to do down there. I would often go running down there as well, cuz it just felt safer than the canal.
Our pool. We live in AZ. No pool is more convenient than the one in your own backyard. We’d like to think we will put one in this house someday, but we’ll have more cars to buy and kids to put through college before that ever happens.
Proximity to family. Luckily the drive to my parent’s home from the new house really isn’t that bad, but 15 minutes was better than 35-40.
I miss my big shower. That’s my biggest complaint about this house--not that our other shower in the old house was resort-style or anything. I do love that the new house as a Roman tub, but because of that, the shower in the Master Bath is dinky, and there’s nowhere to put anything. I have no idea how I’ll be able to shave my legs with a big pregnant belly. I guess that will have to be my excuse to take more baths.Not the best picture of the shower itself, but you can see that it’s just squished there in the corner. The toilet “closet” is quite large for just a toilet. I wish they would have made that smaller, scooted everything over and made the shower bigger.
Our big long driveway and carport. Although we much prefer having a garage to a carport, there were some advantages. It gave us a much longer driveway, and you could wash your car in the shade (and park it in the shade too). Right now our garage isn’t cleaned up yet, so we can’t park our cars in there--that and I haven’t bought the garage door remotes.

I think that’s it. I love having more space. I love having counter space, and not having to pull everything out of the cupboards to get to my crockpot (or just about anything else for that matter). I love that Shayla has room to crawl around (oh and we’re CLIMBING now)…time to get the stair gates.

So far the new ward seems friendly, and our church building is actually closer than it was in Tempe. The grocery store (Fry’s) is closer too. Really everything is pretty close except for Target, but it’s a pretty easy drive.

I’m starting to paint, and we have a long way to go before we’re organized and have furniture in all the rooms. But we have plenty of space for visitors, and welcome anyone that wants to stay. Just remember it’s going to be a work in progress for awhile!

The never ending process of buying a home

2010-08-26T17:31:00.001-07:00

We started looking at homes in May. The first day we went out looking, I fell in love with this house…

I didn’t so much love the front, but the interior was CLEAN, barely lived in. It had a large office, a large loft, a balcony. Two of the bedrooms shared a jack-and-jill bathroom, but each had their own sink. All of the bedrooms had walk-in closets, including a LARGE one in the master. The price was right.

But what I especially loved was this massive kitchen… It makes my heart go pitter-patter. Not only was the kitchen massive, but it actually had a walk-in pantry. Unheard of!

There was one little problem, though…the A/C units were missing. The biggest problem with this is that you can’t close on a home until the units are in place, which means that you take the risk that you put them in and then you don’t get the home for some reason. We put in an offer and were trying to figure out how to make it work, when the bank decided to work with some buyers who had made an offer and backed out. I was kinda bummed.

This is another home that we got really excited about. David actually liked the layout of this home more than the first one. I still liked the first home better, but thought that overall this was a better option.

This home was just down the street from the other one, but right across the street from the neighborhood park. Overall it was smaller, but still plenty big. It didn’t have a kitchen nearly as large as the first home, and no pantry.

This is what sold us on this home…the size of the backyard. You can’t really tell from the picture. It had a large pebble-tec pool with a diving board and a hot tub. It also had a large grassy area, and then that black area in the corner used to have a swingset. It was a corner lot, and you just don’t see backyards this size.

It was a foreclosure. We looked at it the day it came up, put a bid which was more than the asking price, and we still didn’t get it. I guess we just weren’t meant to live in that neighborhood.

So then we found this home…

It was a few miles closer to David’s work, in a little bit better area, and better schools (with the elementary school down the street). About the same size as the first house. No kitchen can compare to the first house, but this one was a decent size, but still a small pantry. We planned on changing the countertops and eventually putting in ceramic tile in on our own, especially where the table would be. The carpet was brand new. The backyard was larger than some, but still pretty small. That was our biggest compromise with this home.

We made an offer, and the bank accepted. Put down the earnest money, did all of our inspections, was working on our loan, when I noticed a house down the street for sale for $2K less than what we were getting this house for.

Now the money certainly isn’t what made us change our mind, because that is about how much we lost by cancelling the other contract. They are both roughly the same layout and square footage, with a little bit of variance. What really got us was this…

The backyard was twice as big! And a sport court! Fun! So much room for fruit trees, and a garden, and a pool if we can ever afford to put one in. We were sold. So we made an offer and the seller accepted the same day.

There are a couple things that we liked better about the other house, it had a 3 car tandem garage. This one took the tandem garage and made the office bigger. We would have rather had the 3rd garage, but we can deal. This one cut the loft in half to make another bedroom. We would have rather had the bigger loft. The bathrooms only have single sinks instead of double like the other one did. (Thankfully the master still has double sinks).

Doesn’t that look odd? It was made to have double sinks. At some point, we will put them in. This one had a few upgrades that made it nicer…upgraded faucets, doorknobs, light fixtures, and such. It has a balcony, and vaulted ceilings in the master. All of the windows already have blinds. And it already has ceramic tile, so we won’t have to do that.

Our offer was accepted July 6th. We quickly got the ball rolling with our mortgage company, an inspection and such. We were good to go. And then….all the problems started. This home was purchased at a bank auction by an investor. Apparently when the owner has owned a home for less than 90 days it creates a bunch of problems getting a loan. We have to go through two mortgage companies for some reason. We are forced to go through GMAC as the second company. Two companies also requires 2 appraisals. Our company had their appraisal done July 19th. GMAC was supposed to have theirs done at the same time. It ended up that it didn’t get done until a week later. Then when it came back, it didn’t meet their quality control, so it had to be done again. It didn’t get done until the end of July. (This appraisal cost 3x what the other one did, and it caused a huge headache. Luckily we are supposed to be refunded since they screwed up so bad). At this point, they realized we are not going to make a closing date of Aug. 6th, so they extended it to the 18th.

Our mortgage company pretty much had our file underwritten already, they were just waiting on the appraisal. Oh, but the second appraisal came back $1500 lower than the asking price, so we had to renegotiate that as well. Anyway, our company quickly sends it back to GMAC to be underwritten. It was supposed to take 48 hours. A week and a half later (and a lot of phone calls from our mortgage company), they finally sent it back. Everything was checked off and approved except they needed the appraiser to sign off on something (their appraiser). So they had to contact the appraiser, have him sign it, and send it back. For some reason that took a few days. Sent it back to GMAC…they should be able to sign off on it quickly. They’ve been holding onto it for 2 weeks. Everything is signed off but the appraisal. We had to extend the closing date from the 18th to the 25th, and then from the 25th to the 31st. Nobody can get any answers from these people. As of Tuesday, the underwriter working on our file is “no longer with the company,” so they assigned it to someone else. Now this new underwriter is having a problem with the fact that the seller is selling it for more than 20% profit (it’s like 23%). Dude bought it cheap at an auction, and now he’s selling it at market value. What’s the problem?

The seller is saying he won’t extend beyond the end of this month, if we haven’t got it back from GMAC. I don’t blame him, but I don’t want to lose this house (and the earnest money, and inspection fees) because of the incompetence of this company. This has nothing to do with us. We’re all just sitting around waiting for these people to get it together. All they’ve needed to do for the last two weeks is sign off on the appraisal. Everything else was done! There is no reason we shouldn’t have been in this house a month ago. I am so incredibly frustrated, especially now that I’m worried this may fall through.

We started packing 4 weeks ago, because we thought we were going to be moving right away. This is what I have been living in for the last 3 weeks…

BEFORE

AFTER

Where’s a girl supposed to exercise in this? Where’s a baby supposed to play? How is anyone expected to stay sane living in this? I’m on the verge of a nervous breakdown…

Snow family reunion

2010-08-26T16:18:00.001-07:00

This was mine and Shayla’s first time leaving home since she was born. I was definitely in need of a vacation. I was a little worried how Shayla would do in the car, and also with sleeping somewhere other than her crib. For the most part, she did pretty well. The reunion was in Heber, UT and we drove up to Page the night before. We stopped in Flagstaff for dinner, and also for me to feed Shayla. To save time, we attempted to both at the same time. No fun for Mama. I do not like nursing in public places. It poured and poured on us all the way to Page. Even after stopping to buy new windshield wipers, we still had a hard time seeing. It made me very nervous. I do not like driving in the rain (or being the passenger in this case).

The next morning from Page to Heber, the drive took us forever. I think I had to stop to feed Shayla a couple of times. Traveling with a baby definitely takes more planning. She did pretty well, until the last couple of hours when she had had enough of being in her carseat.

It was fun to see everyone, and to meet all the new family members (3 baby girls and the first nephew-in-law).

7-23-2010 Hannah (2 months), Shayla (6 months), and Norah (3 weeks?) Can’t wait for these girls to play together at future reunions

We went on a family hike to some sort of glacier thing, that was just a bunch of rocks.

David and I put together a “Snow-Mazing Race” activity. I was so excited because I found clue templates online:

Hmmm…it won’t include the clues we made up for it. We were hoping to get video of all the teams, but we didn’t have enough video cameras. Some of the challenges would have been quite fun to watch.

We also did a ropes course, where we went canoeing, some team builder type games, a rock wall, a zip line, and the swing. This was the activity everyone enjoyed the most (well almost everyone). You get strapped into the swing, and everyone pulls on a rope that hoists you up into the air. Then when you get to the top, you let go, and you fall backwards. It’s definitely scarier than it looks.

Can you see the look of terror on David’s face? Maybe one day we can get the video up…

Shayla and I at lunch

It was nice to get away from home to a place that was a little cooler, and to spend time with family

Catching up…

2010-08-26T15:46:00.001-07:00

So I’m very behind in posting pictures of Shayla. I’m a little better on Facebook because it seems a little easier. So going back a couple of months…here’s the baby update.

6-27-2010 Being a tease and not smiling

7-8-2010 Post-ponytail hair

7-10-2010

7-8-2010 First picture of her sitting up (5.5 months)

We weren’t supposed to start her on solid food until 6 months, but we started her a couple weeks early because we could tell she was ready. We’d put her in the boppy on the dinner table with us as we ate dinner, and she would just stare and watch us eat. She also got (and still does) really excited when we would go to fill up our water cup at the fridge. She always wants to drink out of the grown-up cup even though she usually spills most of it on herself. She has loved eating absolutely everything we have fed her: bananas, prunes, avocado, sweet potato, brown rice, pears, applesauce, broccoli, oatmeal and cauliflower. The oatmeal and brown rice are her least favorites since they are so bland and sticky, so I usually try to mix them with something else.

They always say a baby will regulate how much they need to eat. I swear this girl would just eat and eat if I let her. (Being our child, it’s no wonder). The baby food site I read says to start them with 1/2-1 Tbsp. Yeah right. I don’t measure, but I’m sure she eats at least 1/2 cup. I have no idea if I’m not feeding her enough or if she should be eating more.

7-10-2010 Eating solid food (bananas) for the first time.

7-19-2010 Eating brown rice. She always opens wide!

7-29-2010 Sleeping with her toys

8-3-2010 Sucking on her toes

In my attempt to be a good “Stay-at-home Mommy,” I’ve been trying to be a little crafty. I made several different hair bows for Shayla, but she wouldn’t have it with the picture taking.

8-6-2010

What a good mother, letting her baby suck on a plastic bag… (At least she stopped crying!)

First tooth!

2010-08-26T15:04:00.001-07:00

Shayla got her first tooth just after her 6 month “birthday.” I had been to the pediatrician the week before, and she said that it would be awhile before she got teeth. Guess she was wrong! There were several days in a row where Shayla didn’t take very good naps. I figured she must not be needing to sleep as long anymore. Then one day I noticed the tooth, and lo and behold….the naps were back to normal. Thank heavens! It never interrupted her sleep at night. We’re so lucky to have a good baby!

This is how your picture turns out when you are trying to take a picture while holding a baby in your lap (and she is trying to put the camera in her mouth)

This one is a little better, except that she looks like an orphan child.

Flashback

2010-06-28T13:18:00.001-07:00

So I think I may have just learned a way to make this whole blog thing much easier. The thing I hate in blogger is that it takes F-O-R-E-V-E-R to insert pictures. They always come up at the top, and it’s a serious pain to rearrange it all. I just learned this little trick to simplify things, but I don’t really know what to blog about. We’ll go back in time to last summer on our visit to Zion’s National Park.

We decided to hike to the top of this…

Ah yes….that was SOOOO much easier! Why didn’t anyone tell me about this before?

Back to our hike….Let me remind you that a year ago I was pregnant. I think I was 11 weeks pregnant at the time, which meant that I still felt pretty darn icky, and VERY tired. Zion’s is hot in the summer, and Angel’s Landing is UP THERE.

We didn’t get up nearly as early as we planned, so it was starting to get warm when we started. I can’t remember how long the hike is (I think it was 2.5 miles each way), but there are alot of switchbacks… Normally, I’m a pretty decent hiker. I only stop to rest when my legs start burning. It was a much different experience being pregnant. My poor little heart was racing (which was making me nervous because you’re not supposed to let it get above 120bpm (I think…I can’t remember the exact number now). Needless to say, I was hiking slow enough that my legs never got tired this time around.

And then you get to the part with all of the chains. It is a pretty steep drop-off on both sides, so you hold on for dear life!

Then you get to the top and have this amazing view…

Make sure to continually apply sunscreen, especially if you got ROASTED at the lake two days earlier. Ouch!

And you better hope you don’t have to use the restroom… cuz it ain’t pretty!

All done! Time to grab lunch!

Aww…lovely little pregnant pooch. Can’t say I miss it (although it still kinda looks like I have one) :) I much prefer to have this little girl safe in my arms…

More pictures

2010-06-18T09:32:00.000-07:00

Shayla will be 5 months next week, and I still have some pictures from 3 months that I haven't posted. If you've seen them on Facebook, they're probably mostly the same. From 4-5 months she has learned how to:

Roll over from her back to her stomach (mostly to the left, but occasionally to the right). We're trying to teach her how to roll from her stomach to her back. She gets angry when she rolls on her stomach and can't figure out how to get back.
Laughing. This probably happened between 3-4 months. I have it written down somewhere, but I don't really want to look it up. :)
Jumping. We bought her a jumperoo and she loves it. She especially loves to show off when she knows we are looking.
Squealing. She has become much more talkative and has discovered her "squealing" voice. Most of the time it is happy. :)
Ponytails. Her hair is long enough that I can do the little ponytails on the top of her head. Her squirming usually makes them a little skewompous (sp?), but a Mama tries. She's got this cowlick that makes some of her hair stand straight up.

4-1-2010

4-5-2010 Our little Easter Bunny

4-18-2010
She even squirms in bed much more now. The other day she had turned 180 degrees.

5-17-2010

5-18-2010
We get frustrated when we can't get our arm out. Luckily she's figured that part out now.

5-29-2010 What a cutie!

5-31-2010

6-9-2010
This is supposed to be a picture of her first "ponytail," but you can't see it. She had just woken from a nap too, so she's got sleepy face.

6-11-2010
This is a new way to sleep

Shayla's First Swim

2010-06-01T10:02:00.000-07:00

For our big Memorial Day celebration: David added some new sprinklers to the front yard. I exercised, did some laundry and straightened up the house, and for our big celebration we took a dip in the pool for the first time this summer. It was so much fun to see Shayla play in the water. She gasped a little as we initially got in the water (but so did David), but once she got used to it she had a lot of fun splashing around. Occasionally she would get a little over-zealous and would get her mouth in the water or splash in her face and that would make her cry.

Here is some video of her first swim:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15WcJ0WPZr0

All decked out:

Having fun!

I think she looks a lot like David here...

I promise to get more pictures of the last month up soon...

New toys

2010-05-07T13:42:00.000-07:00

Between 2 and 3 months, Shayla has learned many new things. She is now reaching and grabbing for things, which makes play time much more exciting. It's so fun to see what we can get into our mouths. Her activity gym keeps her the most entertained. She loves to grab the ones that make noises, and it's long enough that they can make their way into her mouth as well.

Sometimes we play so hard that it puts us right to sleep.

We also started using the Bumbo. She loves it when she is sitting on the table at eye level with us while eating dinner. It is nice to be upright for a little bit.

Mom had a hard time letting baby transition into sleeping in her own room, but Shayla does enjoy her crib. When she wakes up in the morning, or from a nap, she will often talk to the ladybugs and flowers on her bumper pad. The material is quite soft and she likes to put her feet up on it, and touch it with her hands.

Shayla's Nursery

2010-05-07T13:16:00.000-07:00

I had promised I would put up pictures of Shayla's nursery before she was born. I finally actually got around to taking pictures just a couple of weeks ago. So now instead of the clean, super organized nursery, you get the "lived in" one.

Notice the plastic still on the ottoman. Yeah, I'm anal like that. If I leave the plastic on, then it can never get dirty, right?

2-month pictures

2010-04-15T18:05:00.000-07:00

We had some professional photos taken at 2 months. We got a smile on the first shot, and then the photographer kept missing them. By the time we got to family photos, she was done with being cute.

How do I love thee?

2010-04-01T09:49:00.001-07:00

Let me count the ways...

Her smile. She has been smiling at us for over a month now, but it seems like every day she gets a little more interactive. I love when she smiles and coos, and especially when she tries to laugh. (It's not quite a true laugh yet, but she's laughing. )

This was our first attempt at capturing a smile.

Her many sweet faces.

How she is happiest when we are changing her diaper. She kicks and flails her leg in excitement. We always get lots of smiles and coos.

Her fat rolls. The best ones are on her inner thighs. Hard to catch in an appropriate picture.

Her thick, silky hair.

The way she sneezes. She pulls her legs in and her arms come up by her face.

The way she looks like her daddy when she scowls.

The way she gets excited when she knows she's about to eat. She starts breathing faster and she gets a little "grin" on her face, and then she starts pecking. I also love the way her nose moves up and down when she first latches. (Sorry, no pictures here!) :)

Her "poop face," although I don't like what comes afterward! These pictures are the closest I could get to the true face. She makes an "o" with her mouth, and scowls and looks very concerned. Although she does grunt and push alot, the face most often comes when she is calm and lying still. She likes to take us by surprise.

She sure can shoot it far too!

The way she looks so peaceful when she sleeps (and sometimes with her mouth open!)

I love it now that she is starting to entertain herself. When we lay her underneath the gymini, she doesn't quite know how to hit the toys with her arms, but if we place her right she kicks one of the toys that makes sounds, and she thinks it's hilarious. She also will sometimes talk to herself in bed. We can hear her cooing and sucking on her hand, and eventually she will lull herself to sleep. (Unfortunately it is not always this way).
We love how she lets us get at least 6-7 hours of sleep at night. She usually wakes up between 6-7, eats and then falls back to sleep for a couple more hours. We love it more when she falls asleep before 10, but we're still working on that.

Shayla is a very good baby. We feel very lucky to have such a sweet little girl.

Shayla's blessing

2010-03-08T11:25:00.000-08:00

We blessed Shayla in church yesterday. It was only my second time at church with her, and we have 9:30 church. It has been a bit of a challenge trying to be up and ready by that time. Her feeding schedule always gets off on the weekends, and although I tried to work it so that she wouldn't be hungry during the blessing, it worked out to be the exact time that she needed to eat again. She was asleep when we got to church, but woke up during the opening song and prayer. Needless to say, she was a little fussy. Luckily she only had a couple of outbursts during the blessing, and stayed fairly quiet. David was nervous, but he did a good job, and the blessing was very nice. My mom made the blessing dress, and it is the same dress that I was blessed in as a baby. We were glad to have family there, and it was a nice day.

One month

2010-02-26T12:52:00.001-08:00

Shayla turned one month old on Tuesday. She weighs 9 pounds now, and has certainly changed a lot in the last month. She is starting to get on a better schedule now. She has even let us sleep a little bit longer between feedings at night on a couple different occasions. She is healthy, and we are enjoying her.

3 weeks old

2010-02-14T13:46:00.000-08:00

Our little girl is already 3 weeks old. It's gone by fast, yet it seems like forever ago that I was even pregnant with her. We are trying to get used to her schedule, and figure this whole parenting thing out. We love her and can't wait to get to know her little personality better.

After first bath

3 days

Scowling and sticking out her tongue are two of her favorite things

I just love this little face. She sure can pull some good ones. We could sit and watch her facial expressions for hours.

4 days

Visiting Great-Grandma Reed
6 days

1 week

1 week 2 days

1 week 4 days

2 weeks and 3 days

We've obviously started slacking on the picture taking already. Our camera isn't that great and I feel like they kinda all start looking the same. I need to be better, because I can't believe how much she's already changed in the last few weeks.