9 months... holy crap

Emilia Grace is 9 months old tomorrow morning, just after 5 am. That is really hard for me to believe! Here are some tid bits about our little love:

-Her top two teeth are coming in right now! The one on her right has already broken through the gum and is currently a sharp little white nugget! The second is shortly behind it!
- She is a speed demon and loves to explore independently! She will explore around the house and then look for me to make sure I am close!
-After she explores, she likes to poke her head around the couch and catch your eye. She bursts into a HUGE smile and starts crawling towards me super fast! 
- She loves to play the piano pedals! If I am playing the piano, no matter what, she is right there under me playing all three pedals! She also will randomly play them during the day when she is exploring!
-She is still madly in love with her daddy! She gets so excited when he calls us at lunch, or when he walks in the door at night. He gets huge smiles and big old hugs! He loves it!
- She is still nursing every 3-4 hours during the day and on a good night every 5-6 hours. She sometimes likes to talk with her mouth full. It is kind of naughty behavior, but pretty darn cute!
-She is pretty adventurous when it comes to food! She likes just about anything! Sliced avocado, sweet potatoes, toast, simple pasta, you name it!
- She has been doing this thing lately where she acts like she wants a big kiss. She will come at you with her mouth wide open and at the last second she will stick your nose in her mouth! It's pretty slobbery and pretty hilarious!
- When it's time for her to go to bed, after I have nursed her, we rock in the rocking chair for a few minutes to get the air out. She wraps one hand around my neck and the other holds one of my hands. We sit like this and just rock. One of my favorite things about our day.
-She experienced her first snow fall about a week and a half ago! She was a little suspicious of it and VERY curious!
-We put up our Christmas lights a few weeks ago and she loves looking at all of the twinkly lights!
-Her eyes are currently a mix of hazel and grey. Unless you go outside. Or she wears blue. Or looks at anything green.

I  fall more and more in love with this sweet and spicy little girl every single day. She is my side kick and pushing force!

On Friday ( December 20th) she will be 39 weeks and 3 days old. Which is exactly when she came out. I can't believe it. It's hard to believe that time has really passed that quickly! The day that I gave birth to her was the most magical and spiritual day I have ever experienced.

And NEXT WEEK is her very first CHRISTMAS!! I am so excited to celebrate her first Christmas, especially in Idaho with my husband and my parents! Going to be an amazing time!

First Thanksgiving!

This is late (of course) but we celebrated Em's first Thanksgiving! We didn't make nearly as much food as we normally do (it's only the three of us!) but we ate a feast!

We pulled out and washed all of Grandma Zola's black china and made lots of food. I didn't really take any good pictures of the food, but just know that it was SOOO good.

Big bird. Amazing stuffing. Home made rolls. Mashed potatoes with half and half and BACON FAT. Yes. Green beans and bacon. And more bacon fat! Pumpkin pie. Tons of gravy that even had a little bit of... YES bacon fat!

( The weird thing is that I lost weight over Thanksgiving! Think maybe there is a connection between bacon fat and weight loss?! A girl can dream right. )

 

Our little family. Well it would have been if Em had looked in the Camera and not at my face! All 8 times we tried to take this picture around her high chair! Haha

 

My plate!

 

Up until Thanksgiving, Em had been on a vegetarian only diet. I wanted to get the go ahead from her pediatrician to give her a little bit of meat. She loved it! We still don't give her red meat or anything too out there, but she did love the turkey!

 

 



And this is our little family once we (all three of us!) stuffed ourselves full of food! We called this look Turkey stoned!

Eight months!

*I first wrote this post like two weeks ago, but just have been super busy! So I am FINALLY finishing this and putting it up!

Our little baby is eight months old now! I can't hardly believe it! I feel like I need to pinch myself because it seems pretty unreal that she is that old already. Although, on the other hand, it's hard to remember a time when she wasn't a part of our lives!

Here are some things about our girl...

- She is ALL over the place! She loves crawling all over the house and is getting pretty fast! She loves peaking around the couch and catching your eye, then smiling a huge old grin!
-Her 2 bottom teeth are all of the way in and pretty much the cutest thing I have ever seen in my entire life! When she smiles and I see those little teeth, I just die!!


*Look closely and you can see the adorable two little teeth in her smile! She is so cute it kills me! She is also using my baby blanket!

-She pulled herself up the other day, right in front of Hy and I! I have a little wooden box that my dad made me in high school, and she just grabbed it and stood right up! We are in trouble now!
-She chatterboxes a bunch now! We call our dogs the "DogDogs" to Em and you will see her searching for them at different times during the day. She loves it when they pop their heads around the corner and it makes her burst into smiles and giggles. She even says something that sounds a lot like dogdog or rue rue.
-I put her in the shower with me for the very first time the other day and SHE HATED IT! She cried the entire time and acted like it was total torture! Definitely haven't tried that again!
- She is getting pretty close to being able to say "dada" ! When she says it, her daddy just melts. It's pretty sweet.
*Since I first wrote this, she says "dada" all of the time now!
- She just had an appointment with her new pediatrician and we really liked her! She was very sweet and our opinions pretty much mirrored each other, which to me is pretty important. She congratulated me on having such a successful breast feeding relationship and said that she hoped that we were able to continue on. I loved hearing that. Our breastfeeding relationship is so incredibly important to me. Her latest stats are:

Head: 17 inches- 75th %

Weight: 16 lbs and 13 oz - 25th %

Height: 27 inches- 50th %

Our pediatrician said that she looked gorgeous and perfectly healthy. She said that her cognitive function was fantastic and that she looked like she was ready to take off running!

-Hy and I take Em out every where. Any place that either of us go, she is always right with us. We love to eat out at as a family. From the beginning we felt like it was very important to us to have Emilia exposed to social settings, and we feel like she does really well at restaurants because of this.

*This is at one of our favorite breakfast places Biscuits.

-We have new play date friends and she chews on toys and mostly stares at the people in the room! I hear all of the time that she is such an old soul and has to check everyone out before she decides if she likes you or not! That makes me feel pretty special that she likes me so much!
-We are still breastfeeding like champs and only have 3 and 1/2 months left until we hit the 12 month mark! So proud of that! I know I've mentioned it before, but our breastfeeding relationship is so incredibly important to me (and her) and I will do my best to carry on with that until we decide we are done!

Sad Times...

I haven't blogged in a while and this time it is for a very legitimate reason. We lost my grandpa. He had been pretty sick for quite a while, and he passed away peacefully on October 15th at 5 am. Thursday night Hy, myself, and the baby girl, flew into Las Vegas airport and then proceeded to drive to Hurricane. We stayed at my parent's house along with my siblings and their spouses. The viewing was Sunday night at 5 pm in Cedar City and it was really great. The photograph montage with music was totally gorgeous and they had the candy displays that I had suggested.

He looked exactly like himself and at the same time nothing like himself. I struggled through out the week, but didn't really lose my stuff until I saw him at the mortuary. Something pretty hard and sweet happened there as well.

The month before he passed, Em and I had gone to visit my family and spent a few hours with my grandparents. Miss Em is kind of shy at first and takes a little time to warm up to new people. BUt with my grandpa it was INSTANT SMILES and she reached for him INSTANTLY.  It was pretty adorable.

The first thing she did as Hy held her and walked up to his casket, was bend herself right in half and reach hard for him. That was hard for us.

It was really wonderful getting to see a lot of family that we hardly ever see, and it was wonderful introducing them to Miss Emilia for the first time. That was pretty special. And she especially loved my cousin Jenny.

The service was the next day, Monday, at 11 am and it was really beautiful and pretty funny. Some parts were pretty much agony and some parts just so him: straight to the point and funny.

The graveyard service was gorgeous. It was a bright and sunny fall day and the colors couldn't have been more beautiful. They did a full military service with a gun salute, flag folding and presentation, and playing of Taps.

After that, we headed back to the church for a luncheon. The night before I had made German chocolate cupcakes which was his absolute favorite cake that my mom made him every single year for his birthday (probably since before I was alive). That cake is so him to me, and I felt like we couldn't have a celebration of his life with out getting all sugared up on German chocolate.

I just want to put a few of the last pictures that I have of him. They are so very special to me because it was the last time I saw him alive. And it was the last time Emilia did as well.

I could write about what he meant to me, but the truth is that he meant the world... and how do you write about that? One of the things that hit me hardest was the fact that he wouldn't get to know the children we don't have yet. But I have to think that he already does and I have to believe that he is up in Heaven some where getting ready to shoot us down some more babies at a moments notice. The thought of him tending our future children makes me pretty darn happy.

She is 6 months!

It's been a couple of weeks already, but Emilia turned 6 months old!

Here are some things about our sweet baby girl!

-Her eyes are still grey, but are starting to look a little bit green again. Sometimes blue. Sometimes hazel. She has very confused eyes some days!
-She has been eating solid food for the last two months now. She is an amazing eater and has two solid meals a day now! I make all of her baby food. I feel much more comfortable in giving her things when I know how it was made and the exact ingredients.
-She loves to eat pears, apples, squash (all different kinds), banana (although I rarely let her have any), yams and sweet potatoes, mango, carrots, and so many other things! She is pretty adventurous with what she likes and the only thing she hasn't loved so far has been avocado. But I will try it again in the next few months and her opinion may have changed!
-She is army crawling on the floor. I think she gets how to use her knees but choses not to. She pulls herself along using her arms and pushes with her tippy toes. She just likes it that way!
-She is still nursing like a champ! I nurse her on demand and am totally content in doing that for as long as I feel comfortable doing so. I might decide to be one of those extended breastfeeding mamas, but my current goal is at least until she is one years old! I doubt she or I will be ready to wean then... so we will see.
- We worked really hard on breaking her bad sleep habits. When you deal with colic, you are basically willing to do anything that works to get your baby to sleep. Which resulted in her only being able to sleep while in her moving swing. We broke that habit when we went to visit my family in Utah for two weeks. But then she got used to sleeping in bed with me. So when we got home, that habit had to fixed as well. She had a great few weeks with her adjusted sleep and was doing great until this tooth* started to come in! Now her sleep in erratic and a bit of a mess. But hopefully we can get back on track when that tooth finishes coming in!
*Tooth!! She has a tooth! It is her right bottom front tooth! It is only out a little bit, but she can tell the difference! Her tongue is going like crazy and she is drooling up a storm! She is going to look so absolutely adorable with a tooth! She hasn't bitten me while nursing, but I know that one of these days it's going to happen.
- She hasn't ever eaten any rice cereal or any sort of grains. Our pediatrician didn't feel it was necessary for her to have rice cereal and I was more comfortable giving her things that I knew would be more calming to her body. Not to say that we are against rice cereal, it is amazing for a lot of children. I just didn't have any desire to give her it if it wasn't absolutely necessary.
-She has started doing this growling thing! It's like she is trying to talk but it is coming out of her lower vocal ranges! Hy will growl at her and she will growl on back. It's pretty stinking cute!
-Speaking of Hy, this little girl lights up when he comes home! She knows her daddy's voice and we talk to him on the phone at least once a day. She will smile at the phone and kick her legs like crazy. Then when he walks in the door, she has the biggest smiles for him and is so happy!
-She is still a major snuggler and I love it. Sometimes I don't get as much done as I would have liked during the day because of our snuggling sessions, but I let all of that go and just appreciate the time we are spending together bonding.

There are a million other things I could say but it would take a very long time to write all of that! And tonight she is sleeping for longer than a 45 minute chunk! Knock on wood! So I am off to enjoy our night!

Peach Days...

When my mom came to visit us this summer she basically convinced me to fly with baby Em to Utah for Peach Days. So I did! I packed up the baby and she and I hopped on a really early flight and flew into Vegas!

It was the first time Emilia had ever been on a plane (Give me a break, she was only 4 1/2 months!) and so I wasn't sure how she would do!

This is us waiting for breakfast at the airport! It was super early and right after I strapped her back on (after security bomb threat tested the breast milk I had pumped for the flight) she fell asleep. I can't even begin to tell you how many people came up to me and said how adorable she is.

 

 

She stayed asleep until most of the plane was boarded and decided to be awake and play! Luckily I had some really kind gentlemen sitting next to me, because I nursed for probably an hour and a half of the two hour flight. She did fall asleep about half way through the flight and was pretty sweet the entire time. I got really lucky flying in!

 

Hy has been working out of town a whole ton this summer, working his butt of for his company, and so it was really nice to just go to my parents and have some company. And have a few extra hands! That was pretty awesome!

 

I was there for two weeks and for the majority of the time I just hung out around my parent's house. That might make me sound really lame, but I only see my family a few times a year, and they have a super nice house. Plus, weirdly enough, I like them!

 

 

Miss Em loved my parent's huge tube and had a blast every night at bath time. She loves bath time anyway, though!

 

 

 

She went to church with my parents in a gorgeous dress that my girlfriend Lori bought her!



 



 

She tried carrots for the first time, and LOVED them! She would get cranky if you wouldn't feed them to her fast enough!

 

 She went through this phase where every single one of her naps was 30 minutes or less. It could be 29 minutes and 58 seconds and that little girl would sit right up. A few times it was a little startling! Now that we are back home on her schedule her naps and getting better.

 

Either way, I am a sucker for some snuggle time. Babies don't keep after all.

 

 

 She spent a lot of time rolling around and getting ready to crawl, which makes me anxious! She's too little!! Stop getting so big so fast!!

 

She also got a new toy and spent a lot of time scooting around my parent's hard wood floors!

 

 

We went to the hospital a few times to visit my dad, and all of the nurse ladies went crazy over her. You could definitely tell that my dad was a proud papa. 

 The bummer part is that after we visited my dad at the hospital, we had to take Em to her well baby check up and immunizations. I like to do them in southern Utah because I hate finding a pediatrician up here, and I really like my parent's doctor back home! I know, I know. I will eventually stop being so picky and pick one up here. Until then...

 She did AMAZING! Not like there were any doubts though! He said that she looked absolutely perfect. Her reflexes were spot on, her rolling skills were advanced, her attention span was great, and her ability to focus was perfect! He said that she looked perfect and "Not even a diaper rash!" I brag because it's true!

Her 5 month percentile stats were:

Head circumference: 50% right on
Weight: 45% - 13 lbs and 7 oz
Height: 75%- 26 inches

We knew that she was going to be leggy!

Of course she did get a fever for 36 hours after her shots. And we had lots of endless snuggles. That mouth!

 I bought Em a food toy. I never remember what those suckers are called. Food strainer, sucky, handle, netted thing. She has been teething a little (no teeth have gotten close to breaking through yet) and she loved to suck on frozen strawberries or peaches.

Later in the week Josh, Jess, and Jaxten came for the weekend. The Friday night before Peach days we always have a family sleep over at my parent's house, then we all get up and go the parade together.

 

 

Em was crazy about Jaxten. Anytime he would talk or be near her, she would watch him. And when he helped my mom bath her before bedtime, he made her laugh so hard! I stole this picture from Jess' instagram, it is so freaking adorable!

 

 

 

 

I was doing my hair in the bathroom and I peaked around the corner and snapped this little blurry gem! He was reading her books! I mean come on! The cuteness is just to much!

 

The parade was great and crazy fun like always. It was almost 2  hours long like always and by the time we left, they had collected like 3 bulging bags of candy, Frisbees, and a t-shirt. And by them I mean my nephew and my older brother! Haha you should see them in action. It's even better when Hy can actually come!

 

 

Em even slept through all of the sirens and fire trucks!

I have to be totally honest; Hurricane was deep in monsoon season and so it was like living in a swamp. Oh my heck. It's bad enough that it's constantly 100+ degrees, but then add a really high humidity factor... no thank you.

 

After sitting at the hot parade for a while it felt really nice to hitch a ride on the back of a sketchy guy's motorcycle.

 

Luckily he was my dad!

All of the other pictures that I have from Peach Day's are on my Nikon and still need to be downloaded onto my laptop. Another day.

After the parade though, my sister-in-law Jess did a mini photo session with the baby in tutus. They look so adorable, I can't even stand it! I am getting this one blown up for the house!!

I need to write about the flight home. Oh my word. I want to just say that I have been on 10+ hour flights with toddlers and had less go wrong than with this two hour flight. We changed Em's diaper right when we got to the airport in Vegas, and some how in all of the commotion, diapers didn't end up back in the diaper bag. Which I didn't realize until I was already through security. All of my spare diapers were in my suitcase... which was already checked. And apparently airports don't find it necessary to stock diapers.(They should, because they would make a killing. I would have given my left boob for a diaper.) Anyway, trying not to freak out, I figured I had just changed her so things would be alright. Well then I started hearing little farts escape from the baby who was nestled in the front pack. Still trying not to panic I boarded the flight. All good so far.

20 minutes into the flight she had an explosive diaper and pooped through her entire outfit and my t-shirt where I was holding her.  The seatbelt sign was still on and I had the window seat. I was sitting next to two people who were already totally asleep. So I woke them up and ran to the back of the plane and as a hail mary asked the flight attendants if they had a diaper! No luck.

So I created a cloth diaper out of a receiving blanket (thanks to the YouTube fest I had watched the other day) and changed us into spare clothes I miraculously managed to remember to pack.

We went back to our seat and we did great for another 20 minutes. But then she peed through the cloth diaper. And subsequently my jeans. So I did what I could and managed to get her to nap for a chunk of what was left of the flight. Obviously I had to nurse her most of the time to get her to be happy. But...10 minutes before we landed, she projectile vomited all over me.

 

And that is what you would call the trifecta.

 

(While getting of the plane, the sassy gay flight attendant said "Looks like someone needs to stock the diaper bag, mama." INSTANT POO FACE)

 

Luckily my saint of a husband brought her a change of clothes and a diaper. SAINT. Thank heavens we only live 20 miles and across the bridge from the airport and he could get my text before he left.

 

 

 

 













Mom came to visit!

My mom came to visit! It was perfect timing because Hy started working out of town constantly and the baby chose the night before her arrival to start going through her 4 month sleep regression. That has been a pretty exhausting experience, let me tell you! I think we are finally rounding the curve though after almost 3 weeks! *Knock on wood*

Anyway...

We went and picked mom up at the airport and immediately went out to brunch at Bread and Ink. They have amazing Chicken and Waffles! The Screen Door has pretty amazing ones too, but at B&I there isn't a two hour wait! So good!

Mom holding Miss Em at Bread and Ink. One of them was exhausted... guess who?

If you didn't guess correctly the question above, this should clear up the answer!

Miss Em has been really fascinated with what we are eating and trying to grab at things for a while now. I think part of the reason she had been waking up so often at night is because milk alone just wasn't doing it for her. I am making tons of milk too, so supply isn't an issue.

My original goal was to strictly breast feed our girl for 6 months, but it honestly came down to "What do I feel like the baby is needing at this point" instead of what I wanted to do. So I made a batch of sweet potatoes mixed with breast milk and we tried it out on our girl. She has an adventurous spirit so far when it comes to food, but I am trying to not branch out just yet.

She did amazing even from the first bite. She still has a little bit of a tongue thrust, but she ate everything that I gave her! She ate an entire serving of sweet potatoes and then nursed for 30 minutes. Hungry girl, right?

Haha, look how happy and content she looks!

One of the days that mom was here we went and spent the day in Portland. We started by taking Miss Em on her very first jaunt to VooDoo Donuts. The line wasn't too long and we were in within 30 minutes.

Em loved looking around at all of the VERY interesting people that live in Portland. And they LOVED looking at her! I still get complimented on our "gorgeous and perfect baby" everywhere we go. *Which to be honest can be a little overwhelming to me!*

Playing dress up with items out of the diaper bag to keep us entertained while waiting in line!

 

After VooDoo, we drove into down town to 23rd street and went to find the PB&J Grilled cart that is hidden in a little nook. Mom got the Hot Hood, which has black cherry jam, smoked jalapenos, apple wood bacon, and peanut butter. 

I got the Smoking Goat. Which is olive bread, almond butter, apple wood bacon, goat cheese, and apricot jam.

You might think it sounds disgusting, but it is legitimately the best peanut butter sandwich you have ever eaten. There are no words.

We ate our sandwiches at the International Rose Garden and had a little picnic. Em tried to eat the roses.

 Random shot of mom and Em at our favorite little dinner, the Stardust.

 

My 26th birthday was that weekend and Hy had the weekend off , so we headed to the beach. Beaches in Oregon and Washington aren't like California or southern beaches. They are cold. Freezing cold. All year round. 

My gorgeous little family!

 

Em and her daddy heading out to look at the water. We dipped her toes in for a split second and let her put her toes in the wet sand, but she was not happy about it!

The day after that, Hy went out of town again and mom and I went to one of our favorite Mexican restaurants Catedral Tapatia in Vancouver. We ate some amazing food...

Emilia ate my mom's chin.

We took Miss Em shopping and she barfed herself out of her outfit, which means that we went to the Carter's outlet and went a little wild.

She LOVES looking in the mirror at the adorable baby! It makes her laugh and smile! Look how stinking cute her face is!

We took mom to the airport and after she sat there for 4 hours and all of her flights were canceled she came back to my house for a bonus day! The next day she did actually leave though, and the two of us were exhausted. We spent almost the entire day in bed snuggling and recuperating!

 I better be recovered enough because next weekend me and Miss Boss are headed out on a plane to Utah for PEACH DAYS!! Which happens to be my most favorite holiday of the year! Parades, shopping, and peach cobbler!!