Christmas in Portland

Coming from a big family, I'm used to having lots of people around at Christmas. Since Bridget was born, we've spent 3 Christmases right at home with our little family which was nice in some ways but made me miss my family a little. So last Christmas we decided we would plan and save so we could fly to Portland to spend Christmas with several of my family members this year. Matt, Jessica, and Colin joined us from Oklahoma, Megan came from Utah, and Mark and Mark had the pleasure of hosting everyone at their awesome house. Everyone is pictured below except for Nate and me.
It was certainly a memorable Christmas, although I'd have to say it ranks right up there as one of my worst ones ever (that's not to say it was all bad). Over the 4.5 days we were there, all 10 of us managed to get the stomach flu at various times. Poor Colin started out by throwing up on both flights on the way there. Then it passed to Jessica and Matt the next night, Megan, Mark, and Felicity on Christmas Eve day, me, Nate, and Bridget on Christmas Day, and finally Other Mark on the day after Christmas. It was kind of sad too because Megan and Jessica spent most of the 23rd making all sorts of yummy treats for us to enjoy while we were there, and then everybody lost their appetite to eat them.

Luckily, Felicity's illness was the most mild but mine was the worst. From 2am-7am Christmas morning I lived on the bathroom floor freezing and in misery. At that point I was able to move to the carpeted floor just outside the bathroom while I was waiting to try and feel well enough to make it up the stairs to open presents (everyone was kind enough to wait for me - even Bridget and that's tough for a 4-year-old). I really don't remember much after that. I was so tired from only getting a couple of hours of sleep and felt horrible. I tried my best to pay attention to Bridget as she opened her gifts. I'm just glad Bridget still felt okay at this point so she could enjoy it. Nate took pictures, and Jessica was kind enough to take care of Felicity for me during the gift opening. Here's some of what Nate took:

Just prior to the present opening, Nate started to not feel so great so the two of us spent the day laying around and napping. I think other people stepped in to take care of our kids, but I honestly don't really remember. By the afternoon, Bridget joined us and ended up throwing up almost as many times as me, so that night ended up being a rough one as well. The day after Christmas, we were feeling better but not quite right yet. Then finally the next day, we ventured out of the house to the outlet mall. That was our only excursion the whole trip (unless you count my going to the grocery store the night we got there).

We didn't take many pictures other than Christmas morning, but here's one Bridget probably took of our stockings.

We had to take a picture of Felicity and Colin in their monkey pajamas. Jessica and Nate were actually color coordinated with their jeans and brown shirts too.
Like I said, the whole trip wasn't bad. It was great to see some of my family. And as a nice end to a pretty terrible Christmas day, Felicity decided to start walking more than she ever had before. Here's a video of it:

Since we flew to Portland, we left some of our bigger Christmas presents at home to open when we got back. I loved this more than I thought I would since I ended up not enjoying much of the present opening on Christmas Day. Bridget helped Felicity open a new dress from Grandma and Grandpa.
And Bridget shrieked with delight when she opened this art desk from Grandma and Grandpa too. This girl loves to color and draw, so it was perfect.

It was certainly not the merriest of Christmases for us, but it is one we'll never forget.

It's Christmastime

Here's just a few things from our December. I'll do a separate post about Christmas later.

Since Bridget loved playing with my nativity set last year and broke a couple of the pieces, I decided it was time to get a kid-friendly one that she and Felicity could play with all they want. The Fisher Price Little People set was a hit. Felicity thought all the pieces tasted great and loved listening to the music. Bridget was funny because she arranged everything exactly how it was pictured on the box and made sure it stayed that way. If Felicity messed it up, she would promptly put everything back in its proper place. Since Bridget loves to take pictures, she even took this picture of her arrangement herself.

We attended Nate's family Christmas party as usual where the girls each had a chance to sit on Santa's lap. Bridget liked it just like she always does and got a new book and some gloves from Santa.
Felicity, on the other hand, cried just as I thought she would. What surprised me was that she only cried for a minute. When I first handed her over she just stared at him, but the tears came a few seconds later. Santa gave her some yogurt melts...yum!

One of the highlights for Bridget at preschool this month was getting to make a gingerbread house. She was so proud of it, she took this picture herself.

8 Months

Another month has flown by, and our little girl is continuing to learn lots of new things.

Here she is enjoying some Cheerios while mastering that pincer grip. She gets better at it every day with fewer of them ending up in her lap or on the floor. The Gerber cereal puffs are also a bit hit with her.
She's also getting pretty good with her sippy cup. She actually does get some water in her mouth by herself, although there's also a lot that ends up going down her chin and sometimes she ends up pretty wet. Notice she's not wearing a bib in these pictures because she's also figured out how to pull her bib off, and it's hard to get her to keep it on sometimes.
Felicity is also VERY mobile these days. She's a super speedy crawler, pulls up on everything, and in the last week is able to cruise along the furniture. One of her favorite toys to play with is this walker, and she's pretty good at using it. Sometimes it gets away from her if she's going too fast, and she's a bit of a crazy driver. But she's doing a great job for only being 8 months.

She definitely gets into a lot of mischief such as playing with shower curtains or regular curtains, "helping" anytime the dishwasher is open, trying to eat kitchen or bathroom rugs (yuck!), removing and tasting her nightlight multiple times a day, and just last week she discovered the food storage container and dishtowel drawers in the kitchen. What I don't understand is why she leaves the Christmas tree completely alone (not that I'm complaining). And all shoes absolutely cannot be left out because they are also one of her favorites.

On a not so positive note, this poor girl has been sick for the past 2 weeks. She's had two colds in a row thanks to her older sister sharing a little more than I'd like her to share. It definitely made her more cranky, and she's had a harder time sleeping well at night. With her not feeling well, trying to get her to take a bottle has actually gotten worse and not better much to my dismay. Once she's well again, I may just have to start to be more hard core in the weening process.

Bridget's Birthday

With Bridget's birthday on a Sunday this year, she got to celebrate all weekend. On Saturday, we went bowling with Aunt Megan, Aunt Jessica, Uncle Matt, and cousin Colin.

We also had a little pizza and pop while we bowled.

On her actual birthday, we celebrated with a chocolate princess cake (her choice). I must admit I was very rushed on time, so it's not as beautifully made as I would have liked, but she thought it was great so I guess that's all that really matters.
We even made her wait all day to open her presents. She got a doll house complete with the family and furniture, a Barbie corvette, a doll size pack-n-play, a book, and a new jacket. That panda mask she's wearing in the picture was actually a birthday card. Notice in the pictures she's wearing shorts and a t-shirt. It was by no means warm that day, but she dressed herself after we got home from church and that's what she wanted to wear.
As kind of a sad side note, I had planned to take her to a local restaurant/tea room that does princess tea parties where the kids can dress up and eat and drink all sorts of yummy stuff. So Monday, after her checkup at the pediatrician we headed there only to find that it was closed. After some investigating, I learned that it had closed about a week earlier due to some financial and health reasons of the owner. We were both so bummed.

A couple of days after her birthday, Grandma and Grandpa came for a very, very quick visit. She loved the Rapunzel doll they gave her.

Happy birthday to the sweetest 4-year-old! We love you, Bridget, and are so lucky to have you in our family.

Her 4-year-old stats:

Height: 43.5 inches (98th percentile)

Weight: 45.8 lbs. (96th percentile)

Nate's Birthday

That's right. Nate turned the big 35 and was so excited about it. (Okay, not really. But I always enjoy celebrating a birthday - even when it's not my own).

With his birthday falling on a Sunday this year, we got to celebrate for a couple of days. On Saturday night we headed to one of his favorite restaurants (Pepperbelly's) for dinner. Megan, Brant, & Kirstin even joined us. We were having so much fun, we forgot to take any pictures.

On Sunday, my Aunt Jennine had us over for dinner and we brought the birthday cake and homemade ice cream for dessert.

Happy Birthday, Nate!

This may sound weird but Nate didn't get to open any actual presents on his birthday. We decided to get the new Kindle Fire as a birthday present to both of us since we ended up returning the TV I got for my birthday and the monthly date nights only seem to have happened once. Since the Kindle Fire doesn't come out until mid November, we'll both have to wait just a little longer for a "birthday" present.

7 Months

This past month has been full of several new things - trying lots of new foods, learning to get to a sitting position by herself, learning to crawl, getting her first tooth, and dressing up for her 1st Halloween.

For the first few days she was crawling she didn't crawl very far and wasn't particularly fast, but that sure changed within about 5 days. Now she's pretty speedy, goes from room to room, and gets into everything.
One of the funny things about Felicity is that once she reaches a milestone, she immediately wants to learn to do what's next. Within about a day of her crawling, she started pulling up to things (i.e. the fireplace, the couch, or anything else that's just the right height). Most of the time she just gets to her knees, but she's been successful at getting all the way to standing by herself a couple of times.

Feeding has been quite a different experience from what I remember with Bridget. Felicity doesn't open her mouth very wide and doesn't seem as eager to eat most of the time. She also likes to blow raspberries a lot which makes for a messy and sometimes frustrating experience. Her favorite food so far seems to be sweet potatoes, and she doesn't care much for green beans or bananas. Weird, I know. What baby doesn't like bananas?

She's definitely a busy girl these days which keeps all of us busy too. She's still growing like a weed and wearing mostly size 12 month clothes. I'm still working on getting her to take a bottle, but the progress is very slow. Hopefully that will be a big accomplishment for me to report on next month.

The Best and Worst Part of Autumn

With 4 large trees in our yard, every fall we do A LOT of raking. I know some people prefer to wait until all of their leaves have fallen to rake them up, but not me. I don't mind raking too much (at least the first few weeks of fall), and I hate the mess they make in the yard as well as having them get tracked into my house creating an even larger mess so we (mainly me) do a lot of raking. It's my goal every week to make sure our garbage dumpsters are packed completely full. The other day I was outside mowing up as many as I could and Bridget wanted to help so I let her use the rake. When I went to empty the mower bag, this is what I discovered:

She'd raked up a nice pile of leaves for herself to play in.

I love this girl and the good helper she is! Too bad we still have 3 of the 4 trees left to clean up after.

Happy Halloween

Trying to get Bridget to decide on a Halloween costume this year was much more difficult than last year. Since there were so many things she wanted to dress up as and changed her mind nearly every day for weeks, I finally just picked one of her options and made this super cute pirate costume for her. She's been into pirates lately thanks to a show on the Disney Channel called Jake and the Neverland Pirates that she watches quite frequently.

I'd planned to make a matching pirate costume for Felicity with the leftover fabric I had from Bridget's costume, but in the end I didn't have the time and lost motivation. I also decided that there was no way she would hold still for me to ever get a head scarf on her, and it was a critical component of the costume. As a quick last minute costume, I purchased this cute toddler-sized jack-o-lantern shirt and modified it slightly (cut off and hemmed the sleeves to the correct length, took the shoulders up a little, and added some elastic to the bottom so I could stuff her shirt with batting). Then I made her headband with some orange ribbon and a green headband I already had. I think she turned out to be the cutest pumpkin, if I say so myself.

Happy Halloween!

Side Note: It was during the photo shoot on our lawn that I discovered Felicity had her first tooth. She kept trying to eat the leaves, and I felt it while fishing a leaf out of her mouth. It looked like it had been there for a few days too. I hope the rest of her teething goes this smoothly.

Felicity Learns to Crawl

This girl has been wanting to crawl for at least a month now, and today it finally happened.

Another Sitting Milestone for Felicity

Learning to get to a sitting position without assistance is a big deal. Now when she falls over or is rolling around, she can help herself rather than fussing to get help from someone else. As luck would have it, she figured it out in the 10 minutes I was gone running Bridget to preschool, but at least Nate got it on video for me.

Fall Trip to West Yellowstone

I love West Yellowstone in the fall. Town and the lake are much quieter, and the colors are gorgeous.
This is the second year in a row we've gone to visit Nate's parents in October, and I'm pretty sure it will have to be an annual tradition to go this time of year.

My sister, Megan, joined us on our trip this time which was also fun. The weather was a little chilly, but at least there wasn't any snow - just some rain on Sunday. We didn't get there until around 7pm Friday night. Saturday we just hung out around the house while Nate and his dad worked on a home improvement project. Then Saturday night we headed into town for dinner at a restaurant called Bullwinkle's. For various reasons we didn't make it there during our June and July trips, so I'd been waiting to go back to this restaurant for a year. When we went last October, I ordered their buffalo burger and had been dreaming about it ever since. I can easily say it was the best burger I've EVER had. And I really mean that. And I was not disappointed the second time around either.

Another great thing about West Yellowstone in October is that if you want to buy any souvenir type stuff, several of the shops have good deals going on to try to get rid of merchandise before winter. Megan and I both bought some nice hoodies for about $12, and Bridget and Megan got matching moose t-shirts for about $5.

Sunday we went to church and then hoped the rain would stop long enough for us to be able to do a campfire and make s'mores. And we got lucky! Here's we are enjoying the fire waiting for the perfect coals for s'more making.
It was a nice, relaxing trip and probably our last one until the long West Yellowstone winter ends some time in late spring. Thanks, Scott & Alice, for letting us come visit again.

Nate's 1st Full Marathon

It's only been 1.5 years since Nate started running regularly and training for races, and he's now accomplished a full marathon! I must admit I was a little worried about how he would do because he didn't stick to his training plan as religiously as I think he should have and didn't do much cross-training. His goal was just to finish, and he did it in 5:31:47.

This is only the 2nd year of the Layton Marathon, so there were only about 300 runners and not great support from volunteers and aid stations compared to other marathons. By the time Nate got to the finish line all they had was water. Lame!

I had some obligations that morning, so he was a lot farther into the race than I would have liked before we were able to find him and cheer him on along the way. My sister Megan came to cheer him on along with me, Bridget, and Felicity (okay, Felicity didn't do much cheering but I'm sure she would have if she could).

The picture on the top left is where we first saw him around mile 23. He was in great need of encouragement at that point, so I'm glad we were able to be there with our signs to cheer him on. The picture on the bottom left is Bridget joining him the last little bit before the finish line. She's been begging to run a "Kids K" for months now, so we hoped this would make her happy until we can get her signed up for one at some point in the future. And the large picture is, of course, after it was finally over.
He said his biggest issue during the race was that the arches in his feet cramped up - something he'd never experienced before and didn't know what to do about it.

I'm proud of him for finishing, although I wish he'd keep his promise that it was his first and last. Oddly enough, he started talking about doing another one in the future less than 24 hours after finishing this one. So much for that promise! Then he changed his promise to not doing another one while we have little kids.

Way to go Nate!

6 Months

Happy half-birthday to Felicity!

For the past couple of weeks she's been enjoying eating rice cereal and oatmeal at dinnertime and getting better at it all the time. The first few times she felt the need to help hold the spoon with each bite which made for big messes, but now she's learned to let Mom or Dad do it.

Sadly my favorite stage of infant life is almost over - her sitting up by herself and not being able to go anywhere. She's been sitting alone for almost a month now, and for the past week or so she's decided to get up on her hands and knees and reach for those toys that are just out of reach (resulting in her flopping on her belly and then rolling all over the place). I love this picture because it looks like she's about to lunge for the camera and get me.

Bridget and Felicity are still best friends and enjoy playing together more and more. The interactions between the two of them are so sweet to see.

We celebrated her half-birthday with a trip to the pediatrician for a check-up. She didn't like it at all this time (I've made a mental note not to schedule appointments anywhere close to nap time after this visit). It's amazing how close she is in size to Bridget's size at this age (she's only 1/4" taller and weighs 1 oz. less).

Height: 27.25 inches (94th percentile)
Weight: 19 lbs. 7 oz. (96th percentile)
Head Circumference: 17 inches (72nd percentile)

First Preschool Field Trip

Today Bridget got to go with her preschool class on their first field trip of the year, and Nate took the day off to go with her. They went to a nearby farm that had all sorts of activities for the kids, and they even got lucky and had beautiful weather (mid 80s) - almost too hot actually.

In the picture below Bridget's showing off the pumpkin she picked out to bring home from the pumpkin patch, taking a turn down one of the many slides, riding on the train, and running around the kiddie corn maze.
One of the other favorite activities they had there was this giant inflatable pumpkin bounce house.
They had several animals for the kids to look at - llamas, donkeys, peacocks - to name a few. Sadly, it wasn't a petting zoo though.
She had such a great time (and even Nate enjoyed it minus the sunburn he got on the top of his head from not wearing a hat).

5 Months

Seriously, where is the time going? This week we put away the baby swing because Felicity was just getting too heavy for it to swing very well. I feel like we just barely got it out. As much as I would love for her to stay little forever, I love watching her grow and learn to do new things.
She's actually doing really well at sitting up by herself. Not great enough that I would leave her unattended, but she does pretty well for a few minutes here and there as long as she's got toys within reach.

And the exersaucer has been a big hit. Do you see the smile on her face?

And I still have a big smile on mine because she's still sleeping like a champ since I sleep trained her almost a month ago. She generally goes to bed around 8:30-9 pm and sleeps until 6-6:30 am. She eats and goes right back to sleep until I wake her up for the day at 8-8:30 am. I know it seems crazy to wake a sleeping baby, but if I wake her up about that time she'll take 2-3 good naps during the day. And she continues to be a very happy, easy-going girl -true to her name. It's pretty easy to get her to blow raspberries, laugh, and smile. Just watch out for the drool and those grabby hands!

Bridget's First Day of Preschool

This fall was the first time since I started preschool myself many, many years ago that I haven't gone back to school as either a student or a teacher. It was kind of strange to me at first, so it's a good thing Bridget got to have her first of many first days of school this year.

She was so excited all summer for preschool to start, and it was no different when today arrived. I knew she would have no problem with me leaving her there because she's ready to learn and make new friends. She's definitely been needing the opportunity to get out of the house more and play with kids her age since Felicity was born.

The preschool she's attending is just two days a week for 2 hours each day with a lady who teaches out of her home. I wish it was a little longer or more days a week, but it's convenient and lots of people we know have taken their children to her.

Hooray for a successful and happy first day of school!

The Imagination of a 3-Year-Old

I LOVE this picture of Bridget. Man, I'm a lucky mom. Although she has her difficult and less than desirable moments like any child, she's such a great kid with a great personality. It's too bad you can't tell things like that from a picture.

Anyway, I had to take the time to post about this little girl because I want to remember things about this particular stage of life she's in. For the past few months, her imagination has been growing by leaps and bounds. I could easily say that at least half of my conversations with her every day are about things she imagines about.

It seemed to start a few months ago when I was still pregnant with Felicity. She would pretend she had a baby in her belly too. And her baby was also going to be named Felicity. For a little bit that was the extent of it. Everything she pretended was about babies, but over the summer it's evolved into much more than that.

For example, she likes to tell me about her "grandchildren." When she first told me about them they lived on Drury Lane (you know, by the Muffin Man). But depending on the day they may live somewhere else. They also seem to celebrate their birthdays quite often, and their ages can move in either direction. One day they're 5, then 15, and then 4. And there's 4 of them - all the same age.

She also likes to tell me about her pretend best friend, Mora. Mora is her same age, and does everything that Bridget does. Lately she's been talking about Mora more than anything or anyone else.

In her little imaginary world, she also has a job. She used to work at Flying J (just like her dad did) but now she works at Zions (just like her Dad does). And she also has some coworker named Kelly.

This is such a fun stage, and I love to hear all of her stories even if they aren't real.

Solving My Child's Sleep Problems...Again

Once again this book has saved my life and my sanity. As mentioned in previous posts, Felicity was a great sleeper until the beginning of July when she got her first cold. And since then, things got progressively worse. Last week, it was to the point that she was waking up 4-6 times a night, and even getting her to go to sleep and stay asleep was sometimes a difficult ordeal.

For some reason, I had it in my mind that I needed to wait until she was 6 months old to go through the sleep training process in this book, so as I skimmed the chapters I needed to for a refresher and was looking for something that stated that. I guess my memory was faulty because it didn't state that anywhere that I could see, and I was desperate for a good night's sleep so we started the process on Sunday night (the 14th). I figured that if it didn't work because she was too young, I wasn't really out anything since I wasn't getting much sleep anyway.

The positive thing about the first night was that it only took Felicity about 15 minutes of crying and me going in a couple of times before she cried herself to sleep. The rough part of that night was that she woke up 4 times during the night and Bridget woke up 3 times (and yes, I was the one to deal with each of them each time). Bridget usually sleeps through the night or maybe gets up once to go to the bathroom, so I'm not sure if Felicity's crying disturbed her that much or if I was just that unfortunate. Needless to say, I was one VERY tired mom the next day.

During the day that day, things actually went really well for her naps. She didn't fuss for very long, and she actually took longer naps than usual. I was just grateful to be able to put her down awake instead of spending a ton of time rocking her to sleep only for her to wake up when I laid her down.

The second night, a miracle happened - she only fussed for a few minutes and then slept through the night for 9 hours straight! It was the best night's sleep I'd had in a LONG time. Maybe it helped that Nate slept on the couch downstairs so I got the whole bed to myself too! I felt like a new woman and actually woke feeling rested.

Since those first two nights, she's continued to sleep through the night for 9-10 hours. If she does wake, she cries for less than 5 minutes and goes back to sleep on her own.

So life is good at our house again. What's kind of ironic though is that now that Felicity is sleeping great, Bridget has decided to give up naps. I knew it was bound to happen soon since she is 3 1/2, but I was hoping it would last just a little longer. So now I'm just working on getting her to have some quiet time in her room in the afternoon.

Kimberly's Birthday

It's true. I'm now another year older, and hopefully wiser too. My birthday ended up being pretty low-key, but it was great nonetheless.

Although I told Felicity that all I wanted for my birthday was for her to sleep through the night, she opted not to give me that gift. The kids did sleep in allowing me to as well, and that at least helped with my sleep deprivation. Then Nate and I made one of our favorite breakfasts - Crunchy French Toast. The morning and afternoon were spent doing typical Saturday activities which included Nate taking Bridget shopping with him for my birthday present - a flat panel TV for our bedroom.

As I debated about where I wanted to go to dinner, the place that sounded the best was Cafe Zupas. I know gourmet soups, salads, and sandwiches don't sound like a very exciting birthday dinner, but I love that place. Afterward we headed to Coldstone to pick up a birthday cake, and then took it home to eat it.

After getting the girls ready for bed, we just hung out waiting for it to get dark because I was fortunate enough to have my birthday fall on the night our city was putting on fireworks. I know this sounds crazy to some people, but this was actually Bridget's first time watching fireworks (at least the first time since she was an infant). Her sleep has always been more important to us than fireworks, and we would have let her stay up a couple of other times this summer for them, but she opted not to take naps those days. Anyway, she took a nap on my birthday, so she got to stay up and see them. She loved them, and I'm pretty sure she thinks they did them just because it was my birthday. It was a great way to end the day.

4 Months

I wish I could say that the last month was full of sleep-filled nights for all of us, but it ended up being quite the opposite. After the cold Felicity and I both had at the beginning of July, her sleep habits took a turn for the worse, and she only slept through the night twice all month. Her naps continued to be about the same too (45-60 minutes 3-5 times a day).

On a positive note, she learned to roll over at 3.5 months as mentioned in a previous post. That week she rolled over about 10 times but hasn't done it since. It was funny too because right after she learned to roll over, I'd find her sleeping on her side in her bed all the time, and then she stopped doing that too.

In desperation to try anything to help her sleep through the night, I tried giving her rice cereal mixed with milk in a bottle last night but it didn't help either. No surprise. I tried that when Bridget was a baby, and it didn't work with her either.

Here's the stats from her doctor's appointment:
Height: 25 3/4 inches (93rd percentile)
Weight: 16 lbs. 14 oz. (96th percentile)
Head: 16.1 inches (47th percentile)