New Skill

Alexia can now sit all by her onesie! She’s been sitting on the couch by me for a while just fine. She’ll sit in the corner and play with toys while I sit by her. But, on the floor, she hasn’t been sitting at all. Can’t hold herself there. Maybe it's her long torso, and short legs. But, all of a sudden, it happened. She never even did the tri-pod step. (Using her hands out in front of her to balance) She just started sitting up. We had borrowed a Bumbo from a friend about two weeks ago (a nifty little rubber-ish seat that helps babies sit up – useful for baby food feedings even). Lexi sat in it once for about 45 minutes or so, but after that, she didn’t want to have much to do with it. Before that, we've been practicing sitting, where I’ll have her sit on the ground with me sitting behind her, with my legs on either side of her. She'd play there, and have my legs to lean on. But, just in the middle of last week, she started sitting on her own – minimal falls. She can sit for more than 15 minutes at a time, with no falls! Now, she’s a pro!

It used to be that if I needed to leave her on the floor and run downstairs or something, I’d just have to lay her down on her back, and she didn’t like that so much. She likes to be upright. So she’s loving the fact that she can sit on her own now, because she doesn’t need us anymore to be upright and playing. (Of course, she does fall sideways sometimes, and needs us to rescue her. But, even when she falls, she’s rarely cried.)

Her latest favorite thing is for us to put her on the floor in front of her basket of toys. She then proceeds to take every toy out (some she plays with, others she just takes out). When all the toys are out, we put them back in and start over!




She looks way too tiny to be sitting all by herself! Pretty soon she'll be crawling! No. We're not ready for that yet. Not NEARLY ready.




She loves getting her picture taken! Here she is doing her latest intense grunt-smile. Love it!!!

"Whatever you do, keep breathing!"

Alexia is seven months old, and we took some new pictures of her last week. They turned out way cute. I haven't posted pictures in a while though, so these pictures are from the last month or so.

It's a good thing she's cute, cause she's sure been a handful this past week. I think she's teething. For one thing, she has been playing with her tongue a lot lately. Also, she's been slobbering more than usual. She's always slobbered a lot, but lately it's seemed to be more. She's also had a small cold lately - congestion, and snot running everywhere. But most of all, she has been really ornery. Crying when I try to nurse her (very unusual). Crying during her baby food feedings (which she usually loves). Or just crying for no reason.

It was one of these "crying for no reason" sessions, that a big event happened. Since Alexia was born, she's been a breath holder. She'll be crying, and just hold her breath for a few seconds. I found out that Jacob was a breath-holder when he was little as well. And my brothers kids were all breath-holders. So, I figured it was in Alexia's genetics. My sister-in-law, Tessa, taught me a trick to just blow in the direction of Alexia's nose when she holds her breath, and that gets her to breathe. So, it's been working so far.

But, on Friday, Alexia got really frustrated with me when I took something away from her and started cleaning the slobber off her hands and chin. She started screaming really loud, and then she didn't take a breath for a while. I watched as her face turned blue, her lips turned blue, and I tried blowing in her nose, and that didn't help. Then, all of a sudden, her body went completly limp, and her head rolled back. She passed out!!! She immediately came-to, and screamed her guts out. I know that passing out is a risk for breath-holders, but I didn't think it'd start this early! She's only seven months old!!! It scared the heck out of me! Looking back, Alexia was only holding her breath for maybe 15 seconds or so. But, it was sure long enough to shake me up.

Hopefully the entire teething process won't be so dramatic...

Isn't she cute?

Six Months Already?!?

Has the time gone by that fast? Is my little newborn already six months old? Crazy! We went to her six month appointment last week, and I just can't believe that she's that big. Another six months, and we'll be putting her in front of a big birthday cake in nothing but a diaper, and seeing what happens. I can't wait. Then again, I CAN wait. I'm not ready for her to get big yet. I still enjoy that she wants to be held all the time. I still love when she occasionally falls asleep on my lap. I love when she lets me hold her near my shoulder, and she puts one arm over my shoulder, and one around my neck - mini hug. I love when she reaches her arms up from the ground waiting to be picked up. I love that she gets excited when I hand her a toy she wants. I am still too lazy to baby-proof the house, and I'm nowhere near ready for her to crawl or walk. So, for now, I'll just enjoy her being little.







She's still only 12 lbs. 5 oz. She's gained less than four pounds since her birth! But, she's growing taller, I guess. She's just under the 3rd percentile for weight, and the 10th for height. But, the doctor isn't worried yet. She's healthy, and I promise I'm feeding her. Jake and I just have small jeans in our family. (I know what you're thinking. And I agree. I wish THOSE kind of jeans were small too. But unfortunately, mine are huge, thanks to my hips and backside).

On another note, we had a breakthrough last week. We had three nights in a ROW that Alexia only woke up once. She went to bed at 10, and didn't wake up until after 5. It was amazing! Up until last week, she's been waking up faithfully in the 1:00 hour, in the 3:00 hour, the 6:00 hour, and up around 8:30. It was just getting to the point where I wasn't gonna be able to handle it anymore. I'm always sick, thanks to the lack of REM cycles in my sleep. And I've been praying that I'd find a way to get her to sleep longer. We had tried EVERYTHING! But, one thing I read last Monday suggested that in the nighttime routine, to feed the baby first, THEN do the bath, story, songs, whatever. The article said that if the baby gets used to having food right before nighttime sleep, she'll associate sleep with food, and when she wakes up in the middle of the night, she won't be able to put herself BACK to sleep without more food, creating a viciuos night waking habit. So, I tried changing the order of night stuff. I fed her around 9:20 instead of 9:30, and then had Jacob put her jammies on, sing a song to her, and pray with her and put her down. She went down without a tear, and didn't wake until 5:15 that first night. I told Jacob he's officially hired as the putter-Alexia-down-to-bedder-...whatever...person. Same thing on Wednesday night. Same thing Thursday night, except that night, she didn't wake up until 5:50. It was HEAVEN! Three nights of REM cycles in a row! So, I was a happy camper.


I was hoping that was the magical fix, and she was cured of her awful night waking habit. But, no such luck. The next three nights, the night waking came back with a vengeance. Friday and Saturday nights, she was up at 2 or 3, and I let her cry herself back to sleep, and fed her when she woke up again. But last night, she woke up at 2, then 3, then 4 (I fed her at 4), then she woke again at 5:45, then 6:45 (I fed her at the 6:45 waking), and again at 8, then 9. No idea where that came from. I'm guessing it'll just take a while for her body to learn how to fall asleep on her own. Naps are still a nightmare. So, I'm trying to be patient. Wondering what I did wrong from the beginning. Six month old babies are supposed to be sleeping through the night, right? And I'm pretty good about having naptime routines set. Once she's down for a nap, I rarely go back in her room while she's crying. So, I don't get why she hasn't learned yet to go to sleep quickly.


Oh well...I guess this will be one thing I'll be able to be grateful for once she gets older. I'll miss all the baby stuff, but I'll be SO grateful for a good night's sleep!!!

The Nine Blurps of Christmas

I got this wonderful idea from Julianne, a friend from my old Dentrix and Wymount days. So, I'm stealing her idea and doing some BLURPING - (a technical term that means I'm about to catch you all up on what I've missed writing about in the last little while.)

It's gonna be a long one, so I apologize. Get comfy. Here goes:

Blurp #1
Alexia has been getting awesome at Tummy Time. (She's starting to be able to support herself sitting, but not quite, so we don't have pictures of that.) But, she's getting good push-up muscles on her tummy, so that's improvement! She used to not let us put her on her tummy at all, and now she's okay with it! At least for a few minutes...when she's happy...in the morning. Okay, maybe not the greatest at the tummy stuff yet. She just likes to be upright. But, I love how cute she is on her tummy. Notice her shiny hands - slobber everywhere!!!

Blurp #2
We're not big fans of the JCPenny Photo place. We got some great photos taken there a couple months ago, but they kept pressuring us to buy more pictures than the ones we wanted, and we thought "Hey, we have a camera. We have a finger to push the button! Why don't we take some of our own?!?" So, we took some Christmas pictures of Alexia, and they turned out pretty cute. Here's just a couple:

Blurp #3
At our Ward Christmas party, I KNEW Alexia would scream her head off when sitting on Santa's lap. But, I figured - every kid needs that screaming-their-head-off-on-santa's-lap picture for posterity. So, even though she needed a nap, we took her to the party anyway. And lo and behold, she didn't cry! Her first Santa meet was a success!

Blurp #4
Alexia's first Christmas went great! We were up in Brigham City with my parents for Christmas, and Alexia didn't scream her head off then either! She rather enjoyed eating the wrapping paper, and probably would've rather we didn't take it so fast to throw it away and hand her the present inside. But, she loved her teething rings her grandma Partridge gave her, and proceeded to slobber all over them immediately!

Blurp #5
On the 28th, we celebrated Christmas at the Sharp's. Alexia got a cute sheep piggy bank (that I'm sure she'll enjoy someday), and a cute pink onesie from Moab, a book, and another new teether! She loves ANYTHING we let her slobber on, so she loves the teething rings! We hadn't taken many pictures until Jake's brother Jeff got out this monstrous remote control Jeep Crawler thingy, and Jon started showing off and climbing all over stuff. Once he started crawling on me and up to Alexia, she got a bit scared. But, once she got over the fear, she proceeded to try sucking on the edge of it. Everything goes in her mouth! Even huge $800 toy jeeps!

Blurp #6
Alexia's new favorite game is the drop-the-toy-and-make-a-pile-and-wait-for-someone-to-pick-it-up-for-me game. She loves to sit on someone's lap, or sit in her bouncer, and have a huge pile of toys to play with. She then proceeds to drop them one at a time on the floor. (Or throw them, if the desire overtakes her). She then watches the toy pile get bigger and bigger. Then, she complains when they're all gone. So, we pick them all up and start over again. It keeps her entertained for a while at least! I can get cooking done and occasional cleaning, as long as I notice when the toys run out and pick them all up for her.

Blurp #7
We noticed how interested Alexia has been lately in our food, and so we thought we might start feeding her rice cereal soon. We thought we'd get her familiarized with baby spoons first, so she doesn't protest when we put said foreign object in her mouth. So, we gave her a bunch of brightly colored spoons for Christmas, and Jacob then proceeded to take over 20 pictures of her playing with them. I mercifully only posted three of them. (Watch the evolution of the spoon's position. She finally figured out which end goes in her mouth!!!)

Blurp #8
Every time I eat these days, Alexia just stares at my food. No matter what she's playing with, or what game she's involved in, if there's food in the room, and someone is eating it, she just stares at them and the food the whole time they eat. We'll have to teach her eventually that staring isn't polite. But for now, it's cute!

Blurp #9
Lately, we've been giving Alexia tiny finger tastes of things we eat. On Christmas Eve, we let her taste the sweet and sour meatball sauce. She loved that! We let her taste a tiny bit of taco salad drippings on a place (no meat in the taste, of course...just sauce). She LOVES it! So, we determined that she's ready for rice cereal. Everyone seems to have advice on when to start it. Some people are adamant that we should wait until 6 months. Others think we're behind because we've waited until 5 months. So, we asked the baby bible - the pediatrician. They gave us the go-ahead. So, on Tuesday, we gave her the first taste of rice cereal. Poor kid. She gets tiny tastes of good flavored food, and we finally determine we can feed her, and all she gets is this bland rice mush. But, she seemed to enjoy it! She kept grabbing the spoons, wanting to be the one to put it in her mouth. I'm sure that more of it ended up on her bib than in her mouth, but hey, it's a start!!!

Happy New Year everyone!

All Smiles

Okay, I promised a while ago that I'd post some cute smiley pictures of Alexia. She actually started smiling really early, but it took us a while to get her to smile for the camera. When she first started smiling, it was too fast to get a camera and capture it. Then, she started smiling a lot, and would hold it for a few seconds, so we finally got some good shots. It's just taken me ages to post them!



Lexi was really happy one day after a nap, and she just kept smiling and squealing at me. So, I ran and grabbed the camera, thinking the smiling would stop by the time I got back. But, I must have been quick, because here's what was greeting me when I got back.




Here's another great one. Looks like she's almost laughing in this picture. Maybe it's not an actual giggle, but definitely a squeal of delight!

This one has got to be a favorite of mine. I LOVE this one! I have no idea how I got her to smile so big! And don't you just love her chubby-pinchable cheeks? I'm proud to say, she gets them from me. Everyone says how much Alexia looks like her daddy. But, I think I can claim those chubby cheeks!!!

This last one is Jacob's favorite. He took it when we were with my family at a cabin for an overnighter. Don't you just love how mischevious she looks? Like she's giggling at some secret he told her. She definitely loves her daddy!

My Baby Bumble Bee

I know it's November, but I finally have my Halloween pictures on the computer, so I can finally show everyone the costumes we used! Halloween is Jacob's 2nd favorite holiday, so we had to do something fun. We got creative (mostly Jacob's creative juices) and decided on Alexia and me being a daisy and a bumblebee. Figured it would be a cute theme. Jacob spent a whole afternoon making the ingenious cardboard daisy to fit around my face.

We went to Jake's work trick-or-treat, and here's the photo.

Cute, huh? I have to say we were pretty cute together. People got a kick out of it. Jacob was dressed as Moroni (golden plates and everything!) But, we didn't get a picture of him. Shame on us!!!

I found Alexia's base of her costume at Walmart, and then dressed it up a bit. Jake and I made wings for the back, and sewed them on. We made the little antennas to put on top, and she was the cutest bumblebee ever! She didn't much like us putting the costume ON her, but once she got it on, I think she realized just how cute she was, and she enjoyed it!!! Now we need a good idea for next year!!!

Election Thoughts

Oh, I’m such a slacker! I still have cute pictures of Alexia to post, but I’ve been caught up in other stuff lately that I haven’t had a chance. I also need to get some pictures of Halloween posted on here. Will do!

But, the election and other stuff has been occupying my brain as of late, and I wanted to post about it. First of all, I’m not shouting for joy that Obama was elected…I was definitely rooting the other way. However, Glenn Beck, a talk-show host made a good point about it. If we go around hating Obama, bad-talking him, and criticizing everything that he does in the next 4 or 8 years, then we are no better than all of the Bush-haters that have gone around blaming him for everything wrong in the country. I got so fed-up with the Bush bashing sessions and criticisms, because although he may have made mistakes, I still respect the guy a ton and hey, he was the president of the United States. Have some respect! So, I'm trying to remember that although I may not agree with him all the time, he’ll still be the president of our country. He will still deserve our respect and need our prayers.

Next, I’m saddened by all of the protests and nasty things people have said about the church regarding our involvement in getting Proposition 8 passed. We have every right as a church to get involved and try and spread the word about something we believe in! I cringed when one of the spokespeople for the protests started criticizing “Thomas Monson” and blaming him personally for the passage of the proposition. It actually made me cry hearing him talked about in such a disrespectful way. I know that protesters have rights of speech and can protest when they want to, but it’s hard to see them specifically targeting the church and the temple in California.

So, let’s all keep President Monson in our prayers and pray that things can be resolved quickly and without too much negativity towards the church.

That’s all I have to say about that.