Mirror, Mirror on the High Chair

My parents have kept a lot of things my brothers and I used as children, cribs, toys, clothes and a high chair. The high chair is the first high chair that Natalie sat in and she loved it.

Last night, my mom brought out the high chair for Philip to sit in, he had the same reaction as Natalie.

when you are this good looking, it is hard to not get lost in your own reflection

7 Months

7 months already?

WOW!

Philip is sitting up better and better and is trying REALLY hard to crawl. He climbs up you when you hold him, loves playing in the activity center and is getting more and more aware of the world around him. His tooth is breaking through more each day and the drooling continues. He still loves his sister and she loves him, but mom is his first choice. In the sleep department, he is sleeping better each night - often getting 8 to 9 hours between feedings. He is also getting better and better about not having to be held to sleep. He likes being close to me, but will sleep next to me for a few hours at a time. He likes to have his belly rubbed in a circular motion to get him to sleep and has started to stretch his legs out and put his arms above his head while he sleeps.

He is so much fun (except for the days that are hard). He loves to smile, laugh and talks (babbles) all the time. Even more will change over this month, I assume he will start to army crawl soon - possibly before the 8 month mark.

Actual 7 month birthday!

Actual 7 month birthday!

day before 7-months...because I didn't realize it wasn't the 10th

Minnesota and other things

The last week of July, Philip, grandma and I went to Minnesota. As usual, Philip was great for the flight there and back and was a good boy for Grandma while I was in meetings.

The first night there we went to a great place for dinner - and they were having a "date night" special, which included a full bottle of wine, two starters (we had pizza & salad), two full meals (we had artichoke- chicken pasta & roasted half-chicken with risito & mushrooms), and two full desserts (we had chocolate mouse cake & butterscotch brulee) all for $50! We each had a glass of wine and took the rest to the hotel, along with 1/2 of each of our meals and both desserts. So we had a few meals for the next few days.

The rest of the time we stayed pretty close to the hotel, going swimming and on short walks. The morning of our flight, everything was conspiring against us and we were very close to missing the flight, but then the Hertz rep told us that he would drive us to the check in counter to save us time and didn't even charge me for not refilling the gas tank. He was the best part of the day. We got home shortly before Natalie was waking up from her nap, got settled then stayed home that night as a family.

I shouldn't have to go anywhere until September, but September will bring a week long adventure to New Jersey and at least one night in Minnesota. Bring on the fun!

Here are a few photos from Minnesota in July

Down South

A few weekends ago we went to my parents house in Southern Utah again. This time, rather that having us all drive down, Philip and I flew down and Phil, Natalie and Godfather drove down. The flight was super quick. Basically you take off, are in the air for about 30-45 minutes and then land. And Philip was a perfect airplane baby. He fell asleep as we took off and slept the whole way down and woke up while we were landing. While we were getting off the plane, the person sitting in front of us said, "Wow, I didn't know you had a baby, he didn't make any noise."

The only downside to flying down is the airport is about a 30 minute drive from my parents house. The upside, was that Philip fell asleep in the car and didn't cry! Score!

Phil, Natalie and Godfather got to the house shortly after Philip and I did and we started our vacation. Phil went golfing every morning we were down there, we spent some time at a friends pool and a lot of time just being together and trying to relax. While down there, we held a small get-together for my parents 40th wedding anniversary. We made fondue and other appetizers and enjoyed time with friends. The morning of their anniversary we made breakfast then packed up to leave. It was a nice way to spend a weekend. Unfortunately, my camera didn't make the trek down, but my mom captured a few shots with hers!

Natalie in the backyard pool

Sister and Brother

Cheese

LP - such a sweet boy

6 Months

One day after Philip's 6 month birthday, we had his 6 month well baby check up. He is doing great and growing (although more about his weight in a minute).

I'll start by saying that we were excited to get his measurements. We don't have a baby scale at home so we had been guessing that he was about a pound heavier than the last visit and we were pretty much right on with our guess.

At this appointment he weighed 16 pounds 6 ounces (29%) and he was 27 inches long (54%). After the weight check, the doctor started talking to us about the fact that he has dropped in his percentile on the weight chart, and although it could be because he is getting more and more active, she was concerned that he wasn't getting enough to eat. This totally shocked us! He eats ALL THE TIME. The doctor asked us how much he was eating during the day and I said that he has around 2-4 ounces with each bottle, plus cereal and a fruit or veggie. She said that kids his age normally eat 7 ounces of formula at every feeding. I was SHOCKED. Not only is there no way he could finish a 7 ounce bottle, there is no way I could produce that much milk. Even though we are not planning on using it, she sent us home with a bottle of formula, just in case we decided to try it. Nice to have a freebie, but hopefully we won't need to use it any time soon.

Here are some photos from the doctor's office

Following the appointment, we took the monthly photo of Philip in his rocking chair. He was less than thrilled.

He looks downright scared!

Breakthrough

I'm working on a few posts to update the blog on what we have been doing over the last month, but before I do that, let me make a HUGE announcement...

Last night while Phil was holding Philip, Philip bit him - with his just-broken-through-TOOTH!!

That's right, at almost 7 months (how did that happen, by the way??) he has officially started teething. What is sort of surprising, is that he hasn't been overly upset. If you remember with Natalie, we never knew she was teething until she actually got her tooth, Philip is somewhat the same. However, he does drool A LOT - like he is hosting his own wet t-shirt contest.

Cabin Fever

We decided to spend some of the fourth of July weekend at the cabin. It has been a while since we have been up there, mainly due to sleep or lack there of. See when we were there back in April, Philip didn't sleep all that peacefully which meant that I didn't either, which makes it hard to function as a mother of two. Also, in April and May Philip put me through my paces with a lot of not sleeping, which made me not want to go back to the cabin and experience what little sleep I was getting on an uncomfortable mattress. When and if he let me sleep I wanted to be in my own bed! Well, since everyone around here has been sleeping a little more (most nights) these days we decided that heading to the cabin for one night would be a nice change. So, on Saturday we drove up the canyon and spent the night at the cabin. As normal, there was a lot of playing outside, a few walks, and as not-normal, some sleep. We saw a deer on the drive up and a squirrel came to visit Natalie and her food while she played on the deck - which she was thrilled about.

While we were there, it was extra warm! Even though it was cooler than in the city, temperatures were above 80 - which is TOO hot for me! So, we decided to get the kids into the pool, a very small pool that we filled with warm water and put in the shade. Natalie loved it, and so did Philip...then Natalie decided that spilling water out of the pool and playing in the mud was much more fun that just playing in the pool water. Because, after all, isn't dirty water more fun than clean? Once she got the water dirty she decided to "wash" baby brothers hair because it wasn't clean...makes sense, right? That hair washing led to us leaving the swimming pool about 10 minutes after we filled it up. But it was fun while the we were out there for 10 minutes.

After our swimming adventure we decided it was pretty warm, so I left Philip pretty naked so he could be cooler than the rest of us. He was SO happy, and you can see his spiky dirty hair in these photos.

Trying to crawl

Mini push Up

There is a photo of my dad at almost the same age

so my mom insisted on taking this one to compare

By the time 4:00 rolled around, no one had taken a nap and everyone needed one, but rather than a nap, we decided to pack everyone in the car and take a drive down to a local resort that was hosting a fair for the 4th. By the time we got down to the resort and realized that the fair was over for the day, both kids were asleep in their car seats so we decided that rather than stop and play at the play ground or go back to the cabin we drove around so they could get some sort of a nap and make our evening a little better. While driving around the local town we found a BBQ place and screeched our tires turning around so we could pick up some brisket. Phil got a pound of brisket and as he told us many times that weekend, "The guy just pulled out this huge slab of meat and cut it in front of me" (he said it while drooling). I will say it was some of the best BBQ I've ever had and it was CHEAP for what we got. That night we enjoyed the BBQ and some brats. Everyone got some sleep and Phil was able to golf 18 holes the next day with my dad. We stayed up at the cabin until about 4:00 on Sunday then drove home. It was a pretty fun one-night adventure. The best part is that when we got home we had 4 red strawberries waiting for us.

Give me Liberty or Give me...another park?

My mom took Natalie, Philip and Melody to Liberty Park about a week ago. There is a wading pool/lake area and old carnival rides and a lot of space to run around. Natalie was in heaven! She went on every ride twice and my mom says they basically dragged her away because she did NOT want to leave. My mom took 60 photos and 2 videos, here is a small sample.

Getting on the Ferris Wheel

Riding in the blue car

First time in the airplane

Second time, this time in the yellow plane

First ride on the merry go round

Sitting on the rock in the pond

Can you tell from her face that the water isn't that warm?

Cold or not, she loved it!

She had so much fun that Phil and I took her back a few days later. She remembered every ride, telling us what car and plane she had already been in and then requested to go on every ride twice. After the rides, we ate some cheese fries and got her some "candy" (fruit snacks). After the rides, we went over to the water and played for a while and then decided to get home for lunch and nap time. Natalie and Philip were both sound asleep before we got out of the parking lot. Unfortunately we forgot our camera, so there is no photographic evidence of all the fun we had.

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Funny fact, or photo, below is a shot of Natalie on her one-year-birthday trip wearing the same suit she is wearing in the photos above. Keep in mind she is two-and-a-half now. Skinny minny

Milk

Natalie loves going to the farm, and has gone a lot over the past year (see here & here). Last week my mom took her again, but this time, they went at cow milking time.

I love this face, "Are you sure this is a good idea?"

She was fascinated by the entire event! She couldn't stop talking about how she got to milk the cow and who got to drink the cow milk, for the record, the "Kitty Kitty, baby cows and little pigs".

And not to be out done by the cow, the fake horse, was also a hit. My mom said Natalie knows where this saddle is and ALWAYS likes to ride.

Don't worry, it will just happen

Most days, it seems like just yesterday that we brought Natalie home from the hospital, some days I feel every one of the days and nights in the two-and-a-half years since we brought her home. She has always done things on her own time and we have learned that we shouldn't force her when she isn't ready for something.

One thing that we had been thinking about starting for a long time is potty training. It is the "next thing" that parents start asking about, you know, "Oh, she isn't potty trained, yet?" with that somewhat disapproving look, but we decided that we didn't want to force her to do anything she wasn't ready for. Also, we were worried that once Philip was born she might want to go back to being a "baby" and we would have to fight the battle all over again. SO, we figured we would start gradually and go slow. Plus, my mom had said that no matter when you start, girls will most likely be day trained by 2 and a half and boys will be by three, so we had some time.

When Natalie was about 18 months old, we bought her a potty seat because our nanny said she would start working with her, which she did, which was great. So by about 20 months old Natalie was pretty much day trained, during the week-days. Evening and days? That was another matter. I think Phil and I were too lazy or didn't want to deal with accidents. Who knows, whatever the reason, we just kept her in diapers in the evenings and on the weekends. Then I decided one day that she was ready to make the jump to pull ups - so I bought a big box of them at Costco and brought them home to a very excited Natalie. She wanted to wear them RIGHT NOW and immediately took off her diaper, then immediately peed in the pull ups. I explained that these were big girl panties and she can't pee in them. But basically, she can, because pull ups are just more expensive, less absorbent diapers. So I put the pull ups away and decided that for Easter, the Easter bunny would bring her some big girl panties and a potty book. But then she was showing some major interest in using the potty, so we decided to give her the panties and book before Easter and it pretty much worked for a while...until she decided that she could pee in the panties and not worry about it. Such a struggle, so we decided to give up...so we did for a few weeks. Then we started again and whenever she wasn't wearing a diaper we would say "do you need to potty" or "be a big girl and remember to potty" about 500 times an hour. Which then resulted in Natalie responding to the "do you have to pee" question with "NEVER", so again we decided to stop, stop with panties, asking and prodding her to potty.

Flash forward to last month, when again we decided to start (gluttons for punishment) again. And something seemed different, she seemed ready, in some way. She was day trained in no time and then one evening while Philip, Natalie and I were playing and waiting for Phil to get home she had an accident and by accident I mean, she knew she had to use the potty and rather than going to the bathroom, she hid in the closet and peed on the floor. I grabbed her and raced to the bathroom and something in me snapped. Mean mommy made an appearance. We don't like mean mommy and I try to keep her hidden...but sometimes she is stronger than me. I told Natalie that clearly she was a baby and she would now have to wear diapers because she wasn't a big girl. Well, that sparked something in Natalie and through her tears (see, mean mommy) she told me that she was a big girl ("I big girl, not baby" - breaks my heart that I made her cry!) and she wouldn't wear the diaper. Well, clearly mean mommy gets results that calm rational mommy doesn't get because since then we have had (knock on wood) no accidents, and no need for diapers, except for night time.

Night time...ugg...the next diaper/potty training battle. I guess it is a good thing that she is so skinny, she can wear diapers for a while if needed!

So, long story short, she is basically potty trained and she has made one step farther away from being my little baby, because she is now a big girl.