Seven Months

I know...I'm supposed to be blogging about Utah. I don't want to get behind on everything else though...and I the next day to blog about still has over 500 pictures to sort through. (Hey...it was over 800! I have made some progress...) Anyways, I wanted to get this list recorded about the girls at seven months since some of it has already changed.

Ella:

• She can finally scoot herself forward. 
• She does a silly inch worm/carpet swimmer crawl. I really need to get it on video! It's so adorably funny!
• She can mostly sit herself up from being on her tummy. 
• Her sit is more of a tri-pod sit. She always has one hand on the ground too.
• She loves to pound on the linoleum or the wood floors at my parents. 
• She lights up when Curt gets home. It totally amazes me how much! She loves him!
• She loves chewing on stuff. Everything goes into her mouth.
• She eats green beans, carrots, sweet potatoes and peas. Peas and carrots are her favorites. 
• She does really well with eating. She doesn't get food every where or spit it. She opens her mouth for it and scoops it off her spoon. 
• Her favorite toys are the thick soft plastic/latex/rubber (I don't know what it is exactly) dresses that slip onto some of Isabelle's princesses.
• She is way more content to play on the floor than Emery.
• She doesn't like being alone...she needs to know there is at least someone in the area close by. 
• She's been abnormally grouchy since coming home from Utah. I hope this means another tooth is coming in, but it hasn't made an appearance yet. 
• She no longer sucks her thumb. I've seen it in her mouth maybe twice all month. When she does have it in her mouth it is for only about two seconds though. 
• She will not take more than two naps unless it is a cat nap in the car seat if we go some where. This has made for a very long, sometimes six-hour stretch, late afternoon/evening. She'll get super grouchy and want to go to bed at 6 o'clock. We try really hard not to let either one of the go to bed until seven, but sometimes it just doesn't work. 
• She likes to make a short happy high-pitched repetitive squeal. 
• She likes to grab everything in sight, but not quite as much as Emery.
• She hates her nails being cut. 
• She likes to shake her head side-to-side. 
• She says, "Dadadada" very clearly. 
• Ugh...if she finds Isabelle's shoes lying around, she immediately starts chewing on them. Totally disgusting!
• Often times when she is playing with toys, she'll put a soft toy in her mouth and shake her head side-to-side. It is awfully reminiscent of a certain animal! It's so super adorable though. 

Emery:

• Her jaw clicks out of socket all the time. It is so gross! At night, it is the worse and sometimes it clicks with every single swallow. Ugh...
• Unless she is actively doing something with her hands, her left index finger will be in her mouth. She chews on it more than she sucks on it though. 
• She gets so mad at us if she sees we are eating and not feeding her. She dives for it and wants any food.
• She really has no interest in sitting. We try to teach her, but she doesn't like to lean forward or relax her torso. 
• She still has no teeth. 
• She already is super jealous of her sisters. We cannot walk through the room or let her see us holding one of them, especially Ella, without her getting upset and wanting to be held. 
• She already follows me around the house. Or she'll come and find me.
• She loves to buzz her tongue. It drives me crazy when she's eating and then spits food all over me. 
• She also likes to suck and immediately release her bottom lip to make a quick repetitive sucking noise. 
• She always pulls her bows off and chews on them. Drives me crazy.
• Her favorite toys are Isabelle's princess dolls. It posses quite the problem that all three of my girls just want the princess dolls. Isabelle does fairly well and sharing, but not always. 
• She, too, eats green beans, carrots, sweet potatoes and peas. She doesn't appear to have a favorite. She just wants food.
• She's not good at being an efficient eater. She spits a lot of it and pushes it out with her tongue. She's not consistent with opening her mouth and she doesn't scoop it off the spoon very well either. 
• She is getting better about playing on the floor, but still just wants to be held all the time. 
• Her best times of the day are for about an hour and a half after waking up for the day and about an hour after each nap. Other times? Well, she's just grouchy at all the other times. 
• She still does so good at putting herself to sleep when we just lay her down in the crib. So much better than Ella. 
• She's very ticklish. 
• She doesn't really prefer Curt verses me. She just wants to be held by one of us. 
• Her favorite place in the house is under the kitchen table slapping the linoleum. 
• She thinks the word, "No" is funny. 
• She very rarely spits up anymore, and when she does, it isn't a ton like it used to be. 
• When she is left with people she struggles because she likes knowing where we are. If she sees us at least every couple of minutes, she's usually fine with other people as long as she's being held. 

Utah: Day Three

Our third day in Utah was way quieter than our second day. It was a Sunday...which is half the reason. After church, Heather's family and our family went to see my great grandma. She wasn't having a very good day so we didn't get any pictures...which is super sad to me. However, we were glad we got to spend some time with her. Isabelle wasn't a big fan of talking much to her, but she loved her chair cause it had a remote control attached to it. When we first got there, my grandma was having her blood pressure checked, so Isabelle took the chair remote control and was pretending to take everyone's blood pressure with it by laying it on their arm. It was cute. Before we left she even crawled up on my grandma's bed to give her a hug goodbye. I really hope that wasn't our last time to see her!

After visiting with her, we went back to my Grandma Clark's house. She made dinner and then we went for a drive. Utah has some seriously swollen rivers right now. My grandma's next door neighbor is literally the Weber River. Side note: this terrified me because I totally worried about Isabelle wandering off and drowning. Especially because she could open my grandma's door no problem and would go outside to play when ever she felt like it. Anyways, upriver from where the Weber River sits along side my grandma's house is Echo Canyon and the dam on the river making the lake there. Well, with the high amounts of water they are currently experiencing, the spillway is open for water to go over it. I wanted to see it, since I've never seen that before, so we took a drive to go see it and then follow along the Mormon Trail for a ways. We loaded up our vans and add several people to add to the group and ended up taking a long drive along this two-lane road. Of course, as luck would have it, there was so many cars up there, that there was no where to stop so we didn't get to see the waterfall for more than a second as we drove around the bend in the road. I was bummed. We did stop to look out over the lake though.

 1: The view of the lake. The drop from where we were standing to the water was way higher than it looks and it was super steep. My mom was having panic attacks and I was starting to. 2: Wildflowers. 3: A family picture minus Emery who was asleep in the car seat. Wow...a family of four. Such a strange concept to us. 4: More wildflowers. 5: The view of the river coming into the lake. 6: Heather and Levi. 7: Heather's (my sister, if anyone doesn't know that...) family: Heather, Andrew and Levi. 8: More wildflowers going down the very steep hill into the water.

The rest of the evening consisting consisted of hanging out with family and enjoying the cool evening weather.

9: The view of the sun setting from my grandma's back yard. 10: Bubbles were a favorite for the first few days until all the soap disappeared. 11: Isabelle eating watermelon. Usually she won't touch the stuff. 12: Ella playing inside. 13: More watermelon for Isabelle. 14: Isabelle loved climbing the fence to look at the cows and the horses. 15: Levi eating watermelon. 16: Me eating watermelon. (Wow...a picture of just me...amazing!)

Up next: Independence day. It might take me all weekend to put together this blog post. It will probably be as big as the day two post. 

Utah: Day Two

At the end of Saturday, I asked Isabelle if today was the best day ever. She promptly said yes. Honestly, it probably was. Heather took over 500 pictures in one day...and I took over 300 pictures. Everything we did was a photo shoot, and for good reason. It was a near perfect day, that's for sure. (I'm totally overwhelmed with how to blog this huge of a day...)

Our day started with playing in my grandma's backyard. What day doesn't start out on the right foot when you are roaming around and playing outside first thing in the morning?

1: Checking out the horses in the pasture. 2: Isabelle showing Ella her flower. 3: Jumping on the trampoline with Levi and Heather. 4: More showing Ella her flower. 5: More jumping on the trampoline. 6: Playing on the merry-go-round. 8: Ella practicing sitting up. Shortly after this she decided she didn't like the grass. 

9 and 10: Climbing the fence to get a better look at the pasture. 11: Trying to sneek into the pasture. 12: Petting a horse with Papa. 13: Looking into the pasture with Levi and Andrew. 14: Petting another horse with Papa. 15: Petting some more. 16: Saying hello or "Wingapo" like Pocahontas does. 17: More petting the horse. 

18: Papa teaching Isabelle to feed the horse the grass. 19: Isabelle picked a single blade of grass to feed the horse. 20: Feeding all three of the horses who came to have Isabelle feed them. 21: Feeding the horse. Make note of her mouth wide open. 22: She would let go of the bundle of grass as soon as the horse took a bite. 23: My dad had to get Ella in on it all. 24: Isabelle feeding the horse by herself. 25: Once again, feeding the horse one big weed. 

The first thing we had planned for the day was to take everyone up to the Clark Dry Farm. (It's a dry farm because it's up in the mountains and therefore can't be irrigated because the water would just run down the mountain.) While it wasn't really all that hot, the sun was blaring right down on top of us so it seemed even hotter than it actually was. Therefore, we didn't really stay up there too long. Plus there really isn't much to do up there anyways. 

26: Isabelle on an old truck left up on the dry farm to die. 27: Cows. 28: The view. 29: My dad took Isabelle on top of some old farm equipment. 30: The cows came to check out the babies. 31: Another old truck left up there to rot...

After we went to the dry farm we went to a local diner for some amazing hamburgers, fries, FRY SAUCE!!!, and ice cream. They have $.25 ice cream cones that are the perfect small size for Isabelle. Emery and Ella totally jumped in on having some too. They still hadn't really started food at this point, but every time they saw any food, they would dive for it. 

32: Isabelle checking out her ice cream. 33: Levi loved his and even ate some of the cone. 34: Emery after eating her ice cream. 35: Apparently everyone with an ice cream cone had to feed a baby they were not holding... 36: Emery while eating her ice cream.  37: Isabelle eating her's. 38: Ella eating her's. 39: All done for Ella. 

After lunch we relaxed at my grandma's house for a couple of hours and then we went down to the Clark Dairy Farm to feed the baby cows and see the other animals there. 

40: Andrew feeding a baby cow. Levi wasn't quite sure what to think of it all. 41-45: Isabelle feeding a baby cow. We didn't get there until almost the entire bottle was gone, but we found a cow who was a slow drinker and she fed the very end of the bottle to him. She LOVED it!! 46: Ella's cheeks are just so kissable. 47: All done feeding the cows. 

48: Trying to feed some of the "teenage" cows some hay. They were too scared of them to eat from their hands. 49: Petting a goat. 50: Hugging a goat. 51: Trying to fee the goat. 52 and 53: Watching the big momma cows get milked in the milking barn with my cousin Andrea. One cow pooped and splashed on Heather. Good times... 54: Watching the big pig who just had her piglets a few hours earlier. 55: Even though we were at the farm, my daughter is still a princess at heart and she had to dance her way back to the van. Yes, she did!

After we were done with the farm animals, my cousin Andrea and my aunt Patrice took Isabelle horse riding. I think this is the highlight of her life. She seriously still talks about it and tells everyone she "ride a horse" and his name is Twigs and he's a Palomino. I don't even know if he or she is a Palomino...but that's what someone told her so that's what she tells us and lots of people she meets. (Melanie: educate me.)

56: At first she rode behind my cousin Andrea. She was so excited and couldn't stop smiling at us. 57: Then she graduated to the saddle and rode with my aunt Patrice. She liked to help with the reins. 58: Totally loving it! 59 and 60: Levi and Isabelle rode by themselves. Levi definitely wasn't sure of it at first, but riding with Isabelle helped him be convinced it was indeed fun. 61 and 62: Isabelle got to ride by herself. By the looks of these pictures, she wasn't having fun anymore, but they are totally misleading. She LOVED every minute of it. 63: Levi and Isabelle again...

After a while some friends of my aunts came to go horseback riding and I was afraid Isabelle would have a little melt down when we took her off. She kept asking for one more ride. After two "one more" rides, she let the little boys go. There wasn't even a complaint. We were seriously shocked and so proud!

Following the horse riding, we relaxed some more, had dinner and dessert over the campfire and blow'd bubbles for the kids. 

64: This is what the girls did while Isabelle was riding the horse and what they continued to do until dinner...played on the floor. 65: Finished blowing bubbles, now just relaxing. 66: Roasting hot dogs for dinner. This is Isabelle's attempt at a smile upon request... 67: Eating a candy necklace Heather bought her at the store. The necklace mysteriously disappeared after this evening. :) 68 and 69: She loved roasting hot dogs. 70 and 71: She also loved roasting marshmallows for s'mores. However, she wouldn't try one at all.  

We finished the day off with sparklers and fireworks. 

72: Isabelle having her sparkler lit for the first time. She has no clue what's coming. 73: First reaction was more unsure of what it was. 74: Deciding it was cool. She didn't hold on to it much after this and it took some watching other people to build her trust and  hold them again. 75: Levi and Heather. 76: We laid blankets out to sit on while we shot off fireworks. Isabelle thought they were for snuggling in. 77: Still a little unsure... 78: Loving watching the fireworks! 79: After ten or so fireworks, we lit a loud one. It took a little while to recover from that. 

Okay...five hours later (not an exaggeration!) this blog is finally done. Phew...I may need to take a blogging break already!

Utah: Day One

I am finally ready to start blogging about Utah. I literally have over three thousand pictures to go through over the course of the next ten blogs, so hopefully I won't loose steam half way through. So, here we go...

Our first day in Utah, was more of our first evening. We arrived Friday evening at about five. Ella and Emery were so excited to be out of the car. Ella loved being on her stomach! (My babies are very much stomach babies...) 

My dad was anxious to show the grand kids around. He took them out to see the horses and cows. Afterwards we packed up the kids into the strollers and went had sno-cones. Emery wasn't too happy to have to get strapped into something again, but she loved the ice and the couple of tastes of sno-cone that she got. Of course, of the 3,000+ pictures, we don't have pictures of that. 

We were all exhausted so we didn't do much on Friday. When it was time for bed, Isabelle headed towards the car and wanted to sleep in the car with Andrew, Heather and Levi. She wanted to sleep in the car and "go on a adventure" as she says. 

I have an uncle who lives next door to my grandma, so we stayed with him. All five of us staying in a large room there. We took Isabelle's Dora couch that she normally sleeps on anyways for her to sleep on there. In the middle of the night, Curt woke up to Isabelle saying, "Momma, Daddy! I stuck!" While we could hear her, we had no clue where she was. We eventually found that she had squeezed by the pack n plays and had gone into the closet. She was trying to climb boxes that were stacked up to make her way through the closet and to us. It was actually really funny... 

Stay tuned for day two...otherwise known as the best day in Isabelle's life.

Water Park

On Saturday morning, we all got up, picked up two of my cousins and went to Arlington to go to a small water park. My boss and friend that I still keep in touch with from my days at Lifetouch, invited us to come to her kid's combined birthday party. They rent out the Randoll Mill Aquatic center for two hours in the morning and we get the whole place to ourselves. It's totally uncrowded, perfect for my kid's and totally worth the drive. All three of my girls loved it. 

Going down the small froggy slide:

Emery's so easy to make smile:

About to go down the big(ger) slide:

Playing in the water. I wish I had pictures of her actually sitting and relaxing in the inner tube:

 This was her reaction after we got out and asked her if she had fun. Interesting...

 Of course you can't have a birthday party without cake!

 I think she enjoyed it!

The water temperature was perfect and it wasn't too hot outside yet. Yay for such a great Saturday morning!

X-rays

On Friday, my mother-in-law kept Isabelle and I had my cousin over to help me, so we finally went and had an x-ray done of Emery's spine. Good news...the soft growth is just under the skin and isn't tangled with any other parts of her. So, it hasn't grown onto the muscles or spine. Yay for that. However, we do have to meet with a surgeon to make sure it being there is in fact okay. I don't know when that will be yet, but I'm anxious to get this all over with...

1 Tooth + 1 Tooth = Teeth

On July 8th, Ella cut her first tooth. Although we could tell she was cutting it, she wasn't excessively unhappy. Isn't she adorable with her one tooth?

Immediately after she cut her first tooth, we could see that tooth #2 was coming in. Poor thing was teething on the road trip home. Curt gave her a blessing before the drive to bless her with comfort during the drive. She did so well. Overall, I think she did awesome. Yay for cutting them so close together and for cutting them so well. Then again, maybe I'm just forgetting already. The past two or three days have been so horribly bad, that maybe it is making teething feel like a cake walk. Maybe she's cutting more. Although, she's even more cute with her two teeth, I think:

Two down...30 to go in the next year. (I know you're jealous...)

26 at 26 Quarterly Update

Now for Curt's update...

1. Work out five days a week. Well...I'd have to say this hasn't been happening. He did bike to work the other day and plans to make it a habit as soon as he fixes the tire.
2. Do not move from our current apartment. I'm ready for a third room...but not ready to move. We're still good on this one, so far. 
3. Lose 26 pounds. Well...we have been trying lots of new recipes. :(
4. Complete 100 percent home teaching every month. I think he did this one of the past three months. 
5. Go on a vacation. Check
6. Don't drink Dr. Pepper for a year. This is going to be hard. Apparently too hard...
7. Plant a garden. Check. We have a jalapeno growing. That's about all so far.
8. Stay in a hotel for a night with no kids. We've never done this. We still have never done this.
9. Finish a triathlon. Notice I said "finish" and not "compete." While training hasn't started, he's still wanting to do this and has talked with Andrew about doing it together.  
10. Go on a camping trip. Check.
11. Take Natalie on a date once a month. I wish it were once a week... We've done this two of the three months.
12. Network our home computers. Not yet.
13. Take a non-major related class to learn something fun. In my economics degree plan there are lots of electives that I get to choose anything to fill. He hasn't been taking classes this summer. 
14. Read the whole standard works. Hmmmm....time to re-commit. 
15. Take Isabelle on a Daddy-daughter date once a month. They've been on one. 
16. Go kayaking. Not yet. 
17. Put up Christmas decorations in our home. Not Christmas time yet, but we've been making plans.
18. Have Family Home Evening once a week. We need to be better.
19. Buy book shelves. We need money.... :)
20. Have a 4.0 semester. Once again, he hasn't been taking classes since the goal was made. 
21. Pay off our van. We've made double payments...that's a step in the right direction, right? :)
22. Read a book to the girls daily. He hasn't done this daily. Once again, time to re-commit. He may have actually forgotten about this one.
23. Eat less meat. Some of the new recipes we've been trying have been vegetarian. 
24. Take Natalie paintballing. Too hot!
25. Finish my Book of Mormon stories project. I'm writing poems to tell some Book of Mormon stories for the girls. I want to illustrate it too. He's been working on this, but has had some writer's block. 
26. Learn how to change the oil in our cars. This is embarrassing to admit that I need to learn this. He has the perfect opportunity...both cars need their oil changed. So, maybe that will be a project soon. 

27 at 27 Quarterly Update

As a personal re-evaluation, I want to do a quarterly run through/up date of how I am doing on my 27 at 27 list. This could be embarrassing...

1. See a movie in the movie theatre. Check! Curt and I went on a date and saw Thor. Overall, we liked it and realized how much we like going to the movies. We were shocked at how loud it was though. We were definitely not used to that anymore. 
2. Buy new couches. Is it time for another tax return yet? This isn't even an option until we get a tax return...and even then, it may be a stretch. 
3. Take a bi-monthly family picture and couple picture. I don't know if we've done this bi-monthly, but we definitely have been doing it. Maybe even monthly. Yay for us. 
4. Go on a vacation! Check. We did this. We are hoping to get a trip to Sea World in this year too. They have Sesame Street there!
5. Take vitamins/Give vitamins every day. Totally fell off the band wagon here. I really need to start doing this again! 
6. Make meal plans and only go to the grocery store once per pay check. I think we've done decently well with this. Especially if you don't consider runs for non-grocery stuff.
7. Scrapbook a monthly "10 Things About Ella/Emery" page and a monthly picture page and create a book of it. Kind of like my version of Isabelle's Project 365... Now it's a Project 12. I am not up-to-date with this, but I have done really well staying on top of recording the tidbits and doing at least one of the two pages each month. I'll do it all, I'm just a little behind, but I'm doing well enough I am considering this a success so far.  
8. Start my own vinyl business...or really just start getting a steady stream of orders. I've had a decent amount... 
9. Leave the house and go and do something fun with the girls at least once a week. Story time at the library, zoo, park, museum, visiting friends etc. Well...I think I'm doing okay on this. Especially if Grammie and Grandma's houses are considered a fun place to go.  
10. Have Family Home Evening every single week. We have been slacking a little bit... 
11. Never go to bed with dishes in the sink. I think we've done pretty well with this. Of course I say that on a day that I had to get up and do dishes. 
12. Be better at teaching Isabelle things. Counting, recognizing letters, songs, cleaning up, washing her hands correctly, following directions, spitting out the toothpaste instead of swallowing, scripture stories, etc. Hmmm...I need to get better about this too. I was hoping I'd be doing really well with this, and I've only been kind of good.
13. Do a hands-on craft (non-digital scrapbooking) every month. I need a craft night. I actually bought stuff to make a Christmas quilt to hang on my wall or put on my table during Christmas time while I was in Utah. I should probably start now.
14. Teach babies how to put themselves to sleep in the crib. We've done so well at this, but at the same time we've gone down hill. We let the babies cry themselves to sleep and they handled it really well. However, now that they can roll around and since Ella goes to sleep on our bed and then we move her, Ella's been getting used to us putting her to bed. It terrifies me to leave her on our bed, even surrounded by pillows, to put herself to sleep. I am totally wishing we had a pack n play to put her to bed in our room in. (We separate them during naps because they'll wake each other up and at night when they are putting themselves to sleep for the same reason...)
15. Recognize/celebrate more holidays. We did awesome at Easter, and we had a great day on Independence day...but I still want to do more. 
16. Start couponing. Yeah...well, I am not good at this. Truth be told...I'd rather be scrapbooking or blogging or just about anything else during my free time. 
17. Get on a Sweet Shoppe (a digital scrapbooking store) creative team. Check! :) I'm actually on two now!
18. Try new recipes. At least once a shopping trip, which according to number six is every two weeks. We've done really good at this to. On average, I'd say we've tried more than just one new recipe every two weeks. This coming two week stretch has at least six new recipes scheduled. Curt's even jumped on the band wagon with this one and has enjoyed cooking new things himself. 
19. Be asleep by 11:00 every night. Yeah...right. I think just about every night in the past week, we've gone to sleep at about 12:30 or 1:00. There is just too much to do and too much to talk about when the kids are asleep.
20. Lose 15 pounds. Oh yeah...ugh...I think I need to adjust this to 16 pounds now. Ugh....
21. Lists. Oh how I love lists. I lived and breathed by lists in college. I don't know how anyone gets through college without lists! (Curt...) I have gotten out of the habit though since becoming a mother. I want to once again live by lists. I've done okay at this too. I just love lists! 
22. Make all the beds every day. Ha...yeah...right! I think I've made the bed three times...tops since I wrote this. I have an excuse! I don't want Ella to sleep on top of our quilt for her naps. Yeah, that sounds like a good excuse. :)
23. Use my dryer less. I don't want to be psycho about it but I do want to have a clothes line on the balcony and hang our diapers to dry outside. So, as it turns out, the apartment complex doesn't allow tenants to dry clothes outside. Plus it's hot. I did really good until the rain started in the spring. (So about two or three weeks.) I think once the weather cools a little, I do it again and just play innocent if I get caught. 
24. Go through all my pictures...and delete all the bad/blurry/not good/ugly/repeat ones. This is not a small task. Seriously, during 2009, I have over 5,300 pictures on my external hard drive...and over 4,600 in 2010. Ugh. I still haven't even started this. I do try to go through things as soon as I download them now though.  
25. Personal scripture reading five days a week. Yikes. I'm embarrassed to admit publicly that I'm not doing well or good at this at all. Curt and I have talked about getting going again though. 
26. Scrapbook Europe. I think I want to do this with paper...not digital. Honestly, if this happens, I'll be shocked. I just don't have it in me and I want to do so much more crafts before this one. It's a good goal, but don't be surprised if it ends up on my 28 at 28 list.  
27. Go through our toys and sterilize them every other month. I'm due to do this again. It is actually on my list to start this weekend. 

The UPS Man Ruined My Child!

So the day before we left on our trip, I received a package from UPS. When the UPS man came to deliver the package he knocked really loud on the door and then used the knocker and knocked really loud again. Isabelle was standing in the middle of the living room and I was on the computer. It's a difference of about ten feet. When he knocked, it made me jump. However, for Isabelle, it terrified her. She literally screamed at the top of her lungs for a good ten seconds. I have never heard a more high pitch, filled with terror scream in my life! It scared me even more and by the time I got to her, she was totally traumatized. I picked her up and we answered the door. The UPS man felt so bad. He kept saying he was sorry and said that they are told to "knock so people can hear you." Ummm....yeah we heard you. I guess I should also mention I have about an eight foot tunnel leading down to the door too, so it echos on top of it all anyways. We would never not be able to hear a knock on the door. It took a good 15 minutes of cuddling for her to recover. I have to admit, that I had a hard time not laughing while she was cuddling with me because while sheer terror was written across her face, and her fingers were all spread and her arms we half raised and out, it was kind of funny that she got so scared. She talked about it for the rest of the day, but the following day, she spent the day with her grandma and then we left on our trip. When we came home, I'd pretty much forgotten all about it...until mom came over. I had known she was coming, so I had unlocked the door. When she came, she lightly knocked on the door as to let me know she was coming in and she walked in. From that little knock, Isabelle started her scream again. Her sheer terror scream again. Ever since, she is a totally scaredy-cat about the door and even loud noises. It is only when we're at home though. The screams are getting less intense, but she still freaks out and has to be held afterwards. Needless to say, I am very anxious for this to pass. I hate seeing her so scared!

Eating Veggies

I have to admit...I haven't really been looking forward to starting to feed Emery and Ella solids. I've kind of looked at it like it's just one more thing to add to the long list of things I have to do in a day. When they hit the five month mark I tried rice cereal a couple of times, but they didn't like it. Plus, then I talked to a nutritionist and she said that if FORMULA fed babies are started on solids before they are four months old it increases their likely hood to be obese by the time they reach third grade by over 6 times than babies who start solids after six months! (This statistic was edited three weeks after this post because the same nutritionist corrected herself slightly...) So...I had an excuse to put it off more...and I did. However, my babies started going crazy at the sight of food and since we reached their six month mark right before our trip, I decided we could finally start veggies. They loved it. Okay...well Emery loved it. We started with sweet potatoes and we did that for a week. Emery immediately took to them and Ella did after some warming up to them. We started carrots this week and Ella can't seem to get enough of those. Seriously! She loves carrots more than sweet pototatoes and I think Emery likes sweet potatoes more than carrots... Anyways, here are some pictures of their first time eating veggies!

 And this is what Isabelle was doing while we fed the babies. Reading a brochure about where we had gone the day before. She was quite enthralled...

Unexpected Costs

How come it seems like appliances like to break at the most unexpected time? While doing insane amounts of laundry and packing for our trip to Utah our washing machine stopped spinning and stopped completely draining. Thank goodness this was on our last load, and the items in the washing machine were not things we were packing for our trip. Since we were in a hurry, I filled the washer back up and just let the items sit in the water for the duration of our vacation. I was worried about doing that...but I didn't want to leave it mostly empty of water and let it get stinky and moldy. It actually worked out and once we got home I tried to rewash the items and then see if we could get the washer to spin. Unfortunately, it was completely dead. Wouldn't do anything. Gone. We were really sad, as we now needed to spend lots of money to get a washer as soon as possible and who has money after returning from vacation? Well...not us. We first tried to find one on Craig's list, but there wasn't any good deals on there. We had to bite the bullet and buy a new one. We even paid the extra $100 for the HE kind since the cloth diaper detergent is expensive and I can use 1/2 the dose if we had a HE washer. I'll definitely pay off the extra $100 in cloth diaper detergent alone. (Anyone local want my old non-HE detergents?)

I am excited that I don't have an agitator coming up in the middle of the basket.

I also really like some of the settings that I need for washing my diapers. I'm not in love with the fact that the lid locks so you can't add anything to the basket after it's started. That's going to take some getting used to. 

I guess we should just look at it as how lucky we were to make it three years with a washer that was given to us. The people who gave it to us weren't even the first owners and didn't know how many previous owners it had or how old it was. So...here's to a new washer. Hopefully it will last until Curt is done with both of his degrees!!

Sweet Amazingness

While we were in Utah, my mom bought us a great cook book. It really is beautiful. I love just looking at all the pictures. Anyways, Curt surprised me this morning by making this while I slept in. 

It was super yummy. It was really hard to eat this plate cause it is really heavy, but it was oh so yummy! Yes...that is perfectly placed hand-whipped whipping cream. (We have no whisk attachment for our Kitchen Aid.) 

Puffed French Toast from this book. 

Welcome Home

Tonight we welcomed home Curt's younger brother Luke from his mission in England. Luke is the closest thing I've every had to sending a sibling, or really anyone, out on a mission. I think I was just about as excited for him to come home as Curt was. All three of the girls took a lot kinder to welcoming Luke home than Isabelle ever did for anyone else in the family. Here are pictures from the last time we saw Luke on the 22nd of July, two years ago:

Here is the one (!) picture we took today at the airport. Yeah...we always have babies in our arms, and that complicates the picture taking...

My how our family has grown since then...and I'm not just talking about our immediate family of three growing to five. The whole Whitworth clan has grown from 12 to 20 and in about two weeks, we'll add another.

We're so happy to have you home Luke!!!

Six Month Well Child Visit

Yes, I want to be blogging about our trip to Utah, but I don't have all of the pictures yet, and there are a few blogs I need to write other than just Utah. So, until I get pictures from my sister...wait anxiously, because the trip was amazing! Some seriously amazing blogs will be coming soon. In the meantime...

Yesterday, I took Ella and Emery to the doctor's for their six month well child visit. Can I just say it is so much work to do this by yourself?? If Curt hadn't just used so much time for vacation, I would have made him take some time off for him to go with me, but alas...I had to do it alone. The nurses are so nice there, and I was almost never alone. Someone was almost always with me holding one of the girls. Unfortunately, neither baby appreciated this and cried unless they were being held by me. Poor girls. Ella's cutting a tooth and Emery has the worst diaper rash I've ever seen. Seriously, makes me want to cry every time I change her diaper. Devastatingly, the doctor said it definitely wasn't the worse she's ever seen....which makes me want to cry too. Anyways, they are doing good. Ella is a chunk compared to her sister! Not that we didn't already know this, but the gap is widening and Emery just isn't gaining weight as quickly as Ella. Developmentally, they are doing awesome. Emery literally is leaps and bounds above where she should be on the crawling front. She literally can almost crawl and she can get anywhere she wants to without a problem. She has no interest in sitting at all though. She doesn't even like it in the Bumbo. Ella is also close to crawling too, but more backwards than forwards. Ella is doing better at sitting than Emery does though, so she's doing awesome too. The doctor was super impressed with them. Everything looks good with Ella. In true Emery fashion, we are going to have to go get MORE x-rays taken. This time of her spine. She has a lump on her spine that has been there at least two months now and since it's on the spine, the doctor is worried about it. She thinks it is probably a cyst though, but she wants to look into it more and even talked about having the surgical staff look at it depending on the x-rays. So...now I need to go have that done as soon as possible. Here are their stats:

Ella:

17 pounds and 15 ounces (65th %tile)

26 inches tall (48th %tile)

Emery:

14 pounds and 7 ounces  (17 %tile)

25.5 inches tall (30th %tile)

Six Month Tidbits

Here are some things about the girls at six months:
Ella:

• She has found her toes.
• She still doesn't laugh much. She can laugh and she has, about a dozen times, but it is really hard to get her to. Even if you are successful, you will hear one giggle. She never laughs more than one breath at a time. 
• She's started getting up on all fours. 
• She is good at moving backwards...and only backwards.
• She loves food...well at least the look of food. Whenever we eat she always tries to get at it. She actually grabbed some hot rice off of my plate. She did not like that! Of course that didn't stop her from doing it again before I got her cleaned up and the food out of the way.
• She's getting really good at playing with toys. 
• She's a people watcher. She often watches someone until they notice her and then she gets really excited since they looked back at her. 
• She smiles a lot.
• She loves tons of kisses. It can even pull her out of crying when we start repeatedly kissing her cheeks. 
• She also loved when we blow raspberries on her cheeks and belly.
• She's okay with staying up late. She's always been more of a night owl, but she doesn't get ornery much if we keep her up either.
• She buzzes her lips a lot. She does it when she is both happy and mad. It's funny that she does it for both emotions. 
• She's doing better about letting other people hold her. She's not so much of an only-a-mommy's girl. 
• Randomly, she kicks her left leg up and down a lot. If she's eating, is she's being held, in the car seat...
• She loves attention. Sadly I don't think she gets enough either. She gets so excited if we even just look at her. Even when we are playing with Isabelle or Emery in her general direction, she gets super excited. Almost as if she doesn't know it isn't for her... It least she's easily entertained. 

We love our little Ella! She seriously is so easy going and sweet. She is such a blessing to us and her sisters. 

Emery:

• She can totally get anywhere she wants to go. Between rolling around and now army crawling, there is no stopping her. 
• She has started getting up on all fours and rocking. She even lunges forward too. Unlike Ella, she can't go backwards, but she has no problem turning herself around if she wants something behind her. 
• She talks a lot. She can make baba and dada sounds. She's getting more able and louder at it too.
• She also loves food and tries to get at ours all the time too. It's time to start solids...
• She is constantly grabbing everything. If it is in her reach, she'll grab it. Guaranteed!
• As soon as we put her in the Bumbo or on our hip to be carried, she turns her body to the left and starts to get at something...even if there is nothing to get. 
• She can totally get out of the Bumbo by herself. She's just too skinny!
• She loves playing with toys! She seems to get frustrated that she can't actually eat them though. It's pretty annoying really cause she starts whining and groaning really loud.
• She's doing so much better with spitting up. She probably has one big spit up a day...which is still less volume per spit up than it used to be. Some days she'll have some smaller spit ups too, but not much and the volume isn't bad at all. We've started to give her more formula per feeding because of this. When she eats more, though, you can tell as that's when she generally spits up. 
• She loves water bottles. If there is one on the table or floor, she'll find it and get at it. She loves chewing on the cap. 
• She loves going to bed early and gets really grouchy if she stays up too late. 
• First thing in the morning, she loves to make growling noises and wake everyone in the house up. We are not loving this. AT ALL!!!
• She smiles so big and so easily. You can't help but smile back. 
• She's super ticklish.
• She's still such a wiggle worm. It's no wonder why she can get out of the Bumbo by herself.

Emery brings so much joy into our family. She may be super high-maintenance compared to Ella, but her smiles and laughs are contagious. She is still really good and we are so happy to have her in our family!

Happy Independence Day

 

Love,

The Whitworths