Wednesday, March 26

Our 7 1/2 Month Old Sweetie

What I want to know is how am I going to have an 8 month old in two weeks? How?! I was just pregnant like an hour ago. And I just gave birth like ten minutes ago. And Tenley was 6 months like twelve seconds ago. I dunno, I just don't get it. She is growing up so fast already! Am I seriously going to have a one-year old in four and a half months?!?!?! Unreal. 

Anyway, Tenley is still the easiest baby ever (counting my many blessings) so far.

Her most commonly used nicknames are: Ten-Ten, Little Ten, Baby girl, Princess (haha, which I swore I would never use but surprise, surprise...), Baby Princess, and Littles. I can't help it, she just is my princess. Plus having a daughter is the best thing ever. 

She goes to bed easy (most of the time...if her routine is majorly disrupted, I can't make any guarantees). 

Her favorite things to eat include basically anything off my plate. I give her pieces of bread, veggies, chicken, potatoes, fruit, etc. I don't blend them, I just give her a piece the size of like my pinky nail (which is really small) and she loves it. She really likes grapes, but I mean, she likes everything I give her. Even broccoli and stuff that I do not like plain. She's enthusiastic about solids, but she is totally still a momma's girl with nursing. It's her comforting cuddly time with mommy and she settles right into me and is as content as can be. 

She also likes baby food but eats much more of it when it is mixed with another flavor (sweet carrots, apples, and blueberries for example, or pears, peas, and broccoli--yum, I know). She also does not seem to like cold baby food that much. She makes a face when it's cold. It's cute, but not cute when she doesn't want to eat. She has been eating half a jar of mixed baby food a day. I've not been that good about giving her rice cereal anymore, mostly because I personally think the Gerber version does not taste as good as the NatureMade or whatever it was we used to get. I try all her foods first haha. Mostly because I'm curious. 

She lovesss those baby food pouches with the spout for sucking because she can hold them and suck on them herself. If she likes a flavor, she powers through that thing. We don't buy many of them because they're kind of expensive, but they are a lifesaver when we are on vacation or long trips. I love them. I wish I could give her all her food that way (they are WAY less messy, too). 

Tenley seems pretty close to crawling. But then again, who knows. I'm simultaneously excited and anxious for it. She always wiggles/shimmies across the whole bed, but she doesn't move much on our rough carpet. I think it is rough on her skin...it's rough on mine, so yeah. She likes standing more than trying to crawl. I love walking her around her room or over to daddy. I also love when she stands between my legs using me or the couch for support. She looks so tiny next to our monstrous red couch!

She says, "Da-da" a lot. More than anything else. She is saying "Mama" more and more lately, and she definitely says it mostly when she's getting upset with me. Kind of like "Mama, why are you leaving me here all alone!?" She also says "Papa," "Goy-goy," and "Hi Dad" which is my favorite thing. She signs "I love you" still imperfectly, but it's clear what she means. She gets excited when I sign "more" for food, but does not react much to "milk," "please," "thank you"...that kind of thing. I love her little babble. She is quite the chatterbox.

She is more needy lately...more needy for me specifically. She still goes out with dad and Grandpa and everyone just fine, but as soon as she sees or hears me, it's like, BAM. I need mom. It's cute but I've been pushing for her independence lately so it makes it a little hard on me. 

I love when I am nursing her and have the computer on my lap and she suddenly stops eating, rolls over and taps the keyboard like she's typing with her little fingers. She will stop eating multiple times to type for a few seconds then go back to eating. It's pretty funny. 

She loves reading. It's sweet because pulling a few books out will calm her down and she seems to be listening quite well. 

 She still thinks I'm hilarious. Yesss. Especially my growling, my tickling, and my silly faces. Her laugh is either a loud giggle or a series of grunts. They're great. 

I see a lot of red in her hair, especially in the sunlight. I'd be so happy if she got some of our family's Irish/Scottish red hair! 

The first thing everyone notices is her big, bright, beautiful blue eyes. Besides those, everyone who spends a lot of time around us notices how "well-behaved" she is (not that babies are bad behaved anyway). She is just so calm and rarely cries around other people and it seems to surprise everyone. She cries around me though, don't worry ;)

Her (fairly) new bedtime is 9:30pm to 7am. At that point, I nurse her then she sleep a few more hours with me (she's so nice to let me sleep in ;). Her bedtime used to be at 7:30pm but then we discovered she gets up way too early, so it's better to keep her up later even if sometimes it's a struggle to entertain her the last couple hours. 

She has her two bottom central incisors (middle teeth) and her two upper lateral incisors (aka her vampire teeth). Her top front incisors are right there but not quite poked through. Tooth 1 was a breeze, but she had a hard time with teeth 2, 3, and 4 coming in so I'm a little scared for the others.

Her favorite toy is probably...I don't know actually. She sucks on anything I give her, but she currently is not gravitating toward a particular toy. She used to love her crinkly chicken toy but it collects so much fuzz that I rarely give it to her because it looks kind of dirty. 

She weighed a little over 14 lbs. at her last appointment, which is low for her age range but everyone (including me...and our doctor) says she's perfectly proportioned. Plus people comment on her sweet cheeks and squishy thighs so it's not like she's thin. Just the other day at IKEA a lady asked me, "Is she breastfed?" I was like, "Yeah." She said, "I can tell." Hmm. Good, I guess! 

There are like a billion other things I could say about sweet Tenley, but I guess I will just add that she is super chill and that she loves watching other kids. She was so excited when I babysat a little toddler girl and thought everything she did was so interesting and hilarious. It made me happy. Usually Tenley ends up being the one poked and prodded around other kids but she just takes it and chatters and laughs at them. 
Anyway, that's it for now, but isn't she just a love? We think so ;)
Yay for my sweetest Tenley being 7 1/2 months old! Boo for turning 8 months so quickly :( 

P.S. One more random fact about Tenley: The Frozen song "Frozen Heart" will stop her crying right in its tracks. She loves that song so much! I'll post a video on Facebook soon;)

Saturday, March 22

Daydreaming is Good For the Soul

Lately I've been daydreaming a lot (a favorite pastime of mine;) about green and warmth and I've been missing Florida which I was fortunate enough to visit twice in the last three months to visit family each time. I also visited Las Vegas for the first time and Sun Valley, Idaho for the third time. With all the travel I've done lately, I guess you could say I have a little bit of "wanderlust" as they say (I don't really care for that term, but that's basically what it is).

I am particularly craving trees and green grass and ocean sand and warm lake water. Darn you, summer for being the shortest of the seasons.
At least Utah has been pretty good to us lately with temperatures considerably warmer than they could have been. This is me trying to count my blessings.

Anyway, here are some pictures of places I wish I could escape to right now. Just me, Dalin, and little Tenley.
Aren't they lovely? For now I'll just have to keep dreaming ;)

Where do you want to escape to right now?
Or where do you typically daydream about going? I honestly want to know.

Wednesday, March 19

Why Having A Daughter Is Awesome

Tenley and I had a girl's day out at the Ikea in Draper after dropping my dear mother and little brother at the Salt Lake airport. We had a blast and she was in such a good mood and it made my day. This is why having a daughter is my favorite thing ever (hint, watch her faces;):

Random photo of two folded decor boxes...Ikea claims that the bottom one is yellow. I used Ten's toy for comparison. It was quite clearly green. 
Mirror fun.
Back at home...
Getting so tired
Passed out
And...
She's out.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for giving me a daughter. 

Tuesday, March 18

Spring Cleaning My Life: 10 Things

Our psycho little family;)
Let's just skip over the part where I blame my lack of blogging on my busy life.

Who isn't ready for Spring? I sure as heck am ready. Winter is the worst in my opinion. Props to you who don't go into a deep depression somewhere around month four of straight cold weather, wind, ice, and snow.

Basically, I have struggled recently with feeling even more tired and stressed than normal. But I want to change that because: A) I'm a happier wife and mom when I am well-rested and only mildly stressed (because honestly, when haven't I been at least a little stressed since I started high school nine years ago??), B) I want to be excited about my accomplishments (let's get that dopamine flowing) and feel vibrance for life again (instead of feeling like banging my head against a wall), and C) I love life, but I haven't been feeling it lately so I think I need to take a step back, refocus, reorganize, and step up.

Stuff I need to do: 

  1. Finish my LAST FLIPPING CLASS for Independent Study. Then never again. (In my dreams). 
  2. Paint. Because I love it and I am a happier person when I incorporate it into my life.
  3. Read my scriptures like crazy. With a pen in hand. Because otherwise, I'm just scanning a page and it's in one ear out the other.  
  4. Write some articles for Writer's Domain. (And make some extra moolah. $$$)
  5. De-clutter. A freaking ton. I don't like stuff. I don't. Mini crisis--I love antiques though--a lot--and those kind of are just stuff (but they're stuff with stories!!) and can create lots of clutter. So I need to find a balance. Like in all things. 
  6. Be the best mom I can possibly be--for Tenley. Motherhood = not a competition. That's why I said "for Tenley." But when I'm a "good mom" and I know it, I feel pure joy. 
  7. Be the best wife I can be. Stop nagging. Be kind, charitable, and hilarious. That's basically my life goal. 
  8. Know God. Know my Savior. Make Him my priority. And everything else will work out. I just know it. 
  9. Blog (a little more often) about the good in my life. Forget my many flaws and focus on the joys. 
  10. Be connectedly disconnected. Facebook, Instagram, and the blog have a place. But it should be somewhere much lower on my priority list. After family, church, "work," school, and pretty much everything else. 

Well, that's all that came to mind right away. If you think you want to join me in Spring Cleaning your life, comment and tell me a thing or two you need to work on. It always helps to go at these things with someone else!

Cheers!

Saturday, March 8

Catching Up After Travels

Sorry blogger friends! I was having too much fun and as a result, kind of slacked off with this thing. Confession: Since getting my first iPhone ever (and first smart phone actually) a couple of months ago, I've actually gotten worse at blogging because I've basically stopped using my camera. I use my phone whenever I need to take pictures, mainly due to convenience, and unfortunately, it's harder to get my pics on here as a result. I'm going to try and work on that.

Anyhow, we were in Sun Valley, Idaho the last three days and had a wonderful, relaxing time with Dalin's parents, grandparents, three sisters, their husbands, and my brother, Donovan. It was pretty great. To briefly sum up the trip, we...

  • visited with Dalin's aunt, uncle, and cousins at their gorgeous home in Hailey
  • shopped in dozens of ski and gift shops in the little town of Ketchum
  • skiied Dollar (well, Donny did) 
  • shared an incredible huckleberry shake (twice!)
  • enjoyed the heated pool (basically a giant hot tub)
  • had a big family breakfast out together
  • played in the giant toy stores
  • basked in the "warm" weather
  • ate some amazing pizza with everyone
  • bowled (at least, the boys did)
  • had some excellent conversation
  • shared a king-sized bed (at least Dalin and I did ;)
  • took a photo of Tenley with the picture that gave us her name inspiration one year ago when I was four months pregnant...


Among other things. It was awesome. I can't really describe it all in detail--Dalin had to work at 4pm today so we left Sun Valley around 11am. Then at home I did a few dishes, washed a freaking ton of laundry (from this trip and Florida), then Donovan, Tenley, and I went grocery shopping, and now I need to fold laundry, do some homework, and pick up the house. Sigh. If I wasn't so stressed about school, it wouldn't bother me so much. Anyway, I had better go, but I will do my best to take the time to blog about our Las Vegas trip (I sort of left you guys hanging) and Tenley's and my adventure in Florida.

Hope you all had a sweet weekend!