Can we get a BON VOYAGE?!

Adios!

Marital Squabbles

Up til now, Brian and I have had the PERFECT marriage, with NO problems or arguments at all...
;)
Ha - but seriously, I thought I would share an example of one of our squabbles and how it went down:
So late one night a few weeks ago, Brian had put in like 13 hours at work, came home late, ate dinner (pretty much his only meal for the day - he didnt come home for lunch because he had been so busy) and crashed. He was exhausted. I wasn't in the best mood either - Brianna had been very high-maintenance that. So it was a recipe for disaster - two tired grouchy adults going to bed.
Right before we fell asleep, I asked him if he had brushed his teeth (I could smell his dinner). He mumbled NO. I asked him to go do that. He said NO. I said GO. He said NO. So I scooted over to the far side of the bed and told him I wouldn't talk to him til he brushed his teeth. I don't even know if he heard me, he was so tired. When we woke up, I left on my run without talking to him, and came home a little late, so he had to rush off to work. He knew I was ticked. So later on that day, when Brianna and I came home from our stroller ride, I found this on the bed: SO SWEET! Twelve gorgeous roses and a beautiful note. He promised to be better "hygenicized" from now on.
And he has brushed his teeth every night since.

TEETH

#5 and #6 just popped out!

Pool time

We have had SO much fun taking Brianna to the pool this summer. Our HOA has one, so we walked over every weekend while we were home in Provo. At first Brianna was a little unsure about it - she was never fussy or scared, she just kinda chilled in an "observatory" mood. But later she got more into it - splashing, kicking, etc. Peekabo is a lot more fun in the water - we would disappear under her floatie (gift from Carrie - thank you!) then pop up again. She giggled (my favorite sound in the world). I can't wait til next year when we can start some real swimming!

Fruity fun

What are babies for, if you can't use them to entertain yourself?!

Daddy-daughter swingin'

One of Brian's favorite things to do with Brianna is to take her over to our HOA's park and put her in the baby swing. Disgustingly wholesome, I know. Oh, and though the sun may be making her look bald... her hair is actually getting noticeably thicker and slightly curly. Crossing my fingers for seriously long curly hair on my baby soon...

she BIT me!

For those who wanted proof of her toothy additions: (yeah, I know these are just the bottom two. Just TRY and get pics of the top. Impossible)
My worst fear came true a few weeks ago: our little 4-tooth shark BIT me while nursing!
Pain. Horrible pain. I saw stars. I cried. I scared her; she cried. We sat there crying at each other.
I really haven't forgiven her since. To quote my mother - she has "made a major withdrawal in the trust account."
The solution: She gets bottles during the day. No worries, they are expressed milk bottles. I'm too stubborn to let this biting episode get in the way of our feeding plan. So we only directly nurse at night and early in the morning - when she is too tired to be interested in biting. Then I use my trusty Lansinoh double electric during the day to make bottles. In some ways it's easier - I can pump hands-free, so I can read (or blog) while pumping, then just hand her the bottle and let her feed herself. But sanitizing all these bottles and pump parts is tedious. And I always question why I bother sanitizing anything, when Brianna is likely to be in the other room chewing on a dirty shoe or the stroller wheel.

can't STAND this!

Brianna's new "skill" is a little frustrating.
She has figured out how to pull herself up to a standing position, holding onto her crib.

She is smiling in these pics cuz she thinks I am coming to save her from the prison bars of her crib. Cute, maybe.
But not when I am trying to get her to take a nap and all she wants to do is stand up and wiggle around. Actually, I think she doesn't even know how to get herself back down. So I go in, put her back onto her back, and of course she is furious with me. We repeat this process a few times until she finally gives up and falls asleep (from exhaustion, perhaps. It appears quite laborious for her to get her chubby legs standing up over and over again). Then 20 minutes into the nap, when she has that semi-wake-up in her sleep cycle (when she used to just cry for 10 seconds then go back to sleep), she is up and standing again!
Fortunately, she doesn't do this at night. Perhaps she is too exhausted from going up and down all day. I know I am.

Got milk?

Brian was not quite on-board when I informed him that post-nursing, I don't want to give hormone-filled dairy products to our daughter. Then I showed him this comic. He laughed and said I can do whatever I want (except with his menu, which is not allowed to be messed with :)

Cruisin!

Not Brianna.... well, not in the baby-development-terms meaning...
Though she WILL be crusing - WITH her parents - to CABO!
Big thanks to KIM, my travel agent and friend for the past 15 years, for hooking us up.

We are first-time-cruisers...those who have cruised.... any advice?

BRIANNA CRAWLS!

She is officially a crawler! She can make it across a room. Not very fast yet, and only with strong motivation (eg, food). But she can get from laying on her back, to laying on her stomach, to sitting up, to crawling, to a face plant on a little apple.

Can canning

So lately I've had a few encounters with CANNING, which has launched me into deep introspection. I ponder: to can, or not to can? Can I can? Can I not can?
Ivy can can. Brianna can help her can, even as the one-sock wonder.

We canned apricots. Well, I basically just watched Ivy can apricots and enjoyed hanging out with my favorite Vernal friend. Her little girl Abi is great at entertaining "Bweeanna"
Then the following day, we went to Windys home (she is a VernalMOM - its quite an elite group) for a full-scale canning seminar. (That's where Brianna had her first toast)
After this immersion into the canning world, you would think I'd be raring to go.
Not so.
I'm overwhelmed.
It's too complicated.
I can't can. I simply cannot. Can you?

Diaper-free

Since I made that post yesterday about diapers, I thought I should also share what has been on my mind lately: potty training.
I know - ridiculous - she is only 7 months old.
But this past week, I have talked to TWO friends who have successfully potty trained their infant, at least during daytime hours. One even showed me pictures of her 6 month old son sitting on an adult toilet, and told me of the catastrophe they had while camping because their baby would NOT go #2 anywhere but a toilet.
I have been researching the topic extensively. I had been told that children could not be potty trained til at least a year simply because their nervous systems are not developed enough yet to "hold it."
But after the anecdotal accounts I've heard, and websites like diaperfreebaby.com, I am wondering if that order from diapers.com could be my last.
?

Diapers.com

Saying that I get excited about a good deal is a huge understatement.
I'm doing an unpaid advertisement for diapers.com right now simply because I can't contain my enthusiasm for this steal.
On a Tuesday I went to diapers.com, ordered, and the following Thursday had 408 Luvs diapers arrive at my doorstep for $51! Thats about 12 cents each! Even the disreputable Walmart diapers are not this inexpensive.
If you want to check it out, you can get $10 off your first order by entering this referral code: diapersCB
(and I'll be honest - I'm partly selfish in sharing this deal - I get a $1 credit if you order with that code :)
They have FREE shipping on orders over $49, and always 2-day shipping (even out here to Vernal!)
I love this - I will never lug big boxes of diapers around the store again!

Happy wiping.

New bathtub seat!

Green veggies and buttered fruit

She loves them! Now if only her daddy would cooperate...




Actually, he has made some progress. Just last Monday he ate green beans at the Montgomery's. It was funny - they invited us over for a BBQ dinner with their fam (Ivy rocks)and I was excited because in peer pressure situations, Brian will usually cave in. So when Ivy's husband - a big "manly man" told Brian, in all sincerity, that he just had to try the beans... he waited to see if Mitch was kidding. He wasn't. So with all eyes on him, he reached into the bean pile, hesitantly took like 3 of them, and gingerly placed them on his empty plate (he had already devoured 3 hamburgers before most of us had finished one). I was dying instead. It was all I could do to keep a straight face. Amazingly, he ate them rather quickly, without gagging or desperately reaching for a drink to wash it down. When I asked him later about it, he said "chel, they were really good! They had butter and garlic all over them! They were even juicier than the burgers. Id eat any vegetable you drench in butter. Maybe even fruit too."

One more from the roadtrip...

First family ROADTRIP on Labor Day

Let me first state that I abhor road trips. Well, no – it’s just the hours of sitting in a car. Same with long flights. And Stake Conference (which I’m sitting in right now – the Saturday night adult session. Don’t judge me). So this adventure was for Brian. After reading Dr. Laura’s The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands (highly recommended – even if you think you don’t like Dr. Laura), I realized that one of the best ways to be a good wife and friend to your husband is to learn to speak their love language. Brian’s is QUALITY TIME – defined by him as vacations. So while I’d rather stay home and play, I put on a happy face ☺ and went along with this mini-vacation Brian planned.
On to the story:
Last Monday morning – Labor Day – we headed out early in an Enterprise rental car for STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colorado. It’s an adorable little ski-town about 180 miles east of Vernal, and about 300 miles NW of Denver (that’s a guesstimate).
Brianna was a fabulous little trooper during all this driving. I was so relieved – I thought it would be miserable to travel with a wiggly baby. In these pics she is playing with the parts from my new manual pump. I'm so happy to have one now - I can make bottles for her while in the car! The electric one that I use everyday sucks up expensive batteries too fast to use on the road. If that's a little T.M.I. for you... get over it.

She did get antsy on the way home though, and I had to start some serious distracting. Ever tried entertaining a short-attention-spanned baby for 2 hours? It’s exhausting. Books, songs, peekabo, snacks, and toys only last so long.
Once in Steamboat Springs, Brian followed my charge to stop at the first park we could find. Big mistake. The first park was Sulphur Park. We discovered why this town is called Steamboat Springs. As the story goes, the first settlers were astonished to find ponds of sulphur, constantly bubbling up making the sound of a STEAMBOAT (hence the name). Ever smelled surphur? Those ponds emitted THE NASTIEST SMELL EVER. Ever. EVER. Honestly, like an I’m-gonna-puke-and-die stench. So of course we had to stay long enough to take a couple pictures. I mean, how often do you discover the pinnacle of earthly stinkiness? This had to be documented.



Then we saw signs for an event going on – the annual STOCKDOG show and trial. I thought it would be too cowboy-redneckish to enjoy… and it was. But probably good for us to take in some small-town Colorado culture
We tried to get Brianna interested in the sheep and rams… no luck.

We had fun with some statues at the park.

Mom – you’ll appreciate this – I was delighted to discover a little health-food-farmer’s-market-type store there. Lots of yummy high-quality high-priced treats inside. Im like a kid in a candy store in those types of places. A compulsively frugal kid though – I only ended up buying a small bag of oat bran organic handmade pretzels. I really drooled over the bakery treats – jumbo apple spice whole grain cookies, sweet potato walnut muffins, carob brownies… but I resisted. I wish my mom was there. We would buy one of everything and share it. Much more fun than my anxious-to-get-outta-there husband. But Brian was a trooper and let me get my kicks. Then we moved on to the actual candy store in town, Fuzzywigs. It was pretty cool – like something right out of Willy Wonka and the Choc Factory. He bought a giant candy apple. He said he would save it til the next day. I informed him that if he didn’t eat it within an hour or so, I would likely get my sneaky little hands on it and devour the whole thing before we even got home.

My favorite part was definitely our hike up Fish Falls

It was gorgeous! And so refreshing to be outside in the perfect weather. Brianna enjoyed it so much – she was all smiles and very observative.

We found a tree that had all the roots on TOP of the ground. Very exciting. Couldn’t resist sitting on it: (I know – we’re too easily amused)

Brianna spotted a frog

We stopped at the Colorado Bagel Co store and bought a couple.

For just Brian and I, of course. We only tease Brianna with our treats. But seriously – I have to give a big NONrecommendation for that shop. The owner was SO rude! He was all pierced and tattooed, rolled his eyes impatiently when I was being indecisive, then made a snide comment about taking up his time on a puny order! Its not like there was even anyone else in the store (I wonder why). Boo for rude bagelman.

Overall, it was a great little excursion. Brian really went out of his way to thank me and tell me how much he enjoyed being with his “girls.”