Shelby's 6 Months

Shelby had her 6 month wellness check this month. I have a love/hate relationship with these appointments. I love finding out how much she weighs and hearing all the positive feedback, but I hate putting her through the pain of getting shots. It makes my heart hurt. And at this appointment the whole family got flu shots so both girls cried.

By the time Shelby reached 6 months:

Weight: 11lbs 0.96oz (0 percentile)
Length: 23.5 inches (2nd percentile)
Head: 16.4 inches (13th percentile)

• She's nearly quadrupled her birth weight!
• She's getting better at tummy time. If you catch her in just the right mood she'll tolerate it until she rolls over, then she doesn't want to be put back on her tummy.
• She rolls over just about every time she's on her tummy, but still no interest in rolling from back to tummy.
• Went to the Circus
  
• Holds her toys a lot better, but can't find them on her own once she drops them
• Tried real food...not baby food (chicken enchiladas, baked potato, mashed potatoes, baby puffs, baked potato soup, crackers, yogurt, and bananas). I'm still trying to decide if I'm going to skip baby food altogether and just feed her table foods. So far she's LOVED eating and tries to grab my hand to shove it in her mouth when I'm giving her another bite.
• Makes tired noises and sings instead of cries when she's tired
• I can't for the life of me figure out her sleep schedule. Some nights she'll sleep 10-12 hours. Other nights she wants to eat after six hours.
• Has taken a few baths with Shasta. Since she's not sitting up yet I make Shasta wait to get in until I'm done washing Shelby. Then I'll let both girls splash for a couple of minutes before I take Shelby out and bathe Shasta. 
• Comparison picture in her car seat

Bucket List #61: Go to the Circus

We checked our very first buck list item off! In case you need a reminder of the list here's the link!

Nick's work offered discounts for tickets to Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey's Greatest Show on Earth so we decided to go. They were still more money than we wanted to spend so we opted for the nose bleed seats which turned out to be a big disappointment. It's not nearly as exciting or impressive to be above the tightrope act and look down on them as they do all their crazy tricks! I'm just sayin'.

Seeing the show has definitely shed new light on the expression, "it's all a big circus act". The things they do are truly crazy! But it was fun all the same. I loved watching the trampoline act, but the elephants were my all time favorite. Seriously. What amazing creatures. We watched an elephant paint a picture in the pre-show and every trick they did during their act was so impressive. It's just amazing that such a massive animal can do those things.

I was nervous about how Shelby would do during the show because it started at her bedtime and I knew it was going to be loud. Thankfully, she slept through nearly the whole thing. I cradled her and kept one ear pressed into me and kept my hand pressed against the other to help muffle the sound. She woke up during intermission and then slept through the second act, so it was pretty much perfect!

Shasta on the other hand was not so pleasant during the show. I think she was overwhelmed with all the noise and lights that she didn't really know how to respond to all of it. She didn't really act scared, but she didn't weigh enough to hold her retractable chair down so Nick and I had to do it and she kept getting her legs stuck in between the seats and would cry. It wasn't until the second act that she got really into it and would clap with her hands above her head and laugh and show excitement. It would have been a lot more fun if she did that the whole time!

My favorite quote of the night was before we had even made it across the street to the Energy Solutions Arena. There was a water fountain that we passed by and as we approached it Shasta said, "That's water for elephants". It was just funny that word for word she said the title of the book!

Anyway. All in all it was fun and we plan on going again once our kids are all old enough to enjoy it. And when we do we'll spring for the seats in the lower bowl!

Shelby's 5 Months

I waited to blog about Shelby being 5 months until we got her studio pictures back and then time got away from me and now I'm playing catch up.

We took Shelby to have her Blessing pictures taken professionally. We were only a month late getting them done, but who's keeping track?! But they turned out super cute and I was really happy with our session. It was a nice change from when we had Shasta's taken and I swore I'd never go back to them again. But I took a chance and we had a much different experience!

 Can we all just agree that she's adorable? I mean, seriously. I could nibble on her all day long!

Some new things this last month:

*Had her first studio photo shoot (obviously), but also had a second shoot (those photos to come)
*She still hates tummy time, but she's getting better. She's rolled from tummy to back a few times
*Has officially outgrown newborn clothes
*Hates being left alone in a room. She cries every time we walk away
*Has the sweetest, most contagious little laugh
*Goes down for the night at 7pm and wants to eat again anywhere from 3am to 6am
*Takes two naps a day. The first one is from 10am-noon and the 2nd is from 2pm to sometime between 4&5pm 
*Wakes up during the night up to 4 times wanting a pacifier
*Lifts her bum off the ground when I'm trying to put a diaper on her
*LOVES taking a bath
*Had her hair trimmed. I cut her Alfalfa tail off to even out her hair

In about 3 seconds!

Old man hair; nothing beats a sleeping baby!

Has discovered her toes. Also, check out those tiny little rolls that she's starting to get!!!

Can't sleep without being swaddled

Has gotten SUPER wiggly and makes it nearly impossible to polish her toes

Cuddling with daddy

Has an amazing big sister that loves to help take care of her

I'm determined to 'help' her like dolls!

Determined!

DETERMINED!

No, but really, I LOVE dolls and as much as I love watching Shasta play with them I think it'll be even cuter to watch Shasta and Shelby play with them together!

She's always the first one ready for church

Car seat growth picture

So tiny! And yet she's gotten so big.

I just want her to stay little. The newborn stage should last for a year and then they can start growing. Or at least the first year should be spread out over two so that all of their changes don't happen quite so quickly. I truly love my tiny babies and although every new milestone and change is SO fun, I know how quickly they grow and it's hard to soak up every moment. Let's just slow down and take a deep breath.

Catching Up the Blog

Oh my goodness, I'm so behind in blogging it makes me sad. And the only way I know how to catch back up is to do snippets of all the events that I would normally do as full posts because I don't have time to write full posts for each of them. I haven't logged onto blogger for at least a month and when I logged on today to do Shelby's 5 month post (a month late) and 6 month post, I saw I have 8 drafts started. EIGHT! Gah. So I'm just going to combine some of those thoughts into one post with pictures to capture the moments! Some of them deserve their own post so not all eight will be included.

Labor Day at Cherry Hill:
Every year Nick's dad's side of the family meets under the pavilion at Cherry Hill for lunch. This year none of his siblings/spouses/kids were missing so we took advantage of snapping some family pictures.

Here are all the grandkids; 8 girls and 1 boy. But don't worry, another boy is on the way!

Grandma and Grandpa with all their grandkids.

Nick's parents with all of their children and grandchildren.

Shasta was done having her picture taken... as was I because, well, nobody needs to remember my 4th trimester body!

An amazing daddy with his two amazing daughters.

Then afterwards we went back to Emily's house and celebrated Raylene's birthday. Nick made her cake. It's supposed to look like a quilt, but he ran out of time to finish it.

Cache Valley Parade of Homes:
I entered a contest on Facebook to try to win tickets to the Parade of Homes this year. The contest allowed its contestants to enter a new photo everyday and vote once a day for as many photos as you wanted. I entered 4 photos total and technically I was in 1st-4th place! Ha! I crushed that contest! And I wouldn't have been able to do it without all the help of my friends and family that faithfully voted everyday.

Our prize was two tickets to Parade of Homes and a $50 gift card to Texas Roadhouse.

We were a little disappointed with the parade this year. There were 12 homes instead of 10 which normally I would love because I LOVE walking through new homes, but there wasn't a single home in the heart of Logan. They were spread all over Cache Valley, but none in Logan. Although technically there was one home in North Logan, we still drove from Wellsville to Newton. The homes were spread so far apart that we couldn't do them all in one day. We had to use up two Saturdays to hit all the homes which I found a little frustrating and because there were two extra homes it added to the amount of time it took to see all of them. Part of the parade is to pay attention to all your favorite features and once you've seen the last house, vote for what you liked the best. But since there were 12 houses and we did it in two weekends, it was hard to remember what we liked the best and which houses those features were in, so I pretty much just filled it in without giving it much thought. I probably voted for best curb appeal for a house that didn't even have a yard put in yet! Ha!

But still, it was fun to see the homes and add more features to our dream home! Nick's uncle had his home in the parade so that was fun to chat with him and his wife for a while. We don't get much one on one time with them so I really enjoyed our conversation. We ran into some different friends along the way and we got to spend 2 full Saturdays together, just the four of us, with no television or distractions. So although I was annoyed that it filled up two Saturdays, overall it was enjoyable and good bonding time for us!

Homecoming Parade:
Nick took Shasta and Wedge to the Homecoming Parade. I was a little bummed that I didn't get to go because I had another obligation that I felt was important to attend. It's a tradition for us to go to the parade every year, but I'm glad Nick was still able to go with Shasta. I took Shelby with me so Nick wouldn't have to juggle all three 'kids' by himself in a crowd of people. Plus it's good for him to have bonding time with Shasta.

Daddy did her hair!!!

Aggie Pride! Wish I could remember what it took to convince Shasta to wear her Aggie shirt....

Wedge has his school pride too!

Enjoying waaay too much candy and parade treats. Otter pops... really?!

And Nick didn't want me to miss my favorite part of the parade so he took a picture for me. This is the Sign Language Club float. I don't think Relay For Life had a float this year which is my other favorite to watch for.

Volleyball Clinic 2013

It's apparently a new tradition to go to the USU Mother/Daughter Volleyball Clinic that the women's volleyball team hosts. Nick somehow found out about it last year and practically insisted on me taking our then 15 month old Shasta, so you can bet when it came around this year he didn't let it pass us by! He told me about it before I even got a reminder email!

I can't decide if it was more fun this year or last year. Last year Shasta was barely walking and all we did was roll the ball back and forth and chase it around. All the girls on the volleyball team ooo'd and ahhh'd over how cute she was. This year she was a lot more opinionated about it and how long she was willing to participate. It's a two hour clinic with a half hour arrival/check-in/get situated wait so for a two year old, it really was a long time. And although she was still the youngest one there, the team didn't faun over her the way they did last year. Maybe her cheerleader outfit had something to do with it last year...!

Climbing over the seats while we waited for it to start.

 Lately it's been a battle to get Shasta to wear anything Aggie related. Nick put her Volleyball shirt on from last year and she threw a fit until we took it off. Then he decided he would drop us off at the clinic and run to the store and buy her a game day shirt in hopes that she would want to wear that one. Also, at the clinic she got a new volleyball shirt. So she had three Aggie shirt options and she refused to wear any of them. Instead she wanted to wear her "big sister" shirt that I made for her when we were going to announce our pregnancy with Shelby, but the cat got out of the bag before we got a chance. Someday she'll get over her dislike for Aggie shirts, right? Maybe once she grows into them and they no longer swallow her?

Catching the ball.

Success!

We had some pretty good distance between us while we were tossing the ball back and forth and she was pretty successful with catching it.

We had a lot of moments like this with lots of smiles and laughs...

But we also had a lot of these moments too.

Nick and I would take turns playing with her. I think he wanted to be more involved, but felt out of place because it was a mother/daughter class.

And of course the water station was right next to where we nested so it was a battle to keep her out of it.

Shelby taking it all in, getting ready for next year!

Next year will definitely be interesting with two kids!