Nana's Annual Pilgrimage

Each year during February school break in Boston my mom comes to Utah. She gets to see her dad and siblings and spend lots of time with us. This is the first time I haven't been working so she didn't get to spend as much alone time with my kids, although Daniel and I managed to sneak away one day and leave her with the girls.

She stayed with us Saturday through Wednesday. 

She got to take a turn with a fussy Millie her first night. Camille actually snuggled on her shoulder. 

 I was jealous. Camille just wanted to take snot-filled selfies on my phone when I was holding her. 

Sunday was filled with frantic rushing around mixed in with some tantrums before 9 AM church. Then we came home and ate and relaxed. I was glad my mom got to be here for our family Valentine's celebration. 

Elise spent the evening insisting that we call her Linda. She doesn't know anyone named Linda, which makes it even funnier. I asked her to show me what Linda looks like and she made this face.

On Monday we hired a babysitter and went shopping. It was so fun to have time with just me and my mom. We --really, my mom-- did some damage at Gymboree, getting some matching clothes for my girls and matching shirts for cousins, among other things. I got a great coupon because of her spending, which I took a picture of in case I lose it. 

 Tuesday my mom watched the girls in the afternoon and evening so Daniel and I could go on a romantic date to the Utah high school girl's basketball tournament with the other BYU coaches. We watched 2 games and then went to dinner.

Wednesday was spent going to several parks. We went to the McDonald's playplace for an early lunch. Then after dropping Sadie at school we went on a neighborhood walk and hit up 2 parks. When Sadie got home from school we went to our favorite Discovery Park in Pleasant Grove. That night I took my mom out on the town for her birthday. We tried a new place called Oteo, which did not disappoint. My Utah friends- GO TO OTEO! It is so so so yummy. 

Finally, my mom spent hours upon hours during her trip playing with my kids. They always latch onto her and make her play all sorts of games. She was so great with them. 

 Sadie walked in the door crying when she got home from school on Wednesday. I asked her what happened at school and she said, "Nothing. I just don't want Nana to leave!" 

That's how we all felt, so on Saturday night we drove up to SLC to spend some time with both Nana and Bobpa (my maternal grandfather). When the girls went to play with his toys they were scattered around and some of them were broken so we organized them. The girls also asked him a lot of questions about Rosemary, his wife, and my grandmother, who passed away when I was pregnant with Sadie. During dinner Elise randomly said, "Bobpa misses Rosemary a lot."  Later on Sadie asked me with tears in her eyes if Bobpa really eats his meals alone. For some reason that struck her as really sad. It was very sweet. They begged to go back soon so I will accommodate them. He is turning 94 this year and we may not have many more years to visit him. 

See you this summer, Nana!

Valentine's

Valentine's Day was very low-key. The girls worked hard on their Valentines the days leading up to it. Sadie made all 27 of the ones for her Kindergarten class by herself, besides me tying them onto the apple sauce. Lou was going to a Valentine's themed birthday party so I had her make some water color paintings and I cut hearts out of them. Then she wrote "E" on the backs. 

Elise was thrilled to open the Valentine's package from Mimi and Paco on the 13th. She got right to work coloring the little cards included. She also happily showed me the candy heart in her mouth instead of smiling.

February 14th was laid back. Daniel was out of town and Nana was arriving from Boston. The girls played and asked me when Nana would get there every 10 minutes. That night we had delicious Papa John's pizza to celebrate. 

Sunday evening we had our big annual Valentine's dinner since Daniel was home. The timing was off and I just got distracted so I didn't write my usual letter to each family member. Sadie and Nana spent an hour before dinner making play dough decorations, which were definitely the highlight of the meal. The girls were thrilled to open their presents. Sadie got some stamp sets and Elise got a puzzle and beginning reader set. Camille got some pj's. 

Millie's Ears

 Millie's ears are incredibly endearing. I love the way they poke straight out. My dad had very pokey ears as a kid and Daniel's grandpa, Papa, had pokey ears too. I think they make her even cuter. We get mixed reactions from friends and strangers on them. People have told me there are surgeries to fix them. People have told me they are adorable. People have told me they won't matter when she's older and has hair. People have told me they really don't stick out that much (maybe they thought we don't like them?). Anyway, lots of opinions.  

What I don't love about her ears is that they seem to have a hard time kicking out infection.

She did her first 10 days of antibiotics for the double ear infection, starting on February 1. Two days later she was waking up screaming at night, not allowing me to lay her down. The first night I was up from 10:30 PM to 3:30 AM trying to help her feel better. I had given her Tylenol when she first woke up but finally tried ibuprofen and that did the trick within 10 minutes. Too bad it took me 5 hours to think of it. After that, as long as I stayed on top of the pain with ibuprofen she would just wake up at the 5 hour mark between doses (it was actually impressive). After 3 nights I was tired of waking up to give her medicine and she was getting less agreeable to going back to sleep. So now we are halfway through round 2 of antibiotics and she is still waking up once per night but she goes back to sleep once the ibuprofen kicks in. 

During the day she is pretty much her normal, content self. And even when she wakes up at night she is mostly happy. 

Daniel has been travelling through much of Camille's non-sleep business so I have kept him supplied with pictures. Just so he can feel like he is right there with us at 2 AM. Then the nights he is home I let him hang out with her. It's just the kind of unselfish person I am. 

Here's to hoping the next 4 days of antibiotics get rid of the ear infections for good.

A Warm Winter

The unseasonably warm temperatures have stuck around for all of February. We are going on a month of most days above 50 degrees. We even had several days over 60. We have tried to take advantage by going to the park, going on walks, and just sitting on the front porch taking in the sun.

We have tulips growing in all over our yard and I actually had to weed last week. I am sure it will snow at least one more time, but for now we are going to pretend spring is here. 

San Fran

I completely forgot to write about our trip to San Francisco. Traveling with the team is always fun, but it is different from other travel. First, it takes forever to do everything. Second, things have to revolve around practice and games. Third, we are with teenage girls so they don't care that much about seeing all the sites. 

 We flew in Wednesday evening and checked into the hotel. That night we walked to our restaurant, a lovely small authentic Italian place. This was a nice change of pace because normally the team has to eat at chain places because the group size is so large. 

Thursday I got up and worked out and then after breakfast at the hotel we went to the team's shoot around. From there we went to lunch at Panera and back to the hotel. Michelle and Tyler came and hung out for a while before we all loaded back onto the team bus for the game. The 3 of us (Tyler, Michelle and I) walked down to Golden Gate Park. It is beautiful. I have been to it before but it was pouring rain. The sun set as we wandered around. We saw some sweet roller bladers who were complete with sparkly spandex pants and glow sticks. They were actually really athletic. 

We headed back up to the game and took our front row seats. It was close but BYU pulled out the W. Jim and Sharman came so we got to spend some time catching up. 

That night we walked down to the pier and had a fancy dinner at In-n-out. 

Friday I got up and worked out again. It is so nice to be able to work out on your own schedule! Then we packed up and went over to this big mall in downtown San Francisco. Like I said, when you travel with teenage girls, it shows. I cleared out some of the $1 clearance bins at H&M and ate an amazing Ghiradelli's ice cream sundae. We said hi to Tyler and Michelle and we got on the bus to drive down to Santa Clara for practice. 

I had planned on reading (another thing that is amazingly easy without kids around) but I actually enjoyed watching practice and hanging out with Norma, their Athletics dept communications employee. That night we went to another delicious family-style Italian restaurant. We walked away feeling like we each weighed about 1,000 pounds. But that didn't stop me from accepting some free Coldstone. 

On Saturday morning the hotel breakfast was so good. I ate way too much. Shortly after, while the team was at shoot around, the Waddells (our friends and old next-door neighbors in Provo) arrived at the hotel. I hadn't seen them in years so it was great to catch up and hang out with their kids. I hadn't even met Zack, their 2-year-old. We ate at a vegan restaurant, which was tasty, even if the "chickin" didn't taste a lot like chicken, 

We drove over to Santa Clara campus for the game. BYU was losing the whole game until the last 5 minutes when they finally took the lead and held onto it. Jim and Sharman drove out for this game as well. 

We went to a little strip mall for a quick dinner before heading to the airport. Luckily, the Waddells and Tyler and Michelle joined us. The pizza was good and it was too bad we had to hurry to make our flight. 

We got back around 1 AM and crashed. 

1 Month Unemployed

February marks 1 whole month of non-full-time employment for me. I am still working for Epic Relays but since it is about 5 hours a week, it feels more like a hobby sometimes. People keep asking me how it feels to be staying at home and it mostly feels the same. I have noticed that I have much less patience now that I have no break from my kids. I am working on staying calm with them but I need to find an outlet for myself. I want to be able to enjoy them more. I feel like I am spending so much time and energy breaking up fights and addressing constant whining that I have no energy to have fun with my kids! The fact that my kids have been constantly sick probably doesn't help.

Anyway, here's some stuff from this first week of the month. I am not committed to doing a post like this every week, but it does make blogging really simple.

Monday, February 2- A happy Mills

Tuesday, February 3- Sadie spent a while texting some relatives. She got all giddy any time someone responded. Uncle Ben was the fastest responder so he got the most texts. I figured it was good practice for typing. They sent pictures to a few lucky recipients.

After school I walked into the kitchen and Sadie announced she had made a "party mix" for them. It consisted of grapes, chocolate chips, carrots and cheetos. They both used several mixing spoons to eat it. Each of the girls ate everything in their bowls.

Wednesday, February 4- We've had some crazy warm weather lately, but not quite warm enough I am ready to send Elise outside in her outfit of choice (underwear and a cardigan)

Library and park trip. No jackets on February 3rd??

 Thursday, February 5- Camille had her 9 month appointment and Elise was examined as well. She had been complaining about sharp ear pain and laying around all morning. The doctor found dried blood and a very slight infection in her ear but she couldn't really explain the sudden onset of bad pain. There were no other symptoms- no fever, swollen glands, red throat. We treated Lou with antibiotics and she seems fine now, but I don't know that she really needed antibiotics.

Friday, February 6- Another jacket-free park trip. This weather is insane. This time we brought along a few of Sadie's cute friends.

Saturday, February 7- Uncle Matt and Aunt Coco's birthdays. We treated Matt to a trip to the Creamery on 9th and then a BYU women's basketball game. What can I say? I am the best sister ever. I even let him feed Camille a bottle during the game.

Take a Shine to #9

It feels like Camille has been a part of our family much longer than I was pregnant with her. She has made the transition to 3 kids mostly a delight. I have heard that having 3 kids is much harder than 2 but that hasn't been true for us. (Transitioning from 1 kid to 2 was the hardest few month of my life) Being pregnant was 10x harder than having Camille here with us and my pregnancy didn't even compare to most other women.

There haven't been any major changes since the 8 month mark.

She is still somewhat tall and skinny. At her 6 month well-child visit I was nursing exclusively and I was convinced once she stopped nursing she'd jump up in the weight charts. It's not a concern at all, but our other kids weights are pretty much always 50th percentile so it surprises me.

Her schedule is still the same as long as she is feeling good. Four bottles and 3 servings of baby food.

She has figured out how to eat small puffs without gagging and now she is all about the baby puffs. She would eat half a container in one sitting if I gave it to her.
She babbles a little more.
A lot less poop blowouts. I think the crackers and puffs are helping with that.

Not crawling yet, but gets on her hands and knees and rocks, which inevitably scoots her backwards, which she doesn't like. She can rotate really fast on her tummy.

She can also rotate while sitting up. She does it in small, subtle movements, but she gets herself all the way around while sitting up.

She tries to take things from Sadie and Elise. It makes me laugh so hard when she is successful because it always surprises them. It doesn't make me laugh as hard when she grabs stuff while I am holding her. Example: an open container of formula nearly all dumped on the counter.

She likes it when Sadie carries her around. It makes us nervous because it looks like Sadie could drop her at any second, but Mills loves it.

Elise has started playing with her more. Lou always starts off with good intentions but then gets frustrated with Camille, takes the toy away, and makes Millie cry. The other day the girls got in a fight over playing with Camille and Elise was yelling, "but I am using her! I am using her!" Glad to know they think of her as an object.

Millie spent the past few weeks sick. As I mentioned, when we got back from San Francisco we found out she has double ear infections and RSV. From what I understand RSV is a bad cold that a baby has a hard time fighting off and it frequently causes breathing issues. Camille had some minor breathing issues, but nothing huge. I know it can be much, much worse than Millie had.

After some antibiotics and regular Tylenol for a recurring fever she is on the mend. It took her 6 days to get her appetite and content disposition back, but she is mostly back to normal. Most days I really wasn't sure what to do to cheer her up so one day I took selfies of her crying and then showed them to her. And it actually worked.

Officially 9 months: