10

Camille hit the 10 month mark this weekend. She says, big deal, who cares?
As she gets older we think she looks more like Sadie and less like Daniel's twin. Sadie looks like Daniel's family, just not exactly like him. All of Millie's 6 to 12 month clothes are too small, but we don't have much winter stuff in size 12-18 months so she is stuck in tight clothes for the next few weeks until it starts to warm up here.

She is still not crawling. I wonder if she will. She is adept at emptying the bookshelves in our family room.


Camille is excellent at scooting backwards and rotating on her stomach. I didn't get many good 10 month pictures because she just rolled to her stomach and then scooted herself backwards to her changing table.

She loves to stand up on things. She halfheartedly attempts to climb up on things but is happy to have one of her sisters help her up. She also clearly has older sisters who like to do funny things to her.

Elise spent 20 minutes the other day showing Camille how fun it is to scream. Mills giggled the entire time.

 
Millie has been working on cutting her #3 and #4 tooth for 2 months, but they are still not through. Any time she is the slightest bit cranky I blame it on teething. Her upper gums have been puffy and swollen for over a month now! You can see the exact outline of her top left tooth and the gum is hanging below the natural gum line so cover it. Teething is the pits.


She loves when I open the plantation shutters in her room. She will just sit and talk and smile at her window.


Mills took her first bath in a big tub all by herself. Camille is an excellent eater, but if there are flavors she doesn't like she throws up. She really hates the taste of her multivitamin. I tried to give it to her without mixing it and she projectile vomited. The next day I tried it mixed with baby food and she threw up again.

This is her 10 month photo

Run Away

I got a treadmill for Christmas. It took us until mid-January to put it together, which didn't bode well for my fitness goals, but it has actually been great. I have run 3 to 5 times a week since then. I haven't noticed a big difference in my body yet, but I was in the worst shape of my life so I had to start with very short runs and long walks. For the past couple weeks I have been running a 5k each time and then I walk 2 miles at varying inclines. I still feel like I am going to die a lot of the time I am running, but it's a huge improvement over my initial maximum runs of 1/3 mile at a time. I have no plans to run much longer than my 5k's, but maybe some day. For now I just hope to be able to keep it going. I watch Ellen, Chopped, and various HGTV shows while I run, which helps distract me a little. I run at all different times. The only common denominator is Camille being asleep. So either it is during her morning nap, afternoon nap, or when all the kids are in bed. I prefer to just get it out of the way in the mornings. It's hard to get motivated at the end of the day. The greatest part about the treadmill is that I don't have to work it around Daniel's schedule. I have tried gym memberships and classes, but with Daniel traveling so much it was always complicated, even when gyms had babysitting.

Sadie and Elise like to play in the basement while I run. They tend to forget I am down there with them, for better or for worse. The naked rocking horse picture is one of the weirdest things Sadie has ever done. When I finally got her attention and asked her what was going on she said, "what?" and carried on with her nudity. The other picture shows a day when I got to watch the girls work together for 45 minutes on a fort structure. It reminded me that sometimes my kids like each other. 

The girls have gotten very excited about running on the treadmill as well. They frequently have short turns when I am done. Sadie actually went almost half hour (mostly walking) one day. Elise usually lasts about 5 minutes. 

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.