Nana's Visit

So we just said goodbye to Nana after spending a long weekend with her and I have to say this was one of the most fun visits we've had with her! It was VERY busy, but with lots of fun stuff. So here is a long recap of the time we had with her:

Thursday

Trying on fun headbands at Kohls

I got to leave work a little early to get the girl and head to Grandma's to get her. Gwen is getting into her stranger danger phase, but she warmed up quickly. On the plus side I became best grandchild ever when I changed my grandma's kitchen lights.

After visiting with her for a bit, we left to meet up with Larry at Red 8 for dinner. I've been talking to my mom nonstop about this place since she missed her old Utah Asian food restaurant and we've become obsessed with this one. Their orange peel chicken is seriously the best!!

While we were eating, mom realized she needed to get some pants because she only packed some shorts and tank tops and we were due for some chilly weather so we made plans to take Cara with us (Larry took Gwen since he had the other car seat base in the red car) to Kohl's since Mom had some coupons for there. I tell you - I wanted to spend SO much money here, even though we weren't there for me, but I walked through the women's section (I officially feel either old or like a mom since I used to shop in the young section, but that stuff is just too young for me now) and found so many cute tops, but the best part was when we went to the clearance section I found shirts that were in the women's section, but for only $3.60 (why they were in both sections, I don't know, but that's a steal of a deal) and I found a couple sweaters that'll be so cute this winter - all 4 shirts for only $24 (they said I saved $158 when we checked out). I was SO excited for that.

Once we got home, we just relaxed until the bedtime. Mom was tired when the girls went down so I was able to still get my work out in without feeling like I was missing out on time with her.

Friday 

She LOVED the carousel!



If this isn't frame-worthy I'm not sure what is

 

Friday was day at the zoo. I was expecting us to leave early in the morning (around 9:30), but Mom wanted to wait until after Grandma's dermatologist appointment, so we left a little later than I had planned. Unfortunately, we ended up hitting the worst traffic ever! It took us 90 minutes to get there and by the time we got parked and through the ticket line (which was really backed up!) we had to eat lunch and missed seeing the whole giraffe area.

We quickly realized we were going to have to get one of those backpacks with a leash for Cara, which I'm not against, but knew we might get some judgmental looks. Luckily, we found a monkey one that was cute and since it can hold snacks or fun little activities (like books or small toys) for her in it, it really worked out well. She kept it on and even though she didn't love having only a small area to walk around, she learned quickly that when it was tight she had to just turn a different direction. That with the carrier (for Gwen) and stroller made it an easier visit. I made sure to put Gwen in the carrier when she wasn't napping so that others (we had a ton of kids with us) could ride in the stroller if they were tired and Gwen could get out and see more. We also took Cara (and the older kids) on the carousel, which Cara LOVED. She kept saying "yee-hoo" and waving to everyone on the outside. Right before we did that, we were walking past the amphitheater they do the bird show in and some white doves flew out and almost ended up flying right into us. Cara thought that was funny, but the rest of us were ducking and screaming a little bit haha.

At one point we got some ice cream. I just got one to share with Cara and I ended up letting Gwen taste some (which she ended up loving so much she kept grabbing for it). I was sad when I had one last bite left (in the waffle cone - which is my favorite bite) and I went to let Cara take a little bit of it, but she ended up taking it from me and walking it off and finishing it on her own - guess that's #MomLife haha. Luckily, she got to see a lot of the animals (including some cuddling crocodiles). Unfortunately, by the time we got to the playground area all the kids were SO tired and getting cranky

We got home around dinner time (there was still a little bit of traffic on the way home) and we visited with Larry (he stayed home). I asked him how it was having a whole day to himself and he mentioned he almost had too much free time without the girls there.

Saturday

The only pics I got of pedicure time

Mom hard at work :)

I really like how hers turned out...isn't that how it goes?

Saturday morning we had pedicure appointment so we left girls with Larry and left to pick up Rachel and go get our nails done. We all got pretty designs, talked the technicians’ ears off, and the massagers felt great (except in the bum...according to mom). We finished earlier than we expected so we decided to hit Ross before lunch (Mom liked a jumper Tanny was wearing that she got from Ross, so she wanted to look for one for her). 

Ross had some great deals and I ended up finding a couple outfits for the girls (I didn’t even go there to look) and felt bad I didn’t get Larry anything so I found some candy that was near the checkout that sounded good so I got that for him to share with us haha.

We finished there and headed to Red Robin for lunch where we ate way too much. In my defense I didn’t have time for breakfast because I was getting the girls taken care of before we left so I loaded up on everything (including a shake, unlimited fries, and mom and I shared two entrees), but it was so yummy and worth the after-lunch waddle haha. Andy was getting a new car and then ended up at the wrong location, so he didn’t show up until we were all done, but it gave us more time to visit (plus his new car is really nice!). I thought we were going home after that, but they ended up wanting to walk through Bed Bath & Costco, which was nice to help walk off lunch, but I was getting antsy to relieve Larry with both girls. Luckily it gave us an excuse to stop off at Dough Co on the way home for our Saturday night dessert.

Once we got home we had just enough time to rush to Lowe’s to find a grill (it is technically mom’s Father’s Day gift to Larry, but since I want it more, I’m calling it a house gift haha). We got that (more fun posts about new grilling adventures to come), rushed home, grabbed some snacks (our dinner since we were still full from lunch), and then Mom and I had a Paint Night “appointment” that was my Mother’s Day gift to her. That was fun, but the instructor wasn’t as helpful as the other one I went to. We had a butterfly in the picture and she started doing it without letting us know how and when someone asked how she only told us “very carefully”. It was still a fun Mother-Daughter date night and our paintings turned out cute still. 

Luckily, we got home in time that Larry and I could still do our Saturday Movie Date Night (we watched Radius on Netflix – decent movie, but could’ve been longer to explain things more). It was a good ending to a nice relaxing day…for me.

Sunday 

We made it!

 

Sunday we had plans to hike to the Y. I was so excited because I had heard a few things about this hike and was happy to get our first (and hopefully not last) hike of the year in so early in the summer. We, of course, stopped at Smith’s on the way there to get lunch makings (I love eating on hikes when you get to the end), let the girls nap on the drive, got sunscreen applied and went on our way. I carried Gwen the entire time up and down (she was facing forward and loved reaching out to feel the tall grass), which made me feel like super mom, but poor Cara was getting beat up a bit on the hike up (she kept trying to collect rocks and then would fall and had too many rocks to put her hands out to stop herself) so Larry had to carry her more than I expected (there are some STEEP switch backs on that mountain). Even though we only made it to the bottom of the Y there were still some great views and it felt good to be in the mountains...even if everyone else cancelled on us. It felt good to take a break, eat our lunch (with some yummy watermelon – the perfect hike snack when you are sweaty), fed Gwen, got our pics, and headed down. Gwen ended up falling asleep on the way down (I think she liked facing me, didn’t hurt she could rest her head against me). Of course, going down like that your toes get squished towards the front of your shoes, which hurts, (you remember me saying there were steep switch backs right?) so Mom and I were both worried about our pedicures – lesson learned: do pedicures AFTER the hike haha).

After the hike we went back home, got the girls down for a nap, Mom showered and napped, and Larry rested as well. I just ate what was left of my cookie dough while watching YouTube videos on my phone. It was SO relaxing and peaceful (I don’t really like napping these days so I usually find something else to do during nap time) and a great way to unwind from the hike.

We finished Sunday with Dinner at Grandma’s. Some people bailed, but it left more pizza for the rest of us (Gwen even got to try tiny bites of ours). Abby decided to turn on the sprinklers so all the young kids ran through those (makes it easy when you can just strip them down and let them have fun). Cara LOVED that part and Gwen got to sit on the grass (just out of the spray zone) with her toys to watch, which I think she really liked as well (everyone was holding her for a good portion of the start of that visit so I think she liked a chance to sit on her own). She’s such a happy, easy going baby (when she’s not hungry). We even had some yummy cookies Cindy made. It was the last family night so we did get some pics of the people who showed up.

Monday

Today I woke up feeling sore all over (just me though, not Larry or mom), but still grabbed Cara and went with mom to walk South Towne mall. Normally a mall walk is just a “whatever” kind of way to spend time, but this time it was more fun than usual. We got to the mall too early so we had to take our time in the new Home Goods store, which is HUGE and had amazing things (good thing I left my wallet in the car)! In the mall we walked through a few stores, but Bath and Body Works was the most memorable to me. They had some great scents out and inspired me to want to throw away all my lotions and body sprays and start over (I think I need small bottles rather than the larger ones). They also had some really good candles, so I think I'm going to be lighting candles in the home more. After walking around, we ended at kid play area...Cara loved that she finally got a place to play there but hated that she couldn't stay longer than 15 minutes to head to lunch.

We met up with Grandma at Zupas for lunch - our tradition with Nana visits. Since I just had Cara with me I let her play around, eat too many pez candies, snack on her lunch food, and then just watched as she chugged my soda (root beer with raspberry flavoring). After a while I realized she chugged too much and took it away, but apparently not soon enough. She was making a very pained facial expression and was rubbing her belly so I assumed she had a big bubble in her stomach. I pulled her to me to “burp” her and she ended up throwing up all over me! Like projectile vomit! It smelled so awful, but her pained face before it and then that being her first throwing up incident EVER made it hilarious!! 

After lunch I drove Mom to the airport (random note: we saw a truck that tipped over on the way there) and said our goodbyes. It’s always sad when the visits are over, but she'll be back in November. On the way home saw another car tipped on the freeway and that was backed up for 3 exits so apparently it was a bad day for cars on the road. I ended up having to drive around since Cara fell asleep and she was too tired for me to move her to bed for a decent nap, which meant sitting in thrown up on clothes for longer than I wanted to, but worth it for her. Luckily my next laundry load was one the clothes could go into, so I was able to wash them quickly.

We had such a GREAT visit - I genuinely can't wait for the next one. I even told her we might make a trip out to her next year, depending on how the road trips go this year (we'd definitely have to drive to her rather than flying).

Gwen is SEVEN Months

I am SEVEN months old!

I like: dancing (when we move her arms to a beat), when we rush to her face (kind of like we're going to scare her, but we stop short...she LOVES that), pulling up to stand on our hands, her lovie we put her down with, Cara (still loves watching Cara and trying to copy her in any way), eating foods with us, the fishies

I dislike: not being in the room with everyone, especially when she can hear us talking in another room, being hungry

So good at sitting up now

 

I am now: She is wearing 6 and 6-9 month clothes and size 3 diapers. once again, I forgot to do a weight check. She's a chunk, but she is starting to thin out a bit now that she's more active.

I sit in the front of the cart now!

A Typical Day looks like:

7:30) Start waking up for the day (she might wake up earlier, but that's the earliest we get them out of their rooms).
7:30 to 8) Breakfast time. I change diapers and feed her half a big container of baby food (usually a fruit flavor one). Then I get her dressed and make a 4-5 oz bottle (usually only 2 oz of formula and the rest is breastmilk for now).
8 to 9:30) Gwen hangs out while I do finishing touches on the morning things (my lunch, the bottle makings for Larry, brushing Cara's teeth and getting her show ready, and getting my work stuff put together). I leave for work at 8:15 and Larry stretches her to last as close to 9:30 for her nap.
9:30 to 11) Nap time. She usually wakes up between 10:30 and 11. He'll let her wander around and do some wiggle/giggle time or bumbo seat time.
11:30 to 12:30 ish) Diaper change, eat a 7 ounce bottle (usually 2 oz is formula, the rest is breast milk), get burped and more wiggle and giggle time.Stretching feedings to every 3.5 hours has been really helpful and she'll usually get some fruit in the mesh feeder if she's being cranky
12:30 to 2) Nap time. If she gets up early then she hangs out until her next feeding.
2 to 3:30) Diaper change, eat 7 oz bottle again, get burped, wiggle and giggle time and then she'll end up going down for another nap.
3:30-4:45) She naps while Larry and Cara go downstairs so he can work out and she hangs out in the play area. After his workout and he showers she is usually up and ready to hang out again. (We're lucky if she'll make it to 4:45 though)
5-5:45) Diaper change and hang out with Larry and Cara until I get home
5:45-6) Dinner time! I usually feed her one container of baby food and maybe some bites of our food. I'm still convinced this is her favorite time of day (aside from waking up in the morning...she's a BIG morning baby).
6-7:30) Family time! We go outside if it's nice weather, if it's not we stay inside and just hang out (usually teaching Cara some flash cards and letting Gwen wiggle and giggle or play in the walker/activity table). Around 7 we start our nightly show. 7:20 she gets her last bottle of the night (usually 5 oz of formula).
7:40) Get ready for bed. She gets a diaper change, lotion, book, and put in pajamas. We do a bath on Sundays and Thursdays, but we start that at 7:30 since we do both girls. she's usually very ready for bed at this point. She's also starting to take baths sitting up on her own (we took her out of the baby bath this month) so we're starting to do bath time together with both girls so this might be moved back to 7:40 soon.

This Month I: realized how much fun it is to pull up and stand. In fact, I rarely like to be just sitting unless I've been standing for a while and need to relax my legs. But once I start standing I stay straight because I hate to just sit. I also can roll and scoot all around so I'm a mover. I really want to be crawling and even walking, but I'm having a tough time with figuring out how to get the crawl down (walking is still a few months off).

I even got my first two teeth this last month, both on the bottom. So now I get to chew things and bite on EVERYTHING.

Celebrating Father's Day with dad and sister here

It just looks like slobber, but this is her first tooth!

 

Parent's Notes: This last month was a productive one as far as becoming more mobile. She gets on all fours to start crawling, but then she just thrusts back and forth. She'll also get in the bear crawl position and we think she's going to crawl that way. Or she'll move a leg in a way that looks like she's going to sit herself up...but she hasn't done it yet. Luckily Gwen has been the best teething baby ever! She hasn't really been fussy at all and except for the extreme drool we wouldn't have even noticed she had any. Larry just mentioned to me he thought he saw a knot in her gums and I went to feel and felt the tooth pretty much poking through. Then a couple days later the second one was pushing through! Craziest teething experience ever so far! She definitely turned into a piranha though, she loves to bite EVERYTHING!

We're so excited to have Nana visit (she comes in tomorrow), which will be the first time since Gwen was a month old so there's lots to catch up on. It should be a really fun visit! Other than that we're just watching Gwen grow and watch her and Cara play together more and more (they are really interacting a lot more than usual and it's so sweet. I simply cannot wait to see when Gwen can walk and be even more interactive and involved

Who's that baby?

Update on last month's goals:

• We've let her try little things. Especially now that she has her two bottom teeth.
• Take her out for a family date night that's at a normal time (I think she's ready to be out a little later...maybe)
• Read to her more
• Do more sensory friendly activities when we aren't outside (she seems to like those).

Goals for next month:

• Add more foods (maybe even puffs soon?) as she gets more curious about them.
• Take her out for fireworks (with headphones) for the 4th of July (and celebrate the 4th like I've wanted to for a few years now)
• Work on crawling better (she KIND OF scoots right now) and pulling up (she's just starting that now)
• Go on her 7 month vacation - San Diego!!
• Work on words (dada and mama)

Father's Day 2019

Father's Day 2019, in my own opinion, was much better than previous years. It's probably a better sign that I'm actually blogging about it this year haha. Having 2 kids is no joke, so I've been nervous to leave the house on my own unless it's going somewhere with a cart that I can put both girls in. Luckily, as time has passed I feel I've gotten more confident in handling both girls without Larry, especially at home. Lucky for me, Larry is a big homebody so he doesn't feel like he needs to leave all the time.

Total #GirlDad

I was going to let Larry sleep in this morning, but I forgot to make the grocery list yesterday so I woke up, got the girls up, and decided they needed to go wake him up...because that's what being a dad is about - your kiddos jumping all over you to wake you up and making you feel so loved and lucky haha. So we did have to start the day in a regular Sunday type of way with grocery shopping and laundry, but I did give him his gifts as he work up too (just a silly shirt saying "I make cute kids", a magnetic wristband for screws when working with tools, and an Amazon gift card) so he could feel a little special at the same time.

Since he rarely gets uninterrupted gaming time (which is his favorite way to spend time) so I promised I'd take the girls after their nap so he could take their nap time and the few hours after nap time (until my Skype call with my mom) to just game and have fun. I spent the time working out then blowing up our new pool we got the girls and filling it with semi-warm water. So once the girls got up from their nap, I let him game in a silent home and took them to go "swimming" in the pool. I only filled the pool about 3 inches (deep enough that there was water in there, but shallow enough that I didn't have to worry about both girls being in it and drowning easily). I also put Cara's slide in it so she could slide into the water.

She finally warmed up to it



This is just to show their
Matching swim suits :)

No lie - she didn't love it at first. She kept saying it was cold (which is surprising she understood that because she seems to be backwards with her temperatures sometimes haha) so I let her adjust to it slowly while I put Gwen right in with myself (I did fill it up with really hot water with hose water so it wasn't freezing, but it was barely luke warm). Gwen loved splashing around and kept wanting to stand up next to Cara (once she finally got in) to interact with her. It was really cute. And once Cara got used to it she loved sliding down into the pool water. I sent a Marco Polo to my dad and said hi to Will on the Skype call so I got to share the love to all the dad's around me (plus I did have gifts sent out to both of them as well, so it wasn't just a "hi" to them).

So anyways, to Larry, the dad of our household. I'm so happy the girls have a dad like you in their lives! I love that I can rely on you to take care of them ALL day long and not just hand them off to me when I get home, you still take care of them with me when I'm there. I love that you make sure to feed them, even when I have crazy concoctions for lunches, I love that you take weekly pictures of them so we can watch how they grow and always have that to look back on. I love that you do flash cards with Cara so she's always learning (because you know I always have anxiety about if her being home is delaying anything with her). Speaking of that, I love that you put up with my paranoia with the girls being home all day. I love that you take such good care of the house when I'm not there and I know you put 100% into everything you do. I love that the girls will have a strong male role model in their lives so they'll know how they should be treated in life by men and women. I love that you'll help them feel confident and smart. I love that you will support them in anything they do (as long as they are the best doing it as you say). I love watching you play with the girls, I love watching you tickle the girls, I love watching you be a girl dad. I hope one day we can add a boy to the mix, but if we only have girls you are already the best dad to girls that no matter what we have, you are still just so amazing at it! I also love that you make me laugh and support whatever new YouTube trend I'm following and want to add to our household (because I feel like that happens on a daily basis). Mostly I love that you inspire me to be a better mom because of how awesome you are with them! I can't wait to see how much more evolved you become as a dad as the years come to pass. You are amazing and I love love love you!!

Happy Father's Day to all the dad's out there. Hope you all had a great day and felt loved and special!

Potty Training: Round 1

Okay potty training - it's been pretty much the worst experience in my parenting life. I joke with Larry that I can officially prove that time travel doesn't exist or I would've traveled to past me at this point and stopped myself from trying this so soon! When I say it felt like a big punishment, I'm not being dramatic (or at least not entirely so).

Our picture on the first day...filled with such naïve joy

The good part? I think we learned quite a bit for when we feel Cara is ready (and what we can use for future kids). So here are my takeaways from our first week attempting potty training Cara:

• Nothing worked! Not pull-ups, not being naked, not being outside (naked), not underwear, not shows, not snacks, not praise, putting her on the potty every 30/60/90 minutes, NOTHING! It got so frustrating constantly changing up how we were going to train her and taking all the tips and yet she still would have constant accidents. And the worst part: she had no shame in the accidents. She'd actually start to play in her "puddles" and splashing in them, which made an even bigger mess!!
• Screen time is just never going to be my method! It absolutely killed me watching her brain melt while watching something on a phone. I knew it wasn't working when I asked her if she wanted to go potty and she'd sit down and say "show" while reaching out for our phones. I immediately stopped letting her just watch anything (even though I did try and make it somewhat educational, she still turned into a zombie).

If she wasn't in front of the TV...

...She had a screen (of some sort) on her lap

• There got to be a point where she actually stopped pooping unless a diaper or pull up was on. Even if we put her on the potty at her usual pooping time, she just wouldn't go. I got a little nervous that this would cause even bigger issues.
• It got even tougher when we hit Wednesday (which was 5 days in) and Larry mentioned she wasn't getting any better and he couldn't keep up with putting her on the potty every 30 minutes. Not that she was going every time we did that, but there was just no way he could do that AND work AND take care of Gwen. I got a little frustrated, but looking back she should've been better at this point and we should've seen this as a sign that it wasn't the right time. But I wanted to keep strong because I had heard that it's always tough in the beginning so I figured that's what we needed to do - keep with it.
• Good news is: She never had an accident when we left the house. We ended up leaving for a few errands and we'd put a Pull-Up on her, but when we got home she'd be dry. Another win was that when we'd say potty she knew exactly where to go.  

One of our "we're going crazy, lets just get out for a minute"
Errands that she stayed dry throughout.

We ended the dreaded week with a trip to the aquarium
At least we could say we had fun at one point.

My end result and how we're moving forward is that I think we need to wait till she can answer basic questions. For example, if we ask her if she's hungry, if she likes what she has, if she wants to go outside to play, if she slept well...right now she doesn't respond to questions like that. If we say outside, she'll say "side!" and run to the door. She also will say "go go go". But any yes or no question she just doesn't know how to respond to right now.
So I'm hoping when she's closer to 2.5 she'll be more ready for round 2. I just know I'd really like her to be trained by the time she's 3 so that we can get her registered for preschool next year (for Fall 2020). Fingers crossed we can do that (and that I don't have PTSD from this time at that point haha...but for real)!