Silver Lake Photos

Here are some of my favorites from our photo shoot at Silver Lake.

Finch's:

 I just love my boys so much! Could they get any cuter?

Olsens:

Their family holds a special place in my heart

Smiths:

They are so gorgeous! I love them

Some more good ones... :)

Cousins!

Some of my favorite people

What would we do without them?

Just missing my mom!

Sometimes you just need to pretend like you're going to punch something

Hugh & Vero come to SLC!

They finally came together! My brother Hugh's wife, Veronica has never been able to make it to Salt Lake with Hugh for one reason or another so it was really nice to have both of them come and spend time with all of us here in Utah! And Hugh had not been here since last October conference so one year ago. They came for Conference weekend. Hugh arrived Thursday and Vero arrived Friday and they both left Tuesday morning. Hugh stayed at Jessie's on Thursday night and then they stayed at our house the rest of the weekend. Can I just say I love my family? We always have so much fun together! It made me even more excited for Jared to come home!

Noah finally got to meet Uncle Hughie!

Hugh arrived really late on Thursday so we didn't do anything, just said our hello's.

Friday we hung out during the day, went and picked up Vero at the airport and then went to City Creek Center mall downtown. We saw Mitt Romney which was kind of cool. He was at Deseret Book with his wife signing their new book. Veronica met with a friend at City Creek, it was the missionary that baptized her when she joined the LDS church. She hadn't seen this Elder for 14 years!

Trying to keep Noah warm - it was FREEZING that day!!! Utah has such drastic weather changes.

After the mall we all went to Leatherby's together. We love this place. It's a family restaurant that is pretty popular here and is famous for their ice cream. Derek and I always get the same thing, cheese fries and Tracy's Peanut Butter Cup to share. It's so yummy! My aunt Sarahi was able to come too.

Saturday was much warmer, back to normal weather. In the afternoon we all drove up into the mountains to a place called Silver Lake. It's one of my favorite places to take pictures, especially in the Fall! Derek and I also went here on our first official date so it's kind of special to us. But anyways, my family loves pictures so we wanted to do our own family photos again like we did 2 years ago at the Capitol. It was a beautiful day but there was a bit of snow on the ground up there. It was SO sunny which isn't the best for taking pictures but they still turned out great. I took the majority of them but obviously not the ones that I am in. We were a bit rushed because the men had to make it back in time to get ready for Priesthood Session. But it was really fun! Poor Noah was exhausted but we still managed to get some smiling ones of him thanks to Sophia! She was jumping in the air and making him laugh :) I will post a separate post with my favorite pictures from Silver Lake since there will be a lot.

After photos I took Noah home for a much needed nap (this weekend was really hard on him) and Veronica did some more shopping with Jessie while the guys all went to Priesthood together. Well, I got home at 5:00 and I thought he could take a nap and by the time Priesthood was done we could all go to Five Guys to eat together. Since Noah was awake pretty much all day he wasn't able to fall asleep and after 2 hours of trying to get him to sleep I realized I wouldn't be able to go to Five Guys with them. But it was okay. Motherhood brings sacrifices. Everyone went and had a good time. 

I guess they went out for frozen yogurt right after Five Guys.

Sarahi and her kids went too :)

Sunday was more of a relaxed day. Hugh, Vero and I went to the morning session at the Conference Center. Derek stayed home with Noah. What a powerful session! The spirit was so strong. I am going to write a separate post about Conference. Vero had never even been to Temple Square before so after the session we walked around temple square, went to the visitors center, the old tabernacle building... Hugh and Vero stayed to watch the afternoon session as well but I watched it at home.

After conference was over we just hung out and our house. Jessie came over with the kids. We had pizza and played Balderdash! We love that game, it's hilarious! If you like funny games you need to play this. We had some good laughs :) We watched a movie and called it a night. 

Monday was their last day in Salt Lake. Derek took the day off from work. We went to lunch at Red Iguana, another one of our favorites (except for Derek). My family loves good Mexican food! Later on we went to Jessie's to hang out for a while. On the way home we stopped at Sub Zero, a really good ice cream/frozen yogurt place. They make it with liquid nitrogen right there and then so it's fun to watch them make it and it tastes fresh and creamy! That night we just relaxed and watched movies. And they left bright and early the next morning. 

We're so happy they came to visit us. I wish they lived here. I just wish all of both mine and Derek's families lived in the same place. Hugh said he is going to start coming every 2 months... we'll see about that!

Walk at Temple Square

A couple weeks ago Derek and I took Noah to Temple Square to walk around one Sunday afternoon. We hadn't brought him there before so we thought it would be a nice thing to do together. Here are some pictures we took.. Noah is looking really chubby!

Life is so busy right now, I cherish Sundays because we can always spend time together as a family. 

Noah is 6 Months!

My baby is growing so fast! He is already half way to being 1! This month was much better than last month. We are still troubleshooting some sleep issues but I've been better at relaxing about them instead of freaking out. Noah had a lot of changes this month, again! I am starting to see him less and less as new baby, and more of a pre-todler if that makes sense. He weighed in at 15 lbs 4 oz at his appointment. So he is still on the smaller end (25%) but he's growing!

MILESTONES:
He is learning how to sit while leaning forward on his hands. He can't last long before toppling over though, usually around 10 seconds. But he HATES IT! He has NO interest in sitting whatsoever. I try to practice with him by putting him in this position but he usually gets mad and pushes his legs to stand up. I think he doesn't like it for 2 reasons.. it puts too much pressure on his tummy and it seems like his legs don't spread out easily so I think it's uncomfortable on his legs too. He just LOVES to roll! He is such a rollie pollie! It's so cute and I love it BUT it has gotten so hard to change his diaper, change his clothes, put him in his sleep sack.. because he just rolls over. I find myself having to dress him while he's on his tummy but it's kind of hard to change his diaper that way! He pretty much only rolls to his right, so he always gets stuck because he keeps rolling and rolling but only one direction and eventually has no more room to roll wherever he is. I am anxious to have carpet downstairs where he can roll around and learn how to crawl on soft ground instead of on hard wood floors. He still loves to stand and he can stand by himself holding onto the side of the pack n' play (by me putting him there) but slowly slides down the side, hah.

PERSONALITY:
It seems like he's always getting new quirks. He started doing this sniffing thing where he scrunches his nose and mouth and breathes in and out really fast over and over. Haha. It's really funny. He also started scrunching his nose when he smiles so his smile looks a little different now. He loves being up on daddy's shoulders and grabbing onto his hair and making funny faces. He started yelling and squealing often. It seems like he's mad but I think he's just learning how to use his vocal cords. His laugh is just so cute, it makes me happy! He laughs at the most random things. For example one time in the middle of the night while I was nursing him I started unbuttoning (the snap kind) his pj's because they were wet from his diaper leaking. Every time I would snap open a button he would chuckle while he was eating. Silly boy. He has never been scared of other people holding him but this month he has been more cranky or serious around other people, mostly children. He hasn't been as social as he normally is. I'm not sure if it's a phase or what. He will be acting his normal self, blowing raspberries and being silly and as soon as a someone he's not familiar with is around he'll get really quiet and just stare at them really curiously with his big eyes, haha.

FEEDINGS:
Still exclusively breastfeeding. I was really concerned about my milk supply this month. He started waking up in the night/early morning consistently so I was thinking he wasn't getting enough during the day. I thought it was a growth spurt at first but it has lasted pretty much all month. But I have been pumping a lot and it seems like I have enough? Since his weight gain was fine, I'm wondering if my supply was never an issue. But nursing is going pretty well besides that. Every night before bed, I have been giving him a bottle with an extra few ounces from my freezer supply after he's done nursing just to make sure he's getting enough. But I'm almost out of my freezer supply so I'm going to have to figure something else out. He has been doing something funny this month while he eats.. he will sneak his index finger in the corner of his mouth while nursing, trying to suck on his finger at the same time. But he only does it on my right side. It's so cute! But I do have to take his finger out because it messes up the suction, but he just keeps on doing it. Spit up is pretty rare now, I love it. He also eats really fast which I also love. Lately I will start to feed him and try to find something on TV to watch while he's eating and by the time I find something to watch he's already done! Compared to when he was a newborn and I could practically finish a movie by the time I fed and burped him!

SOLIDS:
We started solids last week!!! It's so exciting! I chose to do baby led weaning as I wrote about in his 4 month post (baby feeds himself normal food instead of being spoon fed purees). I really like the concept of it so I want to at least try it out and see how it goes. They gag a lot at first because they are learning how to move food around in their mouth and I'll admit it does make me nervous! If I give him something soft like roasted sweet potato or banana, he takes a big bite and doesn't know how to move it around and gags. But it's on the middle of his tongue, no where near his throat. They just have a strong gag reflex to prevent choking (gagging is different from choking). I find he does a lot better with toast or pasta. It's so cute and entertaining to watch. He grabs it with his whole hand, and just munches on it like a little chipmunk! He seems to really enjoy exploring food so I am going to stick with baby led weaning unless I can't handle the gagging anymore. Other foods we've tried include oatmeal, avocado, peach, pear, steak, broccoli and cauliflower.

PLAY:
Okay so he used to be able to play by himself for a long time! The major change this month is that he is suddenly a bit clingy! Plus he gets bored so much easier!! So independent play time has gotten somewhat difficult. Especially if it's close to his nap time.. he gets clingy and doesn't want me to put him down. He has NEVER been like this! But he also has been going through wonder week 26 so I think that could be part of it too because it seems like the last week hasn't been as bad as the weeks before. I think another part of it is that ever since he started rolling a lot (for the past month) I've been right by his side pretty much the whole time that he's awake so he may be getting used to being entertained by me. He needs a lot more stimulation to be entertained where as a few months ago he could stare at the ceiling fan for 20 minutes and be fine. He loves to jump on your lap so my mom got him a stationary bouncer that he loves! It took him a couple days to realize he could jump in it but now he really enjoys it. He still explores everything with his mouth.

SLEEP:
Last month naps were all over the place and bedtime was suddenly a nightmare. The last few weeks have been MUCH better and more consistent. I just had to figure out his new optimal wake-times. Something that no one around me understands about Noah is that he is still VERY SENSITIVE with the amount of time that he's awake. People think it's perfectly fine to keep him awake for hours and once he is tired he'll just fall asleep no problem. Unfortunately it's not that simple. And I don't think it's fair to do that to him all the time. He needs his sleep! It becomes really hard for him to fall asleep once he is over tired as I keep saying time and time again. That is just how he is. It makes going out and doing things hard but what can you do. But to be fair he has gotten a lot better lately. It's just all about the timing. Like I said before, the past few weeks he hasn't been sleeping through the night, he usually wakes up crying around 5 am but once in a while it's as early as 12 or 1 am.. it's confusing. I am thinking when he wakes up around 5 it's partially out of habit, and then realizes he's hungry. But I'm not 100% sure why he is waking up earlier than that sometimes. There is no way he's hungry after only 2 hours of eating and going to sleep. I am wondering if he's having some early teething pains even though he has no signs of teeth coming through. He is always gnawing on everything but he has done that for a while, so I'm really not too sure. I hope he goes back to sleeping through the night again soon!

SCHEDULE:
He is back on somewhat of a predictable schedule. We can't always stick to it of course because of things that come up like church, family things, errands. We are still figuring out the best time for bedtime, sometimes it seems like he does fine going down at 7, sometimes 7:30 works better so it's kind of tricky to figure out. I'm just really happy that he's not crying before bed like he was randomly doing last month. If he does cry it's only for 5-10 minutes. Our typical day looks like this lately:

7:15 Wake up, nurse, solids, play
8:20 Nap
10:45 Wake up
11:00 Nurse, solids, play
12:00 Nap
2:00 Wake up, nurse, play
3:40 Cat nap
4:30 - 4:45 Wake up
5:00 Nurse, solids, play
Around 7:00 Bedtime routine.. Nurse, bottle with pumped milk and into bed by 7:15 - 7:30
9:45 - 10:00 Dreamfeed (feed him in his sleep then put back down)

*This month around 5:00 am he'll wake up and I'll feed him and put him back down

Sometimes lately he has been crying around the time I normally do the dreamfeed. So I'll just feed him and put him back down. I'm not sure if he's waking out of habit there or of actual hunger. So throughout the day he is still eating on average around every 3 hours.. I would like to be on a 4 hour schedule soon but we'll see.


I love my baby, he is so handsome :)

Baby Led Weaning is super messy 

He loves eating his feet

Until next year, East Canyon

Fall is here! We usually make a last trip to East Canyon some time in September. Dustin & Leila had the condo last weekend so they invited us up to stay over Saturday night. We went up in the afternoon and were planning on staying the night.

We were nervous about Noah though since he hasn't been sleeping good lately. It took him 45 minutes to fall asleep and then since he was so overtired he woke up after 30 minutes and started crying again. He was so tired, and he's not used to sleeping in his pack and play anymore. His face was wet from crying and the material of the pack n play gets really cold when wet so that made it worse. Poor baby, I felt really bad for him. He was probably like "where is my comfy, warm crib!" So we ended up taking him home. It was a bummer.

But we were happy we got to spend some time with our family during the day. Derek's parents had their RV up there too so we got to see them for a bit. And Jed and Tara came with their kids too. We had dinner and then played some Settlers! 

And of course, the scenery looks beautiful right now! I love going to East Canyon in the fall. I was sad that I didn't get to take pictures. The drive up there is so pretty. The leaves down in the city haven't changed too much yet but they have up there :)

I did take this one picture really fast but I was holding Noah at the same time so it isn't the best photo but better than nothing!

Happy Fall!

Love Your Body 5K

My first 5k ever was the Women's Love Your Body run, 3 years ago. This run was also my sister's first 5K, but she did it for the first time 4 years ago. So we both love this race and this was the 3rd time we did it together :) My friend, Coral also ran it with us (it was her first 5k too, last year when she did it).

I signed up for it in August thinking it would get me motivated to start working out and running again. But sadly, it did not. I started running the week before the race - not a good idea. Normally a 5K wouldn't be a big deal, but since I haven't ran since I was about 20 weeks pregnant (so almost a year ago) I am really out of shape. And I haven't been working out at all since Noah was born. I was really nervous about running this, but I did better than I thought.

The funny thing was the week before the race, I only went running like 3 times that week and each time I probably ran like 1-2 miles. And I kept thinking wow, I am so tired after a mile, how am I going to run 5 miles!? For some reason I forgot that a 5K is only 3.2 miles, haha. And Jessie did too! When we were running the race, a while after the 2 mile marker we were both like geez we haven't even passed the 3 mile mark! Then we both remembered oh yeah it's a 5K, not 5 miles! So maybe that was a good thing? It was a relief, that's for sure. But I thought it was so funny that we both thought the same thing! We've ran several 5K's and Jessie has done 2 half marathons. What is wrong with us, haha.

Anyway, it was really fun and I'm glad I signed up even though I was not prepared. Usually the race is at Thanksgiving Point, but this year they changed it and it was in Sandy, so not as far as a drive. It was really cold at first, but got warm as the sun came out, like every year.

One of my favorite parts about running an organized race is the new T-shirt! I love them. This year it was pink!

Me & Coral :)

I'm glad we both love running - by the way doesn't my sister look AMAZING! She's been working really hard and looks fantastic! (But she's always been beautiful anyways)

As I was saying, I haven't been motivated to work out at all. I think it's because my baby weight just shed off somehow (please don't hate me). Is it okay to brag about that? I feel proud of myself. I think a lot of it has to do with how I ate and took care of my body during my pregnancy. I wasn't "Ms. perfect healthy" but I didn't go crazy and I tried to exercise pretty much the whole time. But I also think it was just how my body is, I only gained 30 pounds, and having a smaller baby doesn't hurt either. People say breastfeeding helps you lose weight, but I don't think that's a proven fact. It does shrink your uterus though! Even though I'm not at my pre-preg weight, I'm only around 5-7 pounds off. So I feel somewhat content with my body right now and I'm not desperate to get back to being 120 lbs. But with that said, I do think it's really important to eat healthy and to exercise regularly so I do need to stop being so lazy and get to it!

Noah is 5 months!

So when I was writing Noah's last month post, I remember thinking about the 4 month sleep disruptions I had read about that many babies go through. I was hoping Noah wouldn't have a hard time. But, he did and it was a hard month! There were just a lot of things going on all at once which made it a lot more challenging.

I will admit I kind of lost my cool this month. I have had to apologize to Derek and my mom countless times. What was so hard for me is that everything was going pretty much perfect before this last month. Once Noah started eating normally, things were awesome! I thought wow, this is easy! So when he suddenly started screaming for every nap and waking up in the middle of the night it felt like we were going backwards. Also, it was hard because in order to solve certain problems, I felt like I could only fix it with band-aid solutions, creating new problems that we would later have to overcome. 

It seems to be slowly getting back to normal now. I hope so anyways. But I have learned a lot this month. I've learned that just when you think you have it all figured out, things change!!! I'm sure this will be a continuing thing throughout Noah's life, especially the first few years. It's just one thing after another with babies. That's why we love them right, because they drive us crazy :) 

Down to business..

Feedings:

Basically feedings and sleep switched places this month. Sleep sucked, but nursing was so much better. Spitting up is not an issue anymore, he spits up every once in a while, pretty normal. He is able to get down and play as soon as he's done burping. Still a little fussy once in a while before burping. Sometimes I worry that he is lip tied also, even though my IBCLC checked for it. His upper lip is just tight, sometimes causes minor pain for me. Hopefully if he is, it doesn't cause problems later on. He eats very fast now, sometimes I worry he's not getting enough. My milk definitely regulated this last month, I'm not as full as I used to be. I drink Mother's Milk Tea at least twice a day just to be safe, I find it helps. Feeding him in public is easier. However he does get easily distracted by people and sounds. He lets me know when he's done, he just pulls off and doesn't want to latch back on. He makes me and Derek laugh because he will be perfectly happy and as soon as I lay him down and get ready to feed him he suddenly acts STARVING (even if he just ate 2 or 3 hrs ago) and acts like he can't wait another minute! He lifts his head up, tries to pull me close with his hands and opens his mouth and sometimes starts to whine! It's so funny. I read on someone else's blog that their baby did the same thing. He is eating out of a bottle much better also. He doesn't choke or gag anymore and drinks much faster this way too. And he holds onto his bottle and does the same thing where he pulls it down to him and curls his head up. But we only feed him bottles (with pumped milk) once in a while. 

Play:
Earlier this month Noah started reaching for things. I kept wondering when he was going to start doing that. He kind of skipped the uncoordinated swinging and batting and just went straight to reaching and grabbing. Last month he used to only grab things if it was already laying on him or if it was touching his hands but now he can easily grab things hanging over him, handed to him etc.. He still puts everything in his mouth almost instantaneously. He loves playing with (aka eating) toys. We love making him laugh. Derek likes to throw him in the air and catch him. Noah does pretty good at playing by himself for a while. I try to give him independent play time every day. He's getting so much more mobile now.. I normally would put him in his swing for a minute if I needed to go to the bathroom or something but he doesn't like his swing anymore, he just arches his back, squirms and almost falls out. We are going to put it away now. We're going to bring the pack and play in the living room and use that now instead.

Milestones:
Like I mentioned, he can reach for objects now. He is getting really good with his hands. The week after he turned 4 months he rolled over from back to tummy. Once he started that he never stopped doing it! This created one of the many challenges this month but I'll talk about that more with sleep. He is becoming a master roller. He's actually so much better at rolling from back to tummy than from tummy to back. He is getting so strong! Just within the last week he has learned how to get up on his arms and knees like he's trying to crawl! When he does this he can scoot himself around his crib on his knees! Oh boy. He's getting more and more difficult to keep him in a sitting position because all he wants to do is stand and jump. Ever since he was a newborn he has loved standing. He can hold his weight even just by holding onto his hands.

Swaddle:
Long story but we are officially swaddle-free! It was a journey, but it didn't last as long as I had thought it would. Once he flipped over when he was in his swaddle blanket we decided it wasn't safe anymore. The next few days were really bad because he couldn't sleep without it. So one night I swaddled him in his miracle blanket with one arm out and nursed him to sleep and then tucked him into a sleep sack so his arm out wouldn't get cold. It finally worked! He slept all night. So the next week that's what we did. It still took him a while to fall asleep the first few days but he wasn't crying anymore. After a week, I took out his other arm and just wrapped miracle blanket under his armpits. He didn't like that. So I just took away the miracle blanket all together, put him in a heavier sleep sack and he fell asleep! For a few days he took almost an hour to fall asleep sometimes but he didn't cry. So the whole process only took about a week and a half, and then he was actually napping better and not crying anymore when we put him down! SO happy to be done with swaddling!!!

Schedule/Wake-time:
His schedule was really all over the place the last month. I was trying to get him on a 4 hr feeding schedule but that didn't work. I don't think he's quite ready because he can still only stay awake for like an hour before he starts to get fussy. If I keep him up longer he cries before falling asleep and then only takes a cat nap so I don't even try to push it. Last week was complete chaos and for a few days I was feeding him like every hour or two! I was like what is this, do I have a newborn again! And it wasn't because he was hungry it's just because he couldn't sleep so I kept trying to nurse him to sleep all day!! Ugh, it was bad. But this week so far has been MUCH better. Now he's eating about every 3.5 hrs except for his bedtime feeding which happens earlier. On a normal day, he'll have around 5-6 feedings.

Sleep:
This is going to be a long one. I'm going to do my best to shorten it. He had been sleeping 9-10 hours at night without EVER waking and taking 4-5 naps a day. He started not sleeping for his last naps... then started waking up early (and cranky) around 6:45, then started waking around 5:30 every day, then 5:00, then 4:00 for a few nights and even 3:00 one night! At first I would just comfort him and try to get him back to sleep but when it kept happening I fed him thinking maybe it was a growth spurt. And he started screaming for hours before bedtime, which he has never ever done!!! I was losing my mind. I knew he was overtired but if I put him to bed earlier he wouldn't sleep. It was so weird.  I kept having to nurse him to sleep and I hated doing that because it was like walking on eggshells when I would lay him down in his crib. Also I didn't want him to rely on that since I was doing it every night for like 2 weeks. And then last week he kept rolling over whenever we would put him down (naps and bedtime). He would roll onto his tummy and then cry. So I would roll him back and he would just roll back onto his tummy and cry again! I didn't know what the heck to do. For a few days I just kept nursing him to sleep over and over again, tried putting the boppy in his crib so he didn't have room to roll but then I would have to keep checking on him every few minutes to make sure it didn't fall over on him. It was a mess. I decided to just let him figure it out on his own, he knew how to roll back but it was like he forgot. One day I decided to let him cry for a bit, he cried for 10 minutes and fell asleep on his stomach. Since then he has slept on his tummy for every nap and all night long. It was like he wanted to sleep that way but didn't know how once I gave him the chance to figure it out he was fine! He slept all night the last 2 nights, yay!!! And he slept longer than before, like 11 hours! I still lay him down on his back but he instantly turns over and falls asleep that way. So hopefully now things can get back to normal and we can get back to a consistent routine. Geesh. He does look super cute sleeping on his belly though! He sleeps with his bum in the air. My mom said he looks like a baby bear, haha. I need to take a picture.

Random:
He does some new funny things.. he does an "air chew" smacking thing where it looks like he's chewing gum with his mouth open. Also he flaps his arms a lot, kind of like he's slapping the side of his leg. And sometimes he'll do that to other people, he kept doing it to Derek's face once, it was pretty funny. He also started making new noises. He can yell pretty loud. He still blows spit bubbles, or "raspberries" I guess their called. Yesterday his voice started sounding raspy. I think he might have sore throat because Derek had one last week. He really likes other people, he doesn't seem shy at all. But maybe that comes later. He gets so excited and does a happy dance when my mom talks to him. He seems very curious in what's going on around him, and seems to always be observing and trying to find where sounds are coming from. Oh and he rips my hair out all day long because his hands get tangled up in them with his kung fu grip! When Derek lets him play with his hair, he giggles. But poor Noah is losing his hair again, it was growing back but it's rubbing away again.


With the mix of wonder week 19, trying to extend feedings, transitioning out of the swaddle, and rolling over,  it was one challenging month! Heavenly Father was definitely testing my patience. And with the way I handled things, I know I really need to work on myself. I get stressed out way too easily. When it's so crazy like that it literally feels like the end of the world to me. I need to get better at this. I'm thankful I have a husband who still loves me even though I become a little loco.

Some pics from this month...

Don't you just love his round head!

His classic worried look

Showing off his reaching skills

He does this face a lot

So handsome!

Reminds me of Derek when he smiles

I had to put a chubby cheeks one in here too