What better way to celebrate...

.... Pioneer Day than to celebrate it in Utah with family? Grace and I visited Salt Lake for a few days and we had such a fun trip! The 24th of July isn't quite the same here in Nevada... mostly because it's not a holiday here, of course. We sure stayed busy during the few days we were there, and took lots of pictures. :)

Watching the liberty park fireworks from East High.

We were able to spend lots of time with Grace's cousins...

... and with my cousins and their kids at my aunt/uncle's house (aka "the ranch").

My cousin Allie is one of my good friends. We had babies within several weeks of each other and it was so great to get the two girls together!

It's beautiful there! This is the view from my aunt/uncle's back deck...

Nursing party!

My 5 year high school reunion was also over the weekend and it was fun to see the few people that went. I was the only one with a baby who went (there are only 3 people with babies from our class anyway) and it was a little surreal being around all of those people from my past with Grace in my arms. :)

These are two of my bestest friends from East High School - Jen & Jamie.

Grace had a great time getting lots of attention from both sets of grandparents!

The "hand-0ff". Without a car of my own up there, the Turners dropped Grace and I off at my parents' house after a fun evening. I thought it was so cute with all 4 of them together like that, bragging to each other about the cutest baby in the world... I just had to get a picture!

We hung out with Ryan's side of the family on saturday night and played a big game of croquette with their neighbors. Ryan's mom and dad are amazing gardeners and spend a lot of time making their backyard beautiful. They also make it perfect for croquette since it's definitely their family's favorite game! We play it together at least once when we go to SLC... I always try to get out of it, but they always drag me in. haha But honestly it was fun! And this time around, I actually got pretty far in the game (without them making me cheat to keep up with everyone else) before I got killed.

On sunday night, my family had dinner at my brother and sis-in-law's house. It was the first time I'd seen their new place and they've done a great job making it their own! It's such acute starter-home. Awww, one day. ;) We had a great time with them before catching our plane to come home.

And then daddy and baby were back together again for a bedtime story. :)

The binkie(s)

Grace has to have her binkie to go to sleep. I'm perfectly fine with that for right now and don't even care at the moment that we'll have to deal with getting rid of it next year sometime. For right now, it's acceptable. In fact I LOVE that she takes a binkie! She is much quieter in church when she has it in her mouth, she doesn't chew on other kids' toys when it's in her mouth and she playing with them, and when she spits up while sucking on the binkie there isn't quite as much mess to clean up. :) All good things, in my opinion.

Lately, with Grace's new found ability to move around so much more, we've had some nap-time/bed-time issues involving the binkie. Just a few weeks ago, I was able to lay her down in her crib and she would stay laying down and go to sleep cuddled up next to her lamb (her "lovey"). Now, when I lay her down, she immediately sits up. I'll try several times to get her to lay down again so she knows it's nap-time and not play-time. She doesn't cry or anything - she's just stubborn and knows she can change her position on her own.

A few days ago, Ryan and I laid her down to bed, left the room and sat down on the couch. Within a couple minutes I heard her "I'm in pain" scream/cry and knew immediately she'd hurt herself somehow. I ran in there and she was standing up, holding the side of the crib crying. :( We figured out that she had hit her head on the side of the crib since she's still a bit unstable when she stands and holds on to it. She had a nasty purple welt above her right eyebrow, poor girl. Ryan was such a good daddy (thank goodness he was home) and got right to work on lowering the crib mattress now that she can pull herself up.

Now, EVERYday, after I lay her down in the crib, a few minutes later she'll start to whine... which turns into crying... which turns into screaming. When I go into the room, this is what I find...

There are TWO binkies on the floor. Grace recently started dropping/throwing/spitting out her main binkie when she's standing up like that... so I put an extra one in her crib. Well, now she's throwing both of them out. I don't know how she does it! She's a busy little thing.

At least after all of the dramas of getting her to fall asleep, she wakes up as my favorite, super-happy, well-rested, baby girl again.

Into the woods...

Have I mentioned how hot it is here? ... Oh, I have? A thousand times? Well, I don't care, I'm going to say it again. IT'S STINKIN' HOT! It's been up to 113 a couple times in the last week, with some extra humidity too, and it's just a tad bit miserable. Plus, our electric bill for June was the highest (times 2) that we've ever had it before in the last 2 years. I don't know how on earth that happened (especially when I was pregnant last summer??!), but we decided we needed to cut back on our air conditioning a little and bump our temp up a few degrees higher during the day. I'm surviving with it at 78, but it feels more like 80 or more sometimes. Yuck.

Anyway... Ryan and I went with some friends up to Mt. Charleston last saturday afternoon. Some of them were already camping there at the Old Mill campground and picnic area and we just met them there. Thank heavens they were already there too, because everyone else and their dog (literally, lots of dogs) had the same idea to escape the heat and head up there. We wouldn't have gotten a spot if our friends weren't already there camping. :)

Redds, us, Reynders, & Karrens

We all cooked tin-foil dinners and s'mores, and hung out through the cool evening. It wasn't quite as cool as I'd hoped... with a high in the 80s or so, but it's better than 110 of course. We didn't get to play any games or explore much because all the little kids were keeping us pretty preoccupied and we only have a couple hours. Just being up in the mountains for a short time made me want MORE. We have already decided to go camping in September during Ryan's month-long break. Or at least go up again soon to hang out for the whole day.

We had Grace's high chair (which folds flat really easily) and puffy blankets so we didn't have to hold her the entire time. It worked really well! Even though she does sort of crawl around, she doesn't get far so it worked perfectly.

I love the mountains! I absolutely would rather live near mountains than near the ocean or the desert (especially the desert). I hope during residency, and/or when we finally settle somewhere one day, we will be somewhere near mountains!

Gettin' there...

New Discoveries

Grace can ride her plastic rocking horse all by herself!

She even kicks her heels into the sides of the horse like a true cowgirl...

BUBBLES! Our new favorite toy.

p.s. Grace has also taken a couple timid crawling "steps" forward here and there over the weekend. I think she's almost there... We're not sure how we feel about that yet.

Eight Months

Our baby girl is growing up so fast! Here are several pictures from her 8-month photo shoot today. I know it's picture over-load, but I couldn't decide which ones to leave out! So... you're getting a lot. :)

She loves her little baby doll.

Grace can stand up on her own for a few seconds without anyone holding on to her! One day I'll get it on camera...

She prefers to stand on her toes.

Grace weighs roughly 17.5 lbs and is about 26.5 inches long. Her legs are like tree trunks and we sure love that part of her! It's hard to remember how tiny she once was. Grace wants to crawl so bad, and she gets so close to it everyday. She goes up on her hands and knees and will move one hand forward before falling forward. But for now, I LOVE that I can set her down on the ground in the living room and she'll roll around all over the place. I can even put the bucket of toys right in front of her and she'll peek in and grab whatever toy she wants at that moment.

However, sometimes she doesn't want to be set down by herself while I do other things. She's become pretty clingy these days, and if I leave the room she'll get really sad.

Our girl is a noisy one! She likes to make really high-pitched squeals and make even HIGHER pitched whining sounds. She'll sit in her car seat while we're driving around and make all kinds of noises ... Ryan calls it "singing". It's cute, but it sure is loud sometimes! :)

Grace still loves the pool, even when the water is cold! The floaty in this picture is our friend's, and she loved it so much that I went out and got one for her. So far she's not fan of it though.

Daddy is so bad! He eats probably 4 or 5 popsicles a day and has gotten Grace hooked on them too. She loves it when Ryan shares with her...
I've said in a past post how much Grace uses her feet, and it's still very true! She's always using her feet for something. If her toys are too close to her, or annoying her, she'll kick them away even when she's in a sitting position. While I'm nursing her, Grace will kick at my arm or whatever is close enough. This picture was of her playing with Ryan's toes while she laid on the floor. She does this all on her own too! It's so adorable.

Grace has officially gone from 3 naps to 2. She'll wake up in the morning around 7, nap from 9:30-10:30, and then nap again from 1:30-3:30. She goes to bed at night at 8pm and very rarely wakes up during the night. She nurses on a pretty consistent 4-times-a-day schedule and it's so nice having her on a pretty unchanging schedule. It's usually 7:30am, 11, 3:30pm, 7:30pm. She is much better at wanting to eat solids a couple of times a day, but she will not eat any of the green ones anymore. Peas and green beans and mixed/garden veggies are totally out... not because of the color, but the taste. Her favorite things are pears, bananas, mixed fruits, applesauce, cereal mixed with cold apple juice, squash, sweet potatoes, and carrots. She especially seems to love her food cold from being in the fridge. Maybe it's because it's SO HOT here!

Grace has just recently started using a sippy-cup that she actually knows how to use! It's really great finally having one she likes. Also last week we tried giving her a peach flavored "puff". She didn't love it (pictured below). Her reaction to it was hilarious! I think it was the taste and the texture that threw her off, but she LOVES the sweet potato flavor and the strawberry apple ones. Now if we hand her one, she'll pick it up slowly, look at it for a minute, and put it in her mouth all by herself! After just a week of practice! She doesn't always get it in, and a lot of times it ends up stuck to her chin, but she's doing great.

This is Grace's favorite toy. I just wanted to include a picture. :)

WE LOVE YOU, BABY GIRL!!