7 Months

We are well on our way to a year old.... Ida is 13 lbs 9 oz and 26 inches tall. She is just a little girl wearing 3-6 month clothes and wearing size 2 diapers. I always get comments about how small she is. Also, I noticed that her bald spot on the back of her head has started growing in. I guess she's spending more time sitting now and less time on her back.

Ida has starting moving all over the place.... That is.... All movements expect for forward movements. She pushing herself backwards across the whole room and will constantly get herself stuck in a corner, or under the couch, or under the side table and it is driving me crazy! Because then she gets really mad because she can't move anymore so I have to go rescue her and then she goes right back into pushing herself into a corner.

I feel like I spend all day saving her from corners. She just wont figure out that forward motion! She is sitting really well though and learning to control her body really well. While she is sitting she rotates a full 360 to get at toys and she can reach out her whole body so it's practically on the ground to get a toy then get herself back into a sitting position. I feel like as soon as she figures out how to move forward she will be everywhere!

She has seemed to be a little more fussy lately and I think it's due to that fact that she gets frustrated because she can't move where she wants to because she can't move forward. I've been working with her and trying to teach her how to figure it out because I think she will be much happier once she figures it out but she just isn't getting it.

About two weeks ago she had a huge developmental jump. She was learning something different every day of the week. She can now hold her bottle very well, walks with help if I'm holding both of her hands, gets on her hands and knees and rocks and can feed herself. She learned all of those things in one week. She picked up feeding herself super fast! Less then a week. I was very surprised. But she is good at picking up the food with her finger and thumb and will even grab it out of the palm of her hand with the other hand in order to get a better hold on the food. She also now recognizes her name.

Ida is eating her solids very well but we are struggling with nursing. And I feel like it's my fault because I wont let down. It's very very frustrating. I try to remain calm but I know when she starts getting frustrated because she's been patient and the milk still hasn't let down then I automatically start feeling frustrated over my body. I don't want to stop nursing but I feel like it's not fair for Ida if I can't get my milk to let down for her. I think I'm going to look into some let down solutions before I stop and then we'll see how it goes from there. Ida seems to really enjoy eating her finger foods. Right now I'm just giving her the puffs but I'd like to start giving her other things. I hate feeding babies purees. It makes me feel so anxious! The faster I can get out of the feeding stage the better. She has still been constipated but it seems to be getting better so I hope I can start into table foods soon.

Ida's sleeping is also frustrating. I want her to sleep longer than a 3-4 hour stretch so bad! I know she can do it because she does it on occasion. So now how do I get her to do it more frequently? She is taking naps great and will take 3-4 naps a day every 90 mins. In the evenings she has started to have a 3 to a 4 and a half hour waking period. She is going to bed between 8:30 and 9:30 and waking up between 7:30 and 8:30. It is super cute though because I noticed that 75% of the time Ida goes to sleep with her legs in the air. I find it pretty funny. :)

6 Months

My little Ida is 6 months today. Already half a year old. She weighs 13 pounds 9 oz and is 24 1/2" tall. She is wearing size 3-6 month clothes and size 2 diapers. Unfortunately Ida doesn't do so well with vaccinations. She gets a fever for a couple of days and doesn't sleep well. Fortunate it only lasts a couple days then she's back to being her content self.

This little girl has the longest attention span for her age! She can sit and play with the same toys all day long without getting fussy. She is so content to sit and play with her toys or watch Scott, Jacob or I do stuff around her. I just don't know how she can be so content and so happy. Now I consider Jacob to have been a happy baby but she is happier then Jacob was. She always has a smile on her face. Even when she's upset she has a smile on her face. After receiving her shots this last doctors visit she was smiling at the nurses before they gave her the shots. During the shots she screamed and cried. Then after, when I picked her up, the first thing she did was look right back at those nursing and flashed them another smile. They loved it and said it was very rare that they were ever smiled at right after shots. That's just who she is. She see's a face and she smiles at it. You don't even have to be looking at her for her to smile.

I had started to think Miss Ida wasn't ever going to start moving around. She is just so happy to sit or lay on her back and play with her toys. About a week ago though she decided she would venture out and start rolling. Now, she's had the ability to roll for a couple months now but she's just never had the desire. She will now roll from her back to her stomach either direction and is working on rolling back onto her back. She isn't the biggest fan of being on her stomach but she's getting better as she learns she can move her body. She is very good and pushing herself up with her arms and rotating herself to the right while on her stomach. It doesn't take long before she has ventured off the blanket. Just one of the steps to mobility! She still isn't moving a ton but it is a start. She will only roll over once.. Maybe twice. She is great at sitting though and she picked it up really quick. Now that is all she wants to do! She is also getting pretty good at face planting it when she wants to get down from sitting. Not the  most graceful I've seen...

Ida has starting saying her first consonant: da, da. She loves anything that has to do with her tongue and is very interesting in learning how to click it. When I do it at her I can see her mind and her mouth just working to try to figure out how I'm doing it. I think it's great! She will blow raspberries though and has decided she loves screaming. Not in an angry kind of way. Just in a "I figured out how to make my voice really loud and now I like using it" kind of way... While we are in stores Jacob and Ida like having screaming contests at each other. It gets very loud very quickly. I find it funny. I'm sure others don't think it's as funny. :) She has also started tilting her head to the side when your talking to her sometimes and I think it's super cute. She has discovered splashing in the tub and now spends her bath time doing so and she loves to suck on her fingers and sucks on her middle fingers a lot. It would not surprise me if she decided to be a finger sucker.


Ida is gasy... Always has been. Her digestive system has also seemed to be a little more on the sensitive side than Jacob's was. She struggled with me eating dairy for along time. I just now have started introducing it back into my diet and she seems to be handling it well. We have started Ida on some veggies: peas, sweet potato's and squash which she seems to really like! That is until they hit her digestive system and make her constipated..... To help out with the constipation I have also introduced pears and apple juice. It seems to be helping... Either that or her body is just getting used to eating purees. At first she was the messiest eater of all times. She loved grabbing the bib and sucking on it between each bite which just created a huge mess everywhere! She has now gotten better and for the most part leaves the bib alone. She is also getting better at keeping the food in her mouth instead of accidentally spitting it all out as she tried to work it to the back of her mouth to swallow. I had intended to just start her out with the feeder and do spoons when she a little older but that didn't work out because she decided very quickly she does not like feeder. Apparently this is why you should never make plans with babies. Even this young they have a mind of their own. Feeding babies with spoons is not my favorite thing so I was just hoping for easy, no mess, feedings using the feeder..... She obviously thought differently. Good thing she is cute ;)

Ida's sleeping has finally started improving... That is when we aren't sleeping at home.... When we are sleeping anywhere other than home she will sleep for 7-9 hour stretches. Which is AWESOME! The only problem with that is once we get back home she starts only sleeping 2-4 hour stretches again... :( I wish I knew what it was that made her sleep so much better everywhere other than home. One idea I've had is she just likes sleeping in the same room as me. Gives her some kind of security or something. I've thought about moving her back into our room for a bit just to see if the sleeping improves.... We shall see. Right now she is going to bed between 8 and 9 and usually wakes up between 7 and 8. She wakes up multiple times a night. I will only feed her every 4 hours though. If she wakes up between I make her find her pacifier and go back to sleep. She is taking anywhere from 3 to 5 naps a day every 90 minutes depending on how long her nap is.

And here are a couple of Jacob and Ida cuz they are the cutest together! :)

Utah with the Bartholomew's!

We always love going to visit the Bartholomew's and Jacob's best friend Hunter! It's so sad that we don't live closer together so Jacob and Hunter can play more. Scott wasn't able to go down to Utah with us so I was on my own with the kids. Our first stop while in Utah was the Ogden Fair.

Jacob and Hunter loved feeding all the animals!

Unfortunately our Fair trip was cut short due to a huge rain storm. The rain and wind started while we were feeding the animals and we should have left 10 minutes before we did because by the time we were headed back to the car we got hit full force. The wind was blowing so hard I was struggling pushing the stroller. I was running with it and moving at a walking pace. Jacob was not a fan of being pelted in the face with the the sideways rain either. I ended up turning the stroller around so the back was facing the rain storm and not hitting Jacob in the face. By the time we made it back to the car I was completely soaked, Jacob mildly wet and Ida completely dry. At least the combo of the car seat and the stroller worked to keep the rain out for her.

The rest of our trip wasn't quite so eventful and the weather even cleared up so the boys could play outside for a bit.

 Throwing mud. Love these boys!

 Jacob reading to Ida.

It's always so much fun to come visit!

5 Months

We are truly loving this little girl! She is now 12 pounds 14 ounces and 24 1/2 inches tall. Currently she is looking like she might have blue eyes and brown hair. Which would be a perfect combination! And is still wearing 3 month clothes and size 1 diapers, although when we buy her diapers again we will buy size 2. Also we will probably be getting the 3-6 month clothes out very soon.

I think this age is such a fun stage! Ida is learning and becoming more aware every day. She loves to sit and watch Jacob, Cricket, Scott or I do anything. She is rolling over from her back to her tummy (though not very often....) and sitting. She loves sitting!

She started about a week ago and now that's all she wants to do. She will still fall over occasionally but it getting very good at catching herself from falling. Her biggest problem right now when she is sitting is she sees her toes and thinks they have to go in her mouth which most of the time makes her face plant. She is really the most content baby though. She makes taking care of her super easy. She was a little stealthy roller overer. She probably did it 6-8 times before I actually saw her do it. And today is the first time I caught it on camera. She still doesn't roll over that often. I feel she completely has the ability she just completely lacks to motivation. She just is so content to just stay where she is.

Ida still loves her play mat but more and more loves being in the walker or jumper so she is standing. She also loves sucking on her toes. They are in her mouth a good part of the day. I also finally got her to laugh! YAY! When she gets tired she starts to rub her eyes which became a problem because every time she did it she would scratch her face off so I started putting the little mittens on her again. Ida also loves her wub and is getting really good at putting the pacifier in her mouth by herself.

She also likes to chew and sometimes lick her fingers. Some fun sounds and things she's started doing is fake cough, make a kissing sound and suck on her bottom lip. She also seems to like touching peoples faces and looking at herself in the mirror. It's kind of funny because when she is trying to grab onto things she sometimes struggles because she wont extend her thumbs out. She holds them in like she's always doing the number 4 with her fingers. I think this comes from always holding her thumbs when she has her hand clenched. She is getting better at moving them out of the way. I think we are going to have to be more careful with Ida about stuff on the floor because everything goes to her mouth! Anything you give her just goes to the mouth. 

Ida had a couple firsts this past month. We took her on her first hike up to the Lower Palisades Lake and she did great! She actually slept the majority of the time.

We also took her swimming for the first time which she loved! I was a little worried because she hasn't seemed to be a huge fan of baths but she really liked swimming. Getting splashed in the face and all! She also seems to enjoy baths more now that she is sitting up.

We went through a rough period with nursing this past month that lasted about a week. First my milk supply hadn't caught up yet and so she always wanted more milk when I was completely empty which was so sad to me because I hated her crying whenever we would get done feeding.
And second she decided to be very impatient for my milk to let down and wouldn't ever stay latched on long enough for it to let down which would make me stressed and it all went down hill from there. I'm thankful this only lasted about a week before she realized what she was doing was only making it worse. One time it took 40 mins to let down with her screaming and screaming and getting so angry because the milk wouldn't come and me getting more and more stressed because the milk wouldn't come. Like I said. I'm glad it only lasted a week. Now she is back to being patient and both of us are much happier. I'm currently nursing every 2-4 hours and have started giving her a couple ounces of formula mixed with oatmeal cereal out of the feeder before bed. When I'm nursing Ida she has started playing with her ears which I find super cute! She just scratches at them.... Or her eye... But mostly her ears. I love it so much!

Sleeping has also been some what of a challenge this month. I feel like she is so irregular. She never has the same pattern two days in a row and she was getting to the point of waking up like 8 times a night.

Not just to eat, but just to wake up and I'd have to go in and put the pacifier back in her month. It was, and still has been, exhausting! But I hope giving her cereal at night will help her sleep longer and I really started paying attention to her 90 min cycle to see if I could get things back on track. So far she seem to be sleeping better at night and not waking up so many times. She is currently going to bed anywhere from 8 to 10:30 pm and waking between 8 and 9. She eats 2-4 times a night and is taking 2-4 naps a day. Like I said.... All over the place. But hopefully this is just a phase and we'll get back to sleeping well soon. We are still swaddling Ida but she usually gets her left arm out fairly quickly and by the time we go get her when she wakes up she has broken out of it completely. I still think it helps her sleep and she doesn't seem to mind it so we will probably keep doing it until she gets better at rolling over.

My two cute naked babies :)

Little Rock Climber

We took Jacob rock climbing for the first time with Scott and Crystal at the climbing gym in Driggs. I think I would say it was a success! He loved it and loved falling off the wall onto the pads. :) We are excited to start this new hobby with him.

 So cute in Dad's hat :)

Now we need to get him his own harness!

Lower Palisades Lake

We took Ida for her first hike to Lower Palisades Lake. We went with Jordan, Sean and one of Jordan's friends from work named Alicia. It was a lot of fun and we didn't even get rained on!

Jacob is kind of getting to the point that he wants to hike with you instead of being the pack. So sometimes it's a little tricky to convince him he would rather ride. Once he's in and we are going he does good for the most part.

Ida did great on the Hike. I was a little worried because she isn't the biggest fan of "cuddling" and I worried being in the moby wrap having her body completely up against mine would make her angry. But she only fought it a couple times then would settle right in. She actually slept the majority of the hike.

Stopped for lunch in the meadow before continuing onto the lake.

While Jordan, Sean and Alicia hiked ahead, we stayed behind to throw rocks in the water and such so Jacob could play around more and not have to be in the pack.

I apparently didn't get the memo to wear pink with the rest of the ladies...

Thanks Sean and Jordan for inviting us on the hike! It was a lot of fun!