Memorial Day Weekend

Rich went canyoneering with some friends from work for the first part of Memorial Day weekend, so the kids and I got the beans planted and the house cleaned and then headed to go swimming. Only to find that the pool wasn't open yet! They settled for snowcones and pizza and a movie at home. 

On Monday, after we finished planting the rest of the garden we headed back over for a swim. The kids had so much fun being in the water again, and Nora did surprisingly well. She didn't like getting splashed, but she tolerated the water and liked being pulled around. 

We then came back home and had a hot dog BBQ, finished off with melting marshmallows over the grill. Clearly a fire pit is in our future. Such a nice, chill weekend at home remembering all those who have sacrificed for us.

Baby Milestones: Crawling

Nora started being mobile around 6.5 months. The weekend of Mother's Day she practiced her crawling skills for all the extended family she saw and never went back, which meant she was just mobile on our trip to Vernal. She had been getting up on her hands and knees for a bit, just rocking back and forth. She looked so cute!

Then she had about a week where she would do crazy hand stands and down dogs--clearly building up her upper body strength.

After about a week of this, real movement happened! (May 20--almost exactly 7 months.) She doesn't crawl on her hands and knees, but does more of a frog hop, where she pushes with her big toe and pulls with her arms. She does have surprisingly strong arms for such a little miss. She got fast really quickly and didn't like to be left alone, so she would come find us. She can slide pretty quick on the wood. We didn't have a baby gate since our house in California didn't have a basement, and she came close to falling down the stairs, luckily the baby gate was on its way and we didn't have any accidents before it got installed. Now she just finds herself in precarious situations.

This is a video of her just beginning to learn. Such a cute little scoot!

Nora 7 Months

This sweetheart has had a big month. 

She perfected the sitting skills she'd started at the end of her 6th month. She did really well just hanging out playing with her toys and sitting so big. She started loving the exersaucer and door jumper even more and got really good at bouncing around. 

 

 

She started her 7th month getting up on her knees all the time and even rocking back and forth. Now at the end of the month she is hopping forward like a frog and can pretty much get where she wants using semi-army crawl that involves a lot of pushing with her toes. So, not quite crawling, but definitely mobile! Especially during our trip she wanted to go and be everywhere since the boys were leaving their things all over the hotel floor. She's pretty chill most of the time though, and will just sit and sit and not try to go a lot of places unless she ends up on her tummy. Then she's all about trying to move and put everything and anything into her mouth.

Nora continued with solid foods, though I'm really not the best at feeding her solids at every meal yet! I'm trying. But, really, she's not that interested. She gets excited for the first few bites, but even after a month of eating solids, she's still at maybe 1.5T of total food at each meal (oatmeal/fruit, veggies/fruit, depending on the meal). She doesn't have a wide variety of food yet, mostly fruits, which she's pretty picky about (she HATES bananas). She does like oatmeal and peaches--and she does prefer real/homemade oatmeal over the store-bought powder--but carrots continue to be her favorite food. She tried some Mum-Mum rice crackers and was not a fan. Her face was like, "What the heck is this gross texture?!" Mostly she just ends up throwing them on the floor. I think we've finally moved to a true 4-hour routine, which was helped along by the Vernal trip. She's also officially sleeping through the night. I was surprised when she started sleeping through the night because it was right when she got another cold, but since she's started, most of the time she'll go from about 8:00-7:00ish, with some early mornings waking around 5:30. Mostly when she wakes early she just talks for a bit, if that's the case, I don't go in and she goes back to sleep. She slept amazing at the hotel in Vernal because she was in a completely black space--makes me want to put blackout curtains in her room!

She's talking a bit more and thinks it's hilarious when I shake her hands "all done" after eating. She almost makes a sound like "all done" too! She's started growing teeth right at the 7-month mark, so I'm guessing by 8 months she'll have 4 teeth! She started playing with her tongue more because of the teeth and also learned to blow raspberries.

She really excelled at the "child's pose" and loves hanging onto her toes and trying to eat them. Very flexible baby girl!

 

She continues to be the sweetest thing and is such a happy girl. She definitely likes to be held when she's tired, and doesn't like to be alone when she thinks she's missing out on something, but gosh her smile lights up her whole face and my whole day. We love this girl and her brothers continue to be so great with her. Nora is the cutest little miss around, and we can't believe she's 7 months!

Devin Learned to Pump

Oh, this is a blessed day. I can't even describe how wonderful it is to have a child who can just hop on the swing and go. I was so proud of him and he was proud of himself, "It finally clicked, Mom! I can pump all by myself!" Such a cutie. Definitely a memorable childhood milestone.

Vernal Trip: Dinosaur Tracks

We planned our family vacation this year to Vernal to see the dinosaur bones and indulge Devin's dinosaur love. The boys counted down the days to the trip, and I'm happy to say that they had great fun. Devin was off track for a few weeks in May, so we decided to take advantage of the off-season and still have nice weather. This plan didn't work out quite so well since we did have rain two days, but we made it all work and were able to see pretty much everything we had hoped. Nora started crawling and moving around more right about this time, which meant she had to be corralled in pillow forts much of the time inside the hotel. But she was just a sweetheart the whole time and put up with being in the car seat or backpack or front carrier much of the time. The boys thought staying in a hotel was the coolest and loved jumping from bed to bed and watching fun cable shows we never get to watch.

 

The tub was jetted, which Devin thought was fantastic and took an epic bubble bath. Landon wasn't so sure about all those bubbles, but still had an okay time. The cutest parts of hotel life were when Devin would read to Landon. Adorable brothers.

We got into town Saturday afternoon and unpacked and found out some information from the dinosaur museum. Then we got dinner and headed out to Red Fleet State Park to see the dinosaur tracks. The weather was perfect. It was such a beautiful night and since the trail doesn't have shade, it was good to do right before sunset. The boys were so happy to be out and exploring. Devin loved being the leader and getting to point out all the painted dinosaur tracks that meant we were going the right way. They were so excited to go exploring that they took off before we could Nora into the hiking backpack. I was a little worried for a bit that they were going to be lost in the wilderness. Unwarranted worrying.