Crawling

I guess I somehow failed to mention that on July 31st Michelle decided that she could crawl. She has been doing something very similar to crawling for a long time now but she finally has the legs and arms moving in conjunction with each other. Her belly is still on the ground a lot of the time but she is a major crawler now. She can get into just about anything in two seconds flat.

She has also been pulling herself up to her knees on stuff for a while, well Monday I looked up from what I was doing and she had pulled herself up to standing- eek!

Her front top teeth are also very close to coming in, there is no cushion left to her gums there but they seem to be taking there time finishing the process, not surprisingly.
So just to recap:
July 20- Michelle turned 6 months
July 24- She decided she could sit up on her own
July 28- She started solids
July 31- She is officially crawling
August 6- She can now pull herself to standing

Yes, I do believe that I have good reason to go a little crazy- and that's just what Michelle has been up to, never mind all the other stuff we have keeping us busy!!! I think it's about time to take a nice long long long uninterrupted nap, yeah, that's not going to happen.... Oh well. Our summer life is always crazy!!!!

Food videos

Admittedly these videos would be rather boring to watch if this isn't your kid but this is my kid so here are the videos of Michelle's first food experience.

FOOD!

Well, sorta food, can you really call runny rice cereal food? Anyways. On Saturday the 28th we fed Michelle some food for the first time. Joe got to feed her first since this was one first that we could control the timeline of and make sure that he was a part of. It was silly but fun to watch. I'm not sure how she felt about it, curious but still not too thrilled with it. We have figured out that she eats better in the morning or lunch time than she does in the afternoon or evening. Using the three days rule we decided to introduce a little avocado yesterday too just to see if she wanted a little variety. She was interested but I'm not sure if she really likes it any better than the rice cereal. Why avocado? I had read that it was a good first food for breastfed babies because the fat content is similar. I dunno, I figured it was worth a try.

Here are a couple pictures:

 who needs food when I have a bib?

Avacado- yeah, she was naked for this one, I didn't want to get it out of her clothes.

Kisses from Daddy

this was probably about two weeks ago. Michelle was way more giggly before I got the camera out but oh well. Oh and yes, Joe does have a faux hawk- it's summer, why not?! It is a little shorter now though.

July

I know some people that are really good at keeping a blog totally updated- I am not that person, but here is a little bit of an update.

For the 4th the Playmill cast had a bbq at the theatre and we watched some of the town fireworks from the sidewalk (you could actually see them really well, we had a really sleepy baby and so it just wasn't that much fun to stand outside warding off mosquitos). In West Yellowstone you can't do your own fireworks because the National Park is literally a stone's throw away but the town has a really awesome firework display so it's ok.

Last Friday Michelle turned 6 months!!! I can't believe it it is crazy to me how fast she is growing up. She is a major mover. What she does isn't a traditional crawl yet but she can go wherever she wants, she can army crawl when she feels like it but mostly she does a combination of a pounce and a scootch. She is really such a sweet happy baby- seriously, everyone that meets her tells us that (which we are quite aware of). I take her to the theatre often as I have to do laundry a couple times a week and sometimes we go for a show at night. She is such a theatre baby it is pretty hysterical. As long as we are sitting close enough for her to see the action she will squirm until she is facing the stage- by far her favorite are the dance/musical numbers. She also has many psudo aunts and uncles among the playmill cast- especially the Merrills. (Random tangent: apparently I am distantly related to one of them, well, that is he is related to a Cole in Preston, Idaho.....odds are, we are related.)

For a while now Michelle has been experimenting with the idea of sitting up for real on her own. Well, on Tuesday she just decided to do it and now she likes to sit up straight (like 90*). It still makes me nervous and when she gets distracted or tired there are of course, thuds.... but she is a trooper and is learning (although I could do with a few less, she catches herself when she falls forward, just not backwards).

 this moment was just too funny not to capture ;)

Who me? What? What did I do? Oh, right, I'm cute!

Yesterday I took her to the Pediatrician for her 6 month check up and shots.
She did pretty good but she got a fever that hasn't broken yet, no fun but she is a trooper!
Her current stats are :
Weight: 14.8 lbs 24%
Height: 27.5 in 95% (clearly these are my genes right? lol, I think she can thank Joe for this)
Head Circumference: 16.3 in 16%
She has slowed down on the growing but that is just fine and perfectly normal. She shot way up from her 2-4 month appointment so the slow down didn't surprise me at all.
Until now she has just been nursing and now she is going to start on some solids too- hello to stinky diapers.... not really looking forward to that.... But don't worry I promise to document her first food experience once she is feeling a little better. I should note- just because she is starting on food does not give ANYONE permission to feed her anything without my express permission. Yes, I am an overprotective Mama, but guess what I AM THE MAMA! (couldn't resist the homage to a certain sibling... hee hee)

Just a couple videos of Michelle (that is if technology agrees to finally work!)

enjoy the wiggle time!

Happy Fathers day/ Birth/ 5 Months day!

Sunday was Joe's first fathers day as a daddy! Last year we found out that we were pregnant the day before Father's day so I guess this was kinda his second but last year it wasn't real at all, we were both still in shock of the idea I think. Anyways this year I tried to spoil Joe some but, I kinda failed, good thing he loves me and Michelle so much =)
For breakfast he got really spoiled, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, ohhh yeah.....

 First Father's Day! (p.s. thanks Papa for the adorable dress, LOVE it!)

Michelle gave him a good present of being pretty good through sacrament meeting and sunday school and even sleeping in his lap and making those adorable sleeping baby faces and coos, LOVE!
During Relief Society however she had a meltdown and as I was walking the halls with her (because she decided she hated the mother's room) I totally biffed it (we are fine) and decided that we were just done! So we ended up going home a little early. But then the best present of all (I think), we ALL got a nap!
We just had leftovers for lunch, sorry, and then before going to the cast potluck for dinner we skyped with my parents and got the surprise of getting to see my grandma, a cousin and wife, and my brother Jason and his family who we never seem to see. I guess we called at the right time!!!

SUCH a happy girl!

For his real Father's Day present Michelle and I (well, she was with me when I picked it out...) gave Joe a Willow Tree Figurine, the "New Dad" one. You may think that cheesy but if you realized how it was practically a replica of Joe with Michelle the first few months you would not.

He still holds her like this sometimes now but she is getting too long and wiggly.
In fact he happened to be holding her in her lap just like that when he opened his present! Not staged, I promise!

HAPPY FIRST FATHER'S DAY JOE!

Wednesday was my 23rd birthday and Michelle turned 5 months old, it turned out to be a pretty good day.

Just before the rehearsal lunch break I went to the theatre and John had brought the cast doughnuts in honor of my birthday. So they sang to me and I skipped around the room (Playmill tradition).

Then Joe watched Michelle, and Hannah took me out to lunch. It was so much fun! I needed some girl time (it has been waaaaaaaayyyyyyy to long!) it was so nice to just chat =) Then I hung out at the theatre for the afternoon rehearsal, it was fun and everyone loves Michelle of course. Although sometimes they do forget that I am a person other than Michelle's mom (but she is just so cute it is a little hard to blame them).

Then we went home and had dinner and we did Pie (Marie Calender's Chocolate Satin of course, I don't really like cake so I do pie instead) and presents!!!!

 pinkies! (it's a tradition in my family to hold pinkies and sway them while singing happy birthday, who knows why but we do and we love it! it's not really a birthday until there has been pinkie swinging)

My birthday present! I have been wanting one for years and I finally got my nano! Thank you Joe!

Also Adam/Amanda- if the speaker looks familiar, it should, you gave it to me a while ago and I am so excited to get to use it! (Robyn told you I had an ipod, she was mistaken, but now i do!!!!)

Yes, the nano is totally pink, it is MINE!!!!!!!

After that Joe, Michelle and I went for a quick drive in the park since it was a nice day and we hadn't been yet this year. We went in to old faithful and out (regularly about 1.5 hrs) It was Michelle's first time in the park!

it took us about 2.5 hrs instead thanks to stupid people, and two large herds of byson,.... but mostly stupid people... I mean seriously, I don't understand it, you pull the entire line of cars behind you into the opposing lane to get around the herd and then you stop and hang out of your window to take pictures for 5-10 minutes?! and that was just the two cars directly in front of us, I'm not even getting started on all the other stupid people! But maybe I was just cranky because they almost made me miss my Playmill birthday party! Heidi made mint brownies for my birthday treat with ice cream.... yummmmmmmmm..... (thinking of you sis'..... speaking of which, I better go test another one since I got to take some home.....) and of course they sang to me again and I skipped around the room, again. =) It's fun to work with such nice people =)

Also Michelle turned 5 months old on my birthday, she is such an angel and it breaks my heart a little bit that she can already be that old, it just sounds so much older!!! We are so blessed to have her in our lives and it is so wonderful to feel of her sweet spirit. She can make just about everyone smile and gives out a lot of smiles too (sometimes accompanied by a great amount of drool...). Tuesday night I was playing with her and I started tickling her, it was such a fun/tender time. She was giggling up a storm and she got to the point when my hand would even get close she would start to giggle because she knew what was coming, too cute. (I really need to get video of these things but the problem is that I am usually alone and it is hard to tickle and video at the same time so I chose to just enjoy the moment with my baby girl).

 playing on stage with maggie

 ignore the red eye.... "she has her eyes, she has her mother's red eye curse...."

whew! what a week!