Lyssabelle - 10 months

It's been a big month around here. We drove to Utah on a whirlwind trip for the funeral of Birch Larsen, Eric's paternal grandpa and smashed in as much family time as we could around the 2 full days of driving, stomach flu, and funeral arrangements. Eric's mom spent a wonderful week with us getting projects done around the house, watching the kids overnight so Eric and I could get away, and just being good company. There are a lot of things going on in our lives right now and it's easy to feel overwhelmed by it all sometimes. I love having a snugglebug to rock myself to sleep at night! Alyssa is hot and cold, either totally sweet or screaming hysterically. She's not an easy baby, but she is so loving and when she smiles, she lights up the room with a huge grin and her ginormous eyes. You can't help but fall in love with her when she gives you that grin!

This past month has been a big one for her, as well, and it's one of my most favorite milestones: baby signs! Suddenly, she can communicate when she is hungry and when she is full. When she is all done and when she wants more. I've been signing to her (mostly "please" and "more") since she was 8 months, and helping her sign. This past week during lunch it finally clicked and she enthusiastically signed "more" between every bite of yogurt. It's just the beginning of lots of things, but I love knowing that my baby understands me and can tell me at least a little bit how to help her.

Which is especially useful during weeks like this, when she's getting her top teeth in.

Kids are Crazy

Life is definitely hustle and bustle around here, though most of my chaos is making food, cleaning up food, very rarely eating any food myself, cleaning up messes, picking up toys, and putting kids back in bed five times a night.

Being a full time mom is more work than I ever imagined and sometimes I am emotionally, physically, and mentally exhausted. In fact, the writing of this blog post was interrupted to clean green paint off of Scotty's wall, carpet, pillow, stuffed animals, bed sheet, mattress cover, etc..... he tells me he was painting a road on the wall so he could play. That said, these two crack me up more than they drive me nuts. Besides, how can you not love these sweet, angelic faces?

I rest my case.

9 Months

I figured it was high time for an Alyssa update, as she is officially out of the "infant" stage and into the "get into everything" era. Here are the current stats:

• Height: 28.5" (75%)

• Weight: 18.5 lb (50%) - at 8 months she weighed 19 pounds, so her crawling and extra half inch have seriously reduced the size of the adorable thigh wrinkles. There's only one left!

• Number of teeth: 2 (bottom middle), both of which came in a month ago. She has a huge lump of gum next to it that has been playing peek-a-boo for nearly a month.

• Hair: even longer so she got her second hair "trim" and it's fairly even now and starting to fill in. Most of the time it looks reddish but sometimes it's just blonde or more brown. 

• Eyes: still ginormous, but looking less blue! I'd describe them as more gray, but there is still blue in there and sometimes I catch glimpses of green. Someone commented on her ginormous eyes the other day and described them as "gray steel" which is probably a good fit.

• Night wakings: more and more she is sleeping through the night, thankfully! We've been doing more baby whisperer sleep training and it has worked well for the most part.

• New Tricks: crawling instead of belly flopping, climbing on everything, blowing "kisses", waving, clapping, shrieking (not a fan of this one) saying "Mamama" all day long! and occasionally we get a "dada" or a "daga"

 

the evolution of crawling over the past two months

 We're teaching her to sign "please" instead of shrieking...

• Things that HAVEN'T changed: she still drools constantly, spits for fun, and flaps her arms. When she does it in the bathtub she makes impressive waves and gets everything soaked. Her smile still lights up the room and makes you feel like the most important person in the world. And her giggle sounds more like a machine gun :o)

• Favorite food: strawberries. and ice cream. but this girl will scream for some strawberries. She also likes beans, graham crackers, yogurt, and watermelon. She tolerates vegetables.

• Favorite book: anything she can turn the pages of. She flings through as fast as she can, back and forth.

• Other favorites: she likes music and has some sweet dance moves. She's a baby groover! She also does yoga anytime she is nursing, grabbing her feet and putting them behind her head and such. It's hard to lay her down for bed because her feet are up past her ears. She loves getting tickled by daddy, swinging around, and playing with Scotty.

she still has one thigh roll :o)

This girl is a climber. I had to rearrange some of our furniture because of her special skills. When she picks up a toy, she doesn't play with it at first. She finds something to climb onto, like Scotty's train box, and perches up there to play with it. If the toy box gets too close to anything taller, she's up on the table or the couch. She loves to snuggle with me in bed but I have to keep a hand around her leg because she will dive off the edge or try to climb up the headboard. If you are sitting on the floor, you become her personal obstacle course, and she's climb over you back and forth until you get tired of baby knees to the face and your clothes are covered with drool.

She is still a serious mama baby, which I promise is more her personality than anything I am doing! It can be hard for Eric to help because she resists--even eating baby food is a stretch if she can't see me. We're working on it, but it's rough going sometimes. For the most part, however, she is happy and likes to be involved. I love my little girl!

Backyard Makeover

What a difference two weeks can make! (and a tax return).

For the whole story, check out the slideshow. There are some similar shots but it shows you all the stages as I didn't always take a picture of every step from every angle.

So, here's what we did. The ($) means we paid other people to do it, not because we couldn't (at least, in some cases) but because we were realistic about what we could accomplish. Eric doesn't have the time around his work schedule and I don't have the energy after taking care of the kids, so it was totally worth the money. If you want to know what certain things cost, you can ask us and I'll tell you, I'm just not going to post it all here.

From start:

1. Cleared out weeds ($)
2. Removed the palm trees that grew after falling from our neighbor's giant palm ($)
3. Hauled off and dumped nearly 10 tons of debris ($)
4. Extended the pipes from the spigot in front around to the back ($)
5. Trenched out sprinkler system and drip line for the entire back yard, laid piping and connected wiring for an electronic timer box in the garage ($)
6. Leveled area for sod, brought in topsoil and prepared dirt ($)
7. Designed and laid decorative concrete border ($)
8. Laid sod (all a labor of love!)
9. Bought and planted 2 hibiscus (love!)
10. Pruned lemon and tangelo tree (love! well, all Eric, while I supervised with a cold drink on the patio)

To Finish!

Now it's just making sure the timer is set right to keep the sod properly watered, and buying a few more plants and connected them to the drip system. It's paradise here, people, so come visit!

Praise to the Man -aka Why I Love my Calling

I'm the primary chorister in my ward, so it's my job to teach a wide variety of songs to small children. I spend about two hours running and jumping and singing and marching and being very animated and energetic. Church has never been so much fun! or so tiring...

This month the kids are learning Praise to the Man (#27 in the LDS green hymnbook, click on the song title link to hear it through the lds.org music player) and although I initially was worried about the vocabulary lesson, I'm having a great time. Mostly because it's obviously meant to be sung as part of a parade. With streamers (aka ribbon pencils). And bagpipes (if you don't know this stupid human trick let me know, it's hilarious). And lots of marching around the room in circles.

Even more than that, however, is the chance to teach these kids about the Prophet Joseph Smith, and to hear their sweet voices so excited. I challenged them all last week to memorize the words (we're singing verses 1 & 3) and I would bring them a surprise. I haven't brought any treats before so I'm not shamed by the occasional bribery.

Scotty is helping me make cookies right now and he knows he won't get one just because he's my son, so he's working hard. He sang the chorus for me this morning:

"Hail to the Prophet, singing in Heaven!
Traitors and tigers now fight him in bed.
Singing with Gods he can plan for his brothers,
Death cannot conquer the hero again!"

I can't wait for primary today!

P.S. We have since made a few "adjustments" to words, but I think I like Scotty's version better....