four

Four months.  I’m not quite sure how I feel about this.  Before I know it I will have a 6 month old, and then 1 yr will creep up …. I like my little baby.   

Speaking of little … Winter is anything but little.  Yesterday the Dr reported that she is ABOVE the 100th percentile in height.  We either have a super model or volleyball player on our hands.   The poor girl had to get not one, or even two shots … but FIVE yesterday.   She screamed.  Not the I’m-a-thirteen-yr-old-girl-and-I-just-won-tickets-to-a-Justin-Bieber-concert type scream … more like the someone-is-coming-to-murder-me type scream.  I’m pretty sure she is known in the doctor’s office for her screaming.   Each shot was like a dagger to my heart. 

The Doctor was kind of appalled when I told her Winter still wakes up every 3 hours during the night.  So she commanded me to begin sleep training.  And began, we did.  She only cried for two hours straight last night … on a positive note it gave me extra time to do some dishes and make Mitchell’s lunch.   Round 2 will be happening tonight. 

We got to spend a week in Denver visiting family.  I have learned it is ten billion times harder to take photos now that we are carrying Winter around.  I got home and realized that I didn’t get near the amount of photos I wanted during our stay.  Oh well.  

During our stay we got to go to the candy factory with Monette, Xander, Elodie and Rachael.

The happy group.

My parents have now been on their mission for an entire month.  Craaazzzy.  They are incredibly happy serving in the Lock Haven branch and love to send photos our way …

MTC district

Loverly forest

A group of Mennonites have an ice cream shop in town

Morbid picture for Halloween

And they are in Amish country for sure. 

three

Winter turned 3 months over the weekend.  Three months … that’s not really a long time, yet it feels like she has been a part of our family forever and its weird to think about a time without her.  

- She enjoys sucking on her hands and then wiping them all over me

- She hates being alone … if I leave the room for a minute you better believe there will be some whining from her end

- She caught her first cold and is still getting over it.  The amount of screaming and crying thanks to the snot-bulb-sucker-of-death is out of control.  I’m surprised the neighbors haven’t called CPA on us yet …

- She gets a million and two compliments on her lips per week … the second most common comment is “Well, she sure isn’t starving.”

- She loves having her feet rubbed … with lotion.  What a spoiled baby.

Winter met Grandma Fillmore for the first time.

We visited Gardner Village with the Church Family

The famous Mitchell smirk.

And my parents left for the MTC yesterday.  I don’t think it has really hit me that they are officially off on this awesome adventure.   Watch out Pennsylvania, here they come.

We celebrated with some Pittsburgers.

They will be missed, but we are excited to hear their experiences.  It will be one heck of a party when they get back, along with my little brother Craig,  in the spring.

amazon woman.

I am an amazon woman.

And apparently Winter is taking after me quite nicely. 

We went in for her two month check up today and here are the stats:

Weight: 12 lbs 6 oz (95th percentile)

Length:  23.5 inches (90th percentile)

Head: 40 cm (95th percentile)

As the Doctor put it : “At least she is proportionate.”

Instead of performing water boarding on prisoners of war … I think they should just make them watch their babies have their shots.  A form a torture for sure.  She screamed like I have never heard her scream before … but thankfully it only lasted for a couple minutes.

And then she was out cold for the rest of the afternoon

(sticker for being a star patient of course)

Wedding Crashers.

I am just realizing that summer is now over.  It came and went without even giving me a chance to say hello.  How rude.  I’m pretty sure my legs saw the light of day maybe twice the entire 3 months.  I guess having a summer baby will do that to you.   I don’t mind.  Less cancer all around I guess. 

Happenings and Stuffffff:

- I am proud to say Winter has now graduated to her crib … which means I am back in my big girl bed as well. 

- Power to the pump:  I worked and worked with Winter on breastfeeding … and it just wasn’t going anywhere.  She was miserable … I was miserable.  I would see other mothers breastfeeding anywhere and anytime with such ease and it made me so depressed and discouraged.  But once I decided that pumping was the norm and it was just a fact of life, I have been so much happier. 

- She has now discovered her hands and enjoys a fist sandwich every now and again.

- Her skin condition, seborrhea, has improved by leaps and bounds …. but now she has some killer eczema all over her body.  We basically bathe her in Aquaphor each morning and evening.  

- She doesn’t like dairy …. well, she doesn’t like me having dairy.  So long ice cream, milk, cottage cheese, yogurt, cheese … it was nice knowing you.

For the past two months, our dates have consisted of grocery shopping and the occasional walk in the park with Winter.

Well my parents were incredibly gracious this past weekend and kicked us out of the apartment. They commanded us to have a real date.  So that’s what we did.

We began our date at the Vertical Diner, a vegetarian/vegan restaurant.  I love going to restaurants that cater to our eating style … just wish they weren’t so pricey.   I enjoyed a jalapeno burger while Mitchell had a buffalo chicken sandwich.

Part 2 of our date:  I had heard about this really cool park behind a cool LDS church in Salt Lake.  So off we went to explore.   The church is located on the beautiful street Yale Ave.  Seriously an awesome street I would LOVE to live on someday.  We arrived at the church only to find that some fancy pants wedding party had reserved the park.  There was only one thing left for our to do:

Crash the wedding.

We kind of rationalized our decision by saying that THEY crashed OUR date …

It actually took a little convincing from Mitchell … after all, we were TOTALLY underdressed.  There are some weddings where jeans would be acceptable … this was NOT one of those weddings.   We signed the guest book, created a “wish boat” and set it out to sail, quietly bypassed the wedding line, had our photos taken in their wedding photo booth and then Mitchell had a lovely crepe at the crepe bar.

           

Am I embarrassed that we did this? … yes, yes indeed.   I would have taken more pictures, considering we will probably never do this again … but I didn’t want to completely blow our cover.

I have to admit I found myself thinking about Winter all through out the night.  I’m not sure Winter really missed us, but I totally missed her and felt like I was missing a vital limb.

I Love You, You Love Me

 

A couple weeks ago we FINALLY took Winter on her first walk.  We picked Liberty Park to take our evening stroll and I am so glad we did.   Liberty Park attracts a wide variety of people)  and there is always something somewhat odd/entertaining (birthday parties, FHE’s, medieval fighting practices, comi-con meet ups, volleyball games, dj’s, dogs galore, etc) going on … this evening did not disappoint.

We were about 5 mins into our walk when we heard some loud music and saw this in the distance ….

Oh here, let me change my focal point ….

It was none other than Barney and friends … having a dance party in the middle of the park.   I could not stop laughing for the life of me.   And you better believe they sang the “I Love You” song when the party was over.   Thank you Liberty Park, thank you. 

Winter wasn’t a huge fan.

Winter update:  You saw how terrible her cute little face looked here just the other day … well I’m glad to report it appears to not be a 24/7 condition.  I’ve been diligent about putting hydrocortisone on her rash and it only flairs up every so often.  This picture was just taken yesterday. Hallelujah.

I also took Winter on her very first thrift store outing.  She loved it …aka… she slept the whole time.  I  kept her covered so she wouldn’t be exposed to all the nasty nasty germs …