One year ago today...

...I was still in shock from the monumental experience of giving birth and basking in the glow of having nothing to do but love our new little girl. I had no idea what the next weeks and months would bring in terms of sleeplessness and helplessness and frustration, and no idea how sweet it would be to snuggle Georgie, discover her first smiles and giggles, to watch her grow and reach milestones, and a year later, celebrate a first birthday. 

Happy birthday, Georgie girl.

You are our beautiful, playful, clever, energetic, determined, darling girl and such a blessing to us everyday.

You made us into new people and give us precious glimpses of your full self bit by bit. We love you so much. Here's to another fun-filled year of discovering you!

Expanding in all directions

So in case you missed it, life has taken a surprising turn in the last few weeks. We're having another baby and wow, it was a surprise! Like, completely. Which means all our plans for, you know, the next two years kinda went out the window. Or had to be severely modified. Plus I've been nauseated and exhausted which just made it all that much harder to deal with! (Though to be fair, my nausea was way less than last time so long as I keep myself fed.)

I'm not going to lie, when I first found out I was pregnant, I was equally excited and dismayed. I kept looking at Georgie and thinking, "I already have a baby! She's right here!" I just wasn't at all prepared for what I know this is going to require of me, physically and mentally and emotionally. Mostly I was not excited to do the newborn thing again. I may have forgotten some of the specifics, but I have not forgotten that for three months after Georgie was born, I was too tired to see straight. Plus, it's just hard to feel like you finally have a handle on being a mom and then suddenly there's a deadline for when everything is going to change again.

But after the dismay and the realization that this is going to be really hard all over again came the sweet memories of snuggling a tiny newborn, of a baby's first smiles and giggles, and of realizing that I am already better prepared for this baby than I was for Georgie. This time, I have a frame of reference for nursing and sleep training and all the things that could go wrong but probably won't. I have already been way less anxious this pregnancy, and I think that will continue after the baby is born, too, and that will make a huge difference in my postpartum experience.

The one thing that I have really struggled with, though, is my weight gain. After working so hard to lose my leftover baby weight for months, it's been super discouraging to watch the numbers go back up and to feel myself expanding back into my maternity/postpartum clothing. While I know in my head that this is necessary and good and a miracle that my body does this at all, it's been really difficult not to criticize my appearance and love my body every single day.

A few nights ago, as I was putting Georgie to bed, I wryly thought of the phrase "expanding in all directions" and it struck me that while it is literally true of my physical self, it's also true of my mental self. My emotional self. My spiritual self. I am expanding my life, my heart, my mind, my self to make room for another person. And even more comforting, I have the rest of 40 weeks to do it. I don't have to have enough room in my soul to love and care for another little person right now; that space can grow with the baby. Somehow, connecting my physical expansion to the process of my internal expansion has made it more acceptable and even beautiful. There is comfort in knowing that I am capable of enough growth to bring a baby into the world and into my life - inside and out.

So here we are. 15 1/2 weeks along. Hungry ALL the time (must be a boy, right?). Getting bigger. Getting gradually more excited, more welcoming of this change. Taking time to let myself grow.

Summer catch-up

We had a crazy summer and I did a terrible job of recording it in any form. So quickly, a rundown of the last few months...

We kicked off the summer with a trip to Capitol Reef. It was Georgie's first time in Torrey and I think she liked it? It was her first trip anywhere and she didn't sleep well, so that made her super cranky. But it was still gorgeous and fun!

This is where Georige took her first crawling steps.

June was full of the usual craziness - Father's Day, Tim's birthday, our anniversary, birthdays for cousins, and this year, weddings for two of my cousins. These pics were from Addy's 3rd birthday - it's so fun to see all the little cousins together!

Tim wanted to do something fun for the 4th of July so he planned, organized, and put together a huge bbq party at our house with a swimming excursion at our community pool. It was so much fun! We had a ton of food and lots of great people. And at the end of the night, we went to an overlook and watched fireworks from up here and holy cow, people. All the fireworks were little but there were dozens going off all over the valley at the same time and it looked so cool!

Georgie loved having all her cousins to play/destroy her room with.

The only problem with the pool is that it's windy and therefore chilly sometimes. All the littles were freezing!

The rest of July was pretty normal - another birthday celebration for Tim's brother, the 24th of July, etc. Then at the end of July, we found out Tim's Grams had passed away in California after six months of battling cancer. Tim really wanted to go out for the memorial service so we packed up, rented a car, and went the next day! I took zero pictures from this trip but it was great to see all the California folks and really nice to be there for Tim's Grandpa. We had some wonderful friends in St. George who let us stay there on our way back to break up the trip and the rental car, though expensive, was soooo nice! Georgie was teething and didn't sleep at. all. during the trip, so we ended up coming home a day early. (Plus we found out I was pregnant and I wanted to be home.)

August was full of my birthday, adjusting to the idea of being pregnant, feeling sick and exhausted, a major landscaping event at the house (that gets its own post), and finally, a Herrick family trip to Bear Lake for a week. This vacation was planned back in January so it seem surreal that it was finally time to go. It was super fun to be with everyone and the lake was incredible! It was also super stressful because we blew a tire on the way there (in my mom's car) and had to drive on the spare, Georgie didn't sleep well, and I felt sick at least half of the time. So we were really really glad we went and really really glad to go home. Hopefully next year's family vacation will be a little less crazy for us.

We watched the three littles while everyone went to the Minnetonka Caves - Georgie (11 mo), Lillian (9 mo), and Cora (1 yr 2 1/2 mo). Please note that Georgie is in motion while the other girls are sitting fairly still and that will tell you a lot.

Happy to sit with Daddy!

Gorgeous gorgeous water!

Georgie hated - and I mean HATED - being on the boat and having a life jacket on. This was her face for most of the 3 1/2 hours spent on the water - suffering. Just suffering. Luckily she fell asleep for the last bit and that helped!

We coaxed a smile out of her while we stopped for lunch.

Rob made t-shirts for all the girls and we took many many pictures in an attempt to get a good one of them all together.

The one thing we didn't get to do this summer was game night. We went down to Orem twice for it and then scheduling got crazy and it just was too hard to go down with a little one who essentially spent the summer sleep training. We also didn't go to any parades or concerts, but we did go swimming a lot. On the hot hot days, Georgie and I just ran over to our community pool for 45 minutes or so and chilled in the shallow end - perfect. We got to see our families a lot, which was fantastic, and we also had a lot of lazy time. I am thoroughly ready for fall but I definitely enjoyed our busy summer.

Because life is full of surprises

Due March 14, 2014

Apparently they don't make "Big Sister" shirts for one-year-olds.

Excited. Overwhelmed. Grateful. Here we go again!

11 months, aka, We got ourselves a Walker!

I missed Georgie's 10 month post so this is going to be extra long and exciting. You've been warned...

In the last two months, Georgie has gone from taking a few tentative steps (and then deciding crawling is faster) to walking like a pro! At the beginning of August she decided to try walking again and has just gotten better and better. This last weekend she added a new trick - she can stand up on her own now, no need to pull herself up. We've cleared the main floor of obstacles, blocked off the exits, and just let her have the run of the house. She just runs back and forth all the time now - officially a Walker! She falls a lot and occasionally falls hard, but for the most part she just picks herself up and keeps on moving. Sorry the video is sideways but it's a good slice of what walking looks like!

She is also starting to climb on things (we are in so much trouble). She'll climb into her toy bins, step up onto low shelves or ledges, and sometimes figures out how to get her knee up so she can actually stand up on things like her push toy. The other day she climbed halfway up the stairs before turning around and asking for my help. Tim was a monkey as a child and we're thinking Georgie has those genes, too.

Georgie is/was FINALLY sleeping through the night - 11 or 12 hours at a stretch. I say "was" because we just got back from vacation and she's teething so she hasn't actually slept through the night in about two weeks but now we know it's possible and it will happen again! I am a much much happier mama now that I can get more than four hours of sleep in a stretch. The next step (once she's sleeping again) is getting her to go down for a nap without needing to be held or rocked. She still howls for up to half an hour or longer if she isn't sufficiently sleepy when I put her down, so we are going to work on that next. She is currently taking two naps a day, which is wonderful and I very much hope will last for a while!

Speaking of teeth, they are busting out all over the place. Georgie apparently cut a tooth while we were on vacation and we didn't realize it until we were home and suddenly discovered she had five teeth, not four. She's cutting two more as I type, which means there's probably going to be one more before too long. This is by far the fastest and the most she's had teeth come in at the same time. No wonder she's tired and cranky!

I am also in the process of weaning Georgie. Right now, I nurse her first thing in the morning and right before bed, but other than that she's drinking 1-2 bottles of regular milk. It's been a real challenge to get her to actually drink (she won't sit still!) but she's getting better and yesterday she actually had 3 bottles, which is a record for her. Over our vacation last week, she figured out how to hold the bottle herself and it's still new enough that I think it's darling. She eats all kinds of solid foods - fruit, bread, cheese, applesauce, [pasta, the occasional baby food squeeze packet - but mostly, she is interested in eating whatever other people are eating. If someone has food, she'll make a beeline and beg until she gets a bite. She still likes to spit out her food into her hand, examine it, and then put it back in about forty percent of the time. It's been hard all over again to figure out how much she needs to eat, what she will eat, and when she needs to eat, but I feel like a pattern is sort of starting to emerge. 

My favorite trick of hers is asking "please." For a few days I picked up her hand and did the sign for "please" (open palm in a circle on the chest), then she started doing her own version - scratching at her chest with one hand. (Sometimes she gets her stomach instead, like in the picture above.) Sometimes I still remind her to ask for food but for the most part, she does it without any prompting. In fact, she has caught on enough that she uses this to ask for things other than food, like being picked up. It is so nice to know when she wants something, even though sometimes we can't figure out what it is she's asking for. 

There is definitely a lot of language development going on right now, too. Georgie babbles all the time and she seems to understand a lot of what we say. She knows what I mean when I tell her "no," to smile (I get such posed grins sometimes!), to be soft (still working on that), "Come here," and "Can I have it?" She'll identify Tim as "Dada" and me as "Mama," and we almost have her saying "Nana" for my mom. 

Other tricks: She waves hi and bye (not super consistently yet, but it's there), she blows bubbles in her bath water, she plays peek-a-boo, and she's getting better at putting toys back in their containers instead of just dumping them out. Sometimes when she falls down, she rolls over as if she meant to fall in order to lounge for a minute. About half the time, she remembers to slide off the couch feet first. She still loves to grab eye glasses and cell phones and has a fascination with cords, which drives me crazy. She doesn't know how to play with other kids yet, as we learned after spending a week with our Herrick family: she constantly tried to take her cousins' toys and bottles. She's pointing more and more and has this fake laugh she does when other people laugh. She also has a fake cry that makes me laugh super hard. Her hair is getting longer and curlier, and she immediately pulls out any bows I put in her hair. She is all-around adorable, energetic, clever, and playful!

Favorite things

I stole this idea from my friend Lisa, but what better way to share some of the fun things we've been up to lately? In no particular order....

1. No carbs. I gained a lot of weight while I was pregnant and once we moved to my parents' house, I finally felt organized enough to work on feeling healthy again. My mom read a book called Why We Get Fat, which is a fascinating look at the science behind nutrition and weight gain, and has since changed her eating lifestyle and doesn't eat many carbs. Low-carb diets have been good to me in the past so I jumped on her bandwagon and have seen some awesome results! I'm down 21 pounds with 4 more to go to reach my pre-pregnancy weight, and while I am no longer super strict about no carbs at all, there have been some definite lifestyle changes to come from this that I'm really happy about. (Note: I'm not necessarily recommending this as a diet to anyone - though I do recommend reading the book if you're interested.)

2. eMeals. Since moving to my parents' house and giving up carbs, Tim and I have had a hard time coming up with meals that are both tasty and, well, not the same thing every single night. eMeals to the rescue! When you subscribe to eMeals, you get to pick your meals (we just do dinner) and family size, and then they email you a weekly menu complete with a shopping list. It does cost money, but it's really not expensive and almost all of the meals we've tried have been really good. We've discovered that we need to schedule some leftover nights into each week so we don't buy food for all seven meals, but with a few modifications to fit our needs, it's been a lot of fun.

3. Learning to cook. Along with all this food business comes this astounding fact: I am learning to cook! Since Tim is at work and home fairly late each night, I have taken over making dinner and I have yet to completely ruin anything. Booyah. I have been lazy about it lately but I think next week will see a resurgence of these developing skills. Stay tuned...

4. Free printables. Again I'm borrowing from Lisa on this one. I don't know what it is but I am 100% obsessed with the printable posters designed by Gina at gdesigned.blogspot.com. I actually went to high school with Gina and I think her designs are fabulous! They are totally free and look great printed out on a regular printer. I especially love the alphabet name prints! Gina is super nice and will customize the name and colors for you. Georgie's is pretty much the cutest thing ever. I have downloaded about a dozen of my must-have favorites from Gina's site and given them as wedding, bridal shower, thank you, and birthday gifts just in the last six weeks. 

5. Father's Day tie. For Mother's Day, Tim made Georgie and me matching skirts, so for Father's Day, I made Tim a tie and Georgie a matching skirt. I found this tie pattern and tutorial online and it turned out really well! Plus, it was not overly complicated which was perfect for my basic to intermediate sewing skills. I am actually excited to make him another tie that's even better, based on what I learned from the first go-round. 

Side note: For Georgie's skirt, I modified a basic drawstring skirt by cutting the fabric into four panels (front, back, and sides) instead of two (front and back) before sewing them together and adding the ric rac drawstring. 

6. Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Marc Weissbluth. Lots of people recommended this book to me when I was desperate to get Georgie to sleep and I wish I had had the mental energy to read it sooner! This was our best book for seeing pretty immediate results in G's sleeping habits (like actually taking naps at all - miracle!) and it helped us make sense of why she wasn't sleeping. As an added bonus, it mostly did not make me feel like a horrible parent as so many other sleep books have. Georgie still isn't sleeping through the night but we have come such a long way and I thank this book for it nightly.

7. The Mother in Me: Real-World Reflections on Growing into Motherhood, edited by Kathryn Lynard Soper. One more book to recommend. I've found that reading positive, encouraging, and honest essays about motherhood has helped me to be more positive myself and to see the precious parts of motherhood more clearly, and this book has been the absolute best so far. The beautiful essays and poems span all of motherhood from pregnancy to the toddler days and made me cry, laugh, and reflect a little more deeply on my own experiences. I'd love to discuss the book with anyone who reads it, or just have an open and honest discussion about motherhood in general because I think we've all got something to say.

A Wedding, 4 Years, and 9 Months

June has been a busy busy month for us and this week was the capstone of it all, starting with the sweetest event I could have dreamed up - my cousin Anna's wedding.

Anna and I are only 6 months apart in age and we've been "best cousins" since we were babies. We used to pretend to glue our hands together so we wouldn't have to say good-bye at the end of family gatherings. (Clearly, if we're glued together, we'd have to have a sleepover, right?) We finally made that dream a reality when we roomed together during my last year at BYU. Anna is pretty much the kindest, sweetest, nicest, smartest, most driven person on the planet and I think she found her perfect match in Dan. I'm so so so happy for them!

My very favorite of their photos, taken by my uber-talented aunt Robin Johnson, who also did our engagements/bridals/temple photos and who is pretty much amazing if you need a photographer. Just sayin'.

The next day was our 4 year anniversary (Can I say how much I love that Anna's anniversary and mind are almost the same?) and it was a low-key celebration for us. Factoring in a baby changes just how much celebrating can go on, but we did alright. We got some yummy treats and we watched our wedding video to reminisce and then watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and lest you think that's way lame, I'll repeat: We watched an entire movie - we actually got to just watch it! - without trying to keep Georgie entertained or jumping up to save her from herself, making dinner, working, or otherwise multitasking. It was relaxing and something special because of how infrequently it happens. And then the following Saturday we went out shopping and got dinner while we had some free grandparent babysitting. It was definitely our least exciting anniversary yet, but it was just right for where we are in our lives right now.

And then the next day was Georgie's nine month checkup. Official stats:

Weight: 16.2 lbs (18th percentile)
Length: 27.3 inches (33rd percentile)
Head circumference: 17.4 inches (62nd percentile)

She's finally starting to chunk up a little! Probably all that solid food she's been (not) eating. Baby G still does not care for baby food on any kind of regular basis so we've been trying to find other stuffs for her to eat - bananas, cheese, watermelon, peaches, crackers, bread, etc. She loves to chew on vegetables and will actually eat most of a cucumber spear if I leave her to it, especially if I dip it in humus now and again. Mostly she is still nursing, which I don't mind - it's actually the most stress-free form of feeding right now, which is something I never thought I'd say!

Georgie is FINALLY sleeping better, but the sleep training is starting to wear off and she's tending towards waking up 2-3 times a night again. (She's also got a top tooth coming in, I'm pretty sure.) We aren't quite recovered from the last sleep training so as soon as we are, we'll be back at it. Naps are going great, except that she has abruptly dropped her morning nap. I can't tell if she really doesn't need it because she's getting more sleep at night or if it's because we had a crazy week and she missed her morning nap several days in a row. Please bless it's the latter!

This was Georgie's first time on a swing. As you can see, she was rather unimpressed.

Georgie is crazy busy and active all the time. The milestones are coming faster and faster now, I swear. She's waving, giving kisses, asking to be picked up, knows where the food is and asks to be fed (if I sit down with her on my lap, she swan dives to the side to be nursed), and says Mama and Dada and sometimes seems to know what she's saying. She has mastered the three-fourths crawl: two hands, one knee, and pushing off with the right foot. She is a speedy little crab walker! She is also a total pro at pulling herself up and sitting herself back down. She can even pull up on a flat surface like a wall - there's no stopping her! She still walks runs with help (like her little push toy my mom found at a yard sale - see photo below) and sometimes does laps around the living room by holding onto the furniture. And (saved the best for last) she took her first steps this month, too! She let us balance her and then took a couple of steps (and practiced just standing on her own, too) for about a week and then she figured out that crawling is faster and now refuses to walk. Which I'm fine with - gives me more time to get those safety gates installed.

Every month Georgie becomes more of a little person, making us laugh more and frustrating us less. I am enjoying myself enough to savor the small loves she gives, not worry about the slobber when she gives me kisses, and treasure her arms reaching for mine. I know we'll only be on this upswing for about nine more months and then we'll have a screaming, stubborn toddler to deal with, so I am really loving it now!