Our Journey ... So Far: 2 Month Highlights

Little A is such a smiley, happy baby. She LOVES playing on her play gym and especially loves this elephant rattle

and this butterfly chime (from Nana)

that hang from it.

One day I lay my sweet girl down to play and she started kicking the butterfly happily like normal. She usually plays for at least 15 min before she gets tired, sometimes longer. So, I was expecting to have a nice lunch. However, as soon as I walked into the kitchen she started fussing. A rarely fusses so I went in to see what was wrong. She looked fine, and I knelt down to talk to her. She gave me a big smile and then looked up at her gym with wide eyes. I kept talking to her and she kept looking at me and then up at her gym. Finally I looked at where she was looking and discovered that her elephant was hooked up over the arm of the gym so she couldn't see it. She missed her friend! I pulled it down and she gave me a huge smile and then promptly turned to her elephant and talked to him for the next 30 min! What a funny girl.

She loves to play on this gym so much that she'll play until she falls asleep. It's so cute to watch. She'll kick and bat at the toys and then drift off only to struggle awake a few moments later to kick and bat again. Eventually she rolls on her side and goes to sleep. When I move her before she's ready she squawks at me, lol!

I moved a couple of her toys around on her play gym one day. At first she played as usual, kicking the butterfly and talking to the elephant. Then she turned her head to look at her Giraffe and there was a frog there instead. She was NOT happy. She proceeded to yell at that poor frog for the next 2 minutes! They must have become good friends after that though because she suddenly smiled a big smile at him and proceeded to play as usual! So funny!

We went to my Poe's funeral. It was our first road trip with Little A. She did great! She really is such an easy, contented baby. We tried to get a crib at the hotels we stayed at (we ended up staying at 4 different hotels, sheesh), but there was only one that had one available, so we bought her a pack-n-play. We also brought her play gym with us so she'd have somewhere to stretch out and play that was familiar. We had so much stuff that Allan had to get one of those carts the hotels have so we could get it all in.

It was an 8 hour drive for us, but with A it turned into much longer. We did the first three hours on Thursday evening after Allan got home from work. The next day we did the last 5 hours (more like 8). It was a long trek but we made it. A either slept or looked out the window during the drive. She cried once when we weren't able to get stopped to feed her at the normal time. Other than that she was a pretty happy camper.

First night of the road trip

The last leg of the trip went through a mountain pass. We had checked the weather before we left and were expecting rain but we got into the canyon and drove right into a blizzard. We didn't have snow tires as we live in the dessert and rarely get snow. When we started up the canyon there was an SUV in front of us that was paving the way. We slid from time to time and were a little nervous but felt okay continuing on. Then the SUV turned off into a ski resort and us in our snow tireless little Buick were paving the way through the snow. It was really bad and hadn't been plowed, and we thought we might turn around, but the other side of the road was a lot worse than our side so we kept going. We slid onto the other side of the road once but managed to get back over into our lane before the traffic got close. We slid over to the edge of the road several times as well. Then some daredevil on the other side of the road decided to pass the cars he was behind using our lane! We had to either move or crash, so Allan started to take the car over to the edge of the road again, but we ended up sliding into oncoming traffic. Gratefully, and miraculously, we didn't get hit by anyone and managed to make it back into our lane again. We continued on our drive sliding around occasionally until we finally did a complete 180 into the snow bank on our side of the road. Thankfully it was really slow, and A (who had been sleeping the whole time) didn't even wake up. We sat there for a while contemplating what we should do when a snow plow came by. So, Allan backed out onto the road again, and we followed the snowplow, extremely slowly, down the mountain pass. Both of us agreed we'd never been so scared in our lives.

When we got to our hotel Allan checked in and was walking back out to the car when a elderly couple stopped him. The asked him if he was the Buick they followed through the canyon. He said yes and they said "We're so happy! We were so worried about you! We didn't think you were going to make it!"

When we went home we made sure to avoid going through the mountain pass and took another way around.

The funeral was beautiful. My Aunt T did a great job. It was held in the Methodist church that my Poe went to. My dad and Aunt T were baptized there, and my Poe and Gram taught Sunday school. Lots of good memories for them there. It was a very small but very pretty church. My cousin A made a power point presentation using pictures of Poe, and it turned out so great. There were a lot of pictures I hadn't seen before. My sisters and I sang "I Stand All Amazed". It was originally supposed to be a piano solo but the pianist they were expecting wasn't able to come and since it isn't a Methodist song the pianist that was there didn't know it so my Dad and Aunt T asked my sisters and I to sing it ...a capella ... Allan said it was really good.


At the cemetery

At the luncheon afterward. All the sisters, nieces and nephews, and two of the cousins.

It was so good to hear all the memories people had of Poe and good to have some closure. Sometimes it still doesn't seem real. We also got to see some family that I hadn't seen in almost 20 years! We weren't able to stay long enough to have a tour of all my family's old haunts, but we're hoping to go back and check it out.

A got to meet K1

and also met Grandma H

There was a miscommunication about who was taking who back to their hotels (some family were staying about 40 minutes away), and Allan and I ended up taking some of our family back. We were staying in the same city the funeral was held in though so we ended up leaving little A for the first time. We left her with Grandad, Grandma H, and Gram. They really enjoyed having her, and we got to avoid changing two poopy diapers! It was really hard to leave her though, and we still haven't left her again!

I started my calling teaching CTR 5. The first Sunday was pretty rough (throwing chairs and books) but I have some help now and things have been going much, MUCH better. The last couple of lessons have been very successful!

I got Allan a jack and jack stands for Christmas, and he was finally able to pull them out to rotate our tires. He loves doing as much work on the car and house as he can and always does a great job!

We love to go in the backyard to play. A loves how the wind rattles her toys. While she plays I read scriptures and other books to her.

We had our first family picnic. A loved it even though it was kind of windy.

Little A loves to help hold her bottle and can do it by herself for up to 30 seconds.

She had her first diaper rash but thankfully it wasn't bad and it went away really quickly.

She will take a pacifier while she falls asleep but spits it out as soon as she's drifting off. Its amazing how far that pacifier can shoot out of her mouth! After she spits it out she sucks on her bottom lip.

A sleeps between 5 and 7 hours at night!

She loves to rock in the rocking chair and read stories. One of her favorites is "Oh, The Places You'll Go" by Dr. Suess. The pictures are really bright and interesting to look at.

She learned how to say "Mmmaamma"! However she doesn't associate it with me yet. It's her "I'm angry" word. It's pretty funny though because she usually says it when she's angry at Allan, like she's asking me to come and take her from him, lol! But she loves her daddy and they still have great conversations together; A is getting better at keeping up her side of the conversation.

Dancing with Daddy

We started painting A's nursery. Allan got the primer on. Next we'll paint it grey and then we'll get the pink stripes and chair rail in.

Our precious little girl.

One of our favorite outfits! Thanks Aunt D!

Another one of our favorites. Dad picked this one out!

Yes she does!

This one says "Apple of my eye". Another one that Dad picked out. So cute!

This is another one of my dresses from when I was a baby. She looks so cute in this one. The bonnet has an opening in the back and her hair sticks out of it. So darling!

We took some two month pictures of her. Here's a few: