SLC trip

We went up to SLC last weekend for the Sheriff family Christmas party. I was a little scared of the drive but actually they both did really well. More so on the way up than the way back. On the way back she threw up all over me when we stopped to let her eat in Parowan. Yuck! But we only had to stop once on the way up, twice on the way down.
We stayed with Grandma and grandpa Sheriff and both of the kids slept really good. Ellie did throw up in the middle of the night on the 2nd night, which made it really inconvenient for me to deal with, but I guess thats the joys of being a mom right?
Taegen absolutely LOVED the snow. Minus the fact that we didn't have gloves for him and couldn't find any anywhere in town :( He came in the house multiple times crying that his hands hurt (which were bright red!) He loved it so much that is what he told Santa he wanted for Christmas :) Silly boy. My camera died after I took this first picture so I'll have to get the pics of the kids with Santa from Lexy. So I only have what I took with my camera.

There was this life sized Mater in Orem so of course we had to stop. Taegen thought he was SO cool!

 Too cute not to share :)

 In her cute little beanie

Ellie's 2 months old

So I'm a little late. Now she's almost 3 months old, but here is her 2 month update.

-She's officially smiling all the time now. It's oh so cute!

-Jon's gotten her to laugh twice in one setting, but thats the only time it's happened.

-She's still throwing up quite a bit. The medicine for Acid reflux isn't quite making it go all the way away. It does help, but not all the way. I have figured out a few tricks to help her not throw up though.

        I can't give her ANY type of medicine after she eats. It MUST be before hand and I have to give it to her super slow. Little tiny amounts at a time. If not she WILL throw it all up. If I forget to give it to her before I feed her, I have to wait until the next feeding.

       Also if she has gone a long time between feedings and I get engorged she'll throw up. If this happens I have to pump to get rid of some of the milk. Its like its coming out to fast or she eats too much. I don't know why she can't handle that, but she can't. This gets really annoying in the middle of the night. 

-She's not on a consistent schedule. Well ok thats not true. She does eat just about every 3 hours but its not at the same time of the day, every day. Some days she wakes up at 6 others 7 or 8. It all depends on how she sleeps the night before. For the first half of the night she can sleep for up to 6/7 hours straight (but she doesn't always do this) but then after she wakes up once she'll wake up every 3 hours after that. For example, if she goes to bed at 9 then sometimes she'll sleep till 3 or 4 then not wake up again until 6 or 7. But if she goes to bed at 9 and wakes up at 1, she'll then wake up again at 4 and 7. 

-She was sick for a couple weeks. :( Subsequently I had to put a pillow in her bassinett and have her sleep propped up. Now she won't sleep laying flat. I know this is going to cause problems when she's a little older but for now I'm ok with it.

-She's still sleeping in our room in her bassinett. This is because her room is upstairs and I'm not about to wake up and walk up the stairs multiple times a night. 

-She weighs almost 12 lbs and is 24'' long.

-Still will only sleep when she's wrapped up tight. This is one thing I dread breaking her of. It was rather difficult to break Taegs of this one.

-She's finally no longer constipated! HALLELUJAH! It took her about 2 months to regulate, but she's finally normal. Sorry if that was tmi.

-She's really sensitive to what I eat. (no chocolate, peanut butter, beans, broccoli, limited dairy, cauliflower, onions...basically anything remotely gassy).

 1st smile caught on camera

We just love our little Ellie so much. She's really so well tempered. And we couldn't have asked for a better baby :)

My birthday

It was my birthday a few weeks ago. Can't believe I'm on the other side of 25, getting closer and closer to 30. Crazy crazy. I know 26 isn't really that old, but it's just weird to think about.
Jon surprised me with a bike :) LOVE HIM! I had bought myself a kitchenaid a couple weeks prior and that was supposed to be my birthday present but he bought me this as a surprise. Then with the money my dad gave me I bought a kids carrier. Taegen totally loves it. I have to put Ellie in it at just the right time (before nap time but not too close or she'll just get over tired and won't sleep).

Taegen has been saying some of the funniest things lately. He's now starting to use some bigger words like: disgusting and incredible. Which of course don't come out sounding like they should, but thats what makes it even cuter. 

The other day I was taping up a box and he wanted to play with the duct tape so this is what we did...

I've also found him like this for nap time a couple times.

 This time he dumped all the clothes out of the basket to sleep on them. haha

And heres just a few random pictures...

Sleeping soundly

 He stuck his face in the frosting of his piece of cake from Lucas' birthday.

 More big smiles :)

 He had an Avengers coloring book that had stickers in it. I was sick of him always wanting to play with them and finding them all over the house, so we sat down and used up all the stickers in one sitting. He really loves all the Avengers. 

Blessed

We blessed Ellie on Sunday. Jon did such an amazing job! He was super nervous and when he sat back down he was literally shaking :) The spirit was SO strong! I was at costco the next day and ran into a lady from our ward and she made a point to tell me that he did an amazing job and that Jon seemed like such a nice humble guy.
I couldn't be more proud of him. This was a big deal for him and I'm glad he was able to do it.

Between Jon and his inability to keep his eyes open and Taegen picking his nose/squirming and trying to get down, this was the best picture we could get of all of us. You can't see it since Taeg is all hunched, but Jon and him have matching ties too.

 I wanted a picture of Jon and Ellie but the second we got home he was already out of his church clothes so I mad his take one of me and Ellie. I wanted to get one with her awake so you could see her dress. But asking a man to take a picture I should have know I wouldn't get what I wanted. haha but at least she's awake and not wrapped up in her blanket.

 This beautiful blanket was made by my sister in law Zeffie. Thank you so much! You can't see it very well in this pic but her name is embroidered on the corner above the bow and flower. 

big boy bed

We bought Taegen a twin bed along with some Toy Story bedding. I let him choose the bedding he wanted and I tried really hard to get him to choose the Cars ones but he wasn't having it. I thought that the Cars ones he would like a little longer so it would last us longer, but he refused and we ended up with "infinity and beyond" ones.

The first day of taking a nap in his big boy bed I set him up in his room and said good night. He was totally fine and didn't even cry. I was so excited. Then I looked at the monitor and realized he was not sleeping. Of course! He was out of bed playing. I was going to let him out of his room but when I got up there (around 30 minutes after laying him down) this is where I found him, fast asleep.

On the floor in the corner between his crib and big boy bed. He still have the crib up but with no mattress in it. I just haven't taken the time to take it down. Lazy I know.

Gotta love toddlers! :)

1 month & anniversary

I'm a few days late but

My baby is 1 month old!

-She still sleeps a lot (thank heavens) I'm hoping this lasts for another few months.

-She is so good at holding her head up. She has been good at it almost since birth.

-Her acid reflux is so much better. I had to take her to the chiropractor 3 times but she only throws/spits up occasionally now. Which is normal.

-she's still a little constipated. I can't seem to figure out whats causing it. She's now pooping once a day (most days). Sometimes it's every other day. But at least I'm not having to help her with suppositories or Q-tips and vaseline. 

-She's not on a very strict schedule but most days she eats every 3 hours. But lately she'll be awake for 1-1 1/2 hours after she eats then only sleep for an hour or less before shes wanting to eat again. At night on average she wakes up every 3 hours. She'll go down around 10 and some nights she'll sleep till 2 or 3 but after that it's every 3 hours. Lately she'll wake up at 7-8 pm from a nap but then not go back to bed till 10-11. Night time use to be my favorite part of the day...not so much anymore. 

-Still fitting into newborn size clothes. Although the pants and sleeves are a little short, she's so skinny that the 0-3 months still don't quite fit.

-Wearing size 1 diapers

And just a little side note, yesterday was our 4 year anniversary :) We had to bring Ellie's birth certificate/SS card down to the military base in Vegas to get her put on our insurance so we figured we'd just make a day out of it. My sister Stacie watched Taegen for us (Thank you again Stac!) Once we got done at the base we went to eat at the Rio buffet. I was not very impressed. I've been there before but it was for dinner so I"m guessing their dinner menu is much better than their lunch. After that we went back to the base to do some shopping at the PX since they don't charge tax. It was only after we were headed back home that I realized that none of NV charges sales tax. Haha 

I didn't get any pictures of our day, but we had a blast. It was so nice to be able to hang out together with only limited parenting responsibilities :) Ellie is still young enough that she doesn't require much work. 

Love you babe! 4 years down, an eternity to go. Can't wait to see what our future holds

Buzz and Woody

Meet Taegens best friend, Lacey. Truthfully she's probably his only friend that isn't a family member :)

We get together with lacey and her mom once a week for a play date at the park and these two 

always have so much fun together. Us moms had the same idea for Halloween costumes, we just chose two separate characters. 

 This is how he goes down slides now. 

Hanging out on the bottom of the slide just chatting away.

 Rolling in the rubber chips, or whatever it is.

If this isn't true joy I don't know what is.

They both just look so happy!

Halloween 2012

This year for Halloween Taegen was Buzz Lightyear and Ellie was a candy corn. I didn't want to get her all dressed up and uncomfortable. So this was the easiest thing I could come up with. I dyed the onesie and pants and made the hat and tutu. She hated the hat and tutu so she only had them on long enough for me to take a picture. 

 TO INFINITY AND BEYOND!

 grandpa E with my little candy corn

 Love my kiddos. 

Like I said Ellie didn't like the hat and tutu so she wasn't very happy in this pic.

We went to our ward trunk or treat on Tuesday. This is where Taegen learned how to trick or treat. He was a little shy but he got the hang of it. We also learned that he is afraid of anyone dressed "scary". haha

On halloween we went to Lexy's work and went trick or treating then after that we went trick or treating with Lexy, Stacie and their families and Emma and Hanna, around my dads neighborhood. Taegen really got the hang of it and had a blast running around with all the kids. There was a man dressed up in a "scary" costume sitting outside his house holding the candy bowl. He stayed really still and everyone thought he was a dummy until he roared at all the kids. Taegen nearly jumped out of his skin. He ran over to a complete stranger looking for comfort and didn't even realize it wasn't me for a few seconds. Then he was talking about the "scary monster" all night long. Gotta love old men who love Halloween :)

Baby Shower

Becky threw me a family baby shower a couple weeks ago. It was a lot of fun. Thank you Becky.

 diaper nut cups

 baby cup cakes

 some of the yummy food

 We were all given a baby related word and we had to sculpt it out of play dough. Mine was supposed to be a high chair but I didn't get very far before someone guess it. 

 Me Ellie Brielle and Nat. These two are going to be best friends! 

 more yummy food. My favorite was the Jello covered grapes. You put the Jello powder over wet grapes. Pinterest is amazing.

I believe this is Kristel's attempt at a rocking chair

Halloween Party

Grandma E threw a Halloween party for all the grand kids. They frosted cookies, painted pumpkins and masks and got an awesome gift bag. Taegen thoroughly enjoyed himself.

 his Frankenstein mask

 Zeff, Ellie and Lexy

 frosting cookies

 his pumpkin

Thank you Grandma!!