Family Vacay

"If you want your happy wife back please take me to the sunshine!!!"

^^That was a desperate plea of a text message I sent my husband a little over a month ago.

Seriously, living in Alaska can kinda bum you out sometimes.  I mean snowy mountains are beautiful and all but girl has to catch some rays every once in a while!  Thankfully Jesse took my message seriously and we planned our first family vacation to Phoenix, Arizona.

Why there?  

Well, our neighbors (and friends!) were getting married in Phoenix and our Aunt has a condo that wasn't being occupied that weekend.  

Sounds like the perfect place to go to me!

I was a little nervous about flying with our active 7 month old (who refuses to sleep on anyone... only wants to snuggle up in her crib).  Last time I flew with Lyla to Ohio (mentioned here) she was only three months and I knew would sleep on me the whole time.  This was another story!

Thankfully, even with flying stand-by,  Jesse and I sat next to each other on both flights down and back!  And our little Lyla was a champ.  Seriously.

Lyla watching them load up the bags

I was smarter this time and actually packed some formula bottles, which I ended up needing on one occasion.  (For those of you who don't know the horror story: Let's just say last time I flew I was sandwiched between two men with a hungry crying baby who was frantically trying to rip off my nursing cover.  Never EVER will I not have a back up plan again!)  But she mostly just slept the entire flight and when she wasn't sleeping she was flirting with all the people around her.  What a happy baby!

One flight we even had an empty seat between us!

Our time in Phoenix was mostly spent hanging out with some of Jesse's cousins who lived there.  I enjoyed getting to know them better and I know Lyla loved hanging out with them too.... especially if they are giving her some yummy things to eat!

We spent a little time at the pool but the water was a little cold so we never stayed there long

Of course we had to do some major shopping time while there!  I was on cloud nine while I walked through TJMaxx, Buy Buy Baby, H&M, and more.  But nothing compared to showing Lyla the joys of IKEA!

The wedding was on Cinco de Mayo and it was so much fun!  They got married at the botanical gardens (gorgeous!) and Liz did an amazing job decorating.  We were so happy to be there to celebrate their special day with them!  And it was super fun to watch Lyla giggle for joy as we were getting jiggy with it on the dance floor.

It was such a great vacation and one full of great memories.  I'm so happy we decided to head out of town for a while.  

But, as always, it's good to be back home.

Now- Can someone please convince my child that we are back in the Alaskan time zone and to STOP WAKING UP AT 6:30AM!!!!!

Thank you :)

Feeding the babe.

Oh what a fun adventure this has been.  Little Lyla Lou LOVES to eat!  I thought I would write a little about the joys of feeding this babe of ours.

Before we started this process I had a lot of worries about what to do.

When should I start?

Do I have to start with rice cereal?

What about rice cereal or oatmeal?

How many meals a day?

How much do I feed her?

Do I feed fruits first or veggies first?

If I start with veggies, how long do I wait to introduce fruit?

Should I make my own baby food?

What in the world is baby lead weaning?

 This is definitely an area that parents just have to go with their gut (and talk to their pediatrician) and decide what works best for them and their baby and then just go with it.  

 As I said before,  we decided on Lyla's 5 month birthday to feed her rice cereal.  My mom was in town and I wanted her to share in witnessing one of Lyla's milestones.  So after Lyla's dinner time nursing we mixed about a teaspoon of rice cereal with a lot of breastmilk and made it pretty runny.  It was hard to read her reaction to the meal based on her millions of faces.  I honestly don't even know how much of it actually stayed in her mouth.

Over the next couple of days we slowly increased the thickness of the rice cereal and watched her get use to the whole concept.  I didn't want to push this milestone on her if she wasn't ready but within three days she started to really love it and we saw a whole lot of faces like this:

She ate rice cereal for dinner for about two weeks then I added a lunch time serving of cereal too (this always came after she nursed).  Right around that time we gave her her first "real" food for dinner.  We decided to start with veggies.

Yummy sweet potatoes!

At this point, girl was hooked and we could NOT get the spoon to her mouth fast enough!

There wasn't a food she tried that she didn't love.  We followed everyone's advice of waiting 3-4 days before introducing a new food and waited until she had a variety of veggies before giving her fruit.  By the time she was 6 months old she was eating 3 meals a day (again, always after nursing first) and had tried a big variety of foods:

rice cereal

 oatmeal

peas

green beans

carrots

squash

sweet potatoes

applesauce

bananas

pears

prunes

avocado

Feeding Lyla was an entertaining experience for sure.  We even started putting her in the highchair at restaurants and she LOVED sitting in the VIP seat!

First time in a restaurant high chair

Jesse and I make our own baby food and freeze it in ice cube trays.  It is SUCH an easy route to take and I would recommend it to anyone as it saves so much money.    Preparing her food is as simple as getting some cubes out (mixing up flavors!) and popping them in the microwave for a few seconds.  

Sometimes we put a cube of food in a mesh feeder and let Lyla go to town on it.  This is a perfect thing to do when I'm done feeding her and Jesse and I are busy eating our dinner.

And sometimes she falls asleep at the dinner table while sucking on it


We do have a stock on packaged baby food because it's much easier to take it to restaurants and other people's houses.  One thing I LOVE is using the squeeze packets of food and buying the spoon attachment   Talk about some easy feeding!  

Yummy yummy in my tummy

If your like us though and ever decide last minute to stop for lunch and have nothing to feed your little one, you can always ask for a banana and smash it up right at the table.

Thankfully we had a clean spoon in the diaper bag


Now that Lyla is 7 months old she has tried a few more foods like:
pumpkin
cherries
blueberries
spinach


But there is nothing this kiddo loves more than to feed herself.  After watching her quickly master the art of eating mum mums (little rice cakes that dissolve instantly in their mouths)

We started giving her more finger foods to explore.  I have a few friends that are doing baby-lead weaning and I've been getting advice of what foods work for their kids.  

So far Lyla's tried:

bananas

avacados

toast fingers

broccoli 

mac and cheese

I will say that bananas and avacados are too slippery for her fingers for now.  But honestly this time is more for her to explore the foods then it is to really eat them

 (which most ends up in her lap or on the floor anyways- thank goodness for Ernie the doggie vaccum!)

So there you have it.  
Our little adventure of our little eater. 

I would love to hear some of your stories of your feeding adventures.
What foods are your littles ones favorites?

7 months!

Age

7 months

Clothing size

Both 6 month and 9 month

Milestones & Firsts

This girl is a rolling machine.  
We officially have a kid who is capable of flying across the livingroom and licking everything in sight in .005 seconds.  Shoowee this should be interesting.

Sleep habits

 Oh what a month this has been.  My ninja napper left the building and we were introduced to a 30 minute napping queen.  Thankfully after a few adjustments in her schedule she is back to sleeping like a champ again!

New/Favorite Foods
Not too much has changed in Lyla's diet but we did get one major change in our kitchen

Bam.  
Talk about some speedy baby food making.  
It was love at first use.

Favorite Toys

Walker-  Lyla's obviously not using this to stroll around the house yet but it is the perfect toy for her to sit in front of.  She seriously plays on this for 20 minutes straight.  
(Which is an eternity in babyland)

Activity Cube- Another hit this month.  She loves exploring this thing.
Which makes mommy and daddy happy because we love how adorably cute this toy is!

Blocks- Just spread these out all over the floor and she rolls like crazy after the colors.  And when that stops being entertaining she will play with the bag they came in.  

Toes and spatula-  These are really the biggest hits on them all.

.

New or Favorite Words/Sounds 
Lyla is one strange cookie.  
Her newest thing is to make this face while sniffing the air repeatedly.

{Asthmatic dinosaur is at it again!}

Favorite Activity 

Eating mum-mums.

Daddy & Mommy of the Month

Now that the sun doesn't set until like 11pm here in Anchorage we felt like it was time to invest in some blackout curtains for the nursery.  But before we found the right ones we made Lyla live like this:

Classy. 

Playtime Fun

Lyla's new favorite pastime is to scoot backwards across the living room on her head.

Top 5 this month

1) First Easter & Daddy's birthday

2) First time voting 
(Okay, just going to voting poll.  But we're trying to teach her right!)

3) Napping on her mama.  
She will only do this when she's not feeling good so it's a real treat for me

4) Getting her 6 month pictures taken.  
Little girl worked that camera

Photos by Narrow Road Productions

5) Staying up until 3am being really sentimental about how much this girl has grown.

7 days old

7 weeks old

7 months old

Lyla is:

A mess.  

Haha

...but seriously.