Dear 70-year-old Walmart Shopper,

Thank you for your awarness today. All the other shoppers around me were being rude, mumbling things under their breath, and giving me dirty looks. I promise I tried to pick the best time to go shopping with a Toddler - after a nap, diaper change, and meal... it just didn't go as planned. I appreciate you kidnapping my cart, letting me go in front of you, loading all my groceries, and patting my hysterical baby as I also stood there holding her with tears streaming down my own face. I should have been loading YOUR groceries and wish there was some way I could personally repay you for your wonderful act of kindness today. To you it was small, but to me it was great.

Love,
Me

End of November

I am a terrible blogger. I don't know why, I have no good excuse. I wish I could keep a better record of our life!

Thanksgiving was a stressful week. I was doing a major portion of Thanksgiving dinner and my cousin and her two kids were coming up for dinner. The only bad part is that I worked smack-dab in the middle of the day (11-5) so it made it hard to manage dinner from work. Needless to say, the turkey was burnt, the stuff didn't get seasoned, and the potatoes were... well not creamy. I stressed about it all week and when it was over I felt exhausted. I worked all weekend. I am glad that I have a few days off.

Thanksgiving is always a time to reflect on what things in my life I am thankful for. I am thankful mostly for my work "family." Lately I have felt overwhelmed, overworked, and very underappreciated. I hope I can get out of this rut because I really do love my job and love the unit I work on. My other nurses take such good care of me and are such good listeners. I love the demographic and type of patients I care for. Nursing can be really rewarding.

I am thankful for my sweet husband and beautiful daughter. How great is family and the fact that we'll be together forever!? I don't know how some people go through life wondering about that. I am thankful for the gospel. I am also grateful for the tangible things in my life: car, house, food storage, and a comfy bed!

Sophie is a crawling machine. She acts like it was no big deal she didn't crawl until 13 months. She has some severe stranger danger too. I don't even know what to do with her! I can't leave her with anyone it seems like, especially lately she just clings to me. Poor girl. I don't know how to help her get past that. We've been doing a toddler formula in place of milk since she had so many problems. She's had a month long diaper rash though from it. I want to transition off it. We've been doing just one measly ounce A DAY for almost a week and she's already borderline constipated. I'm just trying to balance her out with lots of fruit and water. We haven't had any major problems, and since her stools are more formed, her diaper rash has gotten so much better. We stopped using cloth diapers when it got really bad thinking it may have something to do with it... it didn't. We were using disposables with tons of diaper cream and it never got better. I'm SO glad to be back to cloth! I don't know why but disposables just seem so... icky. Paper underwear (no thanks)! I tried one off ebay (Sunbaby). They are very cheap (5.50) but I was actually really impressed.

We love our new house. It's so nice having a garage vs. carport! We painted our living room and I love it. I am going to try to paint Sophie's room this week. I have OCD so painting can prove difficult because I am such a perfectionist! The snow lately has been crazy! We have these two random cats that have shown up the last week. They are definitely not someone's pet. I've seen them slinkin around before. I made the mistake of throwing out some leftovers a couple days ago so now they come and sit by my back sliding door... all night and most of the day. They just look at me. They try to get in if I open the door so it's kinda buggin me, but I have a soft spot in my heart for animals so it's hard! I don't know what to do about them. They could never be inside cats, I'll tell ya that much, but I don't want to be mean to them and I also feel bad they looks so skinny. I worry about calling the pound because I know they euthanize a TON of cats... I remember hearing a statistic when I volunteered at the Humane Society about that.

We went to visit my sweet Grandpa this last week. He's really gone downhill since my Grandma past away. I wish I visited with him more. It's super funny that Sophie LOVES him... she's probably been around him less than 10 times but she never is scared of him! In fact she let him hold her and pretty soon I look over and she was laying back on him eating his popcorn watching America's Funniest Home Videoes. I couldn't believe it! My cousin had her baby over. Sophie didn't want ANYTHING to do with him. She kept poking her finger at him. At one point, for a 'picture moment' we had her hold him while my Grandpa held them. She started fussing and pushing him off her, haha! She's such a little stinker, I just love her!

Picture Fail

This week I had to work pretty much every other day (Sunday, Wednesday, Friday). Since it takes half a day to recover from my 13 hour shifts, my week went by too fast unfortunately. Today Kale and I actually had a day off together. We had family pictures planned. I spent the morning cleaning the house, and after I put Sophie down for a nap Kale and I got ready. When she woke up I got her in the bath and got her ready. She was being grumpy, naturally, and it continued through our family pictures! She refused to look at the camera and was fussy almost the entire time! It was slightly frustrating because I have been looking forward to doing some updated family pictures, and it's hard work getting everyone ready! We were going to do them outside but of course the weather sucked. We found somewhere inside but Sophie was so difficult to work with. Our photographer was great : very patient and accomodating! I'm hoping we get a few good ones.

When we came home it was snowing! Sophie was so curious. She kept reaching out to touch the snowflakes. Of course my camera battery died (one of those days) so this is the only picture we got!

Sophie is such a big girl! Her hair is so long. It's starting to get a lot lighter. She loves to bath. Usually when she wakes up we get her in the bath. I worry since she's gone all night without eating so often times I feed her in the tub. Ha Ha weird I know, but she eats really good in there! She's usually in there for an hour! She starts to freak out when she sees the towel to get out. She also has figured out the drain and the faucet. So if I try to drain the water she flips the drain and sits over it so I can't get to it. She also turns the water on. Little stink! She hasn't pooped in the tub for a while, phew, knock on wood!

She's getting to be a better eater. She's not on table foods completely though. She still has baby food purees. I have not been anxious to introduce milk. We've been doing a toddler formula and it's working so well, at this point in my life I hate to mess with something that isn't broken. She loves to self feed. She likes toast, any roast beef or ham, yogurt, chips, tortillas, string cheese, and tonight we found out she loves enchiladas!

She's always been a butt-scooter. About a week and a half ago she was acting like she'd maybe crawl but she'd fall flat on her belly. Well once day she just started crawling! She's still working on it, but it has made life a bit harder because I worry about all our stairs (the gate wont fit because the way the railing is) and stuff around the house. I THOUGHT it was babyproofed but she's definitely pointed out things to watch!

I haven't ever made Thanksgiving dinner but this year I am! I have no clue what to do but plan on calling my Dad and getting the lowdown! Lee's was having an awesome sale on a few canned things I use in most recipes, so I got my turkey then.

I finished up our extended family Christmas shopping this week. It actually seemed pretty easy. I just went to a store that had it all! I've got everything ready to wrap. I refuse to decorate until after Thanksgiving though. We are a real-tree family all the way so I usually try to wait until December to get the tree. LOVE the way a real tree smells and looks!

Yo Gabba Gabba

This is just a random picture I had on the camera from Sunday.


We went to the yo gabba gabba concert this afternoon. I think that YGG is pretty annoying personally, and I end up singing the songs all day. Sophie loves it though. YGG and sesame street are the only ones that keep her interest. I use the TV a lot as background and also to 'babysit' when I need to get things done. Also, Sophie eats the best when she has YGG as a distraction. Call my parenting skills horrible, but I gotta do what I gotta do! When I saw that YGG was coming to Salt Lake I was super excited and bought tickets several months ago.

We got there a bit late. As we were walking in Reel Big Fish were playing, it was awesome! Sophie was immediately entertained! It was so much fun. We were on row 3 and had several seats all to ourselves!


We got to meet Toodee, she came out of the door we were sitting by!

I got a little excited. Sophie was loving it!

She was super fidgetty and only wanted me to hold her.

They released ballons from the ceiling. It was fun, what a party! Sophie thought her balloon was so cool.

Her favorite, Biz. She smiles the entire time he's doing his beat-boxing. It was way cool, he did so good.

I figure since they made me buy a seat for her, we'd sit her in it for a bit. She was following along with the dance moves. This was with the "goodbye" song.

It lasted about an 1.5. It was the perfect amount of time. Sophie did really well and only got a little fidgetty after they had a short intermission. I loved it and would totally go again! Sesame street is coming in December, we'll have to consider it.

Sorry, picture overload.

Isn't it funny that once you have children your life changes in more ways that one. If you would have asked me two years ago if I'd ever be at a 2pm yo gabba gabba concernt, I'd say heck no!