Five months of Grace

I'm so grateful Grace is ours forever, because every month she just gets exponentially cuter! I'm sure that might change around puberty, but up until now it has proved to be true.

She is 5 months old today!

Her adorable outfit is brought to you by Morgan and Eliza, who gifted it to us just a few weeks ago and the timing couldn't have been more perfect! It's a 3-mo-old outfit but it fits her wee body and it's short and revealing in all the right places. She wears these shorts all the time now because they show off where da chub at: her legs. Yummy yummy baby thighs.

Okay anyway, here are all the wonderful tidbits of sweet Gracie girl these days:

• She can pick up and put her own binky in her mouth. Sometimes it's backwards but sometimes it's not.
• She can roll over, although she's a bit reserved about it and she definitely has an easier time with the right side. Today, though, she's rolled over more than ever before. A few times I've looked at her and been like "what the?! You were on your back until I turned around for a second!" She's sneaky like that.
• She can hold up her own bottle, which is very convenient at times
• She is WAY more smiley and is giving us some giggles
• She is more responsive to her name
• Her arms are outstretched and she shakes when she's really anxious to eat
• She usually gets really smiley and playful when we lay her down for bed which makes it so hard to just turn the lights out and close the door
• She grabs at our bowls, plates, cups, and bottles, and seems especially aware of ice cream
• She cries when we're playing with her and then walk away
• Her favorite toy currently is the pouch of wet wipes
• She still sleeps through the night but she throws her legs around and whines so she's a little disruptive haha
• She sticks out her tongue and blows bubbles
• She is just incredibly observant everywhere she goes
• When sitting in her bouncer chair she fully extends her legs and then rolls both her ankles in circles
• She loves to suck on her toes
• She tried solids twice (rice cereal) and maybe kind of swallowed a bite or two. It wasn't a big success.
• She loves to go outside. Sometimes it is the only thing that will soothe her.
• She has tried out swimming and decided she's a fan.
• She went on her first flight and decided to have a meltdown when the plane stopped taxing, but other than that she was swell
• She jabbers, grunts and squeals a lot, especially in her car seat
• Sometimes she gets SO excited and screeches around active babies and little kids
• She sticks all blankets and spit rags in her mouth and she tries to eat everyone's fingers
• She has outgrown her bathtub but loves taking showers 
• She has started rubbing her eyes when sleepy
• She got her first cold about three weeks ago and is still recovering a little. We love her cute little cough but not her hacking and stuffy nose in the middle of the night. She has remained pretty pleasant despite not feeling well.

She is such a cute face and we cannot ever stop kissing her. We feel so lucky. :)

Four months of Grace

Grace hit her 4-month mark on Friday and I can't believe how much she has changed and is changing at this age!

Don't be deceived-she usually is not this pleasant during tummy time.

She's so wiggly she's got some blurred limbs, but how can I not post this smile?

Four-month-old Grace:

• Weighs in at 13.5 lbs, 30th percentile
• Is 24 inches long, also 30th percentile
• Has a head circumference of 16.22 inches, 70th percentile
• Smiles so much more than she used to, especially when she wakes up and especially at men
• Is laughing a little and trying to laugh more
• Almost always prefers standing (not on her own of course) to any other position
• Gets closest to laughing/really excited when we stand her up after we change her diaper
• Constantly sucks on her hands and prefers both at the same time
• Carefully observes and envies all the food she sees people eating
• Is so playful and social and always wants to be entertained
• LOVES being outside
• Still does her hilarious fake sneezes
• Has jabbering conversations with people she really likes (often that's James)
• Eats so much more quickly
• Screams and squeals and squirms when we try to burp her
• Hardly ever cries herself to sleep. She just lays there wide awake smiling and then falls asleep on her own.
• Sleeps 10 solid hours every night
• Has outgrown her bassinet for sleeping
• Is more alert and difficult at church
• Grunts for no apparent reason ALL the time
• Can often hold her bottle
• Sucks on blankets and spit rags constantly
• Pushes her binkies out with her tongue
• Sucks on her tongue and bottom lip
• Has started drooling some
• Is a merciless hair-puller
• Likes to sit up in her little frog chair and watch me in the kitchen....basically a bumbo chair
• Enjoys being kissed all over her face...evidenced by the tongue hanging out, the panting, and the stillness

She is so sweet and the love of our lives. We are having so much fun watching our little bug grow up.

No months of Grace's parents

So it happened. We had a baby and she became our world. Now it's all about her, and rightly so. But we're going to pretend like you're all interested in some updates about Grace's parents. We're both smiling and jabbering and growing out of our clothes just like Grace, but we're also doing other things too.

Aleisha

I, for one, am obviously not doing that 10-day health challenge anymore that I wrote about...52 days ago. The summary with that goes thusly:

I got tired of taking pictures of food I mostly didn't like.

It  was, however, a great kickstart back into working out as I could just do different workouts (T25, P90X, 21 Day Fix, Insanity, etc) here in the apartment (because our neighbor below us moved out. Otherwise....I still probably would have done it haha). I was reminded of and introduced to some excellent and more healthy snack substitutes to finger-fulls of frosting. Such substitutes include:

• apples and almond butter
• bell peppers and hummus
• cottage cheese and nothing
• peanut butter and honey rolled up on a tortilla

That last one is just my favorite snack that I've eaten all my life and will never give up. In recent years it has been a 100% whole wheat tortilla, so calm down.

Speaking of getting back into working out...I'm really not working out. I actually went in to see a doctor this past Monday and was told (2nd time in the past 2 years) that I have IT Band Syndrome and need physical therapy. Don't know what exactly caused it or why it caused it when it did. It didn't really hinder me during pregnancy because I didn't try to run much, but now that I'm wanting to get back into running (I was never a "runner" per se, but I ran a little, yo), it's very apparent that my first bout of PT did not do the trick. So I'm a little discouraged and a little muffin-toppy, but no matter....no matter.

I am in my summer semester of clincials with SLCC's Diagnostic Medical Sonography program, or shall we call it "ultrasound school?" In August I will be halfway done! And oh yeah, back in March the week before Grace was born I passed the physics portion of my ultrasound board exams!! I am learning SO much and loving it SO much. It brings out my inner nerd when I talk about anatomy all day and get so jazzed to see patients with such photographic liver vessels. I am doing two online classes in addition to clinicals, so no physical class time, and I only have to do 16 hours of clinicals per week to stay on track of my hours. It's flexible though, and my lovely mother-in-law watches Gracie baby while I am away checking for goiters on people's thyroids. 

Other than that I started a book club this year that is A) massive (we hit a record of 7 people last month!) and B) further evidence of my inner nerdiness. It has gotten me really excited to have friends over once a month for treats and book discussions. Goodreads is becoming my new Facebook and I frequent the library....frequently. (Anyone reading this can join via Facebook or physical presence at an upcoming book club meeting.) 

I am busy practicing the piano for the choir, gawking at everything on Food Network, LOVING the summer weather and walks with hubby and baby, and tripping over furniture.

James

James is a busy bee with a longer lifespan than an actual bee. He started up a tutoring program in our ward this past semester and it really helped some kids out. He was called as the ward executive secretary at the beginning of the year and so he spends Tues evenings hanging with the Bishop Rick (more commonly known as bishopric) and meeting people in the ward. He's always busy scheduling appointments and also serves as the ward choir pianist's babysitter, so instead of coming to choir with me, he spends some quality time with his girl Grace.

James is the awesomest of all the awesomes. Let me tell you a little something about J Frank. He is spectacular about setting goals and following through with them. Anyone who knows him knows this. And that is why he has accomplished so much in his life. Here are two of his current goals (in my words, of course):

• Run. He just wants to run more, run harder, faster, be in better shape, spend some more time enjoying the summer weather, etc, and he's totally making it happen. He has his week of workouts planned out and he gets up early each morning and runs. Sometimes 3 miles, sometimes 10. Always sweaty. I told him the other day I wish this increase his physical fitness would automatically increase my physical fitness the way an increase in his income affects us both equally. Alas.
• Rock MBA applications. (These are definitely not his words). He is also on a schedule dedicated to applying for business school this fall. He's revamping his resume, brainstorming and writing essays, and doing all sorts of research on the schools he's interested in. It will be many months until applications are over and even more months until we know where we'll be moving next fall, but that's okay. We'll just continue to love Draper while we wait.

The dos of us

We have done lots of fun things together since I last wrote about US, but I will only tell you about them if I have a picture of the event, because I'm tired of using so many words.

Oh dang, all I have are pictures of Grace.

The tres of us

Three months of Grace

I feel like Grace has been three months ever since she hit two months, because she's been wearing almost exclusively 3-month clothes. But it is official; today she is three months old!

Some things you should know about 3-month-old Grace:

• While she is not the most smiley baby, she is giving a LOT more smiles these days, especially in the morning, and especially to men.
• She sucks on her hands and fingers constantly
• She licks her right arm during tummy time when she needs to give her noggin a rest
• She jabbers like crazy, especially during tummy time
• She wants so badly to talk and is very interactive and observant when people are talking to her
• She gets excited and is trying to laugh, although for now it mostly sounds like breathlessness accompanied by arms and legs wildly akimbo
• She is calmed down by being in a sitting or standing position
• She's a great sleeper. To celebrate her 3-mo-mark she slept 10 hours!
• She can hold her head up really well
• She's increasingly more social and wants to be where the people are
• She seems to like music and when people dance with her
• She is very attentive to the TV (not sure how much I like that)
• She is grabbing, holding, and taste-testing the different fabrics of her blankets and spit rags
• She still likes us to hold the binky in her mouth and will hold our hands and fingers as we do
• She always wants her carseat cover open so she can observe everything
• She is is so expressive
• She is still a major spitter and it looks like she probably has eczema
• Her fake sneezes have gotten increasingly more hilarious, almost like she's doing it for her own entertainment
• Although it seemed impossible, she just keeps getting cuter.

We love our tiny Grace face!

Two months of Grace

On Mother's Day Grace hit two months!

This little pink hoody is one of our favorite things she wears. We're so sad she's growing out of it!

Here are the tidbits:

• She weighs 10 lbs, 13 oz placing her in around the 40th percentile for weight
• She is 22.8 in long, placing her in the 50th percentile for length
• She is in the 70th percentile for head circumference
• She is in the 100th percentile for cuteness (James wanted me to make sure I mentioned that)
• Her chunky thighs and Buddha belly have kicked her out of newborn clothes and into many 3-month clothes
• She is smiling-mostly when she's on the changing table-but sometimes when we tell her nice things
• She is starting to coo and babble
• She loves to lay out and stretch and yell at the ceiling fan
• Her neck and legs are very strong (according to the doc, her progress is about where most 4-month-old babies are at)
• She enjoys sitting up in our laps
• She is definitely social and is often calmed by just being with me in the kitchen or bathroom as I clean and get ready
• She consistently sleeps about a 6-hr stretch at night
• She often wants her hands up around her bottle and can sometimes hold it in place for a few seconds
• She has started grabbing my hair VERY tightly
• She sticks her tongue out all the time and loves to watch James stick his out
• She is still captivated by lights and windows everywhere
• She is quickly learning to "self soothe" (aka cry herself to sleep)
• She has officially been to three hours of church and was an angel (who am I kidding...a Mother's Day miracle)
• She often holds her binky in place when she's super sleepy in the mornings
• The McKeans think she looks like a Lyons baby and the Lyons think she looks like a McKean haha
• She's still a snuggly, cuddly bug

We (understandably) are increasingly more in love and more attached to her. Mother's Day was so special for me this year because of my beautiful little friend who I REALLY am not looking forward to missing 24 hrs/wk for clinicals this summer starting next week. I'll have to make all the hours I'm with her really count.

Mukumame and Rice Vinegar

Today marks six weeks since I birthed the most adorable human I've ever met. And I've been rewarding myself ever since so it's time to go to work on the extra "lbs." I am confessing this on my blog so I can hold myself to sticking to my goal....at least for 10 days. Haha ;)

I'll have you know that I don't believe in dieting. In fact, the last paper I wrote in college was a persuasive research paper against dieting....about how only 4-5% of diets are maintained and successful long term.  (Don't ask me to site a source on that; I shan't do the research again.) Anyway, diets are unsuccessful usually because they're too extreme.

So you'll forgive me if I tell you I started a diet yesterday.

But hear me out. I just need to kick start my transition away from sedentary-hood back to exercising-ness. Plus I totally need to eat better than I have been. You've heard Brian Regan's stand-up about "well I walked on the moon" as the ultimate one-upper in a conversation? Well, in a similar way I considered having a baby as a close second, so whenever in the past six weeks I tried to talk myself out of my third dessert of the day, I promptly reminded myself that I delivered a baby and continued dunking my Oreos.

A friend of mine is a BeachBody Instructor and invited me to do a free 10-day challenge with free access to work outs accompanied by set meal plans. I was going to just do the exercise part because remember-I'm anti-diet,but my wise husband helped me see that doing this could expose me to new delicious healthy snacks/foods/recipes that we could incorporate into our permanent lifestyle.

Lifestyle. Not diet....because no way am I going to pretend that I plan to keep up this rigid meal plan devoid of popcorn and ice cream.

So with that attitude in mind I will welcome the set workouts and take advantage of these healthy recipes...but I won't take it all too seriously. I'll introduce myself to new ingredients, meals and snacks, make appropriate substitutions or alterations to fit my personal palate and budget, cheat a little when necessary, and in 10 days I'll hopefully have a few recipes to add to my repertoire and a few pounds less to lug around. We'll see about the second one....I'm easing my way back into the healthy life.

Yesterday morning I did T-25-a short cardio workout-and it felt great to officially be working out again, but I DEFINITELY felt it this morning. This morning I did pilates and had to modify the MODIFIED MOVES for half the workout. But that's okay....slowly but surely.

This blog needs some pictures, so I took pics of my food. Don't judge them; this is not a cooking blog so I left out the checkered table cloth and decorative garnish.

I bought a few firsts: flaxseed, lentils, rice vinegar, etc. I know, all this talk of food is making you salivate.

Breakfast on day one: mostly egg whites, tomatoes, and fresh basil. I think I'd make it again even though this picture makes it look like mostly barf.

The fact that this snack is all green should indicate to you that it is a nasty snack. Shelled edamame (called mukumame) and fresh cilantro are delish on their own, but mix those with rice vinegar and sesame seeds and that equals a snack I will never make again. Plus, it is definitely not a practical snack to throw in my purse on my way out the door.

Lunch was delicious: chicken, green apples, red grapes, cashews, and raspberry vinaigrette. The recipe calls for walnuts, but walnuts are for old people. So I dug some cashews out of my trail mix I already had at home. I'm so resourceful.

Worst meal of my life. I'm sorry...trying to be open minded but I gagged this down. Not only that, but the presentation came out as a total flop That pile of quinoa, bell peppers, and flaxseed is supposed to be in a patty laid nicely across the wilted spinach. Gross, I don't want to talk about this meal anymore. Texture ew. Flavor ew. Lesson learned.

Haha, you were all hoping for cute pictures of baby Grace and I posted crummy pictures of health food.

One month of Grace

Grace is one month old!

Here are a few tidbits about baby girl:

• She gets cuter every day
• She loves to look at the lights and ceiling fans
• She is discovering her thumb and tongue
• She hates having her arms swaddled and always has them up by her face
• She can occasionally roll/tip herself over during tummy time
• She loves snuggling with mom every morning
• She loves water/baths/showers
• She has adorable fake sneezes, and her sneezing record is 9
• She loves to pee on the changing table
• She is a spitter
• She has a very determined cry
• She loves the car, her swing, and the baby carrier
• She has a very strong neck and legs
• She makes some pretty intense and impressive eye contact

Although it has been an exhausting first month, it has been wonderful and amazing. We are obsessed with Grace's perfect tininess and beauty and grateful to be her parents!