"Happiness is a choice, not a result. Nothing will make you happy until you choose to be happy."

Thursday, June 20, 2013

8 months

Blakelee was 8 months old on May 30th!! Every month seems to go faster and faster because we are trying to keep up with our little one. She is now a speedy crawler and roller. It is so funny she will even do this 360, as she is crawling she will scoot her legs under her which will turn her the opposite direction. If you walk away from her to do anything she will crawl as fast as she can to try to keep up with you. Sometimes she will cry as she crawls because she is so upset you left her side. It breaks my heart when I look down and she is crawling my way, crying, and saying "momma!!" I of course have to pick her up!!!
She loves to say Momma!! It puts the biggest smile on my face. She started saying momma about a month ago. She would randomly say it before that but she was never consistent but now she will look right at me lift her arms up and say momma. She has started saying dadda but it is a little harder for her. When she does say it Griff gets the biggest smile on his face. She has even started saying Babba but not consistent at all!! Now I do wonder if she understands what these words mean. But even if not it is so cute to hear her say them. 
Blake will do the stink bug crawl with her hands and feet on the ground, she also has started pulling herself up on the couch, stairs, and her crib. She wants to walk so badly. If you hold onto her fingers and walk with her she does so good!! It is so cute yet so not OK that she is big enough to want to walk!!
She gave up her binky!!! She would only use it for sleeping and even at that she would only suck on it for a sec then spit it out. Then one day she didn't want anything to do with it. She would push my hand away if I tried to give it to her so she winged her self off!!! It is nice that I didn't have to do the hard part.
I think honestly the reason she stopped wanting the binky was because her teeth were starting to pop in. When we were camping the end of May they started to come through. She has her 2 bottom teeth in the front. They are still not all the way up but you can see them. I even wonder if she is getting more with how she is acting. Being so clingy, sad, rubbing her ears, biting her fingers, and not wanting baby food!! I have to spoon feed her now, when before she would just hold the pouch and suck it out herself.
She is still so happy even though she is sad a lot with her teeth. She gets so happy when we play with her, hold her, and when she gets enough sleep.
She loves cartoons, so when I am getting ready for the day I can put any cartoon on and she will stare at the TV and just smile!
She is now able to eat meats, but they are not her favorite. She is so used to the sweet fruits... we will have to keep introducing them to her so she learns to like them.
Blake is still an amazing sleeper (unless she is not in her crib). She will go down around 8 now, she upped her bedtime by herself, and will sleep until usually 8 or 9 in the morning. She also loves her naps and will nap for a few hours. She still eats 6 oz every 3 ish hours. Boy does she love her bottle!!! 
I noticed this morning that she was waving at the TV while there was music going on. She was probably just more or less dancing but it was so cute. I can not wait till she waves hi and bye!!
She is my vacuum cleaner for sure... I have to be so careful with getting anything on the floor. She will find it as she is crawling and will put it in her mouth, then she will usually choke on whatever it is because it is to big or isn't supposed to be eaten!!!
Blakelee is one of a kind for sure and is learning so much every day!! She puts the biggest smile on everyone's face. She chunky cheeks and fuzzy hair will melt anyone's heart!! Yes she is getting hair!!!
We love her more and more every single day. I wonder how I can love her anymore then she does something that is the cutest and sweetest and I just do!!!
She is perfect!

Kodachrome Basin

On May 23rd my family and I went to Kodachrome Basin to go camping. Kodachrome is about 30 minutes from Bryce Canyon. We headed out early on the 23rd for a 4-5 hour drive. It was Blake's first road trip, she did pretty good she slept most of the way. Griffin was unable to come on this trip because of work.. we missed him so much.

When we made it to camp we got all set up and got dinner ready. We stayed at camp and hung around the fire for the first night. The little girls all went to bed pretty early but Blakelee didn't want to stay asleep she kept waking up so I finally called it a night and went into the trailer to try to get her and I asleep. She was sleeping in the pack and play and she was not used to it, plus being somewhere new so she was very confused and did not want to sleep.
My mom came in to help me get her to sleep and they ended up playing for a bit. Blake was so happy my mom came to save her that my mom got a big wet kiss!!!
After a pretty rough night of Blake waking up every few hours and finally resulting to sleep in my bed, it was morning!!! A very chilly one at that. We got up had some yummy breakfast got ready for the day to head down to Bryce to hike around there all day.
The last time I was at Bryce I was very young so it was great to see all the amazing red rocks. We hiked all day the little girls loved it so much and wanted to walk all by themselves without any help. They would be so mad when we would hold their hands or pick them up because we were on a cliff.
After all of us were worn out we decided to head back to camp for some dinner and relaxing. 
And of course Smore's!!!!
Blakelee did a little better this night. My sister mentioned to have her sleep in her car seat since it is familiar to her. So we did that but she still woke up a few times through out the night. My parents let me sleep in their bed this night in case Blakelee needed to sleep with me, that way we had more room. So in the early morning around 4am I put Blake in my bed with me she finally fell asleep. But in the morning I noticed she peed through her diaper and peed my parents bed. 
Oh how stressful it is to camp with a baby!!!
On the 25th we went to see all the sites around Kodachrome. It was a lot of dirt roads and so many amazing rocks and arches. 
We found out that there was an arch that we wanted to hike up to but little did we know that it was a few miles to the arch. Thank heavens I brought Blakelee her sun hat or else she would have gotten burned. It was a very hot day.





















After we went see another really awesome arch!!!




It was such a fun day we called it a night and all hit our pillows. Blakelee finally slept through the night!!!! It was amazing we all got such a good night sleep.

In the morning we took it easy. Zach went fishing and the rest of us hung out at camp. We had a huge rock mountain right behind our camp which we all had fun climbing on. 
After Zach got back from fishing we went on a little hike really close to camp, Mossy Cave! It was so pretty there were arches, waterfalls, and of course a cave.

Back at camp for the night we all got showered up (they had really nice showers at camp that we used every night!!). Of course this was a rock at camp that we saw every night. Hahahah!!! Naughty rock, or in Laryssa's words... "the rocket ship"
It was our last night at camp we were leaving in the morning. All the cousins were having a blast playing with each other.
Last Camp Fire!
In the morning we packed everything up and headed home. It was such a fun trip, a little stressful with Blakelee. It would have been a bit easier if Griff was there to help and if there would have been grass that she could have crawled on. But all in all it was a great get away!!