Bethany's First Bite

On Saturday, Bethany had her first bite of baby food! She'd been ogling us while we ate for about a month now, leaning forward in her swing and looking at us intently with those wide, blue eyes of hers. So, after we got the OK from her Dr. this last week, we decided to let her give some carrots a try.
Her reaction was much as we expected it to be--a whole lot of hilarious "yucky" expressions (which she's so good at giving us when we feed her anything but breast milk), and spitting most of it out. HOWEVER, when we fed her some carrots last night (on day 3), she ate them like a total champ, and swallowed most of what we gave her! We sure do love and our proud of our big baby!

This was Bethany's expression when Travis first offered her the carrots, like "Mom, what is Dad doing?!"

Oh, how I love those big blue eyes!

Num num num!

She gives Travis the CHEESIEST gummy grins when he even just looks or smiles at her during dinner. Love it!

She sure does love her dad :)

It's amazing (and a little scary) how quickly she's inching towards being a toddler. On Sunday, she rolled over from her tummy to her back a couple of times, and the combo of that and her eating baby food--and thus not seeming like my baby any more--made me honestly want to cry (and yet at the same time want to praise her for her accomplishments from the rooftops). It's so funny to me how it can surprise me at how little she still is sometimes, and how she can seem so young to me at the same time too. Thankfully, she's my little snuggle bug and prefers a good "bouncing" to sleep, so she's still my baby for now. :)

Up next for her palate tasting pleasure...peas.
P.S. I got a great video of her first "feeding," but am having a hard time updating it; hopefully, I'll be able to post it soon.

Family Update: February

Our sister-in-law Mindi had the brilliant idea to do a once-a-month family update on their blog, and I LOVED that idea, so I'm stealing it. So, here's what's been happening with us this past month:

Bethany--is getting stronger everyday, and is now holding herself up pretty well while sitting, standing, and doing tummy time. She's also just started rolling onto her side. She has recently found her hands, and LOVES to put them in her mouth and talk while she does so (num-num-num!). She also loves to watch us with her wide blue eyes and talk to us while we eat, and is cooing more other times as well (so we're thinkin' she's getting close to being ready for "table food"). She's been a great sleeper (only waking up once a night to eat), and is generally a good napper during the day as well. Her other likes are to hold hands, read books, look at bubbles, watch her big sister, and be rocked to sleep. She's our sweet, happy baby and we love squeezing and holding her and just having her around.

Grace--loves to play with her playdough, and especially now that she just earned a playdough tool set (by helping Jenny around the house with dishes and setting the table; we were SO proud of her for her hard work and patience in earning it!). Her favorite TV shows these days are Signing Time, Curious George, and Word World. She also enjoys reading and is starting to be able to pick out sight words (like "the" and "and") when we read, as well as spell simple words with her magnet letters (like "log" and "bus"). A new favorite activity of hers is playing in the water in the sink, and she is looking forward to Spring so she can play in her water table outside again. Another new activity of hers is playing with the nativity set that we've left out from Christmas; she daily asks me to tell her the Christmas story as we look at the different figurines (and has added raisins in to the Christmas story; apparently the wise men like to eat them on their journey ;).). Another still is getting piggy back rides from mom and dad, which she asks for daily. She continues to love to sing, and can often be found singing "Book of Mormon Stories," "I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ," and "Paradise" by Coldplay (interesting selection, I know). And of course, she loves to talk to Bethany, hold her hand, and give her kisses (telling her what a "precious tiny baby" she is :) ). We sure love our sweet, helpful Grace girl.

Jenny--mostly stays busy watching the girls, but makes time to do a weekly Zumba class with some other girls from her Ward, go out with friends on "girls nights", and do lots of reading (for fun and personal enrichment). If only there were more hours in a day, right?!

Travis--just finished his 3rd year of Podiatry school this month (hooray for no more test weeks--ever!), and has thus also started his 4th year (which is the year of his externships). He also just signed up for a 50K race in May and is excited to get going on his training for that.

Life is busy, but good, and we're looking forward to the adventures this year will bring!

New Posts!

Keep scrolling down to see our latest posts:
*Snow Fun!
*Bethany Lovin'
*Best friends are we, my sister & me
*Thanksgiving & Pre-Christmas Fun
*Texas Trip Part 6: Museum Day
*Texas Trip Part 5: Christmas
Enjoy!

Snow Fun!

We've gotten a couple good snowfalls this past week in Cleveland, and since Grace hadn't really been out to play in it yet this winter (probably since she never asked, and I never offered--snow me no likey), we dressed her up and let her run-a-muck!
Getting all suited up:


Travis went out to shovel one night and Grace begged to go out and help him, the cutie. :) So we got out her sand shovel and out she went!
Our hard workers (gotta start em young, ya know! ;) ):


They had a blast!


A couple days after they shoveled, we got another good snowfall (if you can consider snowfall good). I had promised Grace all the next day that after dad got home, he could take her sledding in the backyard for a little bit. She was SO excited. Well, Travis got home around dinner time, so after her bath, we got Grace dressed in her snow gear, but all throughout dressing her, she kept talking about her shovel. Confused, Travis explained to her that she didn't need her shovel, that they weren't shoveling the driveway like they did the other night, and that tonight, they were just going to go sledding. To this, Grace happily exclaimed: "Oh! Hooray! That would be really, really perfect!" Travis and I laughed so hard!
Off to the backyard they went, where Grace proceeded to squeal in delight while Travis pulled her in figure 8's around the backyard.
You can just see the joy in her face:

After she was done sledding, she played on the slides a little bit too (cuz why not!?).

They had "snow" much fun in the snow!

Grace & Bethany

Just wanted to share a few videos of our cute girls that I took recently. Enjoy!

Travis taught Grace "Jingle Bells" this Christmas season, and she fell in love with it & loves singing it, so here's a video of her doing just that (from December 14th):

Bethany recently started cooing (which we love, and which she loves to do when we're talking to her or while she's having tummy time), so here are a couple videos of her sweet coos (taken December 5th):

Best friends are we, my sister & me

We decided to have a little fun and do a "sisters" photoshoot today. (Grace loves to do this, and will even jump on the couch with Bethany and say "Mom take a picture!" from time to time). Enjoy!


Travis & Grace trying to get Bethany to smile:

These two love each other so much, and we love them!

Bethany Lovin'

In the past few weeks, Bethany has hit the stage where she's started smiling a lot. We LOVE it!

This is how we got her to smile at first (tickling either side of her mouth):


Now, we can usually get her to smile just by smiling at her or talking to her in a high-pitched voice.
Here are some of her sweet smiles:





I love how they just fill up her face, and how her eyes curve into crescent moon shapes when she does. I mean, seriously, how could you not love that face? ;)

And since this is too funny not to share...
Grace loves to give Bethany hugs.
Here is Bethany's typical reaction:

:) It's always a little much, but Bethany sure loves her big sister.

And we sure love our Bethany!