March: The Month of Dates Part II

Back to the summary of “dates” in the month of March.

We had a fun date night with our friends Zach and Kaari...and who can forget their precious little girl, Georgia. She is just five months old. So sweet! Normally, we would go out to eat or get some pizza with the Wingers, but this time, Kaari had the great idea of cooking-in that night. She gathered a bunch of fun recipes off of Pinterest, and put our cooking skills to the test. Dinner turned out to be amazing! Much better food than going out to eat when considering the cost! We made lemon garlic shrimp, coconut shrimp, creamy orzo pasta, and balsamic vegetables. After dinner, we watched Life of Pi. Zach and I were the only ones that had seen it, so we were excited to show it to Jason and Kaari. They loved it as well. After the movie Kaari made us some delicious green smoothies with her Vita-Mix. She has that smoothie down to a tee! Tastes just like something from Jamba Juice. Yum!

The next week, the Spencer Family came to Utah for their annual ski trip with Sean’s side of the family. This year, that meant Duke was left with George and Nancy. Duke and Charlie are about nine months apart, so we thought this would be a good time to let them get to know each other better. I think there were three days that week that Charlie and I went to visit and play. Turns out, Capri wasn’t really into the whole skiing thing, so they ended up bringing her to Alpine as well after a day or two. On Saturday, we joined George, Nancy, Capri, Duke, and Karl for the opening of Trellis Cafe at Thanksgiving Point. Nancy is basically a VIP there...she is probably their number one customer! After the ski weekend was over, Alli stayed a few more days to spend time with the Gruber side. We met up with them, and April, Mya, and Elsa at their house for a little cousin play time, and then had lunch at the nearby Arctic Circle. The kids loved the play place and the courtesy cones. 

Nancy and Duke

At Trellis Cafe

Enjoying the sunshine! Charlie wasn't sure how he felt about the pokey grass...

Luckily, the week that Duke came to stay, it was pretty nice weather. One day that week, Charlie and I met up with Alisha and Logan for a fun walk in the park at Discovery Park. I am really loving this phase of motherhood. Life is good!

Charlie is really into touching babies' faces lately

Also, that weekend was the opening night of The Host. Jason and I had both read the book and really enjoyed it...so we were excited for the movie to come out. My Aunt Erin had also read the book in time for the movie, and so she invited us to go with her and her son, Dylan. I was really happy with how they did the movie! I really liked it. The only thing I wish was different, was when I was reading the books, I really liked the character, Ian...and had more of a connection with him, not Jared. But in the movie, Jared was more of the heart throb...and Ian was...basically...ugly...! Yeah, I am pretty rude and shallow. But that is my honest feedback. Oh and also, when I saw the previews for the movie, I was not excited about the girl they chose for the main girl...but she ended up doing a good job. While Jason and I were at the movie, Charlie was at home being tended by Aunt Camry and Uncle Bryan.

Another date was with my cousin, Paul, and his wife and daughter, Mandy and Lily. We met up at the Brick Oven. Love that place! It is basically a Phillips tradition...and it seems like whenever we see them, we always eat there. Hey, I’m not complaining one bit! After dinner, we went back to their house in Provo while Mandy finished up a little birthday project for me. I had asked her/hired her to embroider a hoop for me to give as a gift to my friend, Amy. I gave her a quote that Amy loves, and she designed and stitched the hoop. It turned out so beautiful and absolutely perfect! I love it! I was a little jealous to have to give it away at that point. I think it is such a great idea and such an awesome niche that she has. She sells her hoops on Etsy and can be found here. 

Picture from Mandy's shop

And last but not least (and not a date), we gave into the warm weather and planted a few things in our little gardening pots. We haven’t done the garden yet, we are waiting for the random snow storms and freezing night temperatures to go away. But we did plant some basil, cilantro, and forget-me-nots. We have already started to see some growth! How exciting!

Apparently, I still need to make a sign for the forget-me-nots..but it's kind of a long name...

Charlie's Ninth Month

 

Charlie is nine months old! Man, he is growing right before my eyes!

At the beginning of his ninth month, I was pretty much done nursing. I would only nurse a tiny bit when he would wake up for night feedings. I started my menstrual cycle on February 19th (boo), and a couple weeks following that I completely stopped nursing (March 5th). I’m glad I was able to nurse as long as I did...even though I think Jason was hoping I could continue until Charlie was a year old. But it was time, and based on my production, I didn’t have much of a choice. 

Charlie got his second haircut on February 25th. Jason considers this his first “real” haircut since this time we trimmed his whole head, rather than just around his ears and neck. Charlie’s eyes are still blue! And I am completely shocked! Neither Jason or I have blue eyes...and with my  brown eyes, I thought for sure all of my children would have brown eyes. There is still a possibility that his eyes can change color up to a year old, but they are looking pretty blue...and I have a feeling that they will stay that way. He still does not have any teeth..which I am grateful for. I didn’t have to experience nursing with teeth, and he is so dang cute with his gummy smile!

Charlie is really becoming quite the Mr. Rolly-Polly! He loves to move and roll around. At the beginning of the month he started sticking his butt up a little while laying on his stomach, showing progress towards crawling. By the middle of the month, he started moving forward a little bit by using his toes, lifting his butt, and swimming with his arms and elbows. This quickly turned into a legitimate army crawl. With all of this movement, he is getting very difficult to change. Whenever I lay him on his back to change his diaper or clothes, he is instantly twisting, turning, and squirming everywhere. And because I am restricting his movement, it often turns into a little crying fit. 

Charlie's crawling progression:

 

More cute movement:

Here is a list of foods that Charlie has eaten in his ninth month of life: peas, carrots, green beans, bananas, applesauce, sweet potatoes, avocado, yogurt, mangos, cottage cheese, and scrambled eggs. I have also offered him some of those little star cracker puffs...he still isn’t quite sure how to pick them up every times, and when they do make it into his mouth he sometimes forgets the chewing step of the process. It seems like with each new food he has tried, it has taken a few exposures before he really comes around to it. He always acts a little disinterested with new foods, so it seems like he hates everything. But once he is fed it enough and recognizes the flavor, he usually starts liking it. He still loves his rice and grain cereal the most, but other real food favorites that we have noticed are peas, bananas, sweet potatoes, and yogurt. He really didn’t like the applesauce for awhile, and he absolutely hated the mango (which is too bad because it was an awesome mango!). He didn’t like the avocado either, but I didn’t give him much of a chance since he broke out with a terrible diaper rash shortly after that I theorized may have been caused by the avocado. His diaper rash was so terrible that it looked like he had open sores that were bright red! You could tell he was in a lot of pain...and that definitely did not help with our diaper changing problem. His bum was practically suffocating in Neosporin, Butt Paste, and Desitin for a good week or so. It will be awhile before I try feeding him avocado again. 

Sweet potatoes

Mealtime giggles:

 

He started another cold, but luckily this one wasn’t nearly as bad or nearly as long as the last one. Poor little guy seems to be getting sick like every other month. Because he was sick, we were sleeping him in the swing at night to keep him elevated...but we quickly learned that we cannot do that anymore. Since he was wrapped in his blankets, we didn’t have him buckled into the swing. He woke up crying in the middle of the night, and when I went in there to calm and feed him, I found him laying on his stomach on the floor in front of the swing. The poor guy had fallen out of the swing! I felt terrible and it totally freaked me out. We decided it was time to move on from the good old swing days. Man, how I loved that swing though...thank you Max and April for lending it to us!

Charlie is taking two naps a day in his crib, wrapped in his white blanket. He requires a bottle every time he is put down now. He will drink between 4-8 oz at each of these feedings (depending on how quickly he falls asleep). He isn’t holding his own bottle yet, so I am feeding it to him in my arms.

I’m starting to try and transition him from swaddling. He is getting too big and too strong for the SwaddleMe. He still likes to be wrapped up for sleeping, whether it is a nap or night time. It seems like he cannot fall asleep unless his arms are safely and firmly in front of him on his chest or stomach. But rather than swaddling him so tightly, I am working on just wrapping him loosely, so he can fall asleep with his arms in “proper placement”, but is free to move them throughout the night. I would like to get to the point of being able to put him in his crib and then just lay a blanket over him, but we’re not quite there yet. He is, however, starting to turn over on his stomach a little bit during naps. I’m excited about that because he is getting over his hatred of tummy time and I hear that babies sleep better on their stomachs. Towards the end of the ninth month, he started complaining a little bit when being rocked to sleep and wanted to be put down in the crib so he could chatter with himself and roll around until finding a comfortable position to fall asleep in. This is rarely the case, but I am starting to see this happen more often. He is still waking up about once every night...and the only way we can get him back down is by feeding him a bottle. 

 

Love seeing this face in the mornings and after naps

...and love seeing this legs sometimes instead

Charlie had his first bath in the “big tub” with Mommy on March 1st. He did really well, so after that we have let him take a bath on his own (with very close supervision of course). He still loves taking his baths. He loves sitting in the warm water and splashing around with his feet and hands. He is all smiles when he is in the tub. 

Charlie loves to cuddle and wrestle with Daddy in the morning in bed. It is so cute! They are quite the pair. He is also starting to do this fake laugh that is adorable and hilarious! He is starting to become little more feisty and demanding! He will swipe at my face while I am feeding him or changing him because he thinks it is funny...but it is actually starting to kind of hurt. He pushes his bottle away and his food when I am spoon feeding him things he doesn’t particularly like. He tries to rip off his bib while I am feeding him, and it is so irritating! Just keep the dang thing on, Charlie!

 

 

Still loves sitting up

Finally warm enough weather for a walk in the stroller

A fun ride created by Daddy and Uncle Bryan:

Charlie loved it!

Still lovin' his ExerSaucer: 

Visiting Grandma Arbon and Aunt Erin:

It's ok Charlie, it's just Great Grandma!

Me, Charlie, Brooke, and Olivia

Charlie giving the thumbs up

Our little Newsie

Charlie and Aunt Camry

He loves playing/banging on the piano

 

Nine Month Photo Shoot with Amy Stallings: