Family Photo Shoot

Way back at the end of September, we did a family photo shoot with our wedding photographer, Michael Lloyd. What was super awesome, was that it was free! Well...kind of. We had originally paid for our wedding package to include bridals. However, we never got around to taking them, so he told us we could "cash in" later with a family shoot or something. So three years later, I called him up and let him know I had a baby and wanted to take some family pictures. He was super awesome about allowing us to use our "credit" and spent over an hour with us behind the Riverwoods. It was a beautiful location. We got our pictures back around Thanksgiving, just in time for our Christmas cards. I meant to post some of the pictures from the shoot. Here are just a few of my favorites:

7 months

Owen turned 7 months old! (10 days ago, but better late than never) He is growing and doing so well. At seven months, he weighed around 17 pounds. One of the biggest changes in the past month has been the introduction to solid foods. He took a little time to get adjusted, but he is doing great and will easily eat 4-6 oz. of food at a time. He loves: Sweet Potatoes, Squash, Applesauce, Pears, Carrots, and Rice Cereal He tolerates: Peas and Prunes He hates: Green beans and anything homemade (so far cauliflower and squash) I'm hoping he gets over his hatred of homemade baby food. I'm thinking it's a texture thing and he just needs some time to get used to it.


Another big change has been the start of "sleep training" (basically crying it out). The Mommy in me hates hearing him cry and wants to run to him. But the behaviorist in me knows that it's for the best in helping him to learn how to self-soothe and go to sleep on his own. Luckily, I have gotten off easy. We first worked on Owen going to sleep at night on his own. This only took a few days. The first day he cried for 20 (agonizing) minutes. The second and third he only cried for about 5-8 minutes. Often he will now just go to sleep without much of a peep. Occasionally we get a fussy night and he cries for a bit, but it's never been long. (Thank goodness...I'm not sure I have nerves of steel to go any longer). Next we worked on getting him to sleep through the night. This was WAY easy. *Hallelujah* He woke up one time, cried for 10 minutes and went back to sleep. The same thing happened about two weeks later, but besides that, he now sleep from about 7:30 or 8 pm until sometime between 6 and 8 am. Oftentimes if he wakes up on the early side, he'll eat and go back to sleep for another hour or two. So we are in a much happier state these days. His naps are still short and irregular, but I'd rather have that than him waking up multiple times at night.


Owen likes to sleep on his tummy and within seconds of being laid down in his crib, will roll over. He is also all over the place in his crib and I'll find him in the corners of the crib, with his arms sticking out of the rails, or totally flipped around from where I laid him down. He's a crazy sleeper. He started jumping in his exersaucer, so we brought out this jumper thing that hangs in the doorway. It took him a few times before getting the hang of it, but now that he's got it down, HE LOVES IT! It is so fun to watch him go crazy jumping up and down in it.

Owen is very grabby and loves to reach out and grab hair, glasses, shirts, faces, eyes, noses, necks, or whatever he can get his hands on. Sometimes it's pretty painful when he gets a good hold on you and squeezes with his little fingers and nails.
He just must love to explore things however, because he also gets distracted when nursing and wants to reach out and grab whatever is around him...including the book I'm reading. So reading while nursing has declined. He has started to become more active during bath time and loves to splash and kick. He also likes to grab the cup I use and practice drinking out of it.

Owen has been sitting up for a while now. I don't really remember when he first did it unassisted...probably last month. But he's doing great at it and only falls over when he's reaching for something to the side.

He has started whining. I don't know why, but he has decided that his normal fuss wasn't good enough, so he whines. But what we really love is this silly growl he does over and over. I guess he's experimenting with his voice.
We sure love our little boy. He is so much fun and such a good baby!

Pie Party!

Miles decided that this year we would continue his Dad's tradition of doing a pie party after Thanksgiving. His Dad has the pie party Thanksgiving night and invites a ton of people over to nosh on a variety of pies. We decided to do it the following day in hopes that we would get a bigger turn out. Not to mention we were stuffed from dinner...there's no way we'd have room for that many pies!

We invited a lot of people, but many were either out of town or otherwise engaged. Luckily we still got a decent turnout and had about 20 people over. Of course that wasn't near enough for the FIFTEEN pies we had. Miles and I made nine pies, Marci made three and three people brought pies with them.

Back to front: Banana Cream, Chocolate Cream, Jell-O Cheesecake, Sweet Potato, Dutch Apple, and Pumpkin.

Back to front: Jell-O Cheesecake, Peanut Butter Chiffon, Double Chocolate Cream, Buttermilk with Raspberry Sauce.

Pies not shown: Cookie pie and Triple Berry. We also had doubles of some of the pies.

Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures during the party of our guests and the festivities. Oops. But I think it was enjoyed by all. We sent a lot of people home with left over pie and luckily we only ended up with one and a half pies in our house. It was a lot of fun and I'm excited to do it again whenever we are home for Thanksgiving.

Giving Thanks

For Thanksgiving this year, we went up to Kerry's in-laws' home to celebrate with the Wickmans. Miles and I brought Marci with us since she wasn't able to make it down to Arizona and ended up stuck in Provo. Marci was our photographer for the day.

Lance carving the turkey:
Glorious mashed potatoes:
Delicious, buttery rolls:
Yummy Pumpkin Pie:
This was the only photo we got of Marci that day with her super cute hair and top:
Kerry and Matt were fostering a puppy for a couple weeks:

It was a wonderful Thanksgiving feast. I did miss that we forgot to do the traditional round of saying what you are grateful for. That's something I always enjoy doing. But I was still able to give thanks in my heart for all the wonderful blessings I have. It was just last year that I was giving thanks for having my sweet baby in my tummy. Now I get to enjoy his beautiful spirit in my life. I am so grateful for my family (in-laws included) and the friendships I share. We have been so blessed this year!

Belated Birthday at Bombay

Miles promised that he would take me out to Bombay House for my birthday, but we just couldn't find the right time to go. Finally we made plans with a friend of his from work, got a babysitter (Uncle Mitchell) and went out. It was only our second time leaving Owen. I wasn't worried though because I knew his Uncle Mitchell would take care of him. Not to mention I was far too excited about our meal and going out on our second date sans Owen since he'd been born. For the most part, things went ok. Unfortunately we got a call from Mitchell saying that Owen wouldn't eat his food or take a bottle and was just crying the whole time. I thought that was pretty odd, but figured he was just super tired so I told him to put him to bed. Come to find out, Owen has something against anyone else feeding him besides Mom or Dad. So he was just scared and skipped out on eating and went to bed on an empty tummy. Poor little guy. However, as Miles reminds me...he survived, and slept through the night anyway. So I guess we just need more practice having other people feed him.

Anyway, back to our date... David Hoover is kind of like Miles's supervisor at work. Miles really likes him, so and David thought it would be fun to get together with their wives and get to know one another. I had met his wife at a company party at Lagoon and she seemed really nice. So we met up for dinner at Bombay. I forgot to take a picture of our delicious food, but here are Jen and David:

Group shot after dinner:

It was a fun evening. Bombay never disappoints and the company was great. We had plans to leave and go hang out after dinner, but we just ended up talking at the restaurant for three hours...until they closed. It's always great making new friends!

Trips to Tooele

Over the past couple of months, Miles, Owen and I have taken a lot of trips out to Tooele. Usually there was some reason (General Conference, baby blessing, or visiting with family that was in town) but we also have just wanted to go out and spend time with Miles's grandparents. Our last trip we made was so we could have some quality grandparent time and video them teaching us how to make their delicious homemade bread. Grandma and Grandpa Wright are pros, and while they have taught us before, we thought it would be nice to have it recorded for posterity...that and so we don't forget what we're doing. ;) Grandma also showed us how to make her delectable coffee cake/sunburst. I think the four of us downed that thing in just two days! Here are some pictures from our latest trip, as well as some previous visits from the past month.

Owen loved Great Grandpa's glasses:

Little monkey in Grandma's hair:

Great Grandma spent a lot of time entertaining and playing with Owen:

And Daddy's favorite part...showing Owen the gun that Miles will inherit from Great Grandpa:

It's Official...

...I am a terrible Mom. No really. After all the stories, the warnings and the signs that it could happen...Owen rolled off the bed. I feel awful. I'm such an idiot. Just yesterday I left the room briefly and came right back in to find him in the process of rolling near the edge. I rushed in and got him before anything happened. So why, I ask myself, did I not heed the warning signs? I thought I was safe today because he was in the middle of the bed. I thought I was safe because I was all of five feet away from him. I thought I was safe because it usually takes him some effort to roll from his tummy to his back and surely I'd hear that. But no. Not safe. Instead I heard a thump and found my sweet little boy laying flat on his face on the floor. And instead of the giggles I heard when we played on the bed, I heard terrible cries of sadness and pain. Cries that broke my heart. So it's official. I am a horrible Mom.

Miles said I need to realize that I'm going to make mistakes as a parent and forgive myself. I know that's true, but I hate to think that it's because of my actions that Owen experienced pain. I hope I can avoid these kinds of mistakes in the future and be a better Mom.

And just so you know, I'm not posting this for sympathy or to hear that I'm not a bad Mom. I'm posting it so I never forget the day that I realized I can never be too safe when it comes to watching out and caring for my baby.

First "Solids"

After the doctor told us we could start Owen on solids, Miles was ecstatic. He has been dying to give Owen solid food. While I was gone to California, Miles told me he was really excited for something. I said, "For us to come home." He said, "Well yeah, that too. But I'm really excited to feed Owen solid food!" So that night after Owen's doctor appointment we went out and bought some baby food and rice cereal. Miles couldn't have been happier. Here's what happened...

Day 1:



Day 2:

Owen is one hot mess!

6 Months

I can't believe it. Owen is half a year old! Time is just flying by and I know he's going to be so big before I realize it.

We just had our check up with the doctor on Monday. Owen's stats are MUCH better than they were at his four-month checkup.

Head: 43.5 cm. (40th percentile)
Length: 26 in. (30th percentile)
Weight: 16 lbs. 4 oz. (30th percentile)

The doctor was really pleased with his progress and said he is doing excellent. We talked a lot about (1) his sleep and (2) eating solids.

Owen's sleep has still been all over the place. He has amazing nights of 10+ hours of sleep and then other nights where he wakes up every couple of hours. He did have back to back colds in October, so part of it could be due to being sick. But generally, he is still all over the place. The doctor said he is old enough and big enough to sleep through the night, so there may be some sleep training up ahead for us!

Owen fell asleep in his bouncy chair one day while I was showering:

The doctor also said that we can go ahead and start him on solids. I am excited for this!

Some other developments in Owen's sixth month of life are... He started "talking" when he fusses and says, "Ma, ma, ba, ma, ma," and other sounds like that. It's so cute and it's almost like he's trying to explain why he's so upset. I love it.

We tried him out in his Bumbo for the first time this month. He likes it ok for short periods of time. But he often either leans forward and tries to eat the Bumbo, or ends up twisted to the side trying to reach things off the counter.


He loves it when we snap our fingers and will give us a big grin whenever we do it.

On October 12th, he rolled from his tummy to his back one time. Then on the 17th, he rolled from his back to tummy, to back, to tummy, etc. about four times in a row. He repeated this a couple days later. However, he hasn't been rolling to his back lately and has reverted to fussing and complaining when he's "stuck" on his tummy.

Something else I love is that he has started reaching up and touching our faces. He does this a lot when we are rocking him to sleep. I love his small, gentle little hands on my mouth, nose, cheek and chin.

He has also started using his Exersaucer and seems to enjoy that for short periods of time.

He sucks on his bottom lip a lot, and sometimes he will stick his tongue out and let it hang there for a minute.

When I put him to bed at night and lay him in his crib, he'll often twist to the side, arch his back and crank his head back. Apparently this is a comfortable position for him.