Love Bug

So we went to Cedar City this weekend to visit my sister for her little boy's blessing. While we were there, all 4 of my mom's grandkids got together in costume and we got some cute pics I thought you guys would enjoy! So here you go!

Diaper Duty

I thought we would share a post about Siena's fabulous cloth diapers. Now rest assured these aren't old school with safety pins and plastic pants and all of that good stuff, heavens no! She's got the Bum Genius, the best of the best, with velcro closures, super absorbable inserts, and the best part... they are adjustable! They have snaps in the front that you can adjust to any size from 3 months to 3 years (hopefully she is potty trained before then!). And I never thought I could deal with baby poop, but what they say, 'it's different when it's your own' is really true! I don't even mind so much ... most of the time :)
I also posted 2 pictures of Siena's favorite positions. She loves looking at the world upside-down!

Dancin' with Daddy

I thought I'd post a couple pictures of Thad dancing with his little girl. I just walked into the room and they were waltzing! So cute! Also, it turns out that Siena LOVES her Grandpa Garlick! We got the cute picture of her smiling while her grandpa was holding her. And Thad is always holding her on our bench on our porch. Siena loves to be outside! She is our nature girl.
Oh, and thanks for all of your comments/concerns/suggestions/stories about the babysitting issue. We have been VERY fortunate to find a babysitter who works close to the school where I work. Her kids go to school here, so she picks up Siena when she drops her other kids off at school. I don't even have to drop her off! And it is REALLY a blessing to be able to see her and nurse her during my lunch break! And to top it all off, she only charges about half the rate we were paying before! We have been really blessed to find such a great arrangement!

Baby-sitting Blues

So our amazing wonderful and fabulous baby-sitter (and relief society president) just has too much on er plate and can't watch Siena any more while I am at work. I was so depressed yesterday when I found out, because it's so hard to find someone that you totally trust and is willing to watch your little infant. So I have been busy calling around and trying to find someone else ASAP. It's harder than you might think to leave your child in someone else's care. Anyway, here are some pics. Enjoy.

Welcome Jairus!

I have been in Cedar City this weekend, because my little sister Melissa had her first baby on Wednesday. His name is Jairus Ethan Eggertsen, and he is a major cutie (with big feet- the same length as Siena's)! My brother Jeff, sister-in-law Mary and their 2 kids, Hyrum and Joseph were also there. Mary's sister Martha had her baby, Esther Truth, the day before Jairus was born. So the picture of the four of us on the couch are me, Melissa, Martha and Mary with our babes.

Baldy

So I never really cared for those bald spots in the back of the head that little babies get from rubbing it all off...until, of course, Siena got one. She works on that spot night and day, rubbing her head back and forth, side to side, whenever she's lying down. Even on the sides of her head, you can tell that her hair is thinning! I guess to her, it's a game. Here are our latest.

Playing with the Camera

Since Siena was born, she's had this constant serious expression on her face. One of these pictures shows that perfectly! But lately she has started to smile a lot. I still haven't been able to catch one of her beautiful smiles on camera yet, but we got half a smile in one of these pictures. And since Siena actually took one of these pics all on her own! I didn't realize she had touched the button on my computer with her foot. Who knew she was so talented?!?

Big Girl

I was playing around with the camera and took a picture of Siena sitting in her Bumbo chair. She looks like such a grown-up little baby when she's in it!

Blessing Time

Siena received her official church blessing on Sunday. Her daddy gave her the blessing. He blessed her that she would be obedient and listen to her parents (her mommy really liked that part :). She was also blessed with compassion, thirst after knowledge and learning, and that she would have a healthy life, among other things.
My sister Melissa lent us this dress that she bought in Venice (Murano) a few years back for her future daughters for her blessing. It was so long and lacy. It was pretty tricky getting her into the car seat, as you can tell from the picture!

Birthday Fun

As many of you know, I had my birthday last Saturday. We had some fun experiences I thought I would share with you. To start off the day, I was challenged by my friend/almost sister Caroline that I needed to do something crazy that day or she would be very disappointed in me (never a good thing). She suggested that we go to DI and I wear the most hideous outfit we could find all day. Tempting... actually we almost did exactly that. My idea was to put on a Halloween costume and go trick-or-treating. Unfortunately, the crew I was hanging out with (Siena, Thad, Melissa and my mom) weren't really up for that.
Well, Melissa came over to my house and made a lovely crepe breakfast for me. That was definitely the best meal of the day! I was a little bummed I couldn't eat them with Nutella, though, because we found out a couple of weeks ago that Siena is allergic to dairy, and since I am breastfeeding, this means that I can't eat anything with dairy in it. But I gotta say, she is such a happy baby since we figured that out!
Well, for lunch, I decided we should go to McGrath's Fish House. We hadn't been there in a while (a couple of years), and I remember it being really good the last time I went. Well, I had been craving coconut shrimp for a long time, so I was excited to try it there. For $11, I got 4 small, rubbery shrimp. Yay. And french fries on the side (the waitress informed me that this was their only dairy-free side dish). There were vegetables on the side, so I tried the zucchini, thinking it would be the redeeming grace of my meal. As it turns out, I'm pretty sure the cook accidentally grabbed a bottle of pesticide instead of seasoning when preparing the veggies. I couldn't even get them down! And if you know me, you know I love my veggies! Melissa's pasta was drenched in butter, and my mom's cod-encrusted sole was soggy and tasted like it may have been last week's special. Thad's fish and chips were fine (honestly, how could how screw that one up?).
Well, when the waitress came by, I said, "I'm 29 today!" She said nothing. My mom said "She's ignoring you." I tried again. "Hey, guess what? Today's my birthday!" The waitress says "Oh, ok." and walks away. So I thought, 'well, I guess that's that.'
Meanwhile, Siena was getting fussy, so I decided to nurse her. There was hardly anyone in the restaurant, so I didn't even bother putting on my hooter hider (nursing cover). I was in the middle of nursing her when all of the waiters and waitresses gathered around me to sing Happy Birthday. You should have seen the look on the guys faces as I'm sitting there breastfeeding! You would think they would have asked if they could come back in a few minutes. No, they just stood there awkwardly, not sure what to do. I hastily threw on the hooter hider, and they put a huge fish on my head. I was wearing my sunglasses on top of my head, so the fish hat wasn't fitting right, and they kept pushing the hard fish hat down harder and harder, crushing my sunglasses into my skull, then sang Happy Birthday. Of course, they hadn't asked my what my name was, so they just kind of muttered that part... When they finally finished, our waitress presented ,e with my "dairy-free" dessert. She excitedly explained that the chef had created it especially for me. I asked her what it was, and she said, "chocolate with strawberries!" I said, "And it doesn't have dairy?" She grinned, "It shouldn't!" and merrily skipped away. I thought, 'when was the last time milk chocolate didn't have milk in it?! This must be some kind of breakthrough!'
So I tried it, and guess what? It was straight-up Hershey's chocolate syrup with those thawed, fermented strawberries you see at cheap all-you-can-eat buffets on top. Disgusting, but at least it was "dairy-free"! Anyway, the whole situation was pretty hilarious!
So after that, we went to DI (the local thrift store), to find hideous pajamas for my pajama part that night. I decided that if anyone came not wearing pajamas, they would have to wear some that we picked out for them. Melissa, my mom and I all tried on some pretty hideous pajamas (think mumus from the '70s). My mom got a picture on her camera, so I will try to get that and upload it later.
Meanwhile, I will still trying to think of something crazy to do (as if the whole breastfeeding incident at McGrath's weren't enough!), so I found a bike at DI and rode that around until I ran into a lady (the seat was too high, and I didn't have much control over the steering wheel), so I figured the pogo ball would be a safer bet, until I almost fell off of it. It was tricky jumping around on it because the place was so crowded. After that, every time I walked by these guys that saw me jumping on it, they pointed at me, and started talking and laughing. Nice.
After that, we dropped Thad odd at home, and we went to Costco to get food for the party that night. I nursed Siena in her sling the entire time walking around Costco (I was quite impressed with myself), and YES, I was wearing the hooter hider. We got balloons after that, where I backed up into a trailer in the parking lot and smashed out the guy's tail light.
The party was nice- just a few close friends hanging out. My friend Shauna from Cali even came, and I hadn't seen her for over a year! Then the weather picked up and stared pouring.
All in all, a pretty eventful and memorable day.

Glamour Shots

So I took Siena to Kiddie Kandids today for a photo session. It only took an hour and thirty-six minute photo session to get 7 pictures. This probably had something to do with the fact that she kept getting fussy and grumpy or else falling asleep. So in most of these pictures, she's asleep. I never had any idea how hard it is to take pictures of babies! Anyway, here are the ones we got, and you better enjoy them because we worked really hard for them!

First Time in Church

This last Sunday, Siena went to church for the first time. We only stayed one hour, for sacrament meeting, so I figured she would probably sleep through the whole thing. As it turned out, she woke up soon after we got there, and I had to take her out twice. She sure looked cute in her little dress though!
Oh, and for all interested, we are going to bless her on August 3rd. Sacrament starts at 11:00, so call if you want to come and we can give you the address to the chapel.

Siena and Sully

I was hanging out with my friend Mijken yesterday and her little boy Sullivan when our babies got tired. We decided to put them down next to each other and they did great! They kept inching closer to each other. It was really cute! So here's a picture of that, and another one of me holding my beautiful daughter on her one month-day (yesterday).
Siena is one month old in this picture, and Sully is 2 months old.

Siena's Stepping Stones

I wanted to get some more recent pictures up here. I took these 1 minute ago. You can tell she is sleeping right now (the only time I get a chance to blog).
So I have been charting the amazing things that Siena has done over the past 4 weeks. That's right, she turned 4 weeks old today! Here are her amazing feats:

Day 1 - She cried real tears (and has ever since- it totally breaks my heart!)
Day 2 - She had a fixed gaze and looked directly into our eyes
Day 3 - She pushed her whole body up with her strong, muscular legs. She's Actually got definition on those babies!
Day 4 - She lifted up and turned her head while laying on my chest
Day 5 - She lost her umbilical cord
Day 6 - She had gained back her birth weight (+1 ounce!)
Day 7 - She rolled on to her side to go to sleep. This is the position she prefers to sleep in.
Week 2 - She didn't cry when I gave her a bath. She never cries for diaper changes either- it's great!
Week 3 - She turned her whole body over! (She was lying on a pillow, so this probably helped) Also, her salivary glands kicked in and she learned how to drool.
Week 4- Siena is 4 weeks old today! She just keeps getting cuter! I can see more and more of myself in her every day. When I first saw her, I thought she was just Thad's baby. But it turns out that even though she was fortunate enough to inherit his good skin and hair coloring, she has a LOT of my features! She looks a lot like I did when I was a little baby- it's pretty amazing!