Flashback Sunday: Fall 2006

I know, I know, the only way to describe Flashback Sunday for the last couple of several weeks is: FAIL. I could make up excuses about how we've been so busy (which I guess we have) but it wouldn't matter. You make time for the things that are important, no matter how busy you get.

Today at church, we revisited the goals we made at the beginning of the year. We felt sufficiently chastised. So, we recommitted ourselves to Flashback Sunday.

This post is just a random assortment of fun things we did during the Fall of 2006.

Sam's roommate had these silly hats. We wore them to my apartment one night to model for Philip and Merrick. They were amused. It's funny, because it's bigger than a normal hat.

For my 20th birthday, Sam made me a delicious dinner of BLTs and then took me horseback riding at his Aunt and Uncle's house. I had never been horseback riding and I had mentioned to him once that it was something I had always wanted to do. It was a really fun surprise.

After the horseback ride, we went for a walk. Sam gave me a ring he got on his mission. It was called a black diamond. He said he wanted me to wear the black diamond until he could buy me a real one. (I later wore that ring when my wedding ring wouldn't fit on my swollen, pregnant hands.)

We took a road trip down to Cedar City to watch Sam's buddy Tater play football at SUU. Sam taught Tater and his family on his mission. It was so neat to meet him and his awesome family along with one of Sam's mission companions (and his future wife.)

Sam played in frisbee and flag football intramural leagues. I went and watched all of his games, rain or shine.

We attended all of the home BYU football games. We would usually try and make it to the Street Heat before the games to visit Sam's work friends and check out the vendors.

We went with a group of friends to a corn maze. While we were going through the maze, Sam manage to get gouged in the leg by a wooden maze marker. The corn maze was another first for me.

We attended a lot of Sunday dinners at my Aunt and Uncle's house. Around Halloween, all of her grand kids come over in their costumes so we decided to join in the festivities. (The blurry/self timer photo shows how much fun we always had together.)

Clara's First Bites

Our doctor strongly encouraged us to start Clara on rice cereal in an effort to help with her weight gain. I was hesitant at first because she still seems too little. We waited until Abby was six months to start her on solids. However, our doctor mentioned that some kids take a while to really get going with solids (and several of my friends have had that experience), so she thought if we started now, Clara would be a pro by six months.


Daddy was so excited to feed Abby and the excitement continued with Clara.

Starting solids always makes me sad. (And when I say always, I mean the two times I've done it.) It marks the end of the phase where my baby solely relies on me for nourishment. It was easier this time since Clara has been taking bottles with bits of formula added for the past couple of weeks.

Abby helped feed her a couple of bites and then acted as photographer.

She was spitting most of it back out at first--simply because she didn't know what else to do with it. But, by the end, she was swallowing it down like a champ.

In other feeding related news, Clara had another appointment with the doctor last week. She continues to gain weight and the doctor seems really pleased with her progress. She is still tiny but I think she always will be. We're just happy to see her moving in an upward motion along the growth curve.

Grammy and Grandpa Visit

My parents came to visit for a week and a half. As usual, their visit was filled with yummy food and lots of spoiling. My girls are blessed with two sets of stupendous grandparents!

We brought grammy to the park with us for a friend's birthday party. Grandpa stayed home with the sleeping baby.

Abby loves the sprinklers.

And, she really loved the pinata.

Snuggling in bed.

We took grandpa to the pool.
Abby borrowed this floaty from another little kid at the pool.

Lounging with grandpa.

Grandpa paid Abby to walk on his back. Ha! He used to try the same thing on me when I was a kid but I wasn't as easily bought. Lucky for me, Abby walks on my back for free!

Abby and Grandpa checking their e-mail.

Abby built a bus for everyone to take a ride.

We made another trip to Reading Terminal. Abby and I tried the famous Bassett's ice cream. Yum!

We went down to Valley Green to feed the ducks and take a walk.

We nixed a trip to the shore because of an extreme heat advisory. We went and walked around Ikea instead.

We sure love having Grammy and Grandpa visit!

Foam Rollers

I don't know about you but when I was a kid, I had to sleep in foam rollers the night before any special occasion--picture day, Christmas, Easter, etc.

Now, I wasn't cruel enough to make Abby sleep in them, but I put foam rollers in her hair before church on Sunday. And, we decided to put one in Clara's tuft too.

Here the girls are in their rollers. (Did I mention that we have visitors? More on that later.)

Here they are with their curls.

Clara's little curl was hilarious. She looked like the Gerber baby!

Abby looked at her reflection and said, "I look like somebody else." Ha!

I'll probably subject the girls to many more curlers in the future and when they're big enough, I will probably even make them sleep in 'em.

Bottles, Bottles, Everywhere

Last week, Clara had her four-month check-up with the pediatrician. A few days before the appointment, we had the suspicion that she hadn't been gaining very much weight. So, I started to pump every night before I went to bed and to nurse her on both sides (which I never did with Abby) to see if that would help.


As with all doctor's appointments, the first thing the nurse did was take Clara's measurements. Sam went out with Clara to the scale and I heard the nurse say 9 lbs. 9 oz. My heart dropped. That was only five more ounces than her two-month visit.

A few minutes later, the doctor came in to the room. The first thing she said was, well, the first thing I noticed on her chart was a little alarming. She hasn't really gained any weight since her last visit.

They like babies to gain between 1/2 ounce to 1 ounce a day and Clara had only gained 5 ounces in 60+ days. She told us we needed to get A LOT more in her every day, whether breast milk or formula.

Needless to say, I was pretty devastated. I felt like I had been starving my sweet baby. We knew she was skinny, but we didn't realize it was that bad. She never cries, so I had no indication that she was hungry.

The next day, I pumped during each of her feedings while Sam fed her a bottle of previously pumped milk to see what we were dealing with. Let's just say, it wasn't pretty.

So, I went into full-on pump mode.

Despite pumping every two hours, I wasn't coming close to keeping up. Every day the freezer had one less bottle at the end of the day.

Sam took her in for her weight check yesterday and she had gained 10 oz! We were thrilled and the doctor was pleased. However, Clara is still way behind where she should be. The extra 10 oz. took her from the .05 percentile to around the 1 percentile. The doctor advised us to increase her intake even more if we could. So yesterday, we did what I was dreading and trying desperately to avoid and put a little bit of formula in her bottle.

I'm still pumping like crazy and started drinking this horrendous herbal tea that is supposed to help with lactation to see if I can catch up and get back to nursing exclusively.

I was never one of those people who love to nurse, but being told that what I was doing wasn't enough changed my heart. I hope and pray that things can get back to normal. I miss my special time with my little sweetheart.

A Lot Can Happen In Four Months

As I have mentioned before, there are five guys from church in Sam's dental school class and all of us were expecting babies at the same time.

Four of us have had our babies and the last is due in about two months.

Megan and Sarah came to visit me.
Sarah and I went to visit Megan.
And today, Megan and I went to visit Sarah.

We each welcomed our second baby into the world--three beautiful girls.

It's crazy that they will be toddlers when we leave Philly.

Branching Out

I decided to overcome work on overcoming my aversion to using recipes from the computer. There are so many amazing resources out there, it's a shame to let them go to waste. And one day, when I have a little more counter space (thus avoiding the need to repeatedly walk into the other room to check the recipe) I will embrace the food blog world with open arms.Per my sister-in-law's request, I decided to try out:


Here are the recipes we tried this week:

The Best Ground Beef Tacos: When she threw the words "the best" out there, I was a little skeptical. I mean, that's a pretty big claim to live up to. Now, I don't know if I can endorse the label (come on, I'm an Arizona girl and I know a whole lot about delicious tacos), but I must admit, they were very good. Sam ate four and loved them and then proceeded to delight in two days of leftovers.

Ham and Sweet Potato Hash: We are firm believers in brinner and we love sweet potatoes, so this recipe immediately sparked my interest. I like a good, hearty brinner and one with some veggies in it is even better. Doesn't leave me feeling quite as guilty as fluffy waffles with homemade syrup (mmmmm). We really enjoyed this recipe but added some cheese for good measure because really, what meal isn't made better by cheese? (Maybe the fluffy waffles with homemade syrup.)

Tri Color Pasta Salad: I added some pepperoni to make it a bit more substantial for dinner. There was a lot leftover so we brought the rest to a Fourth of July BBQ. I think it was even yummier after 48 hours marinating in the fridge.

Crispy Southwest Chicken Wraps: These were super yummy. I liked that they were crispy without being deep fried (oh, how I love things deep fried).

Mel's Kitchen Cafe gets a gold star. Anyone else have a favorite food blog I should try?