Month Four

Skylie,
Your dad thinks I'm biased, but I'm positive that you're the cutest baby that's ever lived.

This month you hit some great milestones.

You:

• Conquored your first bout of sickness like a pro. (Nov. 27-Dec. 1).
• Rolled over from your back to your stomach (Friday, Dec. 11).
• Slept a little better. On a good night you'll take your last feeding at 10:30 and sleep until 8:00.
• Rubbed a bald spot on the back of your head.
• Grew into your 3-6 month clothes (0-3 month clothes still fit, though).
• Usually go down for your naps and bedtime without much crying.
• Could care less about your bedtime routine (story, scripture, prayer, song), but we do it anyway.
• Suck on anything you can get in your mouth. On Sunday, December 13, I'd put you down for a nap and a few minutes later I heard what sounded like you sucking on your hand. That would've been a feat in itself, as you'd been swaddled in your "straight jacket". Not so; you'd wiggled over to the edge of your crib and were sucking on the bars. Your dad and I laughed really hard at that one.
• Love spitting up. Once while doing sit ups with you, you projected massive amounts targeted right at my face. I turned my head to dodge the bullet, so my hair got the uh, extra moisture. Thanks, kiddo.
• Smile. Coo. Talk. It's all so cute.
• Smile any time your dad holds you up to this red and white Christmas decoration that's by a mirror in the living room.
• Managed your longest car ride, ever (15 1/2 hours from Des Moines to Utah) like a champ.
• Like your independence.
• Aren't always pacified by your swing anymore, but you love when we'll walk around with you so you can look at the world.
• Still love bath time.
• Like to be the center of attention. When your dad and I are eating dinner, you like to be right in the action.
• Are so happy and alert! Often when I'm feeding you, you'll stop just to look up at me and smile. It totally melts my heart!

I wish I could freeze time and hold on to these moments a little longer. You've grown so fast, and it makes me sad to think that you're not my newborn anymore. At the same time I think that every day you get more fun, and I'm excited to watch you grow.

We love you!

Love,
Mom

Skylie Rolls

While watching Skylie rockin' out on her blanket last Friday, I commented to Matt that I didn't think it'd be too long until she rolled over.

Five minutes later she began howling, and we found her like this:

She doesn't like being on her stomach.

Saturday I finally caught her new talent on video. This captures her fourth time rolling over. The actual rolling over is at about the two minute mark.

She's all over this rolling deal. In the middle of the night last night Matt and I rolled her back over onto her back half a dozen times because she managed to get on her stomach—and once she's there she goes crazy. What should we do?

Every time we're home, Matt and I battle between leaving Skylie's headband and flower off and keeping it on. (Matt always wants to take it off. "She's beautiful without it, and we already know she's a girl," he says.) During our snow day after many times of (me) putting on her headband and (him) taking it back off, I promised I'd let her go without a flower all day.

Later when he left to pick up some pizza, I tried out sticking a bow to her head. Pretty cute, if I do say so myself!

On Sunday after I'd put Skylie down for a nap, I heard what sounded like her sucking on her hand (which would have been a feat in itself as she was swaddled in her straight jacket). I peeked in to see this:

She'd scooted over to the crib bars and was sucking on one! Too funny! I'm pretty sure those bars aren't the worst things she's going to get in her mouth over the next few years.

And here's Skylie in her Christmas dress—a hand-me-down from Becca. I'm so glad it fits!

Skylie likes being part of everything we're doing, including dinner.

See that Christmas sign next to the mirror? Every time Matt holds her up to look at it she grins. She must know Christmas means getting to see her grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins! Christmas makes me smile, too.

I love my baby girl!

Guilty As Charged

A week or so I complained and criticized. About stuff that's none of my business. To more people than I ought to have. If you're reading this there's a good chance you were one who heard my criticical remarks. Even if the complaints had a valid point—it was still none of my business.

The next day I was listening to this in the car:

(You know you're getting old when you listen to audio books more than the radio.)

Topic: Criticizing

Dr. Lund shared a portion from a speech President Hinckley gave at BYU on a "terrible ailment...in the land": criticism. President Hinckley said he'd given this talk at least three times previously because he felt it was such a problem.

"We're constantly fed a steady and sour diet of character assassination, faultfinding, evil speaking of one another...The tragedy is that this spirit of negativism seems to prevail throughout the country.

"...This spirit has infected the atmosphere on university campuses and the workplace, even this campus. The snide remark, the sarcastic gibe, the cutting down of associates--these too often are the essence of our conversation. In our homes, wives weep and children finally give up under the barrage of criticism leveled by husbands and fathers. Criticism is the forerunner of divorce, the cultivator of rebellion, sometimes a catalyst that leads to failure. Even in the Church it sows the seed of inactivity and, finally, in many cases, apostasy.

"I come this evening with a plea that we stop seeking out the storms and enjoy more fully the sunlight. I'm suggesting that we accentuate the positive. I'm asking that we look a little deeper for the good, that we still our voices of insult and sarcasm, that we more generously compliment virtue and effort.

"I am not asking that all criticism be silent. Growth comes with correction. Strength comes with repentance. Wise is the man or woman who, committing mistakes pointed out by others, changes his or her course. I am not suggesting that our conversation be all honey. Clever expression that is sincere and honest is a skill to be sought and cultivated. What I am suggesting and asking is that we turn from the negativism that so permeates our society and look for the remarkable good in the land and times in which we live, that we speak of one another's virtues more than we speak of one another's faults, that optimism replace pessimism."

"The Lord is at the Helm," Gordon B. Hinckley, Mar. 6, 1994, BYU Devotional

I felt reprimanded, to say the least.

On a similar note, I get a kick out of this clip:

The things kids say

I teach a group of kids, my Primary class, for about 45 minutes at church.

Avalon, Amy, and Aspen

This spring I taught three sweet and sassy six-year-old girls. One Sunday I taught a lesson on the priesthood. The conversation went something like this:

One smart girly: "Why do only boys have the priesthood and girls don't?"
Me: "Why do you think that's the way it is?"
One other girl (after serious contemplation): "Maybe because boys are a little bit taller than girls."
Me: "Good guess. Sometimes boys are taller than girls, but I'm not sure that's the reason in this case. Can you think of another reason why boys might have the priesthood and girls don't?"
Another sassy girl (in an ultra-dramatic voice): "Because us girls can't do EVERYTHING. Boys have to do SOMETHING!"

Sounds like a good reason to me. :)

Since this summer I've taught three nine and 10 year old kids.

Sometimes they're all reluctant to say the opening and closing prayers. In these instances I say, "Okay I'll say the prayer." At least 85% of the time one funny guy will quickly speak up, "No. No. I'll say it. You take too long."

Too funny!

Saturday afternoon Matt and I hosted a class party. Only Jack and Pete made it, but we (or at least Matt and I) had a blast:

• Eating cookies and popcorn and sipping cocoa
• Playing UNO, Pit, balloon games
• Busting a nearly indestructible pinata (thanks to Matt's mad pinata-making skills)
• Setting up an obstacle course and trying to break our record. (Pretending that the carpet's hot lava has never gotten dull to me.)

I seriously hope I never get called out of Primary, because I don't know if I could handle sitting through three hours of church without some wiggle time. Oh wait. I have Skylie. I can always use her as my excuse. ;)

Snow Day

Tuesday is snowed all day, and Wednesday we woke up to this:

(Photo stolen from here. Thanks, Jordan!)

The entire non-urgent care employees at the hospital Matt's working at were told to stay home. I, on the other hand, wondered if I needed to go into work. By 9 a.m. I still hadn't received word that our building was closed for the day, so Matt brushed two feet of snow off the car, and I plowed my way to work. (I'm not sure why I didn't just plan on working from home in the first place. Maybe I'm trying not to abuse my part-time-at-home status too much. Whatever.) Anyway, the normally packed parking lot was desolate, so I headed home with big plans to change into PJ's and hang out with my two favorite people all day.

Note to self: When an entire hospital closes down, Wells Fargo will too.

Quick Recap

Thanksgiving... mmm...
The Rose's invited us into their home for a fantastic Thanksgiving feast. It was delicious, to say the least.

Black Friday shopping began at 4:30 a.m.
After hitting up Burlington Coat Factory and the mall, we came home $85 poorer but with a coat, hat, and gloves (all for my Christmas presents). Matt's Christmas gift is an iTouch. He says it's helpful for his rotations, but the fact that he can access game scores anywhere there's wireless is another perk. ;)

Skylie had her first sickness.
The poor girl got congested during the night after Thanksgiving and had a hard time sleeping for long periods for a few nights. (Hence, Matt and I had a hard time sleeping, too.) At one point her temperature got up to 100.7, but she was a trooper and stayed pretty happy. We're all glad she's doing better.

Thanks to the West Des Moines Library we're making our way through classic Christmas movies.

We've watched:
Holiday Inn
Elf
Home Alone 2

Up Next:
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever
A Christmas Story
It's a Wonderful Life
Fred Claus
How the Grinch Stole Christmas
White Christmas
Mr. Krueger's Christmas

Anyone want to join us?

We're looking forward to:
Church, work, and friends' Christmas parties
Seeing family for an extra long holiday

Skylie's Three Month Pictures

Happy Anniversary

Not only is today Thanksgiving, it's also our wedding anniversary. Thanks for four awesome years, Matt!

Thanksgiving Eve

A few things I'm grateful for this Thanksgiving eve:

1. Matt, for choosing me
2. Skylie
3. Skylie's smile
4. The fact that I get to be a mom
5. Parents who taught me to work, gave me what I needed, and said "no" to my whimsical wants (at least some of them)
6. In-laws that couldn't be better
7. Life-long friends
8. The education I received
9. Knowing I'm a daughter of God and he loves me
10. The tough times that make the good times so much sweeter
11. Stoplights when they're green, and police when they don't catch me speeding
12. Laughing so hard that I cry
13. Amazing women that watch Skylie when I can't
14. Living in the U-S-of-A
15. My health
16. Beauties of nature
17. A good book
18. Lazy Sundays
19. All things sweet
20. Spring, summer, and fall in Des Moines
21. My brothers and sister
22 A generous boss
23. Mizuno running shoes
24. Holidays
25. Fantastic memories

I am truly blessed.

Month Three

Skylie,

This month has been so fun with you. Your grin is adorable—and you're smiling tons! I love it! The facial expressions you make and the noises that come out of you (in more places than one) are hilarious! You've got a spunky personality, and I think you and I are going to be best friends, girl.

This past month you:

• Hit a growth spurt.
• Took the art of smiling up about a hundred notches.
• Learned how to swim, or so it seems.
• Got so close to rolling over. Keep trying, Champ.
• Gave your dad and me a break by sleeping well—for the most part—at night. (8.5 hours is your record.)
• Got obsessed with scooting over to your crib bars and banging your body against them. (It's so funny!)

We love you!

Love,
Mom

A Christmas Tree

Matt finished his psychiatry rotation last Friday and got rave reviews from the doctor he worked with. He was in a pediatric psych hospital, and kids would talk to him that wouldn't speak to the doctor.

To kick off the weekend Matt, Skylie, and I headed to the mall last Friday for the Christmas tree lighting.

• Later we played games with co-workers.
• Saturday Taylor Laurent wowed me during New Moon. Carmike Cinemas, I hope you like the puddle of drool I left on your floor.
• Our church's stake conference was awesome.
• A Christmas tree now graces our apartment.

Have I mentioned I love this time of year? Bring on the holidays!

Skylie's got a crush.

I've mentioned before that Matt and I switch off babysitting with our friends, the Beeston's, so we can have some husband/wife alone time. It's probably bad, but Matt and I look forward to watching Taylor and Logan as much—or more—than going on the dates! It's so fun to watch these three rugrats together!

I watch in awe at how well Nathalie handles twins. Her great attitude and willingness to sacrifice amazes me. Seriously. Those boys are lucky to have such a great mama.

{Nathalie, I'm burning you a CD this minute. I took way too many pics!}

Big Creek State Park

A week ago the weather was gorgeous, so Matt and I took advantage of it and headed up to Big Creek State Park on Saturday afternoon. I love Skylie's facial expressions!

In other happenings:

We:

• Stood in line for three hours to get the HINI vaccination.

Matt:

• Is heading into his final week of his psychiatry rotation. To show Erin what he does all day, he asked her the questions they ask the patients during their admittance exam. It made her think she should be admitted, too. :)
• Is home most days by 3:00 and has graciously taken on most of the cooking around here. Needless to say, we've been eating better.

Erin:

• Totally spaced that she had Veteran's Day off of work and didn't get a clue until she drove into the normally packed parking lot and only a handful of cars were in sight. Sweet surprise!
• Is working on the stake newsletter.
• Is figuring out Blurb so she can transfer our blog into a book.
• Read "The Wednesday Letters".

Skylie:

• Flirts with Logan and Taylor while the moms and dads go on date nights.
• Smiles a lot.

We Quit

We're all quitters in this family. It's one of many things we're united in.

ERIN: Resigned from teaching three fitness classes at DMU.

After working all day and then leaving Skylie for another hour or two so I could teach my classes became a drudgery. It was a tough decision to make, because who doesn't want to get paid to work out? But it's all about putting first things first, right Dr. Covey and President Monson? Besides I can now get my sweating for the day done when the little one's sleeping because...

SKYLIE: Quit waking up in the night!

Thank you Babywise, Miracle Blanket, Skylie, and Matt (he takes the 11:30 p.m. feeding often). Because of you, I went to bed at 9:00 last night and woke up on my own at 5:30 this morning. Meanwhile, an eleven week old baby snoozed in her crib for a couple more hours. I've decided the most beautiful sight is a sleeping baby in the wee hours of the morning.

MATT: Plans to throw in the towel regarding this med school business to pursue his dreams of being the next Ricky Martin.

Kidding! I couldn't really think of anything Matt's quit lately. I thought about trying to be funny by saying something like, "He quit wetting the bed" or "He quit wearing diapers", but I'm no good at potty humor (and he might not appreciate it too much). So instead I'll just tell you what I was going to joke about. That way I get my oh-so-lame wittiness out without risking anything. (It's a tactic I resort to often. Try it. It's fun.)

Skylie's Blessing

Matt gave Skylie her baby blessing a few Sundays ago (October 19) at church. He did a great job and during it Skylie didn't make a peep. Thanks Dads, Alec LaBau, Jacob Pluid, Bishop Jason Giles, Noel Stahle, and Frank Ledbetter for participating in the blessing.

Frank said he peeked at Skylie while Matt gave the blessing. He said the moment Matt started speaking she smiled really big. How cute!

Skylie was blessed that she'll:
-Feel loved by her earthly and heavenly parents

-Be physically fit

-Marry in the temple and continue on in an eternal family

-Exercise good judgement

-Make righteous decisions

Blessing dress made by my mom, Grandma Zane:

Skylie at Two Months

What happened to my newborn baby girl?

Photos courtesy JC Penny Portrait Studios

Thanks to coupons, we in went for two photo sessions and ended up with seven good pictures. They might not have appreciated seeing us two days in a row—especially since we only spent $12 total, but we were happy to get them.

Photos taken October 22 and 23

Tending Secret Gardens

“Both abundance and lack [of abundance] exist simultaneously in our lives, as parallel realities. It is always our conscious choice which secret garden we will tend … when we choose not to focus on what is missing from our lives but are grateful for the abundance that’s present—love, health, family, friends, work, the joys of nature, and personal pursuits that bring us [happiness]—the wasteland of illusion falls away and we experience heaven on earth.”

~Sarah Ban Breathnach, in John Cook, comp., The Book of Positive Quotations, 2nd ed. (2007), 342.

(Quoted by President Thomas S. Monson, “Finding Joy in the Journey,” Ensign, Nov. 2008, 84–87.)

Happy Halloween!

We've celebrated Halloween for over a week. Ah, it's been nice! But now the week's over and we should be on detox mode from the sugar overload. (Should is the key word, here.)



Side note: Here in Iowa the kids go trick-or-treating on what is called Beggar's Night. Beggar's Night is usually Halloween eve. Anyway, at the mall we felt too ashamed to take any candy since Skylie is obviously too young to eat it. Next year will be perfect. She'll be old enough to look like she could eat candy--but being the responsible person that I am--I'll have to spare her the agony and eat all her candy myself.

Happy Halloween!

Month Two

With Grandpa Zane

With Nana Pitcher

Skylie,

It's been a big month for you! Here's some of the highlights.

• Everyone says what a gorgeous baby you are.
• You're sleeping pretty well through the night, but you still wake up between 5 and 6 a.m. A few days ago I accidentally fell asleep before giving you your last feeding around 11:30 p.m. Around 3:30 a.m. you moaned a few times in your sleep, but kept snoozing for another two hours. It was the longest you'd ever slept continuously--7 1/2 hours! Let's have more nights like that. Please. And if you could not wake up until 7:00 or 7:30 in the morning that would really help me out, okay?
• About a week and a half ago you started smiling! We love it. Your dad first got you to smile by rubbing your cheeks with a soft blanket, and since then you've given us some adorable grins. Your dad thinks you smile more at my voice than his, but I'm not sure about that.
• Your Zane grandparents think you look like your dad, but your Pitcher grandparents think you look more like me. I think you're cuter than either of us.
• On October 19 you were blessed by your dad. Both sets of grandparents and your Aunt Amber, Uncle Alec, and cousin Ethan came into town for it. One of our friends that helped with the blessing said he peeked at you during the prayer. Frank said that the moment your dad started talking, you got a big smile on your face.
• We went with your Pitcher Grandparents to visit some historic church sites while they were out here for your blessing. We ate at a great barbecue place in Kansas City, and as we were getting ready to leave, your Papa spilled a glass of ice water right in your face! You got drenched, girl! I felt bad for you, but it was so funny! You handled it well, and only whimpered a little.
• You've visited historic church sites in Independence, Missouri; Liberty, Missouri; Kansas City, Kansas; Carthage, Illinois; and Nauvoo, Illinois this month.
• I'm mildly obsessed with getting your picture taken. In your first 60 days of life you've had four photo sessions (three at JC Penny Portrait Studios and one with my friend who does photography).
• Last week was the first time I had to leave you for a whole day so I could go to work. I had no idea it would be so hard! Your dad ended up being home that day so I was just leaving you with him, but it still broke my heart. I cried most of the morning as I was getting ready, and when I said goodbye to you I sobbed. I had to fight back the tears a couple times at work, and when the clock finally hit 4:00 p.m. my bags were packed and I couldn't wait to have you in my arms again. It's gotten a bit easier for me, though. Yesterday I didn't cry at all when I left you with the babysitter.
• Your favorite place is in your swing. Your second favorite place is lying on the mat where we change your diaper. You can be howling like crazy, but you settle down as soon as we put you there. Not sure why that is...
• You're becoming more alert all the time. Whenever you wake up in your crib and start crying, you stop as soon as you see us come in. It's pretty cute!
• You now weigh 9 pounds 12 ounces (23rd percentile), and you're 22 inches long (34th percentile).

Every day I find myself gazing at you while you're sleeping. During these moments, I feel overwhelmed with love and gratitude that I get to be your mom. The other day your dad and I talked about how there's nothing that makes us happier than being a family. We love you more with each passing day.

Love,

Mom

Skylie's Two Month Stats

Height: 22 in.; 34th percentile

Weight: 9 lbs. 12 oz.; 23rd percentile

Head Circumference: 36 1/2 cm.; 6.25 percentile

Poor girl. She howled when the nurses gave her the shots. Her face turned bright red and she let out an agonizing cry. It made me want to cry, too. (There might have been one glistening tear in my eye, but I fought it back. Barely.)

Skylie's 2 Week Pictures

My friend, Liz, took these when Skylie was 15 days old. Thanks, Liz!