Footloose

There's an outfit Mal has never worn. It's just not my thing.

I tried it again today, but it was still a no-go. He looks like an 80's dancer.

Tank top with the baggy shirt over top, and booty shorts.
SYTYCD here we come!

How about without the baggy shirt?

I had to take it off before he started chewing tobacco and living in his R.V.


I think it's going in the "grown out of" pile. (I have one! He's too big for stuff already! ack!)

Hey, hey, off the shoulder look!
Eesh, quick! Make it stop!

Random Updates

We've been up to lots of little things that I'm just gonna cram into one post.

First, our stake got tickets to the Relief Society broadcast at the Conference Center. I got two tickets and mom and I went. It was really a very nice evening. We got there super early because my most recent experience of being at the Conference Center was the Christmas Concert and that's INSANE!!! We were like 4 people from the front of the line at our door. We stood there sweating for a good while chatting to other women standing in line. We sat in the very front row of the balcony. It really wasn't bad that we were so early, it gave me and mom a chance to catch up and that was really nice. The conference was excellent. I remember liking the R.S. president's talk, and wrote down one thing she mentioned about Visiting Teaching. Then I have to admit I spaced out during the next because her accent was so thick I got distracted often. The 2nd counselor's talk was good too, but I mostly remember how smiley she was. She has an infectious smile that I found myself absorbing. Best talk of all was definitely Uchtdorf. Sometimes I feel like liking Uchtdorf's talks is kind of a band-wagon thing. but I think so many of us love them because he is such a great speaker. I took notes of his whole talk and found it very comforting. He finds such great ways to tell us women we really don't suck as much as we like to think we do. I think he understands women pretty well for a guy. If you miss any part of R.S., don't miss his talk. Go stream it right now on your computer! It was excellent and you won't be sorry.

After the broadcast, we went to Village Inn for some food. The broadcast was right during dinner time! We also planned our next Girl's Night for tomorrow during priesthood meeting! Holla!

Something else we've been up to is digging up sod. And when I say we, I mean me. This spring we really wanted to put in some flower beds in the front of our house. I was, of course, super pregnant so I was sure I'd be of no help. We got a bid to have our friend Jae put our landscaping in for us, but shortly after that the transmission blew in my car. So our yard went un-landscaped all summer.

Now that I'm not pregnant, and it's still nice outside, I got to thinking that I'd just do the work and get some flower beds in and plant some bulbs for next spring. After two mornings of digging sod though I've decided something.

Digging up sod sucks.
I'd totally still hire Jae of I had the money.

It's also slow going digging it up because I have to keep stopping to take care of Malcolm. After only about an hour and a half's work (broken up all over the place), I got this:

Laura helped me another day and we got half another bed, but twice as much area done. There's still more to do, plus plant the 50+ tulip and daffodil bulbs I bought. Hopefully come spring we'll have some happy little flowers blooming in our yard instead of just yards of grass.

Here's Mal hanging out while I dug. I set him up under our beach umbrella, but he still thought it was too bright out there.

Yesterday, after Malcolm's Dr. appointment I visited a friend I hadn't seen since we moved. We had borrowed some DVD's from her and returned them before we moved, but one stowed away in our DVD player when we moved. So it's been over a year, but I finally got it back to her. She'd had a baby since I'd seen her last, and so had I (obviously), so it was nice to meet each other's kids and chat about our experiences. Her daughter's name is Vivien-- good choice, eh? :)
It was so nice to catch up, and reminded me of other people from our last ward I need to catch up with too.
I am so kicking myself for not taking a picture of us and our babies or at least our kids together! I didn't get pictures of me and mom at the broadcast either! Slacker photophile!

For YW on Wednesday, we had a movie night. We watched "17 Miracles" which is a movie about the handcart companies. I only mention it because one actress was on the screen and I recognized her from somewhere but couldn't place it until I realized she was the music director from the R.S. broadcast on Saturday! Whoa, deja vu!

Well that's all updates on me pretty much isn't it? Let see, an up date on Ryan...?
He's currently cultivating a full beard. He keeps it trimmed around the edges, but I still have doubtful feelings about its attractiveness. It could be it's scruffy-partial beardness, but I still think I prefer just the goatee and mustache. I'll try to post a picture soon. We can get a vote.
Other than that it's the usual: working, reading, eating, reading, playing with Mal, reading, drinking his body weight in soda, reading... you get the idea. ;)

I guess I already updated on Mal in the last post too. Oh! Except this morning we went in and his was soaked! Soaked the sheets, soaked his jammies, soaked the mattress pad, everything. Now that he sleeps for so much longer, it seems his one diaper change isn't enough. He's even got a doubler in with his diaper. I'll probably have to start changing him with his "dream feed" at 10pm. It won't be so much a "dream feed" anymore though 'cause I'll wake him by changing him. Oh well, he's proven he can sleep just fine. It'll probably be just fine and save me more laundry.

And you're officially up to date on the Greens! Whew, good thing too, because this weekend is sure to bring more to blog about!

Bath time... With Daddy

R: "But I don't know how!"
A: "It's not hard. I'll walk you through it."




A: "See? You're not completely helpless."
R: "I know, but being helpless is so... convenient."

2 Months!

Today is the 29th, so that makes Malcolm two months old! Even though tomorrow he'll be 9 weeks. But you know, Einstein told us it's all relative.

In commemoration of his birth two months ago, we took him to the doctor and shot him!
As in vaccinations.

He was a good trooper, and has still been in a pretty pleasant mood all day!

Here he is looking all sorts of cute and chubby laying on the table. Pre-shots of course. (can't believe how big he is!)

Malcolm's 2 month stats:

Weight: 12.38 lbs (68%)
Height: 23.5 in (72%)
Head: 15.9 in (63%)

As you can see he's right on target! His development is going just as well mentally as it is physically. He can lift his head 45 degrees while on his stomach, he can chatter and coo and smile, he moves all his little limbs and can almost reach for things. He can reach his hands into his mouth (and scratch his face to pieces with his finger nails!), and follow objects with his eyes.
That's Malcolm, a textbook baby.

He also loves to have any sort of fabric in his mouth. I think we have a future blanket sucker here when he gets big enough to intentionally put it in there.




He is also absolutely adorable when you wake him from a nap or get him up in the morning. It's un-swaddle and streeeeeetch and face rub. It's so cute.


Lets see, what else? Oh! this whole week he has slept at least 7 hrs a night! Now, we put him to bed at 8pm, so that means he's up at 3:30. But I'll take that over 1 am and 3 am. He'll also usually go back to sleep after waking at 6:30 and sleep til 8 or 9 so I still feel pretty rested most days.

I just love him. This motherhood thing has been getting more and more fun. I like to just sit and watch him. And I'm pretty sure I better lay off kissing him has much as I do by the time he's in college. Otherwise it might get embarrassing. Maybe.

Great Grandma and Grandpa Visit

We spent the first part of last week being visited by Ryan's Grandparents who stopped off while on their way home from the Reno Air Races. Yes, the Reno Air Races that had the plane crash into the stands. Luckily, Grandma and Grandpa survived, though they were in the back of the stands that were crashed into. Just a yard or so and they would have been included in those injured/killed. Their account of the fiasco was heartbreaking. We are SO grateful they made it to visit! I hope the end of their visit brightened their trip.

I picked them up from the airport, and after some shuffling of the stroller and emergency supplies and pack and play in the back of my car, we all made it to our house with all the luggage. Man, I thought I'd gotten better at preparing before leaving the house!

We got there just as Ryan was coming home from work. Ryan's parents will take note that we seemed to entertain Grandma and Grandpa the same as we did them. First, with dinner from Moki's Hawaiian Grill near our house. Though, since Malcolm is a bit older, G & G got some added benefits during their visit. Like Malcolm taking a bottle now, so Grandma could feed him:

He was really good at modeling his cutest cuteness for them.

Grandma could really get him going and chatting and smiling. SO cute!

Ryan got a day off while they were here. We went to the Tracy Aviary. We used to live right next to the Aviary, but hadn't been there since it was recently remodeled and added on to. It's gotten really nice. It's always been a good place to see birds up close.
Like this:

You might think I zoomed in, but you'd be wrong. I had to to run away from that peacock to get a perspective shot of how friendly the little guy was:

We timed our visit just right to see the live "flying" encounter.
(They only have bird shows on the weekends this time of year.)

Here we are with some random other visitors. They chatted with G & G about fishing in Alaska.

Gasp! He's awake!

We got to see an Emu, some Patagonia Burrowing Parrots (below), a Macaw, and a turkey vulture. They were all very cool.

I volunteered to help demonstrate how toucans (oh yea, and a toucan!) jump from tree branch to tree branch. We were getting all positioned and all the sudden there's a bird on me!

I didn't know he was coming so soon! Ryan was awesome and caught my genuine surprise face. :)

The aviary was fun, I'm glad Ryan thought of it.

We went to Zupas for lunch and grandpa asked at least 4 people if Zupas was Greek or some other language for "soup" and no one could tell him if it was. He kept asking though.

We played hearts at least 3 times while they were here too. Someone kept claiming they could take it all, so we kept replaying. Grandma was a trouper for still playing over and over as she lost regularly. :)

Grandpa also mentioned that he'd like to see the Saltair. G & G had friends that would talk about it often from the days when they were courting. It's not much like it was in it's heyday for sure. We kept telling him it was just a rundown building by the lake, but he still wanted to see it. The only other people we saw out there were others looking about G & G's age coming back to reminisce about when they'd seen so and so play there and danced.

It was pretty uneventful. We just strolled out to the lake for a look. Then drove past the all-exciting Kennecot Smelter on the way back.

This is Malcolm on the way home from dinner at Old Spaghetti Factory:

You'd think it was the flash making his eyes so huge, but I took the picture because his eyes were like that. He does that crazy stare whenever he's really tired. He just stares and stares.

The next day Ryan had to go back to work. The rest of us had quite the morning wrestling a poor gassy Malcolm. He was so unhappy and skipped his first nap. He just couldn't stay asleep. Luckily Grandma held him while I took a shower. After he finally got some rest, we went to Ikea. Grandma enjoyed herself, I know. But Grandpa wasn't so excited about "shopping". (Gma:"It's not shopping, I'm not going to buy anything." Gpa:"We're wandering around, looking at stuff in a store. That's shopping.")

Then we fixed dinner and Ryan took them back to the airport.
Don't worry, Grandma has the happy version of this picture:

It was so fun having them here. Though sometimes I think it's better when we don't see Ryan's family. It makes it easier to forget how great they are and not miss them so much. ;) So sad Alaska is so far away...

Till next summer Grandma and Grandpa!

7 weeks

Yeah I post weekly pictures of my child, what about it? Have you seen how quickly babies change? And this is my family photo album after all. (BTW, if you are thinking of what to get me for Christmas the answer is a Blog book. As in this blog made into a book. I want one for every year I've had this blog--that's 4 years!--can you believe it? Or probably just contribute money so I can get the blog book because they're expensive.)

Captured his very rare smile!

Malcolm really doesn't smile very often. Is that normal? Is my baby autistic because he smiles so seldomly?*

He has discovered his fist. He can almost always get the aim right to put it in his mouth first try. He likes it better than a binky most of the time. Really, Malcolm is not much of a binky boy. He seldom if ever takes one.

We've had recurrent diaper rash. :(
Poor breastfed baby who poops all the time.
I actually went to the pediatrician today because I thought it might be yeast and my mom's suggestion of Monistat didn't seem to be helping. The pediatrician didn't think this particular rash was yeast, but wrote me a prescription for Nystatin anyway because babies that get diaper rash a lot tend to inevitably get yeast rashes. She also suggested I can go back on dairy products because babies sensitive to it usually have gas and tummy issues accompany their diaper rash.

Here he is in his diaper free air dry time. Yes I used the hair dryer. He liked it, it's what put him to sleep. Malcolm loves to be super warm.

Sad red bum. :( The good thing is that he doesn't seem to care at all about it.

I think he's just moist all the time and then has sensitive skin like his parents. Poor dude.

I wanted to throw this one in too because it shows his new 'do. He's rubbed off his hair on the sides and had little on top to begin with. Now we ought to call him Bert.

*Confession: I'm paranoid that Malcolm will be autistic. It would probably ruin me. I'd need therapy for the loss of the baby I expected to have.

Shedewel

My friend Mary wrote a post a while back of her average day. She got the idea from some other blog. At first I thought it was kind of odd, but then thought that it'd be fun to document because life changes and nothing shows that more than your average daily routine.

I also thought it'd be fun to write my daily routine now a days mostly to celebrate the fact that I have a routine. More importantly, Malcolm has a routine. We've finally gotten into a good groove and I can finally plan ahead because things are actually "usual".

So here it is, the amazing, wonderful, typical day in the life of Ashley (and her little Mal):

1:30-2 am (ish): Tap Ryan because the baby is crying. Later, meet him in Malcolm's room about halfway through the diaper change. Feed Malcolm, re-swaddle, hold, pat, and rock until calm/drowsy. Place in crib. Wait about 5 minutes for good measure. back to bed.

4:30-5:30 am: repeat as above.

7:00 am: sleep through Ryan getting ready.

7:45 am: mumbled goodbye to kiss received.

8 am: back into Malcolm's room for another feeding.

8:30 am: diaper change, and new clothes for the day if it's not bath day. If it's bath day, then back in pjs. Carry Mal to my room where he sits on the bed and stares at the blinds/ceiling fan/me, while I brush my teeth and get dressed.

8:45 am: Put Malcolm in his bouncer by the sliding glass door while I get breakfast. Eat breakfast while "chatting" with Malcolm. I also write my daily to do list. It contains anything I need to do that day. For example, today's was: Shower, Mal's bath, Call Cheryl, Store: eggs, eggos, swiffer duster, vacuuming, wash diapers. By the time I'm about done eating, Malcolm decides he's bored of the backyard scenery and starts fussing.

9 am: Put Mal on a quilt on the living room floor where we talk, play, read books, tummy time... whatever he seems most interested in until he starts doing his tired cry.

9:30-10am ish: Swaddle and calm Mal. Put him in crib awake. His first nap is usually the shortest, about 45-60 minutes.

9:30-11: This is when I will take a shower if it's shower day (every other day--the opposite day of Mal's bath). I will also usually throw the diapers in the wash, and wander the house picking up things and generally de-cluttering. I'll also occasionally facebook/blog/internet.

11 am: Feeding, bath if it's bath day, diaper change, and an activity (playing, going on a walk, reading books, staring at interesting wavy lines on the ceiling.)

12 pm: Ryan comes home for lunch. Eat lunch. Put Mal down for second nap.

12-2 pm: Malcolm's second nap is usually the longest. anywhere from 2-3 hours long. This is when I get my cleaning done. Or I'll occasionally attempt outings like the grocery store where I'd like him to sleep the whole time. :)

2 pm: Feeding, diaper change, and an activity. (Are you getting the pattern? Eat, do an activity, sleep.) This is usually when we get out of the house. The activity is often running errands, or going on a walk. It's also usually a shorter nap, 60-90 min or so.

5 pm: Feeding, diaper change, Daddy time. This feeding is often a bottle feed from Ryan of expressed breast milk. I make dinner, and pump.

6-7 pm: Malcolm is usually kind of fussy around this time. Sometimes he naps, sometimes he doesn't. We often go out and run errands or things so he'll cat nap in the car and such. it's the most variable of all the times of day for him.

8 pm: Feeding and bedtime routine: put in PJ's and swaddler, close blinds and darken room, family prayer, rock and sing lullabies until drowsy, bed.

8:30-10 pm: Time with Ryan. Yesterday we read books out loud to each other. We're romantic like that. :)

10pm: "dream feeding" where I don't wake him up all the way and just tank him up so he'll sleep longer. Or that's the idea. It's a "Baby Whisperer" thing. I like her book (Secrets of the Baby Whisperer: learn how to calm, comfort, and communicate with your baby). I was already doing most of what she talks about as far as routine/schedule goes. (The eat, activity, sleep is her wording.) I used her techniques to get him to fall asleep on his own in his crib.

10:10 pm: bed.

Well that was probably way more than anyone ever wanted to know about my day. But I get excited about it. It's a recent breakthrough and I'm pretty proud of it. Especially of my little man falling asleep on his own! It's SO awesome.

Utah State Fair 2011

It's that time of year again! Fair time! I wasn't thinking we'd go this year because Malcolm really gets nothing out of it, but Ryan insisted. Luckily, Laura and Andrew were already planning on going and invited us along. They even got us discount tickets! Holla! :)

We do just a few things at the fair.
First, Food.

Ryan's favorite fair food?
Giant smoked turkey leg.

(Don't worry, one of those is mine.)
We all joined with him this year in eating this particular delicacy

I ended up with turkey juice and junk all over my face. It was hard to balance walking and eating and baby. And it was a while before I found a napkin. Embarassing!

Laura, Andrew, and I also tried some deep fried oreos. Kind of just tastes like oreos and pancakes.

Next, we see the animals.

Piglets!

Sheep!

Cows!

Goats!
(Ryan's fav. He convinced Laura and Andrew that we should all get some someday.)

Birds!

Malcolm and Ryan pretty much spent the fair like this.

He spent a little time in the stroller, and a little time in the carrier, but I think it was a little too strange and noisy. and a little too past his bed time.

Emu!

They tell me these are rabbits. They looked like big panting piles of fur.

We don't do the carnival stuff. It's just too expensive and well, dangerous looking. We often
watch people ride them though. This year we watched rides sitting on a bench while Malcolm had a feeding.

Laura entertained herself more by taking pictures with my camera.

[Sad Laura! This one is blurry!]

We also don't spend much time in the booths with people selling stuff. It's all just junk. Though there was a new item this year I had never heard of before: Jewerly. It looked just like Jewelry!

We ended with Laura and I riding the big yellow slide! I totally want one in my back yard. SO FUN!

We went so fast we were blurry! ... and so was everything else.

It was good times. Good tradition, I'd say! Til next year Utah!