Another Utah trip! (Part I)

We tend to take a lot of trips to Utah... We love visiting friends and family so I guess that's the reason:) While we where in Utah this time it was packed full of fun and adventure! That is why I chose to do this in two posts. And it will be mostly pictures because I don't have tons of time theses days:)

We started out at Zion's Ponderosa at Steve's parents cabin and I am just kicking myself right now wishing I got pictures there! Jennifer, Becky, Jeff, Scott, Rachel, Steve and I where all there and I wish I would have forced us to get a picture together because we definitely don't get to see Becky, Jeff and CJ very often!

We pretty much stayed at my parents house the rest of the time and did some fun family things.

Haddy (with her cast) and Isla (with her helmet) at the City Creek Center. Don't they make a cute pair? People would definitely stared at us as we walked by but I'm okay with that, complete strangers where always being so nice to us!

You can read about my nieces cast on my sisters blog here if you are interested.

Our cute family at City Creek. What a cool place!

My brother Brad found this dog vest at D.I. and brought it home for Haddy to wear. Isla love to play with it.

Epic Olli and Weston play time. Isla loved watching them play and would laugh a ton whenever they would growl at each other.

We went to the living planet aquarium one day and Isla enjoyed looking at the fish while she was awake, but she wasn't awake that long:)

It was so much fun one evening to go down to Steve's parents house for Kenzie and Tanner's birthday party. We played games and got to get pictures of these cute little cousins together:) It goes Miles, Isla then CJ.

Helmet Head:)

So many of you already know that Isla has to wear a DOC band for the next couple months due to a flat spot on the back of her head. I thought I would do a post about it and answer some of the most common questions about it. Lots of people may already know about them and may even know other kids that have had to wear one! Turns out they are pretty common but I had never seen one (or at least noticed one) before .

First of all this is not anything serious at all! I had a little girl in my ward come up to me one Sunday and say (in a very concerned voice) "sister Murray... What's wrong with Isla? Is she going to be okay?" I quickly told her that she was totally fine she just had to wear the helmet due to a flat spot on the back of her head. 

The helmet is purely for cosmetic reasons and the average time babies have to wear them is about four months or so. I don't think Isla will have to wear hers that long since we got it on her pretty early. Her pediatrician told me that babies heads grow the fastest up until about six months of age and we chose to get her the helmet a little before five so she has that extra month of fast growing! The faster the head grows the shorter she has to wear the helmet.

I was initially worried that the helmet would bother her or hurt her but to my surprise it doesn't even seem to phase her at all! She barely notices the thing. The only annoying thing about the helmet is how sweaty her head will get in it sometimes! She wears the helmet 23 hours a day. We only take it off every evening to clean and dry it and to give Isla a bath. Other than the sweat thing we really feel lucky, this thing isn't even a problem at all! In fact... I think she looks pretty cute in it:)

The whole reason she got a flat spot on her head in the first place was for a few reasons. During labor I was pushing for over 3 hours and that put a lot of pressure on her very mold-able head. She also had torticollis which just means she favored one side over the other. She would only look one way, sleep on one side and we had to stretch out her neck muscles by doing some little physical therapy exercises and tummy time. Luckily the torticollis is gone but because she was always favoring one side her flat spot didn't go away on it's own like it should have.

Most babies don't get the helmet on until they are about seven months or older but our pediatrician recommended getting it sooner because he was pretty sure at four months old hers was bad enough it would not correct itself. I am glad that we got it I can already tell it is making a big difference and it's only been a month! We hope that her head can continue growing fast and so she won't have to wear it that long.

Also, just FYI. The helmet doesn't actually put any pressure on her head. It was custom made for her and it only touches the part of the head that doesn't need to grow and leaves a gap in the area that it does. So her head will just naturally fill in that gap as it grows. Genius! 

This turned out to be a really long post but hopefully it answered some questions if anyone had any:) and I can look back on this post one day if I need to remember how to maybe avoid it with future children!

They are pretty cool hats! Isla's cousin Miles wants one in his size:)

5 months

Can you see Weston's snout on the top right of the picture? Ya, that's why Isla was looking at the camera:)

I feel like Isla changed drastically as far as appearance goes from her four to five month pictures. Other things have changed too and she's learned some new tricks! 

• She is still happy and smiling! (Lets hope this one never changes:)
• Way better at rolling over from back to tummy.
• She did learn to roll over from tummy to back but she would forget sometimes and I have to say one of the hardest things is when she woke me up (what seemed like) 10 times a night crying because she rolled over onto her tummy and couldn't remember how to roll back. I would have to get out of bed and go turn her over. I'm not the best sleeper so whenever I wake up and have to get out of bed it easily takes me up to an hour to fall back asleep.
• We got her a bouncer/ exersaucer and she absolutely loves it! I thought it would take her awhile to get used to it but seriously within two days she had that thing figured out!
• Because of the bouncer her leg strength had increased tremendously over the month and by the end of it she could easily stand up and put pressure on her legs even without me holding her!
• She had always hated tummy time but once she figured out how to roll over from her tummy she started not to mind it as much.
• She LOVES her toys! One thing that is sure to make her (and me) happy is putting her in her crib and throwing every toy she owns in it with her! She will play like that for over an hour sometimes. I love it because I can clean or do projects and just watch her through her monitor. Fun for her! Easy for me:) Win win.
• One of her favorite toys is her binky. Now that she can hold it and try to get it in and out of her mouth it is another entertaining thing that can last a long time!
• She can sit up by herself. Not for very long at all though and very wobbly! 
• She got a DOC band for her head due to a pretty bad flat spot that wasn't going away on it's own. More to come on that.
• We gave her rice cereal to try for the first just for fun. She was not a fan... That was really the only time we gave her any that month.

5 month pictures

You may notice a little bit of a red spot on her four head. That came from the helmet that she has been having to wear but it went away once the helmet guy corrected the problem with the helmet thank goodness!

Showing off he new accessory. 

 Pictures 4-5 months

Poor doggy:(

Looking old for her age...

Loving her exersaucer!

Rice cereal.... Yucky.

She LOVES cuddling with her tinny Weston:)

Isla at 4 months

Okay so I am a little late in updating Isla's monthly posts but better late than never I guess:) I have to admit that I am already having a hard time remembering exactly what happened between three and four months as far as mile stones go. This post and her five month post may not be as detailed as I would have liked for future remembrance. What I do know is after looking at these picture I have realized she has changed a ton!!! It's only been a few months but she looks so different to me! 

Here is what I remember about her from 3-4 months...

• I felt like her little personality was really developing. 
• Still a really happy baby and super easy!
• She could roll over from her back to tummy but not very well and NOT from her tummy to her back.
• She was getting better at sitting in her bumbo and working on picking things up without dropping them and holding them even longer.
• Still loves Weston, water and fans!
• Doesn't know what to think about swimming in the pool yet... She doesn't hate it but she doesn't just love it either.
• Is now completely on formula:( I just had a really hard time breast feeding her and never really felt like she was getting enough food from me. We made the transition to formula feeding and while I am very sad about this I know that she is getting plenty of food now and it has been a lot easier for us.
• Started making weird grunting sounds. What happened to my cute baby noises?!?!
• When she gets really excited about something she does a hyperventilating thing! She breaths in and our really fast and waves her arms in the air like a crazy person! Of coarse I think it's the cutest thing ever:)
• That is all I can remember... I'm sure there was more but it's lost in my mothers brain now...

Four month stats

Weight: 14 lbs 13 oz (68th percentile) 

Head circumference: 16" (34th percentile)

Height: 27" (99th percentile)! We knew she was going to be off the charts tall!

I didn't take the time to get really good pictures for her four month shots. I still think they turned out okay but hopefully I will do better for her six month pictures:)

Random shots throughout the month...

I was getting ready one day and turned around to check on Isla and this is what I saw. She was asleep like this:)

Another way I found her sleeping one night. I literally snuck in with a camera at 3 am to get this and the flash didn't even wake her up!

Moab

So like a month ago now (in the beginning of June) we headed to Moab for the purpose of Steve participating in the Xtrerra Triathlon with Scott and Rachel. It was a short trip with a long drive to and from and I was personally dreading the drive with an almost four month old baby. It was an eight hour drive each way and at about the seven hour point of the journey each way Isla decided to break down! At least she made it seven hours though right?!!! Well on the way home our eight hour drive turned into a ten hour drive thanks to some idiot and his/her cigarette that they had thrown into dry brush on the side of the freeway causing a brush fire that backed up traffic about twenty miles!!! I may or may not have anger issues towards this person... Anyways, it wouldn't have been so bad if it wasn't the tail end of our journey and Isla didn't hate being in the car so much at that point. I guess it was an adventure right?

The actual Moab part of the trip was awesome and made our drive totally worth it! We had an absolute blast hanging out with Scott, Rachel and their kiddo's! The highlight for me was just hanging out in the condo chatting with Rachel and watching Mason and Brynn chase Weston around. They love Weston! I also loved going to the local rec center and swimming and watching Steve and his brother Scott interact and realize how similar they are!

Isla was a dream during the stay. She loved swimming until she started getting a little cold and when we were out in the heat all morning watching the triathlon she was mostly just asleep in her carrier or looking around. She had fun playing with her cousin Miles in their bumbo's (picture's below) and went to bed early and slept great!

The actual triathlon was tough (and I wasn't even participating in the triathlon)! It was hot and dirt everywhere so there wasn't really a good place to sit down at all. We ended up going back to the condo to hang out during Steve's bike portion of the race because it was a few hours long. I got a short nap in and was re-energized for the rest of the fun day! 

Steve, Scott and Rachel all did fantastic on their leg of the race! It was really tough for them but they made it look easy! Maybe one day I'll be in shape enough to do something like that:) I was so proud of Steve for doing the tough mountain bike ride! It was about 15 miles long and really technical. He does have a lot of mountain biking experience so that did help him on portions of the trail but it was super tough and he even admitted to wanting to give up at times. He was really fast on down hill and he was one of the few people who actually rode his bike through the river, most people got off their bikes and walked. Scott and Rachel did great too! Rachel is an amazing swimmer and Scott is a fantastic runner! They had a good team:)

It was a fun experience and I hope we can do it again sometime!

This was just as we were leaving the house for the long drive up! She had no idea what we where getting her into!

The team!

The start of the race! It's hard to tell but Rachel's the one in the water

Coming out to tag Steve

Go baby GO!!! That's what I was thinking after I saw him off and then went back to the condo to take a nap:)

Relief after his part is done!

Pool time!

I'm teaching Isla the art of lounging:) 

I think this was the highlight of the trip for Isla! She loved playing with Miles

Oh I love this pic... Notice Isla is trying to eat Mason's hand? That's my girl and her totally cute (and handsome) cousins...

Three Years

Last month we celebrated being married for three years. Last night we where talking about how different we where when we were dating compared to now. I remember just hugging Steve and feeling like I never wanted to let go. I knew that I wanted to marry him and I obviously got my way:) I also remember the feeling the night that Steve proposed to me! It was one of the best days of my life and something I will never forget. I remember the pure happiness and giddiness that I felt when I thought about are upcoming wedding and I remember driving to the the temple that Friday morning to be sealed for time and all eternity. Our wedding day was perfect! Even though marriage can be really hard sometimes I will never regret being married to Steve and I can't imagine not loving him to my hearts capacity! I think we make a great team:)

Steve's birthday in 2008.

The night Steve proposed and we started our family a little early with Weston:)

June 5th, 2009

This year we just went to dinner to celebrate three years and Steve got me beautiful white roses and I surprised him with tickets to see Cirque de soliel, Kooza which is currently touring.

We couldn't take any pictures inside the show but it was amazing! We had many favorite parts and it was one of the best forms of entertainment we have see in a long time! Overall fantastic!