It's Christmas time in the city!

We went and saw the Rockafeller Center Christmas tree last night and had a whole lot of fun! I love Manhattan at christmas time, it's all lit up and so pretty! Here are some pictures of some of the fun things we saw.

I love this building with all the huge snowflakes, it looks so cool!


The tree!










I have always wanted to go ice skating at this skating rink, but the line is seriously like a mile long, it's ridiculous!







These are some seriously huge ornaments!




Just some fun pictures I liked!






Oversized christmas lights, they were pretty cool looking.






One last picture of 2009 before it goes to 2010!


And these pictures crack me up! This was pretty much Hallie's expression the whole time. You can tell from all the pictures that she wasn't exactly into all the sights. She was actually so distracted by all the people around, she just kept looking around wondering what in the world was going on!

On our way home we stopped at this restaurant we had been wanting to try. We ordered a plate to share and tried to be adventurous and try something new. Lets just say it wasn't very successful, I wanted to throw up just when they placed the food in front of us and I smelled it. It was SO gross! We each tried to at least taste it and see if maybe it wasn't so bad. Jordon gagged and couldn't even swallow, that's how bad it was. We were too embarrassed to face the waitress, so we just left money on the table and got out of there! A pretty big waste of money I know, but makes for a good story. I still crack up when I think about it, probably won't be trying that place again though! :) But overall a very fun evening!

Spitting

Hallie has a new favorite past time: spitting! She just learned to spit a few days ago and she cannot get enough of it! My sweet little girl used to talk back to us and coo and make such sweet noises, now when we talk to her all we get is spitting back! When I go to get her up in the morning she usually gets all excited and smiles at me. The other morning I went to pick her up and when she saw me she just started spitting! Funny girl! I have no idea where or how she learned this, I promise we don't spit at our baby, but it's kind of funny for now! I have been warned though that while it may be cute now, by the time she hits 15 it won't be so cute anymore, so we are going to have to work on it before then!

Here are a couple videos of her spitting up a storm.

A few other things about our little 4 month old girl:

She still loves her bath time a whole lot. The only problem is when you take her out of the bath she turns into a monster! (But a pretty cute one!) She HATES getting dried off and dressed. Too bad we can't put her to bed wet and naked...




This is how she always takes her bottle. I think she will be holding it herself soon! If I let go she holds it for a few seconds before dropping it. She also has a bad habit of falling asleep while I am giving her a bottle right before bed. But as soon as I take it out she is awake and screaming!

She is definitely her daddy's little girl! They have such a good time spending time together! Some days I have a hard time getting her to smile all day and as soon as he gets home she is all smiles and so happy! She does have a good daddy!

I make Jordon read her a book every night before bed. He thinks it's ridiculous because she has no idea what is going on, but I don't care. It's a good habit to get into. And she is starting to watch the book more and be a little more intersted.

She makes me laugh on a daily basis! With her funny faces and noises and reactions to things, she's a pretty funny little girl!

She is looking more and more like her daddy every day still! We still get comments every where we go that they are almost identical. It's true too.

And she is still just so darn cute! :) We pretty much like having her around!

Who knew?

So apparantly this helmet therapy is a lot more common than I thought. I had honestly never heard of it before the doctor mentioned it. I have talked to quite a few people now that have done the helmet therapy or wish they would have. I am feeling a whole lot better about it and am looking forward to our appointment in January. I am just really hoping now that it is an option for us. I guess it depends on a few different factors whether or not helmet therapy will do any good. So fingers crossed it will work for us! :)

In other good news, Hallie is growing and actually starting to fit into some of her 3-6 month clothes! Not all of them, but a few! So that is exciting. She is still mostly in 0-3 months, and she is 4 months old. But we are slowly but surely starting to move up in the world! We also have less than a week before we head home for Christmas and I am oh so happy! It will be so nice to be home and see family and be out of the city for a little while! (I have learned to love the city, I really have, but sometimes you just need to get out of it so you can appreciate it again when you come back! :)

And some pictures of my sweet little girl from today.

She is learning new tricks all the time. Right now she is working on holding a toy and getting it to her mouth. She is pretty excited about the challenge in this picture as you can tell.

Got it! Now how do I get this thing to my mouth?

Nope, not that way.

Nope, not even close!

Bingo!!

And this is what I get when she is done sitting in her bumbo. I have a ton of pictures of her like this.

These are some of my favorites.

Does that make me a bad mom that I have these pictures? It's just so funny and cute! I always get her out right after! :)

4 months and big decisions

So I have debated long and hard over blogging about Hallie's 4 month check up we recently had. I have finally come to the conclusion that maybe there is somebody out there who can help us who may have been through a similar situation. If so it will definitely make sharing this somewhat difficult matter well worth it. Plus when I make my blog book I want it to have this experience in it so Hallie can know what happened.

First off Hallie is healthy and doing great. She weighed in at 13lbs. 11 oz. and was 24.5 inches long. She wasn't a very happy camper at the appointment, even before the shots. Every time the doctor walked into the room she screamed. I think she knew what was coming! And then after the shots she was just plain ticked. She has been pretty fussy all yesterday and today so the poor little thing isn't feeling great I don't think. So I feel pretty bad about that. Hopefully she gets back to her normal happy self soon!

The only problem with the appointment was the doctor's concern for her head. It started flattening out pretty shortly after she was born and has been getting progressively worse. I showed it to the doctor at her 2 month appointment and asked him what we should do. He said there wasn't much to do now and to just rotate her postions and make sure she has lots of tummy time. So I have been working on that but it hasn't really been helping and her head has been getting flatter. So at this appointment I saw the doctor (different doctor from the 2 month appointment) and she basically made me feel like a horrible mother for not bringing her in sooner because of how bad it has gotten. I honestly didn't know there was much they could do for it otherwise I definitely would have been trying to do something sooner. So she refered us to a neuro surgeon to look into our options to correct or at least help the problem. After I cried for a good long while and called and cried to Jordon and my mom we decided to set up an appointment with the doctor.

So we have an appointment the beginning of January to meet with this neuro surgeon. From what I understand our options are to have helmet therapy done, where she will wear a helmet for a few months and hope this corrects the problem, or to have sugery done. We are both pretty opposed to having any surgery for it, but we are hoping maybe the helmet therapy might be able to help. I am pretty freaked out and nervous about it, obviously have a TON of questions about it, and am really sad when I think about my little baby girl wearing a helmet for a few months and the stares and comments we are bound to get if we choose to go that route. But I really think if this could help correct the problem somewhat that in the long run when she is older she would appreciate us doing what we could to fix it.

I am still pretty scared and sad and confused about what we should do for her. So if anyone reading this has been through a similar situation or knows somone who has been through something similar I would love to hear about it! Even just hearing that someone else has been through something similar I think would definitely help me feel a little better! If you don't want to share it here or it is too long to share here you can e-mail me at terrabeus@gmail.com. Thanks! :)

And of course here are a couple pictures of our cute little 4 month old girl! (Well, she will technically be 4 months on the 10th, but close enough! :)

And a funny family picture. I love this one, it looks like Hallie is screaming, but she is really just laughing/talking to the person taking the picture. It was so funny!

Ticklish

I am incredibly ticklish. It's been a curse my entire life. I can't even get a back massage because it tickles me too much. Sad I know! So imagine my excitement when we discovered the other day that Hallie is ticklish in spots, especially on her neck. Fun discovery for us, probably not so much for her. I've always been on the tickled end, now I can be the tickler! It's just so fun to tickle her and listen to her laugh and squeal! Don't worry, we try and be careful not to take it to the point of torture, I'm pretty sure people have pushed that line when they would tickle me! But we have to do it every once in a while to get a good little squeal!

Here is a video of Jordon tickling her last night. It sounds like she is angry, but she really wasn't, she was just talking. Probably telling Jordon off, telling him to stop!

We also just made another great discovery. Not sure why we haven't thought of it before now! Hallie hates the baby bjorn. She doesn't like to be confined in there not being able to see anything but our shoulder. So the other day we get the genius idea to try turning her around and facing her out. And she was happy as a clam! She could see everything going on and have a little more freedom to move around. She's not the kind of baby that just likes to sit in your lap and cuddle. (Which makes me really sad, I wish she would just cuddle with me sometimes!) She likes to have her freedom and be moving and seeing things. So this was perfect for her! Not sure if it's intended to be used with a baby facing out, but we're going to do it anyway because it makes it so much easier!

Jordon even showed me how I could do the dishes with her in it! (He really did the whole sinkful for me again while holding the baby, what a great husband!)

And here are just a couple pictures of her all ready for church. She just looks too stinkin cute! The second one is mid-yawn. I thought it was pretty funny!

Thanksgiving

We had a really good Thanksgiving this year! We got to spend it with our little family of three. We were planning on going out to eat since it was just the three of us and I didn't want to make a whole Thanksgiving dinner. (I have always wanted to go out to eat for Thanksgiving since I saw "The Santa Clause" and they went out to Denny's for Thanksgiving dinner! Funny, but true!) But then I felt guilty making someone work on Thanksgiving, so the night before we decided to stay home and make Thanksgiving dinner ourselves. With a few changes of course. Instead of turkey we had parmesean chicken, which is 100 times better anyway! And instead of the traditional rolls I love oh so much we made some easy garlic rolls. Still yummy so they worked! We even made pumpkin bread (Jordon's favorite) and cheese ball (my favorite)!

It was such a good day, I had so much fun spending time with my two favorite people. Jordon and Hallie both had sweet little gifts for me! Jordon made me a cute little slide show (see post below). The pictures in it are pictures of Hallie every day for her first month. I thought it was pretty cute! We tried to e-mail it to the grandparents but it was too big, so we put it on here so you could watch it! :) Hallie's gift was a good nights rest! She slept SOO well last night! We put her down at 8:00 pm and she slept until 6:00 am. I was AMAZED!!! That is definitely a record for her! It felt so good, I was so happy this morning! So I will stop complaining about the bad nights she has if she has nights like that sometimes!!

Here are some pictures of our fun day:

This was our delicious dinner! Not bad for last minute throw together, I was impressed with us! :)


Jordon enjoying his delicious meal. (ignore the fact that our toilet is in the background. gotta love new york apartments!)


Hallie got to watch us enjoy our dinner! Lucky girl! (she often sits in there while we eat. does that make me a bad mom? I haven't perfected the eating one handed yet.)


And here is Hallie enjoying her delicious Thanksgiving dinner!


Yum yum! She chowed down, I think she knew it was thanksgiving!


After her delicious dinner, she was feeling pretty good about life!

We have so many things to be grateful for! We are grateful for our little family and the time we get to spend together. We are grateful for the gospel and our Savior. We are grateful for all of our family and friends and the love and support they show us. We are definitely very blessed to have such wonderful people in our lives!

First Family Slide Show

This is just a little slide show that I put together for Terra.