Grace at 5 Months

I never got around to publishing this post. We have been gone and out and about so much on trips. It has made blogging a little tricky. I feel bad I didn't sit down and jot some things about Grace at this stage. She was such a trooper with all of our driving and traveling in September. She of course is still sweet as can be, very immobile and a much more serious baby than Vi. Don't get me wrong she is happy and sweet and smily. It just takes more work to crack this girl. No teeth and we haven't tried solids yet. She loves to nurse and is much more comforted by nursing than Vi was. She is good about just sitting with you, but recently she has really started to like standing more. She has skinny little legs and not much of a belly. At this point she was still sleeping really well and napping great. Love this girlie so much!

Fall in Michigan 

Grace at 6 Months 

We have been having some really beautiful Fall weather in Michigan this year. Luckily we have been able to get out quit a bit. Mike has been on rotation up in Traverse City over the past 2 weeks. Those are always really hard times for us because I play single mom. We count on Mike a lot in the evenings and it has made it a bit trickier without him around. It also always seems like the girls decide to have their melt downs when he is gone. I have been trying to take the girls out to do different activities. We went apple picking and got donuts from Wasem Fruit Stand. We have gone to Jenny's Farm Stand and 3 Cedars. All of these places are fun little outings in the Fall. I love getting to see the leaves change and the air get crisp. We are hoping to get a few more things in before it gets too cold around here. 

Grace is now 6 months old. I can't believe how fast time has gone with her. Vi's first year seemed much slower. Grace is our sweetheart. She still has the most gentle disposition. We have been going through a bit of a rough time the past few weeks. She is having a hard time with sleep in general since she turned 6 months. She just started waking up in the middle of the night more and kicking her way out of her swaddle. She can't go back to sleep with her arms all free, so it has been a tricky time. Her naps have also been suffering a bit. Vi never had the 6 month sleep regression, so I felt a little unprepared for Grace to go through it. 

She started solids and really loves them. She has given us some pretty sour faces for peaches and prunes.  Vi likes to come over and sample all the food when we go to feed grace. Vi ate almost an entire thing of sweet potatoes and prunes. I figure it's fruit and veggies. Can't go wrong right? She always gets slouched over when she is eating in her bumbo. She just falls forward and likes to stay there. She also bites and her spoon and tries to chew it over and over. She still loves to nurse and we haven't dropped a feeding there. 

Grace can roll from front to back and sometimes from back to front. She has been able to sit up on her own for periods of time, but sometimes gets a little scared. She is kind of a pansy when it come to being up high in the sky. We will lift her up and kind of twirl her in the air and she gets this panicked cry right away. It's pretty sad. Mike is just waiting for a child that likes to be tossed around.

She loves to be outside. We try to take her out in the evenings when she starts to get fussy before bed. She really loves the car now. It's kind of funny because she didn't like it for a long time. Now she is always happy when she gets clicked in. 

She has started to like watching Baby Einstein. She loves playing in her exersaucer and is starting to not really care about her bouncer. Gracie loves her daddy, just like Vi did at her age. They both just have such a sweet spot for him. Grace doesn't suck on a binkie but she likes to chew on them. She loves her silver rattle and chewing on stuffed animals. She adores Vi and tolerates so much from her. She loves to grab Vi's face when they are laying on the floor together. Grace loves to chew on her bows and toes and hands. She is a big time chewer. 

When she gets mad or frustrated she likes to kick with both of her legs together. It is kind of like a dolphin kick. She still sounds like a screeching cat when she is trying to talk or starting to get mad. She still has her sweet mellow temperament. She loves to facetime and see people. Sometimes when I go to put her down for a nap I lay her down to swaddle her and start singing. She rolls to her side and grabs for her toes and starts to smile. Those are the days she doesn't even make a peep when I lay her down. 

We are hoping to figure out this sleeping battle soon and get back to a more regular nap schedule. She is still the sweetest girl and we are so happy for the 6 months we have had her in our family.

Mike's 2 week break

During mike's 4th year of dental school the students are randomly assigned 2 weeks off during the year. Mike had the last week of September and the first week of October off. We decided to make the most of it and hit a bunch of things on our list. We decided to do 2 big trips. 

The first week we headed south to Ohio. I really wanted to check out Ohio Amish country. It was a little out of the way, but such a cool place. We went to one of their big markets. There was a huge petting zoo/ farm. There were animals just walking around everywhere. There was a horse the size of our car named Big Ben. We got some baked goods and lunch, which were all really good. On our way out we drove through town and through the countryside, seeing all their homes. Vi was really into looking for their buggies on the road. It is still so crazy to me that people still live like that only a few hours from where we live. We headed up to Kirtland after that. We pulled in just in time! The lady that was locking up walked right out as we came up. She took us in and gave us a quick tour. It ended up being nice, because the normal tour is 45 minutes and I doubt Vi would have stayed interested that long. After going through the temple we headed over to the LDS visitors center. We were the only ones there and the 2 sister missionaries catered the whole thing pretty much to Violet. It was really nice and such a pretty night. We stayed longer than we had planned but it was a really fun day. The girls did great in the car too. We got a hotel just outside of Kirtland for the night.

The next morning we woke up and drove straight to Buffalo NY. We went to the restaurant where the buffalo wing was invented. They were so good! From there we drove to Niagara Falls. It was a really nice day and we got there right before the big crowds all came. We did the Maid of The Mist tour. Violet was not a fan. She did not like all the wind and mist and wearing the poncho. I had to hold her pretty much the whole time.  Grace seemed completely unfazed by it all. We got pretty drenched and the wind was seriously crazy, but it was so fun.

From there we drove to Palmyra and went to the Hill Cuhmora because we only had a little bit of time before the girls needed to go to bed. We weren't really paying attention to the dates and didn't realize it was 188 years to that day that Joseph Smith walked from his house to the hill to receive the gold plates. It was really nice to take the girls there and sit on this beautiful hill and think about that historic event. You can really feel the special spirit there. We headed to the hotel and got the girls down. The next morning we headed to the smith farm and sacred grove. It was another gorgeous day and hardly anyone there. It was really fun to have Mike see all the sites for the first time. We went to look at the Martin Harris home and the publication site for the Book of Mormon. Everywhere we went the sister missionaries were so cute and helpful. They really went out of their way to make things kid friendly. They did such a great job. 

We then started our long drive back home. We stopped in Cleveland to grab dinner with Silva at the Melt. That was really fun. The girls did so well in the car until the hour before we got into Cleveland. I think they both had just had it with all the driving and they hadn't had great naps. We expected at least one melt down. We ended up getting in pretty late, but it was another really great day.

The whole trip was so fun. I have really come to love these family road trips we have been going on during our time in Michigan. We have been able to see so much of this part of the country. It's always so great to spend time in church history sites. I know the girls will be too young to remember going, but it meant a lot to me to have our little family together in all those special places.