Beach babe with teeth

So we had the wonderful opportunity to spend last week in Hawaii with my family. Everything about it was amazing. We had beautiful weather. It was in the low 80s every day. Mia was so good for the flights and was a trooper about being carted all over the place and having her schedule turned completely upside down. To top it all off, she got her first tooth in Hawaii. On President's Day we went to a Luau and they gave Mia a lei. She decided she was going to eat it so I stuck my fingers in her mouth trying to get the flowers out and she bit me. We had no idea she was teething. 2 days later it finally came through all the way and now her other bottom

tooth is starting to come in.

We really had a great time. We were there for Whale Days so we got to go to the whale parade. We went snorkeling, hiking, boating, kayaking, zip lining, went to a luau, and did all kinds of shopping and laying on the beach. My mom was so nice and watched Mia while Monty and I went kayaking, zip lining, and out to dinner one night. It was so hard to come back home to the cold weather and snow.

My brother Shawn is a great photographer and took about 1300 pictures of the trip. I haven't gotten his pictures yet so here are just a few that we took.

This is Mia at the airport while we were waiting for our luggage. She got a new stroller just for the occasion (our other one was just too big to take). She absolutely loved being outside and threw a fit on more than one occasion when it was time to go in. We were too cheap to pay the $30 each way it would have cost us to take Mia's pack-n-play and we discovered she fit very nicely in Monty's suitcase so we just turned that into her bed once we got there. I even took her sheet and puppy so it would feel a little more like home.It was really just too funny to see her sleeping in the suitcase but she didn't ever seem to mind.
We had a gorgeous view of the ocean from our condo and spent most mornings and evenings sitting on the balcony. Most days we could see the whales out jumping and blowing their spouts.
Enjoying the sun on our first day.

Our first full day we went to the whale parade and then spent the afternoon at the beach. Mia slept through most of it. Glad we decided to rent an umbrella for her. It was only $10 for the week and it made it really nice at the beach and I didn't have to slather her with sunscreen quite as much.

Nicky (my sis in-law), mom, and me in the ocean. This water was a little colder than the beach by our condo.

Monty coming in from snorkeling

The family hanging out on the beach.

Me and Mia

We went hiking at Iao State Park. It's a nice little hike that wasn't too bad. There was all kinds of tropical vegetation and a nice river with pools to cool off in. It wasn't cold we're just using a blanket to keep the sun off Mia.

Mia all ready for the beach on the day she got to go in the water. She didn't like sitting on the beach and letting the waves come up to get her but she liked being out in the ocean.

Heading out in the water. (at the warmer beach) Mia and Monty ready for fun in the sun.

Just hanging on the beach with dad.

Monty eating at the luau. Doesn't he just look so excited?

Mia very excited at the luau (with grandpa in the background...why aren't the guys excited to be there?)

We saw these glasses when we were going through some of the little shops and thought they were just too funny. She was a little crabby at times so I guess they are fitting.

When we went out on the boat Mia slept almost the whole time. I think she liked the motion of the boat.

Monty and I getting ready to head out snorkeling. We just took turns heading out since we had Mia with us. We saw tons and fish and a couple turtles. The day before when we went kayaking we saw tons of turtles. They were very friendly and kept coming close. I even touched one. I don't have any pictures from kayaking. Have to wait and get those from Shawn since he had the water proof camera.

Back from snorkeling.

One of our gorgeous Hawaiian sunsets.

Mia in her little Hawaiian outfit grandma got her with her lei from the luau. Shawn took a really good picture of the 3 of us with our leis at the luau but I'll have to wait for that pic too.

While the rest of us went zip lining Mia hung out with grandma. She just chilled on the trunk of the car for a bit enjoying the sun.

The zip lining crew. Monty, Shawn, Me, Dad, Nicky, and Steve.Monty coming down a zip lineIt was so much fun. The course was a series of 5 zip lines, each one longer and faster than the last. By the time we got to the last one the clouds had rolled in and it was drizzling rain. Because we were up on one of the volcanoes, we were in the clouds. On the last zip line most of the time you couldn't see the landing from where you started and we would just watch people disappear into the clouds. Off I go!

So I guess when I gets Shawn's pictures I'll have to do a Hawaii part 2 post because he has more pictures than we did and he has some really good pictures. It was a wonderful vacation and I can't wait to go back. Monty said some day we can.

Food, Feet, and Other Adventures

So last Monday we took on the adventure of rice cereal. It did not go over well and I admit I was ready to throw in the towel and try again in a few weeks. She got good at doing raspberries with her lips while her mouth was full of cereal and I was getting tired of wearing it and washing my glasses. Luckily yesterday a light bulb seemed to turn on and we have now had 2 days of successful cereal eating.
Here is the before picture of the first cereal attempt
She definitely didn't know what to think of it.

I don't think any was swallowed that night. It just kept running back out.

And our end result. A very mad very sticky girl. I'm so glad it got better. We can now even clean up with just a wash cloth and not a bath.

The day before our cereal adventure Mia found her feet. (At least it was the first time we noticed her grabbing on to her feet.) She loves playing with her feet now and has figured out how to take her socks off.

Sometimes she even gets her foot in her mouth.

We also pulled her exer-saucer out this week. She can just barely reach the bottom of it and today kept kicking so she was throwing herself around in her little seat. She's still a little small for it but she likes it for short periods of time.
Tummy time has been the evil word at our house. Mia hates it and starts screaming so we aren't big fans of it and probably don't put her on her tummy as much as she should be. Things are getting better though. Sometimes we can get 3 or 4 minutes now before she's screaming.

I'm hoping if I can get her to spend a little more time on her belly she might roll over finally.

This is just a random picture that I thought was just way too cute. I figured it was a good one to put in for her cousin Lucy.

Crazy she's already 5 months old!

Finally it's girlie

So it may have taken me 4 1/2 months, but Mia's room finally looks like a girl lives in it. When we first started setting up a baby's room, we made it very gender neutral. I was having a hard time deciding what to do because I couldn't come up with anything I liked that matched the bedding we had. Lucky for me my wonderful neighbor told me about the super clearance on baby bedding at Target so I was able to replace the bedding for only $12.50! We went with flowers and butterflies. I figured it's girlie but not baby so it can grow with her for awhile. I also love the ribbon board so I can keep all kinds of pictures up in her room and change them as often I I want.

I got the idea for this frame from Michael McLean's song "From God's Arms to My Arms to Yours." It's a song about an adoption and I thought it was just so fitting. Mia's birth mom was so nice to help us in doing this.

Her cute new bedding with all her bed time friends.

This wall will still be rearranged a bit. I want to get a picture of the Bountiful Temple to put on this wall. That is the temple we are having Mia sealed to us in so it will be her temple.

This is one of those little growth charts. Because I did all the decorating by myself to surprise Monty when he came home from work, it's not at the exact right height. It's about 1/2 inch to low but I figured that was close enough. Hopefully Mia will be standing good by her first birthday so we can mark how tall she is.

We had a few warmer days (it hit low 40s for a high) and we were tired of being cooped up in the house so we decided to bundle up and go for a walk. It was really rather nice being outside and getting some fresh air. Mia seemed to enjoy it too.

This was how I found Mia the other day when we were getting ready for church. She loves to chew on fabric (particularly burp cloths). I had laid her down to change her diaper when I realized the wipes were in the other room. When I came back to her room, she was happily chewing away at the sheet she was laying on.

Getting cuter by the day!

Monty is 30!

On Sunday Monty celebrated the big 30. It was a rather nice and enjoyable weekend. Friday night Monty's sister watched Mia and I picked Monty up from work. We went shopping and found Mia's sealing and blessing dress, then I surprised Monty and we went out to dinner. Monty's favorite food is hamburgers and I found a hamburger restaurant we'd never tried. We went to Salt City Burgers. DELICIOUS! Then I surprised him again and we spent the night down in Salt Lake. We swam in the hotel pool, rented a red box and enjoyed popcorn, soda, and candy. It was a really fun date night out. Sunday we headed down to Monty's parents for a "family dinner."

I should preface the rest of this story with a little back story. Several months ago, before Mia was born, Monty was having a difficult time with the idea that he was going to be 30. He made the mistake of mentioning this to one of his sisters. Not smart. She told her family it was a Borrowman family duty to make this worse. For anyone who knows the Borrowmans this is no big surprise. So Sunday afternoon we headed to West Jordan. There was indeed a family dinner. It had somewhat of a memorial theme to it. Everyone was dressed in black (I missed the email about that) and we had black cups, forks, and napkins. We had a classic funeral meal with ham, funeral potatoes, and rolls. The center pieces on the table consisted of dead flowers, Monty's picture, and an urn (thanks Shawn it added a great touch).I made ice cream cakes. There were only 26 candles on the cake, but they were black and I think any more and the cake would have melted away. Amazing, all in one breath.

The cakes.

I had a little bit of trouble with my food coloring icing so the "30" on the first cake ran and so did "the" on the 2nd cake.

Of course anyone with a dark color of icing on their piece got a mouth full of color. Monty and I both had blue.

There were several cards offering condolences and sympathy. Gifts included chattering teeth (dentures), prune juice, magnifying glass, reading glasses, hemrroid cream, large print word search, denture cleaner, and "adult" size diapers. Luckily Monty took the whole thing in good spirits and it was an enjoyable evening with the family.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MONTY!! LOVE YA BABES!!

Mia Update

So I don't have any fun pictures to post this time because life with a sick baby is a little crazy but figured I would update how she's doing. Yesterday she had her tests. They did an ultra sound of her kidneys and bladder and then did what is called a VCUG. Basically they strap her to a board (it was rather barbaric and very sad to watch) drain her bladder with a catheter and then put dye through the catheter and take a bunch of x-rays as the dye moves through. She was a real trooper for the whole thing. Luckily she was hungry and spent most of the time just sucking down her bottle but she still had her screaming moments. I know she's had it with being picked on and I definitely have too. Her VCUG came back complete normal. We got the results of the ultra sound a day later because they wanted to have the kidney docs at Primary Children's look at it because one of her kidneys is slightly dilated. They are thinking it's just a normal variation so unless she has more problems they aren't going to worry about it. The bad news is her urine wasn't completely clean. They don't know if it's from the previous infection or a new one so they started her on a new antibiotic for at least 48 hours until the final result comes back. The new antibiotic is making her miserable (at least I hope that's what it is so once she's done with it she'll be back to her normal self). Poor girl just has melt downs and screams a few hours after getting it. So sad.

On a positive note, we finally got our court date to finalize Mia's adoption. We go to court March 28 and then we will have her sealed to us April 9 and her blessing April 10. We are so excited to finalize everything and be able to take her to the temple. It will be a very good couple of weeks. :-)

Christmas Adventures

So I have to say for the most part we had a wonderful holiday season. It was so fun getting ready for Christmas with Mia. We spent time with family and of course everyone spoiled Mia. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, you name it. She also got some of the sweetest gifts from her birth mom and a fun toy from her birth grandparents.

About mid December we went to Temple Square to see the lights. It has been awhile since I'd been there so Mia and I took the train to Salt Lake and met Monty one day after work. I just put her in her carrier and zipped her into my coat and she stayed toasty warm. She slept through most of it but when she was awake she actually seemed to enjoy seeing the lights.

We took some cute pictures of Mia with her stocking. Sadly we waited too long so she no longer fit in her stocking but we made it look that way. She is growing like crazy and weighs 13 1/2 pounds already. She may have started out small but it taking no time catching up.

Mia in her Christmas dress. She wasn't exactly thrilled about getting up for church that morning so she was kinda a grumpus but she still looks cute even with the pouty face.

We took Mia to see Santa (mostly because I insisted). I wanted to make sure we had a picture of her with Santa for her first Christmas. She slept through it which worked out well for taking pictures.

For Christmas Eve Mia had her cute Christmas jammie's. They say Santa's favorite. Monty actually picked these out last year when they were on clearance just to have for our future child. We had no idea at the time that we would have a baby by Christmas and that the jammie's would fit perfectly. Mia slept through most of opening presents. Maybe next year she'll be a little more excited.Christmas morning started out wonderful with a big family breakfast and lots of cheer to go around. After Christmas naps is when our Christmas adventures turned sour. Mia woke up with a fever and you could tell she was just miserable. I called the on call pediatrician just for peace of mind since it was her first real fever and was told that due to her age and how high her temp was, we needed to take her in to be seen and it needed to be today. Due to the fact that today was Christmas there was no where open but the ER. We packed her up and spent Christmas evening in the ER where she was poked at, prodded at, and then sent home. At midnight that night the hospital called and said they had some test results back and that she had RSV. My heart sank. All I wanted to do was to get through the winter without her getting RSV and we didn't make it very far into winter and she was sick. Luckily she did very well with it and other than some difficulty eating, being very sleepy, and lots of boogers we didn't have to much problem. By 6 days later she was doing much better but that only lasted about 36 hours and then she started spiking temps again. This time higher than before. So Monday we were back at the Dr for more poking and prodding. Now she has a UTI (urinary tract infection). Normally at her age they like to admit them to the hospital for treatment. The Dr decided while we were waiting on blood work to just give her a shot of antibiotics and let us go home and come back the next day. So Tuesday we were back at the Dr for more blood work and another shot of antibiotics and a follow up appointment for the next day again. Wednesday we were back for more blood work but this time they couldn't get any blood so they ended up sending us to the hospital to have blood drawn then and yet another shot of antibiotics. Her blood work is finally looking better so no more daily trips to the Dr and she managed to stay out of the hospital but the poor girl is miserable. In 3 days she's been poked 9 times for blood, had 3 shots, and had a catheter. The good news is she has a week off now. The bad news is next week we have to go in for more tests. Because of her age they want to make sure there isn't anything wrong with her kidneys or bladder that caused the infection. We are praying that it was just bad luck and that everything will be normal next week but I guess we'll have to wait and see. I've learned that sick kids are definitely no fun. The poor girl has had a rough 2 weeks. I guess the good news is she won't remember any of it.

So much to be Thankful for

So we had a wonderful Thanksgiving...Twice. The weekend before Thanksgiving we went to Idaho and had Thanksgiving with the whole Cobbley family. It was so nice to have everyone together, to spend time just relazing, and catching up. My dad had to work Thanksgiving and the 2 days after and Steve and Shawn had to work the days around Thanksgiving so it just worked out better to do it the weekend before. The day before Thanksgiving Mia got to spend the day with Nana and her cousin Lucy who at the age of 4 was excited to be able to have someone littler than her to look after. I definitely need to get pictures of Mia and her cousins because they are so cute together. Wednesday night Mia and Dad had pie night with the Borrowman clan while I worked. I was kinda sad I missed that but not much I could do. Thanksgiving day, Grandma came down from Idaho and uncle Shawn came over and we had Thanksgiving dinner again. I just sat there thinking how much I have to be thankful for. I have a wonderful family, wonderful in-laws, and now we have a wonderful little family of our own. Little Mia is just amazing and I can't believe how blessed we are to have her in our family. Mia was very tired on Thanksgiving so Monty and Shawn spent about 15 minutes trying to time it just right to get a picture of her yawning.

Mia's enjoying 2 new toys, her little gym and her swing. She hasn't quite gotten the hang of reaching up for the toys hanging down but she enjoys looking at them.

She loves her swing and often takes her afternoon nap there. When she's fussy she calms right down in the swing (well most the time).

Hanging with dad with a full tummy face.

She's starting to smile more and more and while we were in Idaho she started cooing. It's the sweetest sound to hear. She's not doing it a ton but usually at least once a day we can get her talking to us. (She's a little behind what most babies would be doing at 2 1/2 months cuz she was a little early).