Utah May 2014

When Seth and I took our trip to Puerto Vallarta, we were given vouchers for airplane tickets in exchange for getting booted off our return flight. With how chaotic life became after we bought our house, we never had a chance to use them until just before they expired. We decided to take the baby and meet my parents, Aaron and Jerri's family, RJ, and Tiffany's family in Utah during Mother's Day weekend. (Yes, it was heartwrenching to leave my kids for Mother's Day -- they weren't too happy about it! -- but they were happy to spend some time with Oma and Papa who came to take care of them!) It was so fun to get away and have some fun at Lagoon, and also to let Ivy meet Grandpa Buzz for the first time! Ivy was of course a perfect angel the whole weekend. We have been blessed with such good babies.

The kids meanwhile were having a wonderful time with Oma and Papa, and we were able to have some time with them at the park and enjoy a delicious lunch at Tender Greens when we returned to San Diego.

Just chilling at the airport before her first plane ride!

Uh yeah, I'm there right in the middle, completely dwarfed by my younger siblings!

Down time at the hotel

More interested in the food than the camera...

Fun Facts and Cute Pictures From Poppy's First Few Months

When Ivy was born, her left ear was slightly underdeveloped, just as Hannah's was at birth. Luckily it filled out nicely soon after.

She wouldn't take a pacifier until she was two months old, no matter how we tried. She did, however, love sucking on Mommy's top lip. You can imagine the strange looks I'd get at church and various other places with a tiny baby dangling off my mouth. But it worked! That's what got us through church for the first four-five months. The habit gradually wore off and I think the last time she did it was at around 8 months.

Nicknames are such interesting things. Before your baby is born, you couldn't possibly imagine all the silly names you will call them, but that come so effortlessly once they arrive. Here's a list of the nicknames that have stuck during Ivy's first year:
Poppy
Baby Bug
Ivy Bug
Bug
Buggy
Stinks McGee
Stinks
Peanut
Baby (Eli usually refers to her this way)
Missy (Hannah's nickname for her; this one was relatively temporary)
Tiny
Tiny Pants
Precious

And here are some of our favorite pictures and a video of newborn Poppy. She's so cute!

So precious and beautiful. 

Yup, I really was that tired!

I think this is probably the cutest little scrawny bird face ever!

Big smiles!

Fat lip anyone?

She's just SO CUTE!

She loves bathtime!

Hannah's 9th Birthday!

In our family, we have a tradition of doing cool family outings for birthdays instead of the more traditional birthday parties. I figure, instead of spending a fortune to babysit other people's kids, why not spend a fortune doing something special with just ours? It's worked out well.

We started the day with Hannah getting her first pedicure! It was so fun but silly me, I didn't think to take a picture of her while we were actually getting the pedicures. But we got a picture of our matching toes :) One of the reasons I love having a daughter, I always have a "girlfriend" when I need one.

Hannah chose to ride the Coaster for her birthday outing this year, so the whole family took a train ride up to Encinitas, where we walked around enjoying the town and the scenery and ended up at a little Thai restaurant for lunch.

Hannah feeding Poppy one of the very few bottles she ever took!

Perfect day with the perfect people.

Bathrobe birthday present!

A Rash, a Visit, and a Baby Blessing

In the middle of February, a mysterious, pustular rash broke out on the palm of Baby Ivy's right hand. I had never, ever seen anything like it. So it was back to the doctor with the baby, where they took cultures and feared it might be a staph infection. Luckily those cultures came back negative, and the rash cleared up after a few days. They decided it must have been a very unique version of two apparently "common" (although I've never in my life heard anybody mention them) newborn baby rashes; it appeared too late to be the stereotypical first kind, and too early to be the second kind. So, who knows. But it disappeared without a trace and she was none the worse for it.

As we were investigating the rash mystery, Grandma Jan, Aunt Tiffy, and cousin Fiona paid us a visit. We had a fun time going to our old favorite, the Corvette Diner, and also took a trip to Balboa Park to see the Pirate exhibit at the NAT. We only had one slight misadventure at BP, as we were standing outside watching a tropical bird exhibition, when a malicious bee zoomed for no reason straight into my right thumb, very narrowly missing the baby! Oh my that was painful. It immediately started swelling and nearly sent me into shock. Thankfully some kind and well-prepared strangers nearby pulled out a pair of tweezers so I could extricate the stinger. After an hour or two though it didn't trouble me further, but for at least another full week my thumb would erupt randomly into itching and swelling around the sting site.

Because of Ivy's illness and flu season we didn't take her to church during February, having been cautioned by the doctors not to take her places where she'd be surrounded by a lot of people who would possibly be handling her. So instead Bishop Prescott came over and we blessed her at our house on Sunday, February 23, (her one-month birthday!) while Grandma and Tiffany were there. Papa and Oma also joined us over Skype. Poppy was the most beautiful little blessing doll ever!