Elite Eight

I thought the title of this post was appropriate since March Madness is starting this week.

The below three pictures were taken on the 11th.

Little Miss Palmer turned eight months old on Sunday. Each month goes faster than the last. I feel like she grew up and changed a lot in the last month. She is so much fun! She makes me smile and laugh all day long. She has started jabbering a lot more lately and she tells the cutest stories ever. She likes to try out different sounds that she can make and loves to squeal and sometimes it even sounds like she's trying to sing. She seems a little shy though and is much more talkative around Mommy and Daddy than when others are around. She'll smile and giggle at any dumb little thing I say or do all day long, but she is quite stingy with smiles around other people. We honestly become more infatuated with her every day; obviously we knew we would just keep loving her more and more, but it's more than that. We literally can not get enough of her. I know I'm biased but everything she does is the cutest in the universe to me.

We go on walks with friends every week. The picture above is Palmer and her good buddy Bryir. Little does Palmer know that I've already got her whole social circle picked out :)

I was certain she'd have a tooth or three by this post because she was definitely working on cutting some teeth a couple of weeks ago. I could feel three little buds, and it was obvious that her mouth was tender. She was fussy and drooly for a couple of weeks. I can still feel the little buds, but she doesn't seem bothered by it any more and the teething process seems to be on hold for now.
In my last post I talked about her pesky little cough. It got a little worse after that post and then it got a lot worse all of the sudden. She was coughing constantly and neither of us was really getting any sleep. Her poor little nose ran non-stop. She had a very slight fever off and on for a couple of days. After a few days/nights of no sleep I took her to the doctor to make sure her lungs sounded ok and that she didn't have an ear infection or anything else that would need attention. I've mentioned before that we absolutely love our doctor, but the bad thing about having an awesome doctor is that everyone else wants to go to him too. So there's just no way to get in to see him unless you make an appointment far in advance. Palmer has had to see a different doctor for her last couple of sick visits; luckily we like this doctor too and she is very kind and seems to know what she's doing. She said that Palmer seemed healthy other than the cough and prescribed a home breathing treatment to try to help her get over the cough and be able to get some sleep. That night was still rough, but by the next night we started seeing some serious improvement. Three or four nights later she was doing SO much better! Ever since then she has been sleeping so great. She seems to love her crib now. When I lay her down for a nap or at bedtime, she happily grabs her lovie named Violet, rolls to her side and goes to sleep without a peep. On the rare occasion that she doesn't go right to sleep she lays there and plays with Violet for up to 45 minutes, talking to it and squealing happily. Then when she decides she's ready, she rolls to her side and goes to sleep. When she wakes up, both in the morning and after naps, she immediately starts talking to Violet and just squeals and plays until I go in to get her. She's now sleeping just over 12 hours most nights - hallelujah! Most days she takes three naps, but if she sleeps long enough in the morning and/or takes two long naps then she gets by just fine with only two naps.

She was such a trooper with her breathing treatments!

How sad is her little runny nose and red eyes?

My beautiful blue-eyed girl is such a pleasant little thing. Even if she gets upset about something she'll let out a little disappointed whine and then she's usually fine. She loves attention. She loves to be sung to. I sing silly made up songs to her all day long and sometimes she "sings" along with me. We sing songs before naptime and bedtime and she usually gets the biggest smile on her face as soon as I start singing.

She has pulled herself up to a standing position on the side of the couch a couple of times with a little help, but she honestly doesn't seem too interested in it. Sometimes I'll stand her up next to the couch or something else she can hold onto and she'll stand there for a minute looking at me like, "now what?" and then she'll drop to her bum and get back to her business. She still isn't crawling. She pushes herself backwards and turns herself in whatever direction she wants, but hasn't quite figured out the forward thing.
She still loves her solids and baby snacks and is such a great eater. She gets very excited when the spoon is coming towards her mouth and she starts flailing her arms and squealing. She ends up hitting the spoon and splattering food all over herself and me quite often. Then she laughs like it's the funniest thing ever.
She loves to shake her head "no." I don't know what she thinks she's saying/doing when she shakes it, but it looks like she's honestly disagreeing with everything that is said to her. It's pretty darn cute, but probably won't be quite so cute when she gets older and pulls real attitude with us.

Last month Noelle hosted her third annual Lyman girls weekend. Palmer was happy to be a part of her first, and certainly not last, girls weekend. We did lots of girly things like sewing, painting nails, eating good food, crafting etc. Noelle is awesome; her house was a straight up circus, but it was so much fun!

One of these days I need to do a blog post about the progress of our house. I also want to do a post about our first two years of living in Blanding. Hopefully soon I'll get on that.

7

This little beauty is seven months old (plus a few days). She only gets more fun every day. She is my best little friend and I love spending my days with her. She is growing and learning new things so fast. Just after my last blog post she started sitting up like a champ. She loves to sit and play with her toys and squeal, squeeze and talk to them.

Noelle was visiting for a few days last month and because she is so awesome she took some CUTE six month pictures of Palmer girl. The following gems are courtesy of her great photography skills. One word - adorable.

Palmer loves her solid foods more and more every day. We've moved to two solid meals a day and she still likes everything we give her. She's started eating some little baby finger food snacks - the little puff cereal, and yogurt melt thingies, and she also really loves them. I've been trying to warm her up to sippy cups for a couple of months now. At the beginning she seemed to like the sippy for a few days, but then she got over it and doesn't seem too into the cup now. We'll keep working on it.
She's not crawling or really moving forward much at all still. She can move backwards and turn herself to face any direction she wants, but she hasn't quite figured out how to push herself forward. She wants to and sometimes she'll just kick her legs and kind of shake her body and grunt as she tries to reach something in front of her; it's pretty darn cute. I'm trying to just enjoy whatever time I have left of her staying in one general area.
Palmer is getting very expressive with her cute face. Whether she's happy, sad, amused, excited or even confused she shows it in her facial expressions.
She's starting to really like the dogs. She loves to watch them play with each other (our dog and my parents' dog). She giggles at them way more than I can get her to laugh for me. She's started pulling Elmer's hair pretty intensely and he usually just lays there and lets her do it without flinching.
She is not sleeping through the night, but we are SO close. At this point it is just her annoying little cough that seems to be keeping us both from getting a full night's sleep. This little girl is a light sleeper! Any little sound seems to stir her awake. She is getting really good at getting herself back to sleep after waking up, but once a night she still needs me to help her get back to sleep. About 50% of the time she thinks she has to eat before she'll settle down, but other times all it takes is her lovie and her binky. We're getting close to real sleep...
She went on her first snowmobile ride on the day she turned seven months old. We had gone up to SLC to go riding with Taylor's family. Taylor loves and has always loved snowmobiling...me not so much. I'm kind of a paranoid wimp. Needless to say I only let him take Palmer and me on a VERY slow and short ride around the parking lot. But we got our pictures and she can officially say she's started snowmobiling now.

Luckily the spot that Taylor's family had chosen to go snowmobiling was just past Heber and one of my bestest friends in the world recently moved to Heber. So Palmer and I made a little stop to visit Nicole and McKenzie. I loved visiting with Nicole and Osiris for a bit and loved their new cute house! Palmer and McKenzie shared toys and binkies and were so super cute together. It's going to be so fun to see how they play together as they get older.

Half Birthday!

Well somehow our little Palmer girl reached her half birthday last week. These past six months have been, without a doubt, the fastest six months of my life. This little girl is my everything; I know that sounds cheesy and cliche, but it is so true. I love starting and ending my day cuddling her; I love her smiles and laughs; I love her sweet little sounds; I love when she gets excited about something and kick kick kicks her legs and flails her little arms; I even love her little pouty face when she gets sad about something.

Palmer Tay had her six month checkup this morning and it was confirmed that she is still perfect. She weighs 13 pounds 8 ounces, which is right around the 8th percentile (the doctor's computer froze up so we just had to look on a paper chart and it was a little under 10th percentile); she is 25 inches long, which is around 25th percentile and her head was 42 centimeters (I think), which was around the 75th percentile - that's my big-headed Lyman girl!
Palmer now loves to roll from her back to her tummy. She will play on her tummy for awhile until she gets bored with that and then she fusses until she remembers that she can roll herself back onto her back, or more often than that we end up rolling her onto her back if she gets mad enough. She is not pushing herself up onto all fours, but she pushes herself up on her hands. She is getting pretty good at turning her body whichever direction she wants to be. She's good at scooting backwards, but hasn't quite figured out how to propel herself forward yet. When we get her out of her crib in the morning or after naps we never know where she'll be in her crib. Sometimes she's at the top, sometimes the bottom, sometimes she's sideways, and sometimes she's flipped her body so her head is where we left her feet; also she's on her belly more often than not when we get her out of her crib these days. When she wakes up in the mornings and from naps she is happy happy happy and will just play contentedly with her lovey and make cute noises until we get her. As soon as she sees one of us at the side of her crib she gets a huge smile on her face and makes a cute little squeal.
Her eyes have stayed blue and I LOVE them and hope they don't change. She has beautiful long curled lashes and almost everyone comments on her beautiful eyes. I can't help but agree - they're super pretty.
Little Miss Palmer is not sitting up yet - she doesn't seem very interested in it. I practice with her every day and I can tell she could probably do it if she would just try. Sometimes when she is real focused on a toy or something she'll sit up by herself just fine, but after a bit of that she'll tip to the side or bend in half over her legs.
No signs of any teeth yet; I'm not looking forward to teething at all.
She's doing great with eating solids. She definitely makes a mess, but she is doing great with opening her mouth for the bites and keeping most of the food in her mouth. So far she has liked everything that I've given her except bananas...crazy girl. She did seem to have a little reaction to the bananas, so I guess it's ok that she didn't love them; she had a very faint rash all over her body the next day after trying bananas. I'll probably forget some but so far she's tried carrots, sweet potatoes, squash, green beans, peas, pears, applesauce, bananas and peaches. Her favorite seems to be pears and peas so far.

She's sleeping better and getting more and more consistent with sleep in general. Lately it is most common for her to wake up to eat around 4:00 or 5:00 and then go back to sleep for a couple of hours, but sometimes she wakes up earlier and ends up eating twice in the night. Her naps during the day are becoming much more routine and it's making it a lot easier for me to plan my day. She's also getting more hair slowly but surely. Her hair is thickening up a bit and getting longer. It's brown for now; I'm excited for the days when she will fight me trying to fix her hair so pretty.
She really loves playing with her toys these days. She's getting more and more curious about the world around her and more interactive. She likes playing patty-cake and peek-a-boo. Sometimes I'll laugh at something she does and it will make her laugh and we'll end up going back and forth just laughing at each other. Those are my favorite times with her.

I love this little girl so much. I definitely don't have this whole mom thing completely figured out and there's been tiring and frustrating times, but she has made every minute of the last six months better than every minute ever before. But now I need her to stop growing so fast because I feel like I'm gonna freak out at her first birthday.
Happy half birthday Palmer Tay!

Resolutions

So they say that if you write your goals down, and share them with others, you're more likely to achieve them. I'm not sure who "they" are, but I tend to believe them on this one. So, on that note, I'm writing down some of my goals/resolutions for this year. I don't really care if nobody reads them, but the fact that I'm putting them out into the internetiverse (like that one? I just made it up) makes me feel like I have to really work on them.
These are in no particular order:

-Read the Book of Mormon start to finish. I realize that this is not a huge accomplishment, but I don't do well at reading it cover to cover. I start and read a ways and then start over again; I jump around; I get bored with parts (bad to say, I know, but I'm just being honest). So I want to read every single word, in order, this year.

-Lose my post-baby weight and get more toned. No, that wasn't a typo - I really did mean POST-baby weight. I couldn't really eat much during my pregnancy so I didn't gain a lot of weight. Therefore, within a few days of giving birth, I was back to my pre-pregnancy weight, albeit with a pudgy/squishy belly. After I had Palmer I developed a ravaging appetite; I think this was due to the fact that I spent nine months hardly touching or enjoying food and also because with Palmer nursing I could eat and eat and eat and never really get full or gain a pound. It was incredibly enjoyable for two or three months - I ate anything and everything that sounded tasty to me all day long. But then, slowly but surely, I started noticing the pounds coming back. Now, don't get me wrong, I wouldn't consider myself a big whale just yet, but I need to nip the uncontrolled eating in the bud before I become a whale. So, as of today, I am eating A LOT less junk and working out more. I started running again very soon after I had Palmer, but I haven't really increased my distance or speed and I mostly haven't been doing anything besides running, so it's time to up the intensity.

-Save. More. Money. Taylor and I have money in savings and we try to stick to a budget, but we both feel that we could save a lot more and frivolously spend a lot less. So we will.

-Get into a house! Living at my grandma's has been great for us and there's enough space for now, but we can't help but feel that we're living in limbo. We're ready to move on. We had hoped to have broken ground on our house by now, but that hasn't happened. It should happen this month and if all goes according to plan, we'll be in by summer...hopefully.

Our house may end up being a little smaller than this picture :)


I feel like there's a couple I'm forgetting...I guess it's good I wrote these down before I forgot them all. I may need to add goals as I think of them.

2012 is going to be AWESOME!

First Christmas

Palmer's first Christmas has come and gone; she wasn't too impressed with the whole ordeal, but we sure had fun celebrating her first Christmas with her. I didn't get the best pictures, but she got way too many new toys. She also got some new clothes, pajamas and books.

We had planned to have our party with my dad's side of the family on Friday, the 23rd. Unfortunately the stomach flu decided to start traveling quickly through the whole family on about the 22nd so the rest of the family decided to stay away from us; the party ended up just being my parents and their posterity. It was still a good time with some yummy food. In the end there were very few members of the family that dodged the flu. I got it but Palmer didn't, thank goodness. Taylor has had a bit of an upset stomach off and on since last week but he still hasn't been hit fully by the yucky bug.
The next night we partied with my mom's side of the family. It was fun and crazy as usual. I sure do love all of my family, immediate and extended.
Taylor and I were up before Palmer on Christmas morning so we opened our own stuff and waited for her to wake up. She woke up just in time to "open" her stocking and presents and then we all got ready for church. After church we headed to my parents' house for breakfast with the family and to exchange draw name gifts. I also took some of Palmer's presents to their house to have the kids help open; I thought they'd enjoy it a little more than she would. I was right - they were all very happy to help her open her final presents. We spent Christmas afternoon just resting and enjoying the day. That evening we had my dad's side of the family over for dinner at our place. My grandma always had us all over for dinner on Christmas evening so we thought we should continue the tradition of having everyone eat at her house this year. It went well and it was great to see the Lyman/Black cousins since we'd missed them for the party on Friday night.

This picture isn't the best quality because it was taken with my phone, but I had to include the beautiful baby in her Christmas dress. She is so dang sweet and cute!

My Utah County siblings headed home the next day (boo), but not until Marilyn led her second Zumba class of the weekend. We started that tradition last year, her teaching Zumba at the Stake Center on Christmas Eve and the day after Christmas. I have zero rhythm, but I absolutely love it still. It felt so quiet and boring after everyone went home. I always feel some serious letdown for a couple of weeks after Christmas. I absolutely love the feeling in the air at the holidays and I love planning for Christmas and all the fun, food and festivities; it's just kinda sad when it's over and I realize I have to wait a whole year for another holiday season.

Taylor's parents made the trek down to Blanding on Monday to see us for a quick Christmas visit. They stayed for a day and headed home on Tuesday. It was nice having them visit and they loved spending a little time with Palmer of course.
Here's to everyone having a fantastic 2012!

Cinco de Palmer

Well, I blinked my eyes and my baby girl turned five months old. This little girl is so sweet and so so much fun!

She now rolls from front to back like she owns it. Sometimes she turns and twists while on her back and it is obvious that she could easily roll over onto her belly if she wanted to.
She still has no signs of any teeth coming in, which is just fine with me. She has the cutest gummy smile in the world and she's already made sure that we know that all she'll have to do is flash that smile for the rest of her life and she'll pretty much get whatever she wants from her dad and me. Her hair is definitely starting to come in a little more. She is still pretty bald though...I don't think we'll be using any barrettes anytime soon. Luckily she rocks the bald look. She gets mistaken for a boy all the time, even when she's wearing pink and flowers. It doesn't offend me; I think she's the prettiest little thing that ever existed, but it's not crazy that people wouldn't automatically know she's a girl upon first glance.
Little Palmer girl is really starting to like playing with toys and I LOVE watching her. She's so curious about the world around her and spends her days staring at everything and just taking it all in. She is starting to get pretty good with her hands, grabbing things and getting them into her mouth. She really wants to sit up and does lots of little baby crunches when she's on her back, trying to sit up. She's getting pretty good with her balance and I think she'll be sitting on her own soon.
She still tells the cutest little jabbery stories, but she's quiet more than she's talking. Maybe that will change as she grows but for now she seems content to quietly take in everything around her.
The sleep situation is a dismal one these days. She's gotten more and more needy in the night and at nap time and my level of fatigue has increased right along with her neediness. She's had a few very good nights with long sleep, but overall we're going downhill. We've now started letting her "cry it out" which is KILLING me! We've done it for three days/nights now and while we are making real progress, it is a huge trial for me. I think I've shed as many tears as she has. I can't turn back now because then all her tears would be in vain, but I am having a really hard time with the crying. Other than sleep time though, she is an incredibly happy girl.
As documented in my last post, she went on her first big vacation, to Hawaii with us, last week. I wouldn't have been able to enjoy one minute of the trip if we'd left her home and I'm so glad she was there with us.
She's still a tiny little thing. I don't know her current measurements, but, while she is growing, I think she's just gonna be a little petite cutey. She can still wear a lot of 0-3 month clothes. She wears 3-6 months too, but most of them are still a little big on her.
A few days ago I started trying to ease her into eating rice cereal. She is still a little unsure of it, but she seems to quickly be warming up to it and getting a little more used to it. Before you know it, she'll be eating pizza and ice cream with me!
I am so excited to experience her first Christmas and our first Christmas with a child. I know that she won't understand anything that's going on, but I still think it's going to be so fun. We can't get enough of our little girl; we love her so much and feel so lucky that she's in our family.

ALOOOOOHA!

WARNING - LONG post!
Well, our Hawaiian getaway sadly has come to an end...all I can do about it now is to do a blog post and try to remember how warm and awesome it was.
My parents had been to Hawaii 26 years ago, but this was the first time to Hawaii for the rest of us. Our flight was out of Vegas so we headed there on Tuesday morning. We drove with my parents and met up with Noelle, Trent and kiddos in Vegas that night. That's not the most awesome drive, especially with a baby who has now decided that she doesn't love being in the car for long drives, so we were nice and tired by the time we got there. We ate a quick dinner at the Luxor buffet (pretty good, not great) and went to bed early.

Palmer, just kickin' it in her carseat at the beginning of the trip...this was before she realized how much traveling we would be doing so she was still happy at this point.

The next morning we headed to the airport to start the long day of flying. The first leg of the flight wasn't the most enjoyable. Palmer and Denver weren't super happy (especially Palmer) so it made me SUPER nervous about the second leg, which would be much longer. Luckily they both did well for the long part (from Seattle to Hawaii). On a side note, I hate layovers in completely out-of-the-way locations; seriously - Vegas to Seattle to Hawaii? Lame! Anyway, we got to Honolulu pretty late and our Utah bodies thought it was even later than the local clocks told us. We went straight to the hotel and to bed.
The next morning we had booked a tour that circled the island and made stops at popular tourist spots. The tour was decent - we saw some things we wanted to see; all the stops were really short. I'll for sure leave some places out but we went to Hanauma Bay, a couple pretty lookouts, Dole Pineapple plantation (yummy ice cream!), North Shore (where big time surf competitions were taking place) and a couple other spots. It ended at the Polynesian Cultural Center. We spent the afternoon checking out some villages at PCC, taking a tram to the temple (beautiful!) and eating a delicious dinner. Right as we got seated for dinner, but before we got our food, a waitress came and asked if we wanted smoothies. Heck yes we did! We had paid a pretty penny for dinner so I thought the smoothies must just be a lovely option with our dinners. Not so much. Turns out they were $10 each or two for $15. We ordered first, then found out the price. We grudgingly paid for the smoothies. Well, as Trent said after the first swig of his smoothie, "Best $10 ever spent!" They were served in a hollowed out pineapple and were huge and D-E-L-I-C-I-O-U-S! Oh. So. Good. By this point in the day the babies were so tired and NOT happy with being drug all around a tropical island. I was nervous that I wouldn't be able to enjoy the show to end the evening. Well, the heavens smiled down on us and both babies fell asleep just before the show began and stayed asleep the whole time. The show, "Ha - Breath of Life," was amazing. We were all SO tired at this point so it's a good thing the show was so entertaining and loud. I think all the adults stayed awake for most of the show. We passed out on the ride back to the hotel. I'm sure we all slept like babies that night. Speaking of sleeping like babies, Palmer slept amazingly well in Hawaii! She had her three longest nights of sleep...8.5, 9.5 and 11 hours of sleep! That's right - ELEVEN! Sadly, her new-found sleep habits did not make it back to the mainland, but I'll talk more about that in her five month post (happy five months to her!).

Me, Noelle, and the babes at the PCC. Palmer's hood is on because it was raining and a little chilly.

Family photo at the PCC

The next day we decided to take it easy to see if we could lose some of our exhaustion and help the babies to get some rest. We got a slow start to the day and then headed to Hanauma Bay for some snorkeling. My parents had snorkeled there in their previous trip and had always remembered the amazing things they'd seen. We looked into the possibility of snorkeling at a couple of other spots but they weren't as easy for our group of 10 to get to, so we stuck with Hanauma. It didn't disappoint. I'd only snorkeled once before in Cabo and I'm not sure if we even saw anything there. This time was much different. There were all kinds of sea-life - big, little, bright, spiky, long, fat etc. Way cool. Maxon and Scout loved playing on the beach and the babies took little naps on their beach towels. After we got back to the hotel we got some dinner and then took a sunset walk to Waikiki beach. Beautiful! I think my parents stayed out on the town for a little while that night (party animals) and I don't know for sure what the DeGroots did, but us Harrisons went back to the hotel and crashed.

The next day was game day...BYU vs. Hawaii - the excuse for our trip :) We spent the morning shopping and spending way too much money, but loving every minute of it. The game started at 2:30 so we headed to the stadium after a little shopping. BYU took care of business and won the game pretty handily. The game was fun, but honestly it was kind of an afterthought to the rest of the trip. The bus ride after the game took FOREVER. All the kids slept the whole ride home. I'm not sure what the other peeps did after they got to the hotel, but we just ordered pizza and hit the hay. We're tired people.

The next day was Sunday, so we wanted to be a little reverent. We had planned to go to church there but we couldn't find a close ward that met at a time that worked for us so we didn't make it. We went to the Pearl Harbor Memorial that day. It was so neat to be there just a couple days before the 70th anniversary of the attack. Luckily my dad is much better at retaining history knowledge than I am so between him filling me in, and my memories of the movie "Pearl Harbor" I was able to understand better what had happened there that awful December day in 1941. After doing the standard USS Arizona film and memorial tour we took a tour of the USS Missouri battleship. Very cool to be on an actual huge battleship. Those things are amazing and crazy. My mind was blown at the magnitude of the whole thing. After that we had to catch our shuttle back to the hotel. That night ended up being date night. My parents went to dinner on their own. Taylor and I kept the DeGroot kids so Noelle and Trent could go to dinner and then after they got back they kept Palmer so we could go out. While they were at dinner Taylor stayed in our room with the babies and I went to the swimming pool with Maxon and Scout. Saying that the pool was freezing and semi-miserable would be a bit of an understatement. Seriously, it was crazy cold. It didn't help that it had become overcast and breezy, but I would never have imagined that it could be so cold to swim in any pool in Hawaii. The kids took awhile to get in the water with me, but once they did they had a lot of fun and I LOVED hanging out with them. They were so dang cute and fun - I honestly thought of stealing them to have for my own. For mine and Taylor's night out, after walking around for a while and not finding much that really appealed to us, we ended up eating dinner at a random little sports bar and grill. Our food was way good and we were not disappointed. Then we walked around and hit up a few shops before returning to pick up our sleepy little Palmer. That's the night she slept 11 hours so I'm still not sure if Noelle drugged her or not.

The next day was our last, as we were catching a red-eye flight back home that night. We spent a few hours at Waikiki beach. The weather was perfect. We swam, we lounged, we ate, the kids built sand castles and buried Trent. It was a perfect way to spend some of our final hours. After showering and changing clothes we went to Cheesecake Factory for dinner (yum) and then shopped around to kill time before catching the shuttle to the airport. I was dreading the red-eye flight home because as annoying as a crying baby is on a normal flight, I figured it would be like 10 times worse on a red-eye where everyone wanted to just sleep. Luckily both babies wanted to sleep as much as everyone else on the flight. Noelle and I decided to use our carriers on the flight because it had been so uncomfortable holding them on the flight out. She had taken her Baby Bjorn; I didn't take one because I didn't have room in my luggage. I just took an over-the-shoulder sling thing and it ended up being a life-saver for me. I used it every day most of the day. There were different positions that Palmer could be in with the sling, depending if she was awake or needed to sleep. It saved my arms and back a lot of aching I think. Anyway, I think it was a great idea for us to use them on the plane. The babies slept like champs...I can't say the same for Noelle and me, but as long as they slept it was ok. And I think we were much less uncomfortable than the flight out. Our flight home was quicker because our layover was in L.A. Before we knew it we were in Vegas and saying goodbye to the DeGroots to start the long drive home. I was kind of in a daze for the whole drive, due to my lack of sleep the previous night during the flight, so the drive didn't seem too long to me. Palmer must have been super tired too because she mostly slept the whole way home.

It was kind of awful to return home to snow and freezing temperatures, but the trip was amazing and I'm so glad we went. I loved spending time with my parents and Noelle's family. I miss the DeGroots like crazy since we've been home and I miss the perfect Hawaii weather, but at least we get to enjoy Christmas time now. All in all, a lovely vacation!