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!

4 Month Addendum!

So a couple of big events have happened in the world of Palmer since my post yesterday so I thought I should put them out into the blogging universe. The first big thing was that she slept 8.5 hours last night! 8.5 people! After multiple 3 and 4 hour sleep nights lately that was such a lovely blessing! I'm not naive enough to believe that it will happen every night from now on but at least now I know it's possible and that we're moving in the right direction.
The next big thing was that Palmer rolled over tonight. I had her down for tummy time and she had been happily playing for a decent amount of time. Then she started to kind of get mad and I told her I was going to leave her for a few minutes to see if she would get mad enough to push herself over. She half-heartedly pushed herself up on her side a couple of times and then just kind of laid her head down and acted like she was resigned to the idea of staying on her belly. Then out of nowhere she pushed herself up and over as if she'd done it 100 times. I started screaming and clapping my hands and I think she didn't know what to think of the whole thing cause she just stared at me with wide curious eyes. Taylor was home so he jumped down on the floor by us and started giving her loves too. Needless to say, it was a very exciting moment in the Harrison household. We love our little Palmer girl!

Fall Happenings

So I'm going to be honest, I don't enjoy blogging. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE reading others' blogs, but I really don't enjoy keeping up on mine. That would explain why I do such a poor job of it. Since Palmer was born I have managed to give monthly updates, but that is really just because I am a horrible scrapbooker, so if I don't document her growth and milestones on the world wide web it will all be forgotten. So that's my long-winded way of apologizing for the fact that every post is just a Palmer update. Hopefully there's some people that like to see her progress but really this blog is mostly for posterity's sake. We are taking a trip to Hawaii at the end of this month so that should give me some good blogging material that's not so Palmer-centric (although she is going with us so there will probably be LOTS of cute Palmer on vacation pics).
Miss Palmer Tay is now four months old as of 11/11/11. She had her four month old check-up today and I was told what I already knew - that she's perfect! She weighs 11 pounds 12 ounces, which is in the 10th percentile. I can't remember what her height was but it was in the 25th percentile. I also can't remember her head circumference but it was in the 75th percentile. She must finally be getting the Lyman noggin; before today's visit she has always measured in the 50th percentile for head. (Her check-up was literally 1.5 hours ago and already I've forgotten her measurements - do you see why I NEED to document her life on blog for anything to be preserved...my memory certainly isn't going to cut it).
Her poor cold has not ever fully gone away. Just when I think she's pretty much better she seems to get some new bug. Her cough seems to be getting better this week but for the two weeks prior to this one she had a very sad croupy cough. It has made sleeping difficult for her and for me, as the cough seems to be worst at night. Like I said though, it's definitely gotten better this week. She got a clean bill of health today though and shouldn't be contagious.
The sleeping situation is pretty grim these days. Her cough has not helped anything in the sleep department. A couple of months ago I thought we were on the cusp of sleeping through the night...it's only gone downhill since then. Her illness seems to have affected her sleep schedule in a really bad way. Lately she tends to sleep only about four hours for her first stint and then sleeps in only two or three hour stints from then on. Usually she still goes back to sleep quickly and easily but every once in awhile she decides to play and jabber for awhile. She's lucky she's so cute because it's impossible for me to be annoyed with her when she looks and sounds as cute and sweet and she does.
She is still not rolling over; she doesn't seem to have much interest in it right now. She is really strong though and can push herself up on her hands and lifts her head very high when on her belly. I can hold her hands and stand her upright and she supports her own weight like a champ. She loves standing and will be happy for as long as I will let her stand.
She has gotten SUPER talkative in the last couple of weeks. We spent a few days with her cousin Denver last week (my sister Noelle's kid) and he loves to jabber and squeal really loudly. Palmer seems to have taken some lessons from him because ever since then she has been telling a lot more loud and squealy stories like he does.
P-Tay had to get one shot this morning (it should have been two but they were out of one of the vaccines so we'll have to go back in a few days for that one - boo!). Last time she did so well with her shots that I wasn't too worried about her "recovery" this time. She did fine with the shot when she got it and then was just fine when we went home. Then a few hours later we were visiting my cousin's CUTE new baby, Heston, and Palmer started crying harder than she ever cries. I figured she was starving because that's really the only time she ever truly cries. I tried feeding her but she wasn't having it and was crying harder and harder. She was inconsolable and I couldn't figure out what could be wrong. But then it hit me that her leg must have been hurting her from the shot. I immediately gave her some Tylenol and then took her home to cuddle. I put a warm rag on the shot spot and cuddled her until she calmed down after about 20 minutes. She got over it about as quickly as the little crying fit had started and she returned to her happy smiley self. I HATE to see my baby in pain!
She was the CUTEST little tiger for Halloween. We didn't do any trick-or-treating but we did make sure to go see Grandma and Grandpa and the cousins.
We sure do love our little sweet Tiger.

Enjoy the cute pictures of our sweet Palmer! Some of them were taken on my phone, so the quality is less than ideal but she's so dang cute anyway. (Also, I finally made it to the 4-Corners Monument. Taylor's parents came to visit for a few days last month and so we drove on over and now I can officially say I've been there.)