North Carolina 2013

I'm finally getting around to the rest of our North Carolina beach vacation! I was a little worried about how the trip would go with Sophie - the plane trips, long car ride out to the coast, staying in a house with 18 people - but she did awesome! She was a great little traveler and didn't mind the noise or getting passed around to all the different people in the house. It was fun to spend the week with family, and it was especially nice to see some relatives we haven't seen in a few years and to meet Sophie's two new cousins that are just 3 and 5 months older than her.

Enjoying the wind with Grandma Howe

Why is baby so happy??

Daddy invented the best mobile ever! The AC vent in our room was just above the ceiling fan so it would slowly spin all day. It was Dave's idea to put her little shorts on the end and she loved to watch them go round and round.

Under the direction of Dave's brother Tim, we created the Cape Lookout lighthouse out of shells! It was a fun project for everyone to work on and then we gave it to Dave's mom for her birthday.

The humidity was making Sophie's hair curly, but since the only hair long enough to curl grows in a stripe right down the middle of her head, she had an awesome mohawk all week :)

Nap time with cousin Liam in the shade tent

Daddy multitasking - eating birthday cake during our white elephant gift exchange while putting the baby to sleep

Fluffy Bunny

Whenever we go to the beach in North Carolina it's tradition to play fluffy bunny (also known as chubby bunny). In case you are not familiar with this game, the goal is basically to put as many marshmallows as possible in your mouth and the last one standing wins.

Dave is amazingly at this - it's one of his hidden talents. I am astonished and nauseated every time I watch him. To even the playing field a bit the rule is for every 1 marshmallow the rest of the family puts in their mouth, Dave has to do 3 marshmallows and somehow with this handicap he still wins. Crazy!

Dave at 21 marshmallows - he finished with 33

This video contains marshmallow regurgitation - watch at your own risk!!

Beach Baby

We are back from North Carolina, and I am now sorting through all the pictures - more posts will be coming soon! Sophie and I didn't get to spend too much time at the beach because it was pretty windy and our shade tent kept blowing away, but one evening we did take her out to experience the ocean and sand.

With daddy on the way down to the water

Family of Three

We put her feet in the water and she didn't seem to mind...

So we decided to push her a little and sat her down...

And then we sat her in the sand and she had a good time putting it in her mouth...

And after only a minute she had sand in every crevice so we took her back to the house to clean her up a bit :)

We made it!

We are now in North Carolina and will be heading out to the coast shortly for a week long stay at a beach house with Dave's family. Our trip here was not as smooth as we had hoped, and it was not Sophie's fault.

We flew from Salt Lake to Chicago, where we were supposed to have a 1 hour layover before connecting to Raleigh. While in Chicago, however, Southwest's entire computer system crashed so our 1 hour layover turned into a 4 hour layover and 3 of those hours were spent on the plane just sitting at the gate - not an ideal situation when traveling with a baby. We finally arrived at our hotel at 4:30 am this morning and promptly crashed in the bed. Dave and I are sooo tired right now and feel like we did a whole body workout even though all we did was sit, but we're glad we made it!

Sophie did awesome and was pleasant for 98% of the trip

Our flight had 2 empty seats and we were lucky enough to get one of them and Sophie was able to spend the majority of the flight asleep - huge blessing!!

Sophie at 3 Months

Sophie is 3 months old! She is growing fast and barely fit into this 3 month outfit from her Aunt Cindy. She has changed so much this last month and is really starting to notice the world around her. Right now her favorite activity is to go outside and look at the trees. She is also doing a great job supporting her head and has recently started to laugh (see the video below). Tomorrow she will embark on her first big adventure as we travel to North Carolina for a Howe family vacation at the beach. I am hoping she, and Dave and I, are up for the trip!

Sophie at 3 Months

• 24 inches long and 12.5 pounds
• Still wears size 3 month clothing, although not for long. She has always been really long and is now starting to grow out as well. I packed some 6 month shirts for our trip just in case. 
• Likes to stay up late, but is doing a great job sleeping at night. She surprised us last week by sleeping through the night two nights in a row - it was heaven!!
• Prefers to be upright and likes us to hold her in a sitting or standing position.
• Is obsessed with her fingers and hands and will try to suck on them even when she is sleeping. She has also recently discovered her feet, although she is not quite coordinated enough yet to grab them for more than a few seconds. 
• Loves it when you smile at her and will reward you with a big grin of her own!

Yummy fingers!

Enjoying a relaxing morning in the big bed - for some reason I think she looks so grown up in this picture

Laughing at Daddy during dinner last week

The danger of letting your baby be your alarm clock

I have not needed an alarm clock for weeks now because Sophie does that job for me. Then a couple days ago - surprise! - she slept until 7:30, which meant I slept in. Rushing to get ready for work in just 25 minutes dampened my excitement a bit, but it was still a victory! I will optimistically be setting my alarm from now on in hopes that she will let me sleep until it goes off. Wish us luck!

On the Move...Again

Last night Dave and I signed the lease for our next home - a little 2 bed, 2.5 bath townhouse in Draper. It will be our fifth place in 7 years, and hopefully a place we can stay at until Dave finishes school in three years. It has a bigger kitchen than our last place, a bigger dining area, and a small backyard that I'm sure Sophie will enjoy when she is older. We are close to lots of stores, restaurants, and entertainment and still located halfway between Dave's school and my work.

I was really hoping to have 3 bedrooms this time around, but I've learned from watching HGTV that it's almost impossible to find a nice home that's the right size, in the right neighborhood, for the right price. When you only have a short time to look you normally have to sacrifice something and this time it was the third bedroom. Oh well - now I have something to look forward to with our next move :)

Our new place - we don't move until July after our summer travels, so right now I'm just having a good time imagining how I am going to set everything up

Swimming with Cousins

Today my sister came over for a little while and we went down to the pool at our apartment complex for some swimming. Sophie never got in the water - it was too cold - but cousins Anne and Will had a good time.

Sophie enjoyed the breeze and looking at the bright orange umbrella up above

Anne always gets a kick out of riding Dave around the little pool like a dolphin

Watching the fun from the sidelines

Banished

One of my favorite baby items has been the Brica Travel Bassinet I received as a gift from work - it is super light weight, folds flat, and is really easy to take anywhere. Sophie slept in it for about the first 8 weeks of life, and now it's her bed whenever company comes and she get's kicked out of her room.

When she used to stay up until 2 am we would just put the bassinet on the coffee table in the family room since she was the last one to bed. Now that she goes down at a more reasonable hour she needs a place that's a little less public so we put her in our closet. It's kind of like Harry Potter's cupboard under the stairs, but at least there are no spiders :)

Quilt from Grandma Betty

This week we received a hand-stitched quilt in the mail from Dave's grandma. It's beautiful and I can't imagine how much time she must have put into making it.We are excited for Sophie to meet her great grandma when we go to North Carolina in a few weeks for a Howe family reunion!

It's hard to see the detail without looking at it really close, but all that texture comes from her little stitches

Sophie all dressed up for church - I finally bought her some cute little bows because she had zero hair accessories