New Orleans

Kayley and I got to go to New Orleans at the end of February for a little less than a week to help watch the 5 oldest Calder kids. Mark was doing a rotation for med school in Austria (where both Mark and Shannon served their missions) and so Shannon and baby Luke went out there to visit him. I was so glad that Shannon got the opportunity to go and that she had a good time.

We were there with my mom for the first few days and then Robb came to help out for the last half of the week because my mom needed to get back to her mission. It was really fun to be with my mom and to continue to learn from her mothering skills. I was also glad that Kayley got to spend some time with her Grandma. It was really fun to have Robb there too. Robb is great with the kids and was a huge help. The only thing that he opted not to do was change poopy diapers! (Luckily Benjamin is the only one that still wears diapers besides Kayley of course, so I didn't mind that at all.:) He was also a great help with Kayley. (He called me a few days after we got home and asked if he could come and babysit Kayley for us because he missed seeing her. I thought it was so cute and was excited for another willing babysitter!)

We had a really good time and I wish that I would have taken more pictures! Kayley loved being with her cousins and was so entertained by all of them. It was definitely a big change going from one to six kids, but I really learned so much from it and had a lot of fun. I love those kids! I don't know how Shannon does it on her own! I always had my mom or Robb there to help and it was still busy the whole time. I learned so much from Shannon's organization and cleanliness. She is such a wonderful mother! It inspired me to come home and reorganize and change a lot of the things in my own house. The very last day we were there, we were finally able to meet sweet little Luke and be with Shannon. I wish that they lived closer so that we could see them more often!

We got to be in New Orleans during Mardi Gras and so we went out and bought some traditional King Cake to celebrate. They are pretty good and pretty similar to a cinnamon roll. The tradition is that whoever finds the baby in their piece has to buy the next King Cake. I served it to the kids youngest to oldest. I put the baby in Grant's piece and he was so happy when he found it. As soon as Peyton saw that Grant got it, she started crying because she wanted it in her piece and "It wasn't fair!". I told her to stop crying and to wait and see if this was maybe a special cake with 2 babies. When Grant lost excitement over the baby, I took it from him to "clean it" and hid it in Peyton's cake to make her happy. So that middle picture is of her proudly holding up her baby. They were all so happy that there were 2 babies in that "special" king cake! :)

These two were always up at least an hour after the other kids went to bed.

Friday night is movie night at the Calder house. We made a big bowl of popcorn and they all sat on the floor and ate it together while they watched the movie. I think if it was up to Robb, then every night would have been movie night! :)

We really missed Daddy and were excited to be with him again. Nathan had bought me a bouquet of roses and of tulips which were so beautiful. Nate asked me when we got home if I still wanted to have a lot of kids and I told him that surprisingly enough it made me even more excited to have a big family. There really is nothing more fulfilling than being a mother!

More January Pictures

(Yes, I know that it is now March but I am trying to stay true to the promise I made yesterday about blogging more often and I haven't even started organizing and editing my February pics yet.)

This is the adorable outfit my parents got Kayley for Christmas. She loves to play with/suck on her skirt.

Max pushing Kayley around the kitchen in their cute little baby stroller.Besides splashing and kicking in the water, I think that Kayley's favorite thing about bathtime is a chance to suck on her toes! (Oh how I wish I was that flexible!)

On one of the not-quite-so cold mornings in January Kayley and I went on a walk so I bundled her up to make sure she wouldn't get cold.

So I haven't yet mastered the skill of getting my WHOLE head in the picture! :)Before church on Sunday

Just chillin' with daddy while he's on the computer.

I need advice!!

This is for all of you moms out there. I decided that instead of spending forever on the computer doing research on my own, that I would just ask you...

1)Kayley is going to be 6 months old tomorrow and so we are going to start her on baby food. I was planning on just going the Gerber baby food route, but I'm definitely open to anything and would love to give her the healthiest stuff out there. Any advice.....what brand of food you like/good baby spoons,bowls, etc. and the best place to buy them? I would like to also give her some homemade baby food. Any special recipes??

2)Do you have any recommendations of fun and/or educational toys for 6-12 month old babies? I know that Kayley likes the toys that we do have (which aren't that many), but I would like to get some more. On that same note, any specific toys or anything else that really helped your

kid(s) with teething?

3)My diaper bag zipper completely broke off at the airport on my way back from New Orleans. I wasn't too devastated about it because I was never a huge fan of my diaper bag (if you can even call it that) anyway. I was just using one of those free bags that they give you when you buy perfume. My parents gave it to me with the perfume like 5 years ago for Christmas! :) Anyway, so now I have an excuse to go and buy a cute one. I don't want to spend a fortune on a $200 petunia pickle bottom bag (even though I love them and think they are adorable!), but I do want something that is durable and will last for a long time or at least through a few children. It would sure be nice if it was cute too! I'd also like one with separate sections or pockets or something because mine was just a big huge bag and I'd always have to search forever to find anything. I know those are a lot of requirements and I'm not asking for you to pick a bag out for me (even though that would sure be nice;) but do you know of any places that sell diaper bags that fit that criteria?

4)Last but not least...now that Kayley is starting to sit up, I'm super excited about being able to have her sit in the grocery cart when I go shopping. I started looking online last week for shopping cart covers but the cheapest ones I could find were $50 dollars and they were really ugly. And then there were some super cute ones but they were anywhere from $75-$100. Are they all just that expensive or are there some you can get for a more reasonable price?

I'm sure I have hundreds of other questions, but that's all I can think of for now. If you have any advice, it would be greatly appreciated!! If you don't want to post a comment on my blog, then you can just email me any of your suggestions at AshleySealHall@gmail.com. Thank you!!

PS I am ashamed to say that I have become one of those bloggers that updates about once a month, if that. I am going to make it a goal this next month to be better about that because I get annoyed with people like me when I go and look at their blog and they haven't updated for over a month. It makes me not even want to waste time looking at their blog because I know before I even click on it that they haven't posted anything new forever. (No offense to those of you who are like me! I definitely understand how you feel.) So sorry to all of you who feel that way about my blog! I am repenting and I will try to do better! And to those of you who are great bloggers: I admire you! :)

Major Catch Up

In light of tomorrow being the first day of February (wow, where does the time go?) I decided that it's high time that I post about December and if I get really ambitious, maybe part of January. :) I'm going to post them on the dates that they actually happened, so I just wanted to give a heads-up if you want to go to my older posts to look at them. I hope you had a wonderful January! I really enjoy reading all of your blogs and am inspired by all that you do and what amazing people you are!

Kayley's 4 month appointment

Kayley had her 4 month appointment today. This appointment went so much better than her 2 month appointment. It was still awful watching them give her shots, but I don't think that will ever get easier. She only cried for a minute afterwards and then just kind of whimpered for a little bit after that. It made me so sad! This time I came prepared with Tylenol and gave it to her at the Dr.'s office right after she got her shots. She did great after that and it didn't seem to bother her. These were her 4 month measurements:

Weight: 13 lbs. 2 oz. (50%)

Length: 25.5 in. (90%)

Head: 40 cm (25%)

I can't believe my baby girl is 4 months old! She's getting so big, so fast! She gets more and more fun every day. So far this is my favorite stage. I could just play with her all day and never get sick of it. Here are a few of the things that she has done since her 2 month appointment. (This part is more for my records than anything, so don't worry about reading it.)

*She has been sleeping through the night (about 8 hrs. from feeding to feeding) since she was about 2 1/2 months old. It was hard to train her to do that, but so worth it. Now she sleeps from about 8:30 pm to 7:00 am with a dream feed at 10:00pm.
*Found a fascination with her hands and her feet and basically anything else that can make their way into her mouth.
*First real laugh/giggle when she was a little over 3 months old. She had been doing the cough laugh (if you know what I mean) for a while, but finally started laughing out loud. I love it!!*Actually plays with her toys. I would always just hold them in front of her so that she could see them, but now she holds them and plays with them herself. Her favorite toy is a little stuffed star that plays "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star." She also loves her bouncer and the play gym that Michael and Aimee let us borrow.
*First airplane ride
*Started wearing Size 2 diapers and 3-6 months clothes.
*Went one day without even pooping. That was a miracle to us all. I didn't think that would ever happen.

*She loves looking in the mirror and will just laugh, smile and coo at herself forever.

*Shown a lot of signs of teething but doesn't have any teeth yet.

*When we are in public with a lot of people around she will just stare at people and not really respond to anyone. It makes me kind of sad because she's so happy and interactive at home or when there aren't too many people.

*Is almost always so smiley and happy when she wakes up in the morning or from naps unless I take too long to get her and she's starving! :)

*She still sleeps A LOT! She usually takes a 2-3 hr. nap in the morning and is still on a 3 hour schedule where she will eat, stay up for about 1 hr 15 min to 1.5 hrs and then sleep for 1.5 hrs. I like it, but sometimes I wish that she would stay awake a little longer.

Kayley is such an angel and we love her so much!

Christmas Break in Tulsa

We had such a good time in Tulsa with my parents, Mark & Shannon and their kids, Robb, Jonathan, Trevor, Colby and Brendan. We were there from December 18th to the 26th. Our time there went by so quickly and we were sad to go home when the time came. Kayley flew on an airplane for the first time and did great. The way there she was perfect and didn't cry at all and the way back was a little bit more difficult, but she still did really well. While we were there, we went to the gym almost every morning, played walleyball (one of my favorite games), ate lots of yummy food, went to Freckle's to get frozen custard at least twice, watched movies, went shopping, played games, talked, stayed up late, went to Incredible Pizza, went bowling, went on some walks, had an adult dinner without any kids, did the Nativity with all the kids (Kayley was baby Jesus)and played with all the cute grandchildren that were there. My mom, Shannon and I also went one afternoon and got pedicures. None of us took our cameras, so I don't have any pictures of it, but it was way fun! It was also so nice to have babysitters around all the time. Thank you mom and dad for everything! They get home from their mission this July and we can't wait to be able to see them more often!!

Kayley's first time meeting her Grandpa and Grandma Seal. (Technically she did meet Grandma Seal when she was born, but the last time she had seen her she was only 3 days old at the time, so it doesn't really count! :)

This was Kayley's first time meeting Uncle Brendan too.

One of our family Christmas traditions- making candy trains. The kids ate almost all of the candy off of them within the next 24 hours! :)

Cute little Benjamin

Kayley and Aunt Shannon

Doing tummy time on Daddy.

Peyton was Nathan's little buddy the whole trip.

Kayley was always so happy in Grandpa's arms.

I love how they both have the big wide-eyed look.

We can't go to Tulsa without going to Incredible Pizza. They actually have really good food and the kids have so much fun there.

I'll never understand how Trevor can eat so much and still be so skinny! And that was just his first trip to the buffet!

Kayley playing with Uncle Mark and Robb.

Story time after the gym.

Early Christmas in Utah

The night before we left for Tulsa to be with my parents for Christmas, we decided that we needed to get up to Salt Lake to see the lights at Temple Square. Neither of us had been in a few years, so we were really excited to go. Bryce and Kelly went with us and we had a really good time. My sweet brother Colby came over and watched Kayley so that we didn't have to take her with us. It was freezing cold and we figured she'd be a lot happier sleeping in her own warm crib at home. Because we were trying to hurry back in time for me to nurse Kayley, we didn't take a ton of pictures, but if you want to see some gorgeous pics of the lights then look here. Some daddy daughter bonding time before we went to see the lights. Kayley is definitely still a daddy's girl.

We decided that instead of taking all of our presents out to Tulsa with us, which would have been unrealistic and a huge pain, we would just have an early Christmas before we left because waiting 'til after we got back was definitely out of the question. ;) We were just going to do it the Thursday night before we left the next morning, but we were both so excited about it and were all ready by the Tuesday before, that we decided to just have it that night. I was so excited about all of Nate's gifts, that I just couldn't wait until Thursday night for him to open them! Sadly, sweet little Kayley was in bed by the time Nate got home, so she missed out on our early Christmas. We figured she wouldn't know the difference anyway. I can't wait until she gets excited about opening presents.

My sweet husband waited in line at Robert's at 5:30 in the morning on Black Friday to buy me a Cricut Machine. I am so excited about it and have used it for a few projects already!

Nate's gangsta pose with his new Xbox games and DVD. We had so much fun watching each other open things, that we completely forgot about taking pictures after the first few gifts.

One of the gifts was To: Mommy and Kayley, From: Daddy. Since Kayley was asleep, I got to do the honors of opening it. I sat there wondering what he could have bought for both of us. I was so impressed with him. He went to Baby Gap all by himself and picked out this adorable sweater dress and hat and little shirt for Kayley. I love them and Kayley looks so adorable in them! I love Baby Gap clothes but I never even go there because it's way too expensive and so it's not worth it to me to go and fall in love with something and have to walk out without buying it. We all know why he put that it was for Kayley AND me, because let's be honest, we moms care way more about dressing up our kids than they do. They wouldn't know the difference if they wore the same thing every day. Seriously, and I don't mean this in a "I'm so selfless" kind of way, but I would way rather get something for Kayley than for me. I've never had more fun than when I got to open so many cute clothes for Kayley at my friends baby shower. I was in heaven! I love baby girl clothes!

I just had to throw this picture in of our sweet little angel! She's growing way too fast.