Visiting the Hansen's June 2017

Since Rainier has 3 day weekends, we decided to take a trip to see my sister, Jenni, in Utah for a few days! It was busy and so fun! Heidi got less sleep than she's ever had, but she was just too excited to play with her cousins. She adjusted pretty easily when we got back home thankfully. Jenni's husband Josh had to work every day we were there, but he was able to go in earlier and come home earlier so that was nice that we still had time with him!

Prep for the trip: dropping Sophie off at my parents' house
I was so worried that she would 1) forget who we are, 2) break my mom's tiny dog, and/or 3) hurt my parents somehow with her hyperness. She definitely wore them out with how much she loves to fetch, so she was ok! When we got back to her she was SO happy to see us! Which is weird because at home she doesn't care at all. She is usually standing at the back door with a toy in her mouth when we come home. My mom texted me pictures of Sophie playing with Brando (her dog) while we were gone. 

"Hey little dude, can you let your mom know I'm ready to come back inside?"

Day 1: Travel day with Chick-fil-a and meatballs
The first day was dedicated just to getting there because we didn't know how Heidi would do in the car for a longer trip like this. She hates it. We stopped for lunch at Chick-fil-a and it was around her normal nap time but we were starving so we risked it. Turns out it was a great idea! She ate a ton and she FINALLY figured out how to use a straw! Yay! Those applesauce pouches they have helped I think! She was so happy to drink her milk with a straw and it was nice to not have to pour it into her mouth. She napped as soon as we got back into the car. When she woke up she was angry until we arrived. We got to Jenni's place around 5ish and she made us delicious meatballs for dinner. Oh, and after dinner is when Heidi said "eye" for the first time. She was standing about 5 inches away from Noah and she pointed directly at his eye and said very loud and clear, "EYE!" Haha it was so funny! After dinner we played with their Virtual Reality games. IT'S SO FUN. I really want these games but 1) they're expensive and 2) I would play with them too much.

We are pretty big fans of Chick-fil-A now that they've come to Vegas!

We had to take a selfie in the really pretty gas station bathroom! You never see those!

First time playing with the Virtual Reality games!

Day 2: Moana, Splash Pad, Sweet and Sour Chicken and Oreo Cheesecake, Beauty and the Beast. Rainier woke up early so that he could go ride his dirt bike for a few hours. All the YouTube videos he watches about dirt bike riding are in UT so of course he had to bring his bike and go. Jenni and I had a lazy morning at the house while he was gone and for lunch we had GIANT salads. That's just how Jenni does them and it was delicious. Rainier came home as we were making lunch and he said he had fun. After lunch we watched Moana (my first time!) while the babies napped. Heidi napped in my arms and it was so nice! I love that she's not too old to sleep on me. After everyone woke up, we went to the splash pad. It was HUGE! Utah knows how to do splash pads! At first Heidi didn't like it but then she got used to the colder water and she loved it. Kaden and Noah brought water toys and Heidi loved to fill their cups with water and dump them out. When we got back we (I) made baked sweet and sour chicken and fried rice for dinner and we had homemade oreo cheesecake for dessert. It was perfect. I wish I could eat all of that every night. Beauty and the Beast came out on DVD that day and Jenni and Josh hadn't seen it yet so we got it and watched it that night! It was late, but it was fantastic. Heidi fell asleep in the middle of it but she stayed asleep even though she was still in the living room. Perfect.

Heidi had to explore their books.

Forts are a necessity.

Noah and Heidi are only 4 month apart! He calls her "eye-di"

While I was showering Heidi said, "BOO!" So cute! I'm glad Jenni got a video of it!

They played in this castle thing the ENTIRE weekend!

My baby napped on me during Moana! Yay!

The boys are so cute in their swim outfits!

Heidi kept drinking it of course.

My favorite photo of the entire trip! 

This one's pretty cute too!

Homemade no-bake oreo cheesecake is the BEST.

Here's another video of the kids in action with the castle!

So sweet! Getting ready for Beauty and the Beast!

Put something on the floor and the kids go crazy.

Day 3: Feeding the ducks, Thanksgiving Point, Cinderella
Around 10am we went out to feed the ducks at a nearby park. The ducks didn't want to eat (it wasn't for lack of trying on Heidi's part) so we just played at the park. Heidi LOVED going down the little slide. We came back to the house for lunch and then headed out to Thanksgiving Point. The babies napped in the car because it was 45 minutes away. We went to the Curiosity Museum in Thanksgiving Point and it was AMAZING! My brain could hardly handle everything that was going on! Heidi was a bit young to understand any of it but she still had tons of fun just running around saying "Whoa!" at everything. She liked the water room the most. We stayed there for a few hours and then had dinner at a cafe. We came home and played more virtual reality games. There are so many! Rainier played a "scary" one by himself for a bit. It was literally just walking around dark alleys until someone jumped out and killed him. He said he got motion sickness from it. Since we couldn't hear anything he could hear it was just weird to watch on our end. The other games were really fun though. There was one game we played where the one wearing the virtual reality helmet had to smash things with their head, and while Rainier was the one smashing everything, he accidentally threw his head forward and diagonal enough to knock Heidi down! It was so sad! She didn't get a mark from it though but it was loud! My poor baby! From then on we made sure no kids were within at least 7 feet of the virtual reality player. At one point during the night Kaden was sitting on the floor and Noah came up to Jenni and pointed at Kaden and said, "Lap?" Jenni said, "You want to sit on Kaden's lap? Go ask him!" Noah walked over to Kaden and asked and he said yes so Noah planted his chunky booty on Kaden and then Kaden immediately said, "Noah, you're too close! I can SMELL YOU! Get off!" It was hilarious! Oh, and since Jenni had heard that I haven't seen the new live action Cinderella movie, we had to watch it of course while the babies fell asleep. It was so cute!

Walkin to see the ducks!

Typical Frost family photo.

Heidi's hilarious faces while she went down the slide.

I was hoping she was big and brave enough to go down the slide by herself but not yet! Maybe in a few months!

Some of the different rooms of the Curiosity Museum

This wind tunnel thingy can go up to 85 MPH! So of course that's what Rainier put it at and scared Heidi to death.

Her favorite was the water room and being outside!

She wasn't sure about the ball pit but I knew she couldn't run away!

They were surprisingly not tired when we got home!

These silly kids. I told Kaden that sometimes when Heidi is still wide awake at night I would tire her out by telling her her feet stink because she thinks it's hilarious. They had to test it out of course.

We could not get enough of the Virtual Reality games! We may need to visit every 3 months.

Here's a weird video of me being the Virtual Reality person. I think I was destroying a city or something.

At the end of every VT game it takes a photo with the game's theme and this is the only one I remembered to take with my phone!

Day 4: Travel home
Heidi woke up SO EARLY. I took her out of her pack-n-play and just laid her down with me and we slept for another 2 hours - YAY! That was one of the best parts of the trip because I finally got some sleep. We were up SO LATE every night. Rainier was up early to start packing and we were out by 10am. We stopped at Dickey's for lunch and tried to get Heidi to run around as much as we could every time we stopped. Next time we travel we DEFINITELY need a portable DVD player for this kid! We had to stop at home first to drop off the dirt bike and our stuff to make room in the truck bed for Sophie, then we went to my parents' house to pick her up. It was a very needed trip! 

Yay, Sophie was so excited to see us! We missed her!

Heidi's First Year

We love our sweet, silly baby Heidi! She was born on January 4th, 2016 and she's just the best. Here are a few things about her that I want to remember!

Grandpa making Heidi laugh with a tissue!

The first 1-3 months of Heidi's life is kind of a blur. Lots of pictures, spit up, emotions, pizza, and not showering. It literally took the entire 6 weeks for me to feel better from birthing. Even at the 6 week appointment my body wasn't fully healed. You'd think 6 weeks would be enough but next time I'm waiting until at least 10-12 weeks before I start to do anything more than walking to the bathroom.

First time going to church! She was 2 months old.

Sleep: The first night home from the hospital was HEAVEN! I'm not being sarcastic even a little bit. I got 2 1/2 hours of sleep in 48 hours at the hospital and the first night home Heidi woke up every 2-3 hours so that sleep felt AMAZING! She kept this pattern for a long time! It wasn't until she was 6-7 months old that she slept for 5 hours straight. I didn't mind, as long as I got some sleep during her 12 hours I was good! Oh and she first slept through the night at 14 months old! And it wasn't until 15 and a half months ish that she was continually sleeping through the night. 

Heidi's first time swimming! It was at her Uncle Rocky's pool!

Naps: Ugh. I'm trying to not reminisce about this. Until she was about 8 months old, she would ONLY nap in my arms. I watched a LOT of TV. In the beginning she napped like a normal baby, and then around 2 months she starting taking a few 20-30 minute naps (in my arms still), and then ONE 20-30 minute nap a day. She finally started napping in her crib at 8-9 months and "Do xyz while she naps!" was not a thing in this house. I got a sandwich ready and she was up.  At 14 months she finally started napping longer than 30 minutes - usually 1-1 1/2 hours, but sometimes just 30 minutes depending on the day!

                                            Heidi spit up a LOT! Here's proof.

                                                         Heidi dancing at a restaurant!

                                                      Heidi's first time eating a lemon!

Breastfeeding: As soon as we got home from the hospital, she literally needed to eat every 
20 minutes. I'm NOT being sarcastic AT ALL. No one understands the emotional trauma that comes from this. I had to feed her, shower as fast as I could, and Rainier handed her to me to eat again while I was still drying off. She would scream her head off and when she got the boob she was SO happy. When she finished she was definitely satisfied and fell asleep so I know I didn't have a supply issue. We had a boobie-lover issue. This frequent feeding gave me major anxiety to be away from her. Every week the time between feedings increased by 5 minutes or so.  By the time she was 6 months old she was able to go an hour and half to 2 hours between feedings. People say all you do is feed the baby and in my case IT'S TRUE. 2 hours between feedings was HEAVEN when it finally happened. When she was barely less than a month old I developed Mastitis. I didn't get it as bad as others thankfully! I only felt really awful for a few minutes and it calmed down until we got medicine. Oh and until she was about 5 months old she spit up A LOT. You had to have a blanket if you held her because you DID get barfed on. It wasn't bothering her at all though so we didn't need medication or anything but sometimes I had to feed her again. (Yes, I was always starving.) The first time I was away from her she was 7 months old. It was only an hour, but I hated it! Rainier wasn't feeling well and I had to play organ for church so I had to feed her and leave her home with him. By then she was ok for that hour but I wasn't!  At 15 months old she transitioned to only nursing one time before bed. I'm so glad I was able to breastfeed for so long!

First time eating solids at 6 months old! Carrots!

Her first time in a crib and in her own room was at 7 months old!

At 3 months old she could finally fit in our bouncer and it was a game changer! Apparently she thought she liked broccoli.

Milestones: rolled over at 3 months (right before she was blessed actually!), laughed at 3 months (again right before she was blessed). She rolled the other way at 4 months, crawled at 5 and a half months, first tried food at 6 months but didn't like it so we waited until she was 7 months, then 8 and 9 months. She just wanted the boob! Her first food was carrots and then peas - didn't care for them much. I made all her food and she ate what we ate. She LOVED sweet potatoes. She started pulling herself up at 7 months, her first step was at almost 10 months, and full walking at 11 months ish. Her first tooth was at 7 months. She loved going up and down the stairs whenever she got a chance. Very adventurous and curious. Her first word was "dada," which she's only said that one time (as of May 21, 2017) when she was 11 months old. That's all she said until after 1. Then came hi, bye, woof, mom (kind of), wow, ball, and uh oh.                     

Heidi's first time laughing! So glad we got that on camera!

First Halloween - she "accidentally" chewed through a Crunch bar! First time having chocolate!

          Heidi's first time taking more than 1 step! I love this dress!

First Christmas!

Trips: we went camping when she was 4 months old! It was hard. Because she was so young she had to be held all the time so that made things difficult. It was fun though! Next time I want to wait until the youngest kid is walking before camping. Feeding her every hour and a half or so was tiring when we wanted to spend time with family.

She LOVED watching the fire!

Always a cheeser!

Matching Harry Potter shirts! Her booty says, "Mischief Managed!"

Life became easier and "normal" when she was 3 months, and then easier at 6 months, and every month got easier. She was kinda needy and wanted to be held most of the time but still a happy baby that just loves attention. I used a Boba baby wrap to carry her around in for shopping and she slept a lot in it. Because she breastfed so often, going out of the house was difficult. I fed her in the car a LOT after arriving places so she wouldn't start screaming while at the store. Rainier did a lot of the grocery shopping. We love that he has 3 day weekends! Oh, he was able to get 8 weeks off after she was born so that was helpful. When she was 9 months old we had our first family photo session! It was so fun to be out in the mountains for photos.

Peek-a-boo!

Heidi was 9 months old for our first family photo session!

Personality: She was very determined from the beginning. At tummy time at about a month old she would try her hardest to move in any way possible. She's also very silly and wants everyone to make her laugh. She loved standing up! Sometimes the only thing that would make her happy is to stand her up. She loves being tickled! She mostly laughs at Sophie which is SO CUTE. The first time she laughed without us prompting her was watching Sophie just playing with a toy. That's it. It was adorable. She still thinks Sophie is the funniest thing in the world. She LOVES animals. Even the dirty pigeons at Smith's. She's very sneaky and knows how to roll her eyes and give death stares. Not sure if those are on purpose though. Her sassiness started to come out closer to 1 year old and hasn't stopped!

That face and those little teeth! She's so cute!

Heidi LOVED standing up! Rainier made up this song so when she was sad they did this and she was instantly happy.

Our year in 2016!

First Birthday: on her actual birthday we saw my dad in the hospital because he just had back surgery the day before. Almost 2 weeks after her birthday we had a last minute party with close friends and family. I knew she didn't really have friends, but it's hard to get out and see people so when kids are this young it's more for the parents to spend time with other adults. It was fun! I made a disgusting banana applesauce cake with Greek yogurt frosting that Heidi LOVED. I made chocolate cupcakes for everyone else. On her actual birthday is when she had pigtails for the first time. So cute!

Visiting Dad in the hospital on her first birthday and it was her first time wearing pig tails!

I cannot get this photo to work but I still want it here!