Now A Mom

             I know I know, finally another post. This one has taken me a while as our lives have been pretty boring lately in a lot of ways and pretty busy in others. The part of our lives that have been busy, are the boring parts. Things like we’re pretty sure Mia’s getting 2 more teeth so she is CRABBY as can be, but still pretty fun, she just has her bad moments that we want to send her far far away, ha. Don’t get me wrong, we still love her and would be SO sad to not have her around all the time, but I’m sure those of you who have kids know where I’m coming from.                               I have managed to get a few fun pictures of Mia lately while we do some fun things like make cup cakes, and try on Dad’s shirts I thought I should  hurry up and post before we go to Arizona and I have a lot of updates!! SO excited to go on vacation! I also found a few pictures of her in her halloween costume that I never posted that just show how very cute she was better than some of the pics that were already on here. That and there’s some pictures of her playing in her new carseat. She was so funny when I got it out and got the straps all right, she was so mad at me every time I took her out of it. So, I finally learned to just lean it up against the couch so that she couldn’t push it over, and took advantage of her finding somethinig she so badly wanted to play with and took a little break to work on her baby book. She climbed in and out of it, sat in it to watch her cartoons, played with the straps, wanted to sit buckled in for a while, and even sat in it a couple times and leaned until she fell off the seat. She thought it was pretty funny. Anyways, here’s a few pictures of our little goof ball…�

 

Mia playing in her new big girl car seat. She LOVED it when it was in our apartment, and just liked it in the car. She’s still happier in it than she was in her rear facing seat, but still hates being buckled in.

 

Mia ‘helping’ Mom make cupcakes. I was actually practicing her birthday cake. It’s super cute. Pictures will come when it is actually her birthday. She loves to sit up with me while I’m cooking, and the second she sees a whisk or spatula she knows what that means and does all she can to get her hands on it.

Mia making one of her goofy faces while she enjoys a little cupcake batter. She is such a little goof. She makes the funniest faces, I’ve never seen another baby make faces like her.  

Mia wearing one of Jason’s shirts. I put it on her just because she kept trying to play in it anyways and I thougth it’d be cute. To my suprise, she loved it. She kept laying down on our bed until I rubbed her back and just wanted to crawl all over in her Dad’s shirt.  Honestly, I was afraid she’d get mad at it because she doesn’t really like wearing her dresses.

 

My cute little Minnie mouse. This is after a ‘trick or treat’ party we went to at Jason’s work.

Our little minnie again. This was all the pictures she’d let us take of her in it. Luckily we got some cute ones while we could. She was so cute walking around in her little costume, it makes me that much more excited for next year when she’ll care about everything going on a little bit more. SO fun!!

Well, thats all we’ve got for now and there’s a good chance there won’t be anything new until we get back from Arizona. I’ve got a lot to get done between now and then, but I’m sure we’ll have tons of pictures to post when we get back. It’ll be such a fun trip. We have some fun things planned with friends, with Jason’s family, and with my brothers. we’re also going to have an early birthday party with Mia because Jason’s family won’t be here for her actual birthday. It should be a lot of fun and nice to have time to relax!! 

         Mia hit the 10 month mark this last week, and I can’t believe it. She’s growing up so fast, and in some ways faster than most kids her age. Some of the ladies in our ward tell us all the time that she seems like she’s at least 1 already, and in some ways, it makes me sad. She is a smart little girl and learns new things all the time that even suprise Jason and I. She is one amazing little girl and I love how quick she picks things up lately.

            She is walking really well now and even climbed up on our furniture and took off on her own for the first time recently.She’s been climbing on our furniture for a while now, but we couldn’t get her to let go and walk on her own, we had to take her off whatever it was she was holding and get her to start walking that way.  She also has learned how to stop walking and fall without hurting herself. She either plops on her bumb or drops down on all 4’s and starts crawling again.  We love to watch her walk around and to see her progress as she gets better and better at it every day.

                                   She also has started to say a few little things and seems to understand what they mean fairly well. She does the typical mom and dad, she started saying “Wow” to things that she liked a couple months ago, and recently started to say baby at all her dolls/stuffed animals and pictures of herself and some other babies. She gets so excited when she seems them and just says baby and points at them non stop. It is so fun. 

She picked up a few unusual talents for her age recently too. One I have posted pictures of before, and that is her baby headstands. Recently she’s began to do those, and then lift her foot in the air, or use her foot to kick different things around. Such a silly little thing she is. She also has used her amazing copy cat skills in the last couple of weeks to learn how to whistle. At first, it was just making a little ‘O’ with her lips and blowing air, but within the last week or 2, she has atually figured out how to make noise. Now I hear a little whistle chasing me around everywhere. I also think that i have the best little eater, haha. She loves everything and we have a hard time finding any food she doesn’t like. She’s tried pickles and lemons and just sucked on them for a while, she love all forms of pasta and different Italian pasta sauces, my little Italian girl. She really just loves everything she tries and eats so very well. We are so happy with her and love what a good baby she is. She is such a good little sleeper and still sleeps from about 7:30pm to about 8am. It is wonderful. I love it. We love her and can’t wait to see what skills she comes up with next!

So Mia started taking a few steps right when she was exactly 9 months old, and has made it a little bit further every day. Now, here we are, she’s not quite 10 months old yet and she is walking all over the place! I’m really impressed with how well she does and really afraid of how well she does at the same time, ha. She is growing up fast and now that she can walk so well on her own, she is really starting to feel like my little toddler, not my little baby anymore. I guess it does seem to be helping with my fear of her turning one, I’m not so worried about it anymore.  She is so so fun now and just loves to play with Jason and I all the time. She sure loves her dad, as soon as he gets home, I don’t hear her say ‘Momma” anymore unless she’s sad. It’s always Dad. She just wants her dad to be there with her playing all she can. It’s so cute and I must admit, I’m usually pretty glad for the break, ha. Anyways, here’s a little video of her walking skills. She could have made it further if we’d let her, but then she’d be off the camera, so we just stopped her and turned her around. She is doing so well and has fun showing off to everyone around that she can walk so well. She loved being in our nursery class and being able to actually walk around with the kids instead of being stuck on the floor while they all run around and play. It was SO cute to see her do so well. 

        Winter… yes… Wonderland… not so much. Not to me atleast. This weekend we were so lucky (really not so lucky at all) to recieve the earliest recorded snowfall in the state of Utah in about 15-20 years I believe they said. Woo hoo, lucky us. In the household of not 1 but 2 adults raised in the amazing and warm state of Arizona, winter is something we both dread and dispise. And of course, this winter has decided to begin very early. We were glad that at least the snow chose to come at a time that neither of us were required to be outside. So, being the snow lovers we are, what did we decide to do? Bundle up ourselves and Mia for her first experience being able to touch and play with snow. All joking aside, it really was fun to see what she thought of all of it and it really wasn’t to much snow.

              So, we put on our coats and fought Mia to get her adorable new coat on and finally headed out before it got to warm and the snow was all gone. We did have a good time walking her around and letting her touch the snow. Honestly, she couldn’t care less what this cold white stuff was all over, she just wanted to practice her walking. We did get her to stop and play a little bit, but I’m sure it’ll be more fun to see how she reacts when we can set her in a pile of it (maybe not, we’re not that mean, ha).  Just thought I’d share the few pictures we got of her actually playing with the snow with those of you who care to see them. She is super cute!

 

The snow had stopped by the time we made it out there, so Jason shook a tree to make it snow on us. I don’t think Mia noticed, ha. 

 

Mia’s first time touching the snow. Jason took a handful off of our car. She liked to touch it, but wouldn’t do it for to long and wouldn’t really pick it up. I don’t blame her, it was freezing! 

 

She had to poke her finger in it of course. She wants to point and poke at everything. 

 

She stopped to get some off of the bush while Jason was walking her around and even tried to get a bit in her mouth, but her coat got in the way.  

 

And last but not least, my favorite picture of the day. Mia LOVES to say ‘Wow’ at new things and at things that she really likes. This is her cute little ‘Amazed’ face. I love it. She made this face at me right after touching snow in Jason’s hand. 

        I’m happy and sad to say that my sweet little babie’s growing up and turning in to my little toddler. She’s had a busy couple of weeks. She’s just been on a developmental growing streak and seems to be learning new things and getting so much better at them every day. She had a few little toys that she can stand at and push them around to walk that at first, she was so terrified of she wouldn’t touch them. Now, we can’t get her away from them. She’s gotten so steady on them, I don’t quite feel the need to follow right behind her and hold on to her shirt in case she falls all the time. I’m actually comfortable enough to take a few steps back and let her run and play. Well, I guess she got a little to good because last week, she took her first steps by herself and has made it a few steps further every day since. She has such a strong desire to walk on her own for only being 9 months old and is getting it down quickly, before I know it, she’ll want to walk every where and won’t let me carry her anymore. I’m so proud of her that she’s learned how at such a young age, but sad to see her grow up and become more independent every day.

 

          She also finally started crawling the right way a couple of weeks ago. Before then, she could get up on her hand and knees, but refused to move. She’d sit there and rock back and forth, then plop on her belly and army crawl when she was ready to move. Either that or she’d do what we like to call her ‘baby handstand’ and occasionally walk and move like that. She is now getting in to everything, including getting lost in our closet, under our beds, and her favorite rooms, the bathroom and kitchen. I am tryinig to make it a habit to close every door so she can’t hide or crawl around in our bathrooms, gross.

 

           She also got her 1st tooth finally. It broke through this last week, and I must say, she was still a pretty good baby considering. She was just a bit more tired than usual and a little sad. Not so much cranky, just sad. She didn’t really want people she didn’t know and wasn’t as playful as usual, but she was still just as sweet as she can be. She seems to be about back to her usual self now, just a little tired which I don’t mind. Just means more naps, ha. I’m afraid to see what she eats with teeth considering how much and how well she eats without them.  

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Just a couple of pictures of Mia doing her baby handstand. 

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     Last weekend we got to take Mia to her very first circus. I know I know, she won’t even remember it, but it was still a lot of fun. My parents wanted to go along with my sister and her kids, so we decided to tag along. It was a log of fun. We went early for the preshow where you can walk around and see the clowns and the elephant and they have clown noses you can put on and what not. It really was so crowded we couldn’t do much, but still fun just to be there and get a few pictures.

    Once we got up to our seats (way WAY up, haha) than we had a few minutes to sit and relax before the show started. Mia had fun walking across our laps and playing with the chairs in front of us. The circus finally started and it was so fun to watch Mia and see how she reacted to all of it. She just stared at everything for a while and eventually started yelling ‘Da Da Da Da’ over and over again. I told Jason I’m pretty sure she wanted to be louder than the circus. She really seemed to enjoy most of it, all the loud music and bright colors. We of course only had her about half of the circus then she went down to sit with Grammy and Grandpa. She still continued to watch the circus and have fun for a while, then sat on my dad’s lap and fell right asleep. After about a 15-20 minute nap, she went right back to watching. It was really a lot of fun. Even all the adults seemed to enjoy it, I know Jason and I did. After the circus, we all went to The Pie for dinner for some yummy pizza! It was a really fun night with the family!

Mia and I at the preshow before the circus started. 

 

Mia on the motorcycle they use in the show. My little biker chick!

 

Elephants! 

 

This is Mia during the circus. She LOVES to stand, espeically when she’s excited about something. She wouldn’t take her eyes off the circus long enough to get a picture with her looking at the camera. 

 

Mia sitting with my Dad. She kept playing with his binoculars. 

 

Her little nap time. It was so cute to see her sleep even though it was crazy loud. She was nice and cozy on her Grandpa’s lap. 

              Alright, so her birthday was over a week ago, but I figured a post to celebrate her and to show some of the fun pictures from her party. My Mom is an amazing mother, women, wife, and friend and I don’t know what I would do without her. I know that with out her influence and example in my life, I would never have been able to become the women, mother and wife that I am today. For that, I am so thankful and I know that my family is thankful as well. I know without a doubt that a lot of my best attributes are the things that I learned from her. We are so happy to have her here close by now, to know that my daughter will be able to really get to know her and to have a great relationship with her Grandparents. She will be a better women in the future because of it. 

 

            Anyways, enough of the mushy stuff and on to the fun! My mom decided that for her birthday, she wanted to go out and do something fun that both the adults and the kids would enjoy. After a little talking with the family, she decided on hiking up to timpanogas cave. I said of course, that it sounded like a good time and from what i could remember, was a really easy hike that would be no problem with Mia. Boy was a wrong, at least a little bit wrong. The hike is paved all the way up to the cave, but it is 1.5 miles of straight switch backs with the last 1/4 miles being in particularly steep. Besides being a little winded, we did make it up to the top without really any problems. I did have to pass Mia off to Jason a little after the 1/2 way mark because with a baby in a pouch that sits right on your stomach, you become winded quite a bit quicker. We made it up to the top, then went in to the cave. For those of you that haven’t been to timpanogos, I’d recommend it. That cave really is quite amazing, it’s actually a combination of I believe 3 caves together. The hike is worth it to go to the top. I guess there are some things in this cave that can’t be found in the large numbers they are in timpanogos, I believe called helectites, but they really are amazing. It looks like a ton of coral, really quite pretty to see. The cave tour is just under an hour long, so plan a good 1/2 day for the hike and the tour. Anyways, It was a really nice day and even worth loosing the ability to walk for the next couple of days, haha. It’s so nice to have my parents here and to be able to celebrate it all together.

 

 

This is Jason, Mia and I on the hike up. We were only 1/4 of the way there, so we were still happy and peppy at this point, ha. 

Some of my family on the hike up. I love my dad with his little preppy sweater tied around his shoulders. I was quite impressed with my 5 year old nephew walking the whole way up himself and my 3 year old neice going a part of the way up walking herself.  

Mia and I in the cave trying to squeeze through some of the tight spots without hitting her head or mine on some of the sticking out rocks. To make it even more challenging, your not supose to touch anything in the cave because it’s considered ‘alive and growing’ but the oils on your skin can kill it. It got a little tricky, especially because all that Mia wanted to do was get down and play. Luckily, there aren’t that many tight spots, most have room to move.

Jason Mia and I in one of the caves, I believe it was called Middle cave. I only remember the name of this one cause it’s in the middle of the 3 and the 1st one because it’s called Hanson cave and made me start humming ‘Mm bop”while the tour guide was talking about it. 

Some of the growth in the cave, a bunch of stalagtites and stalagmites. The looked a little prettier in person then they came out in the pictures. It really did look like coral. My sister kept asking my princess obsessed neice if she thought Ariel would like it and she’d just say ‘No, it’s WAY to cold in here’. They did say it was about 43 degrees or something like that, as cold as a refrigerator inside. It is a little chilly. 

This is some of the flow rock in the cave. I liked it cause hey kept comparing it to ice cream with carmel sauce. They actually had a few food referrences in the cave, the ice cream, carmel, marshmellows, arby’s curly fries, and cave bacon. Needless to say, I was ready for lunch when we got out.

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       I realized this morning that it’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve written anything, a busy couple of weeks none the less. I almost wrote a post the other day after watching a cute little movie with the moral of your child being your best luxury in life and not taking advantage of  them and how much I love my family and blah blah blah. Not to say that I don’t or thats not important, but for those of you that know me, you know without a post on the subject that my family is the most important thing to me and I love my daughter, she is amazing. So, I thought I’d skip the mushy stuff and go right on to the details.

          

         Mia is now about 8 1/2 months old and, if it’s possible, is learning new things more rapidly than ever. She finally figured out how to get herself up on her hands and knees, yet she won’t really try to move that way, she just rocks back and forth until she gets bored with it and plops back down. Don’t get me wrong, she does crawl and fast. She does her little army crawl and will crawl on her knees, but her face has to be on the ground. She also rolls faster than anyone i know. Just recently she began putting her head and hands to the ground and pushing her legs straight and ‘walking’ with her head ont he ground. She is so anxious to start herself. She loves us to walk her all around the house and will for as long as we can stand it. We can, on occasion, trick her in to taking a few steps herself. She learned to say Daddy a couple of weeks ago and hasn’t really said it much since she figured it out and says Mom pretty often now, which I of course love. She has had major teething symptoms for a little over a week now, but still no teeth so we’ll see. Perhaps she is just a little under the weather lately. Who knows.

       

            Her not feeling so great has kept me really busy and really tired a majority of the time. She doesn’t want me away from her side for long, or I guess just wants anyone to stay with her, it just usually happens to be me. I finally made the plunge and signed up for the state tests required to get my cosmetology license. I have been trying in any time that I have, which hasn’t been much, to study for the first of those tests, the theory exam. For those of you that think thats easy, tell me all you can about the sprilla, baccili bacteria down to the shape of the virus. I’m sure there’s a lot of other random questions I could ask that few would know the answer to because, in my opinion, it’s not really anything the general population needs to know, myself included. I did take the theory exam this morning and I’m proud to report I passed with flying colors, only using just under 1/4 of the time allowed for the test. Now I have a month to prepare for my practical exam, which I have heard in a lot of ways is easier for most people than the theory because it truly is a test of what we do.

          

           Jason is doing good, still liking his job, but who really wants to hear about that, ha. We’re a happy little family, he’s a great dad and loves that Mia’s favorite thing to say is Dadda all  day long. She had a game for a while that I’d tell her to say Mom and she’d lean in my face and begin to whisper “Da Da” until she would finally start to yell it at me. He likes to think it means she likes him the best. We’ll see. My parents moved here a couple of weeks ago and we’re enjoying being able to spend time with them and look forward to all the time we’ll have with them  (not to mention the free babysitting ). It’ll be great to have them so involved in Mia’s life. Well, thats about it in the life of the Barnes. Very exciting. I will try my best to write more often, but do need to focus a lot of time on studying in the next month. No promises If you want to see something really cute or are down and just need something to make you smile,this is bound to work… www.nowamom.com/movies/mialaugh.zip You don’t have to download anything, just hit open and it will. Enjoy!

       Well, my days of getting anything done are officially over. It’s hard for me to even get 10 minutes to make myself some lunch. I shouldn’t complain to much, at least Mia is still sleeping well and I get my much needed breaks while she takes her oh so wonderful naps. She is growing and changing so fast, she’s hard to keep up with these days. We’ve given her a new nickname of ‘Monkey’ and from the pictures that will follow this post, I’m sure you’ll see why. She’s started making a couple new faces that we just love. They’re so funny. One really funny little smile face that makes her look like a completely different baby, and what I like to call her monkey face which also includes her making a ‘oo..oo..oo..oo” sound over and over again.

          On top of all that, she is now set on walking EVERYWHERE. Nothing makes her happy like walking. This past weekend she’s had a little bit of a cold so she’s been quite a bit more cranky than usual. She just screams and cries at about every little thing we do. Even letting her stand at an object with toys and play, she screams. She has decided in the past few days that while standing, she absolutely must be holding on to our fingers with not just one, but both of her little hands so that she can run everywhere. She can’t just walk nice and slowly, she’s my little speed racer. The second we stop moving and set her down or pull one of our hands back, if even just to grab something quick or anything, she screams. I love that she is so curious and has taken such an interest in walking, but I have never been so anxious for a baby to learn to walk on their own. I bought her a walk and ride toy in hopes that she’d learn to walk with that, but no, it’s not holding our finger so while standing, she won’t touch it. Sometimes she is to smart for her own good.

             While she is an excellent sleeper, she goes to sleep without a problem and has slept through the night for months now, she has also decided that if she does happen to wake up for a second in the night, she can’t wait for us to come get her her pacifier, she has to roll around and play. Not a bad thing always, she usually doesn’t cry til she gets stuck on her belly or can’t find something she wants, but by the time she does make enough noise for us to realize she’s awake, she’s wide awake and ready to play. I am trying hard to teach myself not to give in to her cute smiley little face and to just leave her there until she goes back to sleep, which usually results in getting her up for 20 minutes or so to play and her screaming her little head off when i lay her back down. I am quickly learning my lesson to just leave her in bed and hope she gets back to sleep.

             She also has decided lately that she doesn’t need to take long naps, if I can get her to take 2 naps in a day at all. I guess from what my Mom told me about myself at her age, I should say what goes around comes around as I was a baby who quit naps all together at only a year old. With her it is especially difficult right now as that is usually the only time I have to get anything done, including eating and getting dressed, ha. When she does take a nap, there are so many times that she’ll sleep for 1/2 hour at the most and decide she’s done with that and be ready to be awake and up walking around. I swear she’d be happy walking circles in our living room all day if we could stand to help her do it all day. If only we had enough room for here to have a walker.

         Well, thats my life these days. Although she does sleep through the night, her little attitude during the day is so tiring, I feel sleep deprived and exhausted a majority of the time. At times, of course, I do get frustrated and it wears on me a bit, but I wouldn’t change it for anything in the world. Mia is very much a momma’s girl right now and I really do love it. She’s so happy when I’m with her and so sad when she’s with anyone else (at least when she can see me). There are even so many times that she prefers me to Jason and as tiring as it can be, I love that she knows that she can come to me when she just needs to be loved and comforted. She, for the most part, is such a sweet and happy baby and I just adore spending my time with her.

    

    One of Mia’s monkey faces, this is the ones that she’ll sit and go ooo ooo ooo. 

   

Mia’s crazy funny smiley face. She usually gets her eyes pretty close to closed while she does it, but she was watching a movie of herself.

    

  Just my little smiley Mia

      

 My smiley girl again right before bed.

          Well, considering the amount of things that have changed in our life, I thought it was time that I posted not only an update on Mia, but an update on everything. All good changes, but changes none the less. Mia’s doing awesome and changing so much these days. I can see her turning in to a little toddler and I’m so not looking forward  to when she’s not just my little baby anymore. She is almost 8 months old and learning new things all the time. Right before she turned 6 months, she decided it was time to start sitting up and won’t do anything else. She sits really well now and doesn’t hardly fall over. She is still refusing to crawl, at least the traditional way. She scoots on her back and rolls all over the place, it cracks me up. She can get anywhere fast doing this, so we have to have a constant eye on her. I even find her rolling all over her crib, which can be good and bad. Good because when she wakes up in the morning, she just plays if we don’t get to her right away. Bad because when she wakes up in the night, she just starts rolling all over and playing til she’s super awake and doesn’t really make much noise to let us know she’s awake(luckily, she doesn’t wake up most nights). She’s still sleeping and eating super well. Everything she can get her hands on goes in her mouth. I’m learning fast that I can’t leave her alone for more than 2 seconds and I have to vacume WAY more often to avoid any little things she can choke on being left on the floor. She is still such a good baby, just always super happy and giggly and we just love having her around.

            Jason quit working for his previous company, medicity, a few weeks ago and is now working right down the street for a company called UCN. It’s so much closer to home, we love that he is home so much sooner and we get to see a lot more of him. He seems to be really enjoying the new job and as long as he’s happy, I’m happy with whatever he’s doing. He’s awesome at what he does and seems glad to be doing something new and different. The new job also seems to have a lot of great future opportunities to offer him and we’re really excited to see what will come from that.

            Honestly, not much has changed with me. I’m still home with Mia all day every day and still love that job more than anything I’ve done in the past. We’ve had a lot of visitors lately, my little brother Jordan, my best friend Katie and her husband Bryan, and my parents have all been up here visiting. It’s been so nice to see them all and be able to spend time with them. The trip up here also brought on a lot of change for my parents. My Dad had a job interview with a company in Utah valley and was offered a position, which he of course accepted. They plan to be all moved up here for my little brother to start school, which begins on Aug. 20th. So, anyone in the market for a house in Arizona, my parent’s is all renovated and will soon be on the market. We’re all really excited to have them here close by. I want so badly for Mia to have a closer relationship to her Grandparents and cousin’s than I was able to have. I would love for her to be able to spend a lot of time with them all and to develop the bond and friendship with them that I was to far away to reach with my extended family. I’m so happy that this change is coming while she is still so young.

          Overall, we’re really happy with our life and the way things are going. Jason is quickly moving up the ladder in his career which is bringing great opportunities for our family. It has always been his goal to retire by 26, and while I don’t think he’ll make that, maybe he won’t be to far off, ha. He is not only amazing at what he deos there, but a great husband and father and I feel so lucky to have him as both. We feel blessed to have Mia in our lives and to have been blessed with such a good baby. She really is amazing. We are so excited to see what is in store for her and for our family.