~ Remembering Tanna ~

I've written a few posts before about my mom, some in depth and detail, others just as passing thoughts. But for this one, I simply want to remember her (as best as I can, considering I was 6 years old when she passed away). I know she was a beautiful woman and had a wonderful sense of humor. I like to think I inherited both of those traits ;) Well, I certainly know that my daughter has inherited them and I can only attribute that to my mom. 

As Anistynn gets older, I plan on telling her all about my mom, her grandma in Heaven, whatever I can. She, of course, is loved dearly by my mom, Cheryl, but I want her to know all about her angel grandma too. Tony's mom passed away as well, but you can bet that she will also be spoken about and Anistynn will know both ladies who were so important in her parent's lives. With the chaos of Anistynn being born and the holidays last year, we didnt think to "celebrate" Aimee's (Tony's mom) birthday. But we have decided that we want to do that for both of our moms with Anistynn every year now. This year, we went and got my mom white roses. They are sitting in our home reminding us of her every time we look at them and bringing life and her spirit into the room with us. I also showed Anistynn a picture of her today and it brought tears to my eyes to see her running her fingers over the frame. I KNOW that our moms would have cherished this little girl so much. She is a carbon copy of me (or so I've heard....) with Tony's peach fuzz hair. I often wish I had my mom to turn to at times and I can only wonder and imagine how things would be now if she were here. But my life would be completely different too and I cant imagine not having Josh and Lia as my brother and sister, possibly not having met Tony, etc. It would just be completely different. But I wish I had gotten to know her better. The best way I can celebrate her life is to continue to talk about her, share her with the world, and keep the memories I have of her alive. 

* Mom, you are incredibly missed, but never forgotten. Sending love above to you, as I know you constantly send it to us, showing us most importantly in helping our baby girl enter our lives. Thank you for everything. lovelovelovelovelove <3

Love, Dad

* For Anistynn's baby book, Tony and I decided to write letters to her that she could look back on when she's all grown up. I posted mine a while back (you can read it HERE) and now I'm posting Tony's!

To my beautiful daughter,

My thoughts and dreams of starting a family when I was younger fell so incredibly short of the reality of having you in my life. The happiness that you bring your mom and I every day is immeasurable! When you first wrapped your fingers around mine, my heart had a great feeling of warmth and peace. The moment that I saw you, was the same feeling I had when I saw your mom walking down the aisle at our wedding: "She is the most beautiful person I have ever seen!" Now I have you both, the two most breathtaking ladies in the whole world.

Our future is so bright. I promise to love and support you wholeheartedly in everything you are and do! I have told your mom to hold me to it, too. I may not always be able to get you all that you want, but you will always have my love and devotion. 

You are the greatest blessing we could ever ask for!

Love, Dad

Jumping On The Food Train!

A Picture & Video Blog!

So at the beginning of April, Anistynn started solids :) I was so excited, but also a little sad to realize that she was already old enough to be eating solids! For my own personal reasons, I wanted to wait until she was 6 months old. As soon as she met that mark, we got started. Thanks to WIC, we were able to get all of her food from the store for free. WIC is really a wonderful thing. We also finally got Anistynn a high chair! It's a cute Graco one - vintage black and white design, and it folds up really nicely for storage (a great feature while we live in a smaller apartment).

The first thing she tried was rice cereal. She didnt take too well to it - probably because it was bland.

 She then tried her first veggie - green beans! She LOVED them. It shocked me how much she ate (half a jar) on her first go. I expected maybe a teaspoon throughout the whole day, as that's what I was told was a possibility. But she took to it great. And with minimal mess, too! I cant believe she swallowed everything so nicely. 

She also tried her first sips of water that night - she also wasnt too fond of that either, maybe because it was cold and probably because it had no taste. You'll also notice that she is drinking from a regular cup; I really want her to learn to because my plan is to have her drink from a regular cup at a home and only drink from a sippy cup while we are out and about (obviously to save on mess purposes).

We also taped her eating sweet potatoes:

Here she is trying a sippy cup for the first time; she wanted to hold it with one hand (like she does with her bottles a lot). She knew what to do essentially, but was sucking it so hard to get it out. She just has to learn to pace herself with it and then I think she'll be good. I just put formula in it for now because she doesnt seem taken with water yet haha. 

My goal was to introduce veggies first and go through all of them, then introduce fruit. Fruit is sweeter and I figured that she would prefer those over bland veggies so I just wanted to be on the safe side. But when we finally fed her a fruit - apples - she actually hesitated! It must have been a little tart for her or something haha. We have plenty of fruits to go but I just thought it was funny that she downed the veggies so quick but hesitated with fruit! ;)

Here's a couple pictures of Anistynn eating out and about somewhere else besides home. My mom was watching her one day and they went to Burger King. They just took her Bumbo chair in and fed her sweet potatoes on the table! Haha!

And finally, here she is eating a Baby Mum Mum. I found out about these because I actually found a coupon for them. They are little wafers that basically dissolve in baby's mouth. They have Original (which is rice flavored), Vegetable, and Banana. So I just got all 3 of them to see how she likes them! She tried a rice one and didnt seem to love it (rice cereal + rice wafer = connection?); but we tried a vegetable one later and she seemed to have more success with that. We'll try banana later! I think she just has to get used to the fact that what she is putting in her own mouth is actually food she can eat (as opposed to toys she can chew) and then she'll be golden.

So tons of good strides going on in the food world for Miss Anistynn! This is only the beginning.... :)

7 Months ~

Anistynn turned 7 months old on the 16th!

Baby Dedication

So Anistynn finally got to have her baby dedication at church! It's typically done soon after the baby is born, but there were changes going on in the Children's Ministry at the time, as well as all the holidays, so it just got pushed back. Luckily, as Shelley (who organized the whole event and did a GREAT job) said, there are no statute of limitations on baby dedications ;) So, one day before she turned 7 months, Anistynn had it! :) 

It was nice. Besides my parents and Josh and Lia (who usually go to church with us), my grandparents and aunt and uncle came too! After Shelley called us up to the front (my whole family got up to go), they showed some pictures of Anistynn through the months until now so that pople could see her growth. It was funny because Shelley said, "There are some pictures on the screen so that you can see how Anistynn has changed through the years..." and then she caught herself and corrected it - but it was sooo funny! Once we were all settled, Mark and Lori spoke words of blessing to Tony and I. They were very nice and almost had me crying, but I stood strong! ;) It's nice to know we have such wonderful people in our lives. The Allen took Anistynn to speak words of blessing to her. I loved how he groaned when I gave her to him and he said, "You're definitely not a newborn anymore!" Bahaha. She was hilarious while he talked to her because she kept starting straight at him, like she was really listening intently, and she stroked his face a couple times. Haha so funny. Then John had Tony and I take a Parent's Pledge. Then Shelley had the kids in the congregation stand up and do a Children's Pledge. And finally, Dan had the congregation stand and do the Congregational Pledge. Everyone started singing Step By Step and we got to pin a patch for Anistynn. Members of East County get to pin patches for special events - I have one for my baptism and Tony and I have one for our marriage. Now we have one for Anistynn's birth! 

After church, we wnt to Chang's to eat and Anistynn took a nap. It was a great day and it was beautiful outside too, weather wise! Take a look at some pics:

What An Easter...

Easter this year was.... crazy. It had its ups and downs and needless to say, it was an interesting first Easter for Anistynn.

One of the awesome things that happened was our Easter photo shoot, which you can see here. I really enjoyed getting nice family photos taken for our first year as a family on Easter :)

I also decided that I wanted to get a basket for Anistynn this year and fill it with baby things that she could actually use now and soon (so obviously no candy, etc). I searched for a nice one because even though she is a baby and she wouldnt really know what was happening, I still wanted a good one that she could use for years to come. So I finally found one on the Pottery Barn Kids website. I ordered a basket and a liner (it was to be monogrammed with her name on it, which I loved because if she lost it, it would be easy to get it back to her since her name is so unique) about a month before Easter. They charged my account (and usually when that happens it means it has been shipped - otherwise the items stay in my "pending" section until they have been) so I was waiting excitedly for the items to arrive. Finally, 4 DAYS before Easter, they email me to tell me that the liner has been sold out and there would not be any more in the foreseeable future (probably because it was a seasonal item). I was sooo irritated!!! I mean, really?! They wait until almost Easter to let me know this? I was so bummed. But they didnt say anything about the basket.... I got a refund back for the liner, thankfully, but Easter came and went and no basket showed up. So Anistynn didnt get her basket on Easter :( It never arrived, so I tracked my order and it said that both items had been canceled. What?! I hadnt received an email saying I wouldnt get the basket and I didnt get a refund back for it either. So I had to call and the lady just said, "Sorry about that - I will refund you your money." That was it. She didnt know how old my child was or anything and that it was a week past Easter and she hadnt gotten her basket yet. Ugh. I will never order from there again. I always thought they had cute things but their prices were ridiculous. But I thought their baskets were perfect, so I thought I'd splurge just this once... Sigh. Luckily, Anistynn is still young enough to not be bummed out completely. But here is a picture of the basket and liner I was going to get her (of course, it would say "Anistynn"):

Well, next year I will look for a sturdier basket but for now, just so she could have something this year, I just went out and got a basket from Michael's and filled it up. She finally got it tonight (even though I had her stuff for it a month before Easter). So here are the pics!

Anyway, on the actual holiday, Anistynn got to get all dressed up back in whole ensemble from the pictures. Everybody loved her outfit at church :)

Her Prayer Warrior, Diana, even gave her a little basket, which was so thoughtful!

After church, we went home and spent a few hours relaxing, watching a movie, and feeding Anistynn sweet potatoes.

Then we headed over to my grandparent's house for Easter dinner. The food and company was great. Anistynn was a little fussy but Tony and I took her on a walk in her stroller and she fell asleep. Just as Tony went outside to participate in a soccer game with all the cousins, Anistynn woke up screaming. I tried everything: bottle, diaper change, putting her down on the ground to be on her tummy and her back, letting her stand up on her feet, toys, teethers, books, passing her around to different people, going outside to watch everyone play, etc. But nothing seemed to calm her down. She would get distracted for a moment and be right back at it. After about 30 minutes of consecutive crying, it started to get worse. Her cries were really ragged and horse, screaming in pain, miserable kind of cries. The kind of cries that make you cringe. She started pulling at both of her ears like no other. I remember reading that when babies pull their ear(s), it might mean that they have an ear infection. I started to get really worried so I had to pull Tony out of the game and insist that we take her home. She got quiet in the car and was silent for the whole ride home. I thought she just finally fell asleep. My plan was to get her home, take her temperature, give her some Children's Tylenol to help her sleep, and call the doctor the next day to take her to get checked out. When we arrived home, we went to take her out of the car seat and there she sat, grinning up at us like she got us good. She was smiling and laughing and being her total normal self. Tony and I looked at each other like, "Are you serious, missy?!" I took her temperature just to be safe, and she was normal. She displayed no other signs. I was thinking what a mighty fine actress she might make one 

day.....

I heard from some other people that it might have been painful teething, as they have had experience with babies pulling their ears when they were teething. It could definitely be possible. Anistynn has never in her whole life so far, ever cried that hard and that's why I was so worried. I'm sure it was just a bad teething moment. In the days following, she pulled a bit more at her ears and was fussy (although not as much as she was on Easter), so that's what I'm sure has been going on. Still, what a first Easter for our little one!