Feats of Strength

My husband and my daughter have both displayed superhuman strength in the past few days.




First, Branden beat my brother Matt at arm wrestling. If anyone has ever seen Branden and Matt standing side by side you would think this might be impossible. I was actually very surprised when Branden quickly defeated my 6'5" brother.






Matt was surprised too! He demanded a rematch and was once again beaten by my incredible husband. Matt claims that Branden somehow cheated, but there were many eye witnesses to this amazing event. We also have both pictures and video footage as proof.





Marina's display of strength is also pretty impressive. She has always been good at lifting her head up, but now she can lift it all the way up and she will hold it there for several minutes. She loves to just look around and see what is going on. Sometimes she also lifts her head to watch football with dad.

In addition, Marina has rolled over all by herself... twice. This may not seem that exciting, but she isn't supposed to learn to roll over for several months. Also, as everyone knows parents find anything their kids do amazing. So at least I am very impressed.

Merry Belated Christmas!

We've been so busy lately with Marina that we never had any time to send out Christmas cards. So now we're taking this opportunity to wish everyone a very merry belated Christmas. We've had a wonderful year highlighted by the birth of Marina. She has been such a blessing and joy in our lives. We are so very grateful for our wonderful family members and for our great friends for all the help and support they have given us.

Our Christmas this year was spent with Kristi's family. Marina was so excited Christmas morning that she slept through the opening of presents. Once awake, she enjoyed her new books, bottles and binkies. A highlight of the morning was being able to talk with Kristi's brother who is serving a mission in Connecticut. He is doing great and is coming up on his 1 year mark.

We hope all of you had a great Christmas and Holiday Season and we wish you all the best in the new year.

Best Buddies

Last night Branden and I got together with some of our best friends for a little Christmas party. Marina got to play with some of her best buddies too and she loved it. The picture above is of (L to R) Ryan- 8 weeks, Marina- 6 weeks, Ayden- 3 1/2 months and Sadie- almost 9 months. Marina may be the runt of the group, but she was quite popular last night. She held hands with BOTH Ryan and Ayden! :)

This is the "hair club" of the babies. Both Ryan and Marina came out with and have kept quite a bit of hair. But I think Ryan still has Marina beat on thickness. I wish I had a pic of them holding hands, but I somehow missed that shot.

This is when Ayden started putting the moves on Marina. It was so adorable because they had their fingers intertwined and everything. I know that a mom should probably not encourage her daughter to start liking boys at such a young age, but it was just too cute!

I think Marina is thinking "Oh my Ayden! Our parents are looking." But Ayden is not concerned about getting caught. However, when we called Branden over to see them holding hands he said, "Ayden! What are you doing with my daughter?" and Ayden immediately moved his hand! Hopefully Branden will continue to intimidate the boys that Marina goes out with when she is older.

Branden, Marina and I are so grateful to have such wonderful friends. Thanks to all of you for the many, many fun times. Hopefully we will still be hanging out when our kids are all grown up, although we will have to keep a careful eye on them. :)

Weekend in Idaho

Well this past weekend we were able to make it to Burley. We don't get the chance to go to Burley too often because of our work schedules but I always love it when we're able to go. Marina hasn't met a lot of her cousins so it was good to be able to spend some time with my sisters and their kids and Marina loved being spoiled by her Grandma and Grandpa Allen. She was very good at keeping with her schedule and was a very happy baby the entire time. Here are a few pics from the weekend.

We were able to see and talk to my good friend Ky and his wife Marissa and Marina got to meet their little boy Ike.


Here's Kristi and Marina with my sister Alisha and her daughter Riley.


Marina, the youngest grandchild on the Allen side, being held by Jennica, the oldest grandchild on the Allen side by 14 years.

Marina with her cousin Kylie...


and with her daddy and cousin Dakota...





...with her cousins Alexis and Shaylie...









...and finally with her grandma Allen.


We tried out this hat on Marina and decided that she looked like an acorn with it on but she still looked good.

(Some) Sleep Success

A quick update for anyone that was wondering how our sleep efforts with Marina are going...

I am happy to report that things are going quite well. I am a big fan of the Babywise strategy now (at least it seems to work for Marina). She takes five naps a day- mostly in her crib unless I am out and about. But the best part of all is that she also sleeps five hours at night, wakes for a feeding, and sleeps four or five more.

This has been fabulous because she gets the rest she needs which makes her much happier during play time and less fussy in the evenings. This has also been fabulous for mommy because I can sleep at night and actually do things during the day, like go running and shower. Hooray!

The one thing I did not like about Babywise was the idea of letting Marina just cry it out. We will let her fuss a little bit if she wakes up and she will usually fall back asleep. But if she is really crying we go in and comfort her or cuddle her before putting her back down again. This has worked well so far. Hopefully she keeps it up!

Addiction

To my little one's displeasure, I have found that I love "playing photographer." It is so much fun to dress her up (or undress her) and go to town taking hundreds of pictures. Sometimes she tolerates this fairly well and other times she gives me dirty looks or worse, screams like I am torturing her.

Here are a few of my favorites from today . . .

Marina Marina Ballerina

Since I am a lame mother and have not taken Marina to get her newborn pictures yet, I decided to try taking a few pics myself. This did not go as well as I had hoped, but I still got some funny shots. If I ever try this again I will wait until Marina has had a good nap, not a fussy one, and I definitely need an assistant. Also, it turns out that tiny little girls do not like dressing up in tulle ballerina skirts as much as older ones do.









An angry ballerina

Why don't babies come with instructions?

After a horrible night of no sleep on Sunday night, Branden and I have decided to try a sleeping system for Marina. We have read and implemented SOME of the ideas in Babywise already, but now we are ready to commit. I love to cuddle and hold Marina so she has learned to only sleep in my arms during the day. This is pretty fun, but not practical. If I rock her to sleep and then put her in the crib so that I can possibly take a shower, she is awake within fifteen minutes and screaming like crazy. I know that you can't spoil a newborn by holding her too much, but Marina really needs to get better sleep so that she won't be fussy. Marina is now a month old, so hopefully she is old enough to start learning some better sleeping habits.

I am just so confused because all of the "experts" out there seem to contradict each other. Some people say that a little crying during nap time is ok because it teaches babies to go to sleep by themselves. Others say that by not picking up your baby when she cries, you are teaching her not to comunicate with you and it will affect your relationship for life. I wish that babies came with an instruction manual!

Right now the new things we are trying with Marina are:
Keeping Marina awake after feeding her and then putting her down for a nap.
Trying to put her down when she is still somewhat awake.
When she fusses during nap time, we will try to comfort her but not pick her up.
Trying to feed her at approximately the same times throughout the day, about 2-1/2 to 3 hours apart.

We are trying this for one week. If it helps, we will keep it up. Otherwise I will go back to holding her all day and look for new ideas. I know lots of you moms out there know what you are doing a lot better than I do. If anyone has advice for a frazzled new mom, please let me know!!!! Thanks.