Canada Trip

In February Addie and I went to Canada to visit my family while Alex was busy traveling to conferences and competitions for school. We were able to be there for 2 weeks and did lots of fun things including:

• dancing to Katy Perry at breakfast
• having bath time in the kitchen sink
• going to Church in my home ward
• eating nachos and watching a "Walk to Remember" with my parents
• playgroup with other babies 
• eating lunch with Grampie at the high school
• eating Wacky Cake cupcakes, Aero and Caramilk chocolate bars
• going to Library Time
• running into friends at Wal-Mart 
• going on walks and thankfully not getting blown away by the infamous Pincher Creek wind!
• pushing Addie in the stroller in the Church gym with Dad and Addie laughing soooo much
• Tim Horton's hot chocolate & Timbits
• Lindsay coming for a surprise visit!
• playing the piano with Addie
• visiting elderly residents at the retirement home
• the McDonald's chicken nugget meal fiasco
• taking photo booth pictures with Lindsay and listening to old CD's we had around the house
• going to Waterton Lakes National Park and seeing extended family
• chicken on a stick at the Claresholm 7-11 
• going swimming in the pool at the hotel in Calgary
• taking the C-train to downtown Calgary and seeing some of my old high school teachers
• shopping
• talks with my Mom
• seeing an indoor garden

Thanks Nani and Grampie for letting us come visit you!

Months 7 & 8

7 Months Old

Accomplishments: Addie slept through the night for the first time on January 17th! She can also sit up on her own without any help.

Foods She Liked/Didn't Like: She liked sweet potatoes, pears, applesauce, butternut squash and rice cereal. She was unsure of carrots and peaches.
Discoveries: Adelaide LOVED to play peek-a-boo with us and laughed every time we played. She got so close to crawling but was not quite there yet so scooted backwards instead.
Special Memories: Walking outside when the weather was actually nice, playing in her toy box, baby time at the library and her being fascinated with the lady who plays the guitar, snuggling more, panting while she ate baby food, the one time we pretended the leather recliner was a slide, putting her entire pacifier in her mouth.

*****

8 Months Old

Accomplishments: She started crawling but got frustrated easily and refused to do it most times. She pulled herself up from a sitting to standing position for the first time. She is getting so big! She also cut her first teeth- the two on the bottom.

Foods She Liked/Didn't Like: The same as last month plus Cheerios, prunes, Puffs, and started to like peaches. She is such a good eater! She still wasn't too sure about carrots and didn't like avocado the first time she tried it, but then loved it the second time. 

Discoveries: She is very curious and loved to touch and put everything in her mouth this month. Most of the day was spent chewing on whatever she was holding.

Special Memories: Addie laughed every time I blew my nose, the trip to Canada to see Nani and Grampie (we also got to see Auntie Lindsay too!) laughing at her Peter Rabbit stuffed toy on the airplane ride, having baths in the sink, going swimming for the first time, playing with a friend's dog, being so happy to see Daddy again that Adelaide gave him a nosebleed by putting her finger up his nose (also, she chews on his nose. Addie is fascinated with Alex's face and will always try to eat it/claw at it)

Chewing from Aggen Family on Vimeo.

Early Crawling from Aggen Family on Vimeo.

Crawling, Standing, Waving, Oh My!

We are officially mobile in our house (and waving goodbye too) !
Check it out:

On the Move 1 from Aggen Family on Vimeo.

On The Move 2 from The Aggen Family on Vimeo.

Our Little Valentine

2014 Resolutions

HIS

Write in a journal

Read The Book of Mormon once

Get to the Detroit Temple

Get a job at OCI in August (On-Campus Interviews)

Baby-proof our home

HERS

Get healthy (exercise, eat healthier, stress less, etc.)

Read The Book of Mormon twice

Enjoy having one child

Write in my journal

Learn how to make a fancy dessert

NIÑAS

Crawl

Walk

Talk

Eat solid foods

Give kisses of own free will

(Instead of Mommy & Daddy pretending that she 

is giving us kisses when she slobbers on our face)

When the Family Gets Together...

December was a month long visit with family and we loved it! 

At the beginning of December my sister Lindsay came to visit us and she could not have come at a better time. Alex was busy with finals the week she was here so I was not completely lonely and had someone to hang out with during the day! Plus, when the Sheen sisters get together it is always a fun and crazy time. Here is what we did:

• Church and Institute class
• Opening early Christmas presents
• Tour of campus (we walked mostly around the Law quad and visited the stadium)
• Baby playgroup at the library
• Visiting the Teddy Bear Factory in Chelsea
• Buffalo Wild Wings for Boneless Wing Tuesday!
• Going to the mall
• Farmer's Market in Kerrytown
• Visiting Hell, MI
• The Great Ice Cream Tour of 2013 (we hit up 3 ice cream shops in one day...whaaa?)
• TMAZ Tacos
• Christmas light display at the fairgrounds in Jackson
• Wasem Fruit Farm for doughnuts and cider (a bit of a fiasco when they said they only took cash and we had to drive all over the countryside to find an ATM...)
• Making chocolate covered pretzels
• Lindsay babysitting for us so we could have date night

We love Auntie Lindsay!

Momma and Addie in front of the sign

Isn't she the cutest lil devil?

Stop #1: Culver's for a Chocolate Strawberry Concrete Mixer

Stop #2: Washtenaw Dairy for Caramel Pretzel
Ice Cream

We were a little wired when we got to Ben & Jerry's...

Stop #3: Double Chocolate Brownie for Linds and
Raspberry Chocolate for me!

Sisters in the kitchen

The second half of December was spent in Kansas with the Aggens! We had lots of fun being with Yia-Yia, Grandpa, Uncle Tim, and the Bergmans. Our time there was filled with:

• Eating lots of yummy food (thanks Yia-Yia!)
• Playing games
• Seeing Frozen (loved that movie!)
• Acting out the Nativity on Christmas Eve
• Christmas Day celebrations
• Playing with nieces and nephews
• Going to Kaleidoscope and Ice Skating at Crown Center
• Shopping
• Watching 'Thoroughly Modern Millie'
• Having a temple date night
• Eating BBQ at Jack Stack
• Getting a massage

Addie and Mommy

Christmas Eve baby 

The sleepy star in the Nativity

Christmas morning opening a present from Santa

Our little model

The bow boy- an Aggen tradition!

Our family on Christmas morning (we were a little tired!)

Months 5 & 6

5 MONTHS

Sleeping Pattern: Addie woke up every 3 hours during this month. Practically on the dot. I was absolutely exhausted and so we tried the Ferber method of sleep training, where you let them cry it out for an allotted time before going in to comfort them but not pick them up. She was a determined little lady though and it seemed like it was working for about a week, and then she went back to her old habits and fought us pretty hard so we decided we would try again later. We also moved her to her pack-and-play again to see if that would help. And naps? Naps were completely non-existent unless in arms. Whoever coined the phrase "sleeping like a baby" clearly never met my child :)

Eating Habits: She nursed every. 3. hours. this month. (To match her sleep schedule, of course!) She also tried rice cereal for the first time on November 12 and LOVED it. She especially wanted to hold the spoon and loved sticking her hands in her mouth to play with it. We caught it on camera and just had to share it since she is so darn cute!

.

Accomplishments: Addie rolled every which way this month, and would often do it with purpose. Once Alex and I were sharing ice cream out of a colorful bowl and she kept reaching for it so we did a little experiment and put her on the ground and the bowl about 3 feet away and sure enough she rolled end-over-end towards it and was so pleased with herself!

Discoveries: Toes were a great thing to suck on this month according to Miss Adelaide. She was also discovering more noises she could make and switched from screeching like a pterodactyl to doing "soft coos" instead.

Memories: When she had a poo-splosion and it was alllll over-running down her leg, in her belly button, and we go to open up the diaper and there is a single poo spot in her diaper. We still don't know how she managed that but it happened again a few days later! She would also cry one minute and then be giggly and happy the next. Going to the library to get books and then her wanting to hold them, when she gave me a kiss right on the lips back, Thanksgiving with our Ann Arbor friends, and when we would put her on the ground for tummy time and she would lift her arms up in the air thinking that would make her go forward...

6 MONTHS

Weight: 15 lbs 1.6 oz (29th percentile)

Height: 26 1/4 " (53rd percentile)

Head Circumference: 41.7 cm (33rd percentile)

Sleeping Patterns: She is sleeping better in the pack-n-play and actually started taking some naps during the day this month that were not in our arms-YAY! We also saw some longer stretches of sleep, but her schedule is so erratic that I never know when she is going to wake up. 

Eating Habits: Addie ate her first "real" solid food on her 6 month birthday. It was apple sauce and she loved, loved, loved it! She also cut back a bit on nursing (so I think we may have went through a stinker of a growth spurt last month!) and now is doing about every 4 hours. 

Accomplishments: She pushes herself all the way up on her arms and is starting to rock back and forth a bit on her knees. She also sat up on Christmas Eve!

Discoveries: Addie now does some really great belly laughs which come out especially when we play peek-a-boo around the corners in our house. She also is more ticklish! (see video below) She is starting to track where we go as well, which can be a bit of a hassle sometimes when we set her down on the ground as she wants to be held and walked around everywhere!

(side note-same pj's in two videos? definitely did not plan that one! haha)

Memories: She got sick for the first time-there is nothing sadder than a coughing, snotty-nosed baby. Auntie Lindsay coming to visit us in Michigan, when she listened to me sing one night before bed, Christmas in Kansas and meeting Mississippi cousins for the first time, opening presents, and looking at Christmas lights.

4 Months Old

 
Addie is 4 months old! We went to the pediatrician and here are her stats:

Weight: 13 lbs 12.5 ounces (~50th percentile)

Length: 25.25 inches (~90th percentile)

Head Circumference: 16 inches

Also, a little update on how she has grown and developed this past month:

Sleeping Pattern: So we decided to stop swaddling at the beginning of this month because we did not want her to become dependent on swaddling to sleep and Addie decided that having her arms free means total license to move around all over her crib. And I mean alllll over. She can still fall asleep on her own, but in doing so rolls from her back to her side 20 odd times and scoots her legs so she is rotated 45-90 degrees from where we put her down to sleep and so that she is butted right up against the slats of her crib. She also went through a phase this month where she went back to waking up every 3-5 hours to nurse. She still struggles a bit with taking naps during the day, but is slowly but surely getting better at sleeping for longer amounts of time. 
Eating Habits: Addie had tested me a bit this month-still nursing the same amount, but now likes to shriek out (think: pterodactyl screech) or "hum" while she is eating. She is completely happy when she does this, but is VERY easily distracted while feeding.
Accomplishments: First laugh on October 3! And oh, are her giggles cute. I managed to catch the first couple ones on camera, and they have only gotten sweeter since. We have yet to find what tickles her funny bone, as she is not ticklish at all and only laughs when she is getting really tired. She will mostly laugh at faces we make at her, when we say something in a silly voice, lifting her up and down, or, as in the first case, when I was blowing on her face. She also has rolled over from her back to her stomach a couple of times, but only does it in her crib when she is falling asleep at night. She is a total pro at rolling onto her side now though!

Little Giggler from Aggen Family on Vimeo. (10/03/2013)

Discoveries: Her feet! She loves grabbing onto them and holding them, and even manages to take her socks off as soon as I put them on. The cutest thing she will now do is when we are changing her diaper she immediately lifts up her legs and holds onto her feet for us! Addie has also learned that there are people who carry her around, and looks up at us when we hold her instead of turning her head every which way to see what is going on (which she still often does of course!). She recently discovered that she can not just drool but can use her mouth to blow it out, and so has started doing some pretty rudimentary "raspberries." Addie  can use her hands to reach up and touch / pull down objects. She has a pretty good grip and has started getting better at holding onto what she grabs.

The Reacher from Aggen Family on Vimeo.(10/30/2013)

Memories:Watching General Conference with Addie, Ohio trip, snuggling, reading stories and her trying to turn the pages with us, the one time Alex was holding her before bed and she just looked up at him and started laughing, her first belly laugh when I was singing Ring-Round-the-Rosie with her, dressing her up in her pink bear winter onesie and going on a walk to campus to meet up with Dad, the many positions we find her in when we go to check on her after she has fallen asleep, her pterodactyl screech that she does when she is happy, wants attention, mad, etc., 1st Halloween.

Happy Halloween 2013!

 

We had a Halloween party at Church and dressed up as Hawaii! Addie wore a cute hula outfit that her Great-Grandma Denyse gave us, Alex was a volcano, and I went as the ocean. 

her ukelele was COVERED in spit after about 10 minutes...

this girl's facial expression always bring a smile to my face!

Oh Hi, Ohio! - Cleveland

Alex had a couple of days off of school for fall break, so we decided to take a little road trip down south to our next-state-over-neighbor Ohio! Our first stop was Cleveland which was a really fun city. We left Friday morning and got to Cleveland in the afternoon. We had a picnic at Willard Park which overlooks Lake Erie. It was an absolutely beautiful space that had some cool mirror sculptures, so of course we had to take pictures! We then walked downtown a bit and came across some really neat things: a huge water fountain, the public library which had cool architecture and Addie-sized sculptures, and a giant rubber stamp.

We then headed over to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame- a Cleveland must! The building itself is this big glass pyramid with multiple levels. Most of the exhibits are on the lower level, and there were things like Michael Jackson's glove, Beatles memorabilia, music listening stations, an Elvis and Rolling Stones exhibit, and lots of outfits from various artists that were donated to the museum. A memorable moment we had was trying to find a place to feed Addie. We finally saw a sign that said to ask about a family restroom/nursing area, which we did. Turns out it was just an employee bathroom where they put a sign on the door and it just has a separate space apart from the actual bathroom with a chair. Oh the joys of being a young parent on vacation!

top L to R: in front of the museum, The Decemberists accordion, Beatles guitar, MJ's glove, Daddy dancing with Addie, Rihanna's "Rude Boy" outfit, future Elvis impersonator?

Friday night we drove outside of Cleveland to Melt. It's a grilled cheese sandwich restaurant that we heard about from the Travel Channel. They have different varieties, and so Alex ordered the Monte Carlo and I ordered a BBQ version that came topped with an onion ring. These were undeniably the best grilled cheese sandwiches either of us had eaten, and I may or may not have finished my leftover sandwich after a 3 am feeding later that night! The restaurant itself was pretty cool. When you arrive they had you pick out a name/phrase out of a container for them to put down, and we were T-Boz. I also may or may not have pronounced it T-Bo 2, because in my defense the 'Z" really looked like a 2! Other names called that we heard were Uncle Frank and Thank You for Coming. The place was also decorated with really kitschy plastic lit-up holiday decorations.

Saturday morning we headed over to the Westside Market, which is a large indoor market that has vendors from around Cleveland who sell a variety of foods. We loved walking around and seeing everything! We ended up buying some fudge, artisan bread, jerky, flavored couscous, a couple of pears, a pineapple, blackberries, a sub-par cupcake, and the best apple fritter in the city! We also got lunch at one of the stands called Steve's Gyros. They had some crazy customer service! There was a sign out that basically said they would serve people when it was convenient for them, and Alex ended up waiting in line for over 30 minutes. But, the gyros were amazingly good and it was totally worth the wait. We ate lunch outside in a square that is right in front of the market and the weather could not have been more perfect. After lunch we walked around a bit more and explored places nearby, like at a food spices shop that sold a very tempting orange peel that smelled heavenly so we can only imagine how it tasted! We then got in the car and made the next leg of our trip to Granville and Columbus.