5 Months Old/First Trip To Talkeetna :D

Hello All!

Isabella has had a very busy week! Matt and I too for that matter. Matt went to work in Talkeetna on Monday morning and Isabella and I worked on her tummy time and rolling over Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday we did whatever Isabella wanted to do because it was her 5 month birthday! (For those of you who follow the ticker at the top of this page showing how old Isabella is, it goes by her birth date (1/12/11) so it won't show that she is 5 months old until June 12th. We go by weeks since she has been born because that is how everything else tracks it, including her doctor) Here are some of her 5 month old pictures:

Wednesday night Matt came home from Talkeetna and we prepared to leave Thursday morning. All three of us went to Talkeetna and stayed overnight until Friday afternoon. Isabella slept on the way to Talkeetna and was very charming while she met everyone from both Talkeetna Aero Services and Sheldon Air Service. She and I spent a lot of the day strolling (get it, strolling...she was in a stroller, HA!) around the Talkeetna Aero hanger watching Matt work on a Turbine Beaver. 

What can I say about Thursday night....I can't believe, even now, how awful it was. We were SO not prepared to take a baby out of her comfort zone. We brought EVERYTHING imaginable for her and nothing helped. We brought her pack 'n play for her to sleep in, her toys, sound machines, lotion, nothing helped. We stayed at Matt's boss' house and they had a rocking chair (Isabella is used to being rocked to sleep) and we used that. NOTHING. She would not settle down to save her life. We started her bedtime routine around 8:30p, like normal,  and finally got her to sleep about 11:00 or so. Of course she would only sleep with me and would not go down in her pack 'n play. Figures right? So I got her down with me, and she was just so restless. I didn't sleep much at all. Around 3:00am she woke up and wouldn't settle down again so I fed her and we did everything in our power to keep her calm. Did I mention that one of Matt's bosses is a pilot and needed to sleep so he could fly all the next day? Around 5:00am Matt finally decided that it was time to get her in her car seat and drive her around. They ended up at the look out, it looks out at Denali, and they both fell asleep there in the parking lot for a couple hours. They came back and Matt kept her in her car seat and we all slept another hour before Matt had to get up and get ready to go to work. Isabella and I were dropping him off so we had to get ready too. Lucky for everyone Matt only worked a few hours and we were on our way home by 2:00pm. Now we are having a heck of a time getting Isabella to settle down for naps. Awesome! I know she will eventually get back into the groove, but it's getting there that's the hard part. Oh well, I'm just glad Matt is home this weekend to help out with naps.

Here are some pictures of Isabella and Matt in Talkeetna:

Matt and Isabella in front of the Turbine Beaver at Talkeetna Aero

Matt and Isabella at the airport

Isabella helping daddy clean up his tools in the hanger

Isabella trying to steal one of daddy's wrenches

Her onsie says "aircraft mechanics have the cutest kids"

Matt and Isabella next to Sheldon's 185

Isabella in the pilots chair of the 185

Matt and Isabella in front of Don Sheldon's Super Cub
(if you know anything about Alaska aviation history, you know who Don Sheldon was)

Today (Saturday) we are going to feed Isabella her first rice cereal...and we are going to video it for every one's enjoyment. I'll be doing another blog post very soon for it. Also, here are some random pictures from the last month or so I pulled off of my cell phone

I'm finding her face down in the mattress in the mornings...scary (5/30)

Isabella loves her ducky  (5/2)

4 months old on this day (5/4)

Playing (5/6)

My girls (5/6)

In one of her outfits from Grandma Forbes (5/7)

Holding herself up with her elbows for the first time (5/25)

No, you can't have my drool...don't even ask! (5/25)

Holding her bottle all by herself (5/26)

Having fun in her Bumbo seat (5/27)

Well, that's all for now. Until next time!!

Adventures Outside/4 Month Doctor Appointment

Well, summer is finally here in Wasilla. It took some time, but it's really here! To celebrate, Matt worked on clearing out the wood from trees he cut down a week or so ago and I cleaned out my flowerbed in the front of the house. I'm seeding right now, getting ready to plant. I'm growing (herbs) Italian Parsley, Sweet Basil and Dill. (Flowers) Marigolds, Shasta Daisies, English Daisies and, of course, Forget-me-nots. I'm growing them all from seed, and I started them pretty late because I have been so busy with Isabella that I would keep forgetting to do them! 

Italian Parsley, Sweet Basil, Dill, English/Shasta daises then Marigolds/Forget-Me-Nots

The Marigolds are coming up like crazy. The Italian Parsley isn't even trying!


So once they are older, and the ground is warmer, I'll be planting them outside. The flowers anyway, the herbs I'll be planting in planters that will hang off the porch railing. Here are some pic's of the flower bed all weeded and ready to go:

Almost empty flower bed

All I have left from last year; my bleeding heart.

After I finished cleaning out the flower bed (Matt had to help me get all the dead ferns up, so I guess after WE cleaned out the flower bed), Isabella woke up from her nap. Perfect time to test out her new sunblock. I had her dressed in long sleeves and overalls so she wouldn't have much skin showing, plus I put on her sun hat so her scalp would be protected. Really the only spots on her I had to put any sunblock was on her hands and her face. I took her outside and we sat on the front porch watching Matt load up the Suburban with the wood he had cut up to transfer to a different part of our property.

While we were sitting on the porch I watered Isabella's tree we planted in a pot this spring and some mint herbs I dug out of the flower bed and transplanted into a smaller pot. The mint sure smelled good in the flowerbed, but it was overrunning the whole bed!

Isabella's tree and fresh mint

I noticed some movement in the flowerbed while Isabella and I were watching Matt in the yard. I thought they were really big worms, but it turns out they were little newborn mice. There were 5 of them and they were all alone. We think that they may have been in a nest under the dead ferns, and when the ferns were dug out, the babies were exposed. Matt moved them into the woods, we just hope they stay alive! Poor baby mice...


Here are a couple more pictures of the past couple weeks or so of Isabella.

5/9/2011

5/10/2011

5/10/2011

5/18/2011

5/18/2011

5/18/2011

She has totally grown out of her newborn/-3month clothes. It's so sad to pack away her first outfits. But on to
"bigger" and better things. She is now in 3-6 month clothes. We attempted to start cloth diapering yesterday. I figured it was a good time to start, we were running out of disposables and that is the best time. So we tried it for most the day, and they leaked every single time. I did so much laundry yesterday it was amazing. I'm going to do more research on it and we will try again.


Isabella had her 4 month well baby appointment today. Just to check to see how she is progressing in everything and to get and overall check up. She is now 14 pounds 3.5 ounces and is 25 inches long. She is pretty tall for her age. It shows when she is wearing her size 6 month sleep 'n play outfits and she just fits into it. Overall she had a pretty good appointment. The doctor isn't watching for much and isn't concerned about anything. Her dosage of Zantac was upped a bit, and she did get more shots today. The same ones she got last time. Poor baby, I'm so glad Matt was able to come home from Talkeetna last night to be here for Isabella's appointment. He has never missed an appointment of hers, even before she was born! The doctor touched on starting solids in a month or two, but nothing pressing. We still aren't sure exactly when we will start her on rice cereal, but be sure that there will be a blog about it and lots of pictures!


That's all for now I guess, since she is waking up from her nap. Hope everyone has a great weekend ahead :D