A Very Happy Un-Birthday to You!

Happy 6-month Birthday, Cael!

I cannot believe he's already six months. For me, this was the month I had been looking forward to since he was born. I thought, "by the time he's six months, he'll be rolling over, he'll be able to sit up all by himself, maybe starting to crawl, he'll stop spitting up..." Wow, I was really naive. He's almost done all these things, but he's not quite the perfect baby I was expecting. He's doing really good with sitting up, but I don't quite trust him to do it by himself yet. If he gets too excited or distracted he'll tip right over. It's so cute to watch him trying though, he works so hard at it!

Our other fun little milestone - he's getting his first teeth in! (can't you tell from how soaked his shirt is?) They're not quite popped through yet, but there's two little white spots on his gums, I'm hoping it'll only be a few more days!

He's doing so good with his food too. He loves it! When we first started feeding him the fruits and veggies, I think he thought it was a game. We would give him a bite and he would just laugh and flail his arms and legs, it was so fun to watch. After a few days, though, he figured out that it was actually something to eat.

One other thing that he's learned, that makes my life SO MUCH easier, is that he'll actually hold his own bottle! I had been looking forward to that day for a long time, I love it. I still feed him most of the time, but it's so nice to be able to set him down, hand him the bottle, and walk away. I can get so much more done! It's so nice, because I can let him drink his bottle while I'm making the baby food, so he doesn't have to sit there starving as long. :)

Of course, I got pictures of all these little milestones. I'm really bad at filling out our baby calendar, so I just take pictures of everything. Same difference, right? And, I figure a picture is a little more meaningful than something just written on a piece of paper. Someday I'll put all his stuff into a scrapbook. Someday. :)

So, things are going really well for us lately. We both love our church callings - Cameron's a ward missionary and I'm Relief Society Secretary. It was a little weird for me at first, because I'm so young to be in the RS Presidency, but I really love it. It's exactly what I love doing, but it also forces me out of my comfort zone, with getting to know all the women in the ward, making phone calls, that type of thing. It's really great for me. And, our presidency is such a great group of women, I love serving with them. We have a great ward.

Cael's been pretty happy, with the exception of last week - he's gone through a phase of not wanting to stay asleep at night. I think it's his teeth, they've really been bugging him. But, I think he's finally starting to get back into the swing of things. It's been a lot easier the past few nights, I just hope it stays this way.

One last little exciting thing - we finally got him a stroller and baby carrier! We've been using Natalie & Jason's old ones, we've been so thankful to them for letting us use all their baby stuff. :) But, it's so nice having our own things. We were so excited to get these, and it's black and white, which is pretty universal for a girl or boy. It works so well, we love it!

Well, I know that was a sporadic entry, but I haven't updated in a while and we had so many exciting things happen lately! I love my little family, Cael's been such a blessing to us. We love him so much. His 6-month doctor appointment is in a few days, so we'll see how giant he is now. He about breaks my back whenever I try and carry him in his carseat. :) We're so proud of him though, he's such a fun baby. Happy half birthday, Cael!!

Avatar

Best. Movie. Ever. I don't care what the critics are saying, I've never seen a movie like this before in my life. I absolutely loved it. Me and Cameron saw it in Imax 3D, and it was totally worth it. A very surreal experience. I had very high expectations for this movie, but it totally surpassed them. You really feel like you're there with the characters, you can't help but be sucked in. Great acting, breathtaking graphics and sound, and a gripping plot. I know I may sound silly, but I am just so excited, it was amazing. I loved it. If you haven't seen it, go. Now. Like I said, we saw it in 3D and it was great, but I think even without that, it's still an amazing movie. We have to see this again.

The Great Computer Crash of 2009

So, it's been a very frustrating week for us. We've been having problems with our computer the past few weeks, and it finally gave up and died last week. According to my dad, it was a literal "physical crash". Which I think pretty much means the hard drive actually blew up. Luckily, my father is an amazing man and he got a lot of our information off the destroyed hard drive. We only lost a few folders of pictures and some of Cameron's work stuff. The pictures aren't a big deal though, because I put most of the good ones on Facebook anyway. But, I learned a lot this week through all this. First, I learned that you don't really need a computer to survive. I think I've been relying on it way too much lately, and I've been wasting way too much time on here. I need to work on calling people more often, instead of emailing them. Also, I learned that being prepared and self-reliant isn't only about food storage and emergency plans. You need to be prepared for a computer crash too. We really should've had our information backed up, but we didn't. Even though we had plenty of warnings and opportunities to do so, we just never did. And we paid the price for it. So, if you have things on your computer that you don't want to lose, HAVE A BACKUP. Especially for pictures. For us, all our pictures are stored on the computer. We're really bad at printing them out, and it killed me to think that we would lose all those pictures we've taken - especially of Cael. But, we were blessed to have gotten them all back, and I've definitely learned my lesson. And now I'm passing it on to you: BACK UP YOUR INFORMATION.

Ok, rant over.

In other news, Cael is doing wonderful! His teeth still haven't popped out yet, I feel like he's been teething forEVER! I just need to be more patient, I guess. His spitting up is really improving, now that we're giving him solids more often. He's still spitty, but it's bearable now, and he's only wearing one outfit a day now instead of three, which is awesome. Cutting down on laundry is always a good thing. He's rolling over more now too, which is exciting. He rolled over for the first time a few months ago, but he hadn't done it for a long time. Now he's pretty much got the hang of it again. He can roll over whenever he wants, if he's motivated enough (one way, at least). We had his 4-month appointment a few weeks ago and he was 16 1/2 pounds! He was in the 95th percentile for his weight. He's such a monster. You'd think that with carrying around such a huge baby all day, I'd have buffer arms. If only.

I'm so thankful for him, he's so much fun. I love him so much, I can't stand it. Even when he's crying and driving me crazy. Here are some pictures. Just because I think he's cute. :)

this is his "GQ" pose. He cracks me up!

Four months old!

Happy 4-Month Birthday, Cael!!

Cael is four months old today. He is such a happy boy, but he's been having a bit of a hard time lately because he's teething on the bottom. We were able to feed him his first rice cereal yesterday, and he did awesome! Waaaay better than I was expecting. We got a little video of the first few bites, but I can't get it to upload. I'll ask around and see if I can get it to work (it's up on facebook if you want to look there). In the meantime though, here's a cute picture of when he was done...

He loved it! He was smiling and laughing the whole time. It was so cute! He kept grabbing the bib and trying to chew on it in between bites, so he made a huge mess of himself by the end of it. I'm pretty hopeful that once he starts eating more solids he'll stop spitting up so much. I can't wait until he's done with all this, I feel like the smell of spit up is soaking into my pores, it never goes away!

Here are some more recent pics... I just love showing off my little guy, I can't help it! :)

Blessing Day! (a few months late...)

In my last post I promised I would put up pictures from Cael's blessing, so here I go...

He was so good, he didn't spit up or cry through the whole meeting, but he lost it right after the closing prayer. I was so happy he waited 'till it was over! :) It was such a great blessing, Cameron did a wonderful job. The testimonies were very powerful and I think we all felt the spirit very strongly. Thank you to everyone who came, I really appreciate your love and support! We love Cael so much, I'm so happy to have family that loves him too.

Stepping stones

We had another big milestone this week. Cael slept in his own room for the first time last night! He has been sleeping in his pack-n-play next to our bed until now. The past few nights he's been a very loud sleeper, and since he's sleeping through the night now and we're not waking up to feed him 10 times a night, we decided it was time for him to be in his own room. It was really hard for me to get to sleep knowing he was all the way down the hall. But, we set up the baby monitor and I eventually fell asleep. Then, about 2 in the morning he wakes up screaming bloody murder. I felt horrible - I guess we hadn't turned the monitor up enough, so we didn't hear when he woke up! I don't know how long he was crying for, I hope it wasn't very long. Once I picked him up he immediately stopped, so I'm sure he was just nervous about sleeping in a new bed away from us. I didn't think a baby this young would know the difference, but I guess he does! Usually the only time he wakes up at night is if he's hungry, and he definitely wasn't hungry. He just wanted me to hold him. It was hard to put him back down, but after I rocked him for a few minutes he calmed down and I put him back in his crib. He screamed it out for about 2 minutes and fell right back asleep. All in all, I think it went pretty well! A little traumatic for me, but Cael did wonderfully. I hope tonight goes just as well, and we'll definitely turn the monitor up higher tonight! :)

PS - Pictures from Cael's blessing are on their way!

My little man is growing up!

Cael has started smiling SO MUCH lately. Not the little smirks he used to do, but the real, wide-open smiles where his eyes sparkle and his cheeks dimple. I love watching him smile, it lights up my whole day just thinking about it. I caught a few on camera this morning, I was so excited! They don't really do it justice though, he's way cuter in person. :)

In other news, we just got back from our annual Davis Labor Day campout in Strawberry. It was so much fun! Cael did so wonderful, he was happy almost the whole time! Night time wasn't much fun, though. I don't know if it's because he was in a weird place, or if he was too cold or hot, but he was pretty fussy at night, and he didn't sleep well at all. It made it harder, too, because we were trying to keep him quiet so he didn't wake up everyone in the camp. That didn't quite work out. I think for the most part, though, everything went really well. I think I was mostly torturing myself, and that people didn't mind as much as I thought they did.

There were lots of little critters up there this year. I saved the life of a little baby horny toad that was getting trampled during one of the games. He was sitting right where people were running back and forth. I ran forward and grabbed him before he could get completely smooshed, and put him somewhere safe. Also, during our testimony meeting on Sunday, I was sitting in my chair and I felt something on my foot. I looked down and there was a huge lizard on my shoe! He had to have been at least 6 inches long. So, I shake my foot to get him off and he starts to climb higher up into my pant leg! I must've looked pretty ridiculous. I finally managed to get him off my leg. This lizard was not afraid of people AT ALL. I could've picked him up right then and he wouldn't have even tried to run away. It was pretty funny watching everyone else jump as he ran under their feet. Me and Cameron also caught a snake in the dry river bed and we got to pet some beautiful horses! They were very friendly, they came right up to the fence when they saw us coming.

I love Cameron's family so much. We look forward to this campout every year, Labor Day is our favorite holiday besides Christmas and Thanksgiving because of it. Since my first year there, I have felt like a part of this family, they're so warm and welcoming. I'm lucky to have married into such a wonderful group of people. We can't wait for next year, I know it'll be a lot more enjoyable when Cael is sleeping through the night and (hopefully) walking! It'll be nice to be able to set him down and not have to find someone to hold him when I'm busy. I know it'll bring more challenges, (after watching Natalie and Jason this year, I'm well aware of how frustrating it is when your child wanders off constantly) but we can't wait! :)

The first month

Happy 4-week birthday, Cael!! I can't believe we've only had him for a month - it seems like he's always been a part of our family. Things around here have changed so much, our lives are completely different than they were a few weeks ago - and yet, it doesn't feel strange. It feels like we've always done things this way. Waking up every 4 hours and getting no sleep somehow feels completely natural. Weird how things work out that way. :)


Cael has been such a good baby, especially in those first 2 weeks. Since then he's become a little more fussy, but I think that's just part of being a newborn baby. He's still trying to get used to this new world, and we're trying to figure out a feeding/sleeping schedule that makes him happy. He's been having some problems with gassiness and spitting up, so that hasn't helped things either. But, he's generally a good baby and we love spending time with him. He pretty much eats, sleeps and messes his diaper. Not much else!


His umbilical cord stump FINALLY came off a few weeks ago, so we were able to give Cael his first bath in the real tub! I was so excited, it's hard to get him really clean with just a sponge bath. He didn't seem to like it very much, he kept kicking his legs and trying to get out. I think he was just unsure of what was going on though. He liked the warm water, and when we washed his hair he loved it. He just made some pretty funny faces the rest of the time.

Cameron was so excited in this picture - if you look close, Cael is actually holding his own bottle up! He was 10 days old in this picture and his grip was so strong he could hold up the bottle all on his own!

Something else exciting that happened this week - we got a new car! For those who don't know, I am currently driving a '96 Saturn, and I'm done with it. It was driven by 2 of the Davis boys in High School, then I got it after Cameron left on his mission, and we've had it ever since. As you can imagine, it's been through a LOT. I'm actually surprised it's lasted us this long. So, we bought a used Chevy Blazer with automatic doors, locks, and windows, a CD player... basically, I'm in heaven. The only setback is that we had to replace the AC compressor because the air was blowing hot. We're still trying to get the kinks worked out, but other than that, I LOVE it! It's so fun to drive, and it's definitely safer for me and Cael to ride in. As soon as we get everything done with it, I'll be sure to post pictures.

Cael Dean Davis

Introducing...

Cael Dean Davis

Born July 24th, 2009

8 lbs, 4 oz

20 1/2 in long

He's here! He came on friday afternoon, at about 2:15pm. We love him so much, he's such a beautiful sweet boy! We went into the hospital on friday at about 5am - we were scheduled to be induced because he was so close to his due date and we wanted Cameron to be able to be there all weekend and not have to worry about school. Plus, I was already dilated to 4cm and 85% effaced, I just wasn't having strong enough contractions. So, we went in and they broke my water, and everything started to pick up speed after that. They still put me on Pitocin to speed up the contractions, but they had already started on their own. My body knew what to do, it just needed a little push in the right direction! :) So, a few hours later I was ready for the epidural and I LOVED it. I was a little worried to get it because I didn't want to be completely numb, but it was wonderful. I could still feel the contractions and the pressure, but it wasn't painful at all, and I was still able to move my legs (albeit a little unsteadily). It was all I could've asked for, it made the delivery so wonderful, I could just concentrate on pushing and seeing Cael's face.

Once he came out and got all cleaned, I only got to hold him for about 30 seconds, and they had to take him to the nursery because he wasn't crying hard enough to get the fluid and mucous out of his lungs, he was just making these weird grunting noises. It was really hard for us to have to wait so long to see him, we were going crazy for those few hours. But, once we got him back everything was wonderful. He eventually coughed everything out and he's been doing great ever since! His appetite is wonderful - he's such a big boy! He's definitely going to be stocky like his Daddy.

The recovery for me hasn't really been what I thought it would be. I guess I was just so concentrated on the baby that I didn't realize I needed time for myself to heal, too. I tore pretty badly with him because he was so big, especially for my first baby. But, I think we've gotten over the worst of it. I've been feeling great these past few days, now the only trouble is not over-doing it. I have to remind myself that even though I'm feeling better, I'm still healing and I need to take it easy too.

I couldn't be happier with the way things have gone, I wouldn't change a thing. Cael is the best baby we could ask for, and we're so happy he's in our lives. Being a parent is the best thing in the world, it's so amazing that we actually created this beautiful little being. I'm so grateful that Heavenly Father blessed us with such a miracle.

The adventure begins!

One more day!

Ok, so we finally have something exciting to post... We're having a baby tomorrow!! We scheduled with the hospital to be induced on Friday, so we're going in at 5am. Hopefully we'll make quick progress and have him by the afternoon, but really - anything can happen. So for now, we're just doing last minute preparations and waiting for the big day! It's pretty crazy - I could be a mommy by tomorrow! I can't believe it!