March has been a pretty busy month for us. Paisley took her first trip in an airplane, Brandi had her birthday, we hit the one year anniversary of being home owners, bought a new car, and celebrated Paisley turning 8 months old. In recognition of Paisley's latest achievement, we thought we'd highlight a few of her major accomplishments, some more recent than others.
1. Got her first haircut and first pig tails.
2. Learned how to say Mama.
3. Used rolling as a means of transportation.
4. Can get into sitting position from stomach.
5. Rocking back and forth while on her hands and knees, and now, crawling.
6. Wave.
7. Drink out of a bottle...again.
8. Using the toilet.
9. Can pull herself up to standing.
As an added bonus, we thought we'd throw in several of our favorite pictures of Paisley taken during the last month or so.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Paisley Makes the Elite 8 (months)
Sunday, March 23, 2008
He Is Risen
In an effort to teach Paisley the true meaning of Easter we decided to forgo all of the baskets, eggs and chocolate while instead implementing a little pagentry. This is what Paisley woke up to this morning:
Okay, so that's not really a true story. We've been sitting on this photo for a few months now and decided that today was the perfect day to release it to the public. After years of past sacrilegious impersonations of Jesus, Tim was actually approached by a real artist at the end of the year about the idea of posing as Jesus for a couple of shots for a series of paintings that she is working on. The artist attends our church and is rather talented. Her concept is to put together a series of five paintings depicting different life stages of Christ and his relationship with Mary, from infant to the resurrection. Tim stood in for carrying the cross to Golgotha and appearing to Mary in Gethsemane as a resurrected being. Brandi couldn't resist snapping a couple of pictures during the process for posterity. Tim was just excited to be able to add "Jesus Model" to his resume. Happy Easter everyone.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Saturday, March 15, 2008
The Princess and the Pee
This could end up being the crappiest post we ever come up with. Paisley is our little princess and like all royalty, she's had a natural affinity to the throne. This is all about bragging that our 8-month-old daughter is officially potty trained. Sort of.
Ever since Paisley transitioned from her all breast milk diet to veggies and rice cereal, her diapers have obviously followed suit. Almost immediately, her poops went from old mustard to deer scat. Poor girl. We're always offering her a bottle of water because the evidence makes one think that she's severely dehydrated. The expulsion effort has also increased significantly. We've coined the look as "poop face" and it could very well be the cutest, saddest face ever. It also leaves no doubt as to what's taking place. 
Fast forward several weeks later when Brandi was giving Paisley a bath one night. Half way through the experience, Brandi caught glimpse of the face and in an effort to avert disaster and unwanted "rubber duckies" in the tub, scooped Paisley up and sat her on the toilet. Paisley took to it like a pro and pooped in the potty.
Ever since then, she's repeated the trick many times. Not that we're forcing potty training on our infant but given having watched the "poop face" over and over with nothing to show for it, sitting her on the toilet has seemed to help speed up the process. Not that Brandi wouldn't appreciate one more potty-trained member of the family. (Consequently, she's also hoping that Tim will pick up a few pointers in the meantime.) We usually sit her on the potty after meals and before bed and more times than not, she adds a couple p's to the ool. She's gotten so accustomed to her place on the thrown that even when she hasn't given us any squinty-eyed, red-faced indication of having to go, she still produces from both arenas. We've been working with her on a few dinner related baby sign language signals, so maybe if we can teach her the sign for potty we can eliminate the need for diapers all together. If she inherits nothing from us, Princess Paisley will always have her throne.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Happy Birthday Brandi!
I'm sorry that you had to make the edible version yourself. May the rest of all of your wishes come true. Thanks for making mine. Here's to another marquee year. Oh wait, that probably isn't one of your wishes.
Friday, March 7, 2008
My Loneliness Is Killing Me
The problem with asking people what they would like for their birthday is that there is a high probability that they're going to tell you. And when that person is your wife, there are consequences for ignoring that advice. Brandi wanted to take Paisley and take a trip to Chicago to visit her sister and hang out with their family for a week. On Monday afternoon I kissed them goodbye and watched them fumble their way through airport security.
I have to be honest with you and admit that there was a part of me looking forward to a break from responsibility. What I wasn't prepared for was the boredom and feelings of...discombobulation. Borderline depression. You could have probably filmed one of the Cymbalta commercials with me, the cat and the turtle the other night. Despite being overly dramatic, I really don't consider myself to be needy. (Do you think I'm needy? Do you? Please! Anyone.) If anything, my life in the past has leaned towards the side of isolation and independence. I once had someone psychoanalyze my hobbies: reading-isolating, writing-isolating, riding my bike-isolating. I could add to it that most of the jobs I've had within my profession have removed me from civilization.
Then I got married. The kicker is that I've just sort of assumed that I've remained the same person, despite the many major life events that have occurred within those short 18 months. But I'm not the same person and I'm actually a little bit proud about it. I've missed my girls tremendously. It's hard to say that despite of this or because of this, it's been a frustrating week. One of those where even the simplest activity seems to malfunction topped off with the fact that I ruined my brand new phone while almost drowning in 1 1/2 feet of water and an unbelievable amount of mud in the middle of a pond in no where Nevada and having to drive the 2 hours back to Vegas soaking wet. All I really wanted to do was wrap up in a blanket with Brandi and decompress. It's a level of comfort and security that no "night with the guys" could ever mimic.
From the sounds of it Brandi has had a great trip and has really appreciated the time she and Paisley could spend with them. It's one of the more reluctant birthday gifts that I've ever given, but I'm starting to appreciate the gift that I've received in turn. I also like convincing myself that her REAL present is her coming home to me with the same renewed appreciation! Not that I feel unappreciated or anything.
The people closest to us are far too easy to take for granted. But it's also easy to take being needed by someone for granted. Maybe the loneliest part of being home by myself all week was that there wasn't any one there for me to take care of. The fine balance of any relationship is the middle of being needed and being needy. A line that I will be firmly standing on tonight when they step through airport security again tonight.
Happy Birthday, my love.
(For the record, Brandi's birthday is next Thursday, March 13. Feel free to send your wishes her way. Also, since she's out of town, this post is missing her incredible editorial skills and she would probably want me to disclaim the following: the opinions expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the normal publishing standards that you've come to expect from BabyGirlRicks.blogspot.com.)
Friday, February 29, 2008
Christmas Ketchup
This post is all about filling in some of the holes of our writers strike inspired sabbatical. We realize that the timing caused us to miss some major holiday posts and so we'll try and make it up to you here. We have about as much motivation to give you a full two month play-by-play as you do to read it.
The first major event was our decision to actually celebrate Christmas this year. Last year was pretty rough with the first trimester and all and we just didn't have the energy to jingle, don gay apparel, wassail or much of anything. This year was much more merry and bright, complete with Christmas tree, decorations and Santa. We ended up celebrating Christmas early here in Vegas so that we didn't have to recreate Santa's sleigh in the back of the car for both legs of the trip to Utah.
We made the pilgrimage to Salt Lake to share the holiday with friends and family. It was a great trip and we were able to connect with quite a few people that hadn't ever met Paisley. Tim is still building vacation time - and learning not to be the last one in the division to ask for time off - so we had to return to Vegas a few days after Christmas. A snow storm in central Utah kept us north for a day longer than planned. Paisley had an abundant Christmas and was pretty spoiled by her three Grandma Santas. Luckily, most of the presents came with off switches.
New Years Eve was fun and we had our friends come over for pizza and a competitive round of Cranium. The competition definitely took its toll and by 11:00 we called it a night. Once you have a kid, staying up past twelve becomes, staying up later than usual. Another successful celebration.
One of our family gifts to ourselves was a new camera lens (a sweet Canon 50mm f1.4) and have had a lot of fun playing around with it. Here are some of our favorite pictures from over the holidays.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Jolly Green Bean
With all of the chastisement that we've received over the last video clip of Paisley eating green beans, we thought that we should exercise our right to defend ourselves with a rebuttal. It's pretty much the only exercise that Tim participates in these days. In explanation, from birth until her 6 month mark, aside from a few experiences with formula early on in her life, Paisley's diet has consisted solely of breast milk. Once she hit the six month milestone, we determined that it was best for both baby and mom to introduce spoon foods. We eased her into the solids bath with rice cereal, which is really nothing more than tasteless flakes mixed with breast milk into a sort of Elmer's glue like substance. After a week of white paste, it was time to kick it up to green. Brandi undertook this adventure on her own while Tim was at work but was kind enough to prop her phone on the high chair as to preserve and share the moment. The video clip was Paisley's first exposure to flavor, unless you want to include the edge of the coffee table, which she can't seem to suck on enough. What we're trying to say is that the experience had to be overwhelming for her. Since then she has been exposed to squash, sweet potatoes, prunes, applesauce, carrots, peas and peaches. Green beans happen to be one of her favorite dishes to date. Peaches and prunes usually require a little persuasion but we've graduated from the gagging and dry/not-so-dry heaves. At least until we break into the pureed spaghetti and meatballs. That should have all three of us feeling ill.
Here's a video clip of just how much Paisley likes green beans now.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Paisley Goes Green
Since our last update in December, Paisley has started eating solids. These green beans are her first experience with a non milk-based product. If you stick around for the ending, you'll find out how much she really liked them.
We're it.
"Thanks" Steph for tagging us - it gave us the motivation we needed to start blogging again.
A. Each player answers the question about themselves.
B. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5 people and posts their names, and then leaves a comment on their blog letting them know they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog to get the directions.
10 yrs ago:
T- I was a disenchanted biology major at the University of Utah due to the fact that they were just trying to make geneticists so I changed my major to creative writing. This blog just happens to be my crowning achievement. I was in between a series of collapsed lungs which would peak with lung surgery, a dropped semester and waving goodbye to my career as a professional cyclist.
B- I was working full-time as a lab tech/EMT in the ER at LDS Hospital - 4:30pm to 3:00am Wednesday through Tuesday, 7 days on, 7 days off - which meant I had time left over for another full-time job. So I was also working for Snowbird Ski Resort doing hotel reservations, 7am to 3:30pm... Most of my sleep was had "on the job." I had an apartment in Salt Lake, right across from Trolley Square, and a seasons pass to Snowbird - though neither got much use that year.
P- Kickin' it in heaven with Jesus. Reading "What To Expect From Those Who Are Expecting."
5 Things on my to do list Today:
T- 1. Update blog 2. Make dinner 3. Invite myself to someone's house for dessert 4. Go to church 5. Spend time with my family
B- 1. Feed Paisley 2. Change Paisley's diaper 3. Feed Paisley 4. Ask Tim to change Paisley's diaper 5. Fold laundry
P- 1. Eat 2. Play 3. Poop 4. Put random stuff in mouth 5. Sleep
Things I would do if I suddenly was a Billionaire:
T- Buy a good life insurance plan, buy an Acura MDX for Brandi, keep my new Blackberry, change my vote to McCain to keep those tax breaks, give half of it away and invest the rest.
B- I'm too much of a realist to honestly answer this question, I know I'll never be a billionaire so by answering I'm just setting myself up for disappointment. Though I think one thing that would be high on my priority list would be giving Paisley some siblings.
P- Get my own pad.
3 of my bad habits:
T- Picking at miscellaneous ingrown hairs/blemishes, Forgetting to wipe off counters, Tendency to stretch the truth for the sake of a good story
B- Caffeine addiction (though I've limited myself to 2 a day), Punctuality (or the lack thereof), Overly detail oriented
P- Mumbling, Peeing/pooping my pants, Breastfeeding/being so needy
Places I have lived:
T- Salt Lake City, UT; Los Angeles, CA; Logan, UT; Boise, ID; The woods, OR; Las Vegas, NV
B- Salt Lake City, UT; Northern Virginia/Washington DC area; Las Vegas, NV
P- Heaven; Womb; Las Vegas, NV
Jobs I have had:
T- Paperboy for Deseret News; Gift shop attendant at Hogle Zoo; Usher at Movies 10; Bike messenger for law firm; Lab technician/animal tester at USU; Fish Biologist; Environmental Biologist for SNWA
B- Restaurant hostess; Telemarketer; Cashier at "The Riv"; Receptionist at computer software co.; Clerk in ER at Holy Cross/Legacy Hospital/Salt Lake Regional Medical Center; Phlebotomist at various hospitals; Lab Tech/EMT at LDS Hospital; Waitress; Snowbird reservations; Surgical Assistant for laser vision correction co.; Fly fishing guide; Bartender; Medical Assistant; Office Manager for private practice physician; Director's assistant; Mom
P- Baby
Things most people don't know about me:
T- I met my wife on the internet, I am a food/music/movie snob, I'm left handed
B- I'm a chronic hand washer/germaphobe, I've had 3 concussions from competitive snowboarding, I hate pears
P- Lots because my parents won't update the blog
We tag Brent, Kate, Rachelle, Veronica & Allison
