Little Peach

Peaches remind me of babies, like how mine are covered in a nice carpet of blonde fuzz when they're born, even on their ears. Bea had a really grand time picking peaches until she spotted something on the ground and got stung by a giant stinging bug, the likes of which I've never seen before.
Her middle finger swelled up until her skin was very taut and when it stopped hurting her, she enjoyed opening and closing her hand because her finger felt different. She screamed for a while, but good thing there were plenty of ripe peaches everywhere because that was the only thing she would stop crying for. And there were good.

If you click on the photo you'll see her swollen finger.

Bea also got to pet pigmy goats and baby ducks after we picked peaches.  Bea loved the animals and the goats especially liked her designer dress with buttons all over it.  I was ripping their little mouths from her outfit so they wouldn't eat it as their afternoon snack.  Looks like she takes after her mom, picking up bugs and loving farm animals.  I love you little one!

Eating Bugs

Today Bea ate a giant dead wolf spider that had died as a result of falling into a bin in the basement and was brought up with some toys. Henry found it and was playing with it and the next thing I know, Bea is chewing on it and there are legs everywhere on the ground. That's not the only time she's had a bug snack. I try to show her grasshoppers and Japanese Beetles outside and she picks them up, looks me straight in the eye and puts them in her mouth. Henry thinks it's hilarious. This might make you cringe, but I have always been interested in the prospect of eating bugs. Once I gave my dad a book called "Man Eating Bugs" that was of course about bugs that people eat around the world and people ate some pretty crazy things. I wouldn't hesitate to eat the roasted abdomen of a tarantula. They say it just tastes like a meatball. haha! There is also a dinner in New York where they serve mainly bugs and other strange delicacies from around the world to fancily dressed women and men who are out for an adventure. I would like to be a part of that crowd someday. Hey Justin if you're reading this, that would be an awesome Birthday present, wink, wink. The best story, however, was when I heard a the story of a church speaker talking to some Southeast Asian members about the cricket infestation in the early days of the pioneers and how it was a miracle sent from God that the seagulls came in to gobble them up. Well, I guess they eat crickets on a regular basis over there and didn't think it sounded like much of a miracle. They were all like, "well, why didn't you just eat them?" lol! I just think someday we might one day be in the jungle of Papua New Guinea with the Kombai tribe and will have to eat giant grubs for food or starve. Bea will have a head start on us for sure.

Happy Birthday Sweet Bea

It's Bea's Birthday today! I can't believe it's already been a year since she was born. This year went by way faster than Henry's first year and I feel like I haven't noticed things that I did with Henry because I was so focused on him. That kind of makes me sad, but I guess that's how it goes with more than one kid.

Here's a little letter from me to my beautiful daughter....


Dear Beatrice Isabella,

You were born on August 23rd, 2008 after a night of rocking out to a Maroon 5 concert. I was trying to put myself into labor and it worked. My water broke and a few hours later you were born with no epidural while I watched the Olympic diving on TV in-between contractions. With my exercise mix on my IPOD on full volume you came flying into this world in one push. You had dark auburn hair and looked nothing like me, but your presence in my life healed my sad and worried heart from losing your brother, George, and I am so grateful that you came into our family. You were the hungriest baby in the world and I just didn't have enough milk to satisfy your hunger so the first months were filled with sleepless nights since you wouldn't take a bottle. At 5 months you had your first taste of food and didn't look back. You ate like a little piglet and immediately started sleeping through the night which helped me be a better mom, which is also when I started exercising again (yea!). You didn't ever roll over and could barely sit up at 6 months of age, crawled at 9 months(only on your feet, no knees on the ground) and finally rolled over at 9 months and a few days. You still can't walk that well although you try really hard. Your posture is like that of a ballerina and you point your toes out when you walk and your arms are always out to the sides. You are perfectly content to play on the floor for hours with toys and enjoyed anything that made a crinkly sound. You are an absolute joy to be around. You are a little shy and get really cranky when you don't get your naps, especially at church when the Young Women want to hold you and it's 2 hours past your nap time. You are known as the "coy smiler" because you always try to hide your face when people smile at you, but then you look back at them and smile over your shoulder. Your eyes have become a brilliant blue and your hair has become a beautiful golden blond. You have a fantastic tan from being outside and on two beach vacations and with your naturally red pouty lips you are often compared to Shiloh Jolie-Pitt. Basically, you're a baby knock-out! You have four teeth on the bottom and two teeth on top with a slight under bite. You love to crawl up stairs, be chased by your brother, to be higher up than someone, and to swing outside while you pound down heirloom tomatoes. You can climb up the slide all by yourself and you are really good to not try to climb down anything you're not supposed to. You will eat just about anything and prefer really flavorful, gourmet foods. Your favorite meal is pasta with fresh tomatoes, basil and mozzarella and your favorite snack is blueberries or raspberries. You love whole wheat pancakes with home-made jam and you can eat an adult sized portion of any food in one sitting. You adore fish and shrimp but don't care much for chicken or beef, especially if it's overcooked. You will only drink out of a cup, no bottle or sippy yet and don't drink much in general, just like me. You are VERY messy when you eat and usually manage to get food all in your hair and down your back as well as all over your face and front. You hate being fed with a fork but think it's pretty cool when I let you hold it. You love playing the drums in the music room and you often go in there by yourself to play the drums and dance to your own music. When you talk, you usually sound like you're singing and you mostly say dada, mama, nana, and you just recently started playing with your lips to make noises and making blowing noises as well. Your nick-names are Bealicious and Bealee and I usually do a rapping tune that goes, "Bea Bea Bealicious, Bea Bea Bealee" that you dance to. You have started to throw little mini tantrums when you're annoyed by throwing your body backwards from a sitting position and hitting the ground. Most of the time you don't hurt yourself, but I think you're trying to hurt yourself so you can have an excuse to cry, I can't tell yet. You sleep through the night, sometimes 14 hours straight and take two two-hour naps every day if you can. You love your little soft and fuzzy snugly blankie and when I put you to bed, you don't want anything to do with me rocking or singing you to sleep. You dive into your crib, grab your blankie, press it to you face and suck your own tongue against it and fall asleep with no crying or protesting. You are also really easy to transfer from the car. You'll fall back to sleep anytime after being woken up which is a true blessing. You enjoy exploring nature and still love eating dirt and have chewed on a few bugs and even munched on a toad that mommy caught. You love crawling over to the raspberry bushes or tomato plants and picking your own tomatoes for a snack. You even think it's funny and giggle when I put raspberries on your fingers. You love the ocean and can splash and play in the water for hours. You've been on 16 flights and on 7 road trips(counting last weeks). You love your brother most of all and every time he's around, your eyes light up and you wiggle out of my arms to join him in all his wild adventures. You adore your daddy and often give him hugs and are always excited when he comes home from work. You are loved by so many people and have so many fun cousins close to your age and I know you'll have so much fun growing up in our adventurous family. I love you so much Bea. Your fantastic spirit and personality makes our home the best place to be. Happy Birthday daughter!

Love,
Mommy

First Sock photos

Here are some of the first photos of Bea wearing her darling socks. Don't you love the ones with the toes printed on? The funniest thing is that the skin color of the feet on the sock is supposed to match with a baby's skin color but since Bea's legs are as tan as a Mexican, they didn't blend so well. Isn't she darling? I think she really looks like her aunt Tracie in the ladybug flip flop socks. What do you think?

Sock Model

Bea had her first official modeling gig today modeling socks for a company called Jazzy Toes. She and about 10 other babes, including cousin Matthew Chou, got their photos taken by a professional photographer in a studio for the website, jazzytoes.com

I have to say that Bea was a perfect little angel. She did everything they wanted her to do, smiled the whole time, had a great attitude, and looked darling. She had to change four times, and miss her morning nap by two hours and still didn't cry once. The Jazzy Toes creator and the photographer called her "the model of the day". I'm so proud of my girl! Photos to come soon.

Birthday Invite

You are all invited to hang out at my house with a pool full of chubby and sandy babies!

 

Scary Clown Baby

I think the shadows on her face are a nice touch, don't you?

Long Lost Bahama Bea

I'm sorry I didn't post anything about Bea in the Bahamas! My Bahama Baby was so good! She most loved playing in the sand and surf. The first few days she ate sand regularly but then came to realize that it wasn't all that good to eat and stopped. She was very brave when she was splashed with sea water and was a happy, darling little traveler most of the time. What a good girl you are. Here are the best photos...

Baby Dentures?

Bea has two new teeth coming in and instead of being on the top, they're on the bottom! Now she has four teeth on the bottom and none on top which doesn't help her in the chewing department. By this time Henry had about 10 teeth and Bea is a ravenous eater so it's getting hard for me to give her the foods she wants when most of them require some more aggressive chewing. Do they make baby dentures? Hmmm....oh here it is!

BABY DENTURES:Don't take for granted your child's appearance after the early loss of his baby front teeth. This may cause speech defect and insecurities. We make beautiful baby dentures to bring back the smile in your child.

What will they think of next?

Berry Blue Baby

In case you don't know, it's berry season and you need to find your local pick-your-own farm and go raspberry picking in the next month. We have been collecting mulberries, strawberries and black raspberries this week and have been enjoying the raspberries from our own wonderful patch.
Mulberries could possibly be the messiest berry to pick since they grow on fairy tail umbrella trees and fall off rather easily when the tree is shaken. It's impossible to keep Bea from crawling all over them and covering her whole body in blue so I just let her crawl around, eating mulberries and turning blue all day long.

Picking raspberries is the worst since I don't want her to get pricked. She basically has to stay strapped in her stroller the whole time and watches painfully as all the other children gobble them up and are free to run wild between the rows of canes. Hopefully we won't have to go more than two more times to get the stock pile I'm hoping for. Hurray for berries!

Does anyone read this blog?

I don't think anyone reads this blog anymore. It's all my fault because I write everything at midnight when my brain isn't working which produces brain numbing descriptions of what's going on in our lives. Sorry sweet daughter. Your life really isn't as dull as my poor writing style suggests.

Special Visitor

Nanna B finally came to visit! We had been counting down the days until she could come and be with us. It was so difficult for me to watch Bea grow and not have my mom be there at every milestone since I think I saw her almost every month when Henry was born. Bea was taken with her after the first day of being held non-stop by such a smiley face and being smothered by kisses. She quickly started lunging out of my arms to be held by her grandma whenever she was around. Of course Nanna B brought some very stylish outfits and we had lots of fun dressing her up in the most darling dresses and jumpers in the world! Girls are way more fun to dress than boys, for sure. So thanks to Nanna B for all the fun memories and for keeping my children fashionably dressed! We love you!

Camping B

Bea took her first ever camping trip and was an angel! Not only did she love hiking around and being out in nature, but she slept through the night, was cheerful, and took naps on the run. She tried to eat the inchworms that were infesting our campsite a few times, but luckily they were a little too squirmy for her to pick up very often. As we walked through the forest they would get stuck on her pants or feet and she would try to pick them off, but just as she would start to eat one I would catch her and get it out of her death grip. To read about our wormy camping trip in detail, see Henry's blog. My little girl is a good camper! Yea!

She crawls and THEN rolls over

Well, Bea has finally figured out how to crawl, albeit slow, but like the tortoise, she keeps moving one limb at a time. After a few days of crawling she finally figured out how to roll over and now she's unstoppable. Has there ever been a child who crawls before rolling over? Anyone, anyone? Henry thinks it's really fun that she makes her way from one room to another to find where we are. I can see many hide and seek games in the future. The only problem is that now that she knows how to roll over, she rolls to her stomach and pushes herself to a sitting position in her crib when she's trying to fall asleep because it's just her reflex and she'll sit there, rubbing her eyes, totally sleepy, and not know how to get back down to sleep. Poor little pidget. I just let her cry in there until she figures it out.

Sweet faces of Beatrice

I just thought I would post a bunch of photos that I just took. Bea is ALMOST crawling! I bet it'll be less than a week before she finally takes off! I am seriously dreading having to take out the gates again. Ugh. I can't complain though. Sometimes I stop and realize that she hasn't cried for days! Seriously, days. Not when she goes to bed, not when she wakes up, not when she's tired, or hungry. She just goes with the flow, sleeps when she can, eats when I feed her, and plays on the ground in between smiling all the time. She is such a wonderful girl:)

Thinking about Grandma Berry

This Mother's Day I have been thinking a lot about my grandma Berry who died a few years ago right before I found out I was pregnant with Henry. I really miss her and I think about her all the time. I put on her "E" necklace (stands for Ethella) and wore it all weekend. I was eating raspberries and thought of making raspberry jam with her and then I was organizing my glass jars and found a jar of apricots that she canned just before she died that I've been saving for a special occasion. I think I'll open them on Beatrice's first Birthday and let her taste something that her great grandmother made with her own hands. It's packed in sugar so I want to wait until she turns one to give her any. Happy Mother's Day Grammie. We love you and miss you so much!

Sickling in DC

I feel really bad, but I dragged Bea down to DC when she was sick with a fever. I thought it was just her second tooth coming in, but she was sick for about 5 days and so I pumped her full of ibuprofin and tylenol day and night. PLUS, it was 90 degrees outside which didn't help how uncomfortable she was. She was a trooper though and made it through. My kids actually get easier when they get sick. Does this happen to you? They take extra long naps and end up more lethargic and calm down significantly. Bea is already a calm baby, so it was even more pronounced. It was nice to have so many people at Christi's place who were willing to listen for her while she was sleeping so we could go off on adventures in the backyard or across the street in the stream. She didn't get to see much of the trip. "Just let me sleep" was pretty much her attitude throughout the whole trip.

She did have a run-in with River when he bit her on the cheek so hard that it left perfect teeth marked bruises on her cheek. They are actually still there but now it just looks like she's dirty and I forgot to wipe her face off. We speculate that he just thought it looked like a nice, juicy apple and wanted to take a bite. Dave thinks that sometime at BYU Bea's going to lure River on a date and when he goes in for a kiss, she'll bite him instead. Sweet retribution! haha! I didn't take a photo of the bite but should have. I was amazed that we drove for four and a half hours straight both ways without stopping and neither of my kids cried once. Thank you Heavenly Father for sending me such happy travelers!

Tooth #2 and first sign!

Bea's second tooth is finally coming in. I will miss her snaggle tooth smile that is just so darling. She also has surprised me by making her first sign, three months earlier than Henry. She signed milk today twice along with a little coy smile because she knew that I knew what she was doing. That is one of my favorite parts of signing with my babies. There's a connection that exists from them knowing that you know what they are trying to say that I think is lost in non-signing babies. The fact that they know you are doing your best to help them try to express their needs probably makes them feel so special and important along with helping them get what they want without crying. And it was SOOOO easy to teach her. I just do the signs for milk before I nurse her, or the sign for food before I feed her, etc. I know she knows what the signs for food and all done are but just doesn't have the dexterity to do them yet. I can't wait for more to come!

Beatrice in her Easter Dress

Here is the actual finished product of Bea's Easter Dress! It wasn't that hard to make with the help of my friend, Cynthia, but I still need to hone my skills of picking fabric. I feel like the color combination is pretty predictable. I really didn't have all that much time to pick them out so it turned out okay, but I like unusual combinations that make people think, "wow, I never thought those would go together but it totally works!" I'm working towards that stage. Her dress was a big hit and she looked darling in it. Thanks to Cynthia for helping me with it and for teaching me how to not use a pattern which is much more daunting then just figuring it out on my own.