Father's Day

We had a very simple Father’s Day. We really enjoyed the talks at church and the appropriate words by the Bishop reminding us that many in our ward and visiting do not have the wonderful kind of father spoken of by the speakers. And he sent his love to them and encouraged them to forgive. I am soooo grateful for my wonderful Father who is the kind of man similar to those spoken about by the speakers. My Dad is so gospel centered and such a Family man! I love you Dad!

And now I'm grateful for a husband who is such a wonderful Father to our daughter. Griffin is so loving with her and gentle and protective already. I look forward to the many more moments and years watching and learning from his parenting. I love you honey!

Trip to Cabellas

So for about two years now Griffin has mentioned us taking a trip to Cabellas at least 50 times. So finally we did so I could see what all the hype was about this store. For those of you who don’t know Cabellas is like the ultimate outdoor superstore and has everything hard core outdoorsy people would need…from thousands of fishing poles and equipment to tents and sleeping bags to hunting supplies (aka guns) which is the main reason Griffin wanted to go. The amazing thing about Cabellas though is that it is also has kind of a museum feel. When you walk in there is a small aquarium with beautiful fish. There is also a few large rooms of animals that have been stuffed and preserved…I’m blanking on the term for that. In the center of the store is a huge display of man made mountain with all sorts of preserved dead animals (bears, wolves, moose, rabbits) that were absolutely beautiful. This display looks so real with running water in between the mountainess rocks and trees. I was very impressed.

Here's Griffin showing Jaylee the fishies

 I wanted to capture this "goose" because Griffin and I always call Jaylee our "silly goose".

 The African Safari section

Jaylee and Christi looking at the elk 

 Christi pointing out little quails to Jaylee

Griffin in heaven

What I found most interesting though is the gap between Griffin’s interests and mine! I found myself wanting to spend my time in the camping section while Griffin was torn between the spices/rubs/food department and the firearms section!

Discovering fingers!

One day it seemed it suddenly made sense that her fingers were amazing objects to suck on. I thought for sure she was going to be a little thumb sucker after seeing her suck on her thumb and first finger together so often…but she still gets pleasure out of all of them it seems.

One Tough Girl

It just breaks our hearts seeing our little baby in so much pain. But she was born with food allergies and that just makes life pretty tough for a little one. Time and time again I’ve found myself admiring different qualities or attributes of Jaylee. One that stands out to me is how tough she is. In short, she deals with pain better than many adults I know. She only cries when its unbearable. Basically she will make little whimpers when it hurts or she’ll breath really fast or she’ll use her coping mechanism of sleep. Yes we are so very blessed…she does not wail and wail and wail and wail and wail like so many babies do with just an ounce of pain.

This photo breaks my heart because here we are at like 4 in the morning because she is in so much pain she can't fall asleep. Her 3 comforts at this point are her binky, her burp cloth, and/or being held. We just love this little angel who withstands near constant discomfort and then the moments of unbearable pain like a champion. I want to be more like this little girl!

Add old video of her in pain too

Anita came to visit!

Mom Anita came to visit us! By the end of the weekend she was a pro with Jaylee...able to take Jaylee full time it seemed. What a wonderful blessing it is to have such wonderful parents who truly love Jaylee!

Ah I love this photo...Jaylee was just beginning to be responsive and gave a great big smile to her Nini!

Mom brought with her a gift from her neighbor for Jaylee...this cute outfit below! Thank you Mrs. Ramos!

Bathtime!

play time!

sleep time!

Feed time!

3 generations!!!

So we had another roommate dinner but this time in honor of Deb's birthday! One thing I sometimes enjoy doing is making a basic box cake and then decorating it. So here is my creation below for Deb.And here is Deb getting to make a wish!

It was interesting for Griffin and I to observe how this new environment was kinda scary for Jaylee. It was one of her first times out of our tiny apartment. The birthday party took place at Lisa and Joseph's house--which is like 5 times bigger than our place. Quite a group of us attended and Jaylee didn't necessary LOOK like she was scared, but Griffin and I both noticed how she was super clingy to us. She normally doesn't like snuggling up to us. But this night she would grasp our arms and clothes really tight and want to be close to our chest. Below Jaylee had been clinging to Daddy before she fell asleep. What a cutie!

And here is Tom and Miranda Evans holding Jaylee! Congrats to them who are expecting their first sometime in October! Yay for families!

So Griffin and I had a wonderful evening at Tucanos a few weeks back. Um um um we stuffed ourselves with the incredible meats and grilled pineapple and salad bar offered. It was so delicious. We were using a giftcard along with my birthday free meal coupon. But the with remainder money on the gift card Griffin splurged and got one of their desserts...yummy!!!!! (see below) It was a ginormous chocolate cake slice topped with a divine cocunut glaze. Amazing! But there was one down side...

The next day Jaylee was inconsolable! She was spitting up each meal and would never calm down. She didn't sleep more than 5 minute naps throughout the entire day and continued to have the hardest time pushing stuff out. We didn't know what to do but then I read in Babywise a description EXACTLY like Jaylee about a boy named Asher.

Babywise is a book given to us by Jonathan and Stacy about baby raising techniques

It reads, "Asher showed all the normal hunger signals, began to nurse ferociously, and then suddenly stop. he would pull away from me and just start screaming. I knew something was wrong, but what? I tried eveything. Nothing helped. Ashwer took very short naps, 30 minutes, if I could get him to sleep at all. At night he would wake four to five times. Nothing brought ocmfort to my son."

Then the book counsels to get help for reflux because if your baby develops and aversion to eating then it could leave to very severe problems.

So the next day i called the nurse who without me prompting her said it sounded like reflux. We got an appointment with our Doctor for later that day. But amazingly at our appointment my doctor said it probably wasn't reflux. He said because her stomach was so huge and because Jaylee's stools have been such odd colors that it was an indication of gas...which is related to things I'm eating. If I changed my diet and found no difference with her spitting up and everything else then I was to come back and get a prescription to try to treat her for reflux.

Can you believe that? He had the nerve to tell me that it was probably something I was eating and that I needed to change my diet!!! The worst part was that he said the top five foods that cause problems are     1)DAIRY (includes CHOCOLATE!!!!) 2)wheat 3)nuts 4)gassy vegetables and 5) spicy foods

So I went home very depressed at the idea of giving up my cheese and chocolate. Deep down i knew that the amount of wheat I ate was also probably a problem. But lets just say the next week was very discouraging and difficult trying to figure out what correlated with her fussiness.

But then I talked with a friend who referred me to a resource online "Dr. Sears" who recomends a very basic diet consisting of turkey, potatoes, rice based products, zucchini/summer squash, and pears. Then gradually you add in other foods to figure out what triggers the unconsolable behaviour and the aversion to eating within your baby. So that is what I did for over a week....only on those foods...

This is pretty much what I ate for dinner and or lunch every day.

Let me just say that jaylee's behavior has improved soooooo much! But the hard thing is that I've found not only cannot i not eat any dairy or wheat (and that substitution foods are dang expensive) but I cannot eat a lot of any food at one time... i'm guessing too many of the proteins in my body at once mean too many in my breat milk...which mean too many in jaylee's tummy at one time. So I really cannot ever binge on anything which has been very difficult for me and depressing at times! I love my food.

But she eats better, she rarely spits up now, she sleeps quieter at night and her stools come out slightly better. Plus i don't have to stuff my baby with meds to get these results. Its a sacrifice but its worth it...almost all the time haha.

How do we FIT in our apartment?

So I've been asked on a number of occassions how Griffin and I are managing having a BABY in our TINY TINY TINY apartment. So i decided to share with you all our not so secretive and not so beautiful arrangements!

This is a picture of Jaylee's second bedroom/our living room. lol  After going shopping for a good bookshelf to store all her stuff in we landed one at walmart for 30 bucks. It has ended up being perfect for our stuff. Mom Lynda when she was in town even sewed the little curtain for us. Griffin insisted that we needed to protect the shelf with all the baby clothes since our apartment collects dust like no other. He has an allergy to dust so in case Jaylee inherited that allergy he felt it would be best. Thank you mom for sewing the curtain and finding the rod and everything for us while you were here.

And yes...that is our stroller and bath and diaper bag all in our living room as well. What a beauty our living room is now! :)

This is Jaylee's first bedroom/our bedroom/the only bedroom in the apartment. You can see that the basinett BARELY squeezed into the space between the foot of the bed and the wall. On the floor is the bouncer that Jaylee slept in the first month and a half or so. We've been trying to get her to sleep in the basinett again now that its not so cold by the window. And on the floor next to the bouncer is a space heater we had to buy for Jaylee. And next to the space heater is our basket of diaper changing items so in the middle of the night when jaylee needs to be changed its all right there. Next to the diaper basket is the plastic bag we put dirty diapers in. haha. Then comes the door and all our shoes on the shoe rack. Lovely lovely lovely.

In the kitchen we openly display all the prenatals and multi vitamins we take

And in the bathroom is our homemade spotting station and clothesline. Since we do not have a washer and dryer...or a bathtub we can spot stuff in I knew we'd need a bucket to spot dirty clothes that wouldn't be washed for a couple weeks. What I didn't know was that I would end up hand washing clothes on a daily basis! Yes it has just been way easier to spot and or hand wash the clothes, hang them to dry and then have them to wear again than to wait and take a trip to the laundromat with all Griffin and my clothes as well as Jaylee's clothes as well as the different things of detergent and the towels to lay stuff to dry on and the coins and then JAYLEE! So yeah it has worked out really well to have a little washing station right there at home!

I know I've been mocking our little apartment but I know that I am going to miss it when we leave. It really has met all of our needs and more. Even though things break down every now and then and it sure ain't that pretty and it smells like old people...I love our little log cabin!

Roommate Dinner

(R to L, Top to Bottom)

Carson Fenimore, Joseph Keller and Griffin

Esther Fenimore, Celeste Fenimore, Deb Weiss, David Keller, Lisa Keller and Christi

So 4 days before Jaylee arrived, Griffin and I joined some of my former roommates (post mission roommates) for a dinner. Gosh I love these girls and their wonderful spouses. Celeste on far left had a baby boy on March 26--just 3 weeks after I had Jaylee--though you really can't tell she's even pregnant in this picture. I always love coming together with such spiritual, uplifting friends. A major bonus too is getting their their yummy recipes!!! We missed Tom and Miranda Evans since Miranda ended up having to work (she is a nurse and nurses are needed on all days of the week!) We're really looking forward to a BBQ up at Carson and Celeste's place sometime this summer. :)

The Walkers Came to Town Easter Weekend!

So a few weeks before Easter we heard from the Walkers (Griffin's good friends from his Freshman year at BYU--who subsequently got married). They were coming to visit and Griffin was so excited to finally be able to give Ryan one of the  guns Griffin inherited from his late father. Ryan always wanted a simple shot gun and this gun apparently is the most basic you can get. I don't know anything about guns so ask Griffin if you want the downlow on its cool gadgets and what not.

I on the other had was so excited to have some time with Stephanie...(gotta be one of the sweetest people on this planet). She was a natural with Jaylee (hopefully she'll have a girl next now that she has two little boys of her own) :)  Jaylee really never fully woke up so maybe Griffin and I will have to drive up to Portland area again so Jaylee can really meet them both!

It really was so good to see Ryan and Stephanie. Ryan is set on getting Griffin and I to move up near them in Camus, Washington. That would be so fun to be so close to such an awesome family like the Walkers...so maybe maybe... if Griffin gets a job up there who knows where we'll end up... :)

Pettersen Toes or Not?

So Pettersen's are known to have abnormally long and ugly toes. When I first saw Jaylee toes the day she was born I immediately thought "Wow her toes are long so she's got Pettersen toes!" But since then Griffin and I compared feet and realized that he has long toes too...so hmmm the debate is on. Did Jaylee inherit the Pettersen gene or Ellis gene for her toes? haha

Here's Griffin's foot (on left) and Christi's foot (on right) and below is Jaylee's foot. Judge for yourself! :)

But oh I love her little feet no matter what kind of toes she's got!!!!

Jessica Matt Peter and Red Robin!

So it's kind of becoming a tradition for Griffin and I to go to Red Robin each year for our birthdays. We are "Birthday Club" members on their Website and so we get free burgers each year for our birthdays. Lucky for Griffin and me, our birthdays fall so close together that we can both go at the same time. Griffin's birthday is March 27th and mine is April 2nd. But I must thank Jessica (my roommate for first 3 years at BYU) for introducing me to Red Robin. She has always LOVED Red Robin so we've come many times for her birthday or other roommates birthdays and even for a couple Freshman Year Dances. :)

Griffin and I invited Jessica and her husband Matt to join us on my birthday to celebrate at Red Robin. Their son Peter was born 3 hours before Jaylee was born and so they hadn't been out of the house yet either. It was a great time for all of us to get out for practically the first time with our newborns who were about 3 weeks old. Thank you Jessica and Matt and Peter for coming and celebrating with us!

                            Jaylee and Peter meeting for the first time. Can't you feel the love??? ;)