Update Time!

So I was supposed to blog this weekend but never got around to it :) So I've been in training since last Monday and I love it! Obviously 1-800 Contacts is not my dream job, it was hard going from being a behavior therapist and using my degree to being a customer service agent, but the truth is being a behavior therapist here would have been a down grade in pay and I would not have as much time to spend with my little family as I do with this job :) Plus I plan on going back to school for my Masters in the next couple of years and this job would be very flexible for my school schedule. Aside from the flexibility, they have amazing perks and benefits. They have a free gym on site at the main office, for free with personal trainers, they have a restaurant with amazing cheap meals and tons of other perks. I've been doing amazing at training :) we finally got to get on the phone today and take some real calls. I think I did pretty well ;) We had a 2 day health fair last week and we got raffle tickets that we could put into a drawing for any items we wanted. Well turns out I won something :) These cool set of kitchenaid knives.

So that was kind of a cool surprise on my birthday.

My 25th birthday was this past Thursday. Even though we didn't do anything cool like go to Vegas or anything, I had a really good day. I did have to work, but work is fun so I didn't mind. On Friday Derek and I went out to dinner and had some yummy sushi :) I still haven't gotten my birthday present, which is supposed to be a new phone, but that will have to wait till next month :)

My brother's girlfriend is due on July 8th but my brother thinks that she may have the baby sooner, he told me that they thought she was going to have the baby last week but it was just a false alarm. I'm excited for little baby "H" to be born but I'm sad I won't be there, more than likely Derek, Alexis, and I won't be able to make a trip down to Southern California till end of August, we'll see though.

Since I've started working Alexis has been staying with a babysitter; She had a rough first 2 days getting adjusted, but she loves it now! I love hearing about all the new things she is doing, but I am a little sad I'm not there to watch her. She has started walking around tables and couches really fast and crawling super fast, she wants to climb on everything she can. I'm excited because that means she will be walking sooner than we think.

When Alexis had her 12 months appointment, she had to have blood drawn for lead testing as well as other things. A couple of weeks ago her doctor called and let us know that her blood test came back and showed that Alexis has mild anemia. Anemia in premature babies is normal and her case is very mild so even though it made me sad that she has anemia I was happy to hear that it is normal. Her doctor sent us a prescription for iron drops so Alexis has been taking those for the last 2-3 weeks. Derek and I had not given any juice to Alexis but sadly she has had to have some watered down juice with her iron because the vitamin c helps with the iron absorption. Alexis has to have the iron twice a day for 6 weeks and after those 6 weeks she has to have it once a day for another 6 weeks.

I know I was going to update on more things but for the life of me I cannot remember. I'm sure I will have more to say once I do remember.

Being Back In Utah Isn't Too Bad

Alexis and I have been in Utah for about 2 weeks and 2 days. It's no secret that I was very sad to leave Southern California, but I am enjoying being back in Utah. I realized this even more yesterday when Derek, Alexis, and myself went to go eat at The Pie. I graduated from the University of Utah (The U) and the original Pie is right across the street from the university; it's a pretty cool place, you can write messages on the wall and its all about The U in there, plus they have good pizza :) We didn't eat at the original one but it still did bring back memories and how nice it is to be near my alma mater and near other alumni. I miss going there.

So since I've been out here I had been applying to a ton of different places. I thought about doing the whole behavioral therapist thing out here. I miss working with the kids and using my degree. However behavioral therapist jobs out here pay a lot lower than they do in California and I really wanted to have my weekends free as well as my evenings free; I didn't have that as a behavioral therapist and I really want to have more time to do things with Alexis and as a family especially now that she's getting older.

I was hoping to get hired on at the same company Derek works at but they never got back to me; I'm not sure if maybe they are waiting to get more people together, but I decided I couldn't wait. I applied to several other different positions and I got a call from 1-800 Contacts on Tuesday and had a short interview over the phone and then I went in on Wednesday for the longest interview of my life lol. I had 3 interviews, took a typing test, and sat with one of the agents and watched her do her job, then they offered me the position and put my schedule together, and I got a tour of the place. So I'm going to be a customer representative with 1-800 Contacts. They don't pay as much as my last job, but they do have monthly bonuses and they have amazing benefits and perks. I start my 4 week training on Monday, once training is over I will be working Tuesday-Saturday 6am-2:30. I am really excited to start working again, I was going crazy these last 2 weeks. Don't get me wrong, I love love love spending all this time with Alexis, but I miss working.

So now let's talk about my little toddler :) Alexis is such a sweetheart. For months now Derek and I have been debating on what Alexis' first words are (she at some points has sounded like she is saying "mama" and sometimes like she is saying "dada") so we officially decided her first word is "dada". My little daddy's girl <3

Alexis has been doing these yoga poses the last couple of weeks. She will have her hands on the ground and plant her feet down and stick her butt in the air or she'll be on one knee and plant her other foot and push her arm back like she's stretching. I love when she does it. I need to take some pictures of her when she does them. She is so sassy and I love it. She is getting bigger and bigger everyday and her hair is getting so long, it's past her shoulders now. I love that her hair is this perfect little A-line hairstyle.

Alexis has a new tooth coming in, it'll be her 8th :)

Yesterday we were out doing a little bit of shopping and we got Alexis some new stuff. We bought her a new sippy cup it was not one of the ones I wanted to get her. I really wanted to get her some NUK and Munchkin ones, but Derek doesn't like the munchkin ones because they have handles and he thinks Alexis won't like them. Target didn't have any of the NUK ones :( so we bought the Thermos Foogo Sippy Cup.

I've heard amazing things about them and they are cute. I tried it out this morning with Alexis and she cried for an hour and did not want anything to do with it. It's a hard spout sippy cup and she's used to her bottles and to NUK sippy cups that are soft spouted, so she can chew on them. I think if she wasn't teething she wouldn't have a problem with it, so I guess we're going to have to get her a different type and hope that later on she will want to use this one.

Derek and I were also debating moving Alexis up a size in diapers from 3 to 4. She isn't leaking but she seems to be getting her diapers pretty full lately, so I think they may be running a little small. So we usually buy the big boxes but target had a deal 2 for $18 on their smaller bags so we got one in 3 and one in 4 so we can try them out before we commit to a whole box full. We also bought Alexis some cute pajamas from Carters :) It's getting warmer here and all of Alexis' pajamas are warm so I wanted to get her something lighter. We got her these:

They are 12 month, so they will be a little big on her but it'll work. They had this cute pink and lime green zebra ones but the zebra was kind of weird and had high heels so I turned that one down lol Even though Alexis' hasn't had any ice cream I think these are really cute. I don't know how I feel about the pants and she probably won't be wearing those but the top and shorts are adorable.

Alexis Is Changing Everyday

We've been in Utah now for a week and Alexis is adjusting perfectly. I really think Alexis likes it out here. I'm sure she misses California too but I think that she likes being out here. I miss California and my family a lot. I am so glad that Alexis has adjusted so well with our move.

Now that Alexis is 1 there are some changes she has undergone, mostly in her diet. Like I mentioned before we have started mixing her formula with whole cow's milk (WCM). We have been mixing 2oz of formula with 4-6oz of WCM. Alexis is doing amazing with it :) I was afraid she might not like it, but she loves it. Hopefully within the next 2 weeks we can completely phase out the formula.

With starting her on WCM I also want to get her off bottles and into sippy cups. She has a sippy cup that she uses but she only uses it for water and it's a small sippy cup. I want to get her the bigger 9oz sippy cups to start using for her milk instead of bottles. I love the NUK sippy cups but I have also heard great things about the munchkin sippy cups and I love munchkin products so I'm sure they are great. I'm thinking of getting both brands.





Aside from starting her on WCM, Derek and I also want to feed her more table foods now. We have been giving her table food for a while now but mostly I just give her food off of my plate, we would like to start giving her, her own plate with her spoon and fork and have her try and feed herself with a fork/spoon and not just from me or her feeding herself just with her hands. I love this.





I still can't believe Alexis is a toddler! I am definitely enjoying this stage as much as I can :)

My Little Expert Traveler

I finally have some down time to post about mine and Alexis' day. My wonderful dad drove me and Alexis to LAX he helped us check in my bag and the car seat then we hugged and said goodbye :( My mom wanted to come with to say goodbye, but she had to take my brother to take some placement test so she wasn't able to come.

After we said our goodbyes Alexis and I made our way through security. Everyone was so helpful :) I love how nice people are when you are traveling with a baby. I had Alexis in the Moby going through security, like I did during her first flight, and it was so easy getting through security. Once we got into our gate we just sat and waited for our flight to board. The flight was a little late, which sucked because if it was too late we would miss our next flight in Vegas. We got on the plane and got our seat, we had a window seat which Alexis loved, on her first flight we sat in the aisle seat, I picked a window seat this time because I knew she would love looking out the window. She was pure perfection on our flight from LAX to Vegas.

Well turns out we did get to Vegas later than we should have and on top of that the baggage took forever! Since I had to catch another flight out of Vegas and I had a suitcase, car seat, diaper bag, laptop bag, and Alexis to carry, I had to rent one of those cart things. I got the suitcase, car seat, and diaper bag on the cart and carried the laptop bag and Alexis. My flight from Las Vegas to SLC was supposed to leave at 3:20 and by the time I got to Southwest's terminal it was 3:10 so I checked the car seat and my bag in as quick as possible and got our tickets and we tried to get through security as quickly as possible and get to our gate, well turns out the plane was still there, everyone was on board so I was able to get on. I sat in the first aisle seat I found; a super sweet pilot who was a passenger on the plane offered me his seat, he was sitting in an aisle seat behind me but the middle seat was also empty and there was someone sitting in the window seat. I let him know how thankful I was and he was like "I have kids I know how it is." It was so nice to have space to stretch out also the lady sitting in the window seat by me was soooo sweet. She was in love with Alexis and asked if she could hold her, she held her for the first 40 minutes of the flight and Alexis was so sweet to her. She was so good during the flight.

We finally made it to SLC and Derek was waiting for us :) Alexis was so happy to see her daddy again. When I almost missed my flight out of Vegas the ticket agent told me that my baggage may not make it on the same flight, but it turns out my suitcase did make it but the car seat didn't. We had to get a loaner car seat until later that night, when we had to come back at like 9:30 and pick up the car seat that was on the next flight. The loaner seat was really cheap, but it did the job, I was glad though to get our car seat back and I think Alexis was too. We had Cafe Rio that night, went to Target to get some stuff we needed for Alexis and went to the airport to get the car seat and then headed back home and finally got to rest.

These last 2 days have been really tiring, but it's so nice for the 3 of us to be together again. I hate when we are apart and I know Alexis does too.

Today I had an interview and then after the interview Lexi and I headed downtown to visit Jackie and my Lunaberry friends :) It was Alexis' first Trax ride!!! When we were on Trax, not even 5 minutes into our ride, a lady 2 seats down from us started having a seizure. The Trax operator stopped the train at the nearest stop and called the paramedics so we waited, the paramedics showed up and they had us all get off the train and get on another train and we finally got downtown. When I got to Lunaberry Jackie wasn't there, Monica was and we chatted and some of the other girls there too that I know, so that was nice. Alexis and I grabbed some lunch from noddles and Alexis loved it! We got some pesto pasta, salad and bread. Alexis had a good lunch and afterwards we went back to Lunaberry and Jackie was there, it was so nice to see her. I had some yummy frozen yogurt with strawberries and mochi and Alexis had some strawberries and she had her own little yogurt melts :) I was stuffed from lunch and yogurt but Jackie decided I needed some Boba :) it was really yummy, after spending an hour at Lunaberry catching up with everybody Alexis and I jumped on Trax and Derek picked us up and we headed home.

Well we gotta head out to go pick Holly up, so this is it for now.

Seriously 45 Minute Wait Time!?!?

I love everything travel. I love making reservations, putting itineraries together, packing...literally everything travel related. What I don't like is calling an airline and hearing that the wait time is 45 minutes. I don't have an option so I am actually waiting, and this airline doesn't have that cool feature that Southwest does where you leave your number and they just call you back. That feature is a life saver! But no Spirit Airlines does not have this feature.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised, there is a reason why their flights are so cheap. I really shouldn't complain because this flight from LAX to Vegas cost me $28. For those of you who aren't familiar with Spirit or have never flown through them, the way they keep their flights cheap is by charging you for every little extra thing. They charge for checked bags, for choosing a seat and depending on where it is the cost varies, printing your boarding pass at the Port, and such things. When Derek and I flew through Spirit from Florida to Puerto Rico, for our honeymoon, we didn't really mind all the charges and what not. Well I was really trying to make this flight as cheap as possible so I wasn't going to check a bag in and just bring everything as a carry on so I wouldn't have to pay the $28 for my checked bag. I also didn't pick a seat because if you don't pick a seat when you show up to the airport and check in they assign one to you randomly and it's free. The nice thing that they do, that I know for sure Southwest also does and I'm sure other major airlines do as well, they let me check in the car seat for free and they don't count the diaper bag against me as a personal item, so I can still bring something else with me on the plane as a personal item, for free. I didn't check thoroughly when I first booked my flight and I came to realize yesterday that they charge you for a carry on, ugh so annoying. So I decided to just check in the bag, the price for a carry on is $30 and the price to check in a bag is $28, it's cheaper to check in and I don't have to carry my suitcase around so I figured I would just check it in. Well I go online tonight to do this and it's not giving me the option to add baggage on my reservation! So annoying. So I call and this is where the 45 minute wait comes in. Ummm ya I called them earlier today to verify some stuff about Alexis and I waited for like 3 minutes, this is crazy. Also on top of all that I try to check in online 24 hours before and come to find I can't, also come to find that if you print your boarding pass at the airport, instead of printing it yourself at home, they charge $5 per customer. So when I called early I asked about this and was told that I wasn't eligible to check in online because I have Alexis as a lap passenger so I have to check in at the counter. So annoying so now I have to pay at least $5 for the boarding pass maybe even $10 if they give me one for Alexis.

The reason I haven't hung up yet is because it's cheaper if you reserve online as opposed to paying for it the day of at the airport, by like $10, but still $10 is a lot to me now a days. This is extremely frustrated, but like i said I did get the flight for $28. My flight from Las Vegas to SLC was free :) because I had a $69 credit through Southwest, the flight from Vegas to SLC was exactly $69, that is why I am flying through Spirit out of LAX because it was so cheap and the whole trip is coming out to less than $60, so I'm trying not to complain too much but it's hard when I've been on hold all this time.

I really hope that Alexis handles these flights the way she handled her first one. She was soooooooo perfect so I'm hoping she'll be a little angel this time around too. You never know though, she is teething like crazy and wants to be crawling all over the place so she might not be such a happy baby this time. I believe in her though ;)

Well here is a picture of Alexis helping me pack ;) hopefully I can get this done soon so I can finish packing and getting everything ready for tomorrow.

12 Month Pedi Appt

Alexis had her 12 month pedi appt yesterday. I get really excited about her pedi appointments; I love checking up on how she's doing and love being able to ask her pedi whatever questions I may have.

Well, there was another round of vaccines, she was also supposed to get the chicken pox vaccine but they were all out so she will have to wait and she also was supposed to do a skin test, but because Monday is Memorial day they wouldn't be able to check back in 3 days to see the results, so we will have to do that at her 15 month appt. Alexis got a fluoride treatment done on her teeth. Alexis also had to have some blood drawn to do a lead test. She was such a trooper, like always. She hardly cried during her shots and her blood being drawn. Hopefully she will grow up to be like her mommy and enjoy having blood drawn and getting shots lol I know weird but it actually tickles.

Stats:
Well Alexis weighed in at 17 lbs 1oz; She was 14lbs on her last visit. I was hoping she would be 18 lbs but I knew that would be a stretch. She is 27 inches long. Her weight and height are under the 5th percentile. The pediatrician said that we can switch to whole milk and start having her do three big meals a day. She let me know that I should make a dental appointment for Alexis now and also she thinks that we should start giving Alexis more fatty foods, because of the whole being below the 5th percentile thing; she told me to drizzle butter and cheese on her veggies and that if I give Alexis pancakes, which I don't, to put lots of butter and syrup on them.

Here is a sort of rant about this...
I understand that she is under weight. She was premature 3 1/2 weeks and weighed 4lbs 6oz, so yes she is small. I've always felt that as long as she's eating and growing, even if it's slowly and at her own rate, that i am happy if she's healthy. Derek and I both have our own parenting style when it comes to her feeding, that I'm sure lots of other parents do; We don't give her sweets, juice, or anything that isn't of nutritional benefit to her. Alexis has never had juice and she has never had anything fried. Alexis' first taste of sweets, was on her 1st birthday with her cupcake and it was a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting and she took a couple of bites. Nothing against parents who want to give their kids juice and sweets, but there is no nutritional benefit, ya she might like it but there are other ways that I can make her happy besides giving her some sugar.

That being said, that doesn't mean that she'll never have sweets; We may start giving her watered down juice when she's 1 1/2, more likely 2, but for now we see no reason too. This is why I feel like this whole weight obsession is crazy. I know she is healthy and is eating right and she isn't starving, so what if she's small for her age? Derek and I do not want to encourage obesity, I feel very strongly about this because Derek seems to have a fat gene and I don't want to encourage that and neither does he, especially if it passed on to Alexis; Maybe she will be lucky and get my families crazy metabolism, except I didn't get that wonderful metabolism, I actually have to work out and eat healthy. I used to be a stick before I hit puberty, and then came the hips and butt lol maybe Alexis will be the same. Though it looks like she already has the butt ;)
Honestly, had Alexis been on time she would have barely been 5 lbs anyway. I was a 5 lb baby and all of my brothers were at the biggest 7 lbs, so why should Alexis be expected to be bigger, just because the average child is bigger?

So we don't feel like feeding her pancakes with syrup is the best way to go about it. We will put a little bit of butter and cheese on her veggies and we will continue to give her baked potatoes, mashed potatoes, tortillas, rice, beans, watermelon, pineapple...etc. We think she can continue to gain weight in a healthy way.

On another note, Alexis is lifting herself up to stand! She is holding on to things to lift herself up, but that means she is getting closer and closer to taking her first steps! She crawls all over, she has gotten really fast. Alexis is pure perfection and I love her so so much. I still can't believe that 1 year and 12 days ago I had the privilege of bringing Alexis into this world. I look at Alexis and see so much of myself and it makes me so proud and happy to be able to be a role model and inspiration to her and I know Derek feels that same way. But it is a little bit different for a mom ya know?

Love my little mini me :)))

Alexis' 1st Birthday Party

I have been pretty busy/sick since Alexis' birthday so I hadn't really thought about sitting down and blogging about it. Well I am really sick now and since I have nothing else to do but sit here I figured now is the perfect time.

We celebrated Alexis' birthday on Saturday the 19th. The party was at Shakey's Pizza :) We were running a little late because when we stopped to get the balloons inflated, the lady was taking forever! I was a little irritated by that, but we got all that done and headed over to the restaurant.

Like I said before we were keeping the party small, my parents, brothers, my older brother girlfriend as well as my brother Alex's girlfriend, and my closest friends were there. My best friend Kathy couldn't make it because she had to work and my good friend Ivan, who lives in Texas, was here in California that weekend and was supposed to come to the party but he wasn't able to :( We had about 15 people, I didn't invite my extended family only because we couldn't reserve a bigger party and I don't have a huge house or backyard to have the party at, hopefully for her 2nd birthday we'll be able to have a bigger party.

We set up the high chair and got her banner and the balloons tied up to it and I ordered food and drinks and just chatted it up with everyone while we waited. Before my friend Magaly got there, her mom came over and was like "do you remember me?" it was kind of weird because i did but it took me a second, it just so happens she was there with her husband eating. She loved Alexis lol I'm luckyI got her back ;) when Magaly finally showed up it was funny to see the look of surprise on her face to see her mom with Alexis.

We put all the gifts on one of the tables and all ate and enjoyed our food. Alexis was such a sweetheart and she loved taking pictures with everybody. My friend Amandalyn, who is pregnant, held Alexis for a little bit and it was so funny to see Alexis staring at her, almost like she knew she was pregnant. Babies definitely pick up on those things. After we ate some yummy pizza, chicken, and mojos, we had them bring out the cakes. We lit the little candle on Alexis' cupcake and Derek and I blew it out for her; she was trying so hard to reach the candle. We take the candle off and let Alexis eat her cupcake. The cupcake was her first taste of sugar and you could tell, she got so hyper after eating the frosting. I got her a carrot cake with creme cheese frosting. I didn't want her to have anything too sweet, she loved it. We bought a big cake for everyone else, it was a marble cake with strawberry creme, it was so good. After the cake Alexis got really sleepy, I think she was crashing from the sugar rush. So she fell asleep and wasn't able to open her presents at the restaurant. We bought the presents back to the house and once she woke up she opened them up :) She got a ton of cool toys from everybody, a gift card, and some cute clothes from her aunt Kathy, who came by as she was opening up her presents.

I had such a good time on her birthday and I'm glad that everyone came and had a good time. I know Alexis loved seeing everyone ;) she loves attention. I'm so thankful for all the cool gifts she got. Here are some pictures :)

Enjoy!

P.S. Alexis looked amazing in her birthday outfit. Alexis is so beautiful, just like her momma ;)