Zions & St. George

In reality, the title of this post should be Hurricane & St. George, because we were in Zions for maybe 2 hours tops before a certain fussy baby didn't want to go on any more hikes, so we just left. We did enjoy the drive, though. I think we will either need to wait until Poppy's older to go hiking, invest in one of those ridiculous all-terrain strollers, or break in the Ergo Baby carrier. We just haven't had her in that thing very much, so that coupled with the Southern Utah heat made for a cranky Poppy. And I think Paul and I were both super tired because the AC unit in our motel room was extremely loud, so really we were trying to hike on a few hours' sleep anyway. Needless to say we had a 2-hour family nap at the motel after Zions.

We did, however, enjoy some swimming (which Poppy LOVED - I will have to retract my statement about her not liking it in an earlier post), the outlet stores, and the deliciousness that is In-N-Out Burger. The main point of the trip was to do a little test to see if Poppy would sleep in her play yard & see how she would do on a really long car ride. The verdict: success! She cried for approx 10 mins of the total car journey - she even got all the way to Scipio before she woke up - what a star!

Poppy's latest favorite things: Her hands (she stares at them in wonderment), pulling Georgie's ears, and watching mummy talk on her cell phone (for some reason she thinks this is really funny).

Bonus points: can you count how many times I typed "Poppy" above?

My little tumbleweed...

Poppy was officially 6 months old on the 11th of August, and I know I'm her mom, but she is really cute. She laughs and smiles all the time, loves to touch people's faces, grabs and touches everything, and happens to have the prettiest eyelashes ever! Her hair is starting to come in nicely now, but we're still waiting for some teeth to appear. She constantly has her feet in her mouth, and rolls everywhere. If you leave her on the floor and leave the room, she will be on the other side of the room in 10 seconds flat, that's how good she is at it! Her favorite things are walks in the stroller and looking at trees in the park. Her not-so-favorite things are swimming pools and waiting for her dinner.
At her 6-month checkup, she was still around the 50th percentile for both weight and height, while her noggin remains well above the 90th percentile. After looking at the numbers for her head, Jed said, "She must get that from her dad", which I thought was really funny but I don't know if Paul was amused. The doc says she's extremely healthy, with great skin, eyes, ears, nose, everything! She looks great. She'd be perfect if it weren't for the stupid acid reflux thing, for which she still takes zantac twice a day. She still throws up a lot, but the doc reckons she'll be over that by her 9th month.
The pictures of Poppy in her yellow bedroom were taken on Sunday, because we wanted some 6-month-old pics in her Sunday dress. She wasn't really wanting to smile, and to get Georgie out of the way, we shut her out of the room because she wouldn't get out of the way. Well, when we opened the door, Georgie had left us a couple of big poos in the hallway to demonstrate her annoyance.
Paul, however, managed to get some great pictures of Poppy smiling at the park today! We think she's pretty gorgeous. I think we'll keep her.

Paul is a published author!

A big congratulations to Paul for his contribution to the annual Poverty Report put out by The Community Action Partnership of Utah! There was a press conference and everything, and Paul was on the news (well, the side of his head was)! Take a look at it on Paul's work website

Video Courtesy of KSL.com

La Caille - Oh la la!

So, I feel like all Paul and I blog about anymore is Poppy. Which is totally true. And totally fine by me, because she is stinking adorable. Also, no disrespect to our American friends and family, but nowadays the main purpose of our blog is to post as many pictures as possible for Paul's parents, who unfortunately do not see little Popsicle everyday. Just so everyone is aware, Paul and I actually do make it out once in awhile without her, and last Friday was one such occasion. Paul's work bought a table at a charity benefit at La Caille for the HeadStart program. It was gorgeous and fancy, but rained most of the night, so we spent most of the time in the big tent rather than looking at all of the auction items. There were two auction items I wanted to bid on, but Paul wouldn't let me: a golden retriever puppy and an electric bike. You see, nobody had bid on the electric bike, and that was the only reason I wanted to bid, and the puppy was just plain cute. But in all honesty, we don't need another dog (especially after Georgie's latest episode - see above post!), and when am I going to ride a freaking electric bike?? Paul was impressed by the fanciness of the place, but I wasn't so happy because my stilettos kept sinking into the muddy grass, and let's be completely honest here-- the food there is not that great. But whatever, it was free (kind of). And another thing: I don't see the connection between Provencal France and waitresses with extremely low-cut dresses. Come on.

The sun will come out tomorrow.....

I think Poppy looks like a little girl, I think that with some babies it is hard to tell whether they are a boy or a girl, when they are wearing neutral colors, but Poppy, in my opinion is quite clearly a little girl. Anyway the point of this story is that not everyone agrees and to try and stop that problem (and make her look even more cute than normal), we headed to the mall and purchased Poppy some little headbands. We have tried headbands before before but they have just seemed a little tight on her 90th percentile head. At the mall though we found these cute ones which seem a little softer on her little head (they also have the added bonus of having an interchangeable clot for little clips - which we have quite a few of thanks to Rachel - one of Anna's friends). We also bought another kind of band which, although soft, was quite wide. And while we thought it might match quite a few of her little clothes it also had the added bonus of making her look like little orphan Annie - so I don't think that one will be worn too much, although at least Halloween is sorted.


Poppy is also continuing to eat very well and seems to enjoy pretty much everything she tries (which is odd seeing as Anna and I don't enjoy food very much). Another 'person' that enjoys Poppy eating as much as Poppy herself is little Georgie. She pretty much just stares directly at POppy whilst she is eating and is on the ready to catch anything that falls, whether that be food or spit up. Anyway I just thought i'd post these pics of Poppy eating and, if you look closely you'll see Georgie waiting patiently.

Time for some updates

I promise her head doesn't always look this... full.

So I thought that is was about time for some blog updates, seeing as how we haven't written anything since the beginning of last month. To be honest not much has been going on here, just the usual summer fun. We have just been enjoying the sun and spending time with our little sweetheart (who gets cuter and funnier by the day - she really is super). One of the highlights of the last little while (aside from seeing the new HP movie twice) was taking Poppy 'swimming'. Now I use the term swimming very loosely, pretty much all she did was splash about in a little pool (as in swimming, not my name - before anyone else makes that joke). We headed over to Grandma's and, after a little trepidation, someone (Poppy) had a merry old time splashing around and generally being very cute. You'll also note that in the pictures she is wearing quite a stylish swimsuit, which we got for the $ store - ever thrifty!.
Anyways it was fun and here are the pictures to prove it. More posts to come shortly!