Baby Keilani

How adorable is this little girl?!

Back in December when the Panees came to visit, they were looking for a blessing dress for their little girl. I had the wonderful opportunity to make the dress and headband for them! Keilani was blessed today and I just had to share how adorable she is and I am so glad that the dress still fit! Congrats Panee family!

Working Mama

I think I have mentioned this before but Kahili works a lot. It leaves a lot of time for 'Ihi and I to figure out things to do. So I started coaching club volleyball for a club called UP2 and it is perfect because I am coaching a traing team. I have about 8 9-12 year old girls and we practice on Thursdays for an hour and a half. My cousin Julina is on my team so my aunt watches 'Ihi while we go to practice. Seriously perfect right?! We had our first tournament on Saturday and we just have one more tournament at the end of April. I had to take 'Ihi with me because Kahili was working but she was so good! I was very proud of how she handled being in a loud gym for 8 hours :)

This will be news to most of you... I applied for a coaching position at Timpview High School about 3 weeks ago. This is the high school where I did my internship 2 years ago and the won states in their division this past volleyball season. I have become good friends with the head coach, Kristen. A week after applying, Kristen asked me to come in for an interview with the Athletic Director. It was a very casual interview; I didnt have to get super dressed up and they told me to bring 'Ihi along with me! The AD was very cool and said he totally wouldn't mind if I brought a pack and play and set 'Ihi up in the corner of the gym during practice. He also told me hat he expects me to be a mom first and always to put my family above this job. How cool is that? Then, as I was walking ut of the office, he said, "Welcome to the team!" Easy as that. Next year I will be the Sophomore Volleyball Coach at Timpview High School. I already knows lots of the girls so I am very excited to work with them in the Fall!

Sleep Training

Like I have mentioned before, 'Ihi was sleeping through the night at about 1.5 months and I knew it was too good to be true. Ever since our trip to Cali for Thanksgiving, she has been up at least once during the night, sometimes and very often more times than that. I have had tons of excuses not to sleep train her (sickness, family visiting, teething, etc.) but I am out of excuses. Yesterday we started and it was the hardest thing I have ever done. She screamed for 45 minutes straight only stopping to catch her breath. Kahili asked me if he could go get her. I had to be strong and tell him no and that she needed to learn how to self soothe. When she finally fell asleep, we went in to give her a kiss and cover her up with a blanket. She had thrown up and had it all over her face and hair. That's when the tears came. I felt horrible. How could I do that to her? But I went back to my book, Babywise, and reminded myself that I am doing this for her. So that she can learn how to go to sleep without me feeding her, rocking her, or holding her. But it is also for me, so I don't lose my sanity by having to spend an hour or more putting her to bed every night. She slept well, still woke up but kept gong back to sleep.

Today I put her down for a nap the same way. She only cried for 10 minutes. I see this as good progress. We will see how tonight goes. I told myself and Kahili that we would try this method for a week and if it doesn't work, we will try something different. Hopefully it works!

7 Months already!?

At 7 months, it just seems like our little girl is learning something new everyday. We don't have another doctors appointment until 9 months but because of her seeing the doctor last week for her bronchiolitis, we know she is around 18 lbs. I am still figuring out a way to try and measure her length...maybe next month! Anyways, here are some things about 'Ihi that I never want to forget:

*She has started the stage of "clinginess". She knows I am Mama and she wants me...all the time. Some days are worse than others but she definitely favors me over anyone else right now, even Daddy. This makes getting things done around the house very hard but I know we will survive and she will only be this way for a little while so I should enjoy it.

*Around March 5th (6 months+3 weeks) she started crawling! Since that was about 2 weeks ago, she is now a professional and is getting into everything! Let the baby proofing begin. She shows special interest in other peoples' drinks/glasses, cords, any kind of paper, and the doorstops in our apartment. She has the cutest little crawl too. A lot of the time it's as if she doesn't want to be on her knees so it looks more like a bear crawl!

*She loves to stand holding onto our fingers and walk. It is hard to get her to sit down after doing this, she just keeps her legs super stiff.

*We have started giving her some regular table foods such as rice, noodles, shredded chicken, and some fruits. She loves it. She will refuse baby food but open up her mouth if we offer food from our plates. What a smart little girl!

*We have found (through observing her crawl around and play) that she is very smart and a good problem solver. If there is an obstacle in her way she either goes over it or around it.

*She pulls herself up onto my legs or anyone that is laying on the ground near her. Luckily, we don't have too many things for her to pull herself up to around the house.

*Sleep has been and still is a pretty big problem. More on that in my next post.

All in all, 'Ihi is a very good baby and we are so blessed to be able to raise her. She has such a great, fun personality and I feel like I learn something new about her everyday. I love that she is on the go now and we can interact and play even more! Daddy and I love you little goose!

Winter in the 801

We have been pretty unlucky this winter in Utah. Although the weather hasn't been horrible, it goes from one extreme to another. For example, Monday is was about 55 degrees (heavenly!) but then Tuesday it was like 30 degrees with tons of wind. I think it is partly because of this weather that 'Ihi has been so sick this winter. Luckily, she hasn't been too sick thus far, just little colds and then the UTI. But this week, she has been pretty sick.

Sunday, she woke up super congested and threw up. We stayed home from church and stayed inside all day. Monday, she was still pretty congested and woke up with a dry diaper and threw up twice. I talked to my mom and we think she has a really sensitive gag reflex so when she gets congested, it makes her throw up. I took her to the doctor and he diagnosed her with Bronchiolitis. Basically, its an infection of the small breathing tubes in the lungs. It blocks the flow of air through the lungs and makes it hard for babies to breathe.

'Ihi has been such a trooper through all of this. I use the snot sucker on her every 5 minutes and try to clear her sinuses and she hates it. Today, she realized it wasn't worth the fight anymore because I always win. Poor girl. She is so happy for the most part which makes it manageable. She has been laughing and talking away. People who come by are always saying that if it weren't for the coughing and continuous trail of snot draining from her nose, you wouldn't even know she was sick.

Tonight I took her to the hospital for the "Suction Clinic" because her nose just seems to be getting worse and she sounded like she was wheezing at some points today. We thought it best to take her in and get her all cleared out and taken care of so she could sleep well. We'll see if it works. It was so sad, they stuck a tube down both her nostrils while a machine sucked the snot out (Sorry Papa if that's TMI... haha).

Hopefully the magic "get better fairy" comes tonight and I wake up to a happy, healthy baby...