Warm Weather for Seattle

Here are some new photo's that I took this week. It has been in the upper 70's and it even hit the 80's yesterday so I was able to bring out these short outfits and cute sandals she has. Unfortunately, her head is too small for her sunglasses so those will have to wait. She hasn't been too excited about the solid food thing yet. At first I tried what our pediatrician suggested by mixing it the Rice Cereal with Apple Juice which sort of tastes like a twisted version of Apple sauce with a wicked after taste. Let's just say I gagged on it! Then I decided to mix it with breast milk and she was a little better but I was hoping for some sort of excitement like I have heard other kids have. What can I say, she likes my boob juice I guess! Yesterday I bought some Gerber Banana flavored baby food to try to see if maybe she just doesn't care for the flavor. Keep your fingers crossed!

Sierra's 1st bite of Rice Cereal

Another update for you! We tried out the rice cereal for the first time yesterday. I took a video but unfortunately only got a small snippet before my memory card ran out. Didn't think about that ahead of time. But at least you can share in the first few seconds of her experience. She was definitely confused but tried to suck the spoon. We are going to do this once a day so hopefully she will get the hang of it. I have noticed that she is more interested in what I am eating and drinking and is reaching for it when she is sitting on my lap. I have heard that this is a sign that she is ready.

1st Camping Trip to Mt. Rainier May 22-24

We survived! I successfully talked Erik off the crazy notion of hiking into a camp site and lucky for Sierra and I, the places he wanted to hike into were still under 3 feet of snow. Because of the snow and landslides, there was only one campground open in the park. We've camped there before about 8 years ago and we had liked it then. We left Friday afternoon and got to our camp site at around 5pm. I quickly assessed the bathroom situation and was delighted to see they had electricity! Wahoo! Pumping just got a lot easier. I can handle all the people looking at me strangely, I get that everyday at work. So I would take my camping chair and laptop in with me and watch a movie while I pumped. Meanwhile, I felt like one of those bathroom concierges letting everyone know which stalls were available and hearing everyone's camping stories.
Dinner came and went and the dreaded putting her down to sleep came. I was nervous... It was about 40 degrees at this time. I put her in the tent and of course, she's fussy. I decided to call in the re-enforcements. Dad, this was your idea, you get her to go to sleep. After some coaxing and singing, (which she loves) she fell asleep! She slept until 5:30 which is a little early for her but I'll take that. It got pretty cold later in the night. I'm sure it got down into the 30's. Erik watched over her and made sure she was warm under her sleeping bag.
On Saturday, we mostly hung around camp and took a couple of walks nearby. We also went to a town about 10 miles away to get some supplies. While Sierra and I took a nap, Erik went on a hike to see Silver Falls. After a yummy Beef Stroganoff dinner, I went to put her down to sleep. She went down a little more easily with Erik's singing again. The problem happened when we came into bed. At about 11pm we quietly tried to sneak into the tent but we woke her up and she was not happy! So luckily after some breastfeeding, she was out like a light. She woke up again at about 3am and I breastfed again which ended up benefiting me as well so I didn't have to pump. After this, she was good until 7am.
On Sunday, we packed up the campsite and left after lunch.
All in all, it was a successful trip. She did wonderfully! It was definitely good that we went the car camping route because there were things that made the trip go smoothly. Electricity for me was huge and we were able to pack her play mat which kept her occupied during the day when we were busy doing things around camp or if she needed a nap.
I was told that I need to post a bunch of pictures so here are some from this weekend.

May 19th 2009 Sierra's 5 month B-day

Well, I am breaking down and decided to join the band wagon and start a blog for Sierra. It just took 5 months for me to get this going. Like her birth announcements, things take me a little longer to get organized! Today is her 5 month birthday. The doctor said we can now try and feed her rice cereal with apple juice for one meal if we like. How exciting!! So my goal is to update this blog at least once a week with a photo of my liking and whatever news I have for her. We'll see how I do. This picture was from yesterday morning when she was hanging out with Dad.