Yellowstone 2013

Lots of pictures ahead! I took a lot of cute pictures on our trip to Yellowstone last week so I’m posting them all!

We had our yearly Yellowstone trip with Dan’s family this year and even though the whole family wasn’t there, we still had a lot of fun! I was just a tiny bit stressed about trying to prepare for a week long trip with a baby, including food, while training for Ragnar, and leaving 2 days after finishing Ragnar. But luckily Dan keeps me calm and we did a ton of preparation in the week before we left so it wasn’t too bad!

We rented a trailer and we were able to really see how Dan’s “new” truck handled a long drive pulling something big. It did awesome! Even though I’m not a truck person at all, I really loved how much room we had while driving, and Owen’s car seat fits in the back in the middle and we can easily look back and see him, which is awesome! This was my view of Owen playing with his toys or snoozing. Pretty dang cute. The trailer was really nice and clean and very convenient, especially with Owen. We got there on Monday evening and just relaxed and got unpacked and settled in. Tuesday we drove around the park with Dan’s parents and Owen did awesome. He slept in the car and when he was awake, he was super happy and so good.

It was pretty chilly the first few days and we turned the heat on in the trailer at night! It rained but I loved the cool weather and we were prepared with warm clothes!

We had a picnic lunch and checked out some hot pots and the river. I wasn’t able to walk a lot but luckily my foot was much better so I just tried to take it easy. Please look at Owen’s sweet cankles in the picture above. Love them.

Dan cooked us some yummy dinners on his Camp Chef that he got for Christmas.

One night we had dinner at a yummy BBQ restaurant we always go to and this picture pretty much sums up the madness. This was only about 1/4 of our entire family and it was still madness. It was so fun and crazy and there were only 5 kids out of the 17 there!

On Wednesday, we drove to Old Faithful and Dan and Owen and I had some time to ourselves. We sat on the upper deck of the Old Faithful lodge to watch the geyser go off and it was really fun. Owen was a happy camper as usual.

We checked out Yellowstone Lake and we saw a lot of animals! There was a moose right by our campsite that we saw several times, we saw an eagle, several bears (one was really close), and we saw a coyote get run over by an RV on the freeway near Malad on our way there…traumatic.

We did some wolf watching at our favorite spot. It was beautiful and we had some nice shade. Dan spotted the wolf and we also saw a bear. We didn’t stay as late as usual because of Owen, but he was pretty happy and we got to see a wolf! 

This girl is a WILD CHILD. She is adorable and hilarious and totally crazy. She never holds still and Julie finally just set her in the dirt and let her loose. She got into a bag of cheetos and they flew everywhere and of course, she had to eat one. She was killing me and I’m so impressed with how chill Julie is with her kids. Hopefully I can learn a few things .

I fed Owen some banana a few times and he didn’t really like them too much! It was his first bites of “real” food and he kept gagging and wouldn’t swallow. Hopefully we will get better at eating, although I have suggested to Dan that I just breast feed him until he is 5. It is so much easier! He didn’t go for it so I guess we will keep practicing…

We went to Artist’s Point and saw the gorgeous waterfall. We also got to try out our new umbrella stroller this trip and we really liked it! After doing a lot of reading, we decided on the First Year’s Ignite stroller. It wasn’t super cheap or super pricey, the handles are tall, and it is fairly light. The seat reclines a bit and the canopy is nice too. The basket isn’t super big but we always had a backpack so that wasn’t a problem. Success!

These crazy boys made the trip really fun. They made me super excited and super terrified for Owen to get bigger. They are full of energy and were constantly dirty and running wild! They are adorable and I loved playing with them and watching them be wild and crazy boys. My favorite was all the rocks they collected and how they called them “crystals”. So precious.

Everett let me cuddle with him while we had s’mores one night. Love that kid. And yes I have socks and flip flops...get off my back.

Mike and Hailey were there too, but I didn’t get many pictures of them. They had baby Weston (6 weeks!) and he was a trooper and slept almost all the time. I loved Dan and Mike with their Bjorn’s when we walked around West Yellowstone. Best dads ever.

We also had our usual pizza at Wild West Pizzeria and it was delish. Owen had fun play with Grandma.

On Friday we went to the Firehole River to cool off a bit. It is a really popular place because the water is pretty warm and there are rapids that you can float down and there were tons of people there. I didn’t plan on bringing Owen in the water, but of course we had to dress him in his cute little swim outfit!

Grandma and Grandpa were a lot of help with the babies. It was pretty hot and Owen wasn’t loving his life. I fed him and got him under an umbrella and he was happy for a while so Dan and I could soak in the water for a while.

I just put his toes in the water but he didn’t really love it because it was kind of cold. I love his chubby little tummy!

Baby Weston was a happy camper and just chilled and slept in his car seat the whole time!

We had a lot of fun this year in Yellowstone with the family and Dan and I already have our next trip planned over Labor Day again. It is one of our very favorite places and this year didn’t disappoint!

Wasatch Back Adventures

Dan and I ran the Wasatch Back last week and it was our 3rd Wasatch Back (Dan has also done a Ragnar Race in Vegas as well). I am so proud of both of us for doing this but I’m definitely glad it’s behind us! It was a ton of fun though and we did really well. Dan was a beast and has been getting up at 4:30 a lot of mornings to train. I had one of the easier legs but I was still nervous because I have had a lot of back problems since I got pregnant. But it was a good goal to keep me running and I’m glad that I did it!

My first leg was only 2.7 miles but it was really hot! Dan switched with his brother and ended up with a really hard run up to Snowbasin. But he rocked it. My second leg started at 2am and it was 5.9 miles but luckily it was downhill. I did really well and felt good. I alternated between being terrified of being alone in the night in the desert and loving the beauty and quiet all around me!

The people in our van were Dan’s cousin Tyson and his wife Mallory, Dan’s brother Mike, and his other brother Mark.

I was able to get a few hours of sleep at a park and then I slept another 2 hours in the back of the car so even though I was really tired, I was able to function. I think it helped that I have been awake in the night so much with Owen! Normally, I’m a mess if I don’t get sleep, but I have definitely adjusted after having a baby!

I decided to try the “run walk” method and I think it worked great. I’m a slow poke runner but for all my legs, I ran for 3 minutes then walked for 1. I kept that up the whole time and I was able to put in slightly faster times than if I had just run at my slow pace the entire time. It also helps mentally because I feel like I can do anything for 3 minutes, so even if it’s hard, I know I can rest soon. Then by the time I’m done walking for the 1 minute, I feel ready to run again!

I was pretty scared for my last run because it was in the middle of the day (hot!) and I was just tired and still had to run 5.5 miles. But I tried to practice my positive thinking and focused on doing a good job and being strong. I kept telling myself I could do it and once I got started, I felt good! There was a pretty big hill at the end of my last leg but I managed to make it up. I was so happy to be done!

Ragnar Hill was intense as always. Mark and Tyson were machines and plowed up the hill at an amazing pace.

The view was pretty awesome!

I had tons of fun being with Dan the whole time, and as usual, he took care of me and was constantly checking on me. He is the best. Since I’m nursing Owen, I had to pump every 2-3 hours which was amazingly awkward and annoying. Luckily, the van was all family and I’m not super shy, so I just covered up and used my hand pump. Everyone got used to it after the first time. We considered trying to sell my breast milk to some crazy runner people, but decided to keep it for Owen .

We finally made it to the finish line and Dan was our final runner. He run up this huge hill in Park City and did awesome! I was so ready to be home but it was fun to celebrate with the team. The team was all family-Dan’s uncle, dad, 3 brothers, cousins, sister, and brother in law. Go AnniHILLators!

We got home and our sweet baby was sleeping soundly (my awesome mom stayed with him). My foot was pretty messed up with a stress fracture (I think) so after some ice, we hit the sack. Owen cooperated and I only had to get up to feed him once in the 13 hours that he slept! Not too shabby!

The next day we had to get up and go to church and get ready for our trip to Yellowstone the next day! Sheesh, I was just a little stressed, but luckily we had done most of the packing and organizing before the race so it wasn’t too bad. A big post about our trip to Yellowstone will be coming soon!

Lessons learned

I have been thinking about this post for a while and now that Owen is almost 6 months old, I’m ready to do it! I wanted to write a bit about what I’ve learned these past 6 months…I could probably write for days, but I will try to keep it somewhat short. I feel like I have learned so much and I wanted to share and maybe something I say will help someone else!

I wanted to share some of my most used and most liked baby products so far. Of course, I obsessively researched what to buy, what the best items were, read reviews, compared prices, etc. I’m nutty but I feel like I learned a ton and I really don’t feel like we bought a lot of unnecessary things or spent a lot of money on something that we shouldn’t have. We were pretty frugal with our purchases and I tried to get the items with the best reviews for the lowest prices. I looked at a lot of lists like the one I’m about to share and I thought they were really helpful as I was planning what to buy.

1. Snap and go stroller: we bought this instead of a big travel system and we love it! It was cheap and lightweight and the car seat clicks into it. It doesn’t take a ton of room and I would highly recommend this route. We ended up spending more money on a nice jogging stroller and we just bought a cheap-ish umbrella stroller for when we are out and about (which we would have bought anyway even if we got a travel system).

2. Muslin swaddle blankets: Aden + Anais and JJ Cole are the most popular and Owen loves to cuddle them all the time. They also work great to use as a nursing cover and we used them to swaddle Owen until he got too strong, then we had to get creative!

3. Swaddleme blanket: This blanket was great for swaddling when Owen got stronger. It has velcro and we also did a double swaddle with a small receiving blanket so he could almost never break free! It sounds kind of sad, but he loves it and it helps him sleep so we kept doing it! When Owen was about 3 weeks old, he seemed like he didn’t want the swaddle so we stopped for a few weeks. I started swaddling him again around 6 weeks and at first, he fussed but then calmed down after just a second and would go to sleep. I HIGHLY recommend swaddling even if your baby seems to not like it. I think most babies really like it and it will help them sleep! The only bad part about it is when you are ready to get rid of the swaddle and trying to wean him off of it! But that is another story…

4. Boppy Noggin Nest Pillow: I bought this pillow when Owen was about 6 weeks old and I noticed a pretty flat spot on the back of his head. He didn’t love to be held and babies spend a lot of time on their backs so it’s pretty common for flat spots to happen. But I freaked out and started having him sleep on this pillow and used it when he played on the floor and in his car seat. It helped a lot and his head is much rounder now (though there is still a flat spot on the back, it is much better than it was).

5. Some sort of baby wrap: My mom bought me the Solly Baby wrap, but it is basically the same as the Moby. I used this a lot in the early days when Owen wouldn’t sleep very well except on me. And I loved cuddling him and having him close. It was also nice for walks.

6. Prefold cloth diapers for burp cloths: These are awesome and do the best job absorbing spit up. They are cheap too and we have used the crap out of ours. Owen is a spit up master so we go through these pretty quickly. But they are great to have on hand. Make sure to follow the prep directions because I had to wash ours about 6 times to get them fully absorbent.

7. A cheap mattress and 2 pairs of sheets: Owen has been sleeping in his crib since he was only a few weeks old and after much research and thought, we bought a cheap mattress from Walmart. It has been great and it is very light which helps a ton when I have to lift it off the crib to change his sheets. Babies don’t need super soft mattresses and I just think it’s not necessary to spend a fortune on a mattress for a baby. Ours had good reviews and has been great so far. 2 pairs of sheets are pretty important and nice to have since I change his sheets a lot!

8. Rock and play sleeper: We bought this instead of a big bassinet and we used it all the time for about 2 to 3 months. Owen slept in it in our room and we brought it to the family room as well. He also slept in it in his room after we moved him. It was small and convenient and I really liked it. I recommend using the Boppy pillow with this because a lot of reviews said it contributed to their baby having a flat head because it’s kind of hard. I’m not sure how accurate it is, but I will use it with the pillow for my next baby.

9. Medela double electric pump and a single hand pump: If you are going to be doing any pumping, I HIGHLY recommend this pump. If I was a stay at home mom, I would probably have gotten a single electric, but if you can afford it, go with the double. It works great and with me having to pump at work one day a week (thank goodness for only one day!), it is very convenient. I also wanted to get a good freezer supply to have on hand in case I lost my milk or when we get a baby sitter for Owen. It’s pricey, but look for coupons for 20% off. I also recommend having a small hand pump as well. Mine was only about $20 but it is handy to use in the middle of the night or if we go on a date and I need to pump. It obviously takes longer to use a hand pump, but it’s small and easy to carry around.

10. Diaper bag/backpack: We bought this bag from LL Bean and we have loved it so far. I told Dan I would get a non-girly diaper bag and he said he would carry it all around. It was a compromise but I really didn’t care to have a fancy bag and I ended up buying a cute big purse that I use sometimes so I’m glad we got this neutral bag that we can use forever instead of an expensive diaper bag that will be out of style by the time our next kid comes around. It was only $69 and I got 10% off. It is small but fits everything we need. It also has a lifetime warranty so they will replace it AT ANY TIME if something is ruined. I actually noticed an issue with the sewing coming undone (I think it was made that way as opposed to falling apart already) so I called them and they replaced it! I did have to pay shipping but still not a bad deal. We also bought this Kelty backpack and have used it several times when we have gone hiking and to Vegas. Some people feel dorky wearing a backpack, but I prefer it for convenience, and Dan will carry it so it works for us!

Breastfeeding

I want to talk about my experience breastfeeding because I have learned so much over these past 6 months and I have really loved being able to breastfeed Owen and I plan on continuing it until he is about a year old. I am certain that my preparation while I was pregnant helped me to have success breastfeeding and also helped me manage my expectations of what it would take to be successful at it. It amazes me that so many people do research when they buy a new car or vacuum, but don’t know anything about carrying, birthing and feeding a baby! It seems like the most important thing that we are going to do should be something we prepare well for. Breastfeeding was really important to me so I did my research and tried to prepare and I think it paid off.

Let me preface this by saying that I am by no means an expert, I am just sharing my experiences. Also, I realize that not everyone can or wants to breastfeed. I totally understand that and respect it. We are all moms and we all want what is best for our kids so I think we should all support each other!

My two biggest suggestions are 1: GET HELP and 2: Realize it’s going to be a commitment that takes work.

• GET HELP! I can’t say that enough. Read everything you can about breastfeeding while you’re pregnant. Know what is normal and not normal. You can never know exactly what is going to happen until you have your baby, but you can be prepared in advance so you have some sort of idea. I highly recommend utilizing La Leche League. I went to a meeting before I had Owen and it was really helpful. Take in all the information and then decide what is best for you. I was also able to call a friend who is a LLL leader and she was super helpful after I had Owen. I also had my Doula with me who helped me with the first nursing session. I felt really confused and unsure about what I was doing but it helped to have her there. Utilize lactation consultants and nurses at the hospital and ask questions about if you are doing it right, what to look for when your baby is eating, etc.
• Realize that it’s going to be a commitment that takes work. Luckily I had two best friends to fill me in on everything before Owen came, but they basically told me to expect it to be hard and hurt and I’m glad they did! I wasn’t surprised when I was feeding Owen a lot or when he would take a long time to eat, or when my nipples were sore because I knew it was coming. On that note, USE A LOT OF LANOLIN!
• Try to breastfeed in the first hour or so after birth. This is not always realistic or possible, but if you have a healthy, normal delivery and you and your baby are together, the baby will probably show signs of wanting to nurse and you should jump on it and give it a try. I believe that nursing soon after birth really helps your milk come in and helps establish breastfeeding.
• Take care of yourself and your body. Even if you are feeling good in the weeks after the baby is born, continue to rest and let your body recover. Make sure to drink tons of water and try to get a lot of calories. I was always thirsty while I was pregnant so I got in the habit of bringing a water bottle everywhere with me. I try to drink as much water as possible and I think it helps a lot with breastfeeding.
• Breastfeeding is based on supply and demand. Your body changes to accommodate what the baby needs so for me, nursing often helped keep my supply regulated. I also followed Babywise (which is a big no no for a lot of LLL people, but it worked for us!), and Owen was on a fairly regular 3 hour feeding schedule. I didn’t force it, but that’s how it worked out for us. Sometimes I hear people say they “didn’t make enough milk” or something like that, and while that is totally possible and happens, I think sometimes they lose their supply because they start supplementing with formula, or not pumping if they give the baby a bottle. As soon as you start skipping feedings, your body will stop producing milk. If you establish your supply from the beginning, it is much easier than trying to get it back if you start to lose it. Any time Owen has a bottle, I make sure to pump. We also dropped his late feeding at 10pm but I still pump around that time every night just to make sure I don’t lose my milk.
• Know what is normal and what is not normal. Everything was going really well for us the first 4 weeks and then I got a plugged duct or maybe mastitis (still not sure). I knew something was wrong because it hurt SO BAD when he nursed and for an hour or two afterwards. I wanted to cry every time he ate and I knew it wasn’t normal, so I asked a friend who runs LLL meetings and she gave me some good tips. I finally went back to my midwife and she gave me some antibiotics in case it was mastitis. After a few weeks, it got better but it was rough. I can definitely see how people would stop if they were in that kind of pain for very long. But if you get help and work through it, you can continue to breastfeed without pain!
  

Since I have written a novel, I will finish up now! I hope some of those tips helped someone and I’m sure I will refer back to this post when I have my next child! But for us, breastfeeding has been an awesome experience and I really love it. Owen is healthy and happy and he hasn’t been sick once in his little life! He is growing and getting BIG. Just look at those amazing thighs!