Halloween, BabyLegs and Family, oh my!

Lots of pictures ahead!
Mina celebrated her first Halloween a few weeks ago.  I made her a Dalek costume, James came up with most of the costume.  We really worked together on it, in an idea sense.  I did the actual sewing, although James is pretty handy too. We had a family party where we debuted Mina's costume and on Halloween she went Trick or Treating at Brent's office.  She had to take a meal break during the outing but she did pretty well otherwise.  We had a lot of fun with Brent, Candice, Perrin, Jessie, Phoebe and Dawson.  

Don't let the face fool you, she had fun.



At the family Halloween party



Halloween evening we visited her great-grandparents.



Great Grandma and Grandpa Arbuckle



Mina and Great Grandma Keller



Mina and her uncle Steve

And one more Halloween related picture, her cute season outfit.

Speaking of outfits... I bought Mina a bunch of BabyLegs.  They are usually pretty pricey $12-$10 a pair. When I saw that there was a big sale going on last month I bought her seven pairs.

I think the original price was $82 for the whole group and I paid less than $30 including shipping.  I felt like my sister Hilary when I got such a good deal!



Wearing the standard size...a little too big





Wearing new born sized...much closer to fitting

Mina is starting to move so much more.  She loves to wiggle when she is lying down, especially in her crib.

Moving so fast her hands are blurs



She is also grabbing her her toys and playing with them.

She is no longer scared of her butterfly toy!

We also had family pictures taken at Memory Grove.  My talented friend Becky from Ravenberg Photography took time out to take our pictures.  Here is a preview...

We were sort of worried we wouldn't be able to make it happen before the weather turned because James has been working a lot of Saturdays lately.  Okay, he has worked all the Saturdays since Conference.  He was able to get away and meet us in Salt Lake.  I didn't care that he was still wearing his workboots, I was just glad that we were all together as a family!

Two Months Old!

Mina is nine weeks old! The time is flying by waaaay too fast. She had her two month appointment on Friday and these are her stats:

Height: 21 1/2"
Weight: 10 lbs 5 oz
She wears size 1 diapers and is in between NB sized clothes and 0-3.

She is in the 15th percentile for height and the 35th for weight. She is small but the doctor isn't worried because she has hit her milestones including smiling, tracking objects with her eyes and holding her head up.

So long rat tail!

Mina had her first haircut today. She had a tiny situation at the nape of her neck. It looked like a mini rat tail. So I took care of it because I don't want my daughter looking ridiculous...days the woman who has been trying to make her baby wear sunglasses.
One thing at a time.

7 weeks old

Mina is starting to smile and, as expected, it is really cute. Prepare yourself...
(I am blogging from my phone so the formatting might be goofy)

One month old!

Mina is one month old!

Mina...

• is 21 inches long
• weighs about 8 1/2 lbs, I say about because she hasn't been weighed in two weeks
• wears NB sized clothes and diapers
• wakes up twice during the night for food and a diaper change, although lately it has been once!

She loves to be held and she is very cuddly.  She is already very good at holding her head up and working on her neck muscles.  We love her very much!

I realized that we didn't take any pictures of Mina in her blessing dress by herself.  I decided that she looked the same on Tuesday as she did on Sunday and dressed her up.

Blessing day

I put my design/patterning/sewing skills to good use this past week and made a dress.  A blessing dress.  I knew that I wanted to make a simple but beautiful dress for Mina.  After I sketched the basic design of the dress I went on the hunt for the fabric.  Ideally I would have used something really beautiful like silk dupioni but I didn't want to spend a lot of money on a subpar piece of silk.  There just aren't a whole lot of places in Davis County to buy beautiful fabric.  (Does anyone know of any?  I love hearing about great sources for fabric.)  James, the best husband in the world, braved a trip to JoAnn's and we picked up a yard and a half of a really pretty embroidered and appliquéd cotton.

The fabric, totally wrinkled but you get the idea of the embroidery

After that I made the pattern for Mina's dress.  Before you get too excited I will say that I had a basic dress pattern that I found here.  I modified it according to my design and Mina's measurements.  It was a little tricky trying to draft such a small sleeve but I managed.  

After that I cut out the pieces and sewed them together.  I WISH it had been that quick and easy.

The finished dress

We had Mina's blessing in the Relief Society room at my parents church.  We had wanted to bless her in the Providence ward but we moved.  The following pictures are courtesy of my Mom (thanks Mom!)

Grandma Arbuckle, Grandma Keller, Mandy and Brandon Callahan

Grandpa Arbuckle, Trish, Cole, Travis and Carson Thorpe

Jed and Missy Bradley, Randy Bradley, Missy, Lucas and Jonathan Bradley

Candice, Perrin and Hutch Jorgensen, Liz and Waylon Gomez, Rob and Jake Brimhall and Jolene Bradley

Bishop White, James, Me and Mina; introducing everyone

More family!

There was a HUGE circle for Mina's blessing:

Jamie Bradley, Brent Beardall, Rob Brimhall, Hutch Jorgensen, Randy Bradley, Alex Jacobsen, Brian Bradley, Bishop White, James, Jed Bradley, Jordan Keller, Brad Keller, Grandpa Arbuckle, Chad Glover, Jeremy Deetz, Brandon Callahan and Travis Thorpe

 James did a wonderful job and gave our daughter a beautiful blessing. I was so proud of him and I love him so much!

There were a lot of cameras taking pictures, which explains that we aren't looking at the camera

Temporary Digs

We moved into my Mom and Dad's basement this past weekend. James started work on Monday so it was kind of necessary to be closer to Salt Lake. We didn't have time to find a place so here we are. We're hoping to move to our own place in a month or two. Until then we'll be in Kaysville.

Update, September 5:

I started this entry from my phone and left it there.  I've been a little preoccupied with this little lady to blog like I used to.

Our typical days consist of feedings, diaper changes, outfit changes, tummy time, baths and naps.

Sometimes Mina enjoys our time together...

and sometimes not so much.

She does this quite a bit too:

All in all, we love her a lot.

We're blessing her on Sunday, I can't believe it!  I'm working on her dress right now.  Hopefully I will take process pictures and write an entry on that before she starts walking.