Lots of Firsts for Maylee

Hello everyone.  This is Richard checking in on the family blog.  We've been taking a lot of pictures recently and promising people that we will update our blog, so here we are late on a Sunday night keeping our commitment to keep you up to date on our version of the Robbins family.

Any of you who have kids know how exciting the first year of your child's life is because of all the "firsts" he or she experiences.  Since the last time I wrote, we've had a lot of firsts with Maylee, including her first college football games (now she loves waking up to ESPN's College Football Saturday), her first bath, her first snowfall, her first "campout", and her first Halloween.

Maylee's First Campout
Because Lisa and I are the 11-year-old scout leaders in our church, we had the opportunity to take our scouts on an overnight campout to fufill some of their Tenderfoot requirements.  We went camping at the Diamond Campground in Spanish Fork Canyon on Friday, October 20th.  Despite the picture painted by the following pictures, which show a bunch of happy campers, we learned some good lessons about preparation. 

Lisa and Maylee stayed for a little while to help us set up, then went home when the sun began to set behind the mountains.  We figured that the hour or so that Maylee stayed at the campsite qualified as a campout, especially since the rest of us couldn't even last until breakfast the next morning. 





I forgot my brand new, bought-just-for-the-occasion 0-degree sleeping bag at home, but I figured I could make do with a thin "comforter" and a baby blanket.  The scouts had their summertime gear with them, so they weren't much better off.  Once the sun had made its way out of the canyon, the temperature quickly went from the 60's to about 30 degrees.  After a sleepless night of attempting to heat my tent with the camping stove I used to make dinner, I decided to go for a jog or make a fire to keep from freezing.  Soon after I began stirring around, the father of one of the scouts came out of his tent, stumbled over to where I was attempting to build a fire, and summed up our camping experience:  "It's just too cold out here!"  Soon after realizing that none of us had actually gone to sleep (all of us were pretending to be asleep so as not to be the weak link), we packed up and left for civilization.

This is Maylee using the blanket I had to borrow from her.

Maylee's First Real Bath
Our friends Trent and Sara Richards gave us a handy lounge chair to use to bathe Maylee.  Here's a picture of her kicking back in the lounge chair waiting for her momma to lather the washcloth.  Maylee enjoys bathtime, all the while splashing around in the water with her hands and feet.  We still haven't perfected the transfer from the bath to hooded towel to getting her completely dry, so she gets a bit uncomfortably cold (evidently...from what we can tell).  We're thinking that if we can get that interval down to less than 10 seconds without risking injury, Maylee will have some good bathtime memories.

Maylee's First Snowfall
We got an early snowfall this year.  The snowflakes were like the ones you see in Christmas movies, so we decided to dress Maylee up warm and take her out to see the phenomenon.  We can't tell yet if she likes snow, or whether she likes being bundled up.  You can take your best guess from these pictures.

 

 

Maylee's First Halloween
Lisa shopped online for a costume for Maylee to wear to our church's Halloween Trunk-or-Treat/Chili Cookoff party, and we nearly bought a ladybug outfit, but we ended up using a chili pepper costume Lisa's friend Angela used for her daughter the previous year.  Maylee looked cute as ever as a chili pepper.
      
     

Here are some other pictures we've taken over the past couple months, complete with authentic captions.

Maylee likes to peek over Lisa's shoulder to make sure she's "watchin' momma's back" for her.

We couldn't get Maylee to wake up after a long Saturday.  Evidently watching all the 3-and-outs from Florida State's offense takes a real toll on her.            

Maylee's become a thumb-sucker.  She normally sucks her left thumb, sometimes with her right hand in a support position to make sure the thumb doesn't come out (top).  Sometimes she does it just fine with only one hand (bottom).            

Maylee's New Dress

     

Maylee got a new dress, so we let her wear it when we went with my parents to church in Heber City. 

 

Lumberjack Maylee

Looking back at this picture, Lisa and I think we could have had another option for a Halloween costume.  We could have used this outfit and told people Maylee was a lumberjack.


Maylee enjoys relaxing in her bouncer.  It plays tunes and it has a starfish and two other fishies that move when bubbles are pushed through the little aquarium.

The writing on her shirt says it all.  Our little Maylee is 100% sweet!

1 Month Pictures

This is Lisa again.  On Tueday, November 8th, Maylee will be 3 months old!  She is getting so big.  At her two month appointment they said she was in the 76th percentile for height and 48th percentile for weight.  She just continues to grow and grow.  It is neat to see her developing her little personallity. She is definitely a thumb-sucker and this week she even started sucking on her toes.  She looks so cute doing that.  In fact, she has started grabbing for things and putting just about anything she can in her mouth.  When we put her in her car seat, she pushes forward and sits up as much as she can like she is trying to get herself out.  She smiles and laughs a lot.  We are also blessed that she is a good sleeper. 

I am really excited to post these pictures.  You can probably tell that we are proud parents.  These pictures were taken when Maylee was one month old.  We had a photographer come to the house and she spent about 3 hours taking over 500 pictures.  She gave us all the pictures on CDs.  Here are a few of our favorites.

Maylee was such a ham while the photographer was here.  She seemed like she enjoyed having her picture taken.  The clicking of the camera kept her intrigued and she kept making cute poses for us.  Of course, since the photographer was taking pictures for such a long time, Maylee did get worn out, but still the photographer commented on what a good baby Maylee is.

The white dress Maylee has on in some of the pictures is her blessing dress.  She was blessed on Labor Day weekend.  The beautiful crochet blanket that Maylee is laying on in some of the pictures was made by her Great-Grandma Robbins.