Mesa - Two years old!



Petting the first foal of the season.

Mesa turned 2 on May 1st. Wow! We had a family baby blessing and dinner in Cane Beds that day, so I didn't have a cake ready for Mesa yet. Hopefully, I can remedy that before May is over. But I think she would forgive me if I don't. We went to her Well-Baby Check up last week and thankfully she didn't have to have any shots. (We are good until she's four--yay!). She had woke up with a slight fever that morning so she was a little grumpy at the appointment. When they were trying to test her blood pressure (or something) she sat still for a moment and then kept telling me, "I'm done!" But she was a good sport and she is growing incredibly.

Her Stats:

Height: 3ft 1.5in (37.5")       Percentile: OFF THE CHART!

Weight: 35 lbs                    Percentile: OFF THE CHART!

Just for fun, Dr. Bowman projected her height and weight numbers as a three-year-old. She is in the 75th percentile for height and weight. That means she is bigger than 75% of all other 3yo children! and she just turned 2! The Dr. wasn't too worried because she is consistent for height and weight. She's just a big girl, but she is balanced.

It's been a tradition in my family to do inkprints of our hands and feet on our birthday every year. It was a highlight growing up, so I've continued with my children. We did Mesa's hand and feet prints and of course Rain had to do it too, so here is a snapshot of Mesa and Rain's prints next to each other, done on the same day. Can you tell which print belongs to each girl?

Rain's is on the left, Mesa's on the right



Mesa is tough, caring, and obedient. She is also very strong-willed, loves her daddy, and loves cooking with mom. She always asks to sit on the potty, but as soon as you get her on it, diapered or not, she says she's done. One of these days I'm just going to grit my teeth and potty-train her. I don't think it will take much. She already has a pretty good handle on the concept.

Chillin' with Daddy

She loves singing, Sleeping Beauty, playing Ring-Around the-Rosies, Follow-the-Leader, and Fee-Fi-Fum (Which means riding on mom's back like a cowgirl or dinosaur or something). She likes to say the prayers, read scriptures, and loves her nursery leader, Sis. Chamberlain. She literally will not let Shane leave until she gets there. Mesa loves to eat her food, and when she's done, she'll usually finish Rain's plate as well.

Reading books with Rain

When her feelings are hurt or she just woke up, she wants to be held constantly, which is challenging because I am usually feeding the baby, holding the baby, or cooking/cleaning when those time arise. Also, refer back to her height and weight, and you'll see why I don't hold up very long lugging her around.

Sleeping peacefully.
One of my favorite things to do before I go to bed is look at each girl sleeping.

She just recently decided she doesn't like the door closed at night and insists on "Rock-a-baby" at naptime and bedtime. And she does many things in multiples: she has to have three binkies at bedtime, or hold 2-3 sippies at a time, use a fork and a spoon at the same time etc. We love our little Mesa girl and are so happy she is in our family.

Echo Dawn

Finally! I didn't want to post pictures of our beautiful little baby if I couldn't attach a name to them. But now that we have the official birth certificate back with a finalized name, I can post these.

I really appreciate my sister jumping in and helping me with these pictures. I've always wanted to have an infant photo shoot, but I didn't really know how to go about it, and I really didn't have the energy to stop and do it. But Shado stopped by, and on the spur of the moment, she threw some things together to bring over. It was just the motivational boost I needed. The more we played around, the more creative we got. We are by no means professionals, but I had such a fun time doing them, and the important thing was that we did it. So thank you Shado, these wouldn't have happened without you.



Echo Dawn Stotlar



Sleeping under Daddy's hat



Watchin' over Baby



One of my favorite props we found to use.



Just peacefully sleeping

Playing around with some photo editing

Oil painting   =)

Belated, yes. But Happy Valentines Day!

We were really getting creative at the end. "Little Island Baby"

The rest of these are just different variations of the poses. I couldn't pick favorites.

Sweet dreams, lil' cowgirl!

Already lassoed my heart

This rocking horse was her great-great-Grandma's!

Brrr. It's cold, Mama.



She let us play with her for probably 4 hours and she just slept through everything.



Are you done yet?

ZZZZZZZZZZ

Boots and Saddles! All ready to ride.

Just a little note about the cute boots in these pictures. My good friend Janessa made them for my little girls. She is so crafty and talented. You can hop over to her website and see the other cool things she and her sister make at Huckleberry Hazel or her cake website. Amazing!

Sleeping on Daddy's hat.
We decided the hat band was too pokey to make her sit in the hat, but she would've fit.

Echo just had her 2-Month Well-Baby Checkup and here are her latest stats:

Height: 22-1/4 inches     50th percentile

Weight: 11 lbs 1.5 oz     50th percentile

   Head: 15 inches            Who knows?  =)

Echo has been a very sweet, mellow baby. She is usually very happy, with only a touch of colic now and again. She is very smiley and interactive, and she typically gives me a good 5-7 hour stretch of sleep every night. She already loves her sisters and loves it when they play with her. We love her so much!