12 months of Shea

On instagram I did a little picture every month, and even though I recorded it here also, I just wanted to see with my mom eyes how they all looked next to each other.  Besides my lack of consistency on any of the pictures and the fact that there is hardly any coherence to these except the inclusion of shea in each one, I am really glad I did it.
It is so much fun to see what she looked like every month.  And of course I took wayyyyy too many other pictures, at least these were documented in a way I can remember when I have lost even more memory than I have now.
This truly has been the most incredible  year.  I am so gushy and full of momness right now that I even watched the video of her very first bath at the hospital that Jeff took and cried.  How is it that so many days of this year I honesty thought I could not go on and now I can only remember the good? And it felt so long in those moments and now it is but a flash before my eyes.
Time. Such a mystery.  I am so thankful for the negativity that it so often washes away and the good that it can highlight when seen through tear filled eyes of a mom who made it (at least this far).
Happy one year Shea Bean.
You are light.  And it is evident in every photo.  There is a joy behind your eyes.  I cant wait to see how you continue to light the lives of those around you throughout your life.

Shea's Winter ONEderland

Mostly I just moved things that were in our house for Christmas around to one table and called it Winter Onderland.  It was the easiest set up ever.  I feel like I may use it so many more times, poor Shea.

It started with her invite.

I drew these trees on the computer and then added happy holiday underneath (as in, shea's holiday.  The happiest holiday of all)

Then I made her a shirt with the trees on it, naturally.


(which sparked an idea to put it on an adult shirt and the rest is history).







Everyone decorated gingerbread houses, made snow globes, played outside and ate.  It was so much fun.  It was small because it was on the day and the day is right before christmas, but it was so nice.  She couldn't have liked it more I dont think.
Happy Birthday was by far her favorite part and she has watched this video over and over and over....








Happy Birthday cake devourerer.  We love you so much and we had so much fun celebrating you turning one.  Can not wait for so many more birthdays to come!

12 Months

Well Shea.  We did it.  You are a full year old.  

Nothing makes me more sad or happy at this phase of my life.  I am so very thankful for you and I want you to stay a baby forever.  And grow fast so that you can entertain yourself for a minute or two.  This year has been a dream.  A crazy dream that sometimes leaves you not knowing where you are or how you got there, but a dream all the same.

You are light.  Joy.  Love.  Determination.  You are the best.

You love to wave to everyone and say hiiiiii.

You can almost walk.  Alllmostttt.

You eat tons of great food.
(you really loved your cake, clearly.)

You are about to start crying it out.  As soon as I can stop rocking you to sleep.  I am sure I am almost ready.  Jeff is.  He is going for it.  I sneak in a sleep snuggle whenever I lay you down sometimes.  

You have just made our family.  You make everyone laugh and smile and everyone wants to make you happy.

Which is good.  Because no one is happy if you aren't happy.

You love to read.  Brown Bear Brown Bear is your favorite.  

You love to sing.  Happy Birthday is your favorite and itsy bitsy spider is a close second.  You also love to dance.
and laugh.  Did I say laugh?  Your laugh is the best.
We would not be complete without you Shea Bean.  We love you with all of our hearts.  We are so very thankful that God gave you to us and we could not love you more if we tried.  You are such a blessing to everyone you meet and I can not wait to see where you go and who you meet.
Happy First Birthday Shea Shea!

11 Months

11 months.
Just insanity.  I truly can not believe you are almost a year shea.  AN ENTIRE YEAR OLD.  That is blowing my mind.  I knowwwww that I say that every month, but the fact that in one month I will no longer count your life in months but in years, astounds me.

You and me are quite a pair.  But not the pair that we were a month ago.  A month ago I was your all in all and now, now you love everyone.  You take just a minute to warm up, but once you see that they can get you to be the center of attention or to something that you are curious about, you jump my ship.  You love to be seen and noticed and a part.

You can almost walk.  You stand on your own while holding whatever you are holding, but you dont go anywhere yet.  You are suppppper advanced for a barstad in this regard and we are throughly impressed by even your ability to stand before you are 1.


Your favorite people are still your siblings.  You cry when they leave to go to school still and absolutely cant stand it when they are home.  You dole out kisses like its your job and say ahhhhhhh the whole time you are hugging them.  They love you right back (even though sass has said she only wants one kid when she grows up because it will be easier to take care of.  I think I have convinced her to at least have two so they can have siblings.  Time will tell.)
When aves was sick and home from school, I think you thought you had won the lottery.  You were so happy to have another kid around the house and not just me.

And this month you pooped in the tub.
So, theres that.
You still laugh like crazy all the time and love to talk.  You can say "roar" so very quietly when we ask you what a dinosaur says.  You say mama and dada and nana and night night and papa and the kids say you said Jake the other night, too.  You have some other animals down, but not all the way yet.
I can not even begin to think about how the next one of these will be my last.  I love you more than I can put in words on this blog shea.  You are a light. Truly.
happy 11 months.

10 Months

So I dropped the photos of you on your blanket.  I am sure you couldn't care less, but I have to admit that I do feel sort of like a failure.  I have the instagram pics and i love how they are all different so I just went with that.  And you are so much bigger than your blanket now! Which would be cool to document... Let's be honest, the real reason is that I want to use my real camera for those and I can not get it together for long enough to pull it out. WHAT IS MY WORLD COMING TOO.  Ok, I have been this lazy all along it just is really evident now...
Now that the cats out of the bag,
You, shea bean.  10 months is IT.  This is the most fun ever.  I know I say that every month, but it so awesome.  You can almost walk and walk around the furniture everywhere.  You are doing everything so much faster than your sisters and brother I guess to try and keep up with them.  Or you just like to move it move it.  I dont know, but I want you to stop! It is all going so fast!!!
You say mama and dada and cat and dooooog (so cute) and uh oh.  It is the best.  You sing and sing all the time and talk non stop.  You have this new cheese smile where you scrunch up your nose and it is THE CUTEST.

You love to have attention and to have others around you. You still sometimes cry when they get out of the car to go to school and its so sweet.

I got you a baby and you love love that baby.  You give her kisses all the time and when I give her to you you say "ahhhhh" and give her big hugs.  You also just love all babies.  You want to kiss and love on all babies and if you see them across the room you say ahhhh to them until I take you over to them.
You love love to swing too.


And your sisters and brother love to swing you.


And minnie got you these cargo pants and you just crack me up in them so much.
I wish I could stop time and keep you this age FOREVER.
We love you so much and I just cant wait to see what this next month has in store.  But if staying 10 months is an option- I ll take that.

9 Months

9 months- what?!! How has time flown by this fast.  I cant believe we are 9 months into your little life bean.  You are still the best and this stage is seriously the best.  I know that I think every stage is but you are sitting and crawling and talking and interacting and its ridiculous.
You can say dada and mama and you know who to call out to when we are close by and you need us. You reach your arms out to us and its my favorite thing.  You smile all the time.  You are so much fun to be around.

You are still the light of your siblings eyes and make everyone so happy to be around.
You eat like a champ and sleep less like one, but we are def going to work on that...soonish.
Happy nine months baby shea.

6 months

Happy 6 months Shea Shea!
You are still an angel who doesn't sleep and isn't too excited about doing any big milestones any time soon.  You just rolled over a couple of weeks ago and are sitting up with help, but not by yourself.  I am in no hurry to get out of the baby stage, so keep up the slow pace.  You are an amazing eater and that makes me very happy.  You are waking up more in the night and I know I am going to have to get that under control, but not yet.
You are very chatty and still just so fun to be around.  You laugh and laugh at ben and your sisters and it is the best.



For your birthday we rode our bikes to Dairy Queen with ben and sass and avery and we made it (it was touch and go a little bit...)


 You fell asleep on the way there and back and loved getting to have some bites of blizzards.  Overall, it was a pretty good half birthday.
We love you baby Shea.  Thank you for making our lives so much better than we ever even thought.

Five Months

Happy Five months Shea Shea! I can not believe it and I can believe it all at the same time.  Its been forever and a day all in one moment.
I cant imagine our life without you, but I am tired.  We are pretty much at the same exact place we were a month ago, except your long night stretches have stopped.  You only sleep about 5-6 hrs max, and thats not something I can count on.
You are, however, the life of the party. SO so chatty- never a dull moment. If you are having fun or being entertained, you never cry.  Only when I try and pull you from the fun do you cry.  I love that party girl in you and that we can see it already.  I took you to field day at the kids school, and you never once made a peep, you just fell asleep in my arms while I held you.  Which of course you never ever do.  Just when you were having the time of your life with all those big kids playing and finally couldn't keep your eyes open any longer did you let it go.  Ahhh.  Just love that.  Love that party.
You cant roll over.  I think you were supposed to be able to, but lets be honest- getting that head alllll the way around is hard work. We are not pushing that before you are ready.  You could really strain something .  You can sit up on your own for a little smidge of a second and we all clap and get over excited and then you fall. But you do have great back strength :)
You are my best eater yet. It is so much fun to feed you.  We started with carrots, and then apple sauce and some pumpkin mix and then we did the gross mesh thing that you put stuff in and you suck it out.  It is so gross, but you LOVE it.  You love bananas and avocado in there so far.  I think bananas the best.  I said that I wouldn't mess with baby food this time around, but as soon as I saw it I had to buy it.  And then its so stinkin fun feeding you even though its the biggest mess of my life.
You light up our lives Shea bean.  Just the best thing thats happened to us.  I told Sass that I was (of course) her favorite person and she said "no-my favorite person is shea!" which pretty much sums it up over here.

4 months

Happy 4 months baby Shea.
(This picture is a completely inaccurate take on you at four months because I took them like 2 weeks into your fifth month.  I am sorry if this make you feel like your whole life is a lie.  Just know I at least scheduled it for the right date on the blog.  Is that better or worse?  Hard to say)
You are the life of the party.  SO much so, that you really never, ever want the party to stop unless you have been on a pretty tight schedule for days in advance with naps planned in, and you were ready for the naps and breaks.  I really just realized, no offense, that you are a kind of a hard baby.  I know that you won't want to read that later, but maybe it'll make you feel better when you are a little over four months into your fourth kid and you realize you still do not have this baby thing down.  I was so naive and thought that you would just seamlessly fit into our lives and do what we do- ha! I love that.  Now, dont get me wrong, you are so much fun.  Like SO fun.  And if you are held for the majority of the day, you are happy.  Peaceful and happy and sweet and will nap pretty easily.  But, if I am home alone or the kids are getting home and you are tired, you want to be held, and not by a blanket in your bed.  In fact you still can not roll over because you are held so much, haha!  You are probably going to need therapy for all of the constant touching you got as a baby. And putting you to sleep is still a doozy.  Every time I get a little bit stressed.  So, we will try a cry it out someday.  Someday when Jeff is home every night we do it, because I am hopeless and will go in and get you (hence the inability to roll over).
But, you are also the sweetest, sweetest baby.  You just smile and laugh all the time. You laugh at your brothers and sisters so much- it is literally the best thing in the world.  You love to give big open mouth kisses and to sit up.  You hate to lay down, so you are happiest in your bumbo, or sitting with us (duh).
I still, even with all the craziness, you are just my favorite thing.  You are so happy and sweet and I do not want this time to pass and I feel like it just keeps moving even as I grasp with all I can to make it stay.  These are the most wonderfully chaotic and tiring and fun times of my life and I wouldn't trade them for anything except a nap.

3 months

Happy 3 months baby Shea!
Your sleeping habits are getting so much better.  I can usually get you to sleep around 9 or so (sometimes after almost no fuss, but sometimes after a lot.  It varies) and then you sleep until about 2 in your crib.  You had a few stretches until 5 and that was amazing but it has now gone back to 2.  You did stay up last night until midnight but we will let that slide.  Your naps are mostly on the go in the car seat, but some have been at home in your crib too.
You talk all the time.  You are so chatty and animated.  It is the best thing in the world.  You are definitely growing too.  No official stats but I would say your head has to be off the charts and your rolls are definitely rollin.  You are the cutest thing we have ever seen and we still just huddle around you at all times and want you to see everything.
I hate that 3 months have already gone by, but I also cant wait until you are laughing and walking in your new walker (that we all went together to buy for you and freaked out when we put you in it.  You were a little overwhelmed and wayyyyy too short to touch the ground, but we got over excited anyway).
Love you so much Shea Shea.

Shea at 2 months

Happy 2 months baby shea.  You are crying every night until about midnight but last night you slept 7 hours and then went back to sleep for 2 more.  And you pretty consistently sleep for about one 6 hr stretch.  So, I will take your late night parties.  You have grown so much and we will probably find out you doubled in size at your dr appt tomorrow, where you get your two month shots.  (I am making jeff go because I cant take shots.  It just kills me.)  You smile all the time and it is the absolute best thing in the world.  Sass and aves and ben feed you and talk to you and you just smile at them.  It is my favorite thing.  Last night, you could not have been more excited to watch anna and tyler get married and you danced the night away right along with your brother and sisters.  It was so much fun.

Happy two months.  It has definitely been the best two months.  I won't say I am not ready for the late night parties to slow down (to a halt), but I know I dont want to wish away this time with you.  As always, just couldn't love you more.

Happy One Month Shea

Due to my inability to choose, here are two options of our month to month growth pics.  I just dont know which one I like better.

Shea, we just could not love you more than we do.  You are truly such a blessing to us and I could go on and on and gush about you, but I will try and hold it together.  You even sleep for 6 hr stretches most nights- none of the other kids ever did that.  Clearly you are the favorite.
Avery can not stop picking you up. Ben and Sass are just as obsessed, but Avery cant help herself- she has to hold you.  And as soon as everyone comes home from school, it is just a mad rush to see you.  You get so many kisses its probably against the law.  We all just do whatever we can to get you to open your eyes and look our way.  You just make us happier than we can ever say.  (except when you dont go to sleep until 1 or 3...but obviously you like to party.  we understand.  we'll cut you some slack)
Happy one month baby girl.