A visit from Beppe

Beppe came to visit while Pake spent some time at a dairy convention in Reno on Wednesday and Thursday. Della got to spend lots of time with her and Beppe got to change a few diapers, give Della a bath and her nighttime bottle. (Della gets a bottle at night now that we are mixing in some rice cereal). Earlier this week we tried to give Della mashed bananas and I think she liked them (as you can see in the photo where she is leaning desperately towards the spoon :) Derek was the lucky one who got to change the diaper and he let me know that it smelled like bananas. That will be the biggest drawback of adding solids... the diapers. Things have been busy and there is not indication that things are slowing down anytime soon, especially with the holidays coming. Can anyone believe the year is only two months away from being over?

4 Months old

Della is now 4 months old and is getting to be quite a talker. She is blowing raspberries and lots of bubbles and squeals with delight anytime Mommy or Daddy does something especially funny. She is so much fun to be around. As she is getting bigger, we have started moving up her bedtime a little bit. Now we start her bedtime routines (bath time, books, etc) around 7:30 to have her in bed at about 8. Just today we started her mixing her bedtime bottle with a little rice cereal. The pediatrician said we can start adding solids (such as pureed carrots, bananas, etc) but as we are travelling this weekend, we will hold off until next week. She has started becoming interested in our food and will follow the utensil to our mouths with her eyes looking on very longingly :) I am excited for adding solids but not looking forward to the changing diapers.
This past weekend, we had a busy weekend. Johanna, Tyler, Bentley and Korbin stayed with us on Friday night as they were on their way to Newark for the San Jose State vs. Boise State football game on Saturday night. On Saturday morning, I flew to Seattle to stay two days with Julia. It was a feat to bring Della, the stroller, the car seat, diaper bag and luggage through the airport but it is doable. I now know that the stroller will not fit into a Chevy Malibu trunk but it will fit nicely in the Nissan Altima trunk. (Of course, I did not discover this until after I had installed the car seat and loaded everything else into the 1st rental car...) Della was great on the plane and had lots of doting flight attendants and seat neighbors who were just enamored by her. While in Seattle, we visited in the aquarium and on Sunday we went to the Fremont farmer's market. Julia made me a delicious chicken pot pie for dinner and stuffed french toast for breakfast. It was great to see her and meet her housemate Alyssa. On Monday, Johanna and Tyler stayed with us another night on their way home. I got to see both of my sisters in one weekend and Della got to see lots of family. Bentley and Korbin are both getting so big. Bentley just loved giving Della hugs and Korbin liked to look around with a "pleased as punch" expression on his face. So cute!

I didn't get a lot of pictures but here are some from the weekend.

Weekend with the Bokma's