Thursday, December 23, 2010

Barf Bag For One, Please

There a few things I wondered about how I would handle when I had my own child.  Like cleaning up another person's vomit, finding marker drawings all over the wall, or waking up to find poop creations all over the crib, stuffed animals, and books (which actually happened to my sister).  One thing I never thought of before was discovering things that my child would eat without knowing that they are, in fact, not edible.  The other day I thought Kaylee was chewing on something.  I tried to poke around in her mouth to see what it was but couldn't see anything. She gnaws on her tongue quite often so I figured maybe that's all she was doing.  However, after a few minutes, she was getting frustrated that she couldn't chew and swallow whatever it was and so she pulled it out to examine it.  I glanced over and saw her pull out a fingernail clipping!!!  I almost threw up on the spot.  This almost tempted me to bump up my weekly vacuuming job to once or twice a day just to avoid that again.  Can't wait to see what she'll try to eat next...

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

A Baby Changes Everything

I decided this is my favorite Christmas song this year:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-y0_wNPSOaw&feature=related  (skip past the first minute or so to get to the actual song)
not only because I love MY baby who changed everything for me this year but because of the little baby who came so long ago and changed the whole world.  I am so grateful for that gift that was given more than two thousand years ago that continues to bless me and everyone I know. 
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Meet BRaj

 This is my sweet nephew, Benjamin Raj (Raj means king in Hindi).  He was born two months earlier than his due date, and is having a little bit of a rough start to life.  But he is a fighter and is making small improvements every day.  I was finally able to meet him today and he is SO beautiful and perfect and tiny- the pictures do not do him justice at all.  Even though he is super tough and is fighting so hard to get out of the NICU as soon as he can, he needs a lot of love and prayers.  Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers when you get a chance!  We are so happy to have him in our family!!

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Don't Try This At Home

We put up all of our Christmas decorations the Saturday after Thanksgiving.  After putting up our fake, 3 ft tall Christmas tree, it took all of two seconds for Kaylee to pull it over on herself and get a big scratch across her eye.  I definitely wouldn't recommend this, but since then she hasn't gone anywhere near the tree!  It might have been a blessing in disguise??  But do me a favor, just because it worked for me, don't go pushing your Christmas tree over on your children just to keep them away.  It's probably not worth it ;)

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Argh Matey

My cute little peg leg pirate developed this funny habit of crawling on one knee and one foot.  Her right knee rarely touches the ground.  
I am really hoping that it IS just a cute little tick and nothing is seriously wrong with her leg.  Also, in the past week or so Kaylee has started waving goodbye and clapping.  It is SO adorable and I love when she is crawling around and just stops for no apparent reason other than to clap and tell herself good job.  What a cutie!

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Photo Shoot

My unbelievably talented friend, Braxton, is starting a photography business and wanted to try out some new editing techniques and I happily volunteered Kaylee as a model.  You can check out his website here. He also does portraits, digital painting, and just about any other type of artwork.  In fact, take a look at what he did for pumpkin carving this year- amazing!!  The first ones are just raw photos he took, and the last three are ones he edited.  Kaylee was a little grumpy so we didn't get too many of her smiling but she is definitely a beautiful little girl no matter what she is doing!! 




Thursday, November 18, 2010

The Bright Side of Things

I think everybody can be a little more positive.  Life is so much better when you can see the bright side of things.  Sometimes it's hard to find something positive about tough situations, like with our apartment!  Richard is always gently reminding me that we are lucky to have this apartment, even with all of the problems we've had.  One of the very BIG problems is not having a dryer. I've gotten used to hanging my clothes up to dry even though I do miss feeling warm fuzzy towels right out of the dryer.  But since I should be more positive, I have found something good about even this situation.  Because my pants never have a chance to shrink back to their normal size in the dryer, they are continually stretching out as I put them on and off.  This makes them much bigger than my waist so every time I put them on I feel skinny, even if I haven't lost any weight.  What could be so bad about that?  If this keeps up, soon my pants will be XXXL and I'll feel like the smallest girl in the world.  How nice to have a self-esteem boost every day :)

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Crawling!

As promised, here is a video of Kaylee crawling.  She is still a little hesitant about it but she is getting a lot faster and she is going all over the place!  Already her favorite thing to get is shoes.  Look out world because here comes Kaylee!!

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Photo Contest

Honestly, I am slightly embarrassed that I entered Kaylee in a photo contest.  In fact, I was ALMOST embarrassed enough that I wasn't going to tell anyone to vote for her.  But then I realized that there was no point in me entering her if she isn't going to get votes from anyone other than me.  Don't worry, I'm not delusional enough to believe that she would actually win the grand prize. But there is a little hope that she could win the monthly prize of a free video camera, which I would not complain about. And after all, her cuteness needs to be shared, don't you think?  So if you are looking for something to do and want to head on over to gerber's website and vote for Kaylee, that would be great.  And even better, you can vote once a day so anytime you think of my adorable little baby, you can go vote again :)  Just search for her by using Kaylee and Provo to narrow the search and she is the only one who comes up.  Wish us luck!


On a side note, Kaylee is getting to be so big.  She crawled for the first time on Sunday! But she got sick and just wants to be held so I'll get a video of it later when she is cruising around. And today I laid her down for a nap and she pulled herself up to a sitting position. Naps are probably going to be a little more tricky now but I love watching her learn all these new things!  And because no blog would be complete without a picture (especially of Kaylee), here she is in the sweater I just bought her and LOVE.  She is the cutest!!!

The Victorious Wind

I have always hated the wind.  If it qualifies as it's own category of weather, it is by far my least favorite weather.  As far as I can tell, there is nothing good about the wind.  A light summer breeze is different, but I'm talking about wind-the kind that messes up your hair, blows rain in your face, and makes winter feel 10 times colder than it really is.  Well today I hate the wind even more than I normally do.  I JUST swept my stairs and after one blustery day, this is what they look like:
 You win this one, wind.  But you and me have a lot more battles to fight!

Monday, November 1, 2010

A Bunny Story

 Mom, do I really have to wear this?

 What's everybody looking at me for?

 I think I'm missing something....

 AH- there it is! Hmmm...how do I get this goodness in me?

 You won't fool me long carrot!

 GOT IT.  Hey, this isn't bad.

 Wait a second... why do I get a carrot while mommy eats chocolate?

That is SO not fair. 

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Friday, October 29, 2010

Pot Roast

Ok I know this post is a little bit ridiculous but I am proud of myself so I'm writing about it anyway!!  Since having Kaylee, I have tried really hard to make dinner every night.  Since my cooking skills were practically nonexistent, I've had to build from the ground up.  For the past month or two I have made something new almost every single night and am starting to get a little more confident in my cooking abilities.  However, one meal that I have stayed away from is pot roast.  I'm not sure why.  It's not the hardest meal I've ever attempted but it is one of my all-time favorite meals and so I think I just didn't want to mess it up!  But I got over my fears and attempted a pot roast this week and I'm happy to report success! It was delicious and I made sure to savor each bite :)  Pot roast seems like a big hurdle to me so now I'm anxious to try other things.  What should I attempt next?!

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Pumpkin Carving

I wonder who first thought of pumpkin carving?  Whoever it is was a genius. I love pumpkin carving so much (even though I'm not very good at it...). We decided to just get one pumpkin this year and each carve a side of it at the same time.  It was a little tricky trying to carve at the same time the other person is jostling the pumpkin while they carve, but it made it more fun.  We bought a pumpkin carving kit after Halloween last year for $.50 and have been waiting all year to use it!  It was definitely worth the price we paid :)  I thought this monster was super cute and Richard made fun of me for choosing to carve a scary Halloween monster because I thought he was cute!  
 Richard did a mummy that was really hard but he did a great job on it.  
We might go get another pumpkin before Halloween because we loved carving so much.  (Plus, I burned the seeds from the first pumpkin so I have to get another pumpkin and redeem myself so that we can have our traditional yummy pumpkin seeds).  Hmmm...what should I carve this time?

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

The Inevitable

Trust me, I KNEW it was inevitable.  But I think I just kept telling myself I'd get lucky one more time.  When I get Kaylee ready for her bath, I take off all of her clothes, including her diaper, on the changing table in her room.  Then I grab my cute little naked baby and hurry to the bathroom.  Let me stop you right there because I know what you're thinking.  Yes, I KNOW it's not very smart and yes I DO know better, but it's so much easier this way!  My big mistake happened yesterday when we stopped on the way to the bathroom to wave hi at Daddy and I tickled her tummy so she would give him a big smile.  However, I guess this way I can blame Richard for being the distraction instead of admitting that it's my fault for being so dumb :)

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Laughter is the Best Medicine

For some reason, Kaylee is not a big laugher.  I guess we are just not funny enough or something because we'll get a giggle out of her every now and then but she hardly ever laughs.  But this particular day I guess she was really ticklish because she was laughing like this for a while.  I love it!  I couldn't decide which video was cuter so you get to see both of them (sorry about the sideways videos.  I don't know how to change them..).  I could watch these over and over and never get sick of it.  I love that adorable little girl!!! 

Witch Hunting

 Thursday, my sister invited me to go to Gardener Village with her and some of the fam for a witch scavenger hunt because her kids were out of school for fall break.  Unfortunately, a LOT of other people had the same idea so it was pretty crowded.  Other than that, it was a ton of fun and I loved helping the kids find the crazy witches all around the Village.  I love going to creative activities like this (especially free ones!) and I'm trying to go to as many of them as I can while I am still around to be with my family.  Plus, at the end we all got a cookie so what could be better?  :)

Monday, October 11, 2010

New Talent

Sometimes I don't know where Kaylee picks up the new things she can do.  But they usually make me laugh and this one is no exception.  She's been doing this for the last 3 or 4 days straight and it puts a smile on my face no matter what.  This was the best video we could get of it but every sound you hear in this video is her except the few at the end are me, trying to get her to keep doing it.  So adorable!!!

Saturday, October 2, 2010

6 Months Old!

We finally got Kaylee's 6 month appointment out of the way.  Can you believe she's 6 months?!?  Neither can I. 
Our little princess
 
Here are her stats:
Weight: 15 lbs (28%)
Length: 26 inches (60%)
Head circumference: 16.5 inches (30%)
She is a tiny little girl but what she lacks in substance she makes up for in strength.  The doctor kept saying how strong she was and what good muscle control she had.  He even said that she sits as well as most 9 month olds!  Atta girl Kaylee :)  She is eating a bunch of baby food now and LOVES it (except for peas, but I hate those too so I can't blame her!).  I'm sure it won't be long now before she starts crawling because it drives her nuts to have something out of reach.  Better start baby proofing our apt now!

Monday, September 27, 2010

Blickenstaff's

For the last week or so, Richard has been telling me that he heard of a super fun new store that he wanted to take me too.  We finally got around to it this past weekend.  It's called Blickenstaff's and it has the most random collection of stuff I've ever seen.  But it's a pretty cool store for unique gifts, especially for kids.  You can check out the website here. They have candy from Europe, old school lunchboxes, magic tricks, board games, costumes, and a lot of toys that used to be popular when I was a kid but don't see around much anymore.  I was impressed with how many creative things they had for kids to play with that aren't your typical toys.  Richard found a ball that changed color and shape every time you threw it in the air and could have played with it all night!  We also had a lot of fun taking pictures with things we probably weren't supposed to...




If you are super bored, broke, and want to get out of the house one night- go play at Blickenstaff's!  It entertained us for quite a while :)

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Meet Porter

This is Porter: The little guy I'm going to be watching a couple hours every week for the rest of the semester. He's a month younger than Kaylee but pretty much the same size! I've only watched him twice so far and it is quite an adventure. Whenever I'm holding one of them, the other gets jealous and starts crying. I'm going to get very creative trying to keep them both happy! All I can say is I'm glad I didn't have twins!!!

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Haircut Panic

The last 2 or 3 times I've gone to get a haircut, I've been very disappointed that I spent $15 and ended up getting a not very good haircut. Since I've been cutting Richard's hair for a while, I finally decided I was going to be brave and cut my own hair. I just wanted to thin it out and put more layers in it. I've tried to pay close attention to how the hairstylists do it in the past and watched a few videos online to reiterate what I thought I already knew. I took a deep breath and started making a few snips. When I was done, I looked in the mirror and was actually pretty impressed, it didn't look too bad! I immediately ran out to show Richard and he was equally impressed. I was so proud of myself....until the next morning. When my hair was all the way dry, I realized that there is a very noticeable chunk on the right side of my head that is missing. I tried to fix it and blend it in a little bit, but you can definitely still tell. I know exactly what I did wrong and how to avoid that mistake next time but I guess I'll be wearing my hair half up for the next few months until it grows long enough to fix it. ~sigh~ That's what I get for trying to do it myself. At least I saved myself 15 bucks this time...

Sunday, September 12, 2010

An Up and Down Day

*Warning- very long post ahead!*
Up: Friday was quite an adventure for me. My sister invited me to come to the State Fair and the zoo with her, my mom, and my grandma and I was pretty excited to get out of the house and spend time with them.

Down: Kaylee and I were driving along I-15 when suddenly the truck in the lane next to me ran over a blown tire on the road and flipped it into my lane. I didn't have time to move out of the way and ran over it as well. I didn't think much of it until I heard a funny sound coming from the right side of my car. I assumed the tire had gotten stuck under my car so I pulled into a gas station to get it out and continue on my way. When I rounded the front of my car I gasped out loud because I couldn't believe the damage to my car. The whole front bumper was scratched and dented, the license plate cover had been completely ripped off, the license plate was warped, the bumper had shifted and was cracked on the bottom, the inner fender on the passenger side had ripped off and was hanging off my car by a single bolt, and there was a dent on the side!! I couldn't believe that a piece of rubber could do all of that. I quickly drove across the street to a Goodyear to have them see if I could still drive the car. Of course, as soon as I got Kaylee out of the carseat and was walking in, she exploded out of her diaper and I had to go back to the car and change her diaper and outfit. That did not help my mood, that's for sure! They tore off the rest of the inner fender and said it looked good enough to drive.

Up: I continued on to the fair and had fun with my family but was still a little shaken up. We walked around and looked at the booths and animals and I calmed down a little bit.Because I had to switch Kaylee's outfits and all I had in the car was a green onesie, I was worried about her legs getting sunburned. I had to borrow my nephew's shorts to cover her little legs and got a lot of weird looks from people who thought I had given my little boy a pink binki... Oh well, at least Kaylee won't remember it.Down: We then walked over to have lunch at McDonald's. I needed to feed Kaylee and was trying to find a booth to do it in for a little more privacy. All the booths were taken except one, which just had a bag reserving it. It belonged to a young girl who was by herself so my sister got brave and asked her if she would mind moving so that I could feed my baby. She said, "sure! Do you mind if I just put my bags on the other side?" We assumed she meant she would just set her bags down until she got her food so we said that was fine. However, after she picked up her food, she came and sat down right across from me in the confined booth where I was trying to feed Kaylee, who at this point was screaming her head off. This girl and I tried very hard to avoid eye contact and my whole family, sitting at the next table, was trying very hard not to laugh. Finally the girl looked at me and said, "my mom had a baby". I tried to figure out for a minute what to say, after all I didn't know if she meant her mom had a new baby recently or if she was referring to herself a long time ago....it just added to the awkwardness of it all. We had a short awkward conversation about babies while I was trying to get Kaylee to stop screaming and eat and then I quickly thanked her and rushed off to the table where my family was. It was probably the most awkward 10 mins of my life. My grandma asked me where I had gone and I replied, "oh I was just sitting at that booth over there with my new friend", to which my mom and sister busted up laughing. Look at me, making friends everywhere I go. (insert sarcasm here)

Up: After that I headed off to the zoo with my mom and two of my sisters. Later I realized that I did not take one picture at the zoo but we had fun! It was fun to see how excited the little kids got about every animal, even ones they have seen a million times. We also got to go to my sister's stake dinner where they went ALL out. They had a catered dinner, TONS of games for the little kids, and popcorn, cotton candy, candy bars, and nachos. Don't worry, we didn't let any of it go to waste!

Down: As I headed home from a fun day, I heard another funny noise coming from the front of my car. At this point, it was pitch black and I was terrified to drive home by myself with the car in less than perfect condition. I pulled off the road into a dark neighborhood (haven't these people ever heard of streetlights?) and called my mom to have her come pick me up. There I was, all alone with my little girl in a sketchy neighborhood with a broken car. Needless to say, I was pretty scared and fighting tears the whole time. Luckily, my mom came and drove behind me all the way to her house (thanks mom!!!). Richard drove up from Provo to bring necessities for Kaylee and I and we spent the night at my parent's. Which was "perfect" timing because his birthday was the next day so it threw off all my plan's for him. ~sigh~

Down: It was a very emotional day and I was exhausted. Unfortunately, Kaylee must have been traumatized as well and didn't sleep very well that night so Richard and I were both zombies the next day. We finally got our car to the shop and found out that stupid tire caused almost $3000 worth of damage to our car! Luckily we won't have to pay for all of it but who would have thought that so much could happen in one crazy day?!

Sunday, September 5, 2010

Finger Painting

Richard and I tend to get bored a lot. And we get stuck in this habit of always doing the same thing. So some nights when we are super bored and can't think of anything to do besides watch another movie or play one of our games for the millionth time, we get kinda frustrated. I wanted to be prepared for such a night so when we went to the dollar store a couple of weeks ago (on another night that we were super bored...) I saw some finger paints. I decided to get them and store them for a night when we in the mood to do something different. Last night we decided to break them out and it turned out to be really fun! First we painted a depiction of our favorite date. Richard did a good job painting the time we went canoeing:
I tried to do a collage of three dates but obviously lack any artistic ability so you can't tell what they are... but we know what they really are so that's all that matters!Then we did portraits of the other person. This is the one I painted of Richard:
And here is Richard's depiction of me:I told him I was a little scared of my lips and he just replied that he was going for more of a Picasso look for me. That got him off the hook :) We also did a quick Jackson Pollock replica but that one wasn't as much fun as I thought it would be. We must have been doing it wrong- Jackson would be disappointed in us. It was perfect for a night when we were bored, Kaylee was asleep, and we were in the mood to do something different. I highly recommend it!

Saturday, August 28, 2010

Where Has The Time Gone?!?

I can't believe my little 5 month old is big enough to:

Sleep NINE hours at night (Hooray!)

And sit up on her own
And eat rice cereal
What happened to my cuddly little newborn?!

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Vacay Pt 2: Gilbert

Monday morning we woke up once again bright and early and headed off to Gilbert, AZ to spend a fantastic week with Holly, Chase, and Emery.

Tuesday we went to the Children's Museum, which was basically like the Discovery Gateway here. Emery was still a little young for most of it but we had fun anyway. His favorite part was the grocery store and he never got sick of pulling things off the shelf and putting them back.
On Wednesday, Richard and Chase went to a Diamondbacks game so we had a girls night. Holly painted all of our toenails and Kaylee looked super cute with her tiny painted toes. Emery must have felt left out because he decided to eat some nail polish instead of wearing it. He discovered very quickly that eating it was not the best idea! Poor kid :( We also ate some ice cream and watched the Last Song. What more could you ask for on girl's night?Thurs we mostly just played around the house but also went to Chase's softball game that night. Even though the sun was down it was still SO hot and we were all dripping with sweat just sitting and watching. It's amazing how hot it is all the time!

Friday we left Kaylee with Hol and decided to go on a short hike. Her neighbor recommended one on Silly Mtn (yes, that is what it's really called!) and so we set off thinking it would be the easiest hike ever with a name like that. But between the heat and the unexpected steepness of the mountain, we were both dying by the time we got to the top. I love hiking though so it was worth it! Then we took Kaylee swimming for her first time. I was very surprised that she LOVED it and it was the perfect way to end our fun week. Thanks Holly, Chase, and Ems! We miss you already!!