She's Mobile!

Kherington is now almost 8 months old and is VERY active. At church, I look at other kids her age and wonder how in the world parents get them to sleep through the meetings (and in their carrier mind you...she never did that) or even just sit contently on their laps instead of wiggling free, pouncing on any paper or hair within reach (the reach is getting even bigger), or sounding off the "aba-ba-ba-ba." She's happy, but noisy and active. Today at church for the first time she stood on the pew and played with the people behind us, sang to the songs, crawled all over the relief society room and didn't even take a little cat nap the entire time (she did crash on the drive home). She's crawling, pulls herself up on anything, has her first tooth and tries almost anything we eat. Some of her favorites foods are the sweet potatoes puffs and bread. She also likes sweets (and can be bribed...if you want her to like you cookies work great).

This video is from today. She's playing with her music table next to the white Christmas tree.

As to me and Ryan, we are now homeless, carless and jobless. Last Friday, I had my last day of work AND the movers came to pack/ship our stuff to Belgium. Monday we sold our car and Tuesday we flew to Myrtle Beach to spend the holiday's with Ryan's family. It has been great...a true vacation! I was greeted by Bubble Bath from Ryan's mom and so far have gotten to enjoy two baths. We've made a couple sweets including a custom creation I really wanted to try...it'a knock off "My Dough Girl" Audrey cookie (Almond dough with white chocolate, almonds and cranberries). I just took a standard chocolate chip recipe with really good ratings off all recipes, substituted almond extract for vanilla (halved the amount b/c almond extract is so strong), and the mix-ins I wanted. I think they turned out great! I also just finish another book in the series I've been reading (Diane Mott Davidson's cooking mysteries).

Kherington has been sleeping back in her grandparent's room so we haven't had to do nights or mornings. It's a pretty sweet deal. We really appreciate them taking her. The only downside is that Kherington has also decided to become extra clingy lately. She is not very happy when mom or dad walk away from her (whether it's a couple steps or out of the room)...but if she's happy and we can sneak away she's fine. In addition, she does seem to like females more than males.

*I guess I never actually posted anything about this here, but we are moving to Brussels, Belgium. Ryan will be starting his career at Deloitte and Touche with a 3 year rotation abroad. We're still working on Visas (getting closer to securing them) and anticipate starting January 11th. We are starting to learn French and are very excited for this adventure!

Our Little Munchkin

Kherington is getting bigger, smarter, and stronger. She keeps amazing us with new little tricks like transitioning from stomach to sitting, getting into her push-up/crawling position, actually walking around when you hold onto her hands, standing up on her high chair (she got in trouble for that one).

She's beginning to like playing with toys on her own more and more. One of her current favorites is her own computer.

Here's two videos of her. I took them this morning after she slept from 11pm to 6:30am! A nice little treat. She was however in our bed (I fell asleep with her...i was really tired), but still...grandpa and Ryan finally got a night without hearing her cry (I sleep through it for the most part). Anyways, I woke up at 5:50 like normal and she was still asleep. I left came back...still sleeping...left again came back and she was just stirring. She woke up all smiley faced instead of crying and then played downstairs.

Halloween 2009

For Halloween this year we went to Omniture's (now Adobe) annually Halloween bash and then out on the town. The highlights included:

• Adam and Ryan competing in a Chinese game show. Nylons are tied together. Each person puts the nylon on their head and then when the host yells go they try to go ring the bell. Well, Ryan and Adam were just too strong and ended up breaking the nylons.

• The next one from the Chinese game show was pretty good too. They asked for volunteers to compete in a hula hooping contest. So these little kids and grandparents go down to compete. Then they say: "When I blow the whistle start hula hooping. When I blow it again the audience will start throwing balls at you." Then preceded to hand out a bunch of nerf balls to the audience...hahaha

• Kherington dressing up in her first Halloween costume. She is a little charmer. She fell asleep for the entire last building, but we still got a couple cute pictures.

• Halloween evening we left Kherington with Ryan's Mom and Aunt (Thanks!) and when Chipotle hopping dressed up as burritos. Between the two of us we got 8 Chipotle burritos!
  

Major Purchase Time

For the past month we have been creating numerous lists of things we need to purchase; however, we haven't purchased very much. The idea of having to spend all this money upfront for furniture items to start our new place is somewhat daunting, especially since we don't own very much furniture right now. Nevertheless, we have come to grips that this needs to be done.

So, this weekend we focused on purchasing our major furniture items. We like to thank Erin's dad for letting us borrow his car for the weekend to transport a majority of these items. Our list consisted of 16 items, i.e., two dresser drawers, coffee table/toy storage, couch, crib, daybed w/ trundle bed, convertible car seat, high chair, kitchen table, etc.

We were very successful by getting our list down to only five items and three of them can be purchased next week online. We successfully used Craigslist, KSL (online classifieds) and IKEA to purchase a majority of the items. Below are two pictures of a couple items we really like.

A Crib for Kherington
We decided we couldn't let our daughter sleep in a Pack 'n Play for the rest of her life...and what's the first thing she did in it? Why, stand up of course. We had it at the highest level thinking it would be fine, but she proved us wrong...it got lowered to the next level.

New 27" iMac
You might be thinking we already had an iMac; however, I was able to return our old one when I heard about the new ones coming out.

This weekend was very successful. We are grateful to get a lot checked off our list of major items to purchase.

The Schedule

This weekend we decided to start putting Kherington on a night time schedule to hopefully help her start sleeping through the night again. The schedule: walk, bath, bottle, bed.

About 8pm we take a walk. There's a 1.5 mile paved loop that's good for this...not sure what we'll do when it snows. We bought two things to make this much easier. A snowsuit for Kherington (5 bucks at kid to kid, it's already getting small on her and isn't my favorite as far as color, but it keeps her nice and toasty for now...and a jogging stroller! We went with the BOB revolution. We joined REI (20 bucks for a lifetime membership) and got 20% off. That made it less than what people were selling their year old, used models on craigslist or ksl. I had been all set on getting a Chariot (jogging and bike trailer combo), but when we actually look at it, it was way wider than I wanted...very disappointing, but I love the one we got (only jogging/walking, not biking).

Anyways, back to the schedule. Kherington usually falls asleep on the walk. When we get home, I take her upstairs and lay her on the bathroom floor and get her undressed for her bath. She LOVES baths. She hears the water, wakes up and starts smiling and kicking. She plays in the bath for 10-20 minutes. We then take her out, get her PJs and give her a bottle. Then it's bedtime! So she's actually asleep around 9:30pm which is great progress for us.

If she wakes up, we pat her back, give her back her binky and let her cry...no picking her up or feeding her until she has cried for an hour. So far (meaning the last 3 nights) it has gone well. She cried for 40ish minutes the first night (really really load), but the last 2 night she has cried for a lot less (an way quieter). She gets up, eats and plays around 5:30 or 6am, then goes back to sleep for a morning nap around 7:30 or 8am (I'll be gone for work by then...so Ryan's in charge of the schedule after that).

Neither Ryan or I are very fond of the 7pm bedtime. We are often out running errand til past that time, so we decided to go with a later schedule.

So that's what's new with us. Hopefully with us letting her cry during the night it doesn't wake my dad up too often:)

Life keeps on going

After a lot of thought, I've decided that I'm just going to give a brief play-by-play of the last several months...

Summer Activities (July - September)

Family Family Family

• Ryan's family in town - Mom and Cory came while Cory went to EFY then came back again to take Adam to BYU and for Jason's Wedding. It was great to be able to spend so much time with them.
• Erin's family in town - Lani's family stopped on their way up to Washington for the summer and now the college kids are back in town (Dana, Logan in Provo and Michelle in Idaho)

• Washington road trip - For mom's birthday, we drove up to Washington. We left Saturday around noon, knocked on Robin & Fred's door around 11pm which was also a surprise, then drove the last 3 hours to Seattle Sunday morning and sat down next to mom at church...pretty much the best surprise ever. We spent the week there...Ryan studying, Erin working and family playing with Kherington. We also go to see Min, one of my best friends from High School.

• Moved to Lehi - we've moved in with my dad who is in Utah during the week for work. We appreciate him having us until our next move. It's nice to be able to see him so much and I think Kherington adores him...he can also get her to laugh!

• Jason's wedding - Jason and Tiffany got married in the Salt Lake City temple. They are such a cute couple. We are very excited to have a sister-in-law.

• Denver road trip - we went out to Denver to visit with some of Ryan's family friends from when he lived in Indiana and to go to Jason & Tiffany's reception. Everything went really well AND we stopped in Rawlins not once but twice and didn't lock ourselves out of the car either time...very successful.

Erin

• Back to work - I'm back working at my job. It definitely has it's ups and down. For the most part I enjoy what I do and the people I work with so that's always a good thing.
• Birthday - went and look at king size beds...so comfy
• Company getting bought out - my company announced about a week ago that Adobe will be acquiring it...as of now it sounds like not much will actually change, but I should be able to get some Adobe products for pretty inexpensive.

Ryan

• Took and PASSED all 4 of the CPA exams - he's done! Lots of studying, but he passed them all on the first time around which is very nice both from a studying and pocket book perspective
• De-junking - gone though box after box of our stuff and throws stuff away...very much needed
• Watching Kherington - she adores him...if he is ever in the room she turns until she has him in her sight.
• College Basketball - as a reward for passing all the CPA, he bought 2 college basketball magazines
• Birthday - bought our king size bed...it is amazing! We went with the Denver mattress pillow-top and bought the display model which saved us a good 200 bucks.

Kherington

• Sleep - decided sleeping through the night is overrated...Ryan is an angel and gets up with her...I've gotten to the point that unless i am specifically trying to listen to her while I sleep I don't hear her at all.
• Clothes - has a few 'cold weather' clothes but definitely needs more especially if we keep taking her on walks. She's almost grown out of the her 3-6 month clothes so she's actually growing at the average rate.
• Solids - It's started...she doesn't love them, but she sure loves to help...she is however interested in anything we are eating or drinking.
• Formula - moved from Similac Soy to the Kirkland brand (none soy)...way less expensive and she does well with it now (no more constipation like before)
• Movement - is really good at rolling from her back to her stomach, but not so good going stomach to back
• Curiosity - love watching other kids and trying to grab them
• Voice - makes a lot of noise (no more need for the baby monitor b/c she has great lungs). When she gets tired she makes an ah ah ah ah ah ah ah noise then finally conks. She has a real laugh now.
• Loves - outside, love her walks and playing in the grass...she stick her cute pointy tongue out and catches the wind, sucking on anything (including toes), dropping stuff on the ground

It's a ...iMAC!!!!

Thanks to some generous graduation gifts, we are now the proud owners of an iMAC! This is our first family desktop and so far we love it. We've enjoyed the easy setup, the wireless printer/copier/scanner that it came with, the compactness (no tower and just 3 cords: power, keyboard, mouse...they have wireless keyboard & mouse, but with a little one, we didn't want those to go walking off), editing pictures, and best of all video chats with family which I'm sure will get more fun as Kherington gets older, I'm hoping to start some digital scrapbooking and eventually learn more about iMovie. Pretty exciting!

So now that we have a family computer I guess that means we should be more consistent with blogging...no promises here, but we'll see if we can make something happen.

3 months and counting

I went on to post and found that I had written this draft (on July 26th), but didn't post b/c I wanted to include pictures...

This last weeks Kherington reached her 3 month mark. She has started to develop quite the personality. To celebrate, the atnea people came and finally took the machine away for good (she's had to wear a monitor around her chest for the last 3 months...minus the 2 weeks they took it and weren't supposed to...it was just a precaution and never actually went off except when she was crying really hard).

Kherington tidbits:
She still sleeps through the night (10pm - 6am usually)Not a huge fan of naps...she does more of the 10-15 minute cat nap
She is a stomach sleeper...just like her mom
Her favorite place in the house in the kitchen floor
She doesn't HATE the car seat anymore
If she cries in the car, the best way to sooth her is to play all your cell phone ring tones
She got her first email accounts today
She likes having people visit (somehow she knows and is usually on her best behavior)
She likes swinging the bird in the bouncer to make the music play
She is getting quite a gut

She has been helping Ryan study for the CPA tests this summer. They have gotten through 3 of them, now just one left. We won't find out if he's past the last 3 until early September.

Vacation Recap

So we spent the last two weeks in Myrtle Beach with Ryan's family and had a blast! Some of the highlights:

Handing Kherington off to Grandma & Grandpa in the morning and going back to sleep for 3 hours. She loved laying on their bed and watching the ceiling fan go round and round.

Beach time - Kherington's first dip into the Atlantic Ocean. We only took her to the beach in the evening because it was so hot and a burned baby is NOT a happy baby from what I hear.

Golf - Adam hooked the brothers up with some free golf at the golf course

Games - Found two new good ones: Bananagrams (it's kinda like individual scrabble) and Monopoly the card game (only takes like 15 minutes to play)

Singing time - Ryan's family has some amazing musical talent. Kherington loved listening to Cory on Piano and Adam on Guitar with everyone singing along!

Prison Break - we watched the first series of prison break. It was really slow in comparison to 24...we all thought it would have made a better movie.

Baby Blessing - We blessed Kherington while we were there. She had been VERY gassy and right as Ryan started the blessing she let a very fragrant smell out of the rear. haha...like daughter like father.

Family - the whole family was there including Jason's fiance Tiffany. They are getting married August 31st. We are so excited for them!



We took some family pictures at the beach. Here are two of my favorites:

In the two weeks we were there, Kherington grew so much! She was a little angel on the plane ride out, but had about an hour of crying on the way back...she just didn't want to go to sleep. It is amazing how much more personality she has now. She has her different cries...some of them are pretty funny. She now loves her bouncer, swing and flying bears in her crib. Speaking of crib...Kherington now usually sleeps through the night (10:30pm - 6:30am)...at 8 weeks she slept exclusively in the crib and at 2 months, we moved the crib to another room.

Well, we got back on a Tuesday and I went back to work on Wednesday. After two months off that was kinda a shocker, but I like what I do and it is perfect for us right now.