SNOW In Brussels

For a place that doesn't get snow very much, it definitely is coming down pretty hard!

Kherington Overload...she's 9 months old!

Kherington is now 9 months (and a couple days) old! Percentage wise, she is light (20%), short (20%) and has a big head (70%). She's still not on a set schedule, but has a general one (I'm hoping to increase the sleeping portion of the schedule). Anyways, here she is in all her glory:

She still doesn't sleep alot, but here's what she looks like when she does. She likes to read books. She loves glasses (ours are way more fun than hers).


She LOVES mac n cheese (we brought easy mac and shipped one Costco box...then she'll have to choose a different favorite food). She has a big pot belly (not sure the picture does justice...but the drools is pretty funny). She knows how to open drawers and cupboards.

She loves to be outiside rain, snow, or shine. She stands up on EVERYTHING (including other kids). She has 3 teeth!

She loves chocolate (smart girl). She has amazing blue eyes and the cutest smile! Her hair now fits in a ponytail...assuming she will sit still long enough for mom to put it in.

Just this last weekend she started making these deep voice noises. We don't talk to her in deep voices so I'm not quite sure where she picked this up.

How long does it take?

In the time it takes me to clean mashed graham crackers off of Kherington's toy computer:

Kherington can find, open and begin pulling wipes out of the container (notice the distance she gets when she takes them out).

In the time it takes me to wash 4 bottles:

Kherington can pull all of dad's shoes out of the closet (apparently my shoes just aren't as much fun).

She's getting much faster with everything. Other favorite things to do include emptying the diaper bag, playing with cords (unplugging the internet), washing mom's face when I take her to the sink to washer her after having a meal/snack, opening and unloading drawers AND shutting her fingers in them. Well, at least she's cute!

Bonjour

Who would have thought...all that new found time that I'd have I don't. I think I would if I were a little more structured with my days, but I've kinda been letting Kherington determine what gets done.

So...what have we been up to?

Kherington and I jumped on the metro and took it down the Grand Place and walked around the markets and shops there. We had our first Liege Waffle (with chocolate) in Belgium. It was fun to watch people and walk around. Kherington was a little champ...she was so happy and then conked out and took a long nap.

I met up with one of the other Deloitte spouses. She has a cute dog that Kherington loved chasing after. It was nice to be able to talk to someone who'd been where I am, see their apartment, learn more about the different areas and life in general in Belgium. On top of all that, she even gave us a box of graham crackers for Kherington...you can't buy graham crackers here (sad)...Kherington has been loving them. The only down side is that they are messy and she likes to leave me a little trail of where she has been...coffee table, carpet, window...

We drove around the different areas and saw a couple more apartments of people from Ryan's work. We're going out with the housing people on Thursday and hopefully we'll find a place that we like.

Church is interesting. Since it is predominately French, we wear headphones for English translation. Then there is an English Sunday School class and English Relief Society class...both pretty small and comprised of people from all over the world who don't speak French but speak English.

Today I had lunch with the English ladies from the two Brussels wards. Since it wasn't metro accessible, I dropped Ryan off at work so I could have the car...this was my FIRST time driving here. It was definitely interesting. Stoplights are on the side of the road instead of straight ahead, street signs are on the buildings instead of the street corner and are small and only show in one direct (the GPS has been the best purchase), cars just kinda 'go for it' and dart out into huge roundabouts or left turns, cars stop in the middle of the road if there is no parking and them you just drive around them...anyways...lunch was potluck style. It was fun to get to know some more people here. Everyone was super nice and helpful.

Those have been really the only venture's 'out'.

Stay at Home Mom - Day 1

Today was Ryan's first day of work....which means my first day at home with Kherington. For the record this will be the longest I have ever been left alone with Kherington....I know, kinda crazy. So how did the day go?

• 5:00am - I woke up and looked for housing in Belgium (we are provided with a real estate person here to help, but I need to become more educated about pricing and the areas and such)
• 7:30am - Kherington woke up cranky.  She went to be the previous night around 11pm and slept through...with a bottle sometime during the night, but never left the bed. She played with dad a little and crawled around whining.
• 9:00am-12:30pm - Kherington slept. I looked at more housing and tried to figure out how to do the basics here (shopping, banking, garbage, etc) and did part of the first Rosetta Stone French lesson. La fille boit (the girl drinks)...getting good.
• 12:30pm-2:00pm - Kherington played, ate some mac n' cheese (that we packed with us), took a bath, dressed and got ready to head out.
• 2:00pm-3:00pm - We went shopping (there is a grocery store right next door so we didn't venture far). Kind of a long shopping trip...we explored all the different foods. I said bonjour just fine when we checked-out then it was all downhill. The checker asked me a question in French, then I messed up on the thank-you and said gracias instead of merci (oops...hopefully I get better at this).
• 3:00-3:30 - I got the jogging stroller out and found the path to a park I was thinking we'd go explore...Kherington had other plans
• 3:30pm-present (currently 6:15pm) - Kherington is sleeping. I joined her for a while, but figured I could get some stuff done if I got up.

So not exactly the fun packed day I had been anticipating...maybe tomorrow. Kherington has had a little cold and is still adjusting to the time change so I'm glad she's sleeping (hopefully catching up on the last 8.5 months when she though sleeping was overrated). I was hoping to put her on a schedule that included 3 meals, 24 ounces of formula, sleeping through the night and 2 naps during the day. However I wasn't planning on those naps each being 3 hours long.

Here she is in all her glory:

Highlight of the Day: I bought chocolate hazelnut spread (not the nutella brand, but tastes just as good). It costs less than peanut butter costs in US (including the dollar to euro conversion). Yummy...I'm thinking once we have a oven (right now it's just a microwave and stove) and some cooking ingredients I'll try substituting it in a peanut butter cookies recipe!

Belgium

View from our Apartment

Belgium has welcomed us with SNOW. Weather wise, it feels like Utah. We ended up checking 6 bags and the jogging stroller, carrying on 2 backpacks, a diaper bag and a rolling carry-on. I would have to say we could packed a lot less stuff if we didn't have baby. I realize we can buy stuff here, but that's not the first thing we want to worry about.

Kherington has been a trooper. In the last month we have flow: Salt Lake City to Myrtle Beach, Charlotte to Seattle, Seattle to LA, LA to Seattle, and finally Seattle to Brussels. Keep in mind the only direct flights were the LA ones. She is a little charmer on the plane. It's really how she likes it...she like to have mom hold her and then be able to look at everyone else.

Back to Belgium. We arrived at the airport, went through the border checkpoint, found all of our luggage (it takes extra long to get special size packages...aka stroller), made it to our temporary apartment, unpacked, took a little nap (for now when Kherington sleeps Erin sleeps is in full force), went grocery shopping and made dinner.

Breif 2009 Recap

2009 was a great year full of changes for our family. Erin continued working as a consultant for Omniture (recently bought by Adobe). Ryan graduated with a Bachelors and Masters of Accounting from BYU in April. Kherington joined our family the day he was supposed to walk (April 23rd) ...needless to say he did not walk; we snapped a couple pictures of him in his gown and return his $60 rental gown (so it cost $40 to buy a bachelors gown, and $60 to RENT a masters gown...how does that makes sense?). We had planned on moving to Dallas, however an opportunity came to move to Belgium instead. We enjoyed spending a lot of time with both our families.