July 2014

This month has been a lot of fun. Kollyn is 8 months old today. She is learning and growing so much every day. I love watching it!

She pulls herself up onto everything she can. Chairs, the entertainment center, me, her car seat, me, and did I mention me??? I'm apparently the best jungle gym ever.

She's also started holding her own bottle, but only if she really feels like it. She's a pretty lazy eater and would rather us do it all. :)

We've started putting her in the cart in the actual seat, instead of bringing in her car seat. And she won't sit and look straight forward. She has to be turned around and looking at everything. She is so curious and LOVES to go shopping. Sometimes, when she's having a bad day, I have to go to Wal-Mart or Target because getting her into a store makes her happy.

Her favorite toys are things that we don't buy for her. She loves envelopes, especially the ones with the crinkly windows, water bottles, my chapstick tube, and anything I have in my hand that isn't one of her toys.

This is how much she loves her water bottle. She tried to force herself under the chair to get to it, then got really mad when I took a picture instead of immediately helping her get her "toy".

She loves watching David play video games. Mario Party 4 is a favorite of hers to watch, I'm assuming since it's really colorful, and she loves watching him play Mass Effect online. Not sure why, but I'm assuming it's because of the colors and the action. She tries to climb up and touch the people on the TV.

David mowed the lawn a couple Saturdays ago and since the weather wasn't too hot, Kollyn and I sat outside on her blanket while he mowed. She was enthralled. She isn't afraid of loud noises and is intrigued by the lawnmower. She just sat and watched him for most of the time we were outside. She tried to explore the grass, but she didn't really like the way it felt on her hands. She would get really upset if she touched it. I don't blame her. It's definitely not as soft as Utah grass.

While she didn't like touching the grass at all, she did like looking at it.

She finally figured out that she could get onto the the concrete driveway without going on the grass, she started bear crawling on it, since she was wearing shorts. She won't crawl on anything other than carpet on her hands and knees unless she's wearing pants, and even then it's iffy, so she does what I call bear crawling, up on her hands and feet.

Everyday she amazes me with just how much she loves with dad. She doesn't sit still like this with anyone else the way she does with him. She snuggled with David's mom a little a few days ago, but mostly, only he gets the nice, still, calm Kollyn that you see here. Normally, she has to be going and going and going, like the Energizer bunny. These moments are very precious to me because I love seeing her sit still with someone, even if she won't do it with me.

Kollyn had her first official playdate this month. We drove up to Spring to see a friend of mine that has a little girl just a few days older than Kollyn. Kollyn loves being around people and was trying to share her "toy", again not a real toy, but her friend didn't want the receipt, no matter how many times Kollyn tried to put it in her mouth. We had a lot of fun up there. She crawled around and shared her toys with her friend and my friend and I got to spend some time together. It was a lot of fun! I'm glad we were able to do it!

She has officially learned how to feed herself so we have started doing Baby Led Weaning (BLW). She doesn't really let us feed her much anymore, except yogurt which she loves, so we've had to do what we hadn't planned on doing. She is a natural self-feeder. She started with puffs and yogurt bites from Gerber and now she eats pretty much everything herself. Her favorites are red bell peppers, blueberries, meatballs, cheese, black beans, rice, and bread. We tried French toast for breakfast today and even though it ended up mostly smashed between her fingers, she seemed to really enjoyed what she got in her mouth.

She is a ham and she knows it. She's constantly smiling her big smile, nose crinkled up and everything, but this is the first time I've been able to catch it on camera. She does it when I get her out of bed in the morning, she does it when I come into the same room as her, she does it when I smile at her, she just loves smiling. She also loves her mirror (typical girl, right?) and likes to lick it and give it kisses (great...). She's recently started giving kisses, but mostly just to me and only when she feels like it. They're big, open mouthed, tongue all over my cheek kisses and I love every single one. Even the one that ended up with her biting my nose with her two sharp little teeth.

We went to lunch a week ago or so at our favorite restaurant in Houston, Lankford Grocery. It's so good and really cheap! It's cash only so we have to know we're going, but we would go whenever we can. They're only open from 7 - 3 everyday though, so it's lunch or no dice. This is the second time we've been and the first time Kollyn came with us. She loved it. Everyone around us smiled at her, talked to her, commented on what a good girl she was, and she was smiling the entire time. She also loves playing with straws and Lankford is the only place we've found that has them in plastic wrap instead of paper so she's able to chew on them without having the wrapping disintegrate in her mouth. Everything they make there is amazing. Just a shameless plug for what we think is one of the best restaurants ever.

And that's been our month. David and I teach the 12 and 13 year olds in Sunday School and we love it. It's literally the best calling ever. David thrives in that environment and has so much fun with it. Having church at 9 is hard for us because Kollyn sleeps later than most kids (her normal wake up time is between 8 and 9 but the other day, and today, she slept until almost 11!!) so we have to wake her up which she doesn't like, but once we get to church, she's in her element. I am always amazed at how much she likes being around people. She loves people, loves being around them, and loves smiling at them because they smile back at her. She is more David's child in that way than mine, since I'm more of an introvert. I'm glad that she got that part of his personality. I want her to enjoy being around people.

Well, that's July. I've been keeping busy taking care of Kollyn. She's very active and loves getting to everything she shouldn't. David is almost done with his internship here and we'll be heading home soon. I am heading up in a little over a week because we have a few things that need to be taken care of with our apartment up there that won't get done unless I go in to talk to the management company in person. My friend Tricia, she is an amazing person who I love dearly, is flying down so that she can help me drive up. I seriously can't even say how great of a friend she is. And she just offered it and basically wouldn't take no for an answer. She knew I needed to get home early and I couldn't do it alone, so she insisted that she come and help me. She's an amazing friend and I am so lucky to have her in my life!! I love you Tricia!

David finishes up his internship the end of the week I leave and will come up a week after me. He's still looking for a job for when he gets up there, so I want him to be able to just focus on that and not worry about the apartment, hence why I felt it was the best option for me to go up early and get all that taken care of. He has learned a lot during this internship and has really developed his skills and the way he handles problems. It's been interesting to watch him grow and learn as he does this.

We are looking forward to our move back to Utah, and are so glad we've been able to be here. We are so grateful for David's parents who let us stay with them this summer. Kollyn loves them. She crawls around looking for his mom (Nana) and when his dad (Papa) gets home from work, she gets really excited and smiley. She loves looking at them during dinner and playing games with them. We are going to be sad to leave. It has been a great experience here and we are so lucky to have the support of our families!