October 2014: Friends, Batman, and Corn Mazes (and so, so, so many pictures)

Just a warning, this is going to be mostly pictures. :) 

We babysit a little 4 month old boy everyday while my friend is in class. Kollyn, at first, would get really upset when I fed him or was holding him, but lately has gotten a lot better about being nice to him and not trying to tip him out of his swing. They smile and gabber at each other. 

Also, my child has been indoctrinated by her dad. She'll pick her Batgirl shirt and cape no matter what other clothes I've laid out for her. And she'll go up to any Batman poster in a store and touch it, if she can, and smile. 

This girl loves climbing up the stairs. She's lately taken a page out of her friend Wyatt's book and rolled from the stairs onto the upper couch in our house (we have stadium seating) and then rolled down to the other. She isn't afraid of things like that at all and loves climbing the stairs too. If I forget to put up the gate, she knows and is up the stairs before I turn around again.

Kollyn has started showing interest in other babies close to her age and usually when we go to Grandma Johnson's for Sunday dinner, she gets to spend time with her cousin Luke. The first time she wasn't too sure what to think about him, since he really wanted to hug her. She's warming up to him now and they seem to be getting along really well. 

She also liked playing with Rocco, David's cousin Alex's little boy. She crawled right up to him and they had a little baby staring contest for a while, then proceeded to play with their respective toys.

This little girl LOVES stuffed animals. Her current favorites are any Minnie Mouse she can get her hands on, a stuffed parrot, a stuffed otter, a stuffed Yoshi, and 2 stuffed teddy bears.She has to have one of them with her at all times. In bed, she has a penguin that use to belong to David and she snuggles it all the time and all night long. During the day it's one of her Minnies (She has 4), her parrot, otter, or Yoshi. Her latest addition is the teddy bears from Aunt Mariolina. She's so lucky to have such a thoughtful great-aunt. :) She always gets to pick one to take with her when we go places and she seems to travel much better when she has them.

The stuffed otter and parrot came from our adventure to the Living Planet Aquarium when they had their ZAP day. It was free to help raise awareness for an initiative on the ballots in Salt Lake County. We enjoyed being able to check it out. Would I pay the regular price? No, but it was awesome to check it out for free. Kollyn loved seeing the penguins, even if they weren't swimming around it was still fun to watch them ruffle their feathers and listen to them squawking at each other. We also saw some really big fish and there were a lot of jellyfish there too. It was a lot of fun for us to experience that kind of atmosphere with Kollyn. We thought about letting her touch some starfish, but we opted to wait until she is a little bit older. All in all, it was a really fun outing and we were really glad a friend of mine had told us about the free tickets.

David and I were able to go on a baby-free date a few weeks ago. It was the best night we've had in a long time. We put Kollyn to bed, my dear friend Janie and her sister came over to listen for her if she were to wake up (which didn't happen), and then we went out. We went mini-golfing at Trafalga, got cake bites from The Sweet Tooth Fairy (they won Cupcake Wars on the Food Network a couple times and their cupcakes and cake bites are AMAZING!), and some Mexican food at Taco Burrito. It was alright food, even if they did mess up our order a little, and the service was awesome. It was good to be able to get out of the house for a little while without Kollyn, even if we did spend most of our time thinking about her. We even played the arcade at Trafalga and won enough tickets to get her 2 new rubber ducks. Those are some of her favorite toys. She has 5 different rubber ducks now and she loves them all.

Church has become kind of a chore. She is so curious, wiggly, and loud that sitting through sacrament meeting is definitely not possible. She loves to walk around the halls, at first she had to hold our fingers and now she's walking all over the place by herself. She loves going up to the doors and watching the world outside. She seems to get concerned when other people can get through the doors but she can't, then she tries banging on the door but it doesn't work. David usually lets me go to Relief Society (if we're able to with church being in the middle of naptime) while he walks with her and we switch off Sunday School. Just a few more months and she can go to nursery! :)

Kollyn had a ton of fun at her first corn maze. We went to Hee Haw Farms in American Fork because they had a good deal on KSL and we wanted to take Kollyn to one so we figured it was the perfect time since it wasn't too hot or too cold. We invited my friend Christina to come with us. She's been my best friend since we were 5 and have been able to stay close friends since then. She got home from her mission back in February and is living in Salt Lake so we get to see each other quite a bit, which is nice for me.

Kollyn loved going through the maze in her stroller because the ground was bumpy. She thought it was so much fun, especially when David pushed her really fast and the bumps jostled her around. She laughed and giggled the whole time. She got to feed a goat with David, something she wasn't too sure how she felt about, ride in a hay wagon and a little train, and ride on a little tire swing made into an animal. We thought about playing in the corn box, but figured she'd spend most of the time trying to eat corn kernels so we'll maybe try that next year.

Kollyn loves her daddy more and more every day. And rightly so. They are so amazing together and I love watching them interact. She mostly giggles for him and even though she does giggle for other people, he gets the biggest ones. She lights up the minute he walks through the door from work and wants to spend all her time with him. She'll play with her toys while standing and holding onto his leg. She walks with him, sits while he reads her books, and snuggles with him at night much more than she does with me. Sometimes it makes me sad, but I love the bond they have and it makes me so happy at the same time. I hear other women talk about how uninvolved their husbands are in their children's lives and I wouldn't have that any other way. She is so lucky to have him as her dad. And it is so obvious that he loves her more than anyone else in this world. He tells me that even though she was born earlier than we expected, he wouldn't trade it for anything, because if we'd had a baby when we'd planned, it wouldn't have been Kollyn. And we can't imagine life without her.

We love going on walks and when we can, we love going with other people, especially Tricia and Wyatt. Last week we went with them on a walk down to the Sweet Tooth Fairy by University Mall. David gets a discount there through Vivint, which is slightly bad news,but mostly great news. :) It was a little bit of a walk, but we had fun chatting and walking with Kollyn. She walked for a while, but got tired and rode in the stroller. A couple days after this was when she decided she would walk full-time instead of just whenever she feels like it and now she cruises everywhere. She's still a little unstable and falls over, but she's awesome at getting back up and going along with the walking. We're so proud of her!

She had a lot of fun at Halloween. My mom found her costume at a garage sale and it fit her perfectly. She was the cutest little dragon ever! We were going to check out the trick or treating at the Provo Towne Center mall, but we remembered that one of the wards in our church building was doing a trunk or treat, and since our chapel is just around the corner from our house, we decided to do that instead of driving to the mall. Everyone loved her costume and she loved all the candy. One of the families gave her two suckers and she held tight to those as we walked around. She had a lot of fun walking around and basking in the attention of people. She loved the suckers. They were the first ones she's ever had, but she ate two of them and was covered in sticky sucker juice. It was a nightmare for us, but it was so much fun for her, and that's what matters.

I had to throw this one in there. She ate her first chocolate bar and LOVED it. She ate two of them and a Milky Way. We had a lot of fun seeing her react to the candy and while we didn't give her much, she seemed to enjoy it. So much so that she takes her little candy bucket off the couch and looks inside it for the candy that isn't there anymore. So I've started putting her snacks in her bucket so she can carry it around and eat her little puffs and yogurt melts out of it. She has fun doing that.

Sunday we went to my sister Melissa's house for cake and ice cream to celebrate my oldest niece's 13th birthday. Kollyn had fun playing with Parker, My brother-in-law's younger brother's youngest son, and his brother Landon. Parker is a few months older than Kollyn so they were playing in pretty similar ways. They both had a lot of fun playing with the stacking blocks and the balloons. Kollyn liked the cake and ice cream, which isn't surprising since both David and I like cake and David likes ice cream.

I've been working really hard getting blankets made for a boutique preview my friend and I are putting together featuring local crafters making things for babies and toddlers. I make baby and toddler blankets and car seat blankets (thanks to Angela for making one for Kollyn that kind of sparked this whole thing) and have been making a bunch to have as displays and to sell at the craft fair. It takes a big chunk of time and Kollyn has been so amazingly patient through it all. She has fun just playing peek-a-boo with me while I am ironing and helping me find all the loose strings on the floor. I love that she's content to play by herself and I try to make as much time for her as possible. She's so easy going and it is perfect for this.

 I had to share this sequence too. Yesterday while I was watching Oliver, Kollyn decided she just had to play in his car seat, so she spent almost 20 minutes going back and forth like this, she'd make it tilt up, then move along until it tipped over and she spilled out. She'd laugh and then go back the other way. It was really funny to watch. :)

Today was David's birthday. He's 24 now! To celebrate, yesterday we went to lunch at Tucano's. Kollyn had fried bananas, small cheese biscuits, bits of our meat, and anything else she wanted. She loved it! Last weekend we went paintballing with some of our friends for his birthday and Kollyn spent time with my sister and her family. Her little girls love Kollyn and fight over who got to play with her and feed her and put her down for her nap. I love that she has cousins that love her so much. We had a lot of fun paintballing too. David got a couple of really good welts and so did I, but it was a lot of fun. Then we went to lunch with some friends because Kollyn was still napping and we didn't want to wake her up. Then we did some shopping before meeting up with Karin and David for dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings. They took us out for David's birthday and it was a lot of fun. 

Tonight we went and tried a new place that we've heard so many good things about. It was Pizzeria 712 and it was really good and decently priced. Kollyn loved the hummus and pita bread that came before the meal and our waiter was amazing and kept bringing it for her. 

I bought David a bunch of Batman paraphernalia for his birthday (magnets, a mug, a thermos, and a vintage metal poster) and this morning I went to Hobby Lobby and got the stuff to make a little poster inspired by my amazing friend Tiffany. Tricia and Wyatt were here today so she helped me paint Kollyn's feet and try to make them into a heart shape. I feel like it turned out pretty well and he loved it, which was the most important. :)

Overall, life here has been good. Kollyn is 11 months, walking all over the place, says "Hi" "I got it" "Baby" and "Uh-Oh". She's so smart and learns things so quickly. I'm getting stressed as the boutique day draws closer, and I've had several orders for car seat blankets in the last week which has kept me plenty busy. This weekend we're going up to my parent's house for a birthday party for two of my nieces and David and I'm looking forward to it. It's crazy how fast the time has flown. Today I was looking at baby pictures of Kollyn and can't believe how big she is. I love watching her grow up and watching her learn new things. She's such a curious child, which sometimes is annoying, but I love seeing her discover things and hope that she always fosters that curiosity and love of learning.

David is loving his job, though he wishes the meetings were a bit shorter, and I'm loving the perks that come with it. :) I get 40% off orders from Snapfish, which is going to be perfect on our Christmas cards. ;)

Speaking of Christmas cards, we got our family pictures back, that we took in September, and I know many of you have already seen them on Facebook, but I wanted to put in a few of our favorites. :)

September 2014 (and the first week of October)

Kollyn is now 10 months old. It's so crazy how fast this time has gone and I am loving every minute of it. I can't wait to see what kind of a person she grows up to be. :) She currently loves just about everything. She eats a ton (her favorites are cheese, pears, peaches, carrots, peas, yogurt (any flavor), and any kind of bread), is so active, and learns new things every day. Her latest trick is climbing up the stairs. The first time she did it was last week when we got home from errands and I brought her in the house and put her on the floor, then I went out to get other things from the car. When I got back to the house, she had climbed all the way up the stairs to the front door. Since then, she gets so excited about the stairs and we've had to start blocking them off.

Here's a video of her trick!

We love going to the park with our friends Tricia, Steve, and their little boy Wyatt. He's 2 and Kollyn loves to play with (and tease) him. She tries to take his snacks, food (whenever we're out for dinner with them), and his toys. And when he gets mad about it, she thinks it's the funniest thing and she smiles and laughs. Then she does it again, and again, and again. She gets a huge smile and laughs when I tell her we're going to play with them. This is the first time she's been to the park, and it was a lot of fun! 

Her first time in the swing. At first, she wasn't sure what to think about it, but after a few minutes, she had a lot of fun. We definitely love going to park now and we make sure we go at least once a week. We usually meet Tricia, Steve, and Wyatt there and grab a pizza for dinner. Kollyn loves pizza, breadsticks, anything with bread really, and has a blast playing with them.

These were some of her first experiences with the slide. At first, she was her usual stoic face, but after a couple slides, she seemed to be having fun.

These are the two positions that she loves to play with her tablet in. She'll lay on her tummy, play with the tablet, and kick her legs up and down. Then she'll flip over, play with her tablet, and kick her legs up and down some more.

Because the weather has been so nice, we spend as much time outside as we can. Lately, we've been having picnics outside and she has a lot of fun doing that since she loves to be outside. She probably doesn't eat as much as she usually does, but she eats enough and has a blast doing it. Plus, soon it'll be too cold and we won't be able to do stuff like this so we'll take any chance we can get.

A few weeks ago we went to Cedar City to help my sister Laura with the carnival she was in charge of putting together for the elementary school her kids go to. Kollyn met the dog, Bruiser, and really liked him. She also loved having fun with her cousins at the carnival.

Cousins Kenley and Carli riding the ponies and playing the duck racing game. Kollyn loved watching them do stuff, even though she couldn't do it, like the bounce house.

She got to actually sit on the pony, though it didn't go anywhere because none of us felt comfortable with that, and didn't really have a reaction. I like to think that she liked it since I love horses, but she didn't really show us one way or the other. I'll just keep exposing her and hopefully that'll help her get use to them and enjoy being around them.

Because we were in Texas for her 6 month visit, we opted to wait until we got back to Utah to get her 6 month vaccines so we wouldn't have to transfer shot records back and forth and having a lot of issues. We've had enough problems with her Medicaid application (first they need one thing, then they need three more things and that's all, but actually they needed two more papers, and by then I had to fill out a new application before it finally got figured out) so I didn't want to deal with stuff like that either. 

When we got to her pediatrician's office (we LOVE him and so does she) we found this walking toy in the waiting room. At first, she wanted to crawl and push it, but after David showed her how to stand up and push it, she had a ton of fun pushing it around the waiting room and almost running over the other kids. She smiled and giggled the whole time.

We took her weight (19 pounds 1 ounce, 43%), her height (28 inches, 43%), and her head size (I don't remember the numbers but she's in the 20%), and then she got her vaccines. She was amazing. She only cried for a couple minutes and she was fine. They had a stuffed dolphin in the exam room and she got really interested in it so we let her play with it for a while. She also had a fun time staring at the dolphins painted on the wall. She's such a trooper when it comes to the doctor visits. We love her pediatrician. He was the one on call when she was born (since we hadn't found one we liked before that) and immediately we knew he was the right doctor. She gets really happy and smiley when he walks in and he always makes a big deal of talking to her first, then talking to us. It's really great to know that she likes her doctor.

On October 1, we went to to the Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake because it was ZAP day (a free day to encourage people to learn about the Zoos, Arts, and Parks organization and to vote for something or other) and so I got tickets for me, Kollyn, our friend Tricia and her son Wyatt. Tricia and I were roommates in college and we went to high school together. They just moved to Lehi from Logan so we are having a lot of fun getting together with them a lot more now.  

Kollyn and I had fun posing with all the statues that we could find. She got really nervous when the elephant statue started making noises and then spraying water out of its trunk, but she had fun otherwise. She liked looking at all the animals and it was perfect weather. It was a little cool and overcast, which helped make the animals more active and fun to watch, and sprinkled a tiny bit, but overall it was great. We just needed jackets and all was good.

Kollyn and Wyatt had fun finding the animal statues and going to sit on them. She had a lot of fun holding my fingers and walking over to them (she would walk like that all the time if she could) then getting pictures. I love that she is now getting in the habit of looking at the camera when I tell her to and smiling, most of the time. It's really fun! 

We had to get the customary shot with us drinking out of the lion drinking fountain. And had a good time watching them feed the rhinos. Kollyn couldn't take her eyes off of them and we stood there watching them for at least 5 minutes.

Then we rode the little train before we left. Kollyn's ticket was free because she's under 11 months, and she had so much fun (as evidenced by the smiles). This was also her first thumb's up, and even though I'm pretty sure it was a fluke, I was so excited to get it on camera! She sat and stared at everything as we rode the rain around the animal exhibits, and the giraffe was really close to us so she got really excited about that.

We love having our friends come and hang out at our house. We watch Oliver every day for a couple hours while my friend Maddie is in class and Tricia and Wyatt sometimes come and hang out with us sometimes too. On days like that, we love to go outside and play. Oliver doesn't do much, which is nice for me, but Kollyn and Wyatt have a lot of fun chasing each other around and that gives me and Tricia some time to talk about actual things and not just repeating the sounds that Kollyn's toy tablet make all the time.

This girl is a daredevil and loves to climb things. The other day, she used me as a human ladder and climbed up to the couch we have raised up just so she could get her bag of yogurt bites. She loves her snacks and won't let anything get in the way of her obtaining those snacks. And when she climbs up stuff like that, she gets a huge smile on her face and she seems so proud of herself. She is very independent and loves to do things herself, including feed herself everything unless she knows she can't (like yogurt, grits, and soup) and get around all by herself. 

Today we went to lunch at Grandma Johnson's house between General Conference sessions. Kollyn got to hang out with cousin Rocco and cousin Luke. Rocco is a few months older than her and Luke is a couple months younger so they're all pretty close in age. Luke was really excited about Kollyn and kept trying to play with her and pull on her, which is how she plays with other kids but she doesn't like it when he does it to her. She can dish it but she can't take it. She was pretty tired though, so that could've had something to do with it. :) It'll be fun to watch these three grow up together!

We have had a pretty great month. David's doing well in school and really liking his job. Working for Vivint has a lot of perks and he is definitely needed there. He likes that they have respect for what he does, something he didn't feel at Goodman this summer, and the free food is pretty great too. :) Every 8 hours he works he gets a free meal ticket to use at the cafeteria or the food truck they have come around for lunch. We had dinner there a couple days ago and it was really good. We also have tried a couple of the food trucks and they were really good too.

I'm in the process of starting a little handmade baby and toddler boutique with a friend of mine. We're getting vendors (people in the area who make baby and toddler things) and setting up a one-day preview to make sure there is an actual demand for something like this before we actually get it started. I'm hoping it works out. It's been a lot of work so far, and it'll only get more time consuming, but we are really excited about this. I'm hoping it works out. :)