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. :)

August 2014

This month was pretty fun. K turned 9 months, we drove from Texas back to Utah, David started school and a new job, and we're learning more and more about being parents and watching her grow up. It makes David sad a little that she's growing up. He misses his little girl some days, but I know he also loves the way she is now.

She loves to explore. Everywhere. One day before we came back from Texas I heard her screeching in the living room so I came in from the kitchen to see this. She was trying to push herself under the chair to get to an empty plastic water bottle....and me, being the caring and loving mother I am, snapped a picture (or 5). She wasn't happy that I was doing that instead of immediately helping her get out from under there.

We got to have such a fun playdate with our friends Tiffany and Pippa. Pippa is only a few days older than Kollyn and it was so cute watching them play together! Kollyn kept trying to "share" her receipt with Pippa, and by share I mean shove in Pippa's mouth. And I was really happy to get out of the house and hang out with Tiffany. Too bad they lived like an hour away so this was the only time we were able to go up and see them. We're definitely missing our friends!!!

Kollyn has become quite the foodie. She eats anything we give her. Her current favorites are chicken, cheese (of course), strawberries, and sausage. She gets sausage most mornings for breakfast with either toast or pancake, and then dessert for all her meals is a bunch of fruit, usually strawberries but she loves pretty much any fruit (except bananas. She only tolerates bananas.). She loves to feed herself, so we just cut things up into little pieces and let her go to town. She just loves eating. She drinks less formula and will only drink it during mealtimes or right before bed or nap (though the last few nights getting her to drink her bedtime bottle has been quite a challenge) so I have to make sure she's drinking the right amount, but we're going to go talk to her doctor next week (FINALLY after fighting with Medicaid as well as my and David's health insurance for a month) so we'll see what he says about that. :)

 

This is her at our favorite restaurant in Houston, Lankford Grocery. We saw it on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives and it's labeled the "Best Burger in Houston" and it definitely lives up to the name. It's only open for breakfast and lunch though, so finding a time to go was a real challenge. We loved it! We will go back whenever we're in Houston for sure. She liked that we shared a lot of our meal with her and loved playing with the straws. We liked them because they're in plastic wrap so she couldn't slowly disintegrate the wrapper as she chewed on it. We may or may not (but definitely did) have taken a few to put in her diaper bag to keep her entertained. We went to Lankford 3 times and each time it didn't disappoint. We recommend it to anyone looking for a delicious place to eat in Houston!!! 

I couldn't help but share this picture. I love it so much. She never sits forward in the cart, she always turns to her right and watches things that way. This one I love because of her arm. She looks like she's just chilling in the cart, waiting for Mom and Dad to be done grocery shopping. That, plus the look on her face, make me laugh whenever I see this picture. I can just hear what she'd be saying, "Mom, Dad, that is the thirteenth box of stuff you've looked at. Put it in the cart and let's go home. I'm sure it's delicious."

K had a great time meeting her cousins Addie and Avery (and their bunny). She kept trying to play on their computer and follow them around the house. She has never seen a bunny before either, so seeing him was a big deal for her. She kept trying to pet him, but she hasn't quite got the "be soft" concept yet, so we tried to stop her whenever she went for it. It was a lot of fun being able to go up and spend time with them before we left to go back to Utah.

I just love her little sunglasses!!!

The Saturday before Kollyn and I left (August 9) we went to the Houston Zoo with our friends Kat and her husband Kevin. Kollyn had a good time looking at all the animals, drinking out of the lion, standing on the ladybug, and (something that David wanted to do all summer) feeding the giraffes. You pay $5 and get 3 leaves of lettuce. Then you go up onto a platform and the giraffes come over and eat the lettuce out of your hand. Kollyn was fascinated and couldn't take her eyes off the giraffes, even as we were walking down the ramp away from them. It was a really great experience and I loved that we were able to do it!

This kid reacts to absolutely nothing. That's a lime. And she has no reaction to the taste at all. She's also had lemon and not reacted to that either. I don't know if that'll continue, but it's sure funny to watch for now!

Will we ever make it through a whole sacrament meeting again??? I think not...Oh well. At least most foyers have comfortable couches (if they aren't taken up by other people). Also, K LOVES drinking water. She has two straw sippy cups (she doesn't like the regular kind) and would drink water all day if I let her.

This is my favorite thing! I love that crinkle nose smile so much! I finally was able to get it on camera and I HAVE to share it because whenever she does that, you know she's really happy and it's just so adorable!

On August 11 Kollyn and I left Texas to come back to Utah. My dear friend Tricia (we knew each other in elementary school, high school, were roommates in college, and we STILL love each other to death) flew down to help me drive up so I could get some stuff taken care of before David got home. We took three days to get home. The first day was 10 hours of driving and Kollyn was very unhappy unless we stopped, took her out of the car seat, and let her play, which we tried to do as much as possible, but she still was SO done by the end of the day. We stopped and stayed the night in Clovis, New Mexico and drove 6 hours the next day, to Farmington, New Mexico. The hotel in Farmington was really nice! And with the company David worked for over the summer footing the bill, we stayed in style. They had free pizza for dinner, free laundry, which was great because someone decided that it was ok to have a massive explosion a few hours before we got there and got all her clothes nasty (I'll give you 3 guesses and a hint as to who it was, it wasn't me or Tricia), and the breakfast was awesome! They had a little sitting room that was sectioned off so that K had a little room to sleep in, but that didn't stop her from waking up and being mad at me at 4:30 in the morning. I brought her into bed with me for a few minutes to calm her down, and then she was fine being laid back in the pack and play to sleep the rest of the night. She's a silly one, but a great sleeper and we won't complain about that. We got back to Utah on the 13 of August and we were all so happy to be out of the car. (The picture of her in the mirror was right after she gave herself about 6 kisses).

She has been exploring non-stop since we got back. She has been getting herself use to the house again and getting into EVERYTHING. She tried to "help" me unpack my clothes, be "helpful" and rearrange the food on the shelves, and "help" me and Tricia lower her crib to the lowest setting. She is also loving the grass here. The grass in Texas was very stiff and hurt her legs so she never wanted to be on the grass, but here she will crawl on it. She still prefers to crawl on the sidewalk though, for some weird reason. We call her our little explorer because she is so curious about everything and loves seeing what things are and how they work, what noises they make, how they feel, she's just so curious and loves to experience new things. She crawls all over now and is standing up on things, walking around while holding onto stuff, and can even stand by herself for a few seconds too. She gets this look of pride when she does it and smiles this big smile because she knows that we're excited. She also loves holding people's fingers and walking around that way. David thinks she'll be walking by 11 months. :) We'll see. I think so too, but I'm not going to put those expectations on her. It definitely wouldn't surprise me though.

Kollyn LOVES playing with new friends. She and Tricia's little 2 year old, Wyatt, have a lot of fun playing together. She likes to play with (and by play with I mean munch on) his toys and he likes to have her chase her purple ball across the room. They play games together like fight over Tricia's lap (he tried to push her off once so she pushed him back, with her head) and make the door stops make their weird noise. He'd flick them and she'd crawl to the one that was making the noise, then he'd make the other one make noise and she'd crawl to that one, all excited. It was so cute to watch them play together! We've also been watching my friend's little 3 month old Oliver. Kollyn doesn't have as much fun with him because the things she wants to do, he can't do yet, but I'll be babysitting him most of the school year so I have a feeling these two will be finding mischief together before two long!

She was so excited to see her Brown cousins when we got back, and they were really excited to see her too! I love that she has so much fun with them and that they love playing with her! It's so fun to watch!

One of her newest favorite toys is the Pringles can. There's nothing in it, but she still loves carrying it around and shaking the crumbs around. We taped the lid shut so it can't open and let her go to town. She gets joy out of the smallest things, it's really a big wake-up call for me and helps me to remember to get joy out of the little things too.

On August 22, I got to go to see the musical Wicked with my best friend Christina!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She called me a few hours before the show and asked me how fast I could get a babysitter and I said "David's home, what's up?" and she said, "I have an extra ticket to Wicked and I want you to come see it with me and my family." Of course I couldn't turn that opportunity down. I've been dying to see it since it came out when I was like, 14, so David watched Kollyn and I got to go up to Salt Lake to see it. It did not disappoint, at all. It was literally a dream come true and I couldn't have seen it with anyone else, since Christina and I have talked about seeing it together for almost 10 years. And it finally happened! I was singing the music all the way up, and all the way back. It was a magical experience!

We went up to Swiss Days in Midway on August 29. I worked with my sisters in the "Swiss" Navajo Taco booth and that was a lot of fun. Then David and Kollyn came up and we had a lot of fun walking around, looking at the booths. Kollyn (who we call Kooky or Kook a lot now) liked the Swiss chicken sandwich we got her for dinner and ate a bunch of the berries and cream (since she loves berries). She liked the scone from my "Swiss" taco, and ate pickles for the first time. Neither David or I like them so she probably won't get them very often, but she does like them.

We stayed the night and helped at the parade the next morning. We got fancy t-shirts and were part of the parade committee. We basically stood around along the parade route and told the floats if they needed to go faster. Kollyn really liked watching the parade, especially the bands, horses, and the policemen on their motorcycles. Kollyn hadn't slept great the night before and David (being the amazing dad he is) woke up with Kollyn and got her back to sleep, so I let him sleep in when we got up. He met up with us on the parade route about halfway through it and walked up to the square with us after it was over. We got lunch, went back to my parents house, and then headed home because we were getting some family pictures taken that evening. We haven't had professional pictures taken other than our wedding, so we were really excited when I had talked to a photographer who was offering free sessions and scored it for us. We're still waiting on them to be finished, but we are really excited to see them. Kollyn was so cute and smiled all the time, which was what I was hoping for.

Kollyn is still very much a Daddy's girl. She loves all the crazy things he does with her and she's a total daredevil, probably because he does all kinds of things to mess with her and she loves it. She loves being held upside down, lifted up by her feet and legs, and tossed up as high as we can toss her. She loves playing with David's Xbox controllers still and has recently discovered that she loves his headset too. She also likes sitting with him and watching things. She never just sits with me, but she'll do it with him a lot. She especially loves watching us play Mario Party.

I love how much these two love each other. She loves her daddy and follows him everywhere. The other day she tried to follow him into the bathroom but he closed the door. That didn't stop her though and she stood up using the door, then would pound on the door saying "da da da da da da da" until he opened the door. Then she got this huge grin on her face and laughed. She is so happy when he gets home from school or work and just loves spending time with him. I just love seeing the bond that these two have. And it gives me some time to do stuff too! Like shower! :)

We are so grateful for how life has turned out for us. We were very nervous about our situation since David didn't have a job when we got back. He had several interviews, got offered a few positons, but we didn't feel good about them. He took one position, just to have a job, but had an interview the next week for a job he really wanted. It's working for Vivint, the home security company, doing exactly the same thing that he did during the summer for Goodman, and we were praying he'd get that job. Our prayers were answered and he was offered the position there (his first day was today) and was offered a really good hourly wage, which is a huge blessing for us. We were both interviewing and applying for whatever we could. I had several interviews and an offer too, but I was so glad when he got that so I could stay home with Kollyn. There are days I'd like to be the one to go to work, but I know I'd hate it and just want to be home with Kollyn so we're glad this worked out the way it did.

He started school the day after Labor Day. He's liking his classes, though he says Physics is pretty hard, and he's looking forward to being one step closer to being done with school. We are both looking forward to that. :)

We're re-adjusting to life here in Orem, having fun with Kollyn, and just enjoying life every day. :)