Kaitlyn's 1st Birthday

It has been a week since Kaitlyn turned the BIG 1! And, it has been almost 2 weeks since her birthday party. I thought it was time that I wrote a blog about it. The party was crazy busy. It was a luau theme with shishkabobs and waterslides. Kaitlyn loved her cake. It took her a few minutes to totally dive in, but she did it. Cake all over. She loved the attention that she got in the spotlight. On her birthday Steve and I took her to the zoo and then out to eat at Macaroni Grill. It was the night before the big move and so it was only fitting to go out to eat since all of our stuff was already packed. Soon I will post the pics

1 week left

In one week from tomorrow we will be house owners and our daughter will be 1! The whole process of buying a house has gone so smoothly. There have and still are some stressful parts to it, but we have had no problems with our loan or any problems show up with the house we are buying. We are so excited to finally get into a house and be able to have more room. The packing is coming along nicely. The only problem is that we have run out of boxes and I can't seem to get any. By this time next week we will be completely packed up and ready to move.

I can't believe Kaitlyn is already almost 1! It is so crazy to think of last year at this time and anticipating her arrival. These are some of her milestones since I last updated. (Mostly so that I can remember after our move when I finish her baby book.)

9 months:
-walking along furniture
-says uh oh, mom "mum", hello
-loves to play with the telephone

12 months:
-still walking along furniture but also now with her walker
-standing for short periods on her own
-says mom, dadda, hi, hello, milk "mill" (as she is pulling down my shirt), bye, uh oh, yum yum, mmm, more, yeah!, poo poo, probably more but that's all I can think of for the second
-claps at her own accomplishments
-very active and loves to always be getting into trouble by emptying out all the cupboards and drawers

Our New Home---well, almost

It is official. We are under contract! We are expected to close on Kaitlyn's 1st birthday! This is such an exciting time for us. I just hope all goes well during all the inspections and the rest of this process. This house hunting process has been very stressful for me. I just get so worked up over everything. Things are getting much better though. This house seems perfect for our family, and it helps me to feel much better. Steve and I have spent a lot of time praying and trying receive direction in buying a house. It seems the Lord has answered our prayers. Here are the specs on the house: 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms (master bath!), just over 2400 square feet, everything updated, a peach and apricot tree in the backyard, and the backyard neighbors are horses. When we went to the house to take a second look we brought Kaitlyn and she about died when she saw the horses. She was so excited. It was so cute to see her get so excited. I know that she will love being in a house. She will have more room to move around. Our place now is just so small for the 3 of us. It is amazing to think of everything that has happened in the last year of our lives. Last year to this exact day I was hoping and praying to deliver. I thought it would be so cool to have Kaitlyn on 08/08/08. That day came and passed, so I thought 8/18/08 would be cool, but that day passed too. By my due date I was working minimal hours and I was getting anxious about using all my PTO up and not having as much after I delivered. So, I set up my induction for exactly one week later not realizing it was 8/28/08. I was actually kind of excited that it was still a lot of 8s. I am not obsessed with 8s, it was just that I thought it looked cool to have them all there. When I had Kaitlyn, Steve and I had no plans to buy a house a year later. However, we have been able to pay off all our debts and the economy has made the housing market much more affordable. Last January we decided to really set our minds on preparing to buy a house, and now we are where we are at today! Our apartment has been perfect for us, but a baby has really made it cramped. I am excited to be able to do whatever I want to our house. I just hope and pray all goes well as we are under contract and no big issues come up that we aren't able to fix. Wish us luck!

Easter Sunday

For Easter we went over to my parents and did an Easter egg hunt and had dinner. Steve took Kaitlyn on the Easter egg hunt, but I am not sure you can say she was so excited for it. She did love picking up the eggs though. On Easter morning Kaitlyn woke up to her Easter basket which she absolutely loved. When she saw it, she hurried and scooted over to it. She got a bunny and two books. It was a beautiful day and definitely a fun Sunday with the fam. With all the Easter fun she missed her last nap of the day, so she wasn't quite the smiley girl for pictures as usual

Family Date Night, Cousins at the Park and Standing Up

This past week we have done a ton of fun things. On Saturday night we planned a family date night for the 3 of us. We took Kaitlyn swimming for the first time. At first she just kind of sat in our arms as we went around the pool. Then, she started kicking and splashing in the water. She absolutely loved it. After swimming we went out to eat and then got home in time for bedtime.

On Monday of this week we took Kaitlyn to the park. My brother is in town with his family, so we took their daughter Kyla to the park also. Kyla didn't love the swing too much if you went too high or fast, but Kaitlyn seemed to enjoy it. I think the park days will get more fun as they get older and can move around more on their own.

This morning Kaitlyn got up at her usual time around 8am. Sad not to talk her into sleeping in, Steve and I got up and played with her. She has been trying for about a week or so now to pull herself up, but has been unsuccessful. This morning she was able to do it twice! I can't believe that she is already pulling herself up. Now we just need to help her master crawling. She can't quite seem to get the coordination and so gets frustrated and goes back to scooting. YEAH FOR KAITLYN!

6 months

I can hardly believe it! Kaitlyn is already 6 months old. Time sure flies with a baby. We have grown a lot as a family these last 6 months. Kaitlyn has surely learned to love life! She definitely has her moms temperament though. On her birthday we played together and then she spent some time with her Nana and Papa while Steve and I went to the Jazz game.
Some of the things she has accomplished so far are:
-rolling like a maniac all over the place
-scooting
-gets up on all fours, but hasn't quite figured out the coordination of crawling yet
-babbles
-sleeps 12-13 hours at a time at night
-still sleeps in some days until 10-1030 in the morning
-an absolute cuddle bug just like her mom. She will sleep as long as you want her to as long as she can cuddle with you
-become the happiest baby ever!

I am sure there are other things, but I can't really think of any of them right now. She is an absolute joy and we are having a ton of fun. This week we will go to the pediatrician for her 6 month appointment. After that we will start feeding her some solids. Get ready for some fun pictures of that!

Kaitlyn's First Babysitter

Well, we did it. Steve and I finally broke down and hired a babysitter to come and watch our precious baby Kaitlyn. We have had family and a close friend watch her, but never anyone else. Definitely not a teenager. However, Kaitlyn is to the point where she doesn't sleep well at other peoples' houses and it ends up throwing her off schedule for a couple of days. By the time we have her back to her routine, it is the weekend again. None of our family was able to come over and watch her tonight, so I called a girl from the ward I grew up in to come and watch her. She is absolutely amazing. We were able to leave and go out and have a great time. When we came back Kaitlyn was in bed fast asleep. I don't think Kaitlyn had the greatest time because she was so tired, but from what I was told I think it went okay. I am glad I got the first time over with so that maybe next time it won't be so crazy. I am just so lucky that we know someone I can feel comfortable leaving her with. I don't really trust a young teenager with my little baby, so it is hard to find an older teenager that is willing to watch her.

PS No new photos of Kaitlyn. So, you are going to have to settle for an older one from when she was just a newbie

Valentine's Sweetheart

Don't need to say much about this picture, but I just thought she was so cute in her Valentine's Day dress. So cute!

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY MY LOVE!

I just wanted to publicly tell my hubby how much I love him. He is the most amazing husband ever. Here is a short list of just a few of the things that make me love him so much.

1. He is constantly trying to please me
2. He cuddles next to me and keeps me warm at night
3. He has the most beautiful, thick dark hair
4. He makes me dinner at least, if not more than, half the nights of the week
5. He makes me a lunch to take to work and gets all my stuff ready everyday that I have to go
6. He calls me each night when I am at work to say good night
7. He is funny
8. He brought my daughter out to my work one night a week for the first 2 months of me being back to work so that I could feed her
9. He is taking me to a chick flick on Valentine's Day and to a really yummy restaurant
10. Stays up late just to hang out with me when he has to get up early in the morning
11. He is willing to get up when Kaitlyn wakes up in the morning so that I can sleep in
12. He is the most fun and best dad for our daughter
13. He listens to my music
14. He let me get a kitty even though he didn't originally want one
15. He is a family guy
16. He looks very sexy in his jeans
17. He gives the best hugs that make me feel better when I am sad
18. He can really listen and help me reason out when I am having a dilemna and being irrational
19. Watches Mama Mia with me
20. He loves playing games

Well, I could keep going, but I won't bore you all. Believe me, he is the best husband ever!

I LOVE YOU!

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!

Going Private

I am finally going to make our blog private. So, if you would like to continue to read it please let me know. I would love for everyone to be able to see it, so don't be shy. Just comment with your email address and I will add you and erase your email right away so it is just not floating out there. Thanks!

6 Things That Make Me Happy

Link to the person who has tagged you. Write down six things that make you happy. Post the rules, tag six others and let them know you did it. Then tell the person when your entry is complete

1. Going out on dates with my husband
2. Having a clean house
3. Playing with Kaitlyn and watching her get so excited to see me and smile and laugh and all the other fun things she does. Pretty much everything about her makes me happy. (Including the poopy diapers!)
4.Waking up after a good night sleep
5. Vacations, especially ones with a beach involved
6. The feeling of getting off work and knowing I don't have to come back for a couple of days.

I tag:
Emily
Aubree
Char
Shayla
Tiffany
Holly

I Passed Yahoooooooo.

Well today I just found out that I passed my Praxis exam, which is the teaching test I have to take to become a teacher.  This is a huge relief because this now gets me one step closer to getting this teaching internship for my last year of college.  If I get this internship I will be placed into a school and have my own classroom to teach for the entire year.  I will also receive half salary pay and full medical benefits.  This would be an amazing opportunity for me and it would help Melanie and I with our dream of buying a house.  I won't know until the end of March if I get the internship, but passing this exam was the biggest step I had to take to be accepted.

Hokey Pokey

So I just discovered that Kaitlyn loves to do the Hokey Pokey dance. Watch this video and you will know what I mean. She does the dance Perfectly. I never knew she had such great dance moves.

Kaitlyn Scooting

So the past couple of nights i have been laying Kaitlyn down on a blanket in our front room so she can play. Well now days she is rolling oround like crazy and just starting to scoot. Well before I knew it she had rolled on to her stomach and scooted underneath the coffee table. I was surprised and very excited. I can't beleive how fast she is growing. Here is a picture of her underneath the table.

Utah Jazz BBQ

Tonight was a really fun night. We all went to the Jazz BBQ with my sister Judy and her family. There was good food and fun entertainment. The main thing we went for was the autograph signing. I really wanted Deron Williams so I was waiting for them to say which portal he was going to be at and when I heard I booked it to that portal. I ran so fast that I was the first person to be at the table to get his autograph. It was a lot of fun to see him and a lot of the other players so upclose. We also had a lot of fun getting Kaitlyns Jazz shirt signed by a lot of players (thanks Cody for the shirt). We were able to get a lot of players signatures. We got Williams, Sloan, Okur, Miles, Millsap, Almond, Harpring, Koufos, and Korver. My nephew Jaxon was really cute he was so excited to get a picture with the Jazz bear and also we were able to go down on the court to shoot hoops.

Happy 5 months!

Our sweet angel is 5 months old today. I absolutely can't believe it has been five months since she was born. Oh how our lives has changed so much since this blessed day. Some of the newest things she is doing are:
*rolling from tummy to back and then back to her tummy again
*starting to sit all on her own starting today
*sleeping 8-12 hours at night without having to eat (most nights)
*starting to scoot---she is working really hard on this one and gets frustrated when she can't move very far
Steve and I are loving every day with Kaitlyn. She is so smiley that it makes us both crack up.
WE LOVE YOU KAITLYN!

Utah Football Parade

So last Friday Melanie, Kaitlyn, Holly, and me all went to the parade for the Utes. It was a lot of fun to watch and cheer our undefeated team walk down State Street. This season was the best ever. I missed the first season the Utes went undefeated in 2004 because I was on my mission. So, I was so excited to see them do it this year. Kaitlyn loved the the parade even though it was so noisy. She was smiling and laughing when the band walked past us. It's nice to see that we are raising her to cheer for the right team. GO UTES!

The Goatee War

For those of you that know this rivalry between Steve and his family will love this video. It is pretty funny. I randomly decided to record it and then by the end I decided I just had to post it. Love ya Steve and Holly!

PS Neither of them knew I was recording this!!

Starting Another Semester

Well today I start another semester at the U. I have been there a year now and have accomplished a lot. I only have 3 more semesters to go before I graduate. I can't wait to be done so Melanie and I can start a new chapter in our lives and not be in school. I am really greatful to Melanie because she has supported and pushed me to this point in my academics. I know I would not be where I am without her. I have a good schedule this semester I only got to school Wed, Thur, and Fri. It will be very nice because it will give me some time to do some substitute teaching and spend more time with Melanie and Kaitlyn. Anyways that is what is going on now hope everyone is doing well.

Happy New Year 2009!

Well, it is 2009 and it is sad to say that my baby was born last year. I know she is only 4 months, but it was still last year. I know she is only going to keep getting older. She is getting to be so much fun. She pretty much just smiles and laughs all day. That is unless we put her in the car. She hates the car more than anything else. I am excited for all the fun this year will bring. Our first Christmas with Kaitlyn was awesome. We put on our Christmas jammies the night before and went to bed. We actually had to set an alarm to wake up in the morning so we could make the rounds to the different houses. I will probably only get a few more years of having to do that. For New Years, Steve and I hung out with our friends Laura, Andrew and BreAnna. It was a ton of fun to get together and play games with friends. We don't do this as often as we would like anymore.

As I look back on this year, I think how amazing it has been. Steve and I have spent an amazing 2 1/2 years together. We have traveled together and been through a lot of different things together. In August we welcomed our beautiful baby Kaitlyn to this world. She has been a wonderful blessing to us. Steve and I look at her everyday wondering how we got blessed with such a beautiful baby. She turned from a very fussy baby to the happiest baby in the world (minus yesterday because she got her shots). Steve and I are still learning how to be parents and husband and wife all at the same time, but I think we are getting there. We try to spend as much time just playing with Kaitlyn as we can. I don't want to look back feeling like I missed out on a phase of her life.

This next year Steve and I are excited to travel a little bit more. We are definitely planning on camping. We have learned that we have to make these reservations plenty far ahead so that we get a spot. We also plan on traveling to Minnesota for our nephew's baptism. Our biggest plans are to have fun with baby Kaitlyn. This should be a pretty easy thing to do though.

Aside from the New Years stuff, can I just tell you how excited I am about the Utah game? That was seriously the most awesome game ever. I hope this shuts the nation up about how you can only be a good team if you are in the BCS. This is the second time in the last 4 years Utah has been able to do this! Go Utes 13-0!