Baby skills!

Paul has been busy learning about the world around him. Ever since that day he discovered he has hands - September 16th to be exact - he has been mastering the art of touching, rubbing, scratching, and whacking all the different textures around him. Below is a picture of him scratching the chair pillow.




Paul's becoming much more aware of his surroundings. He has a love/hate relationship with Mr. Green elephant. He's always straining his neck to get a good look at him. Sometimes it scares him and he whimpers. I'll physically turn Paul's head away from the elephant, but he just turns it right back. Mr. Blue elephant doesn't get any attention. It's just that sneaky Mr. Green he has to keep an eye on. You never know what that creepy creature might do when your back is turned... (Please ignore Paul's spit-up stained, out-of-season shirt. It's is a lounging outfit.)


Paul has been learning the skill of listening to bedtime stories. He was pretty fascinated by the colorful pages!


He's mastered the skill of letting mommy bundle him up for our cold morning walks.


He is now mature enough to take a bath without a fuss. In fact, he actually kind of enjoys baths now. What three-month-old wouldn't love splashing water with their legs?




And I saved the best for last. My very favorite thing Paul has learned to do is to laugh! He started laughing at about 2.5 months. Here's a video of some mild laughter - he's become much more fluent in giggles and guffaws since this video was taken. I'll have to capture some good ones for you.

Stay tuned!

Trip to General Conference

We drove for twelve hours straight to Utah with a three-month-old baby! Okay, Blair drove for twelve hours straight, while I entertained the three-month-old baby.

It was amazingly wonderful to actually leave early in the morning! We were able to leave at 5:00am on Thursday and arrived in Salt Lake City at about 6:00pm Utah time. (As a kid, leaving for Utah before noon was as unlikely in my family as going an entire day without laughing. It was impossible!) And Paul was a great little traveler. Yeah, he got a little fussy and would start to complain about being in the same seat forever, but a large majority of the time he was either sleeping, eating, laughing and babbling, or studying his fists contentedly. Before we knew it, we were being given a tour of Reana's three-bedroom apartment in Salt Lake City, and were given the empty room to sprawl all our clothes and baby gear for the weekend. It was great!

The next two days were filled with yummy food, touring Temple Square, playing the game Scottland Yard with Railee, and watching the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

On Sunday morning, Reana's boyfriend, Sean, gave Reana, Blair and I a ride to General Conference. Yes, we went to the conference center to actually see and hear the Prophet speak! We weren't that special, though, - there were so many people there. But that's kind of what made it a neat experience too. I don't know if I've ever been with that many LDS families in the same place before. The talks were wonderful and the Spirit was so strong. It was definitely an experience I'll remember forever. I have to admit, though, I was constantly thinking about Paul and my phone was anxiously perched on my lap through the entire session.

Railee sweetly volunteered to babysit Paul while we were gone. I told him to be extra cute so she would be willing to babysit in the future. Railee said he was good, but who knows what he was really like for her? Railee did say that when President Monson was speaking, Paul was staring, open-mouthed at the screen and nodding his head. I hope he'll always be that interested in the Prophet's words!

We stopped by my uncle Matt and aunt Nicia's house that afternoon and had a fun time chatting with them as well as my cousins Kelsey and Sophie. When we got back to Reana's place, she had a delicious Indian meal all prepared and we feasted on spiced couscous and chicken! Yum!

The plan was to go to bed extra early that night for our all-day Monday drive. At the last minute, though, we decided to leave right then and drive through the night! I left the decision mostly up to Blair since he would be doing most, if not all, of the driving.

Paul and I slept most of the way home, but Blair said it was a really long night as he fought the urge to sleep. I tried a couple of times to take the wheel, but I never lasted very long. I think it's safe to say it was a miracle we made it home safely!

It was a good trip. I even got a free haircut out of the experience! (Thanks Reana!)

Clever me!

I'm proud of my creative cleverness.

Now that we're a real family, with a dad, a mom, and a baby, I really wanted to own a framed copy of the The Family - A Proclamation To The World.  That's not a problem for someone living right next to Deseret Book. (It's literally a block from our front door.) So I walked over there one day to buy one. I was too cheap to pay for the framed version, so I bought the naked paper version and we ordered a frame for it from Amazon. That's not the clever part yet.

We waited and waited for that frame to arrive, and when it finally did, we were disappointed to discover the frame was about 2 inches too wide all the way around! We thought of returning it for a smaller frame, but I was too impatient and decided to surround the border of the paper with pictures of our family.

I meant to print the pictures in sepia, but oh well. Black and white works too. I think it turned out rather nicely, don't you?

Two years!

I was supposed to post this yesterday, but oh well.

I've been married to my best friend for two years! That's as long as a young man's full-time mission. And let me tell you, I have the best companion ever! So here are some pictures to commemorate the occasion.

This was taken at an air show in August 2008. We had been dating for about three months.


Almost a year later, this happened:


About a year after that...


And this year!


It just gets better and better every year!

Paul's first crush.

I love hearing Paul's senseless babbling. It makes me feel so loved to see him focus his eyes on my face, then watch him break into big, smiley gurgles of happy noises. That must be how babies express their "love", right? Well, if that's the case, I'm starting to feel a little cheated.

Meet Aveeno. He's a bottle of lotion that sits on our bathroom counter (i.e. Paul's changing table). I started to get suspicious when Paul wasn't babbling to Blair and I quite as much as he used to. Then I started to really pay attention to Paul's eyes during diaper changes and I began to notice a pattern. Whenever he looked at Aveeno, he became extremely happy and started talking and talking. I was thinking that he has seen it so many times, it must be just as familiar to him as mommy and daddy's faces. 

We've even tested this theory. While I was changing his diaper at my parents' house, Blair found an identical Aveeno bottle and placed it on the counter next to Paul's head. Immediately, Paul went from being kind of fussy, to super happy and he let out an excited gurgle as if to say, "Oh, there you are! I've missed you!"

Yes, it's sad that I find myself feeling a little jealous of Aveeno, but it isn't all bad. In fact, Aveeno was the first object Paul felt motivated enough to reach out and touch with his hand. That led to his feeling the basket right next to it with his chubby little fingers. So I guess I have Aveeno to thank for Paul's new discovery: his hands.

If you've never heard Paul "talk", here's a little video of him babbling... until I ask him a question that renders him speechless. Maybe that's why he prefers talking to Aveeno. Aveeno is a an excellent listener and doesn't judge him at all. 

Spontaneous Summer Fun

It's labor day morning and we've just gotten out of bed.

Blair: "Let's go to the beach!"
Me: "Uh... okay!"
Blair: "Does Paul need to eat?"
Me: "I just fed him"
Blair: "Then let's go!"

These pictures were taken about two hours later. See! who said you can't be spontaneous with a small baby? Well, our baby isn't so small. (See Fat Baby) Maybe that has something to do with it...?

We went to Ecola State Park just North of Cannon beach. There's a special little trail you have to hike to get to a more private beach than the ones surrounding it. The weather was beautiful, as I'm sure all of you know, since 3/4ths of all Oregonians were at the beach on Labor day. But not on our special private beach!

Now those are some hansom faces!


I think he liked the little fifteen minute hike, which is good, 'cause we'd love to take him real hiking some time!


Proof that all three of us were at the beach together. (That round peach fuzz is Paul.)


Blair was brave and asked a stranger to take our picture. (I never do that.)


I found a whole sand dollar! A whole one!


But then I found a cleaner broken one and it made my sand dollar look dirty and not that special. I left them together like that on the beach.


We also ate at the Wayfarer, which has the most delicious food you'll find on the beach. (Moe's has nothing on this restaurant, trust me.)
 
Then we walked along the shops downtown in Cannon. (That's when we discovered 3/4ths of Oregon had the same idea as us.) The only place we actually stopped was a Chocolate shop. We munched on some melt-in-your-mouth, gourmet chocolate treats on the drive back home. The next time you're at Cannon, go to the Chocolate Cafe. Just do it.

 

These next two were random summer pictures that I wanted to share, but didn't want to make a separate blog post for.


One of my favorite things to eat in the summer is fresh fruit. One of my favorite things to eat all year round are cookies. Especially if they're giant enough to cut like a pizza! Put them together and you get the most delicious summer dessert of all time! Fruit pizza! Yes, I made that all by myself. Thank you, thank you.

Fat baby

When I think of large babies I think of the huge, curly-haired, one-toothed baby I once babysat. She was screaming and arching her back the entire time. Her red face was a mystery of shiny mucous, with a wide mouth, eyelashes glued in lumps and body ridged. The only way I could console her was by holding her a very particular way and bouncing her in a clockwise circle. (Reversing the circle, or even slowing the rhythm would start the screaming again.) My poor arms endured that  for almost an hour until she fell asleep, leaving me feeling permanently lopsided and sore. I vowed then and there that I would never have big babies. (Like I had a choice.)

Fast forward about ten years and I give birth to my eight pounds, one ounce baby boy. I think to myself,  wonderful! that's a healthy size without being considered "large". Fast forward another two months and that little baby has ballooned to sixteen pounds! He's in the ninety-ninth percentile for his weight! People don't believe me when I tell them he's only two months old. The pediatrician had told us you cannot over feed your baby with breast milk. Really? Okay! I guess we're going with it!


Now you may be wondering how I've been taking all this, knowing my original feelings about fat babies. I'll tell you. I love it! He only gets cuter with each added roll and dimple! Obviously, he's my baby and he's a happy baby, so I think that helps. However, he's also way cuter, for sure. :)









The other great part? The extra weight doesn't stop him from flying around our apartment on a regular basis. See for yourself.