5 months!

I can't believe how big this girl is getting!

• She loves to suck the water off her hands in the bathtub.
• She has started growling all. the. time. It's kind of creepy, honestly.
• She is really good at rolling from her back to her tummy, but is only good at rolling from her tummy to back in her sleep (she can do it when she's awake - it just takes her longer)
• She has, just this week, started pulling herself into a crawling position - onto her hands and knees (I've nearly cried every time).
• She laughs! We love hearing it every time.
• She eats rice cereal like a champ. She loves the stuff and as long as she's hungry and there aren't too many distractions, she'll eat pretty quickly. :)
• She likes going on walks and will lean over so she can see more of what's going on (drives her daddy crazy because it makes her much harder to hold).
• Her hair that she has lost over the last couple of months is starting to come back in. Also, she has a couple of REALLY long hairs. It's hilarious when they stick out.
• And she's got us wrapped around her little finger!

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Thanks for always playing with me and making me laugh!

I love you!

Love,

Karly

P.S. Mom says she loves you too, but you already know that. :)

The greatest sound in the world.

Man, I love that girl.

I know it's for the best, but....

This post is an attempt to distract myself from the noise of my sweet baby crying in her crib.

I swear she keeps crying the word "Mama."

In case you didn't know this about me, I majored in Home and Family Living in college. The major occasionally referred to as "How to be a mommy." In more than one class, but definitely in my parenting class, we talked about how kids need to learn to put themselves to sleep. At Karly's last Dr. appt, her doctor said that 95% of all 4 month olds sleep 6-8 hours at night. Apparently, my daughter was in that 5%, because she wasn't. I was happy if we got 6 in a row every couple of weeks.

So Doc said that - and I quote - "if you're heart can handle it" - we should try teaching her how to put herself to sleep. We tried a couple of times, but sort of gave up because we hated hearing her cry.

I'm sure most of you know the drill, but for those who haven't reached this point or aren't parents, here's how it goes:

1. Make sure baby has a good nighttime routine, so they know that when you do certain things (bath, jammies, read a book, etc.) it's getting close to bed time.

2. Put them in their bed. Sometimes it's good for them to have something consistent like a blanket or stuffed animal, also to remind them its bedtime.

3. Leave her in her bed, no matter how much or how hard she cries. Don't pick her up.

4. Go in occasionally (less and less often) to make sure she is okay (she hasn't pulled a blanket on her face or gotten stuck in the bars or something) AND to soothe her and let her know you're still there, even though you're not going to hold her.

5. Keep doing that until she has figured out to fall asleep on her own.

Apparently, it only takes a couple of nights.

Let me tell you - the first night is the worst.

The second isn't much better. (you have just figured out to distract yourself at this point)

In the time I have written this post (less than 20 minutes), she has pretty much fallen asleep. The first night she cried for 1 1/2 hours. Tonight, it's only been 30 minutes so far and she's not crying (though I'm not sure she's asleep).

I do have a question for anyone who might know: is a binky (soother, nuk, whatever you call it) cheating? Like when I go in to calm her down, is it cheating to give her that binky because then that's putting her to sleep instead? Because often, as soon as it falls out, she starts crying again.

Also, she tends to wake up in the middle of the night - around 3 or 4. I usually just get up and either feed her or put her binky back in. Am I supposed to let her cry then too, or just when I put her down for the night? I can't remember if this is stuff we talked about in class and I wasn't paying attention.

Any thoughts?

(And thanks those of you who commented on my Facebook comment yesterday - you gave me strength to do it again today!)

Did anyone else see this?

http://tvwatch.people.com/

I actually liked him at first, but he got old fast. I'm not sure I can watch an entire season of him...

But I probably will.

Dear Grandma:

Thanks for my cute bunny.

It's just my size.

And thanks for my cute pants. They look way better than mom's green sweatpants.

Love, Karly

4 Months!

I finally managed to take some 4 month pictures of Karly (okay, so they're technically 4 1/2 months). Luckily, she didn't poop all over her cute outfit today.

Here's her monkey comparison picture. They're almost the same size! :)

I love how aware she has become of everything around her.

And how strong! "Get that monkey out of my face!" (Nacho Libre anyone?)

Gotta love the drool down the chin. Did I already mention she is so stinkin' cute?!?

She loves being naked and thinks it's hilarious when we say "you're naked!"

Karly loves chillin' with dad and watching TV (usually football)...

Sometimes in the most awkward positions... (oh, and she LOVES playing with her binky. NEVER does it just sit in her mouth. She's always pulling it out and playing with it and putting it back in.)

Also, just like her mommy, she likes to take her sweet time waking up in the morning

But like her daddy, once she's awake, she's happy! :)

And last of all, this video demonstrates two of her current loves: her Exersaucer toy and screaming...(yeah, that's mom's favorite to0...sigh)

"Rise and Shout - the Cougars are out!"

We got all sports passes this year and have been enjoying (and sometimes NOT enjoying...cough - FSU - cough) the football games! These last two games were really hot for the first half but PERFECT in the 2nd half.

Here are some pics to show just how much fun we're having! :)

(May I just say how much I love this picture?)

We got tickets with our friends Jake and Mekelle (and their baby Bridget) as well as Kim, Trav and Rachel.

She really is a happy baby. :)

See?

Well, at least one of us is happy to be taking pictures...

This picture is for the sole purpose of making my in-laws extremely jealous that Darin got to hold Karly bug. In the words of Nate - "oh, how the tables have turned!" :) (Dan and Kippy were giving Darin a hard time that they got to hold Bridget, so he had to rub it in when he was here).

Tour of apartment for mom

My mom asked to see pictures of our new apartment once we were in and settled. It still isn't as clean/organized as I'd like, but I'm not sure there is anything else I can do about it right now.

Also, since I had a couple of requests for the story of WHY we moved, I'll share a little of that too. Skip the next paragraph if you already know or don't care. :)

If you didn't already know, we were renting our last apartment from Nate's great-grandma. She gave us a terrific deal for rent if we would act as managers - mow the lawn, take care of any issues with the other apartments in the triplex. We were so grateful to be able to live there for pretty cheap. Once we had Karly though, there were a few things that started to be worrisome. For example, the windows are about 30 years old and let a lot of cold air in during the winter. It was fine when it was just Nate and I and we were at work all day and could just turn on a space heater at night. However, with Karly in the picture now, we didn't want either an outrageous heating bill or a freezing baby. :) Another reason was that the neighborhood wasn't all that safe OR quiet. It was on a pretty busy (and noisy road) and we had a lot of really noisy neighbors. Nate also wanted to be closer to campus and since he is so busy with school, he really didn't have time to manage the apartments anymore and it was getting more and more crazy to do so. So we decided to move! We really love where we are now. It's very quiet and while the apartment is much smaller, we think that's a plus not a minus! Less space to clean and it forced us to get rid of the junk we don't need. We like our new ward, but definitely miss our old ward and all our friends there!

ANYWAY...here's the tour mom!

Walk in the front door and turn to the left and the living room

It's a good sized area and we really like it

Dining room which is basically just part of

the kitchen! (fridge is across from the stove in an alcove)

down the hallway to the right is...

the bathroom (LOVE our shower curtain :D) And to the left is...

Our bedroom

We put curtains over the closet because there aren't doors. Straight down the hall and next to our room is...

Karly's room!

Also known as "the where everything that doesn't have a place goes here room!"

So there you have it!

She's a petite little one!

Karly had a rough day today.

1. Mommy got baby wash in her eyes during her bath.

2. Mommy bent her hand funny while trying to feed her.

3. She exploded her diaper and it dripped down her pants onto her super cute outfit mommy put her in to take pictures.

4. She wiggled so much in the bathtub (yes, the 2nd bath) that she slipped from mommy's hand a little and bonked her head.

5. She's teething.

6. She went to the doctor for her 4 month checkup and got prodded and poked and REALLY didn't like it.

7. At said doctor's visit, she got two shots.

So this is the only picture you get of her:

And her stats (for those who care):

Height: 24.4 inches -- 49%

Weight: 13 lb 6 oz -- 39%

Head: 16 in -- 49%

Her head finally caught up to her body! And she's no longer super tall - that's more like her parents.

And hopefully tomorrow is better.

(I'm really not a bad mommy - the day was probably worse for me than her because of all those things. Please don't call child protective services...)

Daddy's little nerd!

3 Months! ... a month ago...

I took pictures of Karly when she was 3 months and never had/took the time to post them. So here they are! I will be taking her 4 month pictures in the next couple of days.

She won't be wearing the strawberry outfit for her 4 month pictures...it doesn't fit anymore!

She has her 4 month check up next Tuesday, so we'll find out how much she's grown too!

Yeah...still working on sitting up on her own....

"Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans...."

*Ten points if you can tell me what song that is from....

I've been meaning to post for weeks, but the last couple of weeks have been a little crazy to say the least. In fact, I'm not even sure if all of my siblings know what's happened.

That's how crazy it's been.

You see, we moved.

Nate has 8 more months of school before we'll be leaving the Provo/Orem area for Denver. Why on earth did we move for 8 months? Yeah, we've wondered that a couple of times as we packed up everything and unpacked it again, realizing we'd be doing this again all too soon. (My mom requested pics of the new place, but it's still too messy for that! I'll post those when I get it cleaned up a little more) There were, honestly, a lot of reasons and if you want to hear them all, give me a call or shoot me an e-mail or something. This blog is for better things than long stories!

Like this girl:

She is a silly, sweet, even tempered, crazy girl! It's fun to see her little personality - like the fact that she won't smile at people right when she meets them. She'll just sort of look at them, study them and then if she thinks they're okay, then she'll smile. Or when she gets tired at night - around 8:00 - she gets really silly and will laugh at the weirdest things (like me saying "you're naked!" in a really high pitched voice). Or (her latest) talking in her sleep! (she is like her mama in some ways I guess!)

She's started rolling a little bit as well, though she doesn't do it consistently because her arm gets in the way of the roll and she can't figure out how to move it. :)

She actually seems to like rolling from her back to her tummy more.

She is VERY good with her hands too. For a couple of months, she's been able to reach for her little toys that hang above her and pull them to her mouth. Now she can grab her binky from my hand or the ground in front of her and put it in her mouth (sometimes it's the wrong side, but it's still there!).

Her head is getting bigger too. :) She's actually grown out of some of her clothes, which is SO weird! She can't be getting bigger!

Dream Job

You know how sometimes when you start a new job or are really busy/stressed with work you dream about it?

Well.

Last night I had a dream that I was trying to load the dishes from yesterday into the dishwasher, but they wouldn't all fit because it was already almost full. I was getting really frustrated because it had almost NO dishes in it when I went to bed. How did all those dishes get dirty! I was really frustrated.

The night before, I had a dream that we had basically no food in our house. I went grocery shopping last Saturday and had meals planned for every night and enough food for lunches as well. Where did all our food go?!!? Once again, I got really frustrated.

Ah, the life of a stay-at-home mom.

But, as the title of my post says, this really is my dream job.

That's why I dream about it.

Just TRY not to watch these more than once

This girl is so funny.

Karly has started give kisses. Now, these aren't your cute little pecks on the cheek. These are...well...see for yourself.

She also does this thing that we're not quite sure what to call it. We think maybe it's her way of laughing? (second 10 in the video clip) We're open to any other suggestions.

P.S. We e-mailed these videos to my in-laws and I think they've already watched them about 100 times. Right Dan and Kippy? :)

Guess who went to Floridaaa?!

Hah. I wish.

Nate has been gone since Wednesday for an Ernst and Young Conference in Orlando. They went to Disneyworld and have been mostly playing for three days.

I'll be honest, I'm a little jealous.

But it's fine, because I got my vacation last week! Karly and I drove - yes, DROVE - to North Dakota last week to spend a few days. We drove to Denver last Sunday, then rode with Kippy (Nate's mom) to Bismarck on Monday. It ended up being about 20 hours of driving. And Karly did GREAT! Clear up until we hit Mandan (which is 10 minutes from Bismarck), Karly didn't even complain. Then, I accidentally scratched her and she realized she couldn't handle it anymore. :) She didn't do quite as well on the way back, but let's see how you handle being in a car seat for 40 hours in one week!

Anyway, being the amazing picture taker I am, here are ALL the pictures I took while we were there....

Uhh...yeah. That's all I took.

I think my mom took a few. And she got a couple of cute videos too...I'll have to get those from her.

Anyway, I feel bad about the lack of pictures now because Karly had SUCH a good time with her Aunties Mel and Suzie and her Grandpa and Grandma!

We went to the play "Into the Woods." Mel was in the pit orchestra for it, so we thought we'd go check it out.

I'll be honest. I thought it was really weird. It had moments that I enjoyed, but overall...weird. Also, it was acted by high school students and they tend to overact...but it was fun! :)

Other than that, we were pretty dang lazy, but it was really fun to be home. Thanks mom and dad for letting us burst in on you last minute!

(By the way, I'd like all of you who think mom can't keep a secret, she found out we were coming about 4 days before and didn't tell dad, Mel or Suzie. So there! She can keep a secret! :D )

Anyway, since Nate's been gone Karly and I have just been chillin' together. I've been trying to get some things organized around the house and get some projects finished I've been working on. I haven't had much luck though, because look how CUTE she is!

I keep trying to get a video of her talking to her little bug and this is the best I've gotten so far. When she's in a good mood, she will just talk and talk to whatever/whoever will listen! We're thinking she's going to be an early talker and that she's going to be a chatterbox like her dad! :)

Also, she's getting so close to rolling over!

She sorta got stuck. She got her arms over but couldn't get her legs over. So, being the great mother I am, I grabbed the camera and laughed (until she got mad, of course). :D

Oh, and remember when I was pregnant and I said I either had a boxer or a soccer player inside of me?

I think she's a boxer.

Look at that hair!