Trip to Utah: Part Two

After a few days at my parent's house, we drove south to Moab, UT to visit Arches National Park. Christine had lots of "firsts" first time camping, first time hiking, first time being in the car for 5 hours straight.

Christine LOVED camping. I was a little worried about how she would do, but she loves being outside so of course she would like being outside all day long!

As for hiking, it was a HUGE hit with Christine. We borrowed my sister's baby backpack and Jeff carried Christine around in it. Wearing hats on the other hand was not as successful. Christine is very good at taking her hats off and would toss them on the ground. Not good when you are outside all day!

That's Jeff on top of the arch!

This is my sister and her husband Tyler. We had a photo contest during the vacation and Tyler won. We were so glad that they came to Arches with us. Ashley and Tyler might not feel the same way since they got stuck riding in the car with us as we drove home. Christine got bored of being in her car seat and fussed for the last 2 hours of the ride... it was pretty miserable. Ashley and Tyler got to hear our entire repertoire of songs as we tried to keep Christine happy.

We had fun hiking everywhere, seeing all the arches

This is the famous Double Arch (the double arch is actually to the left and not in the picture) used in Indian Jones and the Last Crusade.

"Balanced Rock"

I highly recommend going to visit Arches, but don't go in the summer time, it was SO HOT! I think it would be more enjoyable in the spring or fall.

Trip to Utah: Part One

This year Jeff got two weeks off for his summer break. We were sad that it was only two weeks and not a whole month like last year. Two weeks isn't very long. The time flew by. The first two days of the break we stayed at home and watched Ugly Betty on Netflix, installed child locks on the bathroom cupboards, played with Christine, and started playing with our new camcorder (hopefully I will find time to upload some videos soon). We did venture out of the house to get a hair cut (I have needed one for a while!) and do some shopping (It is much easier to try on clothes when Jeff can hold Christine). Then we packed our bags and headed to Utah!

We haven't seen my family since Christmas (excluding my sisters who came to visit me just a month ago). We had a fun time seeing everyone again. I loved watching Christine play with her cousins. Zachary and Brian treated Christine like a princess, and Trevor (who is closest to Christine's age) adored her.

We celebrated Brian's fourth birthday at a delicious BBQ at my sister's. Jeff and I thought we we would show everyone that we were the cool Aunt and Uncle with our knowledge of what the cool toys were and got him some Toy Story 3 stuff, only to learn that Cars is the popular movie right now!! Uncle Tyler and Auntie Ashley beat us again!

We should have known that Cars was cooler than Toy Story! I mean look at the cake!

One of the nicest parts of being in Utah was the weather. We were able to go for a walk in the middle of the day! Here in Houston, we don't venture outdoors unless it is to go swimming.

On our walk Jeff was playing a game with Brian and Zachary trying to find different bugs. We found potato bugs, dragon flies, ants, and worms. Then Brian grabs something he found interesting, holding it up: "Look it's a rock!" Little kids crack me up.

We also got to see my sister Ashley's new house. Her house is so cute, and makes me very jealous. In my head I kept calculating out the length of medical school and residency wondering when it will be our turn to buy a house.... hmmm probably shouldn't go there, Jeff may be in school forever.

The Beauty Contest

Christine and her cousin Emmy were born just a couple of weeks apart. This was their first meeting.

While we were in Kingwood, there was a beauty pageant to determine which cousin is the cutest. Here the dads are helping their children perform their various talents. Emmy is attempting to removing a purple Binkey from her father's mouth. Christine is attempting to shove an entire metal wrist watch in her mouth.

Here the dads are showing of their baby's natural beauty. While Emmy has more hair. Christine is demonstrating her superior mouth volume by bulging her cheeks out. Very attractive!

Here they are having their crawl-off. The runway was booby trapped with toys. Unfortunately Christine succumbed to distraction, and Emmy won.

The competition really got heated during the photos, when Emmy started doing pranks during pictures. This is a variation of the classic moose ears, where you just push out the other person's ears so they look enormous.

Don't worry Christine got her back. While Emmy was distracted, Christine stole all of Emmy's Cherrios.

That's my girl.

9 Months Old

Christine will be 10 months old in three days, but don't worry these pictures were taken when she was barely 9 months old.

Every month I try to take pictures of Christine on our bed. This task is getting more difficult now that she is so mobile.

I had to resort to bribing with "star snacks" (Gerber puffs).

At Christine's 9 month appointment she weighed 16 pounds, 12 ounces and measured 28 inches long. She is in the 60th percentile for height and 10th percentile for weight. The doctor was slightly concerned with her weight but it was the first week we began switching to formula. Now that she drinks formula she isn't limited to mom's supply and eats much more, so hopefully she'll stay in a healthy weight rage (I'm not worried).

Christine's favorite activity is playing with my make-up. Her old toys are "baby toys" and distract her for about 3 seconds, whereas mommy's makeup can distract her for at least 30 minutes. Her favorite item is my eye liner. She figured out how to pull the lid off the pencil in about 2 minutes. Once she learned how to get the lid off the eye liner she figured out how to pull the lids off of pens. She is so smart, I have to keep my eye on her!

She pulls herself to standing on anything she can reach and cruises around the furniture. She crawls everywhere and likes to haul her toys with her around the house. Every night I have to pick up so many toys/tupperware/plasticware/makeup (whatever is in Christine's grasp) that are scattered all around the house.
She still loves her books. We keep her books on the bottom two shelves of her bookshelf, and she LOVES to pull them all out. Every day I have to pick up all of her books off the floor and put them back. Her favorite books right now are the Green Eggs and Ham flap book, Going on a Bear Hunt, and Sheep in a Jeep.

We've introduced lots of new foods in the last month: real peas, shredded chicken, and Cheerios. Cheerios are definitely the all-time favorite (and great for when we are on-the-go).

Just look at that face! Her smiles make all the clean-up time worth it! (For the record, Jeff was the one feeding her, not me)

Happy Birthday Jeff!

Poor Jeff. This was probably the lamest birthday he's ever had. I had mastitis starting the week before his birthday. Of course I was planning to do all my shopping for Jeff that week (I have learned my lesson, shop well in advance for birthdays). So there were hardly any presents, and I didn't have any energy so we had a very small celebration, no fancy birthday breakfast or elaborate dinner or even a birthday cake. This was truly a test of how much Jeff loves me.

If you were wondering about the white poms and raindrops, they are decorations for a baby shower I threw just a few days after Jeff's birthday.

I had to use bags I already had on hand to wrap his presents, so that meant pink girly ones. Notice the large white bag, inside the present is wrapped in one of Christine's blankets!

Christine loved all the wrapping paper. We had to put her in her jumper to keep her from eating all the tissue paper.

I did make up for the lame birthday by doing daily surprises the week after his birthday. Every day when I picked him up from school there would be a present on his seat.

We celebrated again in Kingwood with pie and Jeff finally got to blow out some candles!