It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Thanksgiving is sorta a bust at our house, so we have started the tradition of putting up our Christmas stuff that night.

Kit was having a great time unloading the stuff.

Kit really liked the Reindeer.

Kit's It

Here's the tag:

What is the cutest thing you did yesterday? Scrunched her face up and pointed at Brent telling him "no."

What is the nicest thing you did for your mom/dad/spouse/sibling this week? Went to bed at 9pm, and slept the whole night.

What was your favorite thing you did in the last month? Jumpa! Jumpa! Jumpa!

What was your greatest accomplishment in the las year? What isn't?

What is your favorite toy? Patches the dalmation from WDW.

What is your favorite animal? Dogs, but she "meow"s at everything now.

When do you like to go to bed? When mom & Dad do.

When are you supposed to go to bed? Between 9 & 10

What is your favorite movie? Don't watch movies.

What kind of music do you like to dance to? Something with a good beat.

What is your favorite song? Don't have one yet.

When do you like to sing? She's not much on singing, but she sure talks a lot.

If left to your own devices, what is your favorite thing to do? Grab a blanket and curl in mom or dad's lap and snuggle.

What is one thing you love to do that drives a cohabitator crazy? Still puts everything in her mouth.

If you could wear any clothing/outfit in the world, what would you wear? Nothing! it's Naked time!!!

What do you most want to do when you visit Mamie and Grandpa for Christmas? To PAR-TAY!!!!

Boing!

Kit loves to jump. She just can't get off the ground. She gets as far as one foot off the ground, but that's it. We have a flat box we got at Costco one time that's flipped over. Kit steps up on it, goes to the edge and does her squats tring to jump off the edge. It's hillarious, but of course everytime I think about the camera she stops completely.

On your mark, get set, SHOP!

As a holiday tradition, Brent's sisters all go holiday shopping. They call eachother from N.Y., Iowa, and Idaho to compare notes and prices, and to see if one could get what others could not. Well for the past three years I have been in Idaho for Black Friday, and have gone with them. This year we stayed home, but we decided to go out anyway. Walmart was having $2 movies, and $15 blue-ray, so we thought we'd go & look. we were planning on getting there a little before 5. The walmarts here are open 24hrs, and so they just have employees next to the doorbusters keeping order until 5. that way you can go to what you want without fighting those who are going to another department and such. Well somone made a jump at the stuff this year at 4:45, and it started! There was a mad rush, but most people were nice enough to hand you stuff & help eachother, so besides the portable DVD player people (those who jumped the gun & started the whole store in to a panic) , everything was pretty smooth. EXCEPT the employees had forgotten to put the Blue-Ray disks out, an dwhen we asked, no one could find them anywhere. I was actually talking to the store manager, and he was on the radio trying to find them and get them out when the people started early down the aslie. He ran off trying to get them to put it back (good luck there pal). So we were out of luck there. :( but we finished all our Christmas shopping yesterday. Oh, yea, Kit's now getting all her molars at the same time, so she goes through periods of screaming & whining. Yesterday at 2am was one such time. By the time we got her Motrin & some Milk, she was wide awake. So we got dressed and got to Walmert an hour early. I guess Kit was ready to shop 'til she dropped too! Which she did. While we were checking out at Walmart, Brent was holding her and she just zonked out even with all the noise & such.

I should stop playing Tag, I'm always it! :)

Thanks to Mel I have something to Blog about. Here are my lists of 8:

8 T.V. Shows:

1. Naruto
2. Smallville
3. Avatar
4. Duck Tales
5. Chip 'N Dale Rescue Rangers
6. Talespin
7. HeMan
8. Legend of the Seeker (not as good as the books, but as long as you remember it's "inspired by" and not "based on" then it's not that bad)

8 Things that Happened Yesterday:

1. My Visiting Teachers came over.
2. Comet ran off twice (he wanted to play with other dogs that were out).
3. Brent got a raise.
4. We went and played at a neighbors house.
5. I snooped in a house they were constructing (same model as mine, but all different features & a flipped floor plan. It was surreal).
6. Talked to Mom on the phone - 3 times :)
7. Kit learned that you can step on food (cereal and pretzels) and it crunches, so that's now her favorite thing.
8. Listened to "Grandma got run over by a Reindeer" chorus & part of "Rock'n around the Christmas tree" 8 billion times thanks to Kit's 2 new favorite toys.

8 Favorite Places to Eat:

1. Cafe Rio!!!
2. P.F. Changs.
3. Amber's (a local Denny's sort of joint).
4. Pizza (where depends on mood).
5. Carl's Jr.
6. My house.
7. Applebee's
8. Red Robin

8 Things I'm Looking Forward To:

1. Christmas!!!
2. New experiences with Kit.
3. Spring.
4. The new Prince of Persia video game.
5. Brent getting home from work.
6. Kit going to nursery in January.
7. Making more friends.
8. Getting a job someday.

8 Things on My Wish List:

1. Continued good health for me & my loved ones.
2. That I could start decorating for Christmas all ready.
3. A new compuiter!
4. A better economy.
5. More Kids areound here Kit's age.
6. A Nap!
7. A hot soak in the tub (Kit always seems to wake up, or need me or whatever when I try).
8. To figure out how to get my posts to look nice.

Help

Can anyone tell me why my blog has spaces when I type and preview it, but not when it posts. I spend all this time making them look nice, and once they post it looks like I just dropped the stuff on the page. How do I get it to look nice?

Two can be as bad as one!!

Well, I now have two Blogs to neglect. Click on the link to go look at it. and yes, it's in PINK!

Tag! I'm it!!!

So, Lina(http://theldsfamily.blogspot.com/) just tagged me to do 7 random/weird facts: Um here goes:

1. I have worse than 20/200 vision (yup, I can't see the big "E," or sailboat if you're looking at the kid chart).

3. I have to organize things according to color, and alphabetically. I have had to stop myself from attacking the clothes hanging in the closet and aranging them according to size and color to match the order of the rainbow

5. I am an English Major, but I describe things with sounds more than words.

7. I have 4 pretty good story ideas floating around in my head and have yet to start typing one.

2. I sometimes feel the need just to be different.

4. I am a self-admitted nosy neighbor.

6. A triangle is my favorite shape, (like Tully on Sesame Street) but three is one of my least favorite numbers.

A. I do random mathematical equasions when I can't sleep. I one time solved all the mysteries of the universe using only prime numbers, but then fell asleep before I could write it down. :)

Time goes by

Here's a picture of Kit & Anya last year at Tahoe

And here they are last month

Wow They're getting so big!

Just too cute

Here are some clips of Kit playing catch with daddy.

and another one for giggles:

Kit now actually follows directions I can tell her to go get her ball and throw it to dad, and she will.

Funny things is that one time she was running around & her slipper cam off. I said "oops she threw her shoe" and she didn't get my allusing to horses, but instead walked back to her slipper, picked it up, and threw it at me. So she literally threw her shoe as well! :)

Hi There!

Yea, It's been a while. I have so many posts I want to do that I haven't gotten around to doing any of them! Oh well at least I have a cool new wallpaper to match the season!

So here are some pictures of Kit in her costume! Too Cute. I'm surprized it actually turned out! Yea I was feeling artsy & decided tomake her costume. I really enjoyed making it (until the elastic released itself in one of the sleeves right after I attached it to the body.) I really didn't like it then. :) But it was a lot of fun to make. Well Kit's coming back upstairs, and will probably start hitting the Keyboard like she alwas does, so I will have to blog more later.

******* Just so you know she DID come up and stood in front of the screen and then tried to sit in my lap ( right where the keyboard is) and is now beating on the func\ton keys to help out******* ( slash courtesey of Kit)

Favorite Things

Here are a few of Kit's favorite things to do:

Play with Daddy:

Play with the puppy:

Climb on/in things:

Be a terror:

She had to un-sleeve every movie & throw it on the floor. Then she had to crawl all over them too. just to assert her dominance! :)

Idaho trip

So we went to Idaho last month, just thought you would like to see some photos. We went over to Yellowstone, and got some neat pictures.

Kit & me with Buffalo(behind us in the trees):

Zoom in on Buffalo:

Brent & Kit with Elk:

Zoom in on Elk:

We didn't get to see that many animals, Kit had enough of driving before we even got int he park, so we weren't about to drive more,and when she fell asleep after Old Faithful, we decided to call it quits and head home.

Waiting for Old Faithful with Riley(2 weeks younger than Kit)

Waiting with Daddy:

Thar He blows! (45 minutes after the "expected time")

Kit with her souvenirs

Us and old not so faithful

This guy was just walking down the road.

The end is near!!!

Yea, she's almost walking! She wants to sooooo bad, but she gets in a hurry and doesn't take the time to go slow and keep her balance. By the way that shirt went to her knees when we bought it 6 months ago! We had Brittany and Oren over for dinner on Monday, and with Calvin and Elizabeth walking everywhere Kit HAD to try she got 5 steps, which was her new record. She broke that record yesterday with 8.5 she might have gone longer, but she reached her mom & she things it's loads of fun to fall on her, so that overruled any thoughts of walking. :)

I' m also surprised on how nice the video is. we shot the footage with my camera's video function! Pretty neat!

My BIG little girl, or is that Little big girl?

Well, Kit had her 12 month check-up today. She's 29.75 inches and 17.5lbs. Yup, she gained half an inch and half a pound in the last few months.You could have fooled me and Brent though. We could both swear that she was at least 20 lbs, and a little taller than that. So the DR. has us putting extra calories on everything she eats to get her back to gaining weight. I don't think Kit will mind. She loves the Carnation breakfast mix in her milk (she just chugged an 8oz bottle in the time it took me to get to this sentance!), and the rest is all adding cream cheese and/ or sour cream and/or real cheese and such to her, well, everything pretty much. He said "she's not going to eat a cracker without some spread on it." Hehehe! But yea, Kit has reached a lot of milestones in the last month. Our pediatrician has an "ages & Stages Questionaire" that they have you fill out. Kit met all but one on the list. So in short she's:

• pointing
• feeding herself (even with a spoon if the food sticks to it and mom refills it) and feeds others
• standing by herself
• climbing on everything (she almost got from a box onto a chair and almost on the table before mom caught her)
• go up and down the stairs unassisted (although mom trips sometimes)
• walk assisted (mom, dad, couch or walker)
• She gets the concept of throwing the ball to the dog, and can throw it about a foot (forwards and sometimes backwards when she lets go too soon)
• She has words for "mom," "dad," "ball," "dog," "Comet," "up," and I thought "more," but that has turned into a "feed me/more"or just plain "gimmie Food!!"
• She also says "sit" to the dog, not because she understands it, but because mom says it to him so much. :)
• She can wave "hi,"but doesn't get the "bye" but we don't really say that to her, so that's understandable.
• She can find things wherever you hide them
• She knows what she wants and freaks out when she doesn't get it.
• She loves looking out the window
• She can climb up her slide, turn, and slide back down.
• She can give kisses, and they're even usually closed mouthed too!
• She has now about a 10 min. attention span ( 5 min for movies)

(A list in short huh?) anyway, she's just a joy most of the time. She still only has four teeth, but her two second teeth on the top should break through any day now. She weaned herself a few weeks ago. Once she started using a pacifier it was just a small step to a bottle. I had a bit of formula left, and she usually didn't drink it, but Melly mentioned putting chocolate in Leah's milk to get her to drink it, so I tried it with the formula, and Kit started taking it. So I siphoned her off of breast milk, & polished off the formula. Then on the the cow's milk! I put a little chocolate in that at first, but after a week I cut her off the chocolate (hehehe now I'm back on & putting MORE in). :)

Happy Birthday Kit!

I can't believe Kit's been a year old for almost a week now! Wow! where has the time gone? Anyway, here are some pictures of the fiesta!

Kit reading her birthday card.

Presents! Cake!!! Yummy! I think this is the only bite she actually took. The rest she just played with,

And shared.

here we all are; Happy Birthday Kit!

Look how big she's getting!!! And yes, she's NOT leaning on the couch.

What DOES daddy do?

Today was a lot of fun. Brent signed us up to go to his job's open house. So we drove up to Lehi, making a stop at Cabella's so Kit can look at the Taxidermy, and the huge fish tank and stuff. That was neat. Then we went up the hill and got to look around, a little. The had booths set up for each department. They geared it towards the kids, so, of course, I liked it. Puchasing made you "process" a candy order and you got to be the warehouse person & stuff but in the end you got candy, and that was good. The people from Singapore (they're here training for a new FAB to open there) had food & games from there. I got the spinning top record for 40 sec. but it was quickly beaten, but I got a key chain out of it. Brent's department was giving out Balloons! Kit LOVED them. Of course Brent and I kept worring that she's try to eat it & it would pop in her face/mouth. but nope, we made it home with the balloon & Kit played with it all day. She pulled it around on it's string, looking up at it, & then pulling it down. (yea it was a helium Balloon) So that was fun to watch. In all it was a fun day they had a carnival for the kids outside with little games & a bouncing castle thingy. It was nothing like IBM's old carnivals, but in the penny pinching corporate world that we live in, it was still quite nice!! I didn't actually get to see where Brent works but I got to see his cubicle (woohoo prarie dog land!) but it was interesting looking in the windows of the doors and trying to piece together what he does all day, and Kit made it through the whole thing just getting scared once at the man in the clean room garb that covered him head to toe except for his eyes & nose. I don't know why, but he scared Kit and she freaeked out. She kept watching him like he would eat her or something, but she was fine once we left the booth. But we get a little ID for Kit to have, and that's a neat keepsake. So yea it was fun. Kit got her first taste of a snowcone, and after eating all of Brents continued to eat half of mine. :) We also had a BBQ tonight with the guys Brent works with. That was neat to meet/meat them and enjopy time at the park. I wished I had brought my camera to both events, Kit was so cute iwth ther purple moustache from the snowcone, and she was having a great time going down the slides at the park. It amazes me that she can keep herself seated upright while sliding; instead of letting inertia pull her back.

Cha-Cha-Cha-Changes

Well, yesterday was a day to blog about. Not only have we had record low temperatures, but we we braved that chilling 40-some-odd weather and went looking for vehicles. I think it's odd that only Sunday Fer asked if we still had Chet. Well, we don't anymore. I know what you're thinking and the answer is "no." We didn't get an SUV or even another car. Yup, in this crazy world of gas prices and such we actually got a bigger truck! We got a 4-door Dodge Dakota 4x4, and it's RED! Ok, you're probably thinking we're nuts, but let me explain. Kit didn't fit in Chet. Which meant 2 things. One, if it snowed, we'd get stuck wherever;. We would have been trapped in the house several times last winter if we didn't have Chet. So, if there had been an emergency or something Kit would had to have been held while we weregoing because the car Does Not move if there's move than an inch or so of snow (we found that one out the hard way). Reason 2 is that Brent was taking Chet to work in case I needed to go anywhere or whatever so I could take Kit. Well, you can guess that driving 25 miles every-other-day in his carpool & 16 miles on the other days was taking a LOT of money in the truck which would make one Lehi trip on .25 tank of gas. So now the truck stays at home and the car goes to work with its better gas mileage. But Kit says "////[" literally, she's pushing on the keyboard. but anyway Kit went from sitting to standing all by herself with no help from outside objects, and she would have stayed up except that we were outside and Brent & I started clapping, which got Comet excited so he went and had to lick Kit's face, tipping her over in the process. The of course he needed to see if she was alsright and tried to lick her and sniff her all over, but we pulled him off. I hate to say it but Kit might think twice before standing there again. :) Comet has really cooled down. He's not nipping, except when I run on our walks, then he thinks he has to herd me. stupid dog. BUT besides that he runs circles aroundt he house with us, and is getting used to Kit. he still recognizes her as a fellow puppy, & feels the need to play as such, but that's not that often, and we snatch Kit away before anything can happen. Stay tuned for my puppy=1 year old blog. It's amazing the similarities between those two, plus Kit & Comet have a lot of personality things in common too.

Lawn Care Chapter 2, A.K.A. Sunburns & Soreness

Now that we have covered the installation and watering of the lawn. Also now that it is quite clear that purchasing a puppy instead of a lawnmower does nothing to trim the grass; we will proceed to the propper way to cut the grass. First, you must go and actually purchase a lawnmower. A rotatry blade manual push mower works well. So purchase one of those and save the hassle of repairs & purchasing gas for it. Attention: Using a manual mower is not easy when you haven't mowed the lawn in three weeks and the grass is 4" tall. Then it is just darned hard to push and will take you 4 hours to mow your lawn. Now that a mower has been purchased and assembeled, you need to mow the lawn. See advisory above about difficulties attributed to procrastination of step one. Another thing to pay attention to is while you are mowing the lawn for 4 hours, be sure to wear sunblock! Forgetting this improtant step will lead to painful burns on legs that haven't seen the sun in what seems like years. Also the leg burns will be aggrivated by jumping, clawing puppies, and a toddler that graps your legs constantly. Also, be prepared not to sleep the following night due to legs that ache from pushing the mower through dense jungle like grass that should have been mowed 2 weeks prior. Now that your lawn is a lovely 1.25" high, you will notice that it is easier to spot the dog poop.(until you get him to go in the right place and you no longer have to watch your step). And you now do not have to worry about your toddler getting lost in the jungle of fronds and sprouting grass that almost tickled her chin when crawling. Chapter Summary: Mow lawn frequently with lawn mower (don't leave it to rampaging puppy to chew that to bits too). Wear Sunblock (anyone remember that talking song that came out around '99? "trust me on the sunblock") If you fail to heed the wearnings, be prepared to be stiff & sore for a few days. Chapter Questions: 1. What should you buy instead of a puppy to mow the lawn? 2. Who grabs at your legs when they are bright red with a sunburn? 3. Do you really need to mow the lawn every week, or what are the consequences if you wait?

Puppy Parade Day 4

Now I have two teething animals (Kit & Comet). Too much fun. Anyway, having a puupy is sucking out all my "me" time on the days that Brent is at work. Which is fine, I'm still rearranging things in my schedule to fit them both in. This is a great experience for Kit. She is learning that mom & Dad can pay attention to someone (something) else, and it doesn't mean that we don't love her. He also gets some interaction with the dog. That way when she & he are ready to actually play they will know how to act around each other. Don't get me wrong. it's HARD having a puppy & a baby. I need to make sure they are both being taught & not being neglected. I guess it's good training for when I have two kids. Too bad I can't just leave a kid tied up outside for a while. :) Kidding. Anyway. So, we picked Comet up on Tuesday at about 10am. By then it was already 70 degrees. the day was beautiful. That night at least 50mph guts came up and dropped the temperature 40 degrees. So it was around freezing that night. then the rain came. It rained all Wednesday & yesterday. Poor puppy. He's an outside dog but I brought him into the garage so he wouldn't get soaked. I bet he's wondering how this could be better than the warm, dry dog shelter he was in for the last month or so. Oh, but he's such a good dog. We don't have our yard fenced yet, so we got him a dog Kennel that's about 4' by 6'. not much fun, so during the day I tie him up to a rope in the backyard and let him romp. Well, I guess i need to work on my rope tying skills. I looked out to check on him & saw him wandering around the backyard, but without the rope! He was heading to the neighbor's yard. (they have a black Lab puppy) I went out & called him. He came straight to me (good dog) & I tied him up, better this time, hopefully, but he was chewing on someone else's raw hide. In the 10 minutes since I last saw him he had wandered to one of the many neighbor's yards & stole their chewy. I threw it into the Lab's yard, thinking it was probably his, but I'm not sure now. Oh well. that was an adventure. I'm just glad he's such a lovey, clingy puppy that he didn't just run off. Kit is getting so big! she's probably about 30 inches now, and over 17 pounds. Before: After: Yea, that's her reaching things on the edge of the table! Kit wants so bad to be walking. She's doing everything she can to stay on her feet and get around by holding on to mom, dad, or anything she can get her hands on. Well, Kit's sleeping & the puupy needs training, so I'm off. Ciao!

The Newest Member of our Family

Nope, it's not pictures of an ultrasound, but it is a Boy!!

Brent, Kit, & I got a puppy. Yea, it actually a puppy, the little scamp is about three months old. I named him Comet. Not because he's orange and runs around a lot, but because I thought of naming him Prancer (for that puppy energy he's got) but that was way too Reindeer. So I kept going down the line. Let's see... Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen (naw that wont work) Comet. Hey that's cute! Plus that's the reindeer we liked off the Santa Clause 2 Movie. (him and Chet, but that's the name of the truck, plus it didn't seem to fit).

So Comet it is. and Kit LOVES HIM!!! Which is good because when we were spending time with him at the Kennel he jumped and got Kit with his claws. It wasn't bad, but it sure scared her. That and it was close to nap time, so she was on edge anyway. Plus there was a lot of noise with all the other dogs barking. Luckily Comet (then called Duke) was quiet and not a barker. So, long story short, Kit got a nap, and we got a dog. For now he's in a dog run, but we're hoping to put in a fenced area for him by fall when he is bigger.

They weren't sure what kind of dog he was a stray that was brought in, but they are thinking that he's some sort of australian heeler mix (kinda like what Misha was) His face reminds me of her, especially those big eyes. Ok, so Kit's not the only one who's in love with him, but Hey! I'm the one who's going to have to take the time to train him & stuff, so I'd better like him huh?

So, He & Kit are forming a fast friendship through the chainlink until their both older, and better behaved. Oh, and of couse this is the first night we have him, and it's supposed to be a nice storm tonight. The wind is blowing pretty well. Yes mom, we have a tarp up and we have a dry place for him to sleep that has some of our spare carpet from the house in it. :)

Here's to the start of the completed typical American household! (house, kid & dog).

The House is Finished! for now...

What do you mean I haven't blogged in 19 days? Wow! Time has flown this month. Kit now has 4 teeth with two more top teeth not far behind. I know I promised pictures of the lawn with grass in it, and I have some, but I ended up just taking pictures of Kit (like I always do- she is my cutest kid). :) Anyway here are some pictures. Enjoy! OK, so the sod showed up at 3 P.M. on Thursday (Brent took a 1/2 day so he could work on it). The sod only lives about 2 days in the stacks. The stuff on the bottom chockes itself with oxygen, and can't get the CO2 it needs. So we get 10 giant stacks of sod on palletts. The guy was nice enough to spread them around the lot so we didn't have to haul it from the front to the back. (And when I say "we" I mean Brent & our neighbor who helped). ( I would put his name, but I am having the darndest time trying to spell Shawun, Sean, Shaun, Shawn.... Whatever it is, the right way. So here's Brent lifting the sod. It was cut in 1' by 2' rectangles. (isn't it odd, I was going to put "squares," but seeing as how they weren't square I had to change my word choice). First you pick it up, put it on the ground, Bump Bump... Any yes, it was that cold that morning, Brent had on gloves and a ski cap. 2 days & 20 man hours later it looks good! We mowed it for the first time last week. We borrowed our neightbor's push mower, to see if we wanted to get one ourselves, it took about 1.75 hours to mow trhe whole thing, but that grass got LONG in 2 weeks. The seams are pretty much gone now, so it really looks nice.

Our House (not in the middle of our street)

Well, We moved into our house in December, and since then we have not stopped *tweaking* it to our liking.

First it was decorating Kit's Room, The sprinkler system came next, but we paid someone who knew what they were doing for that.

Then Brent put in a patio, He adding edging around the house. The trees came next, then he added the front planter,

Kit is especially fond of the water fixture

and today (hopefully) comes the grass! Although Kit does love to play in the dirt, dig her fingers into the mud, and eat the rocks, mulch, dirt, leaves, flowers, and anything else she can get her hands on when we're working in the yard. Let me say that "get that out of your mouth," and "Don't eat that" are very common phrases. :) Kit loves it outside. recently we have been blessed with wonderful weather with slight wind and low 70's for a high. But not lately, we have had up to 20 mph winds, heavy cloud cover, wind chill of 37, and it was trying to snow at Brent's work today! (great day to put in grass right?!) The colder nasty weather has made it so we have been inside for the last few days. Kit just crawls over to the sliding glass door, and whines to be let out. Well tomorrow it's supposed to be in the high 50's so hold on baby, summer's comming!