We've Got a Walking Callie!

Well, seeing as I haven't updated my blog since...Feb. 24...I thought I should put forth the effort to do so.


Our Summer
We had a great summer. Jason worked the entire summer and took classes during Spring term. He got to come home for lunch during Summer term, which I always love. Callie and I went swimming, went to Seven Peaks, went hiking, and went on walks every day. As a family, we went up to Idaho to visit my parents’ new home. While there, I went with my mom and Aunt Sheri to Time Out for Women. It was wonderful! We celebrated my birthday in June, our anniversary in June, and Callie’s birthday in July. My parents visited often since the weather is nice this time of year. For the first time in probably 5 years, my skin saw the sun! It felt great.

Updates on Callie
Callie is a couple weeks away from being 15 months old and she started walking a few weeks ago. I really enjoy watching her carefully hobble around the room, and she is pretty proud of herself.



She has developed a love of (and possibly an obsession with) books. She loves to find books and bring them to me so I can read them to her. Her favorite book is called “Colors”, which has a color with two objects on each set of two pages.

She finally got her first tooth a couple weeks before her first birthday and another one on her birthday. She now has six teeth, and I am thoroughly enjoying feeding her normal food (and she is thoroughly enjoying eating it).

Her current vocabulary incudes: mama, dada (her favorite person and word), hi, uh oh, teddy (or something like it), and nana (banana).

Her favorite toys are 1. her baby doll and stroller, which she loves to push around the house (along with anything else she can push—her high chair, her basket of diapers, her box of toys, etc.); 2. any kind of ball, and 3. anything of Mommy’s and Daddy’s.

The other day she found this little purse, put it on her shoulder and walked around the house with it. I’m not sure where that funny little pose came from (lifting her chin, squinting her eyes, and scrunching up her nose), but she sure thought it was funny.





Callie’s birthday was in July. We had a cupcake party with grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.

Now
Jason has started Fall Semester (his LAST fall semester) and is officially considered a master’s student. That pretty much just means we have to pay a lot more for tuition and he can’t get pell grants, but on the bright side, we get to park in the graduate parking spots. Callie and I are continuing to enjoy home life. I have started playing tennis with women in the ward, which has been so fun. I hadn’t played since I was pregnant because we hadn’t dared try it with Callie, but it is working out pretty well!

Since living in Utah, I have had a hard time enjoying fall because the cold seems to come too quickly and stay too long, but I cannot deny that I enjoy the cool (yet still warm) weather, the changing of the colors, and Thanksgiving, so I am going to try to focus on my good feelings for fall this year.

Dear Callie,

Why do your living room travels always take you to the cords in the most awkward location in the room?

How can these boring old cords be so much more entertaining than all these fun toys?

I guess we'll never know.

The Princess and her Daddy

My Valentines

We kept it simple this year for Valentine's Day. We spent our evening cooking dinner together (our usual--Lasagna, salad, and garlic bread with the addition of a yummy Brownie Mallow dessert). We then enjoyed our dinner, watched a movie, did some cutesy Valentines-ish stuff, and Jason pampered me with a back and foot massage.

Play Date with Kaden

My friend Katie and her son Kaden came over for a play date (yes, I think it's cool that we have the same name. We also both have older sisters named Melissa, husbands whose names start with the letter "J", and child relatives named Kaden). Kaden is a couple months older than Callie. He can crawl and say "dada" (and knows who Dada is). Callie was fascinated just watching him. Kaden liked to grab Callie's hands and face. We had a great time together










































In Callie's adventures scooting/rolling around the room, she got herself trapped between the couch and table. I thought it was pretty funny, but she didn't think so.

Snow Days

We had about 5 snow days between two weeks (already mentioned) and here are some pictures of our Texas snow and Jason's home workplace.






The canal behind my parents' house froze over! The ducks congregated in the unfrozen part of the canal.

Fun with Grandma

My mom came to visit for a couple weeks to help us get settled into their home, see Callie, and keep me company. We had a great time together! We shopped, played Wii (especially Just Dance--I am so uncoordinated with my feet, but it's a lot of fun), watched HGTV and other shows, played with Callie, and spent time with Andrea, Ryan, and the kids. I regret to say I was negligent with picture taking, but she'll be back in 6 weeks for our family reunion so I'll have to make up for it then.

Tuesday morning, we woke up with snow/ice and freezing temperatures. Jason was told not to go in to work and we were glad because let's face it--for the most part, Texans don't know how to drive in snow/ice. Typically, when you get these ice storms in Texas it melts during the day, but it is Friday morning and we are still stuck inside. In fact, we woke up to a blanket of snow this morning (and it's still snowing). Jason has been able to work from home this week. It's been fun having him here. Yesterday, the roads were improved so my mom and I braved the cold and the roads to get out of the house for a few hours.

It's supposed to warm up above freezing this weekend, but then it's supposed to get cold and snowy again. I was supposed to be escaping winter weather by coming to Texas!!! But sitting inside instead of having to drive or walk in it isn't too bad.

Transportation--

It doesn't really matter how...just as long as you get there!

1. Head back


2. Legs ready


3. Bottom up


and off she goes! From point A...




to point B!


Who needs crawling when you can scoot up-side-down-backwards?

my sweet Callie,

Mommy is so excited to be done with school.



I can now be completely yours.



I get to be the one to be with you all day long.



I finally get to spend all of the time in the world feeding you, talking to you, playing with you, staring into those beautiful blue eyes, listening to your every coo, comforting you when you cry, reading you stories, taking pictures of you, laughing with you, and loving you like crazy!




I love you with all my heart,

Mommy

Socks..

Why do I even bother putting them on when they only last a few minutes?



I found this little pile next to her car seat the other day ;)

I'm back: Part II

December 24-26: Callie's first Christmas- We had a great Christmas. We were able to spend time with both our parents, Jason's siblings, and my grandparents. Christmas morning was so fun with Callie (not that she cared that much, but we had fun). She liked grabbing and pulling the paper, but mostly so she could try to eat it.

We spent Christmas Eve with Jason's family. We ate dinner, opened family gifts, and sang Christmas songs (I attempted to play the piano for the first time in over a year...it was rather embarrassing). We had our own Christmas morning with Callie and then my parents and grandparents came over for breakfast. We stopped by for a while at Jason's family's to see their new presents. Then we went to my Grandma Black's for Christmas dinner with my parents, aunt, uncle, and cousins. The next day we spent the whole day at Jason's family's house since this would be our last time with them before going to Texas. It was hard to say goodbye.

















December 26-27: Jason Got the stomach flu on Sunday evening and was up sick all night long. This kept me awake most of the night as well...I spent Monday working hard to get everything packed and ready to leave for 3 months while Jason recovered from his illness. We had to leave Tuesday in order to beat a big snow storm coming that week. Jason did what he could, but I ended up needing some more help. My awesome mother-in-law came to the rescue. She took Callie for the afternoon and evening to keep her from getting sick and so that I could get as much done as possible. The night came and I was feeling quite overwhelmed and exhausted, so my mother-in-law and her daughter Shaina came over to help me finish up.

December 28-29: Jason felt much better Tuesday morning and I was tired, but not sick so we headed off for Texas. The drive the first day was great and we made it to Santa Rosa, NM. Wednesday morning, I was not feeling well. I thought (or rather hoped) that I was just car sick, but around 2:00pm I found out I had the flu...The last 2 hours of our drive took about 4 or 5 hours. I'll spare you the details, but let's just say that was the most miserable drive of my entire life. Aside of that fact, we finally made it to Texas!!

December 31: We saw my sister, Andrea and her kids.



Present: Jason started his internship with PWC in Dallas on Monday. He's pretty excited about it, although the past couple of days have just been filled with boring training. Callie and I are enjoying are time together, and I am loving being back in Texas and especially being so close to my sister!