Long Awaited. . . Update and Finger Pics!

Ok, ok, I know it's been a while since our last post. Sorry! I thought I'd start things off right with some pictures of M. Look how long her hair is getting! She is a master crawler now, so we really have to be on our toes with what we leave lying around. She can pull up onto her knees, but we have only found her standing up in her crib once so far. It has been a crazy time around here. We started working on our basement the day after Thanksgiving. Now we are to the point of hanging sheetrock! We have three up on the ceiling, but Chris is going to take a break for a couple of weeks to get finished with school for the semester. I have had two boutiques, and I have another one today. Luckily, it's my last one before the holidays. Whew! Here's what else we've been up to. This is my latest craft project:I hung them above the stairs right under our family picture, with a lot of help from Chris. He's a lot taller than me. As many of you may know, Chris had a tiny incident with the siding and a shop knife. . . resulting in five stitches and a surgery next week! Here are the pictures we took of the stitches. There were photos taken of the actual wound, but I don't have them at the moment. In fact, I haven't even seen them, and to be honest I'm not sure I want to! So, drumroll please:

The same night that Chris cut himself, there was a ring around the moon (called a "moondog," or so I'm told). After Chris and Jon got back from the hospital, he thought it was so neat that he took a picture. I'm glad he did, cause I was in bed by that time!Once again, I hope you enjoyed our recent photos. We are hoping to have the basement completely finished by the end of the year. After finishing the framing, electrical, plumbing, and ducting all in a week, it seems a lot more possible! I'm hoping to get all my Christmas stuff up (thanks for the decor donation, Mom!) soon and take some pictures.

9 Month Stats

Here are M's 9 Month Stats!

Height: 30 in. (95+%)
Weight: 21 lbs. 10 oz. (90%)
Head circumference: 17 in. (25%)


Also, I read this article in the October Ensign a while ago(look at the bottom for the Blogging Safety Tips), and I have decided to be a safer blogger by just using our baby's initial (M) instead of her whole name. I have considered changing our blog to private, and I may still do that in the future, but for now I will keep it easy to access for everyone.

Lately

I was lucky enough to go to the BYU Battle of the Bands last Friday night, thanks to Chris having so much homework that he couldn't come(sad) but could stay home with M(yay!). I took a few pictures of my brother Tom's band, Atl Atl, performing. They did such a great job even though they couldn't hear themselves in the monitors! It was really fun to go and see them play and see some friends. I have gotten to see them play at Peach Days and Weber State's Battle (where they got 2nd place based on three judges doing the scoring). Since they are pretty recent to the Provo scene, they didn't place at BYU's show, which was an audience vote. But if you live in the Orem/Provo area, you can see them tomorrow nightat the Battle of the Bands at Muse Music.
Here's Tom playing the old Fender and singing.
Go Atl Atl!

And for the second part of this post, I will revert back to what I know: M. Here are some pictures from the last month or so that never got posted.

M has a shape sorting turtle that comes apart, and the shell fits perfectly on her head. Sometimes we put it on her head to tease her and see if she can get it off, but the other day I found that she had somehow gotten it on her head by herself. It was quite hilarious.
These next photos are the most recent of M. I can't believe how long her hair is getting! It's starting to look like an Anime character.
Lastly, here's M showing off her two bottom teeth! We thought she had more coming in, but we were finally able to wrestle her down last night, and we couldn't see or feel any more. She has her nine month checkup tomorrow, so we will see how she's doing on her growth charts.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween everyone! We had such a great time with all the festivities. As you can tell, we dressed M up as a giraffe this year. Chris grew out his beard(before is above) and shaved it like Victor on the Wolverine movie(after is below). He didn't get to it until Saturday night, but I think it still counts. I just put my Tigger ears headband on that I got from Disneyland forever ago. I know, pretty lame, but the costume just didn't happen for me this year. We didn't have any costume parties to attend, so maybe next year.


Here is a rare photo of M in her natural habitat. . .
We also hosted my mom's birthday party last Tuesday. It was a lot of fun! We had some great food, friends, and fun. Photos are thanks to Tom and Shauna taking turns with the camera throughout the night.




Here's A and her graham cracker haunted house.
This is the house that Mom and I worked on together.
Here is Shauna's lovely piece.
And here we have Tom's creepy hobbit-hole.


We had a rootin-tootin' rootbeer wrangler on hand!

I ordered M&M's with personalized birthday messages printed on them.
Tombstone cake! Perfect for Halloween and 50th birthdays.

We also had cardboard tombstones upon which to write birthday wishes:
Thanks to everyone for coming to the party and helping with the food/decorations! We had such a wonderful time and are so happy to have a place to hold these kinds of things.

Gardner's Village

Last Friday we took a visit with G-ma Diane to Gardner's Village to see the witch displays and eat at Archibald's. Kath, A, and O came up from Orem and met us there. We had a lot of fun seeing all the cool displays and enjoying the festive spirit. There were pumpkins and hay bales everywhere! We think it may have been a school break for the kids in the area, because there were TONS of people there. It was stroller city. M had her first cookie, a Honey Boy, and ate it all by herself (after I broke it into pieces for her).









The caramel apples were so good, and they cut them up in a really neat way so we could all have some without getting it all over our faces. I may or may not always serve caramel apples like that from now on.

Recent developments with M: It is so exciting to see her feeding herself. As of now, she can eat little puffs, cheerios, and graham crackers by herself. We are introducing more and more solid foods to her. Next I am going to try her on green beans, bananas, and dried fruit cubes. Molly is also trying to master getting onto her knees. She can scoot and roll around on the floor pretty well now, and she loves to stand. Pretty soon she will be all over the house!

Master Bedroom

I painted the master bedroom last week while Chris was on his business trip. I got some accent pillows and a gray comforter for the bed. I also got some gray curtains, which Chris helped me hang up yesterday.

Other things on my list: I am still thinking about painting the bed and nightstands black and getting a long, low dresser that I can paint black or is already black. I want a big mirror to hang above said dresser once I find it, and some wrought iron decor to hang on the walls.

So far just painting and putting up curtains makes such a difference! It's a lot more relaxing and cozy in our room.

Baby-Skydiving

We took M baby-skydiving yesterday! She had such a good time.