A-C-Phlegm ...

I read recently that babies are born with the ability to make all the noises necessary for every language in the world. As they babble, they go through and make all of the possible sounds. The ones they hear from others are reinforced while the ones that they don't hear are forgotten.

During Sacrament today, Kessa decided to try out the German alphabet. Or perhaps Arabic? We sat there on the third row while Kessa stood on my lap and talked. Loudly. She sounded like she was coughing up phlegm or practicing her gutterals. And she sounded like she was chewing someone out while doing it. Yeah… sounds Arabic to me.

BJ and I spent much of the meeting silently laughing and watching the bishopric trying really hard not to bust up laughing. Bishop talked to both of us later in the meetings and commented on how it sounds like she's starting to talk and how cute she is. We agree.

Kessa is 5 months old!

Dear Kessa~

I can't believe you're five months old already. Time has flown so fast, yet it's hard to remember life without you. I'm absolutely loving my time with you. The first few months were hard, I'll admit. For ten days you were on a bilibed and I couldn't hold you. When you cried, it broke my heart. It got to the point where I would pick up your bed and put it on my lap, just so I could hold you when you cried. When you were finally allowed off of it, I couldn't get enough of holding you. You would start off the nights in your bassinet in our room, but when you started to cry, it was so easy to just bring you to bed with me. I loved snuggling with you to sleep. Daddy got really good at sleeping through your nighttime squawks. :)

Nighttime was about the only good sleep you got. You really struggled with naps. It was even harder because I was working full time from home. I desperately needed you to sleep so that I could have time to work. You loved walking and you loved the outdoors, so it was really easy to put you in the wrap and go walk around the track around the playground out front. Usually you were out by the first lap, but I'd keep walking for a few laps to make sure you were asleep. Plus, I got in exercise that way. Then I'd come back in and let you sleep on my chest while I worked. When you were fussy at night (which for a time was almost every night), Daddy would walk you around the track. One step outside and you'd calm right down. It was so common that even some of our neighbors would comment about it. "Saw you out on the track last night with your baby." We put you to sleep like that so often that it got to the point that you had to be held to go to sleep.

You and I went up to Grandma Lovell's for a week to help her can food from her garden. Grandma Lovell and Grandma Grace were fantastic at putting you to sleep. Then they'd go lay you up on our bed and I would have several hours to work before I finally went to bed as well. I had never been able to set you down to sleep before. Between that and a lesson from Daddy's cousin, Laura, on how to swaddle, I soon was putting you down and letting you put yourself to sleep for night time and naps. You've been a champion at sleeping. You typically only wake up once or twice at night and you take 2+ hour naps during the day. Sure, we've had our bad days, but overall, you're doing fantastically.

When you were just 1 month old, you rolled from your belly to your back. We thought it was a fluke, but you did it two more times that night. We even got a video of it. You did it a few more times in the coming days, but when I started working again, it was really hard to take time out of my busy schedule to give you tummy time. Once work was over, tummy time started again and it didn't take more than a couple of days for you to figure out how to roll over again. Yesterday you tried so hard to go from your back to your belly. You would get almost all the way over, but your arm would be in the way. Instead of figuring out how to get it out, you'd just roll back onto your back. By evening you got onto your tummy with your arm under you and you fought to get it out, but struggled a lot. Today I put you on your back, then turned to do something else. When I turned back to you just a few minutes later, you were on your tummy, arms free, having a grand time.

You're starting to get more mobile. You've had to sleep in your crib or bassinet since Conference (when you were 4 months old) because you would move around so much in your sleep (or probably in trying to go to sleep). You've gotten really good about turning in circles. A week or so ago you started pulling your legs up under you and pushing up on them. Your arms aren't strong enough to push up on, though. It won't be long before you start doing mini-pushups, though. I've started bringing out bigger blankets for you to play on and spreading your toys around, just to encourage you to move around. It works sometimes, and other times you're content to just suck on your hands.

You're starting to figure out grabbing. If we put something in your hand, you'll immediately grab it and bring it to your mouth. But you're starting to learn to reach for things to grab them. We've started putting your toys just out of reach to help you learn to move and grab. You haven't quite got it mastered yet, but it's no longer surprising to put you down without a toy, then look back a few minutes later to see you nom-nom-nomming on a toy you've picked up.

You love to "talk." You just jabber away and will often have conversations with Mommy and Daddy. We just wish we knew what you're saying…. You also have a grin the size of the Grand Canyon. When you smile, you smile with your whole body. Your head will move back and forth while the rest of you squirms. Now that your legs are getting stronger, if you're on your back when you smile, you'll push up with your legs and arch your back and almost flip yourself onto your tummy every time you grin. You're even starting to giggle… just a little. Mostly when we play peek-a-boo. You seem to be more reserved when it comes to laughing. You'll give smiles out as if they are candy, but laughs are special. When you give me a giggle, it makes my entire day.

You're fascinated by lights. You love looking out windows. You have a play gym that has colored lights that you stare at. Often we can calm you down when you're upset by standing near a window for you to look at. You also love looking in the mirror. Sometimes you'll grin at yourself, other times you'll be shy and grin as you bury your face in our shoulders.

You love to stand. You'll only sit (supported) for so long before you freak out and want to be standing. You'll probably be like your Daddy and walk before you crawl. And man, you have the feet for it. By 4 months, you had grown out of your 0-6 month socks. You're now wearing 6-18 month socks. But it's good, because you're also really tall. I mean, at your 4 month check up you were in the 97.72 percentile for height! Just the other day, you outgrew almost all of your onesies overnight! We had to go through and take out all but a few and put them in the too small box, then go through the bag of clothes that we had labeled "way too big and won't fit for ages." Apparently we were wrong on that guess. Your shirts, pants, and dresses still fit you fine, but your torso is simply too long for onesies. I predict you'll have bigger feet than me by the time you're 10 and will be taller than me by junior high.

You love watching the TV. We don't watch TV much, but you watched BYU lose miserably to Florida State. You watched General Conference. You'll watch Daddy and I play Mario Kart and recently you've started watching Baby Signing Time. With all of them, you'll only watch for about 15 minutes before you get bored and go on to something else, but for those 15 minutes, you are absolutely fascinated.

You love books already. We will read to you before bedtime (though not nearly as often as we should) and you love looking at the pages. I can't wait until you're old enough to really understand books and love to read.

Kessa, Daddy and I love you so much. We have so much fun with you. We love seeing you grin at us first thing in the morning. We love watching you learn new things. We can't wait to see more of your personality as it develops, and we really can't wait for you to start growing hair so we can figure out what color it actually is.

Love, Mommy

Photos courtesy of MegRuth Photography

Today

Cute Kessa!

Who can't love a face like that?

She's starting to suck on her finger. She's not a thumb sucker, she's an index finger sucker.

She loves to play piano with Daddy.

This is how we look when Mommy needs two hands, but Kessa needs to be held.

We went for a drive up the canyon on Sunday, up to Vivian Park. We caught the tail end of the colors, so they're not as vivid as they once were, but we enjoyed them anyway.

She seriously is so tall! Here she is sitting on Ellie's lap. Ellie is 3.

She's figuring out how to grab. Here she is with her keys… the first toy she learned to grab.

Recently her grabbing has become comical. Despite being quite content on the inside, she appears to be frightened of her carseat and her swing.

Randomness

Here are two totally random and unrelated to my cute baby girl pictures.

First, we saw this sticker on a car window. Read it carefully.

"My Child at a Charter School!"

Umm… was there supposed to be a picture of the child so that this was a caption? Or did they simply never proofread their bumper sticker to make it a complete sentence? It makes me really not want to send my children to John Hancock Charter School.*


Next. BJ has developed a really bad habit. Remember these shorts? Well, BJ replaced them with another pair of shorts and a pair of jeans. The jeans lasted approximately two months until this happened:

Seriously?! Ok, dear readership, please tell me, what in the world could BJ be doing to tear his pants like this? They're clean tears, so I don't think he snags them and rips them. He doesn't carry a knife in his back pocket. He claims his chair at work is free of knives and other sharp objects, and I don't think it's our car, because I often sit in the same chair with no tears in my pants. BJ's theory is that he pulls his legs up onto his chair at work. I'm not convinced, though, because I do the same thing and my pants are tighter. And I don't have tears in my pants. Any other theories? Help us figure it out so we can break this rather expensive habit of BJ's!


*Other than this, I know nothing about this charter school. I am not trying to slander them in any way. I'm simply commenting on their lack of grammatical skills on their bumper stickers.

General Conference

Saturday morning session Ryan and Mariam came over for breakfast and to watch Conference. It was really fun to see them both again!

Then we went down two doors (literally. We're on the third floor) to our friends, the Ruiz's, house for lunch. It was also quite fun (and really yummy, too!) Miguel is a native Spanish speaker and Kristen also speaks Spanish. They have a little girl, Katya, who is growing up speaking Spanish in the home. There was another couple there that also spoke Spanish and BJ speaks Spanish. Umm… basically, I was the odd man out. haha. Luckily, though, everyone spoke English for the most part.

Then we headed up to Riverton to spend the rest of Conference weekend. Kessa was enthralled by the television. (We already knew this, though. She faithfully watched BYU lose the Florida State game.)



Who do you think she is so enamored by? Elder Robert D. Hales!



The Homers have this adorable little dog named Jax. He is ridiculously jealous of Kessa. Suddenly there is another small creature in the house that takes attention away from him. Kessa has two little rubber toys: a cow, and a cow/duck. (We think it's a duck dressed up like a cow for Halloween. What we're gonna do once Halloween is over, I have no idea.) Jax has a bunch of rubber toys, too. So when he saw/smelled the rubber cows, his jealousy erupted and he wanted them. A lot.



Grandma likes Kessa and didn't want her to play with toys covered in Jax slobber, so she put the cows up on the counter, out of sight. Jax sat the rest of Conference on the back of the couch, staring at them.



BJ's brother, Nick, likes to torture Jax, so he moved the cows where Jax could see them, but I didn't get a picture of that, sadly. (Since then, Jax has managed to get ahold of the cow duck and take off running with it. All I could get out was, "BJ! Jax! Cow! Jax! Cow!" BJ didn't hear his name so he thought I was telling Jax to get the cow. It took a minute, then some quick action to get the cow out of Jax's possession, but we managed. The poor cow duck spent the next little while drying off from its bath in the dish drainer. Poor little thing.)

While the boys went off to Priesthood session, we girls had our own fun. First we bundled up Kessa in her jacket and headed off to Ruby Tuesdays for dinner. I wish, oh I wish, that I had remembered to take my camera with us. I had no idea how tired Kessa was until she nodded off, sitting on Aunt Teresa's lap. It was so adorable. She slept through all of dinner (which I was completely floored by. I thought for sure she'd be demanding to eat 2 minutes into it) until Teresa decided she needed to wash her hands, so she carefully handed her to me. The second Teresa was out of the room, Kessa was awake. I must admit, Teresa has a way with Kessa. Dinner was great. I tried pomegranate lemonade. It was good, though rather tart. We had fun just talking like girls do. Catching up on each others' lives, asking the dating-aged girls about their dating life, etc.

We came home to do a craft. Mom Homer and Aunt Jan were quite secretive as to what this craft was, which intrigued the rest of us, but it turned out amazing! Basic idea: melt a tallow candle onto a plastic plate so it stands up straight. Then, grab all your old, broken, discarded crayons and melt them over the flame! At first I focused on getting bright colors down the side of the candle, but after awhile I realized that I was burning down the side of the candle, so no one would see that part anyway. So instead I started working on making awesome puddles on the bottom. (They are made naturally by simply holding the crayon over the candle, but you can have some control by cutting out niches to have the wax run down different sides, or by waiting until it cools just enough that new wax won't mix in with the last color. Or by letting them mix together. Or by using glitter crayons.) It was pretty much the coolest thing I've done in years. Jalin, when you get back on your feet, I'd highly recommend doing this with your kids. Apparently Carol and Jan did this out in their carport all growing up. Seriously. So. Much. Fun.

Sunday was also spent in Riverton, but story and picture wise, it was much less eventful. Conference itself, however, was quite amazing.

Catchup

Wow. It's been awhile since last I updated. I ended up going up to Idaho for Dave's (Stacie's step-dad) funeral. So Tuesday night BJ and I went up to Riverton and spent the night so that I could get up at 5:30, feed Kessa, and head up to Idaho. BJ caught a ride with a coworker from Riverton (only one car, remember?) and Grandma Homer babysat Kessa all day. The funeral was really good. I got to play with Stacie's baby, Megan, during the last part of it so that Stacie could enjoy the funeral. I even got to take a nap with her in the car at the cemetery, disturbed only when they did the gun salute. It was really good to see Stacie, Mama Loy, and Kellie again. They were like my second family growing up. It was also kind of fun to look around the people at the funeral and see so many faces from my childhood ward, before they switched ward boundaries when I was 12. It was amazing how a ward can stay so much the same, even when it changes so much. It was comforting to see all of them there and feel the stability in the support structure of Shelton ward. Even the building brought back memories. As I stood outside the Relief Society room during the family prayer, I remembered coming down as a Primary kid and standing outside those doors wondering, "What do they do in there?" I was sure it was something super fun because we were never allowed to go in until they had said their closing prayer. It made me long for they day I'd be able to go inside. It also made me laugh to see Stacie's cousins, Chris and Cory there and reminisce back to our childhood when Chris stole my shoe and I had to chase him around the church to get it back. Or the time that Cory was pretending to throw me off the rocks into the river, then slipped and really threw me (well, us) into the river.

It was a quick trip. I got to Idaho, stopped at Mom's work to change clothes and visit for a moment, go to the funeral, the cemetery, the lunch, then stopped at Mama Loy's house for a bit so I could pump. Then it was straight back home, stopping only once to get miserably off track in Pocatello, trying to find a gas station. Then it was back to Riverton just in time to feed Kessa and put her back to bed for the night.

So really, I didn't have much time to blog. And then when we finally got home Thursday, it was a bunch of cleaning and unpacking, and generally just falling behind on all things blogging. So now, let's play catchup!