Santa Baby

Rhia met Santa! She did great--no screaming, unlike the little girls in front of us. We also put up our tree today, but I haven't uploaded pictures yet.

6 month stats

*drumroll*
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We went to Rhia's 6-month appointment on Monday. She took the shots like a champ (except now she's all sniffly/etc. from the flu shot--well, we think. Al also has a cold, so she might have caught that). Anyway. She weighed in at 16lb, 14oz, and was a grand total of 25 3/4" long. She's preportioned out a bit, both were at about the 50th percentile, rather than height at the 20th and weight at the 70th like last time. The doctor said that everything looked absolutely perfect, and was very impressed by her upper-body control (she can sit with no problem at all now, it's pretty cool) and her language development. The doctor said that she doesn't usually ask about the babbling that Rhia's doing now until the 9-month appointment. But I'm bragging, so I'll stop. She has Al and I as parents, she's doomed to be wordy. So now we get to be more adventurous with foods (yay!) and can just mash her up what we're eating, says the doctor. I might be a little less adventurous than that, for the time being, anyways. But I did give her some of my tomato soup yesterday, and she thought that was pretty fabulous.

Today she started trying to take the spoon from me at lunch, so I put some food on it and gave it to her. She did pretty well--not all of it wound up in her hair. She was pretty insistant on controlling the spoon, though, so I just refilled it from time to time and let her go with it. Made my lunch lots easier to eat! We did the same thing at dinner and she wound up with avacado up her nose. Having a baby is quite entertaining.

And now a photographic journey for your viewing enjoyment (and told from Rhia's perspective, because it's funnier that way. Maybe I'm just tired):

Over Thanksgiving we went out to Great-Grandma and Great-Grandpa's house for dinner. Every time we go there people insist that I take a picture with Mom, Grandma, and Great-Grandma. Apparently it's a big deal. Even though she has a burp rag on her shoulder, Mom looks waay better in this picture than the one they took when I was born.


My cousin Ashley always shows up. You wouldn't guess it by her height, but she's 3 hours younger than me. Here we are saying hello. She wouldn't quit grabbing at me. I remained the aloof, hip cousin from Seattle.


Here we are hanging out on the floor. I always feel so short when I'm with Ashley.


She can't quite sit up alone, yet, so her mom and I are helping her out. This is one of those times where being short is great--a lower center of gravity!


Daddy wanted to get a picture of us with all of the grown-ups standing around with dollar bills cheering like we were fighting. Mom told him that was a bad idea and would probably get him in trouble. So instead we just hang out with Great-Grandma. Or Grandma to Ashley. That's going to confuse us when we're older.

Happy 6-month Birthday Rhia!

Rhia is 6 months old today! I cannot believe that it's been half a year since she was born! We have her 6-month appointment/shots tomorrow, but because today is her actual half-birthday, I had to do some then/now pictures.


one day old vs. 6 months old


the day she was born vs. 6 months old


first bath around 2 weeks old vs. 6 months old

She's gotten so big! Tomorrow we'll find out her "official" height and weight--we're figuring about 17 pounds by our bathroom scale. No idea about length, but she's definitely gotten longer.

And, a slideshow of some recent pictures, including her playing with Annie today, because I thought it was cute. Once mom sends them to me I'll put up pictures of her and her cousin Ashley from when we were in Montana for Thanksgiving--it was pretty cute.

Look. no hands!!!!

Rhia can sit on her own! She can't push herself up quite yet, but I don't even have to hover to balance her--she's got this stuff figured out! Yay, Rhia!

(please ignore my annoying baby-voice)

**Also, I didn't realize the video was sideways until it was uploaded and stuff--I had my camera turned sideways. Ooops. You get the idea.




And some pictures of her being a toy fiend. She loves her rings.

long time, no post

So we've been busy! I realized it's been over a month since we did an update, so I thought I should do one! We've been pretty busy for the last month.

At the beginning of October Mom and Mark came out to visit, and JJ came up from Portland as well. We had a full house (since everyone was staying with us)! It was a great trip, and it was so wonderful to see everyone and be able to show them around our new locale. A couple of weeks later Mark wound up in the hospital and had to have surgery, and about a week later Mom had to have surgery as well, so Rhia and I flew home to help them out with recovery and such. We were in Montana for 10 days, so we did a fair amount of family-visiting, complete with a trip over to VC to see Al's parents. She even got to hang out with Ashley a bit, who is her cousin that shares her birthday. We got home last Friday night, and then JJ flew in on Monday night. He's still here, and on Friday Al's parents are going to come out for the weekend--Al and I are going to go to the Seahawks game on Sunday (even though they're absolutely awful this year and will probably lose--but we haven't been to a game together yet this year, so we decided we should go and enjoy some bad-for-us sausage and Pyramid Hef.)

Rhia is getting so big and grown-up! We did her first professional pictures last month, which are very cute (except the thing on her eye was still a bit flakey, so that's a bummer). I didn't want her to outgrow her picture dress that Grandma bought her! She's eating all sorts of foods--so far we've tried rice cereal, apple juice, pears, bananas, squash, sweet potatos, avacado, and prunes. She gets all excited when she sees the bowl/spoon now--she's catching on! She's also sitting up a bit on her own--she'll usually topple reaching for a toy, but she bounces back up pretty quickly, and I finally got her to roll from her back to her belly the other day! She says "mama," although she hasn't put meaning to it yet--but she'll chatter all day if you let her. She's up to 16lbs and 25 inches, per a doctor's appt before we left for Montana to check on her eye--we'll have her 6-month checkup at the end of the month and see if she's grown again--but from her 4-month to her last one she'd gained a pound and half an inch. I can't believe she'll be 6 months old in a couple of weeks--they get big so fast!

I finally got this computer thing away from Mom!

So Mom is always on this thing, telling everyone about boring things like how much I weigh and doctor's appointments and stuff. What is she thinking!? Everyone knows that what people really want to know is how cute I am and how I spend my day. So, while she's distracted, I'm going to post my own blog. Enjoy!

I woke Mom up at 5:00 this morning to eat. I usually sleep until at least 6:00, but this morning I felt snacky. Unfortunately, I fell asleep after I ate, so she snuck back to bed. Dad got up to get ready for work and took care of me for a bit, then brought me into bed with Mom so she could sleep some more, but I would have none of it! I wanted to play!


Do you like my pretty jammies? They're nice and fuzzy, but it's time to get dressed for the day!


Now I'm stylin'! Mom sings this cool song when she puts on my pants to make me laugh. She sounds so ridiculous! She thinks I'm laughing with her. Ha! Today I'm wearing my fancy blue jeans.


After my breakfast, Mom has to feed the dogs and cats, and maybe herself, too, so I play with my toys while she gets everyone their food.


For some reason she keeps putting my duck out of my reach....what does she expect me to do, move to it?!? I keep trying, but I haven't quite figured out forward motion.


Dad missed the bus this morning because he came back for his coffee cup (Mom said something about tragic addiction...I wonder what that means?), so we have to take him to the bus stop, since there are too many cars at the park and ride after 7 a.m. to find a parking spot.


When we get back, Mom says it's time for me to nap. I hate naps.


Somehow she tricked me into sleeping....I think there was milk involved.


Maybe I did need a nap! I'm in a much better mood after I wake up!


After I have my morning snack Mom and I play in my room for a bit. She keeps taking pictures of me for some reason.


I mean, seriously. Enough is enough!


Mom gets stir-crazy during the day, so she decides that we're going to go to the fruit market and get something called squash. She says that I'll get to try it, so I'm game! I love trying big kid food! It's cold out, though, so i have to wear my sweatshirt.


When we got back from the fruit stand, it was time to play! I was practicing sitting up, but by the time Mom got her camera, I decided to lay down instead.


All of that sitting up really made me want to spit up all over my clothes, so it's time for a wardrobe change!


This afternoon Mom tried to get me to nap, but I didn't really feel like it. We spent all afternoon playing the nap game. I won, because I only napped for a little bit, and only if Mom let me sleep on her so she couldn't get anything done. Mom says I'll regret it later. She didn't get many pictures during the nap game, because she was busy trying to trick me into sleeping with her milk trick. Silly Mom.

When she gives up, I help her make apple cobbler. I'm not sure what it is, but it sure smelled good while it was in the oven! I can't wait until I can try that, too.


When the cobbler is in the over it's time for my afternoon snack. After my milk, it's time for cereal! I loooove my cereal.


After cereal, we go get Dad from the bus stop. Mom said something about me being a terror (I have no idea what she's talking about--I think the nap game is fun) and went out for coffee and groceries, so I spent some quality time with Dad.


After Mom and Dad eat dinner, it's time for my bath! I love bathtime! I'm not sure why they were laughing when they took this picture....do I have something on my face?


After my bath I get to bundle up in my big pink towel. It's so nice and cozy!


Mom changes me into my jammies while I play with the wall of my changing table. That's what I do when I get tired. Mom calls it "zombie-baby."


Now it's time for a story with Dad! I love my bedtime story--sometimes I help turn the pages! Tonight it's Curious George counting.


I decided I didn't want to wear my polka-dot pajamas tonight, so I spit up all over them. I just wanted to wear my cute bear-feet pajamas instead!



It's been a long day, what with all of the not napping! After my bedtime snack I'm ready for some sleep!


Thanks for reading about my day! I'd better put Mom's computer away before she realizes that I can type!

-Rhia

4 months!

Today Rhia is 4 months old! Wow. Time really flies.

Yesterday Rhia had her 4 month appointment and shots--she did really well. She cried when she got her shots, and she was a bit grouchy/sore last night (although the grouchiness might be because she didn't get a real nap from 1:30 or so until 7:30), but otherwise she did great! She's up to 14lb, 9oz, so almost double her birthweight (getting close) and she's 23/5" long. Still in the 70th percentile for weight and about the 30th for height--the poor girl doesn't stand a chance--she's just going to be short! She gets to try cereal, which we might do today, so that's pretty exciting. We found out that the thing on her eye is a little bacterial infection, but the doctor gave us a prescription for some stuff to put on it, and it should clear up in a week or so. No big deal--just a little patch of excema that got irritated by her rubbing it/having tears on it. It was our last appointment with our Ellensburg doctor, which was really sad for me, as he was my doctor the entire time I was pregnant and whatnot. So my new task is getting her a new pediatrician over here for her 6 month appointment. It was really great to go over to Ellensburg, though. We went and visited all sorts of people. We stopped at Thorp to say hi to them, then we went to CWU to see Al's advisors, then we went out and visited my student teaching teacher, went to the doctor's appointment, and finally we visited Maggie, Dustin, and Elke, and Michelle came over to say hi, too. Rhia got to hang out with Elke, but Elke's a bit older and just kept trying to take Rhia's burp rag. :-) It was great to see everyone--I was pretty sad on the way out of town, since I really have no idea when I'll be back through there.

No pictures today....we haven't taken any since the last post!

September Adventures

So we've kept ourselves pretty busy all month--Al went back to school last week, and so far he's pretty excited about it. He's taking a couple of seminars and teaching a couple of classes, so he's got his hands full.

Rhia is growing like crazy and doing really well. She "talks" to us all of the time now--including high-pitched Mariah Carey-esque screetches, and can sort of balance herself sitting up (so long as we're holding onto her arms--she's nowhere near sitting up on her own yet), and can support her own weight if we stand her on her feet. Her eyes are still blue and getting lighter--and I'm starting to think they'll stay that way--if they do, she'll have defied genetic odds, since Al and I are both brown (but his dad and my mom both have blue, as do our siblings). She has her 4 month appointment on Monday, so she'll get her second round of shots, we'll be able to see what to do to make her stop itching her eye(the eye with the birthmark got really dry and she started to itch it, and now it's all flaky...hopefully we can get something to fix it. It doesn't seem to bother her much, aside from the itching, but I'd rather her not look like we scrub her eye with steel wool.), and we find out about solid foods! I can't believe my baby is getting big enough to eat from a spoon--wasn't she just born?!?! For a quick comparison--a picture of her taken yesterday at almost 4 months, and a picture taken when she was about 3 days old--wearing the same onesie.

She's getting so big! She's at least double her birthweight, by my bathroom scale calculations. She's to the point now where I'm about to start putting her 3 month stuff in a box--as you can see in that first picture, it's getting pretty snug.

She's still sleeping all night, except for the occasional morning where she wakes me up at 5:00 or so to eat, but for the most part she sleeps until 6:30-ish, which is nice. It's weird for me to not be the one getting up and leaving at 6 a.m., but I'm getting used to it. Although every time I see a school bus I get a bit mopey and miss it. I still plan on going back next year and being more proactive about finding a job next summer. Plus, by then we might actually be able to get her into a daycare--even if I'd gotten a job this year, there are 1year+ long waiting lists everywhere, so it might not have panned out, anyways.

Rhia and I have been exploring Lynnwood/Edmonds and checking out what we can do to keep ourselves busy. We go on a mini-adventure every day (aside from grocery shopping and whatnot), which usually means that we go find somewhere we haven't been before and go for a walk. So far we're explored a few parks, a couple of different routes to Barnes and Noble, and spent a fair bit of time at the waterfront. Today we took Al down to the Edmonds Marina and played in the sand, which was nice. It's a gorgeous weekend (after a week of sogginess), so that helps. We took some pictures, plus a few from playing around the house (and for those of you who don't know--if you click on the pictures, then it takes you to an album that you can look at all of the pictures bigger/at your own pace).

Miller Look-alike Meter

This is pretty spiffy! We did it with a few different pictures, and it always turned out exactly 50/50. Maybe that's why we can't figure out who she looks like....

MyHeritage: Look-alike Meter - Black and white photographs - Free family tree template

Chatty, chatty

A quick update, since I haven't done one in awhile, and because I have some new pictures/a video to post!

Rhia is still learning all sorts of stuff--she's gotten incredibly chatty and loves to tell us stories, like this one (make sure sound is on!):



She'll chatter away all day--apparently she's found her voice! She's also started to roll over from her belly to her back, but not often. She gets to her side from her back, but hasn't turned over onto her belly yet. She hates tummy time and flails around miserably when we put her down on her belly, so I'm guessing the drive isn't there yet. Lots of smiles and giggles--have yet to get her laughing on video, but it's pretty cool. Otherwise we're getting along--Al starts up stuff at UW on Monday with orientations and such all week, then classes start the following week, so he'll be pretty busy with all of that. In the last couple of weeks we've stuck pretty close to home, sans a trip to Portland to visit Uncle JJ and Powell's.

So, since it's late and I'm on my way to bed, a few pictures for your viewing enjoyment! **Note: She spit up all over her Seahawks outfit last Sunday--I don't blame her, they were pretty awful.

fishy, fishy

Two posts in one week! A new record! We've had a pretty mellow week, but we did go to the aquarium on Monday. Rhia loved watching the fish--she was actually really into it! It was great fun to watch her. She's discovered her feet this week, so her new trick is kicking her toys to make them move. We also took the newborn sling out of her bathtub, which led to much splashing during bathtime--I'm going to refrain from posting the video, even though she was tastefully covered with a washrag. :)

So a new slideshow--pictures from our time in the Bitteroot with Al's side of the family plus a few bonus ones we've taken this week from the aquarium and just hanging out around the house.

Tomorrow Al's grandparents will be here on their way to Alaska. Rhia is a very popular girl.

busy month

So we have had an incredibly busy month--we were in Montana for two weeks, so most of August disappeared pretty quickly! While in Montana, we went to a wedding, visited just about every family member that we have in Montana, Rhia met tons of relatives, including her Grandpa Mark, her cousin Ashley (who shares her birthday--Rhia is three hours older than Ashley), and her cousin Anton (who was born in February--he tried to drool all over her, but she wasn't impressed). Montana was great, but Rhia was ready to be done and home--she was incredibly cranky by the time we left. I don't have pictures from our visits with Al's family yet (except one of Rhia and Nellie), but I'll upload them when I do. She gets distracted by the camera and doesn't smile much for it--apparently having your picture taken is serious business. :)


Rhia is getting so big! We weighed her this morning, and it was right around 13 lbs--give or take a little. She's holding up her head all on her own now, laughing a bit, smiling constantly, and she's learned how to make one of her toys sing! Check it out! (make sure your volume is on!)


I can't believe how much she's changing and how fast she's growing.

We've started to experience that Seattle-drizzle now--I say drizzle, but I've never seen rain like what we have today in the summertime. It's crazy. I also cannot believe summer is almost over. If I were teaching this fall I'd be going back about now, as-is I'm still limboing--I'm applying for winter quarter at UW to start my Master's degree, though, and I'll go part-time (so we'll either schedule classes so one of us is home with Rhia or she'll be at daycare while I'm at class if need be). I definitely plan on being dilligent on the job-search front next summer (unlike this year, when I turned in stuff to one district and didn't pursue much), and just working on my master's during the summers after that. I love teaching too much to be gone for too long. I am very excited to stay home with Rhia. Not what I'd originally planned, but I'll take it. Al found out while we were in MT that he got a TA (so tuition and everything is covered, which is fabulous), so he'll be working even harder this fall. We are very excited about this development. Otherwise we're just exploring the greater Seattle area and getting settled in the house. I've fallen in love with the U-District Farmer's Market, and we still haven't gotten over the fact that it takes us 10 minutes to get to Puget Sound to watch the sailboats. Tomorrow we're going down to the aquarium for my birthday. It's so great to have so much to do at our fingertips.

like a shot in the arm

So yesterday Rhia got her first shots. I think it was almost as hard on us as it was on her. It went relatively well--she did scream pretty good when the nurse gave the shots to her, but she calmed right now and did really well after that, until about Cle Elum, when she decided she needed to scream the entire way home. I sat in the backseat with her and everything, but no luck. When we got home last night she screamed for a bit, but I did manage to get her to eat, and we put her to bed--she was all clammy, but I think it way mainly from crying all that time. She may have felt a bit icky, but she seems fine today. She slept until 6:00 this morning, so she was out for 8 full hours. I woke up a couple of times to check on her, but all was good.

The appointment otherwise went really well--she's up to 11lb12oz, 22 inches long--so she's in the 70th percentile for weight, but about the 40th for height. I told the doctor that I don't expect her to ever get very tall--Al and I are both pretty short. Everything else looked good--head control is getting there, she's smiley and doing well! Her 4-month appointment is at the end of September with the same doctor in Ellensburg--mainly because I haven't found a doctor here yet, and I really like Dr. Herman. But after September we'll probably have to find one over here--the pass will get icky. *sigh*

And the requisite picture, because she's cute. I have a couple of little videos that I should figure out how to put up here.

2 months old!

just born 1 month 2 months

She wasn't very cooperative with the 2 month picture, but I think you can definitely see a difference! I can't believe my baby is 2 months old already!

some more pictures

Since Kim emailed me pics from her visit, I thought I'd put those up as well. Rhia doesn't like camera flashes, so she looks a bit cranky in some of them. Still cute, though.


our little family

at the fountain at UW

grandma and rhia


Also......

Rhia is a Husky! :-)