I've got videos galore this time. What follows are some clips of cute things K3 has been doing recently. They are all separate and unedited. So in other words, it's just like a video montage, minus all the work it takes me to put it together. If you still want that montage-like ambiance, just play a little music in the background while you watch. As a suggestion, "What a Wonderful World" induces heartwarming emotions when played in conjunction with anything baby.

Video 1. Tummy time (I would play this video with the "mute" button on - you are forewarned):





Video 2. Laughing (Do not mute this. Full volume would be best):





Video 3. He did this all day long for about 4 or 5 days straight. Apparently, I thought it was hilarious:





Video 4. Just him trying to wake up (P.S. - that's my arm):




Video 5. One night he just wasn't falling asleep so we set him down to play. Twenty minutes later we saw this. The little cutie was still trying to play even thought he was dead tired:




In other news, we got the piano tuned this week. And yes, that's the most exciting thing that's happened recently. Ed the Tuner (as he introduced himself) stopped by for a couple of hours and did his magic. And I have it on good authority (Kenny AND my dad) that is sounds great. So thanks, Ed.

So if you're looking for somebody to have sympathy for, look no further. As the temperature in Syracuse plummets, so does the temperature in our drafty, poorly insulated apartment (our heating bill, on the other hand, is steadily rising). Since the crappy electric heating units serve no purpose except to keep the apartments above us warm and toasty (heat rises, remember) we've resorted to keeping K3 perpetually in his "pooh suit" (as pictured to the right) . In an attempt to bring our apartment back up above freezing, we are going to cover all our windows and our sliding glass door with insulating plastic, further cutting ourselves off from humanity. We will emerge in the Spring, hopeful for a warmer, happier world.

As you may be able to tell at this point, it's been a slow couple of weeks. But Kenny, K3, and I are doing great. I'm happy to report, also, that K3's neck is stronger than ever and he's making good progress with respect to that.

Unfortunately, I haven't taken any pictures these past couple of weeks except the pooh suit ones. I'm sorry, I'm sorry! But if you're feeling a bit gypped, just scroll back up to all those videos. Remember those? Remember how wonderful they were? Ah, yes. . . .

Well, hopefully by next post I'll have tons of pictures to share. Until then.

Oh, do I have a treat for you. I finally hunkered down and created a video montage of all the 80 videos we've recorded since the last montage. And it's epic. It's over 7 minutes long and not for the faint of heart. The video comes in three parts: Section 1) A montage (with music!); Section 2: the baby making cute noises; Section 3: clips of the baby laughing!

In the future I'm going to put up video's as we record them, instead of spending forever going through them later. So get excited for future posts, which will be full of videos!

And here it is:






Also, here's some pictures we've taken in the last couple of weeks.


He loves this stuffed elephant we got him:




















From a trip to the park:




































































Just some pictures we took the other day:

Special Update

K3 went to the doctor today about his torticollis. Kenny and I were shamed by the doctor for not doing his stretched enough (which we didn't) and the doctor sent K3 to a physical therapist. The physical therapist said that things were looking good and if we are just dedicated to doing the stretched everything will be okay. Hooray!

Also, Kenny reached a kind-of milestone today. He was able to sit up by himself using his hands. It was a bit slouchy, hence the kind-of milestone. But I'm counting it. And luckily I got it on video:

Halloween Special

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

In order to celebrate, Kenny and I took K3 trick-or-treating for the first time! We had a blast. And to chronicle our good time, I made a special Halloween video!

By the way, this video almost didn't happen. After finishing my masterpiece, I took a quick break before I rendered it. But when I opened back up the laptop all the clips, to my horror, were little red X's instead of clips. Distraught, I tried everything to get the clips back but to no avail. So I gave up. But then in a last ditch effort I tried just closing the program and opening it back up. Lo, and behold, this did the trick and the clips were back! I still can't explain it. But I'm happy it happened. And here it is:



Well I can tell you that we weren't gonna pass up an opportunity to dress up K3, even if he was too young to even know what was going on. But everyone there just loved K3 and thought he was so cute. And Ken and I got some candy out of the deal, so all-in-all I call it a raging success!
Later that night we also went to a little Halloween party with some people in our ward. Unfortunately, I don't really have any pictures. But I'm sure you can use your imagination.

As far as other things go, I can't help myself and go ahead and judge me, but I'm getting really excited for Christmas. And I've been getting excited for some time now. I'll admit that I've been doing the following: listening to Christmas carols AND singing them to the baby, planning Christmas activities, picking out presents, and just getting in a jolly ol' mood for the Christmas season. In fact, I've been doing this for months (much to Kenny's chagrin. But not the baby's -- I'm molding him into a Christmas-lover just like myself. And no one can stop me!) And for all those of you who find celebrating Christmas 4 months early ridiculous, all I have to say is: Scrooge! Go spread your Christmas hate somewhere else. In fact, take this:

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

In other news, Kenny's school is starting to heat up. This month is gonna be killer as his classes start to wind down and all the big projects and papers are due. But he will perservere -- only four more weeks to go! (Which, incedentally, is also the amount of time before we fly to SLC for Christmas!)

Also, I'm gonna be studying hard for the GRE, which I take mid-December. I'll apply for graduate school starting at the beginning of the year for next fall, so I better get cracking!

Well that's pretty much it. The baby keeps growing - when he got weighed and measured a week and a half ago he was 25 1/2 inches and 14 1/2 lbs. And I'm almost positive he had a growth spurt this week so he's just gonna keep on truckin'! Also, we go in for a check-up to see about his neck so we'll keep you updated. We've noticed that things are getting a lot better so hopefully the doctor will agree.


Here's some more pictures from Halloween:















Baby and Mommy

















Just having a good time
















Baby and Daddy

















Poor guy - so exhausted after a long night of trick-or-treating!

















After Ken and I had divvied up the candy. My stash is on the bottom - I totally got the best stuff.


Well, until next time!

So I know I promised a new K3 montage, but I'm gonna try and break this to you softly -- it's not here. Nor will it be in the immediate future. To be perfectly honest, I haven't even started it. But I figure, if I post a montage every other post what's gonna keep you people (all 3 of you) coming back for more? So go back and re-watch the last one. Savor it. It may be a while before you get another one.

Now onto promises that I am going to keep. Grandma Matthews visited us a few weeks back. And boy, did we have fun. K3 will NOT stop talking about how much fun he had (at least I think that's what he's saying). We went to Ithaca and Moosewood, the Sacred Grove, Skaneateles (we can pronounce it now!) , and just hung out and had a grand ol' time. Here's a cute video of Gma and baby hanging out outside our apartment:






While those in Salt Lake were enjoying snow and cold, here in Syraucse we experienced a wonderful weekend of sun and fun (we're talking highs well into the 70's here). To take advantage of pretty much the last few warm days before the bitter, bitter cold Syracuse winter, we decided to go to Green Lake state park and walk around, you guessed it, the green lakes.



And to clear things up, the lakes really do look green, just see for yourself!:
















It was so beautiful! The leaves were changing colors . . .
















it was quiet, the baby was happy in the snugli.















All was perfect. Except. . .

An incident which I happened to catch on video. Be warned, the following may disturb some viewers:



I think this picture speaks for itself:

















And the close-up:










Oreo mustache is clearly visible. I'll let you be the judge.

Breaking news! K3 has officially rolled over! To prove it, we've got video. See for yourself (there's no sound because Kenny and I got really excited and started yelling in excitement):





Coming soon: a new post and another K3 video montage!

Tragic news today. K3's love affair with his carseat is officially over. Once beloved by both him and us - slept in, played in, sat in - now despised. How could this be? They had such good times in the past -- just look!:
















































Could there be a happier baby? But those good times are over for good. See for yourself:


.


In other good news--oh wait, I mean more terrible news-- K3 has a condition called tortocollis. The doctor confirmed it yesterday. It's when one side of the baby's neck is weaker than the other, usually due to a difficult delivery (it may have been the extreme pushing, cramped birth canal, and forceps, I don't know). This means he has a hard time moving his neck to one side. I think this picture clearly illustrates the problem:
















That's not the right angle for a baby's neck to be. To fix it we have to do neck-stretching physical therapy, which, you guessed it, K3 hates. No, I don't have video. Just watch the carseat video again and instead of a carseat imagine my hands trying to twist his neck a way he doesn't like. You'll get the picture.

Onto good news (you thought we'd never get there)! K3 is making a lot of progress. He can grab toys and shake them:















And he can push himself up and look around (on his good side only, though. . .):














And he likes to hang out on the couch and watch TV:















Also, he can kind of stand up a little and he can kind of sit up by himself. He usually just rolls onto his stomach, though.

And now, the K3 video. He's been making a lot of funny sounds, so I put some clips together. As a warning, nifty transitions and Jack Johnson do not appear in this video.




COMING SOON. . . . . .Grandma Matthews visits K3!!!

Something amazing happened two nights ago. For the first time ever K3 slept 7 1/2 hours in a row! But don’t get too excited. Instead of going to sleep ourselves, me and Kenny dinked on the internet, laid on the couch, watched TV, and ate horrible food for an hour and a half before going to bed. Idiots! So instead of getting 7 ½ hours of bliss-filled, uninterrupted sleep we got less than 5 (aka, the usual). Maybe next time we’ll learn. . .but I doubt it.

Speaking of sleep. . kind of. . .Hurricane Ike made it all the way up to New York last night. Apparently the wind was blowing really really hard, even knocking over trees and such. I say apparently because we both slept through it, so we wouldn’t really know. I guess when you don’t sleep very much at night, that sleep is real, real deep (See paragraph above for more details).

Kenny and I also got new callings as nursery teachers. Kenny thinks that watching 10 toddlers for 2 hours is harder than watching K3 all day. I beg to differ. I think we know who does most of the baby watching around our house (hint: me).

Also, K3 has decided that he now likes music! His favorites are opera, grunge rock, and Jack Johnson.

You may notice the lack of pictures, but in their place I’ve got something very special for you. A video montage of the best K3 moments from the past few weeks, complete with music and transition effects!! It’s a bit long, but I edited it down from 40 minutes, so I’m pretty proud of myself. There may or may not be the following: adorable faces, crying, perplexed looks, and bodily functions (I knew I would hook you with that last one). Enjoy!

The results from the blog-poll are in! And the winner, with an astounding 45% is. . . . . . . .. K3!!! From this point on Kenny, III will be referred to as K3 in all future blog posts. Kenny, Jr. will be simply Kenny. In real life K3 will still be called Kenny. . . .for now.

This labor day we attempted our most exciting day trip yet -- the New York State Fair! We have to admit it was a raging success! Fun times had all around.

The fair was full of many wonders, which included:

A manly man lumberjack making wood sculptures with a chainsaw


A jousting tournament. As you can tell, my pictures of this turned out REALLY good.


Little baby chickens hatching



A sculpture made out of butter AND a sculpture made out of sand.





















Death-defying acrobatics. These were really cool. And these people are CRAZY! One woman did various poses on a ring 30 feet above the ground.



And this OTHER guy ran and jumped around on this crazy rotating spinning hoop thingy. At one point he blindfolded himself and I thought he might not make it! But alas, he's a professional, and he did.

A petting zoo. Most of the animals in the petting zoo were cute and friendly-looking, ie lambs, miniature ponies, llamas. But one. . .just didn't quite fit in.

I wasn't too keen on touching that one. Believe me, it's much uglier in person.

Now that I am not pregnant I also decided to go on a crazy, spinny, possibly unsafe carnival ride. Now tell me this doesn't look exciting.


There was TONS of food there. Me and Kenny pigged out! I ate a funnel cake the size of a football, and Kenny had (besides his lunch) a cherry limeade, two chocolate milks, some of my funnel cake, a 2-foot long dough stick, and a bbq pork sandwich.



I also got a killer sunburn.


A close-up reveals the extent of the damage:



Contrary to the norm, K3 was quite well-behaved at the fair.

Here he was at the jousting tournament:














At the sand sculpture (he wasn't too sure about it:















At the petting zoo:














Hanging out outside at lunch:














And by the hatching chicks. Possibly the cutest picture ever.



















Such a good boy

All in all, a funfilled and exciting day at the fair!


Here are some more K3 pics:


















































And here's a video of K3 kicking a blanket off himself. He's always kicking his legs like crazy and we can't seem to be able to keep a blanket on him!