So K3 is eating a lot of solids these days, as you can see in this adorable picture here:
















So for fun we decided to record him eating "chicken" for the first time (it's in quotation marks because baby food chicken may or may not contain any actual chicken, or in fact, edible food in general) We thought it would be cute, and it seemed that way, until things took a terrible turn!



We felt awful. So we recorded him eating applesauce to show that we do actually feed him things that don't make him gag:




Unfortunately, other than being an important milestone, eating solids has other unfortunate consequences. And the MOST unfortunate is. . .well. . .let's just put it this way -- remember his favorite outfit, the Pooh Suit(pictured right)? Well, it's dropped the "h" and is now just the poo suit. You could say, really, that every item of clothing he owns is now a poo suit. Blowouts are a multi-day occurrence around here, and nothing, not even the overpriced $30 overalls I bought him, are safe.

I will be kind and not post pictures (because I have them). I'm sure your imagination will do just fine.

Onto less disgusting news, our little back-scooter is no more -- please welcome our little crawler! Well, almost. Sorry to jump the gun, there, but I'm very excited that K3 seems to have abandoned scooting on his back in favor of almost crawling on his front. And don't think I don't have proof. Kindly turn your attention to this video:


And if that wasn't enough, a cute picture:


















Oh, and we've also started him on baby yoga.

Here he is doing Cat pose:

















Plank pose:

















Downward facing dog:

















And Child's pose:

















He is gonna be one flexible baby.


I'm not sure if you noticed in some of the pictures and videos, but out baby has become quite the porker! He' over 20 lbs these days (pretty amazing considering he was 14 1/2 lbs at the beginning of January). I took a picture of his newly found multiple chin:















And also of his whole new roly-poly body:






















Here is another couple of videos I took of the baby. Here is one from a few weeks ago showing him playing with a ball we got him:

And here he is being easily entertained with a key on a rope.



Well, the Kennys and I are off to Washington in a few days for Spring Break. We're excited for the warmer (if still gloomy) Puyallup weather. K3 will see his grandma and grandpa Matthews, two of his great-grandmas, and his Uncle Dave and Aunt Robyn. I'll make sure and post after we get back and tell you all about it!

Here's me sticking to my New Year's resolution and posting another blog entry. Go me! Just here in sunny Syracuse. Yes you heard me -- sunny! We're in the midst of quite a heat wave. It's supposed to get up to fifty this week. Balmy!

After last week's novel, I've decided that this post needs to consist of mostly pictures. And mostly of pictures of the baby. So first I'll post some pictures from Christmas break. Then some new ones, including one I took 10 minutes ago!

Well, let's get started. First, here are some pictures from Christmas break.

Here's me with a new haircut:










Here's the Kennys:










And this is the day I found out that not three people, but FIVE people read this blog. Shoutout to my good friends Katie and Jesse! We spent a blissful afternoon together:










And I admit I am ashamed of not including Jesse and I's night of make-a-million madness into my Christmas highlights. So to make up for it, I've got a video in the works. For the mean time these photos will have to do as a preview. Oh, and to those who do not know of the game make-a-million: buy it. Buy it now. And play it IMMEDIATELY. Trust me on this one.





























This video's gonna be good.



I took a nap one day and came downstairs to find this:









Apparently K3 was pretty cranky, but when Kenny put him in the box he calmed right down. Whatever works.










Yes, that is K3 eating packing peanuts.


And now here's just some very cute pictures I've taken in the past week or so of K3 -- enjoy!





















































And now. . .vidoes!

K3 has started to do this strange cough/laugh when he gets really excited. It's a strange phase he's gotten into. I captured video of it! It's not edited at all, but here it is (by the way, the glove Kenny is hitting K3 with is very soft):

The other day I bought K3 a balloon at Wegman's and he loved it! For proof, watch this video:



As a special bonus here is the full bathtub video -- I could only use a small clip for the montage.

Be warned -- this post is extremely long. Read at your own risk.

So I've neglected the blog. I'll admit it. And I would be ashamed of it, except what can compete with a vacation, Christmas, presents, ringing in the new year, my birthday, and more presents? The blog can't, that's for sure. But don't worry, one of my New Year's resolutions is to write in the blog more (I may or may not have actually made that resolution, but I CAN promise that I am back from hiatus and, might I add, better than ever)

I'm still deciding whether to blog about my vacation to Salt Lake City and Christmas. I feel tired from just thinking about it. In fact, most of the people who read this blog were there. They know what happened. But in all fairness, I will include three of the highlights. The first being. . . .

Highlight #1. My Christmas Eve party.

This party was a plan I hatched way back when we first moved to Syracuse, when I had no family and a only a cranky baby for company. Both sides of our family would be in Utah for Christmas -- why not! Well, I somehow pulled it all together, and it went off (practically) without a hitch. Everyone had a good time, and we all enjoyed some wonderful Christmas-themed fun.

Here was the itinerary:
1) Lunch
2) A rousing game of pictionary (not for the faint of heart, mind you. Just try drawing melekelikimaka -- ask Katryna how)
3) An epic gingerbread house competition (think Iron Chef meets Martha Stewart meets Candy Land) complete with a crappy recipe for gingerbread house icing (note to self: no tarter sauce = runny icing), people complaining about the icing (hint: Mom), and fervor not seen since Dad played in last year's Halo marathon competition.
4) White elephant. Gifts included: a bag of oranges (hope you're enjoying it, Jeff!) , hand sanitizer, a box of scissors, Halloween candy, and more!

I have lots of video, but really don't want to edit it right now. You'll just have to wait for that. If it ever comes. Which it probably won't.

Highlight #2: The beginning of a beautiful friendship.

The saying good things come in small packages was never more true than Christmas 2008. It was then that I met my new best friend, the Iphone. A month later I'm wondering how anyone lives without one, let alone how I ever did. I don't want to cheapen things by trying to describe a love that is indefinable, so let's just suffice it to say that it's AWESOME. If you can get one, I'd recommend it.

Hightlight #3: The Christmas wallet miracle.

I classify this as a Christmas miracle even though the event happened after Christmas, because "after Christmas miracle" just doesn't sound as special. But lets not get caught up on semantics. This miracle played out like most miracles: things seemed to be going great, then tragedy happened, and then. . .the miracle saved the day (and possibly the money in my bank account -- oh, and me having to wait in line at the DMV, among other things.)

So there we were two days after Christmas. We decided to stop at Carl's Jr., because they don't have them in Syracuse and Kenny wanted to get as many trips in as possible. We enjoyed our meal, and were about to leave when someone (not Kenny) hugged me and whispered "Just let it happen." Who else could it be but my good friend, Lindsay Redd (Hogan) and her husband, Andrew. Except Andrew wasn't hugging me, only Lindsay (that would have been awkward). We chatted, remembered old times, and then said our goodbyes and Kenny and I drove to Walmart, five minutes away. I had ordered Kenny a present that arrived after Christmas and we were going to pick it up. Presents. Old friends. Carl's Jr. What could go wrong? Well, I looked in my bag to find my driver's license, and guess what, my driver's license wasn't there, because it was in my wallet and my wallet wasn't there.

So after a few minutes of freaking out (mostly on Kenny's part -- what can I say, he's a worrier), we drove back to Carl's Jr. , because I had it there last, and I thought I must have left it on the table or dropped it outside of the car, or something. We looked where the car had been parked, we looked on the sidewalk, we looked in the restaurant. Nothing. Ken and I of course assumed someone had stolen it. And maybe we thought that the homeless man that was standing inside the Carl's Jr. at the time had something to do with it. I told the Hogans, who were still eating, and they came out and helped us look. And then Andrew went in and asked everyone (including the homeless man) if they knew where it was. Nothing. We looked again. Nothing! The Hogans left, and seeing the homeless man inside staring at us suspiciously, I asked Kenny to go ask him again. Kenny did, and the man told him that he always turns in wallets when he finds them.

So we left, dejected. That wallet contained everything of value -- my credit cards, driver's license, insurance cards, punch card for pita pit. What would happen without it? My wallet seemed doomed, until in a sudden moment of inspiration I remembered that I had set a cup on top of the car before we left, and might have set the wallet there as well and forgotten about it. We drove the exact route we had taken from Carl's Jr. to Walmart and made it to the street Walmart was on without any luck. Enter the miracle. As we were turning in, Kenny looked over at me with wide eyes and said "I think I saw something!" He immediately turned the car around and pulled to the spot where he thought he saw it. I looked out the window. And there it was, buried under a foot of snow on the side of the road, only it's little corner sticking out. Did I mention it was nighttime and very dark outside. I jumped out, grabbed it, started screaming and jumping, and then almost got hit by a car. But I didn't, so I got back in, and we drove home, happier than ever before.

The morals of this story 1) The Hogans are really nice people 2) Don't suspect homeless people of committing crimes just because they are homeless 3) Miracles do happen. Especially around Christmas.

So that was Christmas. Unfortunately, New Year's wasn't nearly as exciting. We decided to avoid the New Year's Eve party route, because we had to be up at 4am to get to the airport for our six o' clock flight (don't worry, lesson learned). We decided to rent a classic movie to watch until midnight, then ring in the new year, then sleep for 3 hours (more like 2 with a cranky baby). We picked "It Happened One Night" with Clarke Gable and some other actress (who I think is famous, but I can't remember her name). Listen, I have nothing against classics. I'm a big fan. But let's just say watching this while trying to stay up until midnight wasn't the best idea. If you've seen it you'll know what I mean. The word bored-out-of-my comes to mind.

So that was New Year's. And now we're all back in horribly frigid Syracuse. It was -7 last week. That's cold.

Oh, and a few weeks ago I turned 23. We had an impromptu party. Nothing special. I got all the presents I didn't get for Christmas (I know, I know, what on earth could I have wanted after an Iphone?). The cake was white with raspberry filling. That's about it.

I saved the saddest news for last. Don't lose hope, it has a happy ending! We took K3 to the doctor few weeks ago for his checkup. It turns out he only gained 1/2 lb in three months since his last check up. In case you don't know, that's not good. He should have gained at least 1/2 lb every two weeks (there's a whole chart with a curve -- but let's not get technical here.) So the doctor and I decided to supplement breast feeding with formula. The doctor said that if he gained weight in a week then there were no serious problems. If he came back and still no weight gain -- not good. The first feeding after the doctor I let him nurse as much as he could and then gave him a bottle with a few ounces of formula. He looked at me weird for about 2 seconds and then gulped it down. No problem switching to the bottle for him. He ate 4 ounces in about 5 minutes. We went back a week later and he hadn't gained a pound. He had gained two pounds! We later found out that we were looking at the wrong side of the bottle and instead of 3 ounces we were giving him almost 6 ounces, thus explaining the two pound gain. So now we just supplement a few ounces every feeding. So, the good news is K3 is now getting all the food he needs (and is already getting pretty dang fat -- double chin, chunky thighs, pot-belly). Bad news: he was starving for three months. But luckily he won't remember it when he's older.

Well, that's it! Congratulations on making it to the end of the post! Your reward includes. . . . . multimedia! And this multimedia includes . . . . . a montage! Nothing special -- just a few longer clips of the baby from the past couple of months. But titles and music are included. As a note, the bath clip was shot two days ago, so its the most recent video of little K3 (and keep a lookout for a special bonus clip at the end!) Enjoy:





Coming in a few days. . . . .Pictures!!

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!