10 Months

It's amazing how quickly a month passes. I often feel like I just barely did the last post and suddenly she's a month older. Blake is learning quickly and seems to be picking new things up every day. Here are some of the things that have happened in the last month:

She fell asleep in my arms for the first time since she was a newborn. It was the day after we got home from spending the week at Cindy's and I think she was exhausted.

She loves water and likes drinking out of a cup with a straw. Though when she is using a thick straw, she will often get too much water and end up spitting most of it out or choking on it.

Blake has learned how to climb up the stairs.

Whenever she gets a little upset, she heads for the stairs and starts to climb. I think it began when she would get upset when I would run upstairs and leave her behind so she would follow after me. But now, even when she knows I am downstairs, she will often still head upstairs. Once she is at the top, she will scream until I come up and get her.

Because of a few tumbles down the stairs, she has learned not to get too close once she is at the top.

Blake is such a quick learner. We went to Arctic Circle to get ice cream and play on the playground. Because of her falls down stairs, I have been trying to teach her how to go down backwards. But she has still be really hesitant. She seemed to enjoy the slides so I tried having her go down on her stomach, feet first so I wouldn't have to hold her while she went down. After just a couple of times of sitting her at the top, then making her turn around to go down the slide, she was doing it herself.

She really likes the lights on the Christmas tree and has tried pulling them off several times.

Blake still loves the water and taking baths. Though she isn't too thrilled with Will constantly pouring water over her head.

There was one night she had a spoon in one hand and a wash cloth in the other. I put some cheerios on the counter for her to eat. She looked from one hand to the other, then bent down and ate the cheerios off of the counter.

Apparently she didn't want to let go of what she was holding.

Blake gets really excited...often.

If you hold her hands, she will walk with you.

Whenever I play the piano, Blake likes either stand up to the bench beside me or go climb up against the window and look outside.

One of her new favorite things is spaghetti noodles. She loves just grabbing them and slurping them up.

She still only has her two bottom teeth. We thought another one was coming in up top, but it hasn't broken through yet.

She still prefers her mom to most others.

Once while I was shopping, this lady saw Blake and started gushing about how cute she was. She asked me her name and just kept saying how she was the most beautiful baby she had ever seen. She sure is.

Will likes to put her in his lego wagon and give her rides around the house.

Will has also been caught interrupting her nap a time or two. She didn't seem too upset about it.

This is probably what she really thinks of her big brother. Or maybe just annoyed that he interrupted her photo shoot.

Blake loves opening the kitchen drawers and going through all the gadgets. Our bottom drawer contains our zip lock bags, which she thoroughly enjoys pulling out and scattering everywhere.

I finally decided it was time for her to lose her mullet. I cut a good 3-4 inches off of the back of her hair and I am so happy that I finally went ahead and did it. It looks so much better now. When she was born her hair was really dark, but it has lightened considerably since. Her little mullet was interesting because the roots were coming in fairly light, but the tips were still super dark.

Blake is terrified of being held upside down. If you start to tilt her backwards, she will latch onto you as tight as she can and tense up. She often holds her breath also. She reacts similar when you throw her into the air. But I've learned if you keep throwing her up, after about 3-4 times she starts smiling and laughing.

She is definitely in the stage of getting into everything.

She likes giving kisses and anytime she hears a kissing noise, she will turn to see where it is coming and will often times give one.

She sleeps through the night every once in a while, but most of the time she is up once either just needing her binky put back in or wanting a bottle.

Blake's mouth started bleeding pretty good after Will body slammed her. Fortunately, she recovered pretty quickly and was happy shortly after.

She makes some pretty good faces.

We love you, Blake.

Thanksgiving 2013

My family is a little different when it comes to holidays. It seems like every one gets busy doing their own things that we rarely get together as a family. I don't ever remember going to grandparents houses or spending holidays with extended family. It was usually just my mom, my sister, and I.

So in the 4 years that Lance and I have been married, we have spent almost every holiday with the Hinton side. And we were both happy with that. We haven't had quarrels over whose family we should spend time with because there hasn't been many options on my side.

My sister and I started talking and decided that we should have Thanksgiving at her house. I originally just thought it would be us, my mom, and my other sister Kim, but 2 of my brothers also showed up. Everyone was there except my brother, Tony, who lives in Idaho. It is difficult getting all of my siblings in one place so it was awesome having so many of us there.

We were able to go down to Cindy's house Monday afternoon and stay until Friday morning. It was a lot of fun and great be around family, though I am sure we wore out our welcome being there for so long. Lance's grandma had passed away a few days before, so we spent most of the day Tuesday with the Hinton's at the viewing and funeral.

Tuesday night Will was throwing up most of the night. He had slept downstairs by my mom and she took care of it all night. I didn't even realize until morning what a rough night he had. I felt bad my mom didn't come wake me to help out.

Lance and Cindy worked most of the day Wednesday. My mom watched all of the kids while my sister went to work, and I got my teeth cleaned, as mentioned in a previous post. We spent that night preparing some of the salads and food for our feast the following day.

Are whole lives, Cindy and I have constantly been asked if we are twins. So we decided to try to look as much alike as possible and take a few pictures to see if we actually look like twins.

Two hundred pictures later, we finally got one that we look a little like each other.

Once it was determined that we were doing Thanksgiving as a family, we decided that we wanted to run a 5k that morning. So Thursday we got up early and went out to brave the cold so we could do a Turkey Trot in Eagle Mountain. There were a ton of people there and it was a lot of fun. There were competitive runners, joggers, walkers, parents pushing strollers, kids riding bikes and scooters. It was great seeing so many families out there.

Here is a picture of us as we were getting ready to head to the starting line. There were going to be a few more of us, but Joshlyn wasn't feeling well and McKenzie didn't want to wake up that early.

It was COLD FREEZING outside. The first 2 miles or so, I thought my hands were going to fall off, even though I was wearing gloves. I half considered stopping just because my hands hurt so bad.

I was trying to beat my record for a 5k time and I was on on track to do it. But when my phone told me I was at 3 miles, the finish line was no where in sight. I finally crossed the finish line at 35:05 minutes and the total distance ended up being 3.7 miles instead of 3.1 miles.

Cindy finished a few minutes after me.

Then Kim shortly after that.

Josh was after her. (There was a whole team of fire fighters who ran the whole thing in full gear.)

I also ran into an old roommate of mine that lives in Eagle Mountain.

And then my mom finished.

My mom told us afterwards that there was a man walking with his kid and the kid was just not cooperating and did not want to keep going. So my mom walked beside him, held his other hand, and told him how great he was doing and that he could keep going. Isn't she amazing?

They had hot chocolate, doughnuts, and fruit waiting at the finish line. I was so anxious for the hot chocolate to warm me up that I took a huge sip and scalded my entire tongue. It KILLED the rest of the day.

Once we got home, we had some butterscotch rolls, then started preparing for our Thanksgiving meal. My mom caught what Will had and ended up feeling pretty lousy most of the day. Luckily there were several of us there to help with the food so she could rest a little bit.

The best part of the day was just sitting around talking with everyone after eating. I don't get to see my family very often and it's really fun to just sit and talk. My brother Jim is quite the character and I like hearing his opinion on different topics. 

My brother-in-law Alan drives trucks for a living and had his semi parked outside Cindy's house. Will LOVES semi trucks and calls them all Mac (from Cars). He found a little spot by the window and just stared at the truck. 

He loved it. Alan was super awesome and allowed Will to sit in his truck and even took him for a ride. Will talked about it the rest of the day and kept asking for a ride in Mac.

Later that night a few of us braved the crowds and went to a few stores to check out some Black Friday deals, though none of us ended up actually purchasing anything.

The next day, the sickness had spread to Joshlyn, Emma, Brennon, Donny, Kim, and Lance. It was a nasty little bug and Lance was barely able to go to work on Friday and Saturday. I felt bad because I'm pretty sure that my family brought it.

Despite the sickness, I think everyone was happy they came and had a good time. It was fun spending so much time at Cindy's and I look forward to the next time my family is able to get together. And hopefully Tony can make it....whenever it happens.

Gotta Love the Dentist

Don't you love when you get something checked on because you think there MIGHT potentially be a problem just to find out that not only is there a problem, but it is a lot worse than you anticipated? This happened to me this past week.

Let me back up a bit and give a little background first. Almost everyone in my family has suffered from teeth problems. It seems we can get a cavity simply by looking at sugar. Unfortunately, I have had more than my fair share of problems. 

Ironically, my teeth and smile is one of my features that I get complimented most on.

If only people knew all the problems that are hiding in there. There are very few teeth in my mouth that have not been worked on. I chuckle every time I go to a new dentist and they do initial x-rays and check-up. By the time they are done looking, the chart is filled with marks of work that has already been done.

I remember as a kid that I was terrible with oral hygiene. I grew up not really brushing my teeth and I have paid for it ever since. Hopefully I can prevent my kids from going through the same thing.

About a week ago, I suddenly started having really bad pain in my gums between 2 root canals. After a day of pain medicine, I was finally found a piece of something white that had been lodged between my gums and my crown. I had that root canal done when I was a little kid and for some reason they put a temporary stainless steel crown on it. At least it was only supposed to be temporary. Ten to fourteen years later and I still have the stainless steel crown. The problem is that x rays can't see the tooth through the stainless steel. So there is no way to tell if my tooth is decaying or not. Several dentists had advised me to get it replaced as soon as possible. As we've never had insurance and never caused problems, I was unwilling to pay the $600-900 it would cost to replace.

My sister Cindy is a dental hygienist and decided to schedule me for a cleaning since I would be at her house for a few days before Thanksgiving. We could get my teeth cleaned, as well as get that crown checked out.

I was prepared to hear that I would need to get a new crown, and that there was a possibility that my tooth would be decaying. I thought that would be the worse case scenario. If only. While that is definitely a possibility, the dentist said he thinks the tooth under the stainless steel crown is ok, though we wont know for sure until we replace the crown. Unfortunately, however the news was not the same for my tooth behind that one. He said he is almost positive that that tooth has already decayed enough that it needs to be pulled. He told me to make an appointment to replace the steel crown, and remove the tooth behind it. I didn't even realize there was a problem with that one! Once it is pulled, I could choose to get an implant if I want, but it would cost about $4000 out of pocket. So it looks like I'll just have a giant hole in my mouth. If the other one happens to need to be pulled also, I have no idea what I will do.

I have also noticed that one of my front teeth seems to be darker and discolored. It's not really noticeable unless you are looking for it, but it drives me crazy and I am really self-conscience about it. After doing an x-ray, he determined that I must have had trauma at one point and that tooth is now dead. It doesn't need a root canal at this point, but whitening will only make it worse because my other teeth will get whiter while that stays the same. The only option he could think of was to put a veneer on it. But since that is a cosmetic issue, insurance wouldn't cover it and it would cost about $1000.

And top of all of that, I had three new cavities somehow.

Oh, and my teeth are shifting pretty badly and I need to see an orthodontist.

 Is that all?