A Million Photos Update

Kyri and her big cousin, Jacey. It was like torture getting either of them to smile, but Kyri finally gave in....sort of

Kyri loved all of Grandma Mecham's Christmas decorations....until she started getting stuck in them!

opening her Christmas Eve present....new pajamas!!

Christmas morning. Her favorite part was throwing all the wrapping paper away...

...and sitting on all the boxes

Kyri's cousin, Brody got a new "four lee-er" (as Brody calls it) for Christmas. I love that her arm is behind him....just chillin'

Kyri still talks about Brody's "jip"/jeep

Brody got a new baby brother, Zane, about a week before Christmas. Kyri LOVED him!! "Baby. Touch. Kiss. Hold." So cute. Hopefully that won't change in a few months time.

Our little angel girl....looking so not girly....just breaking in a few items for baby brother

Kyri and I got to go to Idaho for a week this month and babysit my brother's kids (while he and his wife were in Hawaii, I might add). Kyri loved all the things to do...she was never bored.

the perfect sized table for coloring....and eating crayons, of course

Rebecca and Caroline made Kyri her very own house in their playroom

the 3 girls in "Kyri's house" having so much fun

playing the piano

jumping on the tramp. Kyri loved this!! Even now when she sees the picture she'll say "jump?"

"helping" mama

wearin' daddy's shoes....

...cuz she's so big!!

Kyri did not want to get dressed. So we dressed her bear first, but she still wasn't about to put anything else on!! She's getting very good at fit throwing!

ok you have to click on this picture to enlarge it. It's too funny. This is the face Kyri makes when we tell her to smile. And the bottom of her feet will let you know what a great housekeeper I'm not

We let our friends borrow the exersaucer and when they returned it Kyri thought it was the coolest toy. She just had to get in!! It kept her entertained for some time....

She absolutely loves chapstick, and since she is oh so independent, this is what we end up with (you may need to click to enlarge to see just how accurate she is!)

Who doesn't love a nice bubble bath? Toys anyone?

"how's my do?"

Quick Kyri Update (minus the photos)

We will definitely have a lot of pictures to post when we get around to that! But for now here is a quick Kyri update: She is talking SO much!! We love it! She will try to say anything we ask her to, and then usually remembers that word and will use it in her daily conversations. She also loves to repeat at least one word from each sentence we say. Pretty much we just think she's the smartest baby EVER! Unfortunately she's been sick, puking all morning, but it sure beats the last time she was sick and throwing up. (Long story short: last time she was sick we were at a condo in Bear Lake and had no access to a washing machine, so she ended up sleeping with towels instead of blankets and all 3 of us were up ALL night long) So it could be worse.

Kyri and I just spent a week in Idaho babysitting her cousins Rebecca and Caroline. I think she really misses having her cousins around and having their toys to play with, but I don't think she misses being touched and held and told what to do constantly :) And I know she especially misses her grandma! She even woke up in the middle of the night once, asking for "papa" (which is how she says both grandpa and grandma). Can't say as though I blame her....if you ask Kyri if Grandma spoils her, she shakes her head in a definite "yes"!!

Yesterday Kyri was eating a cracker and I asked if she could share (I'm trying to teach her good behaviors) with her baby (meaning her new baby doll). She brought her cracker over to me, lifted up my shirt, and stuck her cracker in my belly button....she was sharing with her baby brother!! She is just SO sweet and SO cute! We love having her around, even if all we hear all day long is "hold" and we get nothing else accomplished. At least we know our time was well spent!

And So The Story Goes....

Well, thanks to Gary for the last post you have all been updated about the sad day when our computer crashed and we lost our pictures (thousands of them)....It still brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it. Every time the subject comes up I tell Gary we have to stop talking about it...it just makes me sick. The worst part is that we had been talking about how we needed to back up all of our photos, but just never took the time to do it, being so busy with the holiday rush and all (and even though we have a second hard drive we could have been saving them to)....and so the story continues. Many of you mentioned taking our computer to get all of our data recovered. I want to assure you we did that. You see, when our computer crashed we couldn't even turn it on! Well, we could, but nothing would boot up. So, a few phone calls later, several days later, and $300 later this guy "fixed" our computer. Sure enough, we can now boot it up and have access to the Internet!! Unfortunately he was not able to recover any of our data. So, my dad, being the hero that he is, came all the way down to our house, picked up our hard drive, and is trying to recover the data himself! (he does computer forensics for a living...we should have had him come in the first place and saved our $300) We don't know if he will be able to find anything, but it's definitely worth a shot. Thanks dad!! We will keep you updated...and will post some pictures (we have some really fabulous ones on our camera!!) as soon as I feel okay about putting them onto our computer. And I will now try to catch up on all your blogs too! :)

SAD DAY

Just after we got home from Christmas, our computer had a case of the flu..........a really bad one apparently. Our hard drive crashed, and we lost all our pictures, most of Kyri. We only have the ones that we have posted on our blog so we are pretty sad about it. I guess we learned our lesson to save our pictures in a different place than on the computer. Word to the Wise........don't save your pictures only on your computer!

Quick Update

Okay so I have been TERRIBLE at blogging lately...and I have several excuses but none of them sound very exciting or interesting, so I will spare you the details....

We had Kryi's 15 month check up last week. She finally made it over the 20 lb mark and is actually legal to be sitting in the forward facing car seat she's been in for 3 months. Yea!! But our pediatrician also referred us to a cardiologist down at Primary Children's for Kyri's heart murmur, which she was born with, but he said it was sounding different and wanted to get it checked out. Talk about giving a mother a heart attack herself!! I actually took her down to Salt Lake for the appointment today and she is "about as perfect as you can get" said one Doctor. They could have told me something I didn't already know! Yet, what a relief!!

A couple months ago my friend, Brittany, took some 1 year pictures of Kyri. These were a few that I thought were pretty cute...thanks again Britt!! Now we just need to decide which of the several others we want to print...oh the decisions!!

This is a total "Kyri face"! All we have to say is "Kyri, can you do this?" and she will do it without even looking at us to see what we're asking her to do. Too cute!!

Gary bites Kyri's fingers all the time and lately she has become a bit obsessed with us biting her fingers. She will try to stick her fingers in my mouth at any chance she gets, even though I try to discourage the game (most of the time) but I somehow think her daddy is quite encouraging of this behavior...I just have this feeling that a few months down the road we are going to have a bit of a problem when Kyri is biting other people's fingers and thinks it's ok because "daddy does it" to her!! Still cute!

Okay, so Kyri wouldn't put her Halloween costume on for a long time....this day included. But we tried it out anyway and this is what we got: her screaming with Gary and me laughing at her...we are such good parents!


Another update: Kyri is just talking SO much! At her 12 month check up she wasn't saying anything besides mama and dada, and while those are still 2 of her favorite words (only it sounds more like DAAAAAAAAD! DAAAAD?! as loud as she possibly can) some other words that have become our favorites are: hot and hat (very good enunciating on her "t"s), pants, church, peach, dowwwwn, bye, piwoh (pillow) and one of my very favorites is when she says "I love you" in sign language. She usually just points with one finger, but occasionally gets her pinky up too. Just tonight when I put her down to bed I laid her in her crib and she pointed her finger at me. When I said "I love you too!" she smiled her big toothy smile, blew me a kiss, and I remembered why I love being a mommy so much!!

Oh....Boy

Well, the pictures have been taken and they were very revealing....It's A Boy!! Kyri is going to be a big sister...and we are so excited! The due date is April 28th, putting Kyri and baby brother 19 months apart. Whenever we talk to Kyri about the baby in mommy's belly she giggles and then tries to pull my shirt up to see for herself. We found out it was a boy 4 weeks ago, but Gary was still not quite convinced so we haven't said anything to anyone (except our family) until now. We had another ultra sound today and there is no more convincing that needs to be done....

Oh....BOY!!

Why We Love The Fall

playing in the leaves

dressing Kyri in cute hats and jackets

Why We Love Kyri

she's very independent

she keeps herself entertained (if only she would pick up after herself...)

Golabki

Well, Gary and I have been married for over 2 years now and he finally made me my first Polish dish, Golabki (which is not at all pronounced how it looks) I know the presentation of this dish leaves something to be desired, but I wanted to show off Gary's mad cooking skills. And I have to admit, it was quite delicious! Thanks, love!

2 Tags...I better catch up!

Photo Tag

My friend, Jenn, tagged me and I thought this would be kind of interesting....thanks Jenn!!

the rules are to pick the 4th photo from the 4th folder in your photo library and explain the meaning.

This picture clearly means we bought a boat!! Oh how we wish. Actually, Gary is so big into boats and wakeboarding that this photo clearly belongs to him! He subscribes to several magazines and, apparently, even puts pictures on our computer of boats with people on them that we don't even know! So, there you have it!

I will now tag Nadia, Tammy, Amber, and Britt...can't wait to see your photos!

The "8's"

my friend, Nadia sent this to me...and it's harder than it looks!!

8 Favorite TV shows:

1. LOST

2. Prison Break

3. Alias

4. 24

5. The 4400

6. American Idol

7. So You Think You Can Dance

8. I honestly can NOT think of another show! We watch most of our shows on DVD (thanks Netflix) and I even had to stretch to come up with these 7!!

8 Favorite Restaurants:

1. Kamin (Thai place in Logan)

2. Firehouse Pizzeria (in Logan and now one in Centerville!!)

3. Lei's Mongolian BBQ (in Pocatello)

4. the Thai place in Lava Hot Springs (I don't even know the name of it I just know it's REAL good!!)

5. Tepanyaki (Japanese grill and sushi bar in Layton)

6. Roosters (a new favorite in Layton)

7. Cafe Sabor (Mexican place in Logan...oh I could definitely go for their chips and salsa as we speak!!)

8. The Bombay House (Indian place in SLC)

OK that was hard...I LOVE food and had a hard time narrowing it down to 8!!They are definitely in NO particular order.

8 things that happened yesterday:

Oh my life is not very exciting

1. Kyri threw fits ALL morning long!!

2. I chatted with my sister, Tawn, online....that's a first

3.ate at Garcia's for the first time....it was good!

4. Went shopping at the DI and found Gary 4 new ties!

5. Went to Bed Bath & Beyond, found what I was looking for, but was informed by my non-opinionated husband it was NOT what he wanted....

6. Went to Wal-Mart and picked up some storage bins so I can clean Kyri's room

7. Kyri decided NOT to take an afternoon nap, which means hours of fussing until we put her to bed early

8. I played a finding game on the computer with my hot hubby!!

8 things to look forward to:

1. Gary's new job YEA!!

2. Thanksgiving (I love food and love to be with family....does it get any better?)

3. an afternoon nap

4. listening to Christmas music (we listened to it once, but Gary thinks it's still too early)

5. the Christmas season...the happiest time of year

6. babysitting my nieces for a week while my brother and his wife go to Hawaii (I am looking forward to it, but with a bit of jealousy)

7. all the babies that will be born on both sides of our family

8. spending the weekend with Gary before he goes back to work on Monday!!

8 things on my wish list:

1. a house

2. a garden

3. a trip to Australia (my mission)

4. a trip to Poland (Gary's mission)

5. a trip to Hawaii

6. a cruise

7. a boat (for Gary)

8. a truck (for Gary to pull his boat)

8 things I love about the Fall:

1. the colorful leaves

2. stepping on the crunchy leaves once they've fallen off the trees

3. hot chocolate (we've already used our hot cocoa maker a few times...love it!)

4. homemade soup (chicken noodle is my favorite)

5. wearing scarves

6. putting cute jackets on Kyri

7. Thanksgiving

8. looking forward to Christmas

8 people I tag: 1. Tammy 2. Amber 3. Keri 4. Angie 5. Jacque 6. Michelle 7. Ali 8.Jazmin :)

not sure what happened with the text and I couldn't figure out how to change it I only made it worse....sorry!

our little shark

The first few times we tried to put this costume on Kyri she screamed and put her arms through the shark mouth...it was a little humorous. But we sure are glad she finally decided to cooperate! In fact, she's just been wearing her costume around the house for the last couple of days...and the tail moves when she walks...it's SO cute!! And so here you have many photos of our little shark:

nice pose!!

so happy!


Last night (Halloween) she couldn't leave the candy alone...and didn't think it was fair we were giving it to everyone who knocked on the door and not to her, so she snuck some out of the bowl!!

She ended the night by doing a shark dance!

Her First Halloween

Our Little Stocking Stuffer

a day in the life of a 13 month old

Kyri is SO smiley all day, but even more so in the mornings! And, no, she does not sleep with her headbands on, but it was on the floor and matched her PJs so Gary put it on

Kyri LOVES to be helpful! So, here she is doing the dishes. Needless to say we both ended up soaking wet from head to toe!
just being cute...it takes up most of her day...
Helping me unpack the suitcase after a few days of vacation. She would first throw something into the suitcase, climb in, then throw it out, climb out and start all over again.
enjoying a nice bath at the end of a long day...isn't she just adorable?!?

Gary's Gash

Well today Gary told me he was going down to the basement (our laundry/storage/dungeon area) to look for something in one of our many (VERY many) boxes. This now deemed "dungeon of death" is quite scary....you can't even stand up all the way without hitting your head on what I assume are our living quarters floor boards. However, when you need something from storage you must face this area of doom. I could hear Gary rootin' around down there (thanks to our nonexistent insulation) for a good 15 minutes....or more. Upon his arrival to the mainland I mean main floor he held out his finger for me to see the blood on it. I was about to tell him to go get a band-aid (something he uses more than a child...it makes everything feel better) when he told me he hit his head. He bent down and showed me this (this is the cleaned-up version....what I first saw was much more graphic):

Now, before you think I'm a bad wife I assure you that I did indeed ask if he needed stitches. However, since I'm the only one that can see it (since it's on the top of his head) I probably should have just driven him to the ER. Instead here we sit, waiting to see if it gets infected....

Please, no comments on the lack of hair...it's a touchy subject :)

a trip to the city

Yesterday Kyri and I were able to spend a couple hours with some of my very best friends!! Melissa and her husband, Mike, came to Salt Lake with their cute little "twins" and we all met up at Temple Square. It was so fun to catch up on each other's lives, reminisce about the past, and laugh laugh laugh!!! All the babies had a great time staring at each other and eating each other's food....or at least eyeing it. I am so happy I got to see them all! They truly are the best!

Denet, Cade, Amber, Melissa, Jenn, me, Hayley, Logan, and Kyri

After coming back home I was reading the daily quote in Gordon B. Hinckley's Stand a Little Taller which read, "No man or woman proceeds alone. All of us are largely the products of the lives which touch upon our lives." I thought it was the perfect quote after spending some time with the ladies!

Thanks, girls, for touching my life so greatly!! I love you ALL!!

what she's been up to

I have been terrible at blogging lately, however, I have been quite good at taking pictures. So this post will be an overload of photos. Here are a few of the several things Kyri has been up to lately. Here it goes!

sleepin'

notice her cute pajamas that our friends, Jeff and Ali, gave her for her birthday

bein' silly
teasin' her mama

playin' in boxes

we got her a forward facing car seat (life saver) and the box was just too much fun!!

gettin' a pea stuck in her belly button
I went to change her diaper and this is what I found. And yes, it was stuck!

eatin' cheerios

she's thinkin' about becoming a contortionist

swingin'

our next door neighbor has a swing set in her yard and lets Kyri swing whenever she wants...and she loves it!!

playin' in the tub in her Sunday dress before church but luckily with no water

Kyri was putting her tub toys in the bathtub and I was washing my hands. I looked over and she was headed in face first in her Sunday attire...she thought she was pretty funnygettin' food stuck on her face...a common occurrence in our home

playin' in her stroller

Kyri climbed into her stroller all by herself!!

palyin' with a "ball"

I was vacuuming and when I shut it off I heard a thud, thud, thud. When I walked into the kitchen Kyri had the biggest grin on her face, held up the onion and said "BA!!"

ridin' the carousal
We went to Hogle Zoo with some of Kyri's cousins, aunts, uncles, and her Grandma & Grandpa Allen and Grandpa just had to get the kids tickets for the carousal...and they all LOVED it! Thanks Grandpa!!

sleepin'.....again....a girl like this needs her beauty sleep!