30 days hath September

Happy September!

I know that I've been pretty bad about blogging this past summer. Most of it was due to lack of convenient internet access, but now that we're getting settled here in Indiana and I have internet AND a laptop at my fingertips, there is no excuse. So I have made a goal to blog every day for the month of September. That's right, 30 blog posts in 30 days. Since most of you have never lived in Indiana, and our closest family members are more than a 16 hour drive away, hopefully this will give you a taste of what our new life and home is like. And maybe entice you to visit us...?

I can't promise that I'll actually be able to post everyday, but I'll try really hard to. At the very least, it will definitely be an increase from my normal blog posts.

What better way to start off the month than talking about Dallin! He likes to watch the things we do and copy them. Yesterday I was eating some carrots and he grabbed one and started chewing. We all know of Dallin's aversion to food, so I was surprised by this.

(Note: he didn't actually eat any carrot. He just played with it.)

My favorite thing that he's started doing is pretending to talk on the phone.

One day he picked up my phone, put it up to his ear and started talking gibberish.

All by himself.

I love it!

I've noticed he's more likely to "talk" on the phone if there is something talking back to him. In this video, there is music playing on the phone.

Oddly enough, if there is an actual person on the phone and you hold it up to Dallin's ear, he won't talk. He just stares at the phone.

Haircut

I've always thought it would be cool to learn the basics of cutting hair. That way, I could cut my husband and kid's hair and it would save a lot of money. Plus, I used to cut my Barbie dolls hair all the time. How hard could it be, right?

A few months ago, Mckay got his haircut and the barber missed a big patch of hairs in the back. So Mckay had me trim them and fix up his hair, and it turned out pretty well.

Mckay's hair keeps growing and it was time once again for a haircut. Having such great success with the last little bit I cut, Mckay let me cut all of his hairs.

Before:

We bought a hair trimming kit that came with a razor and all the attachments. It even came with little hair cutting scissors. I didn't really know what I was doing, but Mckay has gotten his hair cut quite a few times before and he's watched them do it, so he felt pretty confident in directing me while I cut. I was really nervous the entire time, but it got easier as I got the hang of it.

I think I did a pretty good job.

After:

The hardest part for me was the side burns and trimming the bottom line of the hair around the neck. The rest was pretty easy because the guide on the razor made it hard to cut off too much hair. But getting the shape right at the bottom was all free hand, and I've never been good at symmetry or drawing straight lines. But it looks pretty good.

(And as you can tell from his school picture in the previous post, Mckay trimmed his beard. I don't think he would have trusted me to do that, because I probably would have shaved it all off.)

So watch out, Sarah. You're not the only one learning how to cut hair.

First Day of School

Monday was Mckay's first day of grad school at Purdue.

Here he is all ready to learn!

And of course, a shoe picture.

(Apparently not everyone gets the shoe picture so I should explain. When I was a child, we would often get a new pair of shoes at the beginning of the school year. On the first day of school, my parents would take a picture of all the kids on the porch. Then we would all line up and they would take a picture of our new shoes. It's tradition!)

No longer in Utah

We have finally moved away from Utah and we are in Indiana now. It was quite an excursion driving halfway across the country with our car full to capacity with stuff. Dallin did really well in the car. That's probably because we broke the drive up into many smaller sections across 5 days. I don't think anyone in the car would have liked driving 25 hours straight. Especially if you had seen how full the car was.

As I said, Dallin did amazingly well in the car. He rarely cried or fussed. I sat by him in the back the whole time and that kept him entertained. He drank all of his bottles like a champ.

We stayed a day in Denver to see Mckay's family. We went to Elitch Gardens Amusement Park with some of the family.

They had a water park as well, and most of the little kids spent their time there. Mckay and I wanted to ride the roller coasters, so we had a few hours to ourselves to get as many rides in as we could. Thanks Annie and Jeannie for watching Dallin for us!

Mckay and I did spend some time at the water park and riding the water slides with the older boys.

Dallin was tall enough to go on one ride there: The Carousel.

I think he liked it.

Now we're in Indiana and getting unpacked. I'll post more on that later.

Tongue Face

Dallin has a new funny face he likes to make.

He likes to copy when other people do it too.

He cracks me up.

And for those who feel so inclined, here's a short video of the tongue face in action.

Pioneer Day

Because of Pioneer Day a few weeks ago, Mckay had a 3 day weekend off from work. We took advantage of this and went to Price, UT to visit Mckay's aunt Cathy and her family. While visiting them, we went on a hike to better enjoy the beatiful scenery of the area. We hiked up above Joe's Valley Reservoir.

Dallin really enjoyed just hanging around and being carried the whole way.

Our "Family on a log" picture.

Unfortunately, I didn't know my eyes were closed in the picture, or we would have taken another one. But this is all we have!

After the hike we had a little picnic lunch. Here's a really bad picture of us picnicking.

Dallin really enjoyed chewing on a piece of string cheese. It still had the wrapper on it, of course, because Dallin would never let actual food that close to his mouth.

He really had a blast with that cheese.

To whom it may concern...

To whom it may concern in the medical profession:

Please stop poking my son full of holes. I understand that he will occasionally have to get his blood drawn for medically necessary purposes, but do it all at once! I don't really enjoying holding my son down and listening to him cry time after time as you stick him with a needle. I'd prefer to keep these occurrences to a minimum.

Please collaborate with the other doctors so you don't order the same tests. I appreciate that the doctor of genetics ordered blood work and tests to check Dallin's kidney function and calcium levels. However, after being referred to the kidney specialist, why did Dallin have to get more blood drawn to check his calcium levels? Oh, it's a different test? Sure...

In case you weren't aware, getting a urine sample from a baby who isn't potty trained yet is not an easy task. I don't enjoy taping a little bag to my baby and then waiting around for hours until he "goes." Doing 2 of these samples just a few weeks apart: not fun. For the comfort of future babies, you might consider using an adhesive that is less, well, adhesive. Those sensitive parts of the human body were not designed to have duct tape strength tape peeled from them. Nor is a 14 month old baby equipped to handle the resulting pain.

After all the work put into getting the blood from a young child, do not tell me that there was not enough blood for the lab to do all the tests. You drew enough blood. You told me it was enough blood. Why as I am about to leave the building do you tell me that I need to come back again to get enough for one more test. No, I don't want to come back today! My son needs a few days to recover from this ordeal. When we come back this time, it had better be the last test for a LONG time. And you will not get another urine sample.