...Even though...

I've decided that 4 months is my favorite age so far...even though Avery still wakes up 2-20 times a night and therefore we have been severely sleep deprived for over 120 days.

I mean really, she is so cute I could scream.

Especially in her new baby skinny jeans.

  4 months is great because:

She's interested in toys and grabbing at things and babbling on occasion.

Sometimes, if I'm really patient, I can make her laugh.

She stops crying at night when she hears our voices.

She's trying really hard to hold her own bottle

Her personality is starting to really come through.

She is so fun to play with!

...even if we're still sleep deprived.

Thanksgiving

Avery spent her first Thanksgiving with family in Boise.

Much to our surprise, she slept the entire 5 hour drive there.

Also to our surprise, she hardly slept for 3 nights after that.

She felt left out during dinner, so she sat on my lap and reached for everything on my plate.
But later she got her applesauce.

 After dinner was the annual Turkey Bowl and for once, nobody got hurt!

It was getting cold but Avery wanted nothing to do with me.  She was only happy when I put her on the ground wrapped in her blanket with Sophie.  What can I say?  She's a girl who knows what she wants.

I begged Kyle to go Black Friday shopping with me but he decided to stay home and sleep watch the baby. But guess what?  Jamie was there to shop with me!  Jamie and I were roommates like forever ago and her cute family has been living in Dominca for like forever so I was really excited to spend some time with her.  We shopped all morning and into the afternoon, then later that night we all met up for some Applebees.  Seriously, don't we have such cute kids?!?

Saturday was yet another Boise State football game so a lot of the family got together to "celebrate."  Avery even wore her blue and orange!  Which she later pooped all over.  But that's another story.

Cousin Karli even shared her toys!

They are about 9 months apart I think?

While we were there we even talked my sister into taking our family pictures!

If you live in the Boise area, you should hire her.

She's pretty amazing.

(k2 imaging)

It was definitely hard to say goodbye after a great weekend with family.

It was especially hard to say goodbye to all those free babysitters...

4 Months

Avery is 4 months!

Stats

Weight: 12 lbs. 3 oz.

Height: 24"

Likes

Baby massage

Pulling Mom's hair

Cameras

Swing

Riding on Dad's shoulders & slobbering on his bald head

Toys

Books

Chewing on blankets

Spitting up

Dislikes

Booger removal

Going to sleep

The car... still

Milestones

Laughing

Rolling from back to tummy

Holding her feet

Eating solids (applesauce!)

Cloth Baby

Thanks to this post about cloth diapers, people are always asking me if we started using cloth.  I have resisted for 3 reasons:

1.  Avery has been to small for the one-size cloth diapers we bought

2.  The PKU diet has me shakin' in my boots and I haven't wanted to add any extra work to our daily routine.

3.  Watching an older baby every day (and changing his diapers) is making me think twice about washing that crap (literally).

But we were running low on disposables yesterday so I decided to break out the cloth.

You know, just for fun.

Cutest baby I've ever seen!

Right now we only have Fuzzibunz petites (I don't think they even make petites anymore).  They're supposed to be narrower through the waist, which is good for our skinny Avery, but they barely fit snugly on the tightest snaps.  They come up so high on her and are so bulky that I couldn't bend her at the waist to sit her up.

The added bulk made her clothes fit a lot tighter too!

I could barely snap up her onesie.

And the added bulk gave her some serious junk in the trunk.

Pros:

I didn't have to run to the store to buy diapers (at least not right away)

It held everything in

Her little butt stayed dry

She looked dang cute in them.  Even with the junk in the trunk :)

They were easy to wash

Cons:

They are sooo much more bulky than disposables

She couldn't sit up

Her clothes barely fit over them

So the jury's still out on this cloth diapering thing.

Applesauce

We were eating dinner at the table and Avery just wanted to sit with us.  So I plopped her in the high chair and she watched us eat.  She was so interested in our dinner, we decided it was time for her to try baby food!  Because of PKU, we are starting Avery on applesauce because apples have very little PHE (maybe none?) so she can eat them all she wants without raising her PHE levels.

She was hesitant at first and even made a few faces, but then if we didn't keep the applesauce coming fast enough she'd scream and throw her arms around until she got another bite.

  I think that means she liked it.

 Even if most of it ended up on her clothes.

Silver Lining

via

By now it's probably pretty obvious that PKU is not something we expected to experience (crap, I'd never even heard of it before Avery was born).  However, it has given us the opportunity to meet really cool people and have experiences that we never would have had otherwise.

While it sucks a lot most of the time, I guess even rain clouds have silver linings.

In just 4 short months (my baby's 4 months old today!) this PKU thing has become a major part of our lives.  It's now something that I'm really passionate about and as much as I wish I'd never heard of PKU, some days I feel like it just might even be a blessing.

(But when I'm pissed off about it later, don't remind me I said that, k?)

So last week I was interviewed by a reporter from The Salt Lake Tribune for an article about IPAD (Intermountain PKU and Allied Disorders Association) and some recent fundraising for PKU research.  My part in the article is very minor but it was a cool experience and I think it's even cooler that PKU is getting public exposure.  The fundraising and the article have really got me thinking about what more could I really do?  I've never been much into politics and my contributions to non profit organizations are limited.  And, *ahem* our own funds are pretty limited.  

So what could I do?  

Little old me?

I certainly can't enter a bike race.

I have no celebrity power...

Maybe I can become a reality TV star, make it as a B list celebrity, get recruited for Dancing With The Stars, and win lots of money for charity!

Yes.
I think that is the path for me.

(I mean, a quote in the SL Tribune is a start, am I right?)

See?

Something that totally never would have happened if we weren't going through all this.

Silver lining, right?

Here's a link to the article: http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/neighborhood/52882318-85/oliver-pku-protein-amy.html.csp

Half the fun...

Half the fun of having a baby is making them do stuff that makes you laugh.

(The stove was not on.  Just in case you were wondering)

Ready for their ride into the sunset!

A Confession

via

Hi, my name is Kourtney and I love to eat raw dough.

Cookie dough, bread dough, pie dough, noodle dough, biscuit dough...

It's nearly impossible for me to bake something and not save a little for myself on the side.

Confession: I made biscuits last night (the kind from the can) and I saved an entire raw biscuit for me to eat later.  That later is now.

I know this can't be good for me, but I can't stop.

It's like a drug.

I need the dough.

Pumpkin Soup

I pureed vegetables on my bedroom floor.
With a food processor.

Because Avery was sleeping.

It was worth it though, because I made a ridiculously delicious pumpkin soup half from a recipe and half from my own dangerous creativity.

Well, not that creative.

I mean, it's soup.

But it was so good.

And I even roasted & pureed my very own pumpkin.

Watch out Betty Crocker!

P.S.  Remind me next time to let steaming hot vegetables cool first before tasting them.  

I totally burned my tongue trying to see if the carrots were tender yet.

Lesson learned.

From the beginning

People are always telling me, "Kourtney I want to see pictures of you and Kyle before you were married!!!"

Ok that's a lie.

No one has ever said that to me.

But I bet you were thinking it!

No?

Okay.

Too bad.

You are in for a real Post-tastic treat.

You see, I had to download Picasa because Blogger hates my pictures now and the only way to upload pictures properly is by using Picasa.  Pain in the ace.  But it's not all bad because Picasa managed to dig up pictures from the depths of Computerdom, some of which I didn't even know I had!

Fun, huh?

Here's a chronological look at how it all began.  

Starting, of course, from the beginning.

(October 2008)

This was really soon after we first met and I was really sick.

Kyle had just come back from a trip to Boise and brought me my very first Boise State shirt!

Picking out a movie at the end of our first date (October 10th 2008)

First Halloween party as a couple.

He totally held my hand.

(This was the last time we both dressed up for Halloween.  So sad)

Ahem.

Our first kiss was on a hike very near this sign.

A November hike.

Christmas together at my parents house.

New Years in Salt Lake.

Kyle took me home to Boise.

That's the blue turf behind us!

Spending Easter at my parents' house.

A trip to Yellowstone.

May 2009--he proposed!!

The *famous* Caldwell fireworks for the 4th of July

(The show stopped 10 minutes in because of a problem and we all had to leave)

My first Def Leppard concert (Kyle's 6th....)

And then, well, we got married!

The end.

It Might Be Love

This is Hudson.

He is one of Avery's potential arranged marriages.

People still do that, right? :)

He wanted to hug Avery all night and I couldn't stop laughing!

I swear it was one of the cutest things I've ever seen.

City Adventure

On Monday I took Avery on a big city adventure!

We spent the whole day in Salt Lake.

We visited my old office and Avery got a lot of attention from my coworkers.

I wanted to introduce Avery to some of my favorite things about the city.

 And she pretty much slept through most of it.

Avery's first trip to Temple Square!

Yep.  She's sleeping.

Avery!  Skyscrapers! 

And she's still asleep.

We stopped in at Hagermann's, one of my favorite places for a tasty sandwich.

mmmmm.... turkey pomodoro.

It has cranberry jalapeno jelly on it!  And havarti!  And roasted tomatoes!

I die.

She missed every tasty bite.

At least she wasn't asleep the whole time.

But then we visited the book store, where Avery was not only awake but decided to have a full on scream-fest in the children's section.

There's nothing like a water feature to soothe a screamy baby.

I love having adventures with this baby girl.

A Drama

Once upon a time we drove 1 hour and 15 minutes to a surprise party for one of our favorite friends.  (Happy birthday Abby!)  Kyle and Avery and I were hanging out at the party pre-surprise when the following conversation ensued:

Avery:  WAHHH!!

Me:  Kyle, would you grab a bottle for her?

Kyle: Where are the bottles?

Me:  In the diaper bag.

Kyle: There are no bottles in the diaper bag

Me: WAAHHH!!!

I forgot the bottles. 

2 hours previous I had carefully packed 3 Enfamil + medical formula bottles for Avery and even packed an empty bottle, gram scale, and extra formula just in case.  We were planning to be out partying until who knows when and we were sure as heck going to be prepared with lots of bottles.

Bottles that I left in a cooler on the kitchen counter.

I totally wanted to cry.  I had a screaming, hungry baby and nothing I could feed her.  I couldn't run out to the store and grab something (her medical formula gets delivered to us once a month).  I couldn't even breastfeed her (although I did contemplate it...  I'm totally dried up though).  

I guess if it was really bad I could have just given her regular formula and prayed she wouldn't have brain damage from one day of high PHE levels, but I am a control freak and a perfectionist and also did I mention a hypochondriac?  So pretty much that was out of the question.  (I'm a trifecta of emotional crazy)

We were able to stay long enough for the birthday surprise but I was really sad we could not stay.  And even more sad it was my fault :(  I did, however, grab a sucker on our way out and 10 minutes down the road I let Avery have a taste.  It got her to stop screaming and she sucked on it for a long time before finally falling asleep, her cute little face covered in red, sticky sucker!  

I'm pretty sure our pediatrician would not be pleased.

Shhhhhhh.  It'll be our little secret :)

5 Reasons

5 REASONS WHY I LOVE HAVING A KYLE

1.  He always takes out the garbages

2.  He kills the spiders

3.  He changes all the clocks during daylight savings

4.  He almost never forgets things we need when leaving the house

5.  He often does all the laundry