Catch Ups

Ever since we came back from our trip, I feel I have neglected our blog. I want to make sure that everything we have that is blog worthy makes it on here. So, some of our pics for this is from a few weeks ago. Hopefully, with school being out on Tuesday, I will be able to keep it caught better!


A few things before our trip:


I have the infamous first spaghetti picture. Grant loves spaghetti. Hallelujah! Since feeding him, has been a roller coaster ride lately, I feel excited that there is something he will finally eat! He liked his garlic bread that went along with it too!





Grant's first pair of shoes. As you may have read, Grant is on the brink of walking. Just this past Saturday he took five consequetive steps. His physical therapist suggested that we put shoes on him for more stability, however, he seems to better with bare or socked feet. We did find him his first pair of shoes, which he looks pretty darn cute in:





Another fun thing that Grant is doing is that since he is not walking by himself yet, he likes to hold on to our hands and walk around with us. Grant and I will walk up and down the hall over and over again. Whenever I let go though, to let him walk by himself, his knees bend and he is crawling on the floor. Oh well. He is so close. It won't be too long, and then he will be everywhere.





Another fun thing that has happened is on May 14th, I became an aunt for the sixth time. My nephew Braydon Taylor was born. Such a cutie pie!





Also, I have been going back and forth with this for a long time, and I think I am going to go private. I do post for family and friends, and if you want to keep up with us, please, post a comment, and leave an e-mail address so I can send an invite. All you will have to do extra is sign in to blogger with your e-mail address that you give me, and a password that you create. Super simple. I have the comment moderation mode on, so no worries about leaving your e-mails if you are worried.

Nine Years Ago...

May 26, 2000

...I was married to James Killpack in the St. George Temple at 9:20 a.m. I still look back and think-Wow, he actually picked me! He is such an amazing person, and these past nine years have been such an awesome experience.
I love:

• how James and I are such a good balance. He's really laid back, compared to my nervous and worried personality.
• what a wonderful dad James is.
• how he honors his priesthood and has a testimony of the gospel.
• how we can make each other laugh at anything
• what a good friend he is to me, and how he's a good friend to others.
• how he always tries to do the right thing.
• when he says, "you take care of the baby and I will take care of everything else."
• through all of our trials James and I have stuck together and tried to find the good in the situation.
• how James is the first to find the bright side of any situation.
• thinking about the future and having James by my side, for time and eternity.

I can't beleive it's already been nine years. It's just crazy to me! I truly feel lucky that I have James, and I am so eagerly awaiting what the next nine years will bring.

(We are having a problem with our scanner. As soon as it is fixed, pictures will be here.)

Sleep"full" in Seattle

As I mentioned in our last post, we did end up taking our trip to Seattle. So much fun, and such an adventure. I have to say, we had a close call on whether or not we would even be able to go. On Tuesday night, James and I started to look for Grant's birth certificate, since the airline needed proof that he was under two years of age. (As if you need proof, can't they just look at the kid? CLEARLY under two.)Anyway, we were looking, and I came across an application to apply for a birth certificate. My heart sank. I thought for sure we wouldn't be able to go. What happened was, we had so many things going on the first month after his birth, that we just forgot to apply for his birth certificate. (All is well, now though. We've applied, and it's on its way.) We called the airline, and they said they would also take a shot record from the doctor. What a relief. We were so elated to finally know that we would be going again, and we could start thinking about packing. We started on Tuesday night, since we would have to get up at 12:30 on Thursday morning to catch our 7:00 flight. I put Grant in an outfit that was comfy enough to sleep in, but still looked like a normal outfit for the day. He stayed awake for a few hours after we got him up, but soon fell asleep. James drove while I slept off and on. Needless to say, our flight getting there and everything along with it (renting a car, getting a carseat, snagging a shuttle, getting our luggage) all went well without a hitch. Grant was great on the flight. I think he likes the vibrating motion and sounds of cars and planes, so he did really well. He didn't fall asleep at all on the way there. In fact, he like peeking at the people that were sittting in back of us, and he had fun playing with keys, and dropping them, and having someone pick them up. (This got old quickly though :)).

After we arrived in Seattle and had our car rented, and Grant in place, James and I were feeling pretty good and decided to use some passes in our Seattle City Pass booklet which you can check out here. Pretty good deal, and they have them for a lot of cities not just Seattle. This was pretty much our trip. Our first stop was the Science Museum. We watched a 3D IMAX film(which Grant convientiantly fell asleep in), and Grant played in the toddler area. It was a pretty neat place, just way crowded with school kids taking field trips. Grant seemed to enjoy himself:









After the Science Museum, we checked out the Space Needle. Pretty interesting building if you know its past. It was built in 1962 for the Worlds Fair. The guy who built it thought that all buildings would look similar to this one in the 21st century, which is kind of funny since there are only three workable floors. Usually buildings built for the Worlds Fair are torn down 18 months after the Fair has occured, but Seattle people liked it so much that they petitioned the city of Seattle to buy it, but they didn't so a family stepped up and bought it, and it is still privately owned today. (All this info I learned on the Lake tour we took :)). Here is the view from the Space Needle:




Another fun thing we did was we ate lunch at the Old Spaghetti Factory. James actually ate here with his family while they were visiting his brother. Our meal was delicious, and the building was fascinating. Very beautiful with shiny mahogony floors and old chandliers. It was almost like walking in to a different time. We pretty much wore Grant out, but had to drive a ways to hopefully get to our hotel in Port Angeles. For Twilight fans, we were going to see the Port Angeles, Forks area and drive the Olympic Loop. However, we were having trouble getting over to that part of the state. There is a part of Washington, where there is a strip of ocean, but you can cross using the Hood Canal Bridge. Well, much to our exhausted dismay, we drove there only to find the bridge was closed until June, and our Hotel was non-refundable. My gripe is, how were we supposed to know the bridge was closed? The hotel didn't even mention on their website that it was closed and not to come that way. Anyway, they were stinkers, and we told them that we were never going to stay at another one of their hotels again. I bet they were heartbroken ;).

We spent the night in Tacoma, and we were all exhausted from having gotten up so early the night before. Grant, who usually struggles sleeping in hotels, slept just fine. Since our Port Angeles part of our trip was ruined, it gave us more opportunities to use the City Pass. We left that morning to visit the Museum of Flight by Boeing. Pretty interesting place. They had an actual WWI and WWII planes along with actual letters from soldiers.They had old newsreels and footage of the planes in combat and neat stories of how they had captured it on camera. My favorite, and James' favorite as well was seeing the inside of the old Air Force One. Even though it's an old one, I still was impressed by how luxurious it was, and even more spellbound thinking of all the Presidents that had once flown on this very plane. This specific one was for the presidents from John F. Kennedy through Reagan. I captured a few pics of this historic scene, and even one that would impress anyone:










Notice the foot rests on these leather plane seats. Pretty impressive when you think about who might have sat here.


Pretty archaic, I know, but it is history and I find it fascinating.

We also got to climb aboard the British Airways Concorde. This plane only flew like 100 times or so, (don't quote me on that) but it could fly from London to America in like an hour. They had a lot of complaints about the sonic booms it created, so now it is no more. Kind of fun to tour it! It was really long and skinny and people like Phil Collins flew on it for concerts. Pretty amazing stuff!

Friday afternoon, we ventured on over to the Woodland Park Zoo also a part of our city pass. I have to say, I was not that impressed with the array of animals that they had, and the animals they did have were hard to see in thier exhibits. Denver Zoo had a lot more variety, and smaller places for the animals, so people can actually see them. We did see a pretty cool lion, giraffes, a jaguar, a tiger, and some interesting monkeys. No alligators, or polar bears. Kind of disappointing, and Grant was kind of getting ornery at this point in the day. We bought him a hat, and left for our next venture which was our Red Sox/Mariners game.

I thought for sure, Grant would be such a crab at this game. But there was so much going on to keep him entertained he stayed awake for most of it! He was so good! The weather was also wonderful. The stadium can either be opened or closed, and it was such a nice day, they had it opened. Clear beautiful night! There was a cute mom and her teenage daughter and her friends right behind us, and they were having such a good time getting Grant to smile. He put on quite the show. I had James take a few pics of the game:



We stayed in a Residence Inn by Marriott for the remainder of the trip. Our room was beautiful. The hotel was 6 months old, and new, fresh and clean, and decorated exactly to my liking. I know it doesn't matter where you stay since you don't spend much time in your hotel room when you travel, but it is nice to stay somewhere nice if you can. Our nights were so sleepfilled and wonderful, James and I are thinking about getting the same kind of bed! Grant slept wonderful in the Pack and Play provided by the hotel, and I must gush for a second and say how nice it was to let Grant cry and to not have the neighbors hear! We couldn't hear anything our neighbors did, and I'm sure they couldn't hear us. Or if they did, they didn't complain. We all slept really well, thus the title of my post. No sleepless nights here.

Anyway, Saturday rolled around and dawned another clear sunshiny day! Thrilled! We headed on up to the Seattle Aquarium hoping to see some interesting sealife. We saw some pretty fish, seals and otters, but that was about it. We enjoyed being outside anyway because of the beautiful weather. We ventured on up to Pikes Place Market where we read about a cheese festival happening and hoping to sample some yummy cheeses. Well, us and all of Seattle were there too, so needless to say, we got in a few chunks of cheese and that is about it. We stopped and looked out over Puget Sound, and watched the water and the boats and loved being outside. I loved being around the water, I think it has such a calming effect on me! I felt so much more relaxed than I usually do. We ate at a Red Robin right by the pier for our cruise. Part of our City Pass was taking a cruise around Elliot Bay and the lake and you can see the Seattle sky line, and we were there during the 98 days out of the year when you can see Mount Ranier. It was a beautiful cruise, and thus all the knowledge about the buildings in Seattle. Very informative. Highly recommend it if you are going there. Some pics of the trip:








Also, a first, we were able to take Grant swimming for the first time. We captured this on video, and I got a few pics of this occasion. He started out not knowing what to think, and ended up loving the water. I also liked that when James and I got ready to go, we could actually leave and not have to listen to little ones complain about leaving. I'm sure this will happen soon enough :).









Our trip ended all too soon. I so did not want to leave there and have to come back to the same old routine. I'm sure Grant will want to get back to normal though. He did wonderfully on the plane trip home, although I have to say, we were pretty cramped on the trip back. Grant actually slept part of the way.

What a Walker!

Our firsts have continued on to this week. The moment we have all been waiting for: Grant has taken his first steps! :) We are thrilled! It happened last Sunday in between 1:00 and 3:30. I know this because I was asleep at the time! I was taking a nap! anyway, James saw it... he walked one step in between the rocking chair and our sliding glass door. James was in close proximity at the time, and we had no idea, he would be doing this so quickly. He has been standing by himself for just a few days, so the fact that he wants to keep moving, when standing has been barely mastered is amazing to me. I did get to see the second and third steps, during a physical therapy session, but this was also the one day that James took the camera with him to work. I was so bummed! We will get some pics of this little boy and more of his first steps hopefully this week. We are so thrilled. I guess the average age for boys and walking is 13 months, so he is right on target.

Well, that's pretty much the climax of this week. Nothing new to report. School is drawing to a close. I have to say that I am so excited to be done, and focus on this toddling one year old of mine. Lots of things planned too, with Killpack reunion and parents coming to see us, and a baby blessing (hopefully in the summer, so I can come :) ) I can't wait to do some summer things with Grant, like swimming, play dates, and trips to the park. So fun.

This week I also attended a Miche Bag party. If you have never heard about it before its the coolest thing. You buy a basic brown or black purse, (which isn't too big and not too small, for me it's the perfect size), and then you pick out a "shell" that goes on the outside for decoration. I love this idea, because if I get tired of my old shell, I can put a new one on it, and still be able to keep the purse. It's a neat idea and you can check that out here.

James is also doing really well at work. His finance company have 2 million dollars in receiveables, so he took me, and the ladies he works with and their husbands out for dinner. We went to Old Chicago, and we had a really good time. The ladies he works with are also members of our ward, so we are all good friends. Afterward, we went to the movie Knowing. A little disappointed at the ending, but a good show. I am so proud of my husband, and the company he works for is lucky to have him. This makes it closer for us to move back to Utah.

In other news, we are planning on going to Seattle on May 14th through the 17th. We are so excited! The Red Sox are playing, and it has always been a dream of James to go see them live. They happen to be playing in Seattle on Friday night, and we are eagerly anticipating this occasion! It's a night game, so I don't know how Grant will do, but it will be fun even if I have to walk the stairs the whole time! We are also planning on seeing the Space Needle, and we are staying in Port Angeles and hopefully drive the Olympic Loop which is the scene for Twilight. We also heard of the science center, and an aquarium that sounded like fun. It seems like there is so much to do and so little time.

Grant is also getting used to table food more and more (though I still follow up with baby food if he has not eaten enough). He had eggs and sausage (which he loves), and he also really like the pork chow mein I made. (It was pretty good, this baby has good taste! :)) Still working on phasing out the bottle, but I still have two months to get that down pat, and so far Grant is doing okay with drinking out of a cup.

Firsts

This week is a week of firsts:

Grant is standing up by himself for longer periods of time.

Physical therapy was moved to Thursdays at one. So grateful for this. No more waking up Grant or keeping him up when he's tired to see her.

Cooper is letting Grant pet him.

Grant sleeping for three and a half hours. Yup-you read right! I put him down at ten to two, and he was still going strong at 6 p.m., and finally woke up to join us at 6:30. I kept going in and checking on him and he was fine. Just extra tired. He must be on a growth spurt!

Grant's first bloody nose. This happened by accident. He has had a runny nose lately, and so I have had to bulb syringe his nose quite a bit over the last few days. Well, this morning (the 29th), I had to syringe it again, and I think I must have bumped some tissue or something, because his nose started to bleed. Not a lot, just a little bit. I felt bad, but I had to. His nose has been running like crazy!

Grant drinking out of a cup and a sippy cup. One step closer to phasing out the bottle! We will keep practicing, since some of it gets in his mouth like it should, and some of it ends up on his shirt. We will get there!

Party Party!

This past week James and I were thinking about the party we wanted to throw for Grant. We went back and forth for so long for a date on when to throw it, that we ended up having it the week after Easter. I was thinking about it, and this is pretty much the first party I have ever thrown! Crazy, that I have never done this before. We sent out the invites on Tuesday. I had so much fun shopping and finding things for our party that would make it extra special. We had so much fun on Saturday, that it made all the work so worth it. We wanted to throw a basketball/sports themed party. I made lemon cupcakes, and piped a basketball design on each one. We also served strawberries and grapes. Our party consisted of one game called, Play Ball With Your Baby, where the little ones had to throw a ball back to their parents, and whoever had the most "passes" would get a prize. I went on to imeem.com and made a playlist of all the sports themes I could find, and played them during the party. I found little party hats for our guests to wear, and they actually kept them on to the surprise of their parents! We took tons of pics which you can see a few of them below. We just had so much fun watching our babies play, and eventually opening gifts. Our little guests included Jamie Sibbett, McKinley Daly, and Elizabeth Linford and their parents.

Grant received tons of great gifts which included books, tractor toys, and sorting shapes.

Honestly, it was so much fun! It reminded me of when my sister Steph would have parties for her two boys and I would come and help. It was fun to be able to do that for my son. At the end of the party during clean up, James said, "You really threw a good party." Yeah, I did. The hard part is actually thinking that he is one. I'm having such a hard time with that!

This week we pretty much got back to normal with the whole physical therapy thing. Can I just vent for a moment? Oh my gosh, here I am thinking that Grant is so right there with everything, and now I find out that "most one-year-olds are eating mostly table food right now." K, I have fed Grant a fruit and rice mixed in his bottle every morning, and he is offered meat and veggies in the mid afternoon, and for dinner, he eats what ever we are having for the most part. Not to mention snacks throughout the day. If I feel he hasn't gotten enough veggies I follow up with the baby food veggies. Yes, he is still getting baby food. I know there are some gasps out there as you read this, however, what's Grant supposed to do, choke on chunks of food? He has no chewing teeth. Is that the most terrible thing ever? I think there are worse things in life. As long as he is getting enough to eat, I really don't care what it is he's eating, as long as its nutritious. I guess I am really tired of yet again feeling like everyone is on board, I am left out in the dust with my baby.

And another thing is, we just had a doctors appointment, and I was asked about how often he eats a day, nothing about whether he is eating solid foods. I guess I am just sick of the "advice" I get. Enough. As long as he is full, can that be just fine?

Anyway, our weather has been grand. We have been hitting the low 70s and loving life. It's supposed to be nice for awhile, so hopefully we will break out those shorts!

As for other events, Grant is starting to stand by himself. We have to distract him with a toy in both hands before he realizes what he is doing, and then he bends his legs, and sits down. It's cute to watch. He's going to be toddling around before we know it!

Easter Pleaser

This past weekend April 10th-12th-was a huge one for our family. We had a lot going on, with Grant's birthday, Easter, and a Denver appointment. Nonstop goings on until Sunday afternoon, but we all had a ball! We started our Easter weekend with driving down to Denver. Grant, as always, was a good little traveler, and this was momentous in itself because we finally are able to put him forward facing in the middle of our backseat! Hallelujah! I think Grant enjoyed the ride more, although, it was more difficult for me when he did cry to grab things to calm him down. That didn't happen too often though. We are really blessed with a great baby! Any way, our appointment in Denver was at 2 in the afternoon. We met just with the nuerologist and the hemotologist. This was not the stroke clinic that they usually send us too. (Thank goodness-that is really exhausting!) Anyway, we told the doctors we have seen no signs of seizures, and he is developing just as normally as he can be. The doctors examined him, and were pleased with his progress! They did take more blood, and found out that the antibody that caused his blood to clot so abnormally is still present, but it has gotten less since they last took blood. So this is great news! After our appointment we went back and settled in at the hotel. I have to say, Grant is a great traveler but sleeping wise is another story. Oh my goodness-we tried everything to keep the routines in check as best we could, but I think when it comes down to it, it was just an unfamiliar environment and he needed to know we were close by. Also, at home, if Grant wants to cry, we just let him. This doesn't happen often, most of the time he goes right to sleep, but if he needs to cry, we let him (Read Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child and you will know what I mean). At a hotel though, you can't really let him cry. In fact, its all I can do to STOP him from crying. I get nervous when we go places, cause I don't want to keep everyone else awake! So needless to say, he spent our two nights in a hotel in bed with his mom and dad, and he got a wonderful nights sleep. Oh-the things you do for your child!

Saturday was kind of a dreary day. We woke up to overcast skies, and even a little rain. Bummer, since we wanted to go to this big outlet shopping center, and its all outside. We braved the rain anyway, (We snuggled Grant up in the stroller with his jacket and a blanket to keep warm.)And I am so glad we went. They were having a huge spring easter sale like at every store. We saw signs that said, "take 40% off, and then an extra 20%." Awesome. We bought Grant his Easter which included for us-clothes. James and I have the hardest time keeping this kid in clothes that fit him. Everything is too small. He outgrows onesies in a snap (no pun intended :))We think that he has James' long torso, so we always try to buy them bigger than what he actually is. The result-big for about a week, and then just right for another week, and then on the verge of being too small for a few more weeks. Crazy. I heard its a vicious cycle as well. It won't get any easier when he is a small boy! Anyway, we found Grant some overalls which he looks so cute in! Super awesome deals on pj's, and we even managed to find things for ourselves. So fun. I love shopping weekends.

Early afternoon, we took Grant to the Denver Children's Museum. At first, I wasn't all that impressed. It was way crowded with tons of kids coughing, and putting things in their mouths everywhere. No worries. James and I were totally on top of making sure nothing entered that mouth, and we were successful. The Easter Bunny was also there, (another reason why it was so busy) so, of course, we got Grant's picture taken with him.

There was also a petting zoo area just outside the entrance. I think this was Grant's favorite part. We got to see a pig, some chickens, a rooster, and some rabbits. It was way fun. Grant loved the animals. He wouldn't pet them or anything, but you could just tell he really enjoyed it!

People also were bringing their Great Danes to the museum as well, and we got to see one and pet him. I think Cooper is about as big as this Great Danes head:

They were pretty sweet, and really gentle with Grant.

Inside the museum there were people everywhere. Grant was old enough only to go the toddler area where they had a clubhouse type place, and fun areas for him to crawl in. Here are a few pics:

That afternoon when we decided to leave, we headed on over to the 16th Street Mall where they have stores, restaurants, basically a mall outside. The trouble is finding a parking spot. We managed to find one, but only for a few hours. We decided to head on over to the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory for my all time favorite-huge orange sticks which were delicious. And you can't come away from the 16th Street Mall without getting a slice of cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory. So yummy. We headed on back to the hotel, where we enjoyed our dinner, and another night of Grant sleeping with us.

When we got home on Sunday, is when Grant's Easter began. We put him to sleep, then the Easter Bunny came. He left Grant some desperately needed new clothes. Phew. Thank goodness for that Easter Bunny. :) Grant was still pretty much waking up from his nap, and didn't quite know what to think of things...
We also decorated our Easter eggs. So late doing that, but at least Grant got his first experience with it. He just pretty much looked at James and I coloring them, and we managed to get a few pics before I made them all into wonderfully delicious devilled eggs. Sooo good. It so made me think of St. George.

Such a long, but way fun weekend. Always glad when we can come home and sleep in our beds and get back to the routine! I think Grant likes this too!