Turkey (and chicken) days

Wow! We've had a busy couple of weeks! First, the bad news.. we were planning to go to my parent's house for Thanksgiving, as I mentioned in our last post. But unfortunately Dani got a cold the Sunday before Thanksgiving and her doctor said she would be contagious for at least the next 7 days. Since we knew that there would be other very small children at my family's house, we kind of uninvited ourselves.

We were REALLY disappointed at first because both Travis and I had been looking forward to going to visit my family and we've already set our plans to be with his family for Christmas. We realized though that staying home would be the responsible thing and decided we would just have to stop and see everyone when we went up for the Bates family Christmas party in December.

Travis and I realized that this acutally presented us with a unique opportunity. We decided to have our own Thanksgiving at home with our own little family. We were getting really excited about the idea, since we didn't expect an invitation anywhere else with a sick baby, when Travis' family invited us to come have dinner with them. (Insisted actually!) We were really grateful for the invitation but because there were going to be children there as well we tried to keep the visit short and just go for dinner. Dani was doing much better than expected so we did get to stay through a viewing of Monsters vs. Aliens. She didn't really get too fussy until she realized how tired she was. :) So many fun things when you go to Grandma's house! She tried real turkey for the first time (it was a hit!) and I think if she had a few more bites we could have turned her on to the mashed potatoes as well. It was good to visit with family and we were grateful that they overlooked Dani's runny nose. We're just hoping that it didn't hitch a ride home with any of them!

Because we had already started to set plans in motion to do our own family Thanksgiving we decided to continue on and do just a smaller dinner with a chicken instead of a turkey. (Let's face it, we'd never finish a turkey and I have NO idea how to cook one, so we stuck with our strengths.) Travis' cousin Jessie and her husband Adam and little girl Reagan came down to enjoy another meal with us. We had a good time together we were just sad that it was so short of a visit.

In addition to all the food I've been keeping myself pretty busy with crafts. I've been dabbling the last year or so with knitting. I've crocheted for many many years. My Grandma Todd got me started many moons ago and also gave me a book that has directions for every type of needlework imaginable. Knitting has alway intrigued me but illuded me at the same time. I finally decided that I was going to learn it. I've gotten progressively better and decided to try knitting a beenie for Dani for this winter. It really didn't start out well at all. I had only worked on it for oh... about 3 hours or so when I realized I needed to take it out and start all over! Thbbb!!! Oh well by the time I got it all figured out we had a pretty cute result. Travis came up with the idea of attaching ties so that we could strap it to her head! :) They really made it so much cuter!! And much more functionable haha!

The hat turned out so cute that I started experimenting with different colors and sizes and have now made a whole bunch of these little hats. I'm loving it! I would really love to get some more patterns and make some really cute ones for Travis and I too.

All in all we had a great turkey day and a great chicken day. :) Dani ate the chicken really well too. (I was just glad it was edible. I hadn't tried this recipe in over 5 years. Now Travis says we need to have it more often haha!!!) Dani actually pretty much insists on trying whatever it is that we are eating at this point. And to be honest there really isn't much that she has refused to eat. I hope that is good foreshadowing for the future!

This is Travis' and Dani's new game. They play hide and seek around our little coffee table and Dani LOVES it!!!!!

Dani's still got a touch of a runny nose but hopefully it's on it's way out. Doesn't look like she's letting it get her down too much though does it! haha

Well we hope that you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving as well.

Till next time..

Catch up!!

Yeah, ok, it's taken me WAY too long to update, I know and I am sorry. Wow! We have a lot of ground to cover here... Ok, we'll start at the beginning.

SEPTEMBER

By the end of August Dani was full on, hands and knees crawling and it wasn't long after that that she learned to stand. By the end of September she was pretty efficiently walking around the furniture and even trusting herself to stand for a few seconds at a time. We spent most of the month busy with third crop but Dani and I did make it away for a quick trip to Salt Lake for my Uncle Eric's wedding. We missed Travis (Dani kept looking around for him and then looking back at me with a little pout. She was so happy to see him when we got home!!) Daddy and Dani have a very special bond already. It is so sweet to see! :)

Have I mentioned how much she loves my camera???

OCTOBER

We got away for a few days for the anual elk hunt on Boulder Mountain. Dani and I lasted about 5 days and then Dani really needed to be back in some familiar surroundings. Up until then she did much much better than I EVER expected. She is such a trooper.

Travis stayed for another 4 days after we came home. We really missed him! When he got home and was unloading his stuff from the camper Dani would just sit on our little landing by the front door. She'd follow him back and forth until he'd finally brought everything in and then she just sat on his lap perfectly content for a good long while till it was dinner time. Unfortunately all that extra time on the mountain didn't result in any meat in our freezer. Travis is going to take another stab at it here in a week or so. Right after Thanksgiving he and his dad are heading back up the mountain to hopefully get something before their tags run out.

One of the main reasons Dani and I came home so early is because she was stung by a wasp TWICE on her face! :( Thankfully there was another mom with kids there that had some Children's Benadryl and after a small dose we quickly ran into the trailor where Travis and D.J. gave her a blessing. The swelling was all but gone by the time we got home a couple hours after it happened. Thank goodness for the blessing of the preisthood!!!

For Halloween we went as a little farm family. Travis and I dressed as farmers and Dani was a little piglet. We had a great time running around visiting family and friends and ended the night with dinner with Roni and her kids.
Dani also got to participate in her first pumpkin carving. We stripped her down to her diaper and jsut let her go crazy in the gunk. She was unsure at first but had a really good time once she warmed up to the new "surroundings." (We covered our floor with a plastic tarp so she could access everything more easily and we could consolidate clean up! Worked SUPER GOOD!)

NOVEMBER (so far)

Dani's doctor told us at her 9 mo check up that there isn't much that she can't eat now just milk, honey, and things that would be a chocking hazard so she has gotten to try a whole host of new foods! She is an excellent eater. We have been so blessed. What a wonderful baby she has been.

These are Travis' dog tags. Basically one of her most FAVORITE toys! haha

She also grew out of her carrier this month. She loves her new carseat!! :)This last week she took her first steps!!! They are the beginning of many falls and tears and smiles for success I am sure and we are so excited!!! She has such a sweet personality and we can't wait to see even more of it emerge! We are excited for Thanksgiving. We get to spend it with my family this year. YUMMY YUMMY YUMMY!!!!!

Dani is doing really well at responding to sign language. She still hasn't shown us any signs yet but she definitely recognizes them and knows what they mean.

Well that should catch you up in a nutshell. I'm going to try and be better at doing this at least once a month. :) (Wish me luck!)

We hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!!!

What we've been up to..

"Okey-dokey" here we go! Thought it was about time we updated our blog and let everyone know what was going on. August was a busy month for us. We got the opportunity to go up to Salt Lake a couple of times to visit my family under the "excuse" that I had two sisters getting married!! :) It was so good to spend some time with my family and I am just so so happy for Lauren and Sarah! They both have such wonderful eternal mates.

We got the opportunity to hang out with some friends and enjoy ourselves a bit before we hit third crop. It was nice. We're in full swing now and have one more week and a little to go and then we'll be planning for the elk hunt! :) YAY!!

Dani has been super busy. She's a MOVER! So so very curious and so so very FAST! She started crawling and then decided that her scoot/crawl was more productive to get her from there to here. She has since then figured out that there is definite speed pros to the whole "arms and knees" crawling and now it's sometimes a challenge to keep up! :) She just started pulling herself up to stand a couple days ago and is pretty good at it already! I can't believe how fast she is growing. Travis is trying to keep her from exploring through his legos! :) The solution was to set up a baracade of sorts but as you can see she still found a way to see what was going on />

We are teaching her sign language and although she can't quite form her hands to show signs to us yet, she does recognize some of them when I ask her if she is "all done" eating for example. It is so neat to see her smile and recognize that we are communicating on some level. She is just getting so big and I don't know what to do to keep her small! I guess we're not supposed to. A friend of ours pointed out that that is exactly what kids are "programmed to do." He's right. I should be happy about it and I am in some ways but still sad in others.

Well that is what we have been up to for the most part. I am still working on my transcription class and I am hoping that I will be done by the beginning of next year and will be able to find work that is conducive to me staying at home with Dani and still somehow "keep house." (I put it in quotes cause I don't know if you could call what I do keeping house. (: )

Hope things are going well for all of you out there. Till next time...