Stress Relief

With Lydia being sick for a little over a week, I have had some serious need of stress relief.  For me this involves cooking.  On Sunday when she started to feel better, I took advantage of Gregory being home and had him watch the baby while I cooked to my little hearts content which lasted almost all day.  

My tribute to Fall!  They looked a lot better in person and tasted even better.

I found a few recipes that claimed they were from Cafe Rio so I thought I would try them out.  The rice came really really close.  Neither of us could tell a difference with it.  Gregory said they tasted a lot like the burritos from Cafe Rio but he usually gets steak while I made chicken, and I usually have their green sauce while he gets the red.  He really liked my red sauce but I would have preferred the green.  I will still search for a good green sauce recipe.  In the mean time....here was our Sunday night dinner.  Gregory was so impressed and liked them so much that he made me take a picture and blog about it. 

Crawling

 We finally caught her crawling on tape.  She is now crawling when ever she wants although she still prefers walking but now that she has figured out that she can move from one place to the next independently, she does.  I originally thought that when she became more independent she would be happier and not quite so demanding, but this has not been the case.  My daughter has started to throw fits.  Screaming, leg thrashing fits.  I didn't know that this could happen at 8 months old, but apparently it can.  She does it when I take her away from an area that she can't play in (like the wires and router on the side of the TV) or if I take something away from her that she shouldn't play with.  The fit will stop when I distract her with something else to play with but she has gotten so bored of all her toys that she is finding anything she can to play with that is different.  I find her in all sorts of things and it's becoming a chore to chase her around.  I know this will only get worse when she can walk which she tried to do many times a day.  She actually took her first steps earlier this week.  Every day when she stands up she will try to walk.  She is so good at standing on her own now that I am afraid that she will be walking within a couple of weeks.  We will see but for now she is getting into everything and the bathroom door now has to stay shut.  Although, I don't foresee too much trouble in the future because she still won't let me out of her sight for more than a min or two without freaking out.  

She was still refusing to crawl unless she had a good reason when we took this video so we bribed her with the laptop on the other end so she would crawl to it.  She crawls so funny with her feet turned in so she has to move one foot right over the next one.  It's so cute!

Oh No!!!

 I stated before how Lydia will not crawl when people are watching her because she prefers to walk.  Well when no one is around and she really wants something she will crawl to it because that is the only way she can move.  So the other day when I left her in the living room to go get something I came back and found this.

Looks like our movies are no longer safe.  This was also how I learned that she could crawl and get where she wanted if no one else is there to take her. 

On another note, she has been sick since Sunday... hence the lack of blogs.  It started out as a cold and got a little better in the week but as of today got a little worse.  She has had a runny nose, been stuffy, very clingy, and just all around felt miserable poor thing.  I have not gotten a lot of sleep because she is waking up in the night every couple of hours which makes both of us sleepy throughout the day.  She was sleeping pretty good at the beginning of the week but it has digressed to having trouble sleeping at night and even with her naps.  Hopefully things will take a turn for the better so I don't have to take her in.  She is still fairly happy for feeling so miserable but it is  hard when she looks at me with those eyes saying "mom, please make me feel better".

Copy Cat

Lydia has been learning how to copy us when we do things.  From me she has started clapping and getting excited when something fun or exciting happens.  From daddy....well she learns other things.

So Proud

Whenever Lydia does something new or can sustain her standing for a long period of time, I have been clapping and saying "YAY"!  This has encouraged her to continue what she has been learning when she gets this positive reinforcement.  It has been helping a lot with her crawling because she HATES being on her stomach and still to this day will refuse to crawl unless she has too.  That being said.....she is now crawling.  Only in little bits and only when she really really wants something but it has come.  I don't have a video of it yet because if she sees that we are accessible to her she will refuse to crawl and demand that we walk with her around the room.  Her standing is getting a lot better too.  She can pull herself up almost anywhere and is standing independently of any objects around her for short periods of time.  So with my continued reinforcement of her advancing motor skills, she has picked up on clapping when someone says "YAY" or gets excited and laughs.  It's really funny.  She also gets really proud of herself when she does these things.  When she sees that I'm watching her stand up by herself and stay standing she will start clapping.  After she has crawled a bit and then notices that I am there, she will also clap and with it all she gets a really proud look on her face.  She is very proud of all the accomplishments she is doing and wants to make sure that we are all proud of her as well. While she has been clapping for a while, she is now doing it all the time.



So proud of herself.

The Wheel of Time: Towers of Midnight!

So I've been meaning to make this post for a while, but our internet's been acting really slow lately so I've been putting it off, we finally called and complained and got it fixed. Anyway on Monday November 1st at 10:00 PM they had a midnight release party for the new Wheel of Time book. I convinced, if not without a lot of effort, Aaron to go with me down to enemy territory. So down we went to the BYU bookstore wearing our University of Utah armor, or sweatshirts, whatever (I must say I was surprised at how many positive comments we got about our sweatshirts). Anyway it was a blast and true to form every time I'm with Aaron in a public place weirdos came up and talked to us wearing costumes from the book. Although I must say, some of the costumes were pretty cool, even if the people wearing them were not. We got our sign copies of the new Wheel of Time book by Brandon Sanderson and Robert Jordan and took off like bandits! We both finished all 800 and some odd page books on Thursday night, and I must say overall I was very pleased another good book, I hate having to wait like a year and a half for the next one though. At least it's the very last one of the series. So here are some pictures from that night.


Here's some of the people who dressed up! That's Mat, Rand, and Moiraine!


There's a better picture of Mat


Brandon Sanderson did a Q&A before we got the books!! Awesome, I almost won a shirt... oh well.


There we are like 407 in line!! and Aaron's playing his IPhone, he didn't even offer me an IPhone to play, lame!


Note the huge line up and down the aisles


Aaron with the copy he bought for his dad


Me with my copy!! Finally!

Halloween Weekend

We celebrated Halloween like most people did on Saturday and started it off by going to my parents house.  They LOVED seeing Lydia in her Super Girl costume!  My dad actually got excited about my costume as well when Kelvin mentioned that I ought to borrow my little brothers air soft gun to go with my "Kissin' Kate Barlow" costume.  So my dad decided that just a gun wouldn't be enough.  He got me his holster and then filled up the back of it with his bullets for his 22.  It looked really awesome and my mom just kept telling us that we can't go anywhere public with those on my holster.  She was really nervous that we would get in trouble.  We later went to Heidi's house for Heidi and Jennifer's annual Halloween party!  It was a lot of fun and there were some great costumes.  We stayed there for a few hours and when it started to rain we decided to head back home.  Luckily we did because it got a little bad in Murray right after we got home.  We rested for a bit and then I made Chili for dinner with Adrian and Aaron.  It was such a GREAT night!  We ate dinner while watching Myth busters (boy's choice) and then watched Clue.  By the way, did you know that our parents have been right all these years?  Turning off the lights when you leave a room is cheaper than leaving them on even if you are only going to be gone for a min. (Myth busters is very informative.) My dad will be happy to know that!  It was a great relaxing night and we had a lot of fun.

The Bailey's all dressed up and ready to party

The cutest little super girl!

 

Ready to take off flying.

If you look closely you can see the bullets in the back.  Kelvin and my dad thought it was pretty cool.

You know that babies can start doing things fast right?  Well, Lydia started to figure out how to sit up this last week.  So on Saturday morning we decided to lower her bed a notch.  I was worried that I wouldn't be able to pick her up since sometimes she is lying down when she wakes up, but those worries were to no avail.  Not only can she sit up by herself but as of today she can STAND UP by herself!  I went in on Sunday to get her from a nap and she was standing.  I about died!  I have since found her standing 3 times in her crib today (sometimes when she was supposed to be sleeping) and have watched her about 5 times pull herself up to a standing position while she was playing.  She sure picked that up really fast!  She showed no signs that she would be starting to do that soon.  I'm so glad that we lowered the crib when we did otherwise she would have fallen out.

The crib all lowered with the new fun toy that Grandma Marta got for her.  She really likes the Mickey doll.

And what would a post be without a fun video of my two favorite people having a blast together.

Along with Lydia standing up by herself she is starting to become aware when we are talking.  I can tell that she is paying attention and listening to our words and actually tries to talk back but it still comes out as babble.  She still enjoys when we respond to her though.  She also knows that people pay attention to her.  Everywhere we go we get stopped and told that she is such a beautiful baby.  In fact on Friday at the grocery store we were stopped 3 times!  Lydia has noticed it and when people start to pay attention to her and make smiley faces at her she knows it's her cue and gets all sorts of cute with her smiles and laughs once she has deemed the situation to be safe with mom right there.  The people love that she responds to them and I just laugh because I know she is manipulating the situation to her advantage.  Such a funny girl!