Entertainment

I don't think we are going to buy anything extra for Kilynn's birthday or for Christmas. She gets excited enough over a simple box of diapers. We ordered a big box of diapers off of diapers.com this week and it arrived the other day. Kilynn was so excited! It was so cute to see her so wound up crawling in and out of the box. I have the box in her room now with a blanket over it. She likes to crawl into it under the blanket, sit there for a while and then pop out playing peekaboo with me.

She loves her Luvs! She kept "kissing" the picture of the little boy on the box.

Yep, things are pretty exciting around here! We are easily entertained. Kilynn is our greatest entertainment mostly because she is interested in anything and everything.

Yesterday Joseph and I did get to go do something that most people would think is real entertainment. We got to go to the OSU beaver football game against Louisville. We even got a babysitter. It was weird being away from Kilynn. I missed her and kind of wished she was there to see the sights. I know she wouldn't have lasted long though. One of Joseph's co-workers couldn't go to the game so he gave Joseph his tickets. We had pretty good seats (out of the rain) and it was a fun date.

This was the view from our seats. It was nice to be out of the crazy student section.

The Fruits of our Labors

We are nearing the end of canning season. I suppose it could keep going for a while, but I'm pretty much out of jars and I think we'll have plenty to get us through the year. We still have a lot stored from last year (mostly peaches, tomatoes, and jam) so I think it's ok to stop now. I was hoping to get more tomatoes, but our tomatoes and everyone's tomatoes are having trouble ripening up due to cool whether. From left to right we have green beans, tomatoes (red with some yellow tomatoes in case you were wondering), applesauce, blackberry jam, tuna fish, and Joseph's dill relish. We also did cherry jam and strawberry freezer jam. We didn't do as much jam this year because we had so much left over from last year.

I love the beauty of jars all lined up after canning season. I love the colors and I love the feeling of having food storage and knowing the work you did to get it. I love looking at them so much that I'm having trouble getting around to storing them away. I think I've pretty much decided that I'm going to store them on the tops of my kitchen cabinets as decoration. It will even match since the colors in my kitchen are green yellow and red. Joseph built some nice shelves in the garage for these jars, but they will probably end up staying in the house at least until I get some Christmas decorations up on top of the cabinets. Here is a quick update on us: Joseph has been quite busy at work. They are bidding lots of jobs right now and he is heavily involved in that process. Joseph is also all certified now to go out on medical calls for the fire department although he hasn't had to go on any yet. For some reason he isn't certified yet to go out on fire calls. I think he has an online class to finish on his own time before he can do that. We get to listen to his pager all the time though. A dispatcher comes on the radio every time there is an emergency in the surrounding area. Joseph only has to worry about the ones that are in Philomath.

I am having a wonderful time being a Mom, playing with Kilynn, and knowing that I don't have to return to school this fall. Every year the end of summer has caused feelings of anxiety in me because I know school will be starting soon. I've been catching myself feeling this way a lot lately as the whether gets cooler and as there are more signs of fall, but then I remind myself that I'm done with school and I instantly feel better. This year, I may find that I really do enjoy Autumn after all. This last week I picked up five new students. That makes a total of seven students for me. Three of them are piano students and the rest are violin students. I never thought I'd teach piano, but since I'm primary pianist a couple of parents have approached me about lessons for their kids. I've been teaching one of them since spring and it has gone really well. Kilynn took 18 steps exactly a week ago, but hasn't come near that many since then. She definitely prefers to crawl. She does the bear crawl with her legs straight and her bottom in the air. It's all a matter of deciding that she wants to walk and then she'll take off. Kilynn can also bark like a dog now. She has a book called "Animal Sounds" (thanks for the book Amity) and it's her favorite. She has figured out how to do the woof woof for the dog--it's an "Uh-Uh" sound, but she hasn't figured out how to make any of the other animal sounds. If I point to the dog and ask, "What does a doggy say?" she quickly responds with "Uh-Uh". If I point to another animal and ask what it says she remains silent. Anytime she hears a dog barking in the neighborhood she'll start making her "Uh-Uh" sound. If we are on a walk and we see a dog, I don't think she recognizes it as a dog, but if I say the word "dog" or if the dog starts barking she'll take up the "Uh-Uh" sound. It's so cute and it's so exciting to see her start to make connections like that.

Sorry so many of Kilynn's pictures are of her in her highchair, but that's one of the only times I can get her holding still and not in my face clawing for the camera.

Baby Teeth and Baby Steps

Kilynn took a while to get any teeth in. She cut her first tooth a couple of weeks ago and by the end of the next week she suddenly had four teeth. Two on the bottom and two on top. Now we have a little beaver in the house. I had to put all her board books up and out of reach because it takes no time for her to soften the corners and binding and rip pieces of paper and cardboard off with her teeth. Whenever I put her down in her crib to take a nap, she cries for a little while and then pretty soon I hear her vigorously gnawing on the wooden rails of the crib. The first time I heard her doing this, I went in and checked to see if she was making marks in the wood with her teeth. I didn't see any so I didn't worry about it anymore. Today I thought to look again and saw that the rails are getting pretty chewed up. The worst thing about teeth finally showed itself today. I was not able to nurse her at all today. Everytime I'd try, she'd bite me, I'd yelp, and then she would cry. I tried many times throughout the day to nurse her but I get more and more scared to try every time. I ended up just pumping and giving her bottles throughout the day. This may have to be the new system which makes me a little sad. Those are the bad parts about getting teeth. The good parts are that she looks really cute with them and I can now give her finger foods like cheerios and she can entertain herself in the highchair for a while.

It was really hard to get any pictures of her teeth, but you can see the top ones in this picture:

bottom teeth:

I thought these next two pictures were funny because it looks like she's trying to take a picture of herself. The other news is that Kilynn is taking steps. My last post announced that she was able to stand up on her own without using anything to pull herself up. About four days after that post she took her first step which turned into four steps on the same day. Her record so far is six consecutive steps. She isn't really trying very hard to walk so it will probably be awhile before it becomes her preferred mode of transportation. It's hard to get pictures or videos of her walking because as soon as she sees the camera, she wants to get to it as fast as she can so she drops and crawls.

Kilynn had her 9 month appointment on Monday. She is in the 10th percentile for weight (has been since she was born), 75th percentile for height, and 75th percentile for head circumference.