Summer in the Winter

Well, Summer's sure growing like crazy--at least in length. At her last doctor's appointment, January 9th, she was 25 3/4 inches long and weighed a little more than 12 lbs. She's in the fifth percentile with her weight, but the doctor said not to worry as long as her development is on track. And it is! She is crawling like crazy--mom can hardly keep up. She even pulls herself up at the couch, her carseat, and anything else that is just the right height. (We attribute the low weight to an accidental feeding of prunes a few days before the doctor's appointment. They cleaned her out!)

She is also now giving us kisses--a slobbery, open-mouth touch to our cheek. We love it. Her favorite solids right now are the rice cereal and the sweet potatoes. (She likes the barley cereal okay, but really dislikes the carrots.) She is so much fun. This is a clip from over Christmas break. Aunt Kate had just changed her diaper and was tickling her. Summer hadn't ever laughed like this before, and she really hasn't laughed like it since. She loves her Aunt Kate!

Dad's doing well in school. Finals were pretty much what he expected. Summer and I are proud of his hard work. He's also started playing on a Gonzaga basketball team. Not THE Gonzaga basketball team; it's just an intermurals league, but it's been fun for him.

And Mom's just keeping busy with chasing Summer down and trying to keep her out of the dangerous "toys" and keeping her tummy full and her diaper clean. And she's loving it. She's trying to stay caught up with the laundry (has anyone ever figured out how to stay caught up with the laundry?), on the ball with making the meals, running the errands, and taking a scuba diving class. And in her spare time, she plays Scrabble and Rummikub with Dad. Could life get any better?

Christmas

We had a good Christmas. Our travels both ways were safe, and we were able to spend time with mostly all our family. (I've been trying to upload video clips these past few days, but for some reason--internet, blog site, etc.--they haven't worked. So pictures will have to do for now.)

One of our favorite traditions is when Santa just happens to show up every year when we are having our family party. This year, I came upstairs and this is what I saw:

After the Santa surprise, we did our yearly nativity. This year, Mabree was the angel,

Brecken was the donkey (hee haw-ing the WHOLE time), Kate was Mary, Dad was Joseph, Summer was Baby Jesus,

Jill, Lance, and Rhett were wisemen,

and Bry and Myka were shepherds. I was the photographer, and Mom was the narrator.

More later. I'm going to post now before the internet stops working and I lose everything!

Hallelujah!

Finally! I have figured out our stinkin' answering machine. For months now people have been calling and leaving messages, but our machine never registered that we had any messages. After googling it, reading the manual, and pushing ALL of the buttons on the machine, I finally gave up . . . and then Rhett tried. He googled it, read the manual online, also pushed all sorts of buttons. But to no avail.
Well, yesterday, I decided I'd record a new announcement explaining that we couldn't get our messages so when people called, they'd know not to leave a message. Well, I recorded it, but it never changed when I did a trial call. Finally, the thought occured to me--why are we paying for voicemail, when all we need is to hook up the answering machine? So I did some research and realized our voicemail through Qwest was set to pick up at four rings, and the answering machine was set to pick up at six--so the answering machine never got to pick up the calls. I had to call Qwest to get my password to retrieve our voicemails, and when I finally got to them, we had 35! I had to listen to all of them to delete them--25 of which were me and Rhett saying, "This is a test." I thought that was pretty funny. So I've decided to cancel our voicemail services (since we are paying for them), and just use the stinkin' answering machine (which we've already paid for).
On another note, it has been snowing like crazy. We've had more than 24 inches now in just two days. This beats the record of 13 inches. Last week, Rhett received an email from the Dean of Academics saying under no condition would they ever cancel or reschedule finals. They said weather was no excuse to missing class, and if they couldn't drive, they were expected to walk. Well, this morning, he got another email from the Dean of the Law School saying the entire school (of Gonzaga), including the law school, was closed, and finals would have to be rescheduled. How exciting, I guess. Today was his last final, and it would have been nice just to get it over with, but now he'll just take it after the break. They even cancelled Law School graduation.
So this morning we walked to the Harris' and had breakfast with the Day's (minus Jen and Brookie), the Green's and of course, the Harris'. After that we watched an awesome movie called "Traitor." It was a great start to our Christmas vacation!

She's Eating!

Well, Saturday night was the big night. We stuck a bib on Summer, mixed up some rice cereal, put her in her walker, and got our soft spoon ready. We began to feed her, and . . . she loved it! We could not believe how she gulped all of it down. Of course, it wasn't very much to start out with, but it was enough to give her some practice with eating from the spoon--which she really didn't need the practice because she had it down right from the start. She even began lunging for it! It was so much fun.

Nativity Picture

Okay, in regards to Angie's request, I'm posting our Nativity picture here.





And tomorrow is the big day: the RS Musical Dinner Theater. I don't even know if it's worth stressing about anymore because it's pretty much too late to make any changes. I know it will all turn out okay, but how is what I'm wondering.

ps

If you want to see an awesome Nativity picture, click here. Characters are as follows:
Mary: Britt, Joseph: Rhett, Jesus: Summer, Shepherd: Daren Harris, Wiseman(?): Josh Green, Wisewomen(or rich shepherds): Heather Harris and Rachel Green. Thanks for the fun time!

Real Quick . . .

Well, I realize we haven't posted for a while. Mainly it's because life has been hectic like no other! Dad's studying for finals like crazy. He's working hard and preparing his best, and mom has full confidence that he will do well. Summer's actually crawling now, and mom has to run around the apartment and make sure everything is off the floor that she can't get into--like power chords and remote controls and dvds/cds, etc. We try to keep her just on her blanket on the floor, but she does end up wandering. It takes her a while to get anywhere, but she's getting there. And mom's stressing about the "Five-Star Relief Society Musical Dinner Theater" that she's in charge of on Friday. (We'll leave out all the juicy details--like unrealistic requests too late, unexpected fall-throughs, and major miscommunications.) In addition to that, mom's email was too full, so after deleting a few things last night, this morning she woke up to 27 new messages that she has to sort through, plus there are dishes to be done, laundry to be washed, and now that Summer's crawling, a floor that really, really needs to be vaccuumed. We still haven't gotten our Christmas decorations out yet, and then there's the list of Christmas gifts that we haven't gotten to, either. Other than that (and a computer that Microsoft has stopped working on and a musical number on the 14th in Sacrament meeting), we are doing great! Hope everyone is doing well too!