My Little Zoo Animal

Last Saturday was a free admission day to the Tautphaus Park Zoo in Idaho Falls.
Since we'd never been, we decided to go!
Katie enjoyed being outside, as she always does, and was even a little interested in some of the animals.
It was SUPER busy and it's a pretty small zoo, so getting around with our stroller, and parking, were kind of awful, but we still had a good time.





This monkey was SO funny! He was just chillin' by the glass, arm up and relaxing. Sorry about the reflection of some little girl's flip flops.
We got her this cute little shirt from the gift shop. 35% off!

Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho, It's Off To Work I Go!

I started nannying again at the end of August.
It's for the same family as before and although I complained a lot about it and ultimately quit, I'm sure it'll be better and easier this time around.
The job didn't pay much to start with, and this time it's $100 less, but there are some upsides and reasons I'm sure I can do it this time.
1. I'm not pregnant this time. Pregnancy took away my patience, my energy, my optimism, and my sleep. All things I desperately needed to nanny which I have now.
2. Little Kyah is now in Kindergarten! One of my biggest complaints was that the little girl didn't seem to know how to entertain herself or do anything herself. While I love Barbies, i'm not ok with playing it on the floor for hours while she tells me exactly what to say and do. Now, she's gone at 12:15 everyday and comes home with her mom after school.
3. The kids love Katie! It's awesome that I can take Katie to work with me and even more awesome that the kids sit around and smile and talk to her all day.
4. With hospital bills, a higher rent, and a need for furniture, the extra money is definitely welcome.
5. This reason is a little ridiculous, but I love having little taste-testers! I've been trying to cook more homemade and fresh things and I can't really trust Brad to tell me what he thinks about my experiments. Either he doesn't want to try whatever it is or he just says "It's good." Thanks for the help, babe. Little kids that sit there and scarf whatever it is down and say "This is SO good!" and ask for seconds or push the food away and ask for something else are much more helpful.

Anyway, the job is going well so far and even though I don't like having to get up everyday at 6, it's setting a better routine than the sleep from 1-noon everyday I had going on. Haha!

Time Sure Flies!

I can't believe it's been over a month since i've blogged.
Shoot, I can't believe it's been 3 months since Katie was born!
She's getting so big, so fast.
I actually love it!
It's great when they're super small and sleep a lot, but she's so much more fun smiling and talking and playing.
A few updates on Katie:
She can roll over! She's been able to roll from her back to her tummy for a few weeks now and does it every chance she gets, though she gets really frustrated afterwards because she can't roll back yet.
She loves to talk, but gets pretty shy about it around other people.
She doesn't really have a routine yet; She just does her own thing, but I don't really mind.
She sleeps when she's tired and eats when she's hungry and I think that's just how she is.
Some babies just don't do well with schedules and whatnot.
Besides, I don't really have a routine for myself, so it kind of works for both of us.
And Yes, i'm getting enough sleep, since everyone asks me.
Katie LOVES to be outdoors and feel the wind and she likes to swim a lot too. :)


My mom has some pictures of Katie in my aunt Kathryn's pool, but she hasn't sent them to me yet.
Katie always does this thing where Brad or I will be holding her and she'll be sleeping, then we'll look down after a few minutes and she'll be wide awake just staring up at us!
It's SO funny!
Katie loves her daddy!
She always falls asleep when he holds her. Haha.
I got this sweet onesie for her to wear to the Kynetx lunches and whatnot. (Kynetx is where Brad works and they have lunches on Fridays where people can come for free lunch and learn about the company and what's new and everything.)
She totally loves her WubbaNub pacifier and I am so glad I bought it.
She's always holding onto the kitty and falling asleep with it.
I just wish the actual pacifier part wasn't one of those green ones because they don't seem to stay in her mouth very well. Maybe she just doesn't like them.

Our little gangster baby.
Back in April, my brother told us about a sale going on at Allegiant Airlines: $19 for a one-way direct flight between Idaho Falls and Los Angeles, so we decided to buy some tickets to fly down to Cali for my birthday, where we could visit with my family and use some free Disney vouchers to go to Disneyland.
We went down last Thursday and went to D-land on Friday, my birthday.
It was lots of fun and not as boring as Brad thought. Haha.
My mom, little sister Marci and her bf Mario when with us, so there was always someone to hold Katie and my mom held her while we went on the more adult-friendly rides.
Katie did love some of the family rides though., the kind where you sit in a boat and look at stuff like Pirates, It's a Small World, Enchanted Tiki Room, etc...
She would just look all around and was so curious!

My mom got her an adorable little Disneyland shirt to wear.

Family picture! (I always look gross as theme parks. Haha!)
Disneyland has been showing the old Michale Jackson 3-D movie, Captain EO, ever since he died, so we went and saw it.
I'd only ever seen the Honey, I Shrunk the Kids show that they've been showing for years, but Captain EO was the one my mom always saw back in the 80's.
Katie in the 3-D glasses. Lol!

All in all, it was a fun trip, but super short.
We didn't get to my parent's house from the airport until Thursday night, spent all day at Disneyland on Friday, did some shopping with my mom on Saturday, and then left super early Sunday morning!
Luckily, my mom flew back up with us because my dad had driven Marci up here for school!
I helped them move Marci into the dorms and my mom helped me organize stuff in our new apartment (blog about the new apt to come tomorrow) on Monday, and them my parents took off on their own adventure!
They went to Yellowstone and Wyoming and Mount Rushmore and all over the place.
I miss em already but hopefully we'll go down there for Thanksgiving.

It's been an amazing 12 weeks with Katie and I love watching her grow more and more each day.
Babies are awesome!

These Are a Few of Her Favorite Things

Katie is over 6 weeks old!
Oh my goodness!
She's getting big so fast.
I thought I would take a few minutes to list some of her favorite things.

- Sneezing. She always make the cutest little noise after she sneezes, and will often smile as well.

-Eating, but what baby doesn't love eating?

-Sitting in this position. No matter how we position her in the bouncer, even if we strap her in, she always wiggles her way to sit like this.

- Naps with daddy.

-Cuddling with mommy.

-Sitting in her bumbo! But only for a short time because she does prefer to be held while sitting up.



- Standing! She loves when we hold her and she gets to stand up! She'll kick and kick until we let her stand, it's so funny.

- Bath time! Especially when I fill up the tub and sit in there with her, letting her swim around and kick her legs. I need to get some pictures of her after her bath because she is just SO happy and so cute in her towel.

-The Baby Bjorn carrier. She loves to be in there and just look around. I usually only wear it when I go to do laundry or get the mail, but sometimes I'll stick her in it and we dance in the living room.


- Smiling. We have yet to capture a really good picture, which is unfortunate because she has the BEST smile. Sometimes we'll spend 5-10 minutes just smiling back and forth at each other. Now i'm just waiting for her to laugh.


These are just a few of her more favorite things, but there are lots more. She's such a happy baby with so much personality. I hardly get anything done during the day because I just have so much fun hanging out with her!

Life is a Highway

So we can't seem to stay off of the road!
Brad went to down to work in his work's main office in Lehi, so Katie and I came along for the ride.
We listened to "Catching Fire" in the car (awesome!) and got down to Utah on Wednesday morning. Brad worked Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday so I didn't have a lot to do while he was gone besides let Jenna and the girls bond with Katie. Haha.
As usual, we played some games and I just hung around the house.
Friday, I dropped Brad off at work so that I could have the car for the day to do some shopping!
I've been in desperate need of clothes so I went to a few stores and got some shirts, a dress, and a couple cute shrug things.
I also ended up getting the new Stephanie Meyer book, this cute drying rack for bottles that looks like grass, some dessert bowls, a pink ice cream scoop, pink tongs and some nursing pads.
Yeah, I went a little crazy, but at least most everything was on sale.
We joined Brad for lunch at the office and then went back to Jenna's, where I packed up the car, picked up Brad at 4:30, and we all headed home to Rexburg.
Pictures of Katie and the girls are on Jenna's blog.

Saturday, it was really nice in Rexburg so Brad and I took Katie for a walk at nature park.

She slept the entire time. Haha.
Cute little ducklings. We brought some bread to feed them.
This isn't a great picture, but I thought it was so funny how Katie is peeking!
Later, we were waiting for the ward activity to start (we had brownies and ice cream and watched Hercules in the church gym) and Brad laid Katie on my back. So funny!
She got this cute little romper from Grandpa Odasso. It's got a fishy on the bottom.
I think she looks SO much like Brad in this picture, which is the first time i've ever seen either of us in her.
Sunday, we went to church and Katie did awesome.
She's such a great baby.
After church, she was SO happy and smiley, so I took some pictures and video, which you can find on my Facebook.
She just has the best disposition and everyone always guesses that she's at least 3 or 4 months old because she's just so smiley and alert.
She'll actually sit there and interact with you, smiling back and almost laughing, but not quite.
This week should be a fun one.
I'm making Enchiladas tomorrow to have dinner with Jon and Cynthia.
Wednesday, there is a BBQ in the courtyard here and also temple sealings for our ward.
I also plan on working out everyday and so far it's going well!
It's only been one day, but I know I can keep it up!
I really am in the worst shape of my life thus far and I am determined to change that. Getting winded going up a flight of stairs is NOT ok. Sometimes I miss high school for this reason because I was constantly having to walk around, go up and down stairs, exercise for color guard, dance for musical rehearsals, walk home or to the bus stop or work or whatever.
Pregnancy made me so lazy and I really just want to feel better about myself, so wish me luck!

California, July 4th, and Katie's Blessing

I am SO behind on blogging. Sorry!
Some quick updates:
Brad started working at a company called Kynetx about 2 weeks ago (wait, 3 weeks ago?) and he seems to really like it.
They basically develop web applications.
The main office is in Lehi, so Brad, along with me and Katie, went down there last Thursday so Brad could meet all the main people and whatnot.
We arrived in Utah on Wednesday night and stayed with Jenna and Travis.
On Thursday while Brad was at work, I hung out at my Aunt Kathryn's house.
She has an awesome pool so I went swimming for a bit while Kathryn watched Katie.
I ended up getting pretty sunburned. Oh well!
Around 4:30, I picked up Brad from the office, which is about 10 minutes from Kathryn's house, and we went back and swam some more and had dinner with Kathryn and her kids, as well as my cousin Teresa and her family.
On Friday, Katie and I joined Brad for lunch at the Kynetx office (Yum, Jimmy Johns!) and after lunch we started driving down to California!
We spent the weekend down there and it was really nice.
My sister Laura and her family was down, so we got to spend some time with our nieces that we haven't seen in a LONG time.
Saturday, my mom had a little baby shower for me.
It was mostly just snacking on crackers and cheese and meeting the new baby and just hanging out with a lot of the women from our church that I grew up with.
Nicole was also able to come and it was SO great to see her!
We all had banana splits and opened some presents and then people slowly trickled out.
Later that night was a ward 4th of July party at the church, which was lots of fun.
My mom did a great job putting it all together.
Sunday, Katie was blessed!
She looked like a little angel in her blessing dress.
So precious. :)
Sunday night we all sat outside and lit fireworks and just had a good time.
Oh, and also on Sunday my brother-in-law Ben had a little photo shoot for Katie.
There were a lot of pictures, so he only touched up a few of them.
I've posted those at the bottom of this post.
The first two pictures were photoshopped by me, so they don't look as great. Lol.
Monday, I went and saw Eclipse with my mom and then we went shopping with my little sister.
Brad and I left for home on Tuesday morning and got back into Rexburg around 12:30 a.m.
It's nice to be home, but I always miss California the second I leave.
Good thing we'll be back down there in September to go to Disneyland for my birthday. :D

Has it really been 9 days?

Katie is an absolute doll.
I think she really is the cutest thing ever.
Seriously.
She smiles all the time and for no reason.
I know a lot of babies will smile after they fart or poop or something, but she just smiles for no reason and it's awesome.
She's even laughed a few times!
Earlier today, Brad was tickling her armpits and she laughed from that!
Unfortunately, I was in the other room so I missed it. :(
Sometimes she snores or just kind of breathes loudly while she's sleeping, which is also so cute.
Brad recorded her snoring earlier and i'll try and upload it at the bottom of this post. (If it doesn't work, check Facebook.)
She went to church for the first time today and everyone loved her and wanted to hold her.
She slept the whole time, which I was actually a little sad about because she's so fun when she's awake, but I guess it's better that she was asleep because it would have been that much harder to pay attention to the speakers.
Katie also had a little doctor's visit on Thursday.
They were basically just checking for jaundice and to make sure everything was alright, which it was.
The doctor said she'd gained about 4 oz since birth, which is really great since most babies end up losing weight in the beginning.
I knew she must be gaining weight because she is definitely eating enough!
I think I could probably have twins with how much milk i'm churning out. (Sorry if this is TMI, but i'm soaking through 4 or 5 nursing pads a day, each.)
Speaking of nursing, it's been getting better.
She still has some trouble latching on and ends up getting milk squirted into her eyes and all over both of us, but it really has been getting better.
The pain isn't so bad anymore and the engorgement swelling is pretty much gone, thank goodness.
Well, that's all the updates I can think of for now.
She's doing great, Brad and I are doing great, everything is great!
Here are a couple recent pictures. :)

Katie's first church outfit! :)

Katie and daddy on Father's Day. <3 onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqOi0fU8IacdesHoi1ZJBxV23l6dllTHGEVdS0MyjyeaiVh8uo4oisQ5K7SNIRVzIVikhtvjk-re4VvkQ85-B6gjsTyNrqZMh76fsbOtnSgqKqQEfnoURSpQuXe6Jb5Y5ORGevEEtL07QJ/s1600/IMG_0167.JPG">