Evalyn is 9 months old!

Evalyn is 9 months old! It's crazy how much she (and all babies) learn in such a short amount of time. I'd be a walking genius if I kept learning that fast through my whole life. With her being on the move, she definitely keeps us on our toes. Justin was able to catch her in the act of her first "getting into something without Mom and Dad knowing" excursion. 

I'm pretty sure her favorite toy is the dishwasher. Whenever I walk into the kitchen to start doing dishes, she's right on my heels. It be nice if her enthusiasm to unload it would carry on for at least 18 more years. 

The other day she fell and split her lip open on the dishwasher. It's definitely not the most kid-friendly toy, with it's sharp edges and utensils used to whisk raw eggs (yep, she tried those).

But, she's still very even-tempered. She makes this whole parenting thing not seem so bad :)

As for Justin and I, Justin is starting to work nights this week. We'll see how long it takes for him to get run down :) I turned in my application for licensure this week, and am just playing the waiting game. We're still on the house hunt, and are hoping something becomes available soon.

Changes in Life.......................................

Evalyn is getting more brave about standing up and leaning against furniture, but getting down she hesitates a little sometimes. She is starting to learn to clap and she unrolled her first roll of toilet paper this week. She is going fast and her 9 month appointment is next week.

Jami completed her hours for licensure. She is filing her application this week and hopefully the license will come soon. Justin is working finally and will be switching to the night shift next week. Orientation will be for another few weeks.

We are still house hunting, but are planning on maybe putting an offer on a house that has potential but a lot of work. We are still looking at our options but are going to look into building a new house this week.

Talk about a crazy week...

It was already, what with a trip out to Utah and all. But, it got a lot crazier when Justin FINALLY heard back about scheduling his test again. He got the email Tuesday afternoon, and after looking at the availability in Lincoln and Omaha, he found out he could take the test the next morning in Omaha, or wait another two weeks. So, he decided to take it the next morning.  We were lucky enough that I could work from home that morning, and off he went.  He finished his test in the minimum amount of questions, I went to work for a few hours, and then we were off to Utah that evening.

I'm glad we were able to go to the new Provo temple open house. I had numerous concerts there while I was at BYU, and so it was great to be able to see how it was transformed into the temple. I loved it!  And, they had a cool little feature where they took your picture and emailed it to you.

And, Justin and I got to go on our first "official" date since before Evalyn was born. Meaning, we got to go somewhere, just the two of us. I've been wanting to go to the Payson temple since it was built. With it only being 30 minutes from my sister's house, it was do-able.

Thanks to my sister and her husband, Evalyn got her first Valentine. She didn't get anything from us. We must be pretty lame.

And, of course, the reason we went out to Utah in the first place was to see family, particularly my dad.  If there's one thing we learned with everything that has happened with my dad, it's that we need to get pictures with people every time we're out there. So, here's a picture of Evalyn with her great Grandma Astle (she, coincidentally enough, was in the hospital earlier in the week for blood clots in the lungs).

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And, a picture with my parents.

While we were out in Utah, Justin found out he passed his test!! So, after scrambling to talk to Madonna, he found out he still had a job, and could start that upcoming Monday. So, a crazy week led into a crazier week as Justin started his new job and we're working on finding childcare for Evalyn while Justin is in orientation.

Evalyn First Time Being Sick

Evalyn has started walking behind a toy if we are there to help give some stability when she gets distracted and stops to look at something.  She also loves leaning against the couch and standing to play with toys or as we try to tempt her with toys to walk over to us.
Playing on her stomach she is definitely getting lazy as she has learned to go from sitting to laying on stomach and stomach to sitting. So if she does not want to try to crawl she just sits up and plays, which is what she likes to do. She would rather not struggle learning to crawl and takes the easy way out, but she is getting better day by day at crawling. It is a slower process than if she did not know how to sit up and transition.

Evalyn has been sick this last week and she got Justin sick too. So hopefully it will not get passed back and forth between us.

Jami has been working hard but has had a lot of appointments cancel the last two weeks. She is down to 64 hours left before she will become fully licensed. They just hired another therapist for here in Lincoln that will be at another office that Jami will use sometime for certain meetings.

Evalyn's fits and Laughing

Evalyn has seem to know what a phone is from the first day she saw one. She love to watch videos of herself and she laughs at them.  When she know were are videoing her it is not as good as it could be.

Evalyn loves for us to read to her. When we finish she gets a little mad but if you grab another book right away she is fine, but if not she throws a little bit of a fit.  

She is growing fast and is getting more of an attitude and personality the older she gets.

Evalyn's 6 month appointment

At Evalyn's 6 months appointment she weighed 19
lbs 4 oz and was 27 1/2 inches tall. These are both over the 90th percentile and she has a small head at 43 centimeters (the 50th percentile). Maybe she will slow down some soon. She has learned to go from sitting to her belly but the crawling is not there yet. She is getting better about getting up on her hands and knees but uses it to help with turning and not crawling.

Here are some pictures of her at the visitors center during the gingerbread house festival.

This is her taking a selfie of herself.

Evalyn at 6 Months

These videos are of Evalyn and things that she has learned to do the last little while.  She is definitely getting her personality and attitude. She is letting us know more of what she wants like picking her up, eating and playing. She loves to wrestle and has some stuffed animals that she loves to play with. She lets us know that she is done playing on her own and wants attention.  She is slowly leaned to move around but definitely slow. She loves to feel different fabrics and textures. She is definitely a people watcher and animal watcher. She is learning to sit with others during sacrament meeting while Jami and I have different callings. She is siting up on her own and will play. She likes to grab our fingers to sit up and then if you raise them a little she will stand on her own while holding on to your fingers. She loves to be read to and play with books. She is eating solids like sweet potatoes, carrots and rice cereal. Evalyn definitely loves cellphones or other thing that she knows you are using like the computer. She thinks that she is running it and that she should have control. Most of all she loves the outdoors and to look around.

This video is of Evalyn drinking out of a water bottle. She is always interested when mom drinks out of it always wants a turn.

Evalyn loves to looks at and play with light switches. She gets super excited when she sees one and when you put her up to it sometimes she just stares at it, but sometimes she will reach and shut it off. She then looks and you and smiles.

This is Evalyn laughing while playing pica-boo with Jami. She has started breathing in while laughing.