Motor Skills

Hattie tried using a sippy cup recently!  She ended up soaked as did the high chair and floor, but she had fun!

She also tried puffs for the first time!  She wasn't too sure at first, but now she LOVES them.  I love them too because I can put her in the high chair, pour out some puffs, and she's occupied for a few minutes!  And I can try to get something done.

Our House!

We live in a house!  It's very exciting.

Here it is (the bushes are a little out of control, but someone is supposed to come trim them):

It's on Oak St.

It's across the street from an elementary school and it has a pretty awesome view!

Photos of the inside are coming :)

Peach Days

Our first weekend in Utah we went up to Peach Days in Brigham City.  It was fun to get some fair food, but I was a little underwhelmed overall.  It was SUPER crowded making it very hard to maneuver a stroller.  And I was disappointed there wasn't more peach food.  It's called peach days, but the only peachy things I saw were pie and cobbler at a couple stands.  I wanted a person in a peach suit to take pictures with and crazy peach foods.  Like waffles with peach syrup, or a peach sandwich, or a sampling of different types of peaches.  Can you tell I thought about this on the drive home?  What I really wanted was a peach shake, but we couldn't find one!  That doesn't seem too far fetched does it?

Anyways- we did have fun looking at booths and even bought our nephews their Christmas presents.  And it was Hattie's first fair!

8 months and Temple Square

What a month this was!  First off, Hattie is moving around like crazy.  She started crawling, standing, and walking (with help) this month.  She can pull herself into standing and will walk around if she's holding on to your fingers.  Her crawling is adorable- she uses both hands, one knee, and one foot.  So she pushes with the foot and scoots along with the knee and hands.  She makes more noises, her eyebrows and lashes are darker, she loves peek-a-boo (see video below), and really likes solid food.  While moving she went a few days without solids and when we gave them to her again she chowed down like nothing in the world was so delicious.  She eats solids at least twice a day now and we try to feed her stuff from our own meals.  She primarily eats fruits and veggies, but we've let her try a couple other things.  Like popsicles!  She makes a stink face after every lick, but then opens her mouth and waits for another.  She also moved homes for the first time!  It was quite the month.

We did not have Gail (the pink octopus- Ani named it) as she was packed away, but we wanted to do something fun so we went to Temple Square in Salt Lake City!

 Aren't these two adorable together?

She wasn't too sure about Brigham Young.

I'm so glad I got this on tape!  I just wanted to film her having fun with the plastic bag (don't worry, I didn't let her put it in her mouth or over her head) and then she decided to play peek-a-boo!  I love that she picked this up.

The Roths

Karen and Gordon Roth are extremely kind and generous people.  So kind and generous that they offered to have their son's sister-in-law and her family move in with them until they could get on their feet!

The Roths made our move possible.  After prayer and reflection both Kurt and I felt strongly that we needed to move soon and not wait until January (when Kurt will start school).  But with an apartment lease we couldn't get out of in Washington and no job between the two of us (in Utah) it seemed impossible that we could.  Moving in with the Roths gave us a way to make it happen!  They let us put our stuff in their garage and we lived down in the basement. 

Kurt had much better success job searching once we moved here.  He got a job our second week here!  Later that week we found a place to live!  The location was perfect- less than a mile from my sister's house, and only a 10 minute drive for Kurt to work and school. 

The stars aligned! 

I felt weird/apprehensive about moving in with my sisters in-laws.  When you're married and have a baby you don't expect to live with other people, or to not be able to afford your own place.  But it went great (I hope the Roths agree!).  Hattie loved having more people around than just me and Kurt.  I think she gets bored with us.  Also, Charlotte and Olivia (Hattie's cousins) sleep over at their grandparents' house quite often so we got to spend lots of time with them.  Charlotte loved her 'cuties' as she called Hattie and Livi. And Olivia came to love Hattie too!  She now calls her Hat- it's adorable!

We ended up staying there a month!  Honestly, I thought it was going to be longer, but I'm glad things worked out so well!  I can't thank Karen and Gordon enough for helping us out!

Here are some pictures from our stay:

Playing with beads:

Hattie loved the rocking horse!

And she started standing a lot more!

Moving!

We packed up on Wednesday August 28th.  It was a HARD day.  Not only was it physically exhausting, but we had to say goodbye to our family and friends.  During the day wasn't too bad (except for being overwhelmed with all our stuff!!!  We had to leave a few things behind), but the end of the day was rough.  Hattie was amazing the entire day.  She was happy the whole time, I don't think she cried at all.  See, she had flappy arms!  Even in her empty bedroom:

The first goodbye was my mom.  She practically ran out the door because she didn't want to cry!  It was hard watching her go, but I knew we'd be seeing her in a few weeks.  After that we went to check in to our hotel.  Kurt dropped Hattie and me off (so I could nurse) and then went back to the empty apartment to wait for the people who were taking our couch (I gave away some of our stuff through Facebook).  This is when things started going downhill!  Because of bad traffic, the people were late coming to get the couch.  This wouldn't have been so bad except we planned a goodbye dinner with some friends and Kurt's family. 

Running late was the least of my problems!  Hattie had a HUGE blow out.  Poo all the way up her back.  Taking off a onesie in such conditions is difficult.  She ended up with poo on hands and legs.  Then when my back was turned, taking care of the poopy clothes and diaper, she got poo on her face and all over my pant leg.  Gross!  Unfortunately I left our bags in the car, so I had nothing to change in to.  I also didn't have bathing supplies for Hattie.  I couldn't figure out the drain in the tub so Hattie got rinsed off under the faucet and cleaned with hotel soap.  At least she had fun!  Hattie loves bath time. 

When Kurt arrived I quickly found clothes to wear and we went to Red Robin.  It was fun seeing everyone one last time, but so hard to leave.  I think both of us shed a few tears on the car ride back to the hotel.  We second guessed ourselves about this whole move, but it was too late to turn back!

We felt better in the morning.  Kurt getting his masters is definitely a good idea.  We stopped by the apartment complex front office to turn in our keys.  On the way out Kurt asked, "so by any chance have you rented out our apartment yet?"  "Well, actually yes!  We just did yesterday!"

It was a sign!  We were definitely heading in the right direction even if it was hard to do.  So with more conviction we started our journey to Utah!

We took two days to drive, stopping in Boise.  Hattie did well overall, and we cruised along!  We arrived at our final destination in the afternoon, unloaded our stuff, and started the next big chapter of our lives!

Meant to be!

Good things are happening!  The day we moved our apartment was rented out.  We've been here less than two weeks and Kurt was offered (and accepted) a job!  And it's a good job, better than we had imagined.  It's hard to believe that these wonderful things have actually happened, and so quickly! 

Clearly, we were meant to move to Utah.  As Kurt said in an email, "I have a feeling Heavenly Father wanted us here and is blessing us for making the move".

Moving here was one of the scariest things I've done.  Kurt doesn't start school until January, but we felt we needed to move to Utah as soon as possible.  So with not job, nowhere to live, and no source of income we up and left!  We had a place to stay (with the Roths), but we still would owe rent in Bothell until our apartment rented out or our lease ended, whichever came first.  We could have been stuck paying rent in Washington until the beginning of February.  I was kind of terrified that would be our fate.  But the apartment has already rented out!  We only have to pay for half of September. 

I also feared that on top of not being able to rent out our apartment we wouldn't be able to find a job/s to pay for the apt we weren't living in.  But again, that wasn't the case!  Kurt starts a full time job on Monday.  It even has benefits!  They have other employees who are working towards masters degrees and are more than willing to work around Kurt's schedule once he starts at Weber.

I can't tell you how miraculous this is.  Kurt has been applying to jobs for months with very few responses at all.  After just two weeks in Utah he had almost as many interviews as he did in all his months of applying in Washington.

This also means that my dream of being a stay-at-home mom is going to be a reality!!!  I know it will be hard, I've been a mom for a whole 8 months now and know it's no picnic, but I'm so excited.  There's no one I'd rather have take care of Hattie than me!

We're currently looking for a place to live.  We might have found one actually, but it's not definite, so more on that later.   

All of these amazing things that have happened to us are answers to prayers.  We have been praying for more than a year about jobs and financial problems and what we were supposed to do!  Once we finally listened and did what the spirit prompted everything has aligned.  Things have come together more completely and more quickly than I could have imagned.  We are truly blessed.  I have learned so much through this experience about listening to the promptings of the spirit and aligning my will with that of Heavenly Father.  He knows what's best for us and can see a bigger picture than I can.  He knew that Kurt going back to school and us moving to Utah were the right things to do, we just had to have faith! 

The next few years will be difficult and a lot of work for both me and Kurt.  He'll be gone most of the time between work and school which means I'll be alone a lot with Hattie and responsible for all home related things.  However, I know that we will be just fine so long as we continue to listen to Heavenly Father!

P.S.  I have limited to access to internet right now, so sorry for the lack of posts!