8 MONTHS

Phin hit the 8 month mark on Superbowl Sunday.  According to our measurements he weighs 21 pounds 8 ounces and is 29 inches tall.  It seems like just his legs have grown in the last month as most of his pants have turned into capri pants.

He is still wearing size 3 diapers but he has had a few leaks recently so we will probably be moving up to size 4 the next time we need to buy diapers.  He is wearing 9-12 month tops and bottoms.

Phin loves to play with his truck...it is really hard to believe that he fit perfectly into the truck bed as a baby.

We are continually asked who Phin looks like.  I was able to dig a few photos out from the past and we would love for our readers to leave a comment with their opinion.  Does Phin look like Seth (pictured on the left) or Suzanne (pictured on the right)?

We have been on a little rollercoaster with sleep this month.  Near the beginning of the month Phin was getting up once or twice at night but recently he has been sleeping through the night.  One morning he slept until after 8 am....I was one happy mama that morning.  He is usually a tummy sleeper...when I wake him up early to get to work he will moan and roll back to his stomach...like please don't wake me up mom.  We love his Halo sleep sack which keeps him warm and toasty all night long.

Phin is a mover and shaker these days.  He loves when we clap for him and is starting to learn to clap on his own.  He will also wave with some assistance.  He continues to bend his wrists and it kind of looks like he is riding a motorcycle.

He likes to stand up next to us and loves to be in a position to see what is going on.

He also will gnaw on just about anything...fingers, toes, furniture legs. 

The following pictures were all taken within a five minute period.  I like to call it the many faces of Phin.  The middle row is my favorite.  Sometimes when Phin is babbling he gets very serious looks on his face.  He has also loved to chew on his fingers...some may think that is due to teething but our little guy is still toothless.

We call the face below his old man face.

He has learned to take his hat off and looks up at me with the most mischievous grin when he does.  He pats our backs when we are burping him.  He has found his tongue this month and often looks like Gene Simmons from the band Kiss.

He also looks like Richard Simmons when he gets excited and his whole body shakes.  In many of the pictures we take his arms and legs are blurred because he is moving them so quickly.

He will sit for quite a while in front of a box of toys and loves to empty all of the toys out.    

We went to a Mexican place for dinner this month.  They had paper on the table and Phin was in heaven.

He has had a love hate relationship with his bouncer this month.  He typically cries when we first put him in but quickly adjusts and bounces away.  He also gets very relaxed in his bouncer and can often be found asleep or with his head laid back.

Solid food continues to be a struggle.  I figured out that I was probably giving him too much food on the spoon at once so since we have started with smaller bites he has done much better.  We fed him some freshly squeezed apple and orange juice this month and he LOVED it.  He is also getting pretty good at drinking out of his sippy cup.  Phin also got a taste of kiwi and potato soup which he seemed to enjoy.  He wasn't a fan of the mashed potatoes and gravy at our favorite BBQ place...Pat's BBQ.  

He has had a little bit of a runny nose so his nickname this month has been BOOGS or BOOGIE BOY.  He hates having his nose wiped and can pull quite the maneuvers to get away from a tissue.

Phin got his first official bath this month.  It came after the blow out of all blow outs.  There was literally poop flowing out of his diaper.  It got all over me, him, the floor etc.  The kitchen sink was full of dishes so we put him in the bathtub.

Phin also took his first trip to the pool.  Our ward rented out the Davis Recreation Center on a Saturday night and we headed over to introduce Phin to the water.  Phin went down the big slide with Seth and did great...the smaller slide was a different story.

We also purchased a Kelty backpack so that we can take Phin out on his first big hiking adventure this coming month.  I think he will like being up and almost as tall as his Dad.

Midway Ice Castles

One of my New Years resolutions is for us to do something that is new to one or both of us each month.  This month we decided to visit the Ice Castles up in Midway, Utah.  We were blessed to have my brother Scott join us on our adventure.  Our first stop in Midway was for dinner at Tarahumara.  Seth and I shared the Pork Loin Chili Verde and the Mole Poblano and Scott had the Pork Loin Chili Verde Burritos.  It was delicious and we loved the salsa bar.

We drove a few blocks over to the city park where the ice castle currently stands.  Since it was a holiday it was fairly busy and we had to wait for about an half an hour in line before we could make it in.  We were entertained by the fire throwers while we waited in line and loved when they brought their torches over for us to warm our hands.

Some of us were more entertained than others...

Our first stop in the ice castle was in the ice caves.  It was a little unnerving to walk under the huge ice stalactites.  We were able to make our way out of the caves and to the main part of the castle where we captured this picture below.  The lights are frozen right into the ice and changed colors consistently.  It was at about this time that we encountered a group of teenagers playing some songs from the movie Frozen on their phones and singing out loud.

We also enjoyed the ice slot canyon although with Phin strapped to our chest and holding all of his gear we were unable to go through some of the narrowest parts of the canyon.

We had a great time and would recommend a visit to any of you who have not visited before.

Night in a Yurt

WARNING:  The following is the story of how our little Phin almost became an orphan.  Now that I think about it Phineas kind of sounds like an orphan's name...right along the lines of Oliver or Annie.  We may have to be more careful when naming our future children.

For years I have dreamed of spending a night in a yurt.  What is a yurt you ask...a circular, domed, portable tent.  I first heard about a yurt when I started dating Seth.  His family loves to snowshoe and several members of his family have talked over the years about renting a yurt that we could snowshoe to during the winter.  When we were living in South Carolina I looked into renting a yurt in North Carolina and Georgia on several occasions...but it never quite came together.  Seth remembered my hearts desire and arranged for us to spend a night in a yurt the Friday after Christmas as part of a Christmas present for me.  

We stayed in the Utah State University Yurt up Logan Canyon.  Our brother-in-law Jami who is a student at Utah State was very kind and met with the yurt host several times in preparation for our trip.  The big day came and after dropping Phin off at my parents, driving to Logan, getting our car stuck in the snow, digging our car out and finding the trail-head we were on our way.  From the road it looked like there wasn't much snow but as we got further along we found the snow was much deeper.  The picture below is quite possibly my favorite...I just have one word for it...handsome.

The yurt host had gone up earlier in the day on skis to mark the trail for us and to unlock the yurt.  We would have been completely lost without the ski tracks.  It had snowed earlier in the week and the powder was fresh and deep.  We started out great but quickly started to slow down.  We both had packs that were weighing us down.  We found that the person in the lead quickly tired from blazing the trail.  The yurt host had not sunk down in the snow as much as we were.

We are smiling in the picture below but completely exhausted and starting to wonder what we had gotten ourselves into.

The yurt host had indicated that it should take us 3-4 hours to snowshoe into the yurt.  We are typically on the shorter end of hiking ranges like this so once we hit the 3 hour mark we started thinking "this would be a good place for a yurt" each time we came to a meadow...but alas there was not yurt in sight.  We also were expecting to run into the yurt host on his way down from unlocking the yurt.

Seth and I kept rotating the lead.  Once one of us would tire out we would switch.  It was very slow going...we would walk about 20 feet and then have to take a few moments to catch our breath.  The meadows were beautiful...but I have to side with Bambi's mom...don't go into the meadow.  In the meadows the snow had fallen unobstructed so with each step we were literally sinking in the snow up to our knees.  We quickly found that if we took little baby steps we would sink nearly as deep.

By the time we made it to the second meadow I was starting to get worried.  It was starting to get dark and the yurt was no where to be seen.  I was absolutely exhausted and wondering at what point we would have to turn back.  It was hard to not know how much further we really had to go.  Well it got dark and we kept moving forward with our headlamps strapped to our heads.  We started on a very steep uphill portion of the trail.  The trail was very deceiving because we would get to the top of a little ridge just to see more mountain ahead of us.

We hit the five hour mark and were in bad shape.  We had been hiking in the dark for about an hour and were still on a very steep section.  Seth's legs started cramping.  We prayed together that our legs would have the strength to carry our bodies where they need to go and that we would be kept safe and able to return to our Phin.  After praying, we decided that we would snowshoe for about another hour or until we got to another steep section.  If we didn't reach the yurt by then...we would turn back.  Within fifteen minutes we saw lights off in the distance.  At first I thought they might be stars but then we realized they were lights from the yurt.  We were relieved to step into the yurt and know that we would be safe for the night.

We quickly got to work making a fire in the stove, cooking a dinner of fish and vegetables, melting snow for water, doing dishes,etc.  I made my first yellow snow and then we turned in for the night.  I slept close to the stove and now know what the term "tending the fire" really means.  I was up every hour putting more logs in the stove...let's just say I would much rather tend my baby then a fire.  We didn't sleep great and were up early to make breakfast, clean the yurt and hike down the trail.

Before we left we got a few photos of the yurt.  In the photo below you can see the sleeping bags hanging from the ceiling.  The yurt was outfitted with a wood burning stone, propane camp stove, dishes, supplies, camping chairs,etc.    

Here are a few pictures from the outside of the yurt before we headed down the trail.

The trail was much more enjoyable on the way down largely due to the fact that we could walk in our tracks from the night before.  Below is a picture of one of the dreaded meadows.  Seth looked at a map in the yurt and the meadows had fairly ominous names like Moose Massacre Meadow and Never-ending Meadow.

We ran into several groups on our way down the trail.  The first group thanked us for blazing the trail the night before.  They said they had gone off our trail for a short section and that it was much harder in the non-blazed section.

We ran into another couple near the very end of the trail.  They were planning to stay in the yurt on New Years Eve and were coming to test out the trail.  They were skiing up on skis that were originally a snowboard that had been cut in half.  Once they got to the top, they planned to snap the snowboard back together and board down.  

It took us just about two hours to make it from the yurt down to our car.  After a quick stop at the Bluebird in Logan for lunch we drove back to pick up Phin.  He got some pretty serious hugs from two parents that were very glad to see him again.

About a week after our yurt adventure I saw a great deal on another yurt on Groupon...I mentioned it to Seth...his response..."if I tell my co-workers we are going to another yurt they are going to think I am crazy."  Needless to say I did not book that yurt.  

CAUGHT RED HANDED

Back in December I had the brilliant idea to make a Christmas ornament with Phin's hand-print.  My plan was to get his hand-print on a piece of transparency and then slip in into a glass ball ornament.  Rookie parent mistake...I quickly figured out why they don't do hand-prints at the hospital...this little guy closed his fist up each time I would put paint on his palm and try to set it down on the transparency.  What we ended up with looks more like the Vulcan salute from Star Trek but at least we will remember this fun stage in life.