River's 9 month stats

KG took her to her doctor appointment on Friday.

Here's how she measures up.
Weight: 22 pounds 13 ounces=97%
Height: 30 inches=97%
Head Circumference: 44 1/2=65%

She is so muscular it's crazy. I've held babies recently, some older and some younger, that weigh a similar amount. They are all so squishy and rolly polly which is much more fun to hold. She is just a muscular powerhouse that does not stop moving! The muscles in her back and stomach are amazing, not to mention her arms and legs.
I also wanted to point out that Flower was 30 inches tall at 21 months!
Here she is at 21 months old and 30 inches tall.
The difference...Flower weighed 30 pounds at that height. She was rolly polly squishy! Since then she's grown 8 inches but not gained any weight. No more baby chub there. Very sad. She can actually still fit into 2T clothes, they are just too short. ;) As far as percentages, she is 16% in height and 14% in weight. Quite the difference from her sister. I love it! She still wears the dresses from two years ago, only now she uses them as shirts. River is already wearing all of those dresses which means they are already sharing clothes. Yikes.
Very fun girls!

Depeche Mode and a Birthday Party...

...all in two days and I'm still spinning.
Actually, I think I'm spinning more from how many times we changed our plans! The concert was Tuesday night. As of Sunday, we had no idea where we were staying or who was watching the girls. The following is everything that took place within two days. :0)
Originally we had discussed staying with Marco and they would watch the girls. Then we realized she was due to have a baby at that time. It still was a tiny possibility but then we found out they had to move and he tore his ACL all in the last week. Yeah that was out.
Then Chelsea and Jenny volunteered to watch them in their dorm in Logan. I loved that idea. Until I realized the concert didn't even start till 8:00 and we'd have to drive all the way from SLC to Logan after the concert! That would mean having to wake the girls just to drive them to a hotel in the middle of the night. No thanks.
Then we decided to stay with Kate Sturgill and she was very excited to watch the girls. We could stay in her basement which would mean no waking the girls after the concert. Sounds like a plan stan! And I was very excited about it.
That is until Monday night when my mom called. She was inviting Flower to a movie on Tuesday. I informed her that we'd be out of town. She asked why we were dragging the girls there for a two day trip and offered to watch them. That took some juggling as well with a minimum of 10 phone calls to three different people but KG and I both loved the idea of an opportunity for an extended date. FINALLY...a solid plan.
Monday evening, in order to get into concert mode, KG and Flower helped me dye my hair punk purple. I love the color!
Soooo,
Tuesday morning at 10:00 am we dropped the girls off at Mary's, my niece and nephews sitter. At 11:15 my mom picked up Flower and Kas from there and took them to a movie, leaving River in Spencer's care to help Mary. After the movie my mom returned to Mary's, trading Kas for River and away they went to Grandma's house. They spent the night there and evidently did really well! Yay! My sister picked them up Wednesday afternoon around 1:00 and that's where we were reunited with our lovelies. Thank you thank you thank Mom and Sandee!
Now, onto the important part of this trip. WE WENT TO SALT LAKE CITY TO SEE DEPECHE MODE!!! Yes I'm yelling. We had such a good time. Before we left town we gassed up the jeep, then stopped at Cracker Barrel to share a breakfast. Then on the road, listening to Depeche Mode the whole way. Well kind of. We actually had very interesting conversation the entire way! I enjoyed it.
We arrived at our hotel at 4:00. It was pretty much in the parking lot of the concert venue. Score! We had a little party of our own when we arrived if you know what I mean. ::wink wink:: We also painted our finger nails black. KG kindly obliged my obsession with seeing him with black finger nails. It's hot.
At 5:30 we met Sara and Darin at Ruby Tuesday's for some pre-concert grub. We were able to walk there, then walk to the concert and back to the hotel. Nice find KG!

Finally inside the venue and even buying crap! My new Depeche Mode hat.

Showing off all the DM loot that was acquired. I got the hat, KG got the wrist band.
We found our seats. Sara and Darin are the reason we went. She was quick to get us totally kick ass seats...3rd row right by the cat walk!!! Thanks Sara!!!Waiting for the show to start.
Unfortunately for us, PB + J was the opening act. KG put it so eloquently when he referred to them as the 'Sweedish Douchebags'. And his imitation of the lead singer was spot on!
And finally DM instruments were being brought onto the stage. The excitement is building!
Let the teen age girl type screaming begin! It.was.awesome!
They had such amazing graphics on the screen throughout the entire concert.










He put his arms up and started waving in an effort to get everyone to follow.
And follow they did!The sea of arms waving back and forth was truly amazing.
Now this was interesting. From what I understand it was tamed for the Utah crowd, semi pornographic in other cities. All I know is what we did see, one woman practically sucking the other woman's big toe off(after seductively removing that big ugly red boot), grossed me the hell out. I would have rather seen boobs. Just sayin. I do love the image of the gigantic red lips on the ball.

The go-go lady images were hot.


At the very end they all came out and gave a bow. Very cool.
They played all the songs I wanted to here. I was not disappointed!
We sat outside the venue on the steps for quite a while enjoying the night air. Oh who am I kidding. Although it was very nice outside, we were sitting on those steps to people watch. We were laughing our asses off watching the drunk gomer running after moving cars, the two ladies hooker type red heels who could barely walk, and two girls seemingly lost asking us if we new PB + J to which Sara replied she prefered and ham and cheese. So much fun.
We were so tired by the time we got back to the hotel. Here we are right before we fell asleep. No really, that's what we did. We are getting old. No getting it on till the brake of dawn here. ;)
The next morning was a party however, with some very well planned out fun provided by KG. Thanks honey for all the effort you put into this trip. It was loads of fun.
We checked out at 11:00 and were on our way home. About an hour out we stopped in Perry to go to Maddox. This is a new favorite restaurant. Love it. We met the nicest couple at the table next to us. Turns out KG knows there son's best friend from Qwest. We had great service and yummy food. After that we went to the farmers market across the street and loaded up on the best peaches and corn we've ever eaten! We also got a ton of squash, an onion, pepper and potatoes.
Then we were back on the road. We arrived in Boise at 5:30 to pick up the girls from Sandee's. They were excited to see us. We went home and changed and got ready to leave again at 6:45. We met the Sturgill's and Matt's friends at Lulu's pizza to celebrate Matt's birthday. We also delivered the requested peaches and corn. We then went to their place for ice cream and cake and quite possibly the funniest evening of conversation we've ever had with them. We had such a good time. Happy 17th birthday Matty!
The whole two days was perfection. I'm so glad I had the extended date with KG. I love being with him. I'm very happy we have family that I can trust to take care of our girls. They are so loved!
Can't wait for the concert next weekend. This time it's a family affair. Dave Matthews here we come!

My new glasses

I love them. I liked them in the store and when I first got them. But then that night I wasn't sure...I felt like they looked nerdy which wasn't the look I was going for. :) I went back and forth. But then seeing this photo, I LOVE them. I love this photo. After we did River's photo shoot I turned the camera on myself attempting to get a self portrait, which is so hard with my heavy camera which is totally awkward when it's backward and it's really hard to push the button as you're trying to balance it, all in one hand. Plus when you're that close to your face sometimes it won't focus and you really have no idea if you're even going to make it into the shot. Whew. I think you get idea. So after one shot I gave up and was going to have KG take it later. Then I saw it on my computer screen and loved it. No photo shop, no editing other than taking it to black and white. The aperture was set at 1.8, therefore it really focused on my left eye and glasses, making them really stand out and kind of softened the rest. I love the way it captured my lips and wow, that's my mom's nose which I love. I'm really glad I can see a photo of myself and like it and think I look pretty. Thankfully I've always been that way. It makes me sad that people pick themselves apart. Of course I don't feel that way every time I look in the mirror. We all have our days but that's why I love having photos of myself that I like. That I can look at be reminded that I liked myself that day and will probably like myself the next and not bash myself. And damn I'm glad I still don't need to wear make-up. Or maybe I should but I doubt I ever will. I happen to think the natural on almost everyone I know is prettier than make-up. I like to take in the beauty of people, not make-up.
So, what is it you like about yourself?

River is 9 months old.

We did her photo shoot at The Train Depot this afternoon after lunch. She is wearing a dress passed down from Kas.
She is getting so big and doesn't seem much like a baby anymore. She has the best smile around and completely lights up the room with it. Everywhere we go people adore her. The past month has brought lots of new things.
She loves to eat and has an open mouth begging for each bite!
A few of her new foods are crackers, dry Kix + Cheerios, apricots, peaches, yogurt melts, granola, raisins, pureed carrots, turkey, avocado, hard rolls.
She doesn't like anything with chunky carrots in it and spits it out as pictured below.
She also doesn't care for mashed potatoes.
She LOVES ice!

She had her first popsicle by the pool.

She loves the pool!

She adores her sister something fierce! And the feelings are mutual. Flower is the only one that can make her laugh. The scary thing is that it's getting head butted in the stomach or head that make her laugh the hardest, but only by Flower. Silly baby. Although she is a sole player and is less fussy when left alone, she loves to follow Flower where ever she goes. She also likes to be in her crib when Flower's in her bed.
She loves to crawl laps up and down the hall way and is very fast!
Spins around to go the other way...
and then does another lap. She also constantly follows us up and down this hall all day long! I love that.
She has recently developed a liking for the pig my dad gave her in the hospital at birth. It's so cute to watch her be loving towards it. She drags it along and stops to give it cuddles and kisses.



Her little personality has really shown through this week. She is so affectionate and the way she shows it is adorable. She grabs your face to give you kisses. She will grab your head and just put her open mouth on your hair. She will gently pull at your hair while sighing or caressing your face. Sometimes it's just so random and cute.
She is also becoming mischievous. She thinks it's great fun to pull the wipes out as fast as she can until she gets caught.

Then after getting caught she grabs one and violently shreds it with her teeth and hands.
Speaking of teeth. She has 6.

With those six teeth she thinks it's awesome to annoy the crud out of me by grinding them together. Not kidding when I say you can hear it across the room. Awful sound. Ack!!!

She is mastering the sippy cup.
She gets herself from a seated position to a standing position on her own and loves to stand and show off.



She's not opposed to clapping for herself. She loves to clap.

She walks. Her longest stint is nine steps but she does two or three all day long. And you can't stand her up to make her do it because if you're hanging on to her that's her cue to bounce. She has to stand up on her own and then take off.
Says mama to me. This melts my heart. It also breaks my heart when she does it from her crib because she wants out.

Loves to scrape her teeth on our toes.

She gets so freaking excited when you walk through the door and run crawls to you squealing. Such a great welcome home.

She loves shoulder rides and our hair is her handles. Ouch.

Just yesterday she got the concept of peekaboo. She was using a napkin at the restaurant to cover her face and pull it away and then would giggle when we'd all yell PEEK-A-BOO!

She is an awesome sleeper. I've gotten lucky with both girls. Flower, at 4, still takes a nap in the afternoon. River takes a one hour nap two hours after waking in the morning. She takes another nap around 2:00 that lasts one to two hours. Depending on how long that nap is she'll sometimes take another short nap around 6 or 7. Then goes to bed between 9 or 10 and sleeps till 9 the next morning. Love her! She still covets her white blanket and binky at sleep time.


She gets very excited to see people she loves and reaches for them happily.
She is so curious and never stops moving.


We just completely adore this girl and cannot be more grateful to have her in our lives.