Eight Months Old

I did a photo shoot this time for Malcolm's 8 month milestone.

Can I just say, hooray for the digital age. I can take eight million pictures and then get at least 5 good ones. Seriously, eight million. Okay, like 100.

It was worth it though, wasn't it?

I started outside by our newly bloomed tulips.
But it was Raining and all I could get was duplicates of this face:

I know, adorable. But rather one sided, don't you think?

Some other favorites:

(complete with drooled on sleeve. Lovely.)

Malcolm was in a very chatty and happy mood for all of these.
We had a good time.
See?

And this little beauty:

Mal loves a good face smash.


Love him!

The Day We Killed a Gopher

We've had a gopher in our yard since the end of last summer. He digs out big piles of dirt all over our backyard. It's not that we have that nice of a lawn to begin with, but it's really a problem when you have a gopher.

We tried a sonic pulse thing... didn't work.
Ryan tried drowning it... didn't work.

Our neighbors had had a gopher and loaned us their trap. It's not a very humane trap, but what can you do? We'd asked pest control people and essentially that's what you have to do. Kill em.
The trap has to go into their actual hole and the only time you can find his active hole is when he's well, actively digging it.

So come Sunday morning, I look out while eating my breakfast and see the gopher out there in his hole. "Ryan! I see the gopher!"
Ryan whipped out some peanut butter, set the trap and then snuck out to the back and placed it.
A little while later he went out to check and the trap was gone! The gopher had gotten trapped and dragged it inside somehow.

Ryan went digging...He found the gopher, but it wasn't dead.

The trap had just snagged the poor thing through it's belly. Afro was willing to give it a try though.
Did you know gophers are big? Way big. With big teeth and front claws. I don't think Afro could take him.

So we put him in a bucket:
Then tipped it upside down. All the while the little dude's just struggling against that trap.

So now what? We essentially said to each other.
I mean, we can't just let it go. It's injured. And we don't want to have a gopher in our lawn. This is what we wanted, wasn't it? To trap him and get rid of him?
So we have to put it out of it's misery.
How?
Sigh... we know how...

So I held onto Ryan, while Ryan held onto the shovel, and with much whimpering and sadness and bravery from all... we whacked it. That is, Ryan whacked it. Twice. With the shovel.

It was awful.

And that's how we killed the gopher in our yard.

R.I.P. little gopher. We're so sorry!

Check Out This Pincer Grasp!

Wait for it...

Got it!

ooh... ooh... switching hands...

Yay!!

Er, wait, it's still stuck to my palm.

First Tooth Brush

Aquarium

Ryan kept one of his vacation days off that were supposed to be for our Grand Canyon trip last week, and we went to the Aquarium.

Malcolm loved it! He made all sorts of happy noises and chattered all the time about the fish and things. It was fun. He always had a good view strapped to daddy's tall chest.

River Otters--so close!

Laura had the day off, so she came too!
Aw, cute pregnant belly.

Grossed out by the spiders.

Family photo

The End!

The Doorknob Ghost

If you carry Malcolm into the living room of our house, he will inevitably bend, twist, stretch, etc. so that he can see the coat closet. He will stare at it for a few moments, and just as inevitably, he will smile at it. Sometimes it's accompanied by a small happy noise.
If you are standing at all with him in view of the closet, he will keep looking and smiling at it as long as you're there.

I couldn't figure out what was the deal. Then decided it must be haunted, and Malcolm had some sixth sense. But he seemed to be happy, so the ghost must be friendly.

Day after day, Malcolm would do the same thing. Stare at the closet, smile at the closet. Oh what a happy making closet. Ryan started to notice and when I mentioned my ghost theory it really freaked him out. Ryan started banning Mal from looking at the closet. He'd block his view, and of course, that only made Malcolm further demonstrate his undying wish to look at the closet by twisting and stretching around Ryan to find it.

Finally, I decided to investigate. I walked Malcolm over to the closet. Oh, his little arms went a flapping and he was grinning ear to ear! We got right up to the closet, and I noticed his stare was right at the doorknob. I opened the closet, Malcolm just kind of watched and looked inside, but didn't care. I closed the closet. Arms flapping, happy panting. I opened the closet--and this time noticed the Malcolm watched the doorknob the whole way. Left went the doorknob, left went his gaze. Right went the doorknob, right went his gaze. I shut the door and turned to walk away, when I noticed Malcolm smiling at something new: the front door. I got up close and.... bingo! Stared right at the doorknob.

It's not a ghost after all!

Just a perfectly normal happy obsession with doorknobs! Something everyone has experienced at least once in their life.

Right?

Bathtime

The kind of Saturday I'm going to miss

Come April 22, my work schedule will change. It's the end of our 6-month contracts, and time to do new ones. I wouldn't change, except I didn't know a good solution for giving Laura time off while she had her own baby in June. So I changed my schedule. I like it for the fact that I will have no more no-sleep days. I used to work Monday night then stay awake and only nap when Malcolm did. They were killer days. Killer.
I will also never work any Sundays.
However, I will never ever ever have any Saturdays free. Ever.
I'll either be sleeping off a Friday night to prepare for the Saturday night, or I'll be working a day shift.
It's super sucky, but it's what we gotta do. That is, it's what I have to do in order to never have to send Malcolm to day care. He will always be watched by Ryan, or by my mom. I suppose I could have done an occasional Sunday day shift instead, but I just never felt good about it. I know we'll be blessed because of the sacrifice, but I also know I'll have a hard time with it. Especially since it's starting to be the nicer weather months and I'll be working EVERY WEEKEND. Sigh.

I was reminded of what I'll soon be missing this last Saturday. We started out the day with a hike with Laura and Andrew.

Malcolm was excited.

The trail was right by Rainbow Gardens in Ogden. The "Biggest Gift Store in Utah".

After lunch, Laura and Andrew had to be on call, so they went back home. They were good enough to watch Malcolm while we went to go meet Quinn though.

Jordan and Kell were there too!

I had completely forgotten how absolutely tiny new borns were! Quinn was only 1 lb and 1 in smaller than Malcolm was at birth, but I couldn't get over how small she was!
SO TINY!!
And so much dark hair!

While we were there, Laura called. I thought to myself, "uh oh, someone's mis-behaving". Sure enough I pick it up and hear among Malcolm screams, Laura asking when we're expecting to return. Malcolm woke from his nap and was inconsolable. By the time we got there though, he had calmed down and was eating. Poor dude. The separation anxiety stuff is growing more common as he gets older.

That evening we went to the Utah Voices Concert.
Our family's participation in the choir has grown. Laura and Jordan joined in January. So now it's Grandma, Grandpa, Mom, Jordan, Laura, and Mom's cousin's wife. (Sorry, don't know her name...oops!)

The concert was good. Though I was the only one with a baby. I asked our row to move down so I could have a quick get-away on the end of the row and I think one lady was really annoyed. In-fact, to any future Utah Voices concert I think we'll be finding a baby sitter. She wasn't the only one glaring me down. Even though Malcolm was so well behaved--even after his bed time came and went! He played and smiled and was happy til there was about 15 min. left. Then he got more fussy and I took him out to put him to sleep.

It was such a nice day and such a nice weekend! I'll miss days like that terribly.