Swine Flu in Park City

Kyla just got her passport and is ready to travel!

Working on walking

Kyla with her new walker

Kyla and BamBam

Kyla on a playdate with Dillon (6 months) at the Natural History Museum

Kyla at the frog exhibit




Kyla and I are home for a long weekend this week, at least 5 days. All of the schools in Park City School District have been closed due to the Swine Flu. The closure is through atleast Tuesday, possibly longer depending on if more cases are identified. I am looking forward to the extra days that I will have off of work, but the reasoning behind why we are out is very unfortunate. I thought that Park City would be one of the last places to get it, but with our late Spring Break and how many people just returned from Mexico it seems to be hitting hard. My friend Ana is in Cancun through this Saturday, it is so scary to think about how fast this new strain of the flu is spreading. The town we live in is currently out of Tamiflu and waiting for more to arrive. Our school was being deep cleaned today and everything was being disenfected even though none of the Park City cases have occured at our school.

Kyla and I are going to spend a lot of time outdoors, as long as the weather cooperates, and do our best to avoid crowded places. I think that we will also be cancelling our plans to go to California next week and definitly Mexico in June. I was so excited for both trips. Jon's cousin is getting married in Mexico this June and we were looking forward to their wedding as well as spending our fourth Anniversary in a beautiful place. I was going to go to California for Mothers Day weekend and spend a day at Disneyland, but I would feel much more comfortable avoiding flying right now. I was really looking forward to this trip and being able to visit with my sister and her kids as well as being with my mom for Mothers Day.

My mom is coming to visit us tommorrow from Alaska and then she will be going to California afterwards. We are looking forward to her coming down. She has not seen Kyla since February and I am sure she will be amazed by how much she has grown and developed since then. I am looking forward to visiting with her for the six days that she will be in Utah.

9 Months Old

Kyla is now 9 months old, it is really hard to believe how fast she is growing. She is such a fun little girl. She has so much energy and is constantly on the go. She is getting much better at walking, she can now walk all the way across the room at times and even stops to take a little break before walking more. She has also got much faster at crawling, it is amazing how fast she can move. She has recently learned how to wave bye bye, clap her hands and is now talking much more. She loves to try to copy what you are saying. She is great at saying "Hi", "Bye Bye", "Mama", "Dada" and "Baa Baa". She also thinks that it is fun to shake her head no when she is done eating or does not want to do something, I think she learned this from watching her cousin Taylor while we were in Seattle. It is hard to believe how fast a baby can learn so many new skills, we love watching her learn and grow everyday and are always so excited to see what she is going to do next.

Another big thing that Kyla has just started doing is putting herself to sleep at night without being cuddled and rocked. When we were in Hawaii Matt and Tiffany introduced us to this great little projector/sound machine and it has worked so good for Kyla. She would now prefer to lay in her crib listening to music and watching the images on the wall than being cuddled at bedtime. She is now putting herself to sleep in 15 minutes or less without even crying. We are so happy with her sleeping habits, besides putting herself to sleep, she also sleeps through the night almost every night. Kyla is such a great baby. Everyday we are so thankful for having such a happy, healthy, beautiful and fun daughter.

We are finally having warm beautiful weather and all of our snow is starting to melt. We have now finally been able to get outside more and go for walks around the neighborhood. We have such great trails in Park City for walking/jogging and are having fun getting Kyla out.

I am back at work this week after having the past 3 weeks off. It was so nice having all that time off and spending so much time with Kyla. Now that I am back at work we are going to be short an infant teacher until the end of the school year on most days, so I will be spending many of my days at work with her in the infant room. I am so lucky to be able to work and spend so much time with Kyla, I really cannot think of a better job for me at this time. Kyla was happy to be back in the day care and see other babies. Over the past 3 weeks the other 4 babies in the daycare seemed to have grown so much. It is so amazing how fast babies change. Her friend Claire who is 4 months old has been colicky and is now so happy and alert. Another one of her friends, Bailey, who is 6 months old is now bigger than Kyla. It is so much fun to see a baby develop so many new skills in such a short time and see their personalities come through. Each baby in Kyla's daycare has such a distinct temperment and personality from one another.

Kyla went in to the Doctor for her 9 month check up yesterday. She is now 29 1/4 inches tall which is the 90% for height. She is 17 pounds and 4 ounces which is the 25% for weight, so she continues to be tall and skinny. Her head circumference is 40%. The Doctor said that she is very healthy and has mastered all of the skills that she would expect her to do by now plus more. We always knew that we had a strong girl and she has proven that to us by how active and involved she is in everything. We just hope she gets a little more balanced on her feet soon so that we don't have to deal with so many falls and so much crying during all of her attempts to walk.

Below I have two short videos, one of her crawling and one walking.

April Vacations- Washington & Hawaii

Napping at the pool after playing hard in the pool

Kyla had a blast playing in the pool

Having fun with Grandma

So much fun in the pool with Daddy!

Having a great time playing in the sand

Mommy and Kyla at the Hyatt

Daddy, Mommy and Kyla at the Beach on the North Shore

Playing in the ocean

Beach Bum

Having fun in Kauai

Happy Easter!

Kyla and Landon

Hanging out at the Hyatt with Tiffany and Matt!

Daddy, Mommy and Kyla in Hawaii

Jon with Landon and a very jealous Kyla

Playing in the pool

The entire group at the Beach House to celebrate Mary and Brian and Tony and Sharons Anniversary's.

Kyla's first day at the beach

Kyla's first time playing in the ocean in Hawaii

Kyla and her cousins in Seattle!

We have had a great past two weeks visiting with Jon's family. We started out the month on a somber note going to Seattle to attend Jon's Grandmas Funeral. The Funeral was followed by a celebration of her life at David and Lisa's house. A lot of Jon's family was there and it was great to hear their stories and memories of Grandma Doreen. We were hoping for nice weather in Seattle since we are still getting snow in Park City, but we had rain and snow the entire time we were there.

Jon and I were happy to see many of his relatives that we only see every two years at their family reunion in Sun River, Oregon. Since we were not able to attend the reunion last summer it was nice to have them see Kyla while she is still a baby. Kyla also had a great time playing with Taylor. David and Lisa offered to have Kyla stay with Taylor and their nanny while we attended the funeral. Kyla loves to be around other babies and had a great time playing with Taylor and all of her toys. Kyla also played with Rory and Lauren, who are 8 and 6 years old. They dressed her up in all of Laurens necklaces and tried playing barbies with her. Kyla thought it was great getting so much attention from them. They thought that holding her was just the coolest thing and took turns passing her back and forth.

We returned home from Seattle and then left 12 hours later to fly to Hawaii for another vacation with Jon's family. Jon's parents have a time share in Kauai and invited us to go with them on Vacation. Jon's Aunt Sharon and Uncle Tony also have a tine share so they also went with their son Matt and his wife Tiffany and their 6 week old baby boy Landon. Their other son Steve and his girlfriend Paige also came for a few days. We had such a great time spending a week and half with family.

Kyla went swimming almost every day in either the pool at the resort or in the ocean. She was not so sure about the water at first but each day she liked it more and more and by the day we left she was just having a blast in the pool. She was even kicking her legs and trying to put her head under the water. I think that we are going to have to look into putting her in swim lessons this summer. Jon wants to make sure that she learns how to swim well and likes the water since I am such a poor swimmer and do not enjoy being in the water very much.

Kyla was great on our vacation and on the long airplane ride, but has become very attached to me lately. She has a hard time letting anyone play with her or hold her if I am in sight. But when we would leave her with her Grandma and Grandpa so we could spend time with Jon's cousins she was perfectly fine. We hope that she will outgrow this soon.

A couple of weeks ago Kyla took her first steps. She will now often take 3-5 steps before falling down. She walks very well holding onto furniture or toys and then gets too confident and lets go and tries to attempt walking on her own. She is very determined to walk on her own and we think that she will probably be doing it very soon. But while learning she has been falling so much, but so far has not got any bumps or bruises.

One of the highlights of our vacation was visiting with Jon's cousin Matt and his wife Tiffany and their baby boy. We were so excited to meet Landon and he is such a cute little baby boy. The one thing that suprised me was how tiny he seemed to me, and he is not a small baby. He was a big baby like Kyla when he was born, but for some reason I can already not even remember Kyla being that tiny. It is really so hard to beleive how fast they grow and how easily you forget how tiny they once were. Everyone always told me to enjoy her as a newborn because they grow so fast, and now I can understand why they say this. Kyla enjoyed being around Landon. Since he is so young he is still sleeping the majority of the day and Kyla did her best to try to wake him up whenever she was around him. She liked trying to climb on top of him and grab at his face. We look forward to the next time that we see them when he is a little older and able to play with Kyla.

Kyla spent her first Easter in Hawaii. In the morning we walked over to the Hyatt resort, which is so beautiful. Later in the morning we went to Brunch and then spent the majority of the day at the pool. Kyla recieved easter books and stuffed animals for Easter presents.

We are so grateful of Jon's parents for inviting us along on this vacation. It was such a great time and we look forward to going there with them again in the future. I am off of work again this week since it is spring break, so I am enjoying another week of spending time with Kyla and we are doing are best trying to get adjusted to the four hour time difference between Hawaii and Utah.