Finally!

Yesterday was laundry day. Nathan ran out of onesies on Sunday, but I just hadn't gotten around to laundry this week. Grocery shopping, marathon-long presidency meetings, and an unwillingness to come back from vacation all got in the way. Finally, it was time. Nathan was out of pajamas.

The difficulty with the pajamas is that Chad loves to sleep cold. In his perfect world, we would sleep with the window open all winter long, even when we lived in Boston. Once Nathan was born, I finally had some leverage in this "discussion" so the house is kept at a semi-reasonable temperature. Semi-reasonable for big kids, and requiring warm, footy pajamas for babies. So running out of pajamas for Nathan means that no matter what, it's laundry day.

Nathan loves laundry day. He loves to play with anything that I'm folding, especially sheets and his clothes. He tries to grab for anything he can reach so that he can "help" me with the laundry. What a nice little kid. We were on the floor folding laundry, and Nathan really wanted to play with his blue towels. He tried just reaching for them, but he couldn't quite make it. So, for the first time in his short life, he marginally crawled forward and got to the blue towels! He certainly isn't going to win any speed races anytime soon, but Nathan *finally* figured out forward motion! Hallelujah! Now, it's time to babyproof the house :)

Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving, we went out to Utah to visit with Chad's family and my sister and Henderson grandparents. We were there for a little over a week, which was a nice length of stay. We stayed with Chad's parents, as did two of his brothers, their wives, and three nieces and nephews. The Reese house was certainly full and busy, but it was great to be able to see everyone.

We went out to eat every other day while we were there, hitting such fabulous spots as the Kyoto for Saturday sushi, Hires Big H for Monday hamburgers, The Pie for Wednesday pizza and cheese pull-apart bread, and La Casita for Friday Mexican food. Thrown in there we had Monday night Pie Night with the Reese's, Thanksgiving, and general holiday overeating. My poor not-so-little tummy is relieved to not be eating so much food anymore. I was tired of eating by the time we left.

Nathan is also finally starting to make some progress towards crawling. No worries, the big kid isn't crawling yet and still has no teeth, but he no longer depends on rolling to manuever around. After watching his seven-month-old cousin cruising around, he's determined to start moving around all by himself. He has also discovered that his legs have uses other than kicking me or kicking to show excitement. He is finally starting to stand a little with support.

Overall, it was a great Thanksgiving, and we had a great time in Utah.

Sad Nathan

We're in Utah right now for our Thanksgiving Break visiting with Chad's family. We arrived here on Friday and leave this Saturday. It's nice to be around family again, but Nathan's had a rough past twenty-four hours. I noticed he was burning up this morning, and he kept tugging at his left ear. We had Grandpa Reese (a pediatrician!) check, and sure enough, Nathan has his first ear infection. He was a sad little baby today - very cuddly and easily upset. The tears were flowing much of the day. He hates taking the antibiotics and Motrin. He has to be held down, and he screams the whole time. He spent most of today cuddling in my arms. When we went to visit Chad's grandparents, he threw up repeatedly in the car. We're not quite sure what brought that on, but we're hoping he gets better soon. He's a sad kid today. And I'm not having much fun either. It's hard to see your little baby sad and in pain and all he wants is for you to hold him and make it all better. I love the little stinker.

Get an education!!!

Boston and Jacksonville are very different places. Boston is the largest college town in the country, with well over 100,000 students between the over twenty colleges and universities around Boston. Jacksonville has Coastal Carolina Community College. Boston has a number of industries, both blue-collar and white-collar. There are a number of people just getting by, but there are also a lot of well-educated, well-paid working folk. Housing prices are also sky-high due to this relative affluence. Jacksonville has Camp Lejuene as its industry, without which it would merely be a few gas stations at the intersection of US17 and NC24. The vast majority of Jacksonville is just getting by, and there are only a few pockets of well-educated, well-paid working folk. Housing prices are also dirt cheap due to this lack of affluence.

We have a number of families in our ward who are struggling, and I mean really struggling, to pay the rent and put food on the table. As Chad tells me of their struggles, I can't help but think that much of them are the result of a lack of education and a trade or skill. I am so grateful that both Chad and I have gotten an education and that we both have a trade or a skill. That knowledge makes our economic future so much less scary, knowing that we can provide for our family. And I love the fact that Chad makes enough that I can stay home with Nathan without it being a huge stressor. So the moral of this story is - Get an education!!!

Nathan went in for his 9-month checkup yesterday, and all went well. He has a fever today from his shots, but other than that he was good. He weighs 22 pounds, 4 ounces (about 60th percentile) and is 30 1/2 inches tall (about 95th percentile!). It's no wonder he's grown out of all his old clothes. He hasn't been putting on much weight, but he has gotten taller. We have no idea how he got to be so tall. It certainly wasn't from Chad or me.

When I went into get Nathan from his morning nap today, he was quite proudly sitting up in his crib! He has never sat up while we've been watching, but he was definitely sitting up then. I've seen some other (unsuccessful) attempts to sit up throughout the day today, so maybe Nathan is starting to develop some more mobility. One day he'll be able to get himself from point A to point B all by himself. One day...

Nathan sitting up after his nap - he doesn't seem too happy about mom taking pictures. It could have been because he had an amazingly stinky and foul diaper.

First off, there's definitely some sports-related euphoria around here these days. The Red Sox swept the Rockies, winning the World Series Sunday night. Chad and I were bad Mormons, watching the game in our upstairs bedroom on the floor (for some reason, we don't get Fox on our downstairs TV, so we have to go upstairs to the free TV Chad got from work that we use while exercising). We were so excited! Two championships since we got married - we must bring good luck ;) We're also excited to be getting to sleep at normal hours again. The games never ended before midnight, which made the next day rather long. Go Red Sox!

We've posted new pictures on our Picasa page, so enjoy them. Nathan's looking super-cute as always and he's getting to be so big. He's starting to grow out of his 12 month clothing and is starting to wear 18-month sizes. My baby's growing up! No worries, though - he has no teeth yet and still is making no moves towards crawling. He's just getting big.

Our last fun piece of news comes from Chad's work. Chad received his paycheck yesterday, and he surpassed his base salary for the month of October! Woohoo! Since Chad's only getting busier, we should be making major progress towards financial solvency in the near future. We didn't think we'd hit this point for awhile, so we're really excited. Yea!

Nathan on Halloween (he dressed up as a little boy who went to bed early)

Nathan is definitely his mother's son. This morning, I put him on the floor next to his toy bin while I ate my breakfast. I looked over a few minutes later, and he had been happily emptying the bin of his favorite toys. I expected to see his stacking rings, play cubes, trains, balls, or anything else that was brightly colored and made noise scattered around him. There were about two toys and six books.

We've been reading with Nathan since he was only a few months old, and in the past week he has really loved to read books, both with us and by himself. He is a master page-turner and gets quite upset if you turn the page for him. He used to just eat the books, but now he carefully (for a nine-month-old) turns the pages, admiring the pictures on each page. It's funny watching him "read" his books.

Other skills we've recently picked up include waving hello and goodbye and high-fives. He loves to give high-fives to anyone around him. He was the biggest flirt in line at Wal-Mart earlier this week, flirting with the lady in front of us, then turning around the lady behind us, then back to the lady in front of us, then back to the lady behind us. He was quite the ladies' man in the deli line. What a cutie!