Kimball Clyde Parry is here!!!

Well, our baby boy has arrived! He was 7 lbs. 5 oz. and 19 inches long--born Monday, Dec. 22, 2008 at 7:01 PM. We are so happy that he and I are both healthy and well and that there were no complications with the delivery. We decided on the middle name of Clyde a little while ago but were choosing between a few different first names. A few minutes after he was born we settled on the name Kimball, which was the first name we had put on the list a few months ago.
Tel has handled it all very well. We thank his Aunt Kathy for how well it has gone for him. She came all the way from St. George, UT to help out with Tel. She stayed with him Sunday and Monday nights and all day Monday and Tuesday. She also took great care of Casey and I as she stocked us up with some wonderful food. We appreciate all she does for us and were so grateful that Tel was able to stay here in his own house since he has never been away from me for more than a few hours at a time. We think it made all the difference in the world for him and I know it did for me and my worries about how he was doing. Thank you so much Kathy!!!
Tel is proving to be a very concerned big brother. We came home from the hospital last night and today every time Kimball would cry Tel would go running to his side, look at me and motion to me to come and get Kimball. He has asked to hold him a few times and is very soft and careful with him which surprises me since he has not had any interest in other babies and we have not tried to teach him how to "be soft" with babies. It is fun to watch and I'm sure will only get more fun as they both get older and can enjoy playing together. Here are a few pictures from the hospital. I will post more later but have a few more things I need to get done since it is Christmas Eve and I am past ready for some sleep.

Fits and Temper Tantrums

So our sweet little boy has recently learned how to throw a real fit or temper tantrum, whatever you would prefer to call it. He has been throwing little fits for a while now, but this last week he has really been making an art form out of it. They are generally started because he can't have something or Mom or Dad won't do something with him RIGHT NOW! If the tantrum begins while I am holding him he will hit or kick at me and scream NO! So I put him down on the floor while he continually screams no and kicks and hits. I don't know if he actually means to hit and kick or if he is just flailing his arms and legs around. Anyway, Casey and I have learned quickly that when one of these begins it rarely works to try and distract him by giving him something he CAN have or showing him something else to do. This generally makes it worse or if he is starting to finally settle down it starts the whole thing over again. Last night, for example, Casey had been playing with him by giving him rides in the laundry basket (a game I regretfully started on laundry day, which was yesterday), but when it came time to stop he was not ready for it to be over and get ready for bed. He began swinging his arms and legs around and screaming NO over and over. So, Casey laid him down right where he was (in the middle of the hall) and let him go at it. We ignored him completely. If we had to go down the hall for something we just stepped over him as if he wasn't even there. It took quite a while (probably close to 15 minutes or so), but he eventually calmed down and realized he was not going to get his way. It used to be extremely hard for me to listen to him cry like that and it still is, but it is soooo much easier to handle when I KNOW what it is about and that he is OKAY! As long as I know it's about not getting his way and not because he is sick or hurt, I'm learning to walk away. We love him to death and I hope this is a phase he will grow out of if we continue not to give in to him when he acts this way.
On a brighter note, Tel brings us such joy. Although he is learning some undesireable behaviors, most likely typical of an 18 month old little boy, he is also learning a lot of fun and exciting things. He will bring me a book now and want me to sit and read to him, as long as there are only a few words per page, but now I can atleast read something before he is tearing at the pages. He talks to me like he knows exactly what he is saying (though none of it is understandable) and uses such funny body and facial expressions when he is telling me his stories. He takes my hand and can ask me to play with him by leading me to his blocks and then pulling down on my hand to have me sit. He loves for me to sit and stack blocks with him. He loves to mimick Casey and I when we are working, whether it is mopping, sweeping, vacuuming, or working on the addition, he wants to help. It is amazing how observant he is as he copies what we do with a screwdriver, hammer, or other tool. He also likes to play his own kind of dress-up by wearing Casey's head lamp, a hat, helmet, or his life vest. He can watch a movie now (not usually a whole movie in one sitting), and laugh at what he finds funny. He is full of smiles and has learned to give kisses and hugs and wave goodbye to his dad in the moring. We are so thankful for him and love him more than we ever thought possible.

Too tired to wait for lunch.

Playing dress-up with Dad's head lamp even though he's not feeling well.

Hanging out with Dad after sanding our mud seams in the bathroom addition.

Crazy hair after taking his beanie hat off.

Helping Mom clean up the yard.

Well, I have been informed time and time again that it has been over a month now since I have posted anything. I have actually been reminded about it fairly consistently since about two weeks after my last post by my wonderful younger sisters, Olivia and Tessa. So thank you both for the reminders and I am FINALLY getting around to it after Tessa's umpteenth reminder last night on the phone that it has been a whole 5 weeks. My how time flies. I have thought about it quite often, sit down to post and end up looking at everyone else's blogs and by the time I am updated on everyone else's lives I have no more time left to update my own--usually because Tel only allows me so much computer time per day without some major screaming and I often use my allotment before I get to my own blog.


Anyway, after that novel of an explanation (excuse) for my procrastination and laziness I will go ahead with an update. We have been quite busy with our addition this past month, though progress is slow because Casey's schedule is quite hectic with football practices and games, masters classes 2 nights a week and a little pre-season wrestling practices and responsibilities getting thrown in there. We are getting closer and will hopefully finish up quickly once the plumbing for the bathroom is done. The bedroom portion of the addition is all done except for the flooring and trim and we will hopefully get most all of that and the tile in the bathroom done this week. Then we will be at a standstill until we can get the plumbing done and go ahead with sheetrocking the bathroom.


As for our social life, we were lucky enough to have my sister Taffy and her two kids, Connor and Mylie visit us for a couple days. We enjoyed having them here and spent some time at the park and up Sinks Canyon. We were lucky on their visit and got to see a couple of BIG Big Horn Sheep very close up (probably about 10-15 feet away). We also had the pleasure of having my mom, Aunt Linda, and Grandma and Grandpa Oberg spend a couple days here with us on their fall road trip this year. Boy was that a lot of fun. I was not ready to say goodbye when they left. I rather enjoyed having them here to entertain Tel so well, help prepare meals and clean them up, as well as just to visit with. We drove up Sinks Canyon and showed them it's wonder and beauty (though we didn't spot the Big Horn Sheep we were hoping to), watched Conference, and had a dutch oven dinner on Saturday afternoon/evening. We also had some friends from Riverton join us for that (the McCormick's--the new head football coach and his family). It was very good food--thanks to Casey--and we had a good time.


This past weekend we spent a little bit of time in Casper for a foreign language teacher's conference. The school put us up in a nice hotel and we just got to hang out all day Friday. We drove down on Thursday night after Casey's football game, spent Friday there and then came back Saturday morning. Tel and I were able to go swimming at the hotel, which he enjoyed as long as he didn't have to get more than his toes in the cold pool water. He did enjoy the hot tub though, which was more like warm bath water than a hot tub, which we were both thankful for since he, nor I, are supposed to be getting into too hot of water right now. After Casey was done with his meeting for the day on Friday we got to do some shopping at Home Depot and the mall. I even broke down and bought myself some "pregnancy pants", you know, with the elastic panel waist. I only had 3 pairs of pants left that I could button up and only one of the three didn't have a hole in the knee or something of that sort, so I am glad to have another pair of pants, even if they are a sign that my belly is getting bigger by the day.


We had a "wonderful" surprise in the weather this week with an early fall snowstorm. That is one reason we left early on Saturday morning instead of spending part of the day in Casper. We were thinking it was only going to be a couple of inches, like we had seen the whole drive home, even up through Riverton we were thinking it wasn't going to be as bad as the news had said (6-12 inches), well, we were very wrong. When we got into Lander and pulled up to the front of our house we were sick at the sight. There was probably over a foot of snow, a branch had fallen and been hauled away by a kind neighbor in our ward (we have now found out it was James Whiting--thank you for doing that) and the branch had absolutely flattened our mailbox. We were just glad it missed our car. I wish I had gotten a picture of our mailbox before Casey bent it back into shape, but I missed out on that. So right now, as a I write, I look out our window and have the view of a couple feet of snow in our yard, which is melting slowly since we are in the low 30s today (happy that it's melting, but it is somewhat depressing none the less). I was rather enjoying our beautiful fall weather and colors. I have some pictures posted of what it looked like when we got home, but then it continued to snow all afternoon, evening, and last night, so now there is quite a bit more out there than what these pictures show.


Well, I think I have given an update on our most exciting events of the past month, and I will try to do a better job at posting more often, but I am not making any promises until we are done with this addition, but then of course we will have a new baby and things will be still be somewhat crazy, so don't hold me to anything. All of you keep it up though because I love reading your posts.

Just a couple of smaller bucks that are frequent visitors to our yard.

Mylie, Tel and Connor going for a wagon ride, pulled by Casey.The front of our house after some shoveling yesterday afternoon (Oct. 11).

Tel was not prepared for how cold the snow was. He wasn't happy about his cold hands.How high the snow was on our deck railing when we got home. We cleared this off and then had atleast this much more on our railing again this morning when we woke up.

It's a Boy!

Well, we finally decided to go and find out what we are having and without question, it is a boy. He wasn't quite as immodest in his pictures as Tel was in his, but still didn't hesitate to let us know. We are so excited to have another little boy, although we would have loved a girl as well. It will be fun to watch Tel and this new little one grow up together being so close in age (19 mos.). I'm sure it won't always seem like so much fun, but when they are all grown up, hopefully they and Casey and I will look back on it with fond memories. Anyway, Tel will now have a wrestling buddy during his growing up years.
I am beginning to get more and more concerned about having two. Tel seems to be more of a handful all the time. He is just so busy, as I'm sure most 15 month old little boys are, but he has me wondering how I'm going to keep track of him and take care of a baby. I suppose I will just have to start taking on more of those "slacker mom" traits when the next one comes. I have plenty already but am not sure I should share since I only have one child and the others that have shared have atleast 2.
I know I am one of those bloggers that post only once a month, and that's when I'm doing well, but hopefully I will start to be more consistent. I have quite a few things that I want to post about but have not taken the time to get the pictures up, so they will have to wait a few more days. Just thought I'd share our news with everyone who reads.

The Weekend

This post is pretty much going to be a travelogue of the last few days so probably wont' be all that interesting to most as I am not the skilled writer as some others are on their blogs. Anyway...last Thursday Casey and I drove down to Salt Lake to drop him off at the airport for a 12 day trip to AK. On my way back I went to Cokeville and picked up Olivia and Tessa. We got back to Lander Friday afternoon and got to work painting the two bedrooms posted on my last post. They were great help. I never would have gotten that done without them here. Painting with Tel around and no help is practically impossible unless you don't care if he knocks the paint over and is covered in it himself and prancing around on the carpet. Anyway, I was so glad to have that done. On Sunday after church we all headed to Mt. View where we went to Taffy's house and had dinner with my parents, Grandma Teichert, and Sullivan and Tyson. It was nice to just sit back and visit and have aunts and uncles to watch Tel and cousins for him to play with (Connor and Mylie). My parents, grandma and brothers headed back to Cokeville that night and then on Monday we headed to Bear Lake for the day. It was a lot of fun. Tel played in the water some, but was a much bigger fan of digging and playing in the sand. Tyson was the hit with Connor and Mylie as he gave them motor boat rides by running through the water and pulling them on a floatie. It looked like a lot of fun...for Connor and Mylie anyway. That night Tel and I went back to Mt. View with Taffy and the others all returned to Cokeville. We had a barbecue at Tony's parents' house which was good and then headed for bed. I made it back to Lander Tuesday afternoon. It was a great 5 days except for the part where we had to say goodbye to Casey though I am excited he got to go.

It was funny to watch Tel and Mylie interact. They didn't get along very well, but as they get older, hopefully they will enjoy eachother. Mylie is still a little possessive of her toys and would take some of them away from Tel (not to say that Tel didn't steal a few things from her as well), but Tel would not let go easily. Before too long, anytime Mylie would even come near him in passing he was swinging at her to defend what he thought was his. One time he almost hit her in the head with a little shovel. Thank goodness he missed since the shovel did have a point and a metal end. It was a good opportunity to begin teaching him to be nice, though I think he is still too young to really understand. It was also interesting to watch Mylie become very concerned about being with her Mom. If Taffy gave Tel much attention at all, Mylie immediately wanted her mom to hold her, not Tel. I came back from a run on Tuesday morning and Taffy was in the bedroom with Tel and Mylie was in the living room because Tel was sad about something and Mylie didn't like seeing her mom holding Tel. Taffy soon found out that Mylie had a bit fo jealousy and si now thinking she has some preparing to do to get Mylie ready to have a baby brother or sister. She took Mylie running with her when I got back from my run and talked to her about jealousy. She asked Mylie what was going to happen when the new baby came and Mom had to hold the baby alot. Mylie said something like, no, you hold me. I hope Tel does not get too jealous when his new brother or sister arrives. He gets that way now if I hold another baby and he sees me, but we will see.

Tel watching his Uncle Tyson give motor boat rides to Connor and Mylie.

Here's Dad showing off his cool new hairstyle. I don't know if you can see it very well in this picture, but it was pretty cool. :)

So this is going to be a real quick post, but I promised Casey I would put a couple pictures up today before I headed to Mt. View to see Taffy's family. Olivia and Tessa came up Friday afternoon to help me paint a couple bedrooms, so these are just some after shots of those rooms. I will do befores and afters after they are completely done. There is also a picture of Tel eating his lunch today. We tried to get one of him dipping his bread in the soup since that is a new thing discovered just yesterday and loves to do, but he wouldn't do it for the camera. Enjoy Casey! We love you and miss you. Hope you are having fun in AK! Catch us lots of fish!

Projects!

Well, I decided I would post today since it is Sunday and I am not allowing myself to go out and work in the yard. It also helps that Casey is gone and Tel is napping. But I am somewhat bummed because I wanted to post the pictures of our new home (yes we are first-time home owners) and of the projects that we are working on but just realized that Casey has the USB cord I need with him in Powell at the moment. So, pictures will just have to wait.
We moved into our new home on Saturday, June 28th, headed out for Jackson the next morning and were gone until Wednesday morning. We came home just long enough to remove a deck from the back of our house and prepare the ground to be dug up the following morning for an addition we are putting on to our cute little 3 bed, 1 bath home. We stayed that night, had the hole dug the next morning, and immediately headed down to Utah for the 4th of July weekend. We returned Sunday night and have been hard at it all this week working on the addition and the front yard.
We hired someone to dig the hole and pour the foundation for us, but Casey has since put in the subfloor and framed the walls. He has some guys from the ward coming on Tuesday this week to help put up the trusses. Once that is done he will be able to close it in. Yea!!! He is a maniac worker! I, on the other hand, seem to feel really busy all day long and try really hard to accomplish SOMETHING, but it rarely happens. I always get started but fail to ever finish in the time frame I would like. Have you ever felt that way? At the end of the day you are exhausted and feel like you have been going nonstop all day long and then you look back at what you have done and not one thing has been accomplished to completion? Well, that's how the front yard project is going for me. I am working on a garden spot to grow some salad stuff this fall and two rock gardens on the corners of the front yard, but I am still digging through the piles of dirt we had dumped and pulling out rocks and what I would call boulders. Not one section is completed. However, I have managed to keep Tel from getting run over, as he loves the road over the grass, pool, dirt (though he does enjoy the dirt for a while, especially eating it) and toys. What is so exciting about the middle of a paved road I have yet to figure out, but he cannot help himslef. I have also kept him out of Dad's way and kept him from falling into the big hole we had in the back of our yard up until just yesterday when they finally came to backfill. He has gotten some lunch every day, as well as breakfast and dinner, and has run quite a few errands with me for his dad. The only mishap we have had is that Tel fell of our front deck, which is only about 2-3 feet tall from where he fell and he landed in the soft flower bed and then rolled onto the grass, so no harm was done. He was a little wet because it was right where the sprinkler was on and a little scared, but that didn't last long. He still likes to throw things off the deck and then try to get down from wherever it went over the edge. I guess he didn't get scared enough to remember what happened the first time he tried it.
Well, this post is probably long enough, especially without any pictures to look at, so I will hopefully post those pictures before too long and call it good.

Baby #2

Well, I have finally decided to make the announcement. We are expecting baby #2 on December 27th, which makes me at about 13 weeks. This first trimester hasn't been bad. I have mostly just been tired. I feel for those of you who get sick. Anyway, we are excited even though I'm not sure how I'll have time for two when one takes every second of the day. I'm sure we will be fine. Somebody told me that no matter how many or how few kids you have, they will take every second of your time. I'm sure that is true.

Well, here are a couple pictures from our first ultrasound just this past Wednesday. It is amazing when you actually get to see that there is a baby in there.

Tel's 1st B-Day!

Tel's 1st birthday was celebrated over the Memorial Day weekend with Casey's family down in Mt. Pleasant, UT. We had a great time watching Tel make a mess of himself with his first big piece of cake. He seemed to enjoy it as well. We also enjoyed spending the time with family and watching Tel and his cousin William get aquainted. (They were born just two months apart.) These are just some pictures and a video (if I can figure out how to do videos) from the weekend. These first two pictures are at our house. Tel got a card and a little truck from his Teichert grandparents.

Tel really didn't eat the whole piece, although he came close. We took some of it away to prevent a belly ache.

Tel and William playing in Tel's new pool from his Aunt Kathy.

Finally a tooth!

Well, this is just another quick post for my own records, but maybe a couple others will find it interesting, namely grandma. Anyway, now that Tel is just a few weeks shy of turning 1 year old he finally cut his first tooth. He has been so fussy and a little more lethargic than normal lately but I just figured it was because he wasn't sleeping well at night and that the cause of that was gas, not a tooth. I had no idea what I was looking for. I kept checking his gums with my finger to see if I could feel anything and everytime there was nothing until last night (May 4th) when I checked at bathtime and sure enough there was a little tooth starting to poke through the gums. The bottom left front tooth. Anyway, it's exciting for us. He's now one tooth closer to being able to eat whatever Casey and I eat without it having to be all ground up. Hooray!

Walking?

So this is just going to be a short post, but I want to have a record of it somewhere and I don' t do very well at writing in my journal. Just the other night (April 30th) Tel took his first few steps without holding onto anything. His Dad got to see it and I didn't! Oh well. Casey said he went about 5 steps before falling down. So we have been trying to practice the last couple days but without a lot of improvement. I imagine it will happen fast enough and then I'll be wishing he was just crawling again. I will try to get some on video and post it later.

Little Things

I think I too often forget to enjoy the little things in life, especially when the days get long and I am longing for a new adventure. I watch Tel and am amazed at how much he learns and how interested he is in everything. Everyday is a big adventure to him as he discovers new things. I need to remember to appreciate all those little things the same way he does. The invention of pots and pans, tupperware, and all the items you might find in your bathroom. I use them everyday, but fail to appreciate them quite the way he does.

I am always in awe at how much I can learn about life from an 11 month old little boy. To name just a few, determination, persistance, patience, love, trust, a desire to learn.....I could go on but I just know Tel is going to be waking up here soon, so I will get on with it.

Over the past month, one of the little things we did with Tel that was so much fun was taking him on his first bike ride. I took him to Walmart and we got him a little helmet. Casey worked on getting our $5.00 bike seat from a garage sale onto my mountain bike, and then we took off. Tel loves it! We have had to take a small break the last couple weeks from any bike rides due to cold, windy, and snowy weather, but I think things are turning around again for the better as far as the weather is concerned, so we will soon be out cruising around. We have also discovered that Tel loves the baby swings down at the city park, but I have failed to get a picture of him in one, so that one will have to wait.

Another thing that isn't so little, is that we got a new piano just this past Saturday. We got back from a morning run (Casey was home because his track meet was cancelled) and just a block from our house there was a grage sale. We decided to go and check it out and lo and behold there was a piano there that actually looked pretty nice. We asked how much they wanted for it and they said $400, but sold it to us for $300, which we felt was a pretty good deal because it is hard to find a piano for that price that doesn't need quite a bit of work on it. This one plays great and hardly has a scratch on it. I was so excited. Tel loves it too. It is his new favorite toy.

SLC Marathon

Well, it has been a while since I posted anything on our blog so while Tel is finally napping I thought I better get busy. A little over a week ago, Sat. April 19th, I ran the SLC marathon along with my mom, sisters (Taffy and Violet), and Aunt Linda and Tina running the half marathon. It was a lot of fun. Thanks to Aunt Linda and Tina having family in Salt Lake we were provided with a great place to stay Friday night. We all met up in the morning at 5:15 am to head for the starting line. We had to park down by the Gateway (the finish line) and take the tracks up to the start which was at the Olympic Legacy Bridge. The starting line and the morning chaos is always so exciting. Taffy and I started the race together, with the others starting further behind. We were able to run the first 5 miles together before our courses split (she was doing the half and I was doing the full). It was great to have some company for those first few miles. Anyway, to make a long story short, we all finished and I think we all felt pretty good about our accomplishments. I was able to finish in 3hrs. 39 min. which wasn't quite as fast as I wanted to go, but was my second fastest marathon out of the 7 I have run so I felt okay about it. I also had to remind myself that I did have to consider the wind (pretty good head wind for atleast 7 or 8 miles of the first half) and that I had been sick all week and Tel had been up almost every night the week of the marathon for atleast 1-2 hours each night. Thanks to Casey coming out to cheer me on the last quarter mile and Tina coming to run in with me I was able to pick up the pace just enough to qualify for Boston by about 25 seconds. Anyway, Casey and Tel were there at the finish line to welcome us all in as we finished our races, as were Linda's husband Bill, and Tina's husband Eric. It was a great time and I look forward to my next one.
This last picture is me with my little training buddy, Tel. He made it on all the training runs with me. He didn't always like it and neither did I, but we survived. He actually did surprisingly well on those long runs except for just a couple, but his screaming sure made me run faster once we were turned around and heading back home.

Sleeping Problems

Sometimes I think that being cute is a baby's defense mechanism. How can you stay upset with them for too long when they just grin at you every time they do something naughty or exasperating? Well, bedtime at our house is becoming a time when his cuteness is what saves him and me from losing it. Bedtime is beginning to be quite an ordeal at our house ever since Tel has discovered his freedom to get himself wherever he wants to be. He does not, and most nights, will not, settle down and go to sleep although I can tell he is exhausted. We try all the bedtime routines and everything else, but he refuses to just lay still or hold still long enough to relax and fall asleep. Then, once he does fall asleep, usually in my arms or lying next to me on the bed, he wakes up again as soon as I set him in his crib. We have tried the cry it out method and he can scream up a storm for over an hour and a half and not even be close to settling down. Eventually, we do get him to go to bed and get him in his crib, but then, for the past couple weeks he has been waking up in the night, sometimes only once, but when he does it takes me 2 hours or so to get him back to sleep and into his crib. I don't know what is going on for sure. He had some ear infections that we have given him an antibiotic for and he doesn't seem like they are bothering him during the day and is not pulling at them like he used to when he gets up in the night. So I am at a loss. If any of you out there have any suggestions or have had similar problems and found something that works, your advice would be greatly appreciated. All I can say is that it's a good thing he's so dang cute!!!

SPRING BREAK

For Spring Break this year we were able to take Casey's parents down to the four corners area and do some sight seeing. We spent time at Dead Horse Point, Canyonlands, Arches, Mesa Verde, Hovenweep, Monument Valley, Gouldings' Trading Post, and Newspaper Rock. We had a lot of fun and were glad that Casey's sister Kathy was able to come as well.

The sights down there are amazing! Casey and I had visited each of them briefly a couple years ago and loved it so were grateful for the chance to go back.
Tel did surprisingly well with all the traveling. He normally hates the car, but I don't think he ever just had a screaming fit the whole week, (caused by driving anyway) which is absolutely amazing! He did learn how to resisit getting back into his car seat though. He arches his back and stiffens up and screams, but once you finally get him in he is just fine for the most part. I think a large part of his pleasant traveling attitude was due to the fact that he had some company in the back seat (Casey, Kathy, and I) who were willing to be quite wierd in order to keep him entertained. Kathy also took the time in the car to teach him how to wave, which he does almost automatically now when he hears the word goodbye.
I think that all that traveling and time spent in the car was Tel's motivator to begin moving. He was kind of crawling before and rolling around and getting where he wanted to, but it was fairly slow and he would still get frustrated really fast. But over the week of spring break he took off. Any chance he got to get down and move around (which were few and far between) he was going. He is crawling everywhere now and is getting to be a little speed demon. He is also pulling himself up on everything and walking along all the furniture. We are beginning that stage where he always has a good bruise on his head. It is a lot more work to keep up with him now, but it is also a lot of fun.