A few days ago, we visited a pumpkin patch to get some pictures of Kiley with the autumn pumpkins. While there taking photos, we bought a pumpkin to put her in it, just for fun. Today, we carved that pumpkin out, plopped her in it, stood back with a camera, and waited to see what would happen. Unfortunately, the skies were gray and so was Kiley’s mood. She wasn’t too happy and the smiling pictures were few and far between. We’ll try it again, and if we get any winners we’ll add them to the photo gallery linked above.
New House
It’s official: We are moving to Texas! We’ve had this idea prayerfully on our minds for a little over a year, and now we feel the time is right. There are a whole host of reasons for making this big decision and we feel that the benefits of a move overwhelmingly outweigh the reasons for staying in Ohio. After looking for a long time at buying a house, we found the perfect house to build instead. Building a house means we won’t be moving for a few more months but our patience will be rewarded with a wonderful new home.
We had been looking to buy a house for quite some time. A lot of internet searches on potential homes was agonizing work and searching from Ohio for a house in Texas proved to be more challenging than I originally thought. It is one thing to look at a house on a computer screen; it’s another to see it in person, along with its school system, the street it’s on, the neighborhood, and so forth. We knew we wanted to be close to the airport and also close to my sister and her husband. We also wanted to be near their wonderful church, Bent Tree. We would fly down and look at 8-10 homes at a time, take lots of notes, and hope the houses wouldn’t run together in our minds afterward.
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Kiley at four months
We want to share Kiley’s four month pictures with you today. She continues to grow, albeit slowly, and her acid reflux problems are really starting to taper off. We are so thankful that she is able to enjoy herself more during the day, either because her medicine is keeping the reflux at bay, or because she is growing out of that phase. Both may be true, but a happy baby makes for happy parents. She smiles a lot, especially during the day.
This month included a lot of firsts. She discovered her toes last month, but now wants to taste them. Her big right toe must be extra tasty because she sucks on it the most. Even though we missed it, she rolled from her back to her belly for the first time. I walked past her on the floor and asked Laura why she laid her on her stomach and Laura said that she laid her on her back! This is also the first month to be sleeping in the nursery, even though she is still in her bassinet to help with her reflux.
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Pumpkin Patch
It is now confirmed as official: we have a cutie living in our house! Laura has wanted to take Kiley to a pumpkin patch for some pictures for a while now, and we finally found two that we could go to that were close by. I had just two days in town before heading back out to work, so on Tuesday, we headed a half hour away to Heath, Ohio to see if we could get some pictures of her amongst the pumpkins.
I don’t know if there is a secret parenting manual out there somewhere that says that you have to take your infant/toddler to a pumpkin patch for pictures, but it seems that it is all the rage and everyone does it. We are not big fans of following the cliched crowds, and pumpkin patch pictures are about as standard as it comes. Said another way, when you go to the Grand Canyon to take some amazing pictures, don’t stick your tripod legs into the same holes that thousands of other photographers have shoved their tripods into; go your own way and make your own pictures.
The only caveat to that is that if I do what everyone else does, I guess I’ll end up with half decent pictures because there is a reason pumpkin patch pictures are popular, and there is a reason why so many tripods have been set up in the same places at the Grand Canyon — they produce fun pictures.
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New Card
Thanks to my sister’s recommendation, we are switching our credit card over to Capital One’s Venture card. We can earn double miles on airline travel which will help me earn free flights a lot faster when I have to commute to LA or NY. Also, no foreign transaction fees are a plus when I am out of the country so often. Finally, we love that we can customize the front picture of our card and can do so each thirty days. Even though the picture can be used for security purposes (like a big picture of your face) we decided to have fun with it. This is us on a cruise in 2009, snorkeling in Grand Cayman. Fun! If you want one for yourself, just click our picture.
Kiley at three months
Our little girl is growing up fast. Sometimes we feel like time is flying by, and other times we think that she can’t grow up fast enough. With the acid reflux continuing to bother her and when she doesn’t sleep through the night, we wanter to her to get older soon. However, when she rolled over from her back to her belly the other day, we realized she is growing up and we want to hold on to all those precious moments.
Kiley is doing a lot of “talking” during the day. She loves laying on her back and playing in her play-gym. She can see and interact with the toys that dangle down in front of her, and we can tell she enjoys them. She will coo and talk to both us and the toys, sometimes for a half hour. Kiley still has her moments of screaming and being upset, but those times are getting fewer and fewer. That is a major joy for us, and it is extra special for her to be carried down stairs from a nap and see Laura or me and smile with a big, shy grin.
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PSU, the whipping boy
Penn State paid for Jerry Sandusky’s crimes in a major way when the NCAA handed down its penalties. Even after all this time, I still find the actions taken by the NCAA to be absurd and misplaced. Vacating Paterno’s wins from 1998 is no big deal; JoePa is dead. Forcing a $60 million fine to be given to charities of disadvantaged children can be a good thing. However, the dropping of scholarships from 85 to 65 means 20 fewer young men will have the chance to get a quality education and have an amazing opportunity to play BIGTEN football. 20 men, by the way, who had nothing to do with Jerry Sandusky. Finally, PSU will have a four year bowl ban, again, punishing those who had nothing to do with Sandusky, and many of whom may not even know who he is.
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