No More Special Treatment

Carrie had her first official day with no special meals made just for her. She ate what everyone else was eating all day long! Now, I know it won't always be like this especially while she's still transitioning between baby food and table food, but it was exciting for me.

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For breakfast she had a frozen waffle with strawberries; at lunchtime we went to the ward relief society "lunch bunch" where she had chicken nugget pieces and pasta salad; and for dinner, the whole family had hamburger helper. Yeah for our big girl!!! (There will be NO making fun of me for listing our menu for the day... You know who you are)

Carrie's 9 Months!

Here's a preview of our halloween costumes... They are a work in prgoress this week.
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Last week we "had" to empty out our patio storage unit so the apartments could do some fire code checking (or something like that). Soooo, we got stuck with all our extra "stuff" in our living room. Luckily it was only for one day.

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My mom bought Carrie a little walk-behind push toy last week and man can that little girl move! She gets so excited when she walks behind it, it's so much fun to watch! I will be trying to post pictures and a video of it soon.

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Justin is liking his new job. He is on day #2 of being officially on the job, not training anymore. He's eligible for a raise every six months as long as he meets certain goals and requirements. His manager has told his team he will work with them to make sure they are on track to receive their raises. Yeah!!

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I am definitely enjoying my time being a stay-at-home mom (at least for the next few weeks). It's turned out to be a very good thing since the last few days Carrie has started being a HUGE momma's girl. She doesn't even want Justin or my mom. It makes me feel special. Everyone else wonders why she doesn't like them anymore...

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Carrie had her 9 month well-check today.

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Weight: 15lbs 12 oz 7th percentile

Length: 27 1/2 inches 50th percentile

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The doctor said everything looks fabulous with her so woohoo!! Happy healthy girl! The reason she lost weight from last month is because she's so mobile now. She still mostly cruises with her belly on the ground, but over about the past week, she's been crawling actually on her knees a little more. It makes sense really when I think about how she is constantly crawling all around the room, and pulling up to stand at EVERYTHING, and walking along furniture... that girl gets a workout allll day long! She's also made the transition from baby food to table food and we're still trying to figure out what she likes and doesn't like. Some of the things she likes to eat are: bananas, toast, pears, jam sandwich, cheerios, and mashed potatoes. I guess she still does eat some baby foods, but they're the ones with food lumps in them so she has to gum them (still no teeth).

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I'm getting my hair cut again today (and the color fixed... I really screwed it up on my own over the weekend) I'll post a picture after that's done. We will be posting some pictures of Halloween for sure. And we'll be going to our ward party on my birthday on Friday (the 30th), so I guess technically we'll soon have some pictures from my birthday too. Hope everyone is having a fantastic Monday!!

Our Little Super Model

I'll post later with an actual update, I just wanted to share these few cute pictures real quick!
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.A BIG thanks to Kevin Beeson for taking these amazing pictures! He always seems to work wonders with a camera!

So Much to Say...

Since I know I have a tendency to ramble once I get going, I'm going to do this in bullets. (It probably won't help)

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THE BIG STORY

-If you remember semi-recently, we had found a scorpion on the wall in our bathroom. In the last 2 weeks, we've found 2 more! First, on the floor in the kitchen. The next day, we had the apartment's bug guy spray outside. Last night, Justin came out of our bedroom into the living room very very angry. He said "I found ANOTHER scorpion!!!" This time it was on our BED! When we went back into the room.... it wasn't there anymore. It got LOST in our bed! Luckily, when Justin sloooowly pulled back the sheets we found it and were able to kill it. It's sad, but amazingly, it wasn't hard to go to sleep last night.

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JUSTIN

-Doing amazing at his new job after the first 2 weeks of training.

-Got a 95% on a test about things he's learned in training

-All the other trainees come to him with their questions

-Looks ridiculously handsome every day in a collared shirt

-Got his first paycheck today (yeah!!)

-Got to attend his very first college football game tonight (ASU) with a friend from work

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REBECCA

-Has been working 4 days a week

-Started teaching piano lessons again (it's been a while)

-Work offered me two extra weeks on top of next week which I already agreed to. I will be calling them back on Monday to politely decline. I am soooo ready to be a full-time stay at home mom for a little while.

-Excited to spend some time working on our family halloween costumes (we're all going to be bugs. I promise to post pictures!)

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CARRIE

-Has mastered going from laying (and crawling) to sitting.

-Pulls herself up to stand at EVERYTHING

-Everything includes her crib... Not very much fun for mom & dad at 6:15 in the morning when she thinks it's time to get up. Before she knew how to stand up, she would usually fall back asleep in the early morning hours. Now, she is fully awake and ready to go. Standing and waiting for us to come get her...

-Has made a huge leap in food. We started more table foods and now baby food is almost completely undesirable to her. (What can of worms did I open?!) One of her current favorite foods is toast.

-One of her favorite passtimes is playing in the vertical blinds of the sliding glass door and looking out the window.

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Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat!

PS: I forgot to mention that my little brothers Kevin (17) and Jake (14) are in a local production of Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat! We saw the show on Saturday and it is amazing!!! They each have a part as one of Joseph's brothers. Kevin has a whole song to himself, in which he does two back flips. Jake also has a few one-liner solos. I was amazed that this was an amatuer production. I never would have known. It was AWESOME!!!

It is playing at the Higley Center for the Performing Arts (next to Higley High School at Recker and Pecos). There are still 4 shows left. It's this coming Thursday 8th, Friday 9th, and Saturday 10th at 7:30pm. There's also a Saturday matinee show at 2:00. Tickets are $12 for adults and $10 for students/kids (buy them at the door). Definitely worth it! If you are ANYWHERE in the Phoenix valley this weekend, you HAVE to see it!!!!

Not Much New Here

Well, as the title might suggest, there's not really anything exciting going on around here lately. Carrie still army-crawls, but is getting better at pulling herself up on people, tables, couches etc. She still has no teeth. She has re-discovered how to talk, although she rarely actually does. Only when she's alone and absorbed with her toys will she start to babble. Overall, she's happy and content. If she whines, it's because she's tired, and that's about it. It's interesting that she really isn't that animated, and you have to be a performing monkey to get a few giggles out of her, but she's not somber at all, just content to be quiet and happy.
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Over about the last week, we've had several times when we pried her fingers out of our hands and had her stand on her own. Most of the time she lasts about a second and then teeters and we catch her. There have been a few times though where she's actually lasted 4-5-6 seconds before she wobbled. I dont' think she realizes the reason everyone gets so excited, but we sure enjoy watching her.
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Justin will start his job at the University of Phoenix tomorrow. He'll have full-time training for 3 weeks, then find out what shift he has. They either have 6-3, 7-4, or 8-5. Justin is hoping to get the 7-4 shift so he can still referee high school basketball after work, but not have to go to work sooo early. We'll see. We know of several people who have his same position and have heard mixed feelings. Some don't like it, some do. Most will agree though that it's pretty good pay.
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Luckily for us, "pretty good pay" means "really good pay" because we've been living on the bottom of the food chain for the last few years. We're excited for Justin to have a solid job we can rely on. Me especially... because I'm getting burned out at work. Tomorrow is my only day off this week, and next week and the week after, I'm working Mon-Thurs. I'm really not sure why I agreed to that. Four days a week is a little beyond my sanity capacity. Tonight I was writing a to-do list for tomorrow (my day off) and by the time I was done, it took up a whole page. I said to Justin, "so much for a day off". I think once I finish out these next few weeks of work that I've already agreed to, I'm going to tell my work I only want to do two days a week.
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I would be perfectly content to always stay home, but we've come up with a game-plan for debt-reducing and saving. Justin's salary should be just about right for us to live on. So, for the next little while, if I can work two days a week, we shuld be able to have about an extra $1,000 a month. We'll put that towards Justin's student loan and credit cards which we unfortunately started using too much this year as our checking account was meager. Once we get those a little more under control, we should be able to put some away for a down-payment. Our lease on our apartment is up the end of next May, so hopefully we will be ready to try to be in a house by then.
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This picture is to show how cute Carrie is posing for the camera with a little shy smile, and to show her giving her stuffed animal "Vinny" a horsey ride. I'm not sure how he got there, but she crawled around the whole living room with him on her back.
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