Zach's 6 Month Stats

This little Sun Bear is getting bigger and bigger!  He still is having problems sleeping longer than 3 hours at a time and usually wakes up every 1-2 hours and needs help going back to sleep but, no fear, we still love him.

He is getting closer and closer every day to starting to crawl.  He gets up on all fours and just rocks himself and then flops over but we know he will get the hang of it.

Here are his stats:

Weight: 17lbs 5oz (47th percentile) Down from 50%

Height: 27 inches (68th percentile) Down from 84%

Head: 42.5 cm (26th percentile) Down from 44%

So, he's getting bigger but he isn't staying a big chunker.  But he still eats every 2 hours so he must have a pretty fast metabolism.  I love watching this little bear growing and getting more mobile.  I think that he is going to like having more control over where his body gets to go.

First Vegetables

We decided that we should get Zach ready for the Thanksgiving feast by preparing him to eat some real food.  Oh....also, he was trying to climb into my bowl of chili and eat it so we figured that we would take it as a sign that he wants some more solid fare.  He is almost 6 months so we haven't been taking this too quickly with him.

His first real food?  GREEN BEANS!  Yummmm!!!

He LOVED them.  This kid has always been all about food so no one was surprised.

Also...Bambi was interested in helping him finish if he didn't like them.  She ended up getting green beans behind her ears since Zach grabbed her with his filthy hands.  We are probably going to be constantly cleaning food off of her now.

Pre Thanksgiving Party

For the past couple years, we have been having a Thanksgiving gathering at our house for any wayward souls that don't have a Thanksgiving to go to, or people that I just want to hang out with.

This year we had a Thanksgiving get together a week before Thanksgiving. My brother and Aaron's sister are frequent guests since they are our only family in the area. And this year, Aaron and I are going to be out of town for Thanksgiving and we didn't want them to miss a celebration because we suck.

 So we had Thanksgiving and Markus was grateful that he didn't have to make everything to eat like last year (since I wasn't pregnant and barfing). But unfortunately for all of you, I only took one picture of the whole thing...and that was this picture....after I dropped my phone in the jello.

Well...maybe next year I will be back into taking more pictures.

My Sleeping Angel

Nothing in this whole world makes my heart feel fuller than this little face.  He fell asleep, at my cousin's baby's blessing after party, in my arms.  It is moments like this that I want to last forever.

Nothing else matters, in the whole universe, outside of this moment.  This face.  Just pure happiness.

Side Note: Today it snowed for the first time in his life.  He missed pretty much all of it but I loved the chance to get him in winter clothes.

Harvest Decorations

The day after Halloween, I was feeling very motivated to change the decorations so we could start celebrating Thanksgiving time.  Last year I barfed the whole holiday season away and so this year I'm determined to enjoy it all!

Check out my helpers in taking down all those decorations!

These flags were up most of the month because we had a Halloween/Hawaiian related party earlier in the month and I was enjoying them so much that I left them up.

After working for a couple hours, I got most of the decorations down and this little spot looking festive for Thanksgiving.  It is small but it is a start.

Baby's First Halloween

Well, you saw the Halloween party over at our Church building, but now I need to tell you how the first actual Halloween went!

Since the Halloween party was the thing that we really dressed up for, I had this weird feeling that Halloween was over and that I could work on something else...but I still get Zach dressed up in an outfit.

The name's Reinert.  Zachary Reinert.

This little hunk came out with Aaron and I, while we finished setting up the Halloween decorations.

I had the ribbon wreath hanging up all October.  It was a gift from my mother-in-law (last year? year before? I don't know...the years are starting to run together).

We let Zachary play with his Trick-or-Treat bag from Nana Reinert while we worked.  He was pretty interested in all the bright colors.

Oh...and of course, Bambi stood guard because we can't be trusted to actually care for OUR child.... *rolls eyes*  She can't stay in the house while little brother is outside.  Even when I rake the leaves, she wants to be outside with us.

I didn't really take pictures of the decorations.  Our house looked like it has the passed couple years.  Grave yard and lights.  It looked pretty cool but yeah...I felt like I've already gotten pictures of it before.

I get so irritated at people who take their babies trick or treating.  It is like, 'Who is really going to eat that candy?"  But I decided that Zach could go to ONE house and it just so happened to be our next door neighbor who we adore.

Zach was pretty interested to see what Lou slipped in his bag.

It was a very low key night.  We had about 2/3rds the amount of people that we normally do.  So last year was about 180 and this year it was more like 120.  I don't know why the low numbers but it made it a pretty fun and laid back first Halloween for us as parents.

Happy Halloween!!  Let the Holiday season begin!!

A Star Wars Halloween!

I wasn't planning on dressing Zach up for Halloween.  I kind of figured that it was his first Halloween and he wouldn't really care if we didn't do anything.

But a couple months before Halloween, I saw a cute idea on Pinterest.  It was a bear costume plus a brown shirt around the neck and VOILA Ewok!  Hahaha, perfect!  What could be better for our families first Halloween than a Star Wars theme.

So I thought about it and decided to do it.  I bought Zach a bear costume early in the month and as the date got closer to Halloween, I got excited and took the costume out of the bag only to discover that....it was missing half of the costume.  Boo!

I took the costume back to where I got it, got a full refund but...no costume.  All infant costumes in all the stores were gone (except for strawberries and some watermelons).  I was SUPER bummed!

While we were hunting for costumes, a friend suggested that we try Carter's.  I'd never been but decided to check it out.  They didn't have any costumes left but they were having a 50% off the whole store sale.  So I came back the next day to look for winter clothes for Zach.  And searching through coats I found a fuzzy full body coat that had a hood...WITH BEAR EARS!!  Jackpot.  But...it was the day of the ward Halloween party....and I scrambled to make myself the costume that I had envisioned and I couldn't find a brown shirt for Zach so I used felt...and Aaron didn't get a costume.

So the night wasn't 100% perfect but Zach looks so incredibly cute that every time I look at pictures I WANT TO DIE!!!

I'm not the only one who thinks that either.  I'm his mom, I have to think that...but I'm not alone.  I put up a photo of him at the Halloween party using my phone FOR THE GRANDPARENTS.  I had grandparents who were asking me for photos so I took one really fast to put online.

66 people "liked" the picture of him as an ewok.  Some of the people, were people who I hadn't spoken to since high school.  For scale, 94 people "liked" my birth announcement.  A week ago my status on Facebook got 9 "likes" about me losing my marbles.

Isn't the the cutest sad face you have ever seen!!!  I want to kiss his face a million times when he gets a little sad face on.

Then he decided to munch on some toes.  So...his night improved?  Apparently in his world it did.

I kind of want to do Star Wars again next year because don't you think it will be even cuter with him walking around next year?!?!?!  We will all BLOW UP from cuteness overload!!

Quarter of a Century: Part Two

My Aunt Elizabeth suggested that I take pictures every hour of my birthday.  I absolutely LOVED that idea!  I didn't know how interesting it would be but I knew that I wanted to at least try.

First thing waking up was wonderful (I'm not counting when I woke up EARLY to a dog barfing and cleaned it up really fast)!!  I had my little angel baby next to me and so when I woke up, the first thing that I saw was his smiling face.  LOVE!

After a ridiculous little photo shoot in bed, we both got up and went into the living room.  Baby bear has a Johnny Jump-up now and he thought that he would stretch his legs.

It looks like he is holding onto the door frame but his arms, in reality, aren't long enough for that.

Do a little turn on the cat walk!!

While I was sitting on the floor next to little man cheering on his leg work, Aaron came through the door!   He told me that he was giving me "the day off".

(Those are Halloween curtains...not our real curtains.  There wasn't a fire.)

Little buddy and Aaron settled into the couch to watch the leaves fall and I went to take a shower.

I didn't take a picture of me in the shower.  Try not to be too disappointed.

While I was in the shower, I tried to decide what I wanted to do with my day off.  I decided to celebrate getting my driver's license when I was 24 with a drive to a thrift store to look at books.

Since I was on the right road for it, I decided to stop at the Asian Market as well.

I found some yummy stuff for later and I found some funny stuff that reminded me of home.  Anyone need some durian flavoring?

Next stop was Deseret Industries.  It is my favorite thrift store in Utah.  I gave myself a $20 limit on children's books.  They are my favorite thing in the world.  THE WORLD.  I hadn't been able to go buy books in ages.  I got a big pile of maybe's and went to sit on a couch in the store and sort through them.  It was heaven.

Then....I had no where else that I wanted to be but home with my little family.  I ate my Thai lunch, which was bliss because it tasted like home.

Zach took a nap and I messaged around on the internet...and I found it super creepy that Google wished me a happy birthday.  Like...I know logically that since I have a Google + account that they know my birthday...but I find it creepy that they are cool with flaunting the fact that they know my birthday.

Next we decided to return the costume for Zach that was missing pieces...and while we were out, we decided to try and find a replacement costume.  It wasn't successful but we had fun with it.

Even Aaron got into it.  Probably because it was my birthday and he loves me.

He must really like me, because he even decided to be a little silly.

When we got home, we worked on putting our little man to bed.  I pulled out some of my frozen peaches and made myself a cobbler.  Aaron passed out at about 7pm saying, "I don't know how you do it."  I sat in bed and watched Bones and ate cobbler.

It was a wonderful day that I got to spend with the people that I love the most.  I got to enjoy some of my home and buy some of my favorite things.  It was a wonderful birthday.

Thank you to everyone who wished me a "Happy Birthday" on facebook and text message and on the phone!  I had the best day and I made it through without one visit to the ER!!

Quarter of a Century: Part One

I can't believe that I'm 25!!!!!  It seems like it was only a little while ago that I was making fun of Aaron for turning 25 when we had been dating for 8 months...and now I'm the old one.  Well, I guess he will always be the old one.

Aaron asked me what I wanted to do for my birthday and I told him, "I want to go on a hike to celebrate being healthy for my birthday."  That is seriously what I wanted.  I wanted to spend the day being happy to be healthy.

2 years ago, for my 23rd birthday,  I went to the ER.  Click the link to read more about those fun times.  And last year was great because I had friends and family over with me but...I was barfy and really exhausted from being pregnant.  And after all of my "fun health" this summer, I wanted to just do something that sick Katrina couldn't enjoy.

Aaron looked at the weather report on Saturday and informed me that it was going to rain on my birthday and wanted to know if we could do the hike a day early.  I'm all about nature on the Sabbath.

So we packed up our little man and puppy dogs and got going.

Check out the trail marker....very helpful.

There is one hike that we do every year called Indian Trail.  It starts where 22nd street ends and the mountains begin and it comes out at a trail head in the canyon.  We have always started from the trail head inside the canyon gone two miles and turned around but people have told us that that is the hardest way to tackle it because it goes rapidly uphill on that end.  We decided to check out the other end.  We didn't plan on finishing it because round trip would have been 8.6 miles and if we only went to the other end...we would have a car.

With the trail markers missing, we had to just guess which trails took us where we wanted to go.  There are HUNDREDS of forks and side paths along the Bonneville Shoreline but in the area where we were, three main paths into the canyon.  Aaron said as long as we kept choosing the north leading paths going up in elevation, we would connect to the right path.  I fought him on this.

This side of the trail proved to be less shaded but since it is late October, the weather was perfect for hiking.

This is where we switched off holding Zach.  A 17 pound weight is A LOT of extra weight on the front...believe me...I lived with it for months.

I was crouching down so that Bambi could be in the picture with her little boy but she was busy keeping a look out for kidnappers.

Little boy smirk.  (Also...that is a crack in the rock...not my hair.)

Heading up and North just like Aaron said....

We made it to the trees!!  Once we got further into the canyon, the trees got higher and higher till we were finally "shaded".  Most of the leaves were gone so it wasn't super shady.

Aren't those dimples delicious?  ALL MINE!!!!

Once we went a ways in the trees, we decided to head back to the car.  Our little man was getting tired out and it was starting to get colder.

Kisses for little boy!

Pippen enjoying the fall colors.

On the way back down I said to Aaron, "Aaron.  Are you listening?  I'm only going to say this once so I want you to hear me.    ..........I think you were right.  I think all those little paths do meet up with each other to take you up those 3 main paths.  I'm glad I listened to you."

Isn't it nice to know you are right and that other people know it?  That was my gift to Aaron!  Hahaha, I'd follow him anywhere.

Epic manly man!

I had so much fun celebrating my health with my wonderful little family.  Especially spending time with the man who has been with me through so much.  I'm so blessed to always have him by my side!

Stay tuned for Part 2.