the haskin family

Feb 1, 2012

Time for an Update

A prolonged absence from the blog can mean two things: 1. Life is way too boring, 2. Life is really fun

Luckily it's #2 in this case.

Seth and I have spent 24 days out of town since we moved to Texas at the end of November (Stephen joined us for 14 of those days).

We had a wonderful time in Georgia for Christmas. We managed to follow a jam-packed google spreadsheet schedule of game-playing, aquarium-going, feast-enjoying, present-opening, Just Dance 2-ing, hot tubbing, polar bear swimming, temple-attending, movie-watching, bocce ball-playing, and missionary phone calling. Also, I am always assured to come back from time with the Haskin family with sore muscles from all the laughs and this trip did not disappoint. I love my in-laws- what a super trip!

At the Georgia Aquarium- which was cool! I highly recommend it, especially the dolphin show

Haha- what a great moment to take a picture. Seth had the best view in the whole place... and managed to pull the plastic case off a fire alarm while he was hanging out up there, but at least it was just a speaker for the fire alarm and not the alarm itself.

Me and my Man

Stephen and his Mom enjoying Christmas apple cider with the amazing Christmas feast

Seth and Grandpa wearing their Western University Dental School shirts from Uncle Todd

First time trying chocolate

All the "kids" had a sleepover in our room which made it easier for "Santa" to crawl all over them and wake them up in the morning :)

Very cool coasters that Katie made for us!

Bocce ball

Then after a week at home, Seth and I left again to welcome Sister Purser home from the Philippines. There we took a little more relaxed approach, but had just as much fun. The best parts: temple with my sister, LOVING my 2 cute nephews and watching Seth play with his cousins, seeing the younger nephew blessed by my brother, watching Seth get to know my family, delicious mom food, yummy food that I missed while in Maryland (Cafe Rio, Zupas, Sweet Tooth Fairy, Kneaders, & Great Harvest), Lauren's choir concert, family parties, visiting Aunt Katie at work, visiting Aunt Deb, meeting up with a good friend, and home manicure/hanging out/talking late with my sisters.

He was very proud when he climbed up on the stool.

With my cousins- Seth doesn't have the coordination skills to pick his nose, but somehow he did it anyway.

Sweet baby Russell with his beautiful mama

Hanging out with Great Grandpa

This is how Seth "kisses" me. He lets out a high-pitched squeal and chews my hair. It really is pretty adorable. :)

Lunch at cafe rio.

Visit to see Aunt Katie's awesome job. Seth was mesmerized by the other kids and the toys.

Seth and I had breakfast at Kneader's with Mandy and Max. Next year we need to add Lisa and Ally and their little boys!!

yay- there just happened to be a choir concert while I was there!

We got Dad and Mom to do the Mermaid/Scuba Diver dance on Just Dance 2. They were great!

Caleb found our Nook and loaded up/played Angry Birds.

The signs we forgot to bring to the airport.

Aunt Rissy and Seth meet for the first time!

Now we are just living (and trying to save up for future trips). Stephen likes his job, especially after we FINALLY watched Waiting for Superman, and I like our neighborhood. When we moved here Stephen said he would love to work with the young men at church and I thought it'd be fun to work with the kids in primary. I think Heavenly Father must have overheard because guess where we ended up? We feel both needed and blessed in our current ward and are happy to be here. As for the weather...it has been really warm (highs in the 70s this week?!?!) and is making me nervous for the summer. We are starting to make friends and overall just liking it.

Nov 6, 2011

San Antonio

Over the last 2 months I've had a hard time blogging because I couldn't blog about the biggest thing going on in our lives: a possible move away from DC. Several months ago we began searching for jobs so we could move somewhere closer to family and more affordable. We were discouraged after having very little success. We were really excited when a great opportunity turned up in San Antonio, Texas. It is not nearly as close to family as we were hoping, but we decided to look into it.

The application/interview process took about 2 months long so I could never say anything even though it was basically all we were thinking about. Two weekends ago we visited San Antonio and the job offer became official. After a few days of consideration and weighing the options we decided to accept. We've both given notice at work, so we can finally talk about it. So in 12 days we will be leaving Maryland, on our way to our next adventure, in San Antonio!

Stephen will be staying in the education sector, working in the operations department at a charter school district. We are really excited about the schools, the leadership, the opportunity to move forward in a career, and a shorter commute (which hopefully means a little more time at home). I, on the other hand, will be staying home full-time with Seth! I am so thankful that I was able to find a flexible job here in MD, but it's been hard to mentally juggle stay-at-home-mom days with work-days-- feeling like my efforts in both areas were inadequate. I'm sure I will still feel quite inadequate as a mom, but I am excited to be able to devote more of my energy to teaching and loving Seth.

We are sad to leave our church friends and regret that we ended up dragging our feet a little instead of jumping in and loving this area from the start, but we'll always remember the great people we met and the fun memories we made here.

"We're moving?! To Texas?!"

"We need to start packing... NOW!"

"Hey if you turn this thing on I could really help out with some of the research for moving trucks and housing."

"Not sure why I'm wearing this funny costume, but I'm gonna miss this place. Bye-bye Maryland friends :("

"I could possibly get used to this- especially between the months of October and March."

"A riverwalk? And hanging out with Mom AND Dad? I'll take it!"

Sep 29, 2011

9/10 months

It's been 2 months since I did a post about Seth's milestones and development. It would be impossible to post everything awesome that this little guy can do... but I'll try :)

Weighing in at 20 lbs and at 29 1/2 inches tall (at 9 month appointment), we've got a strong, happy boy on our hands.

During the last 2 months Seth moved to mostly 12 month clothing and size 3 diapers, but it's no wonder with how much he loves to eat!

He has 3 meals of solids a day and nurses 3 times a day plus a bottle of formula before bedtime (biting mom can only be tolerated for so long). He loves pretty much everything we feed him, except pureed bananas- which also happens to be the very first baby food I fed him... strange! He knows how to drink from a sippy cup and from a straw and self-feeds himself all sorts of small cheerio/bread/cracker/soft fruit & veggie foods with a good pincer grasp and 4 sharp teeth.

Sleeping is still a slow and steady improvement. Happily 30 minute naps are completely extinct! He moved from 4 to 3 to 2 naps a day. These naps are about an hour each- it's no 3 hour afternoon mom-time, but I'll take it. He has no night-time feedings anymore and just wakes up occasionally in need of a pacifier. The remaining struggle is that he wakes up sometime in the 5am hour EVERYDAY and won't go back to sleep. I could handle 6 o'clock - 5 or 5:15 or 5:30 is just too early!! We've tried earlier bedtime, later bedtime, later dinner, bigger dinner, letting him cry, feeding him, etc. What an early bird!

Eating and sleeping used to fill our whole day when he was younger, but now it only makes up a fraction of the time. The rest is spent...

clapping dancing playing peekaboo

playing "chase" crawling fast

laughing imitating sounds

standing cruising bouncing balls

turning pages brushing teeth taking wild baths

babbling grinning biting

taking walks riding in the car

playing with friends being ticklish

Seth is learning something new every day. This week he imitated the sign for "more," copied me saying "Mom," "Dad," and "Jesus" with something suspiciously close in each instance, purposefully threw things on the floor, crawled as fast as he could to the bathroom when he heard the bathtub faucet, and made his parents very tired and very happy.