The goings on

We finally feel settled in. After numerous trips to Target, Costco, and Ikea, we have our place in some kind of order. We now have Maryland licences and licence plates (although we didn't get the style that we wanted.) The worst part? Buying all new condiments. There are so many trips to the grocery store that I had to make because I didn't have ingredients that I usually don't have to think about buying.

This is our now finished living room complete with new desk (and a high chair!) Christmas came early from my parents. The middle mirror was the only casualty in our move, but we decided to still use it anyway in our somewhat artistic manner. We are not superstitious so no bad luck for us. I'm glad it worked out because I really don't know how to decorate, especially without

money.

We have now had two visitors so far.

My friend Laura came for a weekend from Princeton. We went to our first DC visit and decided that we like DC very much and are excited to see all that there is. So far, the Jefferson Memorial is our favorite.

My parents also came and saw us. Jack and I took a trip with my parents to the Carolinas, leaving Chris by his lonesome. I meant to take the pictures from my parents cameras but did not so I have no pictures of the trip. We went to the outer banks of North Carolina, played at Myrtle beach, saw where the Wright brothers made the first flight, experienced a swamp (also where parts of the Patriot and the Notebook were filmed), and hung out in Charleston, South Carolina.

As far as Jack, he is doing well. He still sleeps great (except in front of company so I don't know if anyone believes it). Jack is also getting good at eating rice cereal.

He is now wearing cloth diapers,

but not at night. It isn't because he wets a lot at night, he doesn't, but the cloth diapers don't seem to let his skin dry and we can't use diaper rash cream with them, so nightime is time for his skin to breath and recover. But the cloth diapers seem to be working out well. Jack can also sit! He seems to like it very much and we do to. Jack is also now quite the talker. Most of the time he is babbling away. Usually I encourage this, but not in church. He doesn't take a pacifier so there is no way to keep him from saying what he wants.

Jack has also become a frequent bather and takes a bath every night before bed. He likes to cry before it is time to eat his last meal because he is hungry and so tired, so the baths are a nice distraction for everyone. He has a blast. Our bathtub is possibly and original to the house, it is

very deep, so it is hard to hold on to Jack from the outside, so I sit on a step stool inside the tube, secure Jack with my feet and let him play with his toys and splash in the water.

Jack also has a new hobby.

School is going well for Chris. He is a TA for some labs, so he doesn't enjoy the grading very much. That and homework keep him busy, but he is still able to leave sometime for his family, which we appreciate very much.

I'm adjusting to being a stay at home mom. I'm weird and actually like being busy; I almost crave stress. So I'm having a little bit of a hard time being home all day. I would love for something to work out with a job or going back to school, but we really don't see how it would work with Jack and our tight budget. I know that I will never regret being able to raise my children, and I know it is best for them. My career and/or school ambitions will just have to wait for their own due time.

More to come...someday we will be regular at this!

He Recycles!

We forgot to post our new favorite pictures of Jack.

Our new House in MD

When last we spoke (or whatever you want to call this web interaction) we had brought you with us from Provo, Utah to Sydney, Nebraska. Well, after waking up in Sydney we were anxious to leave. Not that we had anything against the place, we just had many miles to travel that day. Not much happened that day other than Jack's first times in Iowa and Illinois. We made it safely to my parents house in Naperville and enjoyed sleeping in a nonmotel bed.

What's more they sent us on our way the next day with an entire Chicago style, deep dish, stuffed spinach, pizza. This delicious sustenance helped maintain our good spirits through

Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and even Maryland. In fact, I ate the last piece in our new house in Maryland.

We live in this little town between Baltimore and DC. (Quite close to DC really, we're just outside

the beltway.) It doesn't seem to know what it wants to be though. Some DC radio stations come in better than Baltimore and vice versa. We only have antenna tv and some stations are Baltimore, some DC, and some are both. In fact we actually have 3 abc stations. Our home is a modest sized townhouse that was built in the early 40's. It is actually a huge blessing that we were able to buy. Our mortgage is so much cheaper than if we were renting. And since for now Hilary is just staying home we have to get by on Chris's small (hey, I do my best) stipend.

So, as requested, here are pictures of Jack in our new house. (Notice his sweatshirt, his great-

grandfather was a Stanford alumnist.)

We begin with the front patio. Lined by Hostas and other assorted vegetation, we notice the artistic crackwork wich serves to remind us that mother nature sometimes has her own ideas about concrete slabs. Here we see Jack in a relaxed "just chillin' on my patio" mood. He

especially likes that it is outside.

Moving inside the house, we see the dining/living room area as well as a view into the addition that added to the back by previous owners. We like to keep this area open and free because we don't have any furniture with which to fill it. Jack is seen here in a cordial "keepin' an eye on the carpet" attitude.Looking to the immediate left of the last picture we see the shoe rack and dryer area. This dryer is amazingly quiet. The first time we used I had no idea it was on for some time (i.e. when the buzzer went off signifying it was done). We also see Jack showing off his right turn driving hand signal.
The kitchen narrow, but thanks to Ikea the space is well used. Hilary has added a shelf for cookbooks and other assorted recipes, a spice jar shelf, and some hooks for hanging things on.

In addition, our washing machine (Hooray! We have a washing machine!) pretends to be additional counter space. Jack is seen in his usual helping around the kitchen activities. These include sorting the recycling and fluffing the floor mat.

We also keep our water heater in the kitchen. It's hiding behind the bamboo screen.

Moving up the stairs we get to the landing, from which one can get to Jack's room, our room, and the bathroom. Jack was excited to show you the upstairs, but then got tired of not wearing the hoody hood.

In the bathroom he's working on his newest yoga pose (the crippled caterpillar)

before he heads into his room. He was also quite excited to point out his closet. In our bedroom he's tackled a very tricky pillow.

Descending back to ground level, Jack has moved to the couch in order to take in some classical music and maybe a veggietale or two. Notice our elegant food storage shelving. It's convenient to have the food close to the couch, but the can opener is inconveniently stored in the kitchen.
Did I mention that the former owners left us their entertainment center? Well, let me do so now. Funnily enough, we can fit all of our entertainment apparatus in this one piece of furniture.
Looking back through the house we have the revers shot of the second picture in this post. With Einstein on the right and periodic tables on the left, you can tell that our home decor is pretty much as cool as it gets.
Last, and close to least, we have a small backyard-like area. It mostly is a place for us to keep tree roots. However, one can take out a blanket and a pillow and have quite a relaxing time reading under a tree. (Or perhaps consider learning to read) In any case, this is our house. We like it. Jack has his own room now, so he thinks he runs the place. And, in a lot of ways he does.

Next time we’ll just move

As part of my usual introduction let me apologize for the long delay since our last posting. In our defense we’ve been all kinds of busy. “How busy?” you say, or perhaps “Busy doing what?” Well, let me tell you.

When we last checked in here in the world of blogging Jack had recently been blessed and various family figures had come and gone. After that we briefly settled back into our routines. I’d work on campus in the morning while Hilary stayed home with Jack, then I’d come home at 11:00 so that Hilary could go to work.

We knew we had to move soon and Hilary, master packer that she is, had been packing up our stuff systematically and continued to pack in the mornings. For my part, I took to deep cleaning such areas of the apartment as I could.
We also took the time to climb Y mountain one weekend. As always, the hike was beautiful once we got past the Y.
Jack was riding in a front back the whole way and was happy to get out once we got to the top. He got fed and then just lay on his back kicking his legs enjoying being outside and free from pack restraints. He also happily tried to eat and ant that crawled into his mouth. We got the poor thing out, but it had already drowned in Jack’s drool.

We then wrapped up July and started into August. The first week of August saw Hilary’s last day at Ultradent. After her two year stint in their quality control lab she was happy to leave the job, and sad to leave the people. All in all Ultradent is a class act as far as taking care of employees is concerned, so we’re going to miss them.
As our time in Provo was fast coming to and end we tried to see most of our friends before we left. We were also lucky enough to spend some time with Jon and Lara Beer who moved to Provo just before we were leaving. I’ve known Jon and his twin brother David since I was born (our mothers were friends when pregnant and our birthdays are eight days apart) and we all got back together a few times before we left town. This nicely sets up the following picture. Now, David, Jon and myself were all married during different years but still managed to all have our first child within four months of each other.

In the picture we’re all together and so are all our children. This perfectly sets up my being able to tell Jack that he met Matthew and Naomi and therefore should remember them.

We then flew up to Seattle to spend some time with family before going up to Alaska, to spend more time with more family. Specifically, Hilary’s brother Tom and his family recently moved to Anchorage, and they were kind enough to let five adults and one Jack stay at their house for a week. These times marked some important milestones for Jack, his first time in Washington, first time in Alaska, and first plane ride. He also got to have his second, third, and fourth plane rides in short order.

As for us, let me first say the weather was wonderful. After spending my days in the small, hot, stuffy, dimly lit, poorly ventilated, uneven floored, tiny kintchened, uninterneted apartment the cool, moist and seemingly clean weather of Seattle and Anchorage came as a breath of fresh air.

The scenery in Alaska is quite wonderful as well. We were only able to go on one hike, activities being somewhat limited by Jack and our two year old neice Celia,
but it was great. Unlike the Utah mountains we’d become more familiar with, the Alaskan mountains were the rich green thousands of well watered plants. On other days we drove to other sites of interest, like picking blueberries in the alps,
seeing iceburgs and glaciers,
but by far the hike up flat top mountain was my favorite part of the trip.
Some other exciting things happened while we were in Alaska. We finally closed on a home in Maryland, largely due to the help of Hilary’s father so one again thanks to Ted for being an amazing human being, which meant that we officially had someplace to live in September. I also officially graduated from BYU with my Masters in physics. So, on the whole it was quite a good week.

But, all good weeks must end. We flew back from Anchorage to Seattle on Monday August 16th. On Tuesday we drove from Seattle to Provo, giving Jack his all important firsts in Oregon and Idaho. On Wednesday and Thursday Hilary spent far too much time making her friends wedding cake which had to be done for the reception on Friday.

Oh, did I mention we had to pack all of our stuff into semitruck trailer in Salt Lake Wednesday evening. Well we did. And it was quite the fun time let me tell you. Our ward did their usual amazing o and being amazing. They organized a group to move the boxes and furniture into a pickup truck and onto a trailer which was borrowed from our High Councilor. We then left in two groups to meet up at the center in Salt Lake where we had to load the semi.

Just after we left the team in the truck discovered that the trailer had no working lights. Being fans of safety on the freeway they decided to replace them. This ended up taking about an hour. We in the other car didn’t know about this development until we were in Salt Lake, which meant we had to entertain ourselves for an hour next to an empty truck. Still, they came when the could and we loaded up our stuff quickly and efficiently. The downside was that we didn’t get home until about midnight, and Hilary wanted to work on cake stuff.

So, Thursday morning dawns on a couple of very tired individuals who need to super clean the apartment and make cakes. Thus, we spent the bulk of Thursday cleaning and cooking. Once again we were up late into the night and once again we woke up early. Friday opens with more last minute cleaning with the added attraction of needing to pack the car. We have to pack the car such that we can leave Provo with the cake (which was in two large pieces at the time) and give a ride to Hilary’s former roommate to and from the ceremony in Bountiful and then construct the cake for the reception in Salt Lake.

Because we had to make room for cakes and former roommates we didn’t have all the space we might have desired for our personal belongings. So, some of our neighbors got some free stuff that morning and we wish them the best with our little parting gifts. At long last we left Provo for the last time (for the next little while) and headed north. Hilary was freaking out the entire time because one of the layers was collapsing on itself, but we just had to assemble it and go.
We weren't there for the recpetion but this is how it would have looked if we were thhere. (Thank goodness for being able to steal others peoples pictures from facebook!) As is usually the case things always take longer than you’d planned. In this case, what with one thing and another we didn’t leave Salt Lake for parts east until about 6pm. This was unfortunate as the hotel we’d made reservations for was a solid eight hour drive away in Sidney, Nebraska.

Well, that’s a lot of text for one entry. We’ll tell you more soon.

The Baby Sleep Solution

Alright here we are again at last. As of late Jack is smiling and talking a lot more. Here is a video compilation to prove it, though the smiles illustrated are unusual one that I thought were funny. The second clip is Jack in his pajamas that are on backwards (got to love Chris putting him to bed every night!)

Jack is also an awesome sleeper. We owe it all to our new favorite book- the baby sleep solution. Jack goes to bed at 7 pm then stays in his crib until 6:30 am; he doesn't even wake up then, we get him up to eat. He has been sleeping about 12 hours since about 8 weeks. Seriously, the book is great.

Other notable events- we've started potty training as well! Not really. Hopefully he won't hate us in the future because of this picture but it is so cute.

He did however go swimming for the first time (even though he looks grumpy he kind of liked it for a little while.)

went to a Independence day parade,

and is now blessed. Check out his awesome vest and tie. In the lives of Chris and Hilary, Chris pasted his thesis defense and will be able to graduate with his masters in August. Hilary has only 3 1/2 weeks left of work. Then we move to Maryland after a brief jaunt to Alaska.

Our fate will be decided on July 15th. We have entered into a housing contract and have our financing all lined up, but we just now need approval from the home association to buy our unit and be allowed to the live there. The board of directors will meet on the 15th to determine if we qualify. If we don't get in, I don't know where we will live and that will make me quite unhappy.

1 month!

Jack is now 1 month old as of Thursday, and I can't believe it. He is now 9.5 lbs according to Wii Fit, but the 0-3 mo. clothes are still a little big so he is still in the newborn size.

To celebrate his month occasion I made a cake. Actually I wanted to make a cake and found an occasion to do so. The inside was my inspiration, three flavors: Orange, Lime, and Lemon.

And now a picture of Jack with his alligator outfit because I like it (shirt and pants from Grandma Verhaaren and accessories from my co-worker). We are determined to make the alligator toy his favorite.

Because we have to show off

Well, a lot has happened since we posted last. Or at least it seems that way, but this might be due the extra amounts of time we’ve been awake (especially Hilary) to observe happenings. It’s hard to believe that Jack is almost four weeks old, and he still won’t talk to me. I’m okay with that though, I can still beat him in chess three games out of five.

Some of the excitement of the last few weeks we’ve been able to record in pictures and on video. Our first use of our video camera we particularly exciting, since it allowed us to save for posterity Jack’s better spit up on Dad experiences.

Spitting up has not been all Jack’s been doing though, for instance he occasionally smiles The only downside to these occurrences is that they seem to have little to nothing to do with the external world. He’ll be sitting staring at nothing or the wall behind me and suddenly break out in a grin. That we even captured one on film (or whatever digital cameras have) was dumb luck, but we’ll take it.

He’s also been helping me out around the house. Here’s a picture of him giving valuable feed back on my thesis.

Here are two shots of us wrestling. The first is shortly after he tackled me (totally unfairly I might add, he gave no warning) and shortly thereafter he had me pinned. Seeing that physically he had me outmatched I challenged him to a sleeping contest which I won hands down. That boy has not mastered the art of sleeping.

We try to help him out in that regard by wrapping him up like a baby burrito, but he has grown tired (get it!) of this recently. At least, when I try to swaddle him he tends to fight me tooth (figuratively) and nail (literally). I have found that a sure fire way to get him sleepy is to keep him warm. If he’s lying in the sun or basking by the space heater he calms down and passes out immediately.

This may just be a ploy to get me to leave him alone. The other day I walked in unannounced and found evidence that he works as a superhero when I think he’s asleep. If you look closely you can see that his super name is NINJA, and his powers are to wear socks on both his feet and his hands. What villain can stand before this cuteness? Of course such a job requires him to stay in shape. Most of his work out routine consists of lifting his head.

After a strenuous work out like that he likes to relax with some feeding and nice bath.

To get the food he calmly cries with increasing intensity and facial folding until his Mom gives in. A typical beginning to such a cry is here recorded:

Another technique he uses to get what he wants in ridiculous amounts of cuteness. For instance, he might lounge around with his shirt off waiting for someone to lavish him with gifts of modeling contracts.

All in all he’s pretty great and we look forward to him supporting us in our golden years.

Hilary's note: I am a little more literal in my posts so just to clarify some things...first of all, I do interact with my child, I'm just the one behind the camera so there is no proof of it. Jack had a little bit of Jaundice when we brought him home so we would let him lay in the sun to help. At work we had a little baby party where my co-workers could decorate onsies and so we got a lot of cute ones and a lot of fun ones, so in the future Jack will be a Boston Red Socks fan and a Pittsburgh Penguins fan among other things. The head lifting is one of my favorite things Jack does. At the hospital when I would hold him on my chest he would lift his head up and look around and it would be oh so cute. His head just keeps getting stronger.

All in all, it is nice not to be pregnant now, pregnancy was not at all what I was expecting. Oddly enough, the best weeks of my pregnancy were the last two (the last time I threw up was at 36 weeks, but I was still nauseous) and I never felt like I was huge or got full use of my maternity clothes. I actually enjoyed labor and am considering going without an epidural next time (and yes there will be a next time despite how much I despised the first 36 weeks!).