Happy Halloween!

And also Happy Birthday to my beautiful older sister Jen.

I just took these of Valin in his Halloween costume. Since we are all so sick (Patxi just has a cough, Valin has a sore thoat and a cough, and I got a fever this morning) we decided not to go to the trunk-or-treat. So I just put Valin in his costume and took pictures and we hope that tons of people will come to our house to use up the tons of candy we bought.

Here is our cute tiger:
















Happy Halloween!

Starting good habits

I think that it's a good thing to have fun with a vacuum, so that later, when I ask him to vacuum as a chore, there will be even greater motivation to obey. Plus, for some reason, Valin can't get enough of them.



On the other hand, this really isn't what I want him to do with them. All well, it's good for a laugh.

Valin's experiment with walkers

This is his first experience with a walker. He's 6 months, and the one screaming at the top of his lungs is Valin.



Now his is eight months and will only go backwards. huh. But without it, he is showing an interest in walking, so it might not be long until he is.

Raking Leaves

It's that time of year! We have three trees that are sheding their dead leaves and Valin came out to help us.

Bath time fun!

I usually let him play with the mirror while we wait for the bath water to fill. And then he just plays in the water with his toys while I scrub him. He is so cute!





He just loves he's rubber ducky!


Then, after all that time in the water, he becomes wet green frog -the cutiest one I've ever seen.

I hate the flu!

Patxi came home Tuesday afternoon with a high fever and all of the sympthoms that came with it. I kind of knew it was coming so I started taking Vitaim C and Echinacia. (Of course Patxi wouldn't take them) But all I could do for Valin, beside making sure to wash our hands and things, was to make sure he got tons of sleep. But like I said Patxi got it tuesday and the fever broke that night. Then Valin woke up thruday morning (1:00am) with a fever and it broke late Thurday night. Now I feel like my head is going to expload and my nose has become a fuaccet, but so far I haven't had a fever. But the worst part is watching Valin be sick. All I can do for him is hold him and give tynol or mortrin evey 4-6 hours. If his throat hurt, he will cough until he gages and then throws up. I can't tell him to calm down and drink water instead of coughing. I can't even put a tissue to his nose and ask him to blow. I have to wait until it's running down his face. But you know what makes it worst, he is also teething on the top -from what I hear, it's that worst. My poor, sweet, sick little Valin. The good thing about it is that as Patxi was starting to get over it, I was coming down with it, so Valin has had the attention he's needed. Please keep Valin in your payers.

Valin with Grandpa Waite

We were at a football game and Valin could get enough of Grandpa's bread.

Cutiest thing on the planet

I just uploaded two month's worth of pictures, so it's posting time.
Here are just a few of Valin's cutiness which didn't fit into a particular post.







He has three more since I took that picture. One to the right of them, one of his two top-front teeth, and one to the far left on top.

My little climber!

Valin can't even walk yet but that doens't stop him from climbing anything he can. It first started with the two steps we have. Then when we went to Grandma and Grandpa's, he mastered a whole stair case. And just now I caught him trying to climb that shelves in the refridgerator. I guess I'll have a lot on my hands once he does learn to crawl, huh!

Valin's crazy cow-licks

There are a lot of things about Valin that make me laugh, like his giggle, for instance. But just looking at his hair makes smile. Ever since he was born, he had two twin cow-licks on the top of his head. We've kept his hair short so that they would be less noticable, but lately I'm letting it grow out to see if we could do something with its craziness. I took a few pictures just to make sure that you can see it from every possible angle.









Whether or not moe-hawks are in, it seems like Valin will always have one. Hum... If anyone has any hints as to how I can make it look presentable, please share. But crazy cow-licks or not, he is still the cutiest thing on this planet.

Oregon Coast Videos

I tried to stop him form eating it at least.



He wasn't quiet into the water thing after he actually felt how cold it was. But he loved "discovering" everything about the coast by putting it in his mouth.

Oregon Coast fun!

As of Sunday after church, we had no plans for Labor Day and I told the Zeyers as much when they asked. Then they envited us to go with them and a couple other families from our ward to the coast. I tentively said yes but was a little wery because it had been raining, non-stop, for the past day and a half.
Then that night, Sunday, we had Sarah Cobrun, a non-active sister I visit teach, over for dinner and we invited her along. She's tons of fun but also I thought it would be a great time for her to get to know others in our ward.
Anyway, so when we got there, it was amazingly sunny and hardly windy. It was great! Everyone had prepared for the worst weather possible -I for instance had three layers on, but it was wonderful. Here are some picture to help demonstrate.




Valin was totally into casing the waves and playing in the water until he actually got his feet in and they started to turn blue. The weather may have been nice but the water was cold as usual. Surprisingly enough, babies don't have the best cirulation I guess.


Does this remind anyone of "Goonies?"


This was Valin's first real encounter with sand and he loved exploring it.


Which meant eating it.




Isn't the Oregon Coast beautiful?

Valin is 6 months old

One of the awesome ladies I visit teach wants to be a professional photographer, so she offered to take Valin's 6 month picture. It was right before his nap time so we didn't get very many good ones -i think I'll ask her if we could shoot agian. But here are the ones I like. Tell me with one I should hang up in our house.

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Free nights!

We have had quite a challenging few weeks. But I'll start first by saying this: I will be the first to tell you that I know close to nothing when it comes to raising children. (And I thank all of my wonderful in-laws for their examples of great parenting.) But I’ve had this feeling that there must be a better way of doing it, at least for us. Valin still wasn’t eating very much, up 2-3 times a night, and more winey the usual. I personally craved some form of routine (and more sleep) but didn’t know how to do it. Then my sister-in-law, Sara lent me a wonderful book called “On Becoming Babywise” and a sister I visit teach, Stephine gave me one called “Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Baby,” and together they have given me the knowledge to get Valin on a routine that promotes physical, emotional, and intelligential healthy habits. With the routine suggested in Babywise Valin is now eating at least 4-8 more ounces a day, not including siold food. And with the sleep suggestions in Healthy Sleep Habits Valin sleeps for a full 8-10 hours a night without waking to eat. Plus, now Valin is asleep by 7:00 (give or take 30 mins) so we have the rest of the night to be together. We actually get to hangout, play games, and just be together. I can't tell you how great it has been for our marriage to be able to have this time together again.

But to be honest, it has been a challenging road to get to this point. First we had to tell Valin learn to put himself to sleep. This meant crying because we were so cool, he wanted to hangout with us, even though he was tired and physically and mentally needed to sleep. I just had to say to my self after another session of crying, "Oh, he wants to play with me. I would love to play with him too, but I will have to sacrifice what I want because he needs to sleep." And now, now that he goes down without crying after we turn the lights out, rock and sing to him a little to help him wind down, we are all happy. Valin gets the sleep he needs (as do I) which means he is happier, more content, and even more curious and wanting to learn.

We also had a hard time getting him to sleep more than an hour for his naps which then would mean an early bedtime (thought he would treat it as a nap and wake up after an hour and cry for an hour after that because we had to tell him learn that it was bedtime). So we tried to lengthen the naps by making the wakeful times in between longer, but that just made him overtired and fight sleep and sleep for an hour anyway. So we tried giving Valin three naps during the day. That works on Sundays when he gets a power nap in church, but not for he rest of the week. So I think I'll try keeping him down for the full 2 hours (for the morning nap because the afternoon one is fine) and see if he'll learn to sleep while there. I think that if we stick to a rough schedule (30 min variations) which reflects he's natural sleeping pattern, then Valin learn to let himself fall asleep when he needs to.

Valin's first time playing with his Cousins

Grandma Waite had the foresight to bring the walker to the Waite Reunion since Valin has had aspirations of walking. But the cool thing is that there was enough room for him to chase and play with his cousins. But by the time I got to him with the camera, Valin and the kids were starting to get bored. But it is still a cute video.