One of our favorite Kate videos

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Here is a video of Kate laughing with her Daddy!

(Make sure you mute the music at the bottom)

I am 4 months old!

Friday, December 19, 2008

My parents are terrible at this whole blogging thing, so I thought I would take a turn and give all of you an update about me. Today is my four month birthday. Mom and Dad took me to my check-up and the mean nurse gave me three shots in the leg. I was NOT happy with her at all. Mom and Dad reassured me that these shots are good, and I need them. I weighed . . . Drum roll please . . . 16 pounds and 6 ounces. My weight is in the 94 percentile. I am 27 inches long, I know! I'm a tall girl. There is no percentage for my length! I can't remember the measurements for my head but it is in the 36 percentile. I guess there are a lot more babies out there that have bigger heads than me. Dr. Escham told Mom and Dad that she normally likes her patients to wait until they are at least 5 months old before they are introduced to rice cereal but she said I can try it now if I want. They are hoping that by doing that they will be able to trick me into sleeping all night long for Mom. Little do they know that I am the one in charge :)

I am the happiest baby when I first wake up. I'm all about smiles and laughing! Mom and I have a good time. She tries to take lots of pictures of me, but when she gets that weird black thing that flashes in front of me, I focus on that and try to figure out what the heck it is. So mom can rarely get a good picture of me smiling. I am figuring out how to roll onto my stomach from my back, but for the life of me I can't figure out yet how to get back onto my back. I HATE being on my stomach. . . most of the time.

I recently discovered my hands, apparently I've had them the whole time but I think they were hiding. Sometimes I wish this little body of mind came with a owners manual because just when I think I have things figured out I usually end up scratching my nose.

By evening time I am exhausted from playing all day, that I get pretty grumpy before bed time. But I do try to throw in a few smiles and laughs for Dad since I only see him in the evening throughout the week. Saturdays and Sundays are my favorite because I get Mom and Dad all day long! They love to play with me and give me all of the attention.

I got in my first accident on Wednesday. It was the scariest thing that has happened to me. Mom and I were on our way to meet Grandma so they could get some Christmas shopping done. I was sleeping in the back. Mom was driving and the light turned yellow, so she did what all good drivers do and stopped so she wouldn't run a red light. Well we had a brilliant 16 year old driver behind us who was distracted, whether it was her two friends, the music, or her cell phone, who didn't notice the light turn red, so she rear ended us going probably 30 mph. It scared the living day lights out of both of us. I screamed for a good fifteen minutes. Mom lost her hat, and got some pretty good whip lash. When the ambulance arrived they spent a good five minutes just playing with me to make sure I was ok. We are both ok. The accident could have been a lot worse.

I am so excited for my first Christmas. I love staring at our Christmas tree, well any Christmas tree for that matter. I'm still not sure what I think of all that white stuff outside. It looks so cold! I can't wait for Santa to come to my house. I hope he brings me lots of presents. I sat on his lap at Babies R Us and he seems like a pretty nice guy!

Well, I am off to my cousin's birthday party. Here are some pictures of me though!

My Cousin Morgan and I

GO UTES!!!!! Sugar bowl here we come
(not really though)

I'm sick of Mom taking all these pictures of me

Here I am passed out on the couch

Santa and I

Thank you for the memories Grandpa

Thursday, December 4, 2008

The last 24 hours have been very difficult for my family. Wednesday night about 10:45 my cell phone went off while Christy and I were just settling into bed. Anytime your cell phone goes off around 11:00 at night its not a good thing. It was my little brother Jon letting me know that something had happened to my 85 year old Grandpa. He didn't know many details but he said my Dad was already there and that he and my other siblings were getting ready to go over as well. I asked him to call me when he knew something because we had just put Kate to bed and it would take us a little while to pack our little family into the car. While Christy and I were talking I decided to call my Mom and Dad and see if I could learn more. My Mom seemed frustrated when I spoke to her and she asked me if she could call me back in a minute. We interpreted my Mom's frustration to mean that although we didn't know what was going on, things were likely OK. Since Jon seemed to have taken the role of point person I was not surprised that he was the one to call me. His first breath was used to tell me that my dear Grandfather had passed away. I physically felt my lungs contract and my heart take a double beat in that moment. Why wasn't I prepared for this information? It seems like I should have known the very second Jon said my Dad had rushed to my Grandparents house that my Grandfather's passing was imminent. I do not want to go into many details of what occurred over the next few hours except to say that my family spared no time in rallying around my Grandmother to provide comfort and to say our goodbyes. I can't help but think that my Grandfather's passing happened exactly as he had wished. He simply laid down and peacefully passed away. When the paramedics arrived there was really nothing to be done. In my opinion this was the best thing that could have happened. His body was so very tired and I know it was frustrating to him to lose the ability to do so many things that he truly loved. He had lived a full life until it expired.

I have always been so very proud of my Grandfather and I have always been so proud to bear his name as my middle name. I know that he loved me so very much just like he loves all of his Grandkids. I feel so lucky to have been born the oldest Grandchild in the Moffitt family. I have so many amazing memories of my Grandfather that I feel I need to put down before time can rob them from my memory.

My Grandpa has always had a green thumb as long as I can remember. He always had the most beautiful yard and he grew the tastiest Raspberries I think I have ever had. I remember Andy and I weaving through the raspberry bushes finding the perfect ones to eat right off the bush. As I look back now I realize that my Grandmother was growing those Raspberries for her Jam, but Grandpa would still point out some of the riper ones to me without hesitation when Grandma wasn't looking. He treated us so well. I will really miss working in the yard with my Grandpa. When I was young we would go over to his house and work in his yard. He expected perfection and there was never the option of trying to cut corners. I swear even as he grew older he could still out work us kids sometimes simply because he was willing to do what it took to do it right.

My Grandfather has an amazing ability to conceptualize things and then to build them. It was rare that we would come home from my Grandparents house without something my Grandfather had built. I remember him taking wooden dowels and big 2x4's and turning them into little wooden boats for us. I remember sitting in the tub surrounded by tug boats, big shipping boats, and a speed boat all that my Grandpa had made for us.

I remember in the 5th grade my Grandfather helped me with a Science Fair project. My idea was to add turn signals to the back of my bike. It was supposed to just be a silly idea that maybe I would make a poster board about, but I didn't really think I could do it. My Grandpa proved me wrong. By the time we were done we had fit my old mountain bike with a fully functioning set of blinkers. He built a battery pack onto the frame just about where the water bottle would go and a thumb toggle switch up on the handle bars which sent the signal on to a harness that came off the seat post and went out with a blinking red light on each side. As I sat back and looked at how cool my bike had become I began to realize just how incredible by Grandpa really was. That one experience is likely the root cause of my fascination of taking things apart to understand how they work for the next 10 years.

While Christy and I lived in my Grandparents basement I had so many wonderful opportunities to work side by side with him. I cannot count how many times I would get home from Work and Grandpa would be in the yard working on the sprinklers or planting flowers. I was only to happy to put on my work clothes and run around the house while he flipped sprinklers on and off. I remember when he helped me convert and old food storage closet into our clothes closet. He would do all the calculations in his head and write them down for me. Half the time I didn't understand what he intended for me to do, but it worked out better than I could have imagined every time. There were some scary moments as well. When my Grandpa had me pull out his table saw so he could work I got a little nervous. He would move his walker next to the saw and push the boards through. Looking back I was likely more in danger of injuring myself than he was. He was just a natural when it came to working with his hands.

I remember the talks my Grandpa and I would have, especially when I needed some guidance. My Grandpa was a man of quiet dignity. He was the kind of man that did what was right even when he knew no one else was looking. He didn't need the recognition of the world, his self satisfaction was more than enough. He always seemed to have a story or a simply analogy that simplified things and made the chaos of life a little more bearable. He had such a great sense of humor and he was great at seeing the eternal perspective of things.

I really regret that I didn't get him talking about his life until I was an adult myself. My Grandfather did some pretty incredible stuff during his life. It was so interesting to hear about the places he had traveled while he either worked for the Government as an engineer or when he was a young man in WWII. My Grandfather came from very humble beginnings and to hear all that he accomplished was amazing. It always would astound me when he would recall a stories of old friends or people with whom he had worked from 30 years ago with complete clarity. He truly had a very sharp mind. I was so very proud that coming from his rural community in central Utah he was able to graduate from the University of Utah as a Mining engineer. Because of his example most of his sons, and now his Grandson's are going on to graduate from the University of Utah as well.

I truly don't think I could have asked for a getter Grandpa, mentor, and friends in Grandpa Jack.
Here is the link to his Obituary.

http://www.legacy.com/saltlaketribune/Obituaries.asp?Page=Lifestory&PersonId=120990195

P.S. I'm probably not done with this post but I'm just so very tired after the events of these last few days that I need to go to bed.

Count your many blessings

Monday, December 1, 2008

I don't mean to get preachy or anything but it all started on Sunday. I was preparing my lesson for my primary class and it was about Ether and the Jaredites. One of the attention activities they suggested was the "Cycle of History" how you start out being righteous so then you receive blessings, then your dealing with prosperity which leads to pride which leads to wickedness. Then your suffering and you realize why your suffering so you humble yourself and repent. It brought to my attention that I need to be better about appreciating all my blessings I have in my life and not take it for granted.

I was in the kitchen today cooking (surprise surprise!) and I was thinking about everything I have in my life that I absolutely love. I love that I have more time in the day to cook yummy meals for my family. I'm trying lots of new recipes and experimenting. I never realized how much I love to cook.

I feel so blessed that I can work from home now and can spend so much more time with Kate. I love that since I am working from home I can control the hours I work 100%. I'm not paying booth rent, so I don't feel like I have to fill up a whole day to make it worth working. I can therefore spend a lot more time with Ryan in the evenings.

I feel blessed to have a roof over my head. I feel blessed I have a great neighborhood. We have the best ward. Everyone is so friendly and it's great.

I feel blessed to have such a great family. Every time Ryan and I are coming home from being with family, whether it's the Moffitt's or Smith's, I always say how much I love our family and how lucky we are that we have such great families and that we all get along so well.

It's pretty obvious but I love Kate so so much. I love her more and more every day. She also is getting happier every day. She cries less and less. I love it! She is now laughing and smiling so much.

Last but definitely not least, I love Ryan. He is the best husband ever. I need to be careful not to take advantage of him because anything I ask him to do he will do it. Anything. He is extremely hard working and is always striving to be better. He treats me so well. I wouldn't change a thing about him.

I could go on and on, but I have a busy evening ahead of me. Thanks for listening to me go on and on. Remember to count your many blessings!

Playing Catch up

Sunday, November 2, 2008

FYI. . . I have done a few posts since it's been a while. A lot has gone on, and I thought it would be easier to post them separately rather than doing one long post. So check them all out.

Happy Halloween

Saturday, November 1, 2008

Kate's first Halloween. She was Tinkerbell. She didn't love the wings, so they were only on long enough to take some pictures. But doesn't she look so dang cute?

FHE

Monday night everyone met at Moffitt's house to carve pumpkins. I was so excited to do this because a friend of mine let me copy her pumpkin. It was a football helmet with the U logo on it. I let Ryan do it though, and I did a spider with her web.

Ryan in the process of carving his pumpkin.My pumpkin was hard. I was the last to finish.
Spider web(mine), U of U football helmet(Ryan's), Happy Halloween(Jessica's), Halloween ghoul(Greg's), and Tessa with her fish(Jon's and Scott's)
Look how good they turned out! The hard work paid off.

Happy Birthday Jackson 10/13/08

It was Jackson's 2nd birthday while Gollhofer's were in town for Kate's blessing. We went to Jungle Jim's to celebrate. We had so much fun. Who would've guessed adults could have just as much fun as the kids?!

Jackson patiently waiting for us to sing to him.

I really wanted to ride this roller coaster, and figured that if the kids were "scared" to go on it, I could be the good aunt and ride with them so they wouldn't be so scared. I can tell you though, one time was more than enough for me. I don't quite have the stomach for roller coasters anymore.
Hey. . . It's his birthday! How can you tell him this isn't how you play this game and he's doing something wrong?

I guess I like Jungle Jim's quite a bit. I used Jackson as an excuse the ride the bumper cars. I think I had more fun than he did.

Kate's Blessing 10/12/08

We blessed Kate on October 12th. It was such a wonderful day. The only thing that would've made it a better day was if the weather was cooperating so people could hang out outside, and not feel like they had to eat and rush out the door. We had a great turn out and we appreciate all the support and help to make this day so great. Ryan did absolutely amazing. The night before I asked Ryan if he was nervous to bless her, and of course he wasn't. He hadn't even thought about what he was going to say. He said he would just let the spirit guide him. You would've guessed she was the upteenth child he had blessed. He's a natural when it comes to things like this.

Here is Kate and Brewer just hangin out on the big day.
Here's some of the fam Hanging out eating and talking.
Doesn't Parker look so good without his front teeth?!

Happy Birthday Ryan! (9/24/08)

For Ryan's birthday I surprised him and did dinner and dessert up at our cabin with the fam. He was totally shocked. Earlier that day I had Parker text him saying they were going to the cabin for dinner if we wanted to join them. Ryan called me and asked if I wanted to go. I acted like I didn't really want to go. Once Ryan found out I had not made dinner, he made the decision that we were going up there. I knew if it was his decision he would never guess anything was going on! When we pulled up to the cabin, he saw a white Tahoe and it took him a few seconds to realize that it was his Dad's car, and he had been fooled. We had a great time! We had some of his favorite food. Pizza and Drumsticks. I decided to have a salad there too for the rest of us. (For those of you who don't know Ryan well enough, Salad is NOT in his diet.)

Some of us went outside on the swing

And others played around the workd ping pong

but all of us had drumsticks for dessert!

Including the birthday boy!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RY, KATE AND I LOVE YOU

Baby-thon 2008

Saturday, September 20, 2008

As many of you know within about a month of when Kate was born she had two cousins born as well... It was a very very busy month for our family. On September 7th cousin Brewer was blessed and Kate of course attended to show her support. Those two girls are going to be such heart breakers when they get older.

Kate with her Mommy, Cousin Brewer, and Aunt Lindsi

Kate and Brewer dressed up in their Sunday best at Brewer's blessing.


The very next week (September 14th) Kate's cousin Carter was blessed out in Colorado. She talked Mom and Dad into driving her 8 hours so she could attend her handsome cousins blessing. She's such a socialite and wouldn't miss a good party for the world.

Kate and her Cousin Carter holding hands... They were fast friends.

Cousins Hanging out again. Carter is already dreaming of being the starting Quarterback for the Broncos, he's so macho.

We have decided to veto headbands when riding in the car seat as witnessed in the following two photos.

Kate is really starting to develop a cute little personality and unfortunately she almost always gets her way. We are really working on getting her on a good schedule but at times she doesn't feel like cooperating. Those nights we are usually up until around 1:30 or 2:00, but we still have a good time with her.

Christy thinks we need a bigger bed and after looking at this picture I think Kate agrees... Where does Daddy sleep?

Kate is so scandalized by her Daddy.

Dad is quickly learning to Multi-task

Our little family all dressed up for Church

After Carter's blessing in Colorado.

We are happy to be home again after so much time out partying but we are still looking forward to Kate's blessing on October 12th (unless things change). If you want to attend we'd love to see you, feel free to call us and we'll give you all the details.

The first two weeks

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

So Kate is actually three weeks old, I finished this post last week and for some silly reason didn't post it. When I have more time I will do another post, but enjoy!

Well today is Kate's two week birthday in exactly 37 minutes. I can't believe its already been two weeks to be honest. Time just flies by when your having fun! Not much is new. We came home from the hospital Thursday August 21st. She had her one week appointment on Monday August 25th and she weighed 7 pounds and 7 ounces. I'm sure she weighs a ton more now, she's getting a little chubby but it's oh so cute! I have been having a hard time just staying at home so on Thursday we went over to Moffitt's and just hung out. We used the stroller for the first time and went for a little walk. I was in heaven! It was so nice to get out. Then Friday we went to my Mom's house and hung out with her and went for another walk. Sunday we went over to Moffitt's house for a BBQ because Aunt Gayle was in town. Our cousin Melissa had her baby in August too so we had fun taking pictures of the two babies.

For Labor Day we went to Moffitt's in the morning for breakfast and then to my family cabin for a bbq. While at the Moffitts our adorable innocent child decided that she had to poo while Aunt Jess was changing her diaper. It was honestly the funniest thing we had all seen. I can't belive our little girl can shoot that far. No girl should be able to have an aim like that! Rather than helping Jess out, we all ran for the cameras.

Kate is such a good baby. She hardly cries, but when she does, boy does she know how to use those lungs. She's good at night. She only wakes up now when she needs to eat. She'll wake up usually every three to five hours. I am absolutely loving being at home with her. It will be so hard when I go back to work and have to leave her behind. I'm supposed to go back to the salon on Fridays, but I don't know if that will really happen now that she's here. I might just work from home and choose my own hours. We'll see when the time gets closer. Well, here are some more pictures of little Kate.

Kate enjoying her swing

Kate and Elliette

Good aim, eh?

Jess and the poo

Kate making a silly face up at the cabin

The Many Faces of Kate

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

The majority of these pictures were taken within a 5 min period when she was resting on Ryan's chest. She is such an active baby and we thought you all might enjoy these shots.

Baby Kate is Great!

Saturday, August 23, 2008

As many of you now already know Christy and I are now the proud parents of a Beautiful little girl named Kate Lyn Moffitt, or as I like to call her Kate the Great. I know that as a parent I'm likely a little biased but she is stunningly beautiful and oh so much fun. I'm seriously thinking of asking her pediatrician if she has a chronic case of "cute baby disease" because it seems to be getting worse everyday (read: she is getting cuter by the day). So I'll try to breeze past the boring false alarm stuff and get right to the good stuff. On Thursday the 14th Christy spent the day with her Mom and while they were strolling through Costco she told her Mom that her contractions were getting closer together and starting to hurt, so being the worry-wort that I am I made her to go the hospital that night. The nurse did her thing and announced that Christy hadn't really made too much progress from her previous doctors appointment and was in the process of sending us home when our Doctor (see previous post about Doctor Drama) came in and asked us if we'd like to break Christy's water and get this thing started... We were in SHOCK. Neither of us really expected to go into labor that day, we thought of this visit as a dress rehearsal for the real thing. Anyway Christy decided against having her water broken with the idea that we would be back within a day or so for the real thing. I took Friday off work with the idea that I needed to "be prepared" (I am a scout leader now so what do you expect). Our biggest mistake was telling people that we had gone to the Doctor. All of a sudden every person we knew was calling to find out if we were having our baby. Lesson to others, don't cry "BABY!" until you are admitted to the hospital, you will save a lot of frustration. So nothing happened until Saturday which frustrated me since I had taken Friday off work. On Saturday Christy's contractions were 2 minutes apart and we made the trip to the hospital again. This time we expected to actually stay and we were surprised that her contractions hadn't moved her along very far. When our Dr. came in again we were almost positive that his previous offer to break Christy's water was still good, we were wrong. He was VERY busy and since she wasn't really in "labor" yet they gave Christy a shot to help with the pain and sent us home. The nurse said she'd bet we'd be back in 24 hours so we started scheming again about how we should be back any second for the real thing. So long story short, nothing until Tuesday. On Tuesday Christy wakes up at 6:00 am in pain but when we call the "on call" doctor at the hospital he tells us that the pain Christy is having is her body getting ready for labor and it's not REAL labor yet. With the reassurance of a on call doctor who is probably working the graveyard shift to pay off his student loans I decided to go to work. I was at work for 10 min when Christy calls me and says that she had spoken to her wise older sister who said, "forget the doctor, you're in labor". Sure enough by the time I drove home, picked up Christy, drove to the hospital, and got checked in, Christy was dialated to a 5 and they told us to get comfortable because we were going to have a baby. Well since it was Andy's birthday we had hoped to avoid August 19th, but I guess Baby Kate had a different idea. Christy's epidural came at 12:30 and her water was broken at around 3:00pm with her dilated to an 8. After 2 good hours of pushing (Christy is my Hero) we welcomed Baby Kate into the world at 5:20 pm. She weighed 7 pounds 10 ounces and was 20 inches long. Although things didn't go a smoothly as we might have wanted Christy is feeling better every day and Baby Kate couldn't be any more perfect than she already is. We appreciate all the Family and Friends that have called, visited, or simply sent their regards. Sorry we couldn't talk to everyone, we were averaging at least 5 text messages an hour for the first few days and we were both pretty tired. Baby Kate is keeping us up pretty good in the night and we are both pretty tired so I think I'll cut this short for now and skip right to the pictures. Perhaps when we're up to it we'll post a progress report.

Christy getting ready.

Baby Kate fresh out of the oven.

"Mom, you'll never believe the day I've had"

Our little family

Looking especially Cute

She spends at least 90% of her day showing us this face

Dad is only too happy to help with the baby.

How many adults does it take to buckle a newborn?

The dynamic duo... Kate and her cousin Brewer.

Oh and by the way, we finally finished our basement... Here's those pictures. I didn't include any of the 2 bedrooms but just use your imagination and I'm sure you can figure it out.

The downstairs bathroom

The family room and fireplace

Laundry room... ooh look how glamorous.

Shot of Christy's salon.