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This and That (and video!)

// January 18th, 2010 // family

It’s been a really long time since I wrote a This and That post. My free time has been taken up with this new hobby of photography and trying to promote it a little bit with blog posts and showing the pictures I take.

But family stuff is obviously still going on and so much has changed in the last few months.

Most of that is Lyla of course…she just learns and grows everyday. The amount of stuff she knows right now is amazing to me. And to Jina. We both at times find our jaws on the floor because of something she’s done.

Let’s see…what she’s doing now:

• If you hand her a thing of baby food, a bib and spoon, she’ll carry it to the high chair and put it up on the tray
• When she gets REALLY hungry, she knows where to point for food. Last night she pointed at the fridge because that’s where her milk comes from now.
• You ask her if she’s “ready for a bath???” and she walks to the bathroom and points at the door.
• She knows that the remote control does something to the TV, but she doesn’t know what. She just holds it and looks at the TV.
• She’s gone down the slide at the mall all on her own. Wow.
• Can get down off the couch all on her own.
• Finally she’s holding her own bottle and feeding herself, if still on our laps.
• She takes one nap a day now, usually around 2 hours. At night she’s in bed between 6:30-7 and sleeps until 7-7:30. Amazing…we’re so in love with that nighttime sleeping!
• She absolutely LOVES being outside. I sit on the patio and read a book while she just wanders around, looking at airplanes (and pointing at them), laughing at the dogs and just exploring.

It’s just amazing to see her personality coming through. She does have her issues though. Right now she’s teething big time, so the past few days have been more of a challenge. She’s also very impatient at times and when something doesn’t work right, she can start crying in a second out of frustration.

She’s also great at learning things she shouldn’t be doing. We assigned her one special cabinet all to herself, and the others were off limits. Even without latches, she rarely goes into them. When she does, it’s more than she’s looking for attention we think. Otherwise, she never opens them.

I just love seeing her grow up. She’s getting so big now…grabbing stuff off the table, climbing, practically running at times and who knows what else.

In other news, my job is going great, but it’s going to be a busy first quarter for me, which will include trips to Oregon, Utah and Las Vegas more than likely. My annual review took place at the end of the year and I’m going to be moving forward with more project management training and practice.

Outside of the office, my obvious newfound love for photography is leading to new things and new opportunities. I’ve just completed my third photoshoot, this time for a little bit of compensation. I’ve never thought I could be a guy doing that type of photography, but I’m getting better and better at it and it would definitely be a nice side job to earn some extra cash.

Jina is doing great too. Work has been a little busier for her so far this year, so she’s been a bit stressed, and who can blame her. What a tough time she has working in the office two days a week, then changing gears to take care of Lyla at home for the next three. With Lyla only taking one nap a day now too, it’s less time to get things done during the day and I know it can be overwhelming.

As always, she supports me big time on whatever I do. We were talking the other night and I realized how it must look from her side to see me change hobbies/interests so much. Web design, sports writing, entertainment blogging, photography…who knows what might come next?

But we’re doing great otherwise. God is always good to us. We’re still in sort of a limbo state since we stopped going to Lifechurch, but we know God has a plan for where he wants us.

Here is a little video of Lyla and her friend Tatum, playing around in a wagon my mom got Lyla for Christmas.