Summer with the Pehrsons!

I am such a horrible blogger! I should probably have my blog taken away from me since I don't care for it very well. Anyway, I figured that since I had a whole summer's worth of pictures to download off of my camera, it was probably about time to update.

Way back in May, my mom did the Women of Steal Triathlon in American Fork and did awesome! We were able to go and Gram sure was excited to have her little cheerleader there.

Alaina has been growing and learning so much, including falling and hitting her head, climbing, and guitar hero :) She got these big dents in her head from falling into the wood molding we have on our couches.

Alaina also had her 1st birthday in July, and she got so many presents! We actually hid some at home so we can pull them out when some toys start to get old. We had a party for her with the families in SLC and she was absolutely darling! She was dancing and running around and just delightful.

For those of you who aren't familiar with our first birthday tradition, my mom lived in Germany and learned this there. On the child's 1st, you set 3 plates in front of them: one with a piece of cake, one with a book, and one with money. Whichever one the child chooses first determines they're "destiny," if they'll be fat, smart, or rich. Alaina chose the cake, but she didn't grab fist fulls and go crazy- she just pointed at and touched the cake, like she knew she was just supposed to choose one. We did it again on her actual birthday though, and she chose the money, so who knows. :)

Continued on next post....

Some Quick Pics

So our Mother's Day weekend was quite a busy one. Cory took off work on Friday so that we could go to his mom's graduation ceremony. Yay for Kim! We are so proud of you. Following that we went to IHOP for lunch with all the fam, and Alaina learned this:

I'm not exactly sure why we taught her this, but I'm sure that we'll regret it eventually. Saturday we had the Hunter High Alumni water polo game and it was so much fun to see everyone. There was a huge turnout- thanks to facebook- but unfortunately both girls and boys alumni teams lost. Not by much though! We had a bbq afterwards and it was so great to catch up with everybody and what not. After that we went and got family pictures taken- thanks Gusti!- and Alaina cooperated for the most part.

Sunday afternoon we went to a farm where Cory's sister Heidee volunteers. Heidee has adopted a goat for her FFA class and was dying for Alaina to see him. Alaina loved it!

This is a bit of a shorter post, but I gotta get pics of my mom's triathalon from saturday uplaoded and edited before I go on. Be back soon!

To Easter, and Beyond!

Ok, so I'm having a few issues with our photo software, so I can't upload all of our super cute pictures from baby animal days and easter egg hunts, but if you really are desparate to see them, just check out facebook :)

Alaina had such a blast at baby animal days. She's just starting to recognize different animals and their names and sounds, so it was really fun. She did try to strangle a duckling and poked a bunny in the eye, but it's only because she loves them so much, right?

Anyway, we've been doing pretty good lately, but I have to confess something. I lied. Alaina's teeth went back down once again, so she really doesn't have any. But she is teething again this week. I'm so sick of this, I just can't wait for it to be over! Alaina is officially walking now- she can walk across the room by herself, but only if it fancies her. She really prefers to crawl still, but if she's standing she'll take two or three steps before she goes down on her hands and knees.

We've got everything ready to plant our garden, but we keep putting it off because it just won't quit snowing! It's been one extreme or the other, and I really wish that Mother Nature would just make up her mind already! Last week it was warm though, so we went to feed the ducks at First Dam. It ended up that we really fed the seaguls and watched the geese fight, so it was a pretty interesting adventure. I love this picture of Alaina though- she's just too dang cute!

Alaina has been learning so much and it's just a blast to watch. Her favorite game is let's pull out all the stuff that's in this container and throw it around! She really likes to do it to the laundry basket, but anything really will do- the diaper bag, her toy box, the garbage can, and so much more! She really is getting her motor skills down, and she loves the rocking horse that Grandma Kim and Grandpa Gil got her for Christmas. She can push the button so it makes noise and rock it herself! So really that's all that's been happening around here. Happy April!

Out Like A Lion And Still Teething

So this month has been a pretty interesting one. On the 9th Alaina attempted at walking and sort of failed. She took a step but fell down right after. The following day she took a step and stayed standing! We're counting the latter as her first step, but I wouldn't say she's walking yet. Yesterday she did two little shuffle steps, but she's too smart and knows that crawling is less dangerous. :) She will go wherever you want her to if you let her hold your fingers though. Grandpa Lee has found that Alaina likes him more if he does this.

So about the teething: Two weeks ago Alaina was up every hour or so through the night, had a slight fever and was chewing on EVERYTHING. We were giving her tylanol and alternating between teething tablets and orajel, but nothing seemed to work. She was refusing to eat anything and went about 24 hours without any liquids, so we went into the doctor to see if there was something else on top of the teething. Apparently she is just an "extreme teether" and that was that. Currently she has at least one, maybe two that have broken through, and 4 more coming up. Six at once is not something I'd wish for, especially when they come slowly- she's been cutting since Christmas! Oh, and I was really mad that nobody told us when we could up her tylanol dosage- we were giving her 1/3 of what she could have, hardly putting a dent in her pain! Why don't doctors give you a chart of weight and dosage? Wouldn't that make sense? Anyway, so she is doing a lot better now that we can relieve some of the pain that she has, but it's still no picnic.

A couple of days ago I was folding laundry and Alaina decided to help. She ended up pushing the hamper around all over the front room. It was pretty funny.
It's interesting to see how much she learns every day. She has now discovered that pulling all the wipes out is super cool, and she also cheats with her jack-in-the-box. She just pulls on the little latch that keeps the lid down instead of cranking the handle! Alaina's also been doing really well with solid foods and feeding herself. She used to keep a cheerio in her fist and just suck on her whole hand, but now she can put the whole thing in her mouth and crunches on it. Alaina is starting to recognize animals, and she loves dogs. I really hope this won't cause a problem with begging for a pet later on.
The other day I was making dinner and Cory was (supposed to be) watching Alaina. He didn't put up our baby gate and the next thing we know she's missing. We looked everywhere, and finally Cory went to check the bathroom. Sure enough, Alaina had crawled in there and closed the door. She thought it was the funniest thing, and now she tries to close that door all the time.

I'm reminiscing as I write this next paragraph- ya know that day when it was over 70 degrees and you didn't even need a jacket and it was like Spring was here? Well now it's snowing all week and I wonder if we'll ever get to go to the park again!! Alaina had a great time on the swings. She wasn't so sure about the slide though.

Saturday Marci, Larry and Heidee came up for a visit. Heidee babysat for us while we went to the temple and it was so nice to do an endowment session. We haven't done one since I got pregnant because I just couldn't sit that long, so we would do more sealings. Larry is Deaf, so they had a monitor up with captions and interpreters for him. I got so much more out of it because I could read the captions and watch the signing as I listened to it, so it was easier to listen.

February

Well it's been a fantastic month for us. Alaina is just growing a mile a minute and it's hard to keep up! That week that she started crawling, she figured out how to pull herself up to stand. She pulls herself up on anything she can now, including my legs if I stand still too long.

We went to the State swim meet at BYU on the 14th and Ken did so awesome! He swam the 100 Butterfly placed 13th going into it and came out at 6th! He dropped 2 seconds and ended up medaling. He was pretty stoked and told me that he's only 2 seconds from the school record (held by John Harvey) and he thinks he can beat it next year. Alaina loved being there- at first. She was so intruigued by the splashing all the swimmers were making while they warmed up. And then it got loud. Luckily Ken only had one other swim in the relay (which he also did super in), so we were ok hanging out in the hall with the baby for a lot of it.

Last week we took Alaina swimming for the first time. She absolutely loves bathtime, and I end up almost as wet as she does because she splashes so much. She didn't like it quite as much because the water was a bit cold and they were playing some pretty loud music at the pool. She got used to it after a while, but she was shivering so bad we decided to take her out. We'll have to try another time, and hopefully we have more fun. :)

This last Saturday Alaina decided it was time to stand on her own. We were at Grandma Lisa's house, so it was pretty exciting. I'm pretty sure that she'll be walking before March is over. It's just crazy because she's so tiny, but I've heard people say that when they don't have as much weight to haul around they tend to crawl and walk earlier. I'm not worried about it because she's already moblie, and if I don't have to carry her ALL of the time, I won't complain.

Crawling, crawling, crawling everywhere!

I know it's only been a week since I updated, but I'm doing it anyway :) Alaina has been a crawling maniac ever since she figured out how cool it is. We desperately need to get a baby gate for the kitchen so she'll just stay in one room. We have a door leading upstairs, so that really isn't an issue, although it could be. She has decided that pulling herself up on things is even cooler than crawling- imagine that! She really likes pulling up on my legs because she can grab my pant legs so easily, so I can't sit on the couch with my legs down without being attacked by the critter.

We have had a rough couple of days with teething, but hopefully that will be (temporarily) over soon. She has two teeth coming in at the same time, but they aren't' the bottom middle two. It's the two teeth beside those, so it's pain on both sides of her mouth, not just one. Last night she slept better than she had in a long time, so I've got my fingers crossed.

Today is the Region swim meet for Hunter, so I want to wish everyone luck. Even though we're far away, even Alaina is cheering you on! We got these shirts (thanks mom and dad) for the State meet next Saturday, and my dad is so proud that he came up with the saying on Alaina's: "Hunter Swim Guppy." It is pretty dang cute. I've gotta make sure that I put a bow in her hair that day so everyone will know that she is a girl. She just doesn't have that much hair yet that I can do anything with it, but it's enough that she'll wake up with a bed head :p

Here are a few pictures that I've captured this week, including some of Alaina playing with the new penguin that Grandma Lisa got her for Valentine's Day :)

Christmas...and more!

Ok I know it's almost February and I'm just now getting stuff posted for Christmas. But give me a break- my house is really truly clean! Because I was pregnant when we moved we never actually got all the way unpacked. Luckily, we've got a room upstairs that was just our junk and pc room for a while. It was starting to really irritate me, so I got to work and I've spent the last week completely cleaning it. We've made about 3 trips to DI to get rid of stuff and our garbage can is full. I know that's only a weeks worth of an excuse, but I am so proud that it's actually done, espcecially now that Alaina is mobile! That's right, she's been kinda crawling for the past couple of weeks, but today it's official! I couldn't really get a picture of the actual act of the crawling because she'd just sit up and pose every time I tried :/

Anyway, so we had a great Christmas this year and Alaina truly got spoiled. She now has her own rocking horse, tons of cute stuff from Hawaii from Grandpa Gil and Grandma Kim, and penguin stuff from Grandma Lisa. (I guess I should explain that Alaina loves panguins. We discovered this when Cory's sister gave us some puppet wash cloths that she got as a white elephant gift. Alaina would get sooo excited with the penguin, but she would just stare at the hippo and throw it. lol) We did two Christmas mornings and Alaina had a great time tearing the paper. She liked the bows the best though. Sorry I don't have too many pictures, I'm still working on getting them from other people :) I was a little busy helping with the whole process rather than taking pictures.


We were able to stay from Christmas Eve clear through that Sunday, so we had a lot of time to hang out and play guitar hero world tour- yay! Ken got it from Santa along with a ps3. It was pretty funny because my dad and Cory were determined to beat this particular song on a harder level, so they played it about 20 times until they finally did. I ended up having that song in my head for a few days...


January has been an interesting month- Alaina is just growing too fast! As I mentioned she has officially started crawling and actually pulled herself up to stand with a box the other day! We had another doctor's appointment this month and she's dropped in percentile again- only the 20th! But they did say that it's based off of formula fed babies, so not to worry too much. She's been reaching her milestones and is still gaining weight, she's just super tiny. She's only 15 pounds, and she turns 7 months on Sunday. We're pretty sure that it's her extremely fast metabolism that's making it so she doesn't gain a whole lot of weight. She's constantly playing and interacting. She's just reached the point when she likes anyone and everyone and will smile and talk to them. This happens mostly at church and at the store. We've started putting her in the shopping cart sitting up instead of just in her car seat now, and boy is that an adventure! She LOVES it. She's constantly kicking her feet and rocking and has a grand old time.