Half Year Old

He's a whole 6 months old now and his personality is starting to shine.
Likes:
-Pulling my hair out
-Paper
-Jumping
-Dogs (except our neighbor's pit bull that scared him)
-Being outside
-Thomas the Train musical book
-Pacifiers & Bottles
-Sweet potato
-Biting/grabbing handfuls of my face
-Walmart
-Mirrors
-Airing out (aka: "nakie-time")
-Riding on daddy's shoulders


Dislikes:
-Falling over when sitting
-Rice cereal
-Fruit
-Getting four shots at once
-Spiders rappelling down his mobile while he sleeps

The Three Munchin-teers

Who woulda thought these cool girls hanging out on the waterfront at Camp Ritchie, wearing matching men's board shorts would someday have matching babies too?Look at these cuties, Christie Jr., Melissa Jr., & Ashlin Jr. sittin' in a row.I love them.

Murphy's Law

According to Murphy's Law if you run out of diapers at church and forget to bring an extra outfit, your baby will have their second worst* blowout ever while you are introducing yourself to a stranger. You'll also be wearing a white skirt of course.
The baby didn't mind it though. He loved riding in his car seat naked with a burp cloth/cloth diaper wrapped around him. But don't worry, he long lecture when we got home about how to behave appropriately at church.


*if you're wondering about his #1 worst blowout, that was at the airport while waiting for the 3rd flight in our journey to Wausau. A kind passenger came looking for me in the ladies bathroom because the plane was actually shutting its doors and about to take off without us.

Hanging with Daddy

On the Boppy
At the park
By some leavesOn the couch
In the air

Favorite Toy

This is Hunter's favorite thing. He usually smiles when I turn it on and then will patiently watch it spin while I do other things. The music it plays has gotten nearly unbearable to listen to anymore but its worth it for the entertainment it provides.

Wausau, WI

Here are the luxurious Landmark Hotel Apartments in downtown Wausau (pronounced: wa-saw), Wisconsin were we have been living since mid July.
The town is surprisingly cute and we are close to all the main attractions. City square is directly across the street from us. They have weekly farmer's markets, concerts, dog shows, and movie nights here.
The library and mall are both a block away. Its about 1/4 the size of the Roseville Galleria but its still nice to have a shopping center so close. There are also various cafes, pubs, and asian restaurants on our block.
This was a farmer's market we went to a couple days after we got here.

Hunter's Blessing

Finally Brady flew back home on July 9th for Hunter's baby blessing. We greeted him at the airport in our "i heart dad" onesies and Brady was shocked at how much bigger Hunter was.
He was so good he slept through the whole blessing and sacrament meeting; Hunter, not Brady.
The Wheeler and Sessions families were out in full force to support us on our happy day
This photo courtesy of Aunt Ali

Utah Trip

In June Brady flew to Memphis, TN to sell security for a month. Hunter and I stayed home and he was going to fly back for the baby blessing then we would all go back together.
While he was gone I decided to take a road trip with my parents and Brett to Utah. Brett went to EFY and we had fun just hanging around Utah for a week.I was nervous about being stuck in a car for 9 hours but Hunter slept almost the entire time.
We found the grave site of the beloved prophet

We also went here...
and saw this...
and toured this.

During the trip I had my 25th birthday in the town I was born, Provo.
We went to my favorite place for breakfast in Utah called Magelby's.
Utah's mountains are beautiful especially with all the spring green.
I got to introduce Hunter to Christie and Steve's baby Blake, who is only a few weeks older.

A much needed update

Here's our baby! Almost 3 months ago, our favorite new person, Hunter Chase Sessions was born into this world. Since then I haven't felt a desire to make time for virtual journaling but I've been feeling a bit guilty now that 3 months have passed by so quickly.
Kaiser was great. The hospital staff was really nice and the midwife was right there for the whole delivery process. During my entire stay there the only men that I encountered were the pediatricians, which just felt right. No offense to the men who are great, but I think women are just better suited for the delivering of babies.
His name was a tough decision, not so much for Brady because he was fine with all the finalists, but for me it wasn't decided until we wrote it down on the birth certificate and the certificate lady took it away. Its not easy to decide for someone else what they're going to be called for the rest of their lives. The easy part was the middle name, for one, Brady and I both really like the name. Brady suggested it be Hunter's first name but we didn't want to have the trouble of two family members with the same name. The other reason for the middle name was that Chase is missing the first 1+ yrs of his only nephew's life because he's out serving a mission. And I thought it'd be a nice reminder to Hunter of the good example Chase and his other uncles are for him.
Hunter was such a good baby in the hospital, which was a relief for me since I couldn't send him off to the nursery if I wanted to. He didn't cry much but when he did it was so sad.
As most babies probably do he loves baths. This is his first real post umbilical bath. Sometimes he'd be crying but if we turned on the faucet he'd stop mid-cry. I wasted a lot of water that way.
I've got tons of pictures of baby+daddy napping because its sooo adorable. No pictures of baby+mommy napping though, possibly because it doesn't happen.
This was Hunter on his first day at church.
Hunter's first trip was a 3 day stay on a houseboat at Lake Shasta.
He loves being naked. Hopefully that doesn't last.

He's not as hairless as he looks, but he is pretty bald, for now.
More updates to follow...

Happy St. Patrick's Day...

Today as I sit alone in my apartment wearing my four leaf clover pin, trying to recover from yet another sleepless night, I can't help but compare this day to the same day last year.

Last St. Patrick's Day was and will forever be the best St. Patrick's Day of my life.

I spent it in one of my favorite places: New York City...

with one of my favorite people: my Dad...

participating in two of my favorite pastimes: parade watching, and sight seeing.

It was the most perfect day ever but on this, the anniversary of that day I'm left feeling melancholy, wishing I was someplace else.

Like getting lost in a festively green colored crowd

or feeding hot nuts to bold squirrels in central park.

Mall Secret

Friday night I discovered something that has somehow escaped my attention for the 10+ years that I've been a frequent mall patron.

With nothing else to do on a Friday night Brady and I went to the Galleria at closing time. We had half an hour to wander around aimlessly and look at things, my typical mall strategy.

As we passed Mrs. Fields I felt bad for all the uneaten cookies that were going to waste and jokingly asked Brady to see if they'd give us some for free. I was pretty confident that he'd get shot down but they told him that 15 mins before closing time they sell leftovers for $o.25. Not a bad deal considering they're delicious and normally about $1.50. So we walked away pretty happy with our 25 cent cookies.

Emboldened by our new discovery we walked up to the food court pizza place to see what they'd give us. We got a greasy slice for a dollar instead of the usual $3-4.

Even though we had actually just eaten cheeseburgers before arriving at the mall we thoroughly enjoyed scarfing down our cheap food and plan on going back again to see what other closing time deals we've been missing out on all these years.

(Next time I think we'll try Auntie Anne's Pretzels and Panda Express.)