I'm going to try and keep these pictures in relatively chronological order - this was from a couple months ago when he first started figuring out how to grasp things instead of just flailing his arms around wildly.
We'll start off with Rawley and his progress. This kid is making leaps and bounds in his development!
Chillin' with Dad.
He's definitely been teething hardcore. He now has his first two teeth - the bottom front ones. Before Christmas break he only had one, but by the end of it he had two! It seems a little early for him to have teeth already, but maybe it's because he's extremely interested in what we're eating now.
After church one Sunday.
Before Christmas break, Rawley wasn't really rolling around much. He hadn't really figured out how to roll over to his belly or from his belly to his back. Something about being in Virginia suddenly made it click, however, and now he rolls around all the time. This is somewhat concerning for us because we have to watch him more closely so he doesn't roll off of places and because it turns out he's a side/belly sleeper. I'm afraid Rawley may have inherited that from me - I've always preferred sleeping on my belly, although I am fully aware it's not as healthy as other positions.
Dinner time. At about 2 months or so I decided to just pump milk for Rawley and then feed him with a bottle - his latch was pretty bad and was causing problems. This is an arrangement that works well for all of us, and he still gets the health benefits of breastmilk.
Rawley loves his mobile!
Rawley started busting out of his swaddles around Halloween, so we decided to just put him to sleep in regular pajamas after that. He took to them really well, which is a relief since he absolutely would not sleep when he was a newborn unless he was swaddled. Now he mostly just wakes up once over the course of 9-ish hours at night to eat.
We enjoy Rawley's newfound ability to entertain himself for longer periods of time. Not so long ago, he would start crying very quickly if he wasn't being held pretty much 24/7 while awake. Now, though, he enjoys rolling around in his crib and hanging out if he can at least see us. He still prefers to be held, but at least he doesn't cry as quickly about not getting his way these days.
Such a cozy little snuggle bug.
Paul kind of got him to stand against the bed for a while.
Rawley's last pediatrician appointment was at the beginning of December, and he was 16 pounds then. We imagine he's probably getting up to 20 pounds now - he's pretty heavy! He's still in very high percentiles for height and head size, and just median for weight. We actually think he thinned out some over Christmas break, probably because he learned to move around and roll over more, etc.
He loves standing up and squatting... and standing up and squatting.... and put on repeat!
He was feeling a little grumpy which is a rare emotion for Rawley really.
Paul is such a great dad! Rawley sure thinks he's fun. Every time Paul gets home from work Rawley gives him the biggest smile.
He's also getting happier every day, it seems. Rawley's just so cheerful, it's kind of contagious. Of course he cries like all babies do, but it does appear to be less than your average baby his age. We've been impressed with how happy he is even when he's a little sick or gets shots, etc. - he'll cry for a bit and then recover very quickly. He's also the most extroverted person in our family - he LOVES meeting strangers. He had a ready smile for pretty much everyone he met over Christmas break, which is nice for strangers and family alike. We really love him for his sweetness, positive attitude, and just how completely freaking adorable he is. What a great baby!
Rawley really, really enjoys watching his cousins play.
We've been on a lot of adventures lately! Back in November we watched my niece and two nephews for part of a day while my brother and sister in law went to the play "The Importance of Being Earnest" at BYU. We traded babysitting with them since we went to the play ourselves the next week. It was fun to play with their kids. We just explored campus some with them - it was a good experience for us to try having 4 kids all at once of various ages, since we hope to have that with our own kids eventually! My brother's kids are great and well-behaved, but we definitely had to concentrate some on keeping track of so many kids!
Elliott eyeing the Foucault pendulum in BYU's science center
Molly enjoying the many leaves.
So many fun leaves!
Paul's Grandma Hill came into town a few months ago and took out the cousins to eat. We had fun talking about some of Paul's uncles and cousins and finding out what everyone's been up to.
A lively crowd of Hills (or at least Hill relatives/spouses)
Paul's grandma held Rawley for a bit, and he promptly spat up all over her nice jacket. Good thing his spit up is pretty easy to clean up! I guess Rawley just wanted to leave her a present to remember him by.
We love going exploring with Rawley, and he absolutely loves the outside. He's pretty much never having a bad day/time when he's outside in nature. It's so funny because his little face gets all serious because he just concentrates so hard while we're outside. If we talk to him he'll smile, but otherwise he's very very busy taking in the world. I hope he's well on his way to becoming a little naturalist that will enjoy camping with us in the future!
The very serious pondering face.
He also tends to fall asleep when we take long walks in his stroller. This was taken up near Bridal Veil Falls in Provo Canyon. We like taking pictures like this, as if Rawley is some sort of little Lost Boy on an adventure.
We had a special date night courtesy of Paul's work with BYU IT in November. His department paid for all their employees to go see Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them before it had even released in theaters to the general public yet. They gave out free popcorn and drinks as well. The fact that it was free made it even better, and we liked the movie although it wasn't our total favorite, probably because we're not super deep into the Harry Potter fandom although we do like the books.
It was a pretty packed viewing - we were pretty impressed they put it together for everyone!
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
We've had quite a few adventures in December. Here's Rawley all snuggled up at a local lights festival we've gone to a few Christmases in a row now at the Shoppes at the Riverwoods.
We go to BYU's student buffet sometimes because we get special discounts on Saturdays.
One of Rawley's Christmas presents (it was a Black Friday find, actually) was this hat and gloves. We CANNOT get over how precious he is with it on!
Our little ewok.
Spitting up never phases Rawley.
I'm pretty sure this was off of a gift Rawley's Risk grandparents sent to him. We started the present by ripping off a little of the paper, then let him grab it and tear it away. That was by far his favorite part of present opening! But of course - after he tore it off, it went straight to his mouth.
So much wrapping paper for such a little baby!
This is complete baby bliss.
Who, me??
We had a church Christmas party, and of course there was Santa! I was hoping we'd get a Santa picture for Rawley's first Christmas somewhere, and our ward delivered. (This Santa may or may not have actually been our next door neighbor, haha.) Rawley seemed pretty unphased by meeting the man in the big red suit.
Rawley didn't ask for anything for Christmas, except maybe a trip to Virginia which he highly enjoyed :) He's in his pj's because the party was Polar Express themed, so we all wore our pj's (at least in our family - Paul wore his camouflage Snuggie, haha.)
I simply cannot get over how precious this little boy is.
Everything he touches goes straight to his mouth!
As a way to beat the winter blues that somewhat inevitably rear their ugly head at this point in the seasons (especially in Utah, were we have nasty pollution inversions and it gets prohibitively cold), Paul decided he wants to regularly do laser tag. I'm planning to go when I can/we can get a babysitter since I enjoy it too, but Paul REALLY enjoys it, and is really good at it as well (probably another big factor into why he enjoys it.) This was the scoreboard from when we went in December, I can't remember what our codenames were that round.
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Now for my favorite part of December - going back to Virginia for Christmas break! It was the first time we'd been back since we got married a year and a half ago (that really is way too long to be away from the Old Dominion.)
We woke up at 4 or something like that to get to the Salt Lake City airport on time for our flight (Becca and Brooke both helped drive us, which was super nice of them.) This is Rawley while we were waiting in line to check our baggage - barely awake, but still really interested in the airport so he was trying his best to stay awake.
Rawley's first flight! He seemed to like it just fine. It is quite a hassle to try and change diapers on a plane as we quickly learned, but we made it work in those teeny tiny bathrooms. On the way to VA and back, multiple people kept telling us he was such a well-behaved baby. It's true; he only cried maybe once on each flight and only for maybe a minute tops before we got him food, or got him to sleep, etc. I hope he's always this easy to please!
He slept pretty well on the plane once we actually managed to get him to sleep. I did have to keep switching my legs though and kind of wake him up!
We first stayed with Paul's dad and his wife Debbie. It was so fun to see them again! True to form, Rawley was very pleased to meet them. He also LOVED their cats and dog. He especially loved their dog Reacher because that dog is super high energy and always moving and sometimes making noise, which I think Rawley envies. Paul and I probably enjoyed the animals even more than Rawley did - we are seriously pet deprived.
In case anyone didn't know, Debbie is a FANTASTIC cook. We didn't want to leave their house, partially because they're fun to hang out with/they have a nice house/Debbie cooks so well/they have such great pets.
Hangin' out with Grandpa.
Hanging out with their dog, Reacher. He's so fluffy and so fun! You can see Rawley was very entertained by Reacher.
They also have an awesome aquarium which Rawley was much fascinated by.
We threw a little Christmas party at my house for our high school and church friends since we hadn't seen everyone in a while. It was super great to see everyone and catch up with what they were doing! William (Paul's brother - clearly) also came, and met Rawley for the first time. Rawley was once again pleased. I'd say he was the star of the party as he was passed around between the attendees.
We actually think Rawley looks the most like William (as a baby) than anyone else in Paul's family, including Paul himself. Really though, Rawley just looks a lot like a Risk (which is good since they're a good-lookin' family.)
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Rawley with my dad. Historically, my dad hasn't exactly warmed up super easily towards other people's kids, but I can tell that when a kid's related to him he's very partial. Rawley liked dad as well, and when he first met Dad he was absolutely fascinated by his beard and kept wanting to touch it!
Rawley met his aunt Victoria for the first time, and definitely liked her and her dogs.
There's something about his position in this picture that makes him look like a sleeping bear cub or something. Over the course of the break he got into the habit of babbling really loudly for about 15 minutes in the mornings after he woke up before he'd start crying. It's cute to hear him just talk to himself like that.
Unbelievably cute.
Waking up is hard!
On Christmas Eve we continued the Risk tradition of getting together, listening to a really old recording of A Christmas Carol, and opening presents. Rawley really enjoyed opening presents, and the toys he received! He was the best present, however.
Victoria brought this awesome German spinning nativity. Rawley stared at it for a LONG time, and so did the rest of us because it's awesome.
This picture was taken on Christmas morning at Paul's dad's church meeting. It was so amazing because the songs the choir sang were mostly about how Christ came as a little baby to Earth and yet was capable of redeeming the entire world. It was so amazing to see Rawley there on my lap and imagine how Mary must have felt about Christ as a baby, knowing in part his mission to redeem humanity.
Christmas evening, at Paul's sister Lizzy's house. We opened presents there and had a generally good time (Lizzy is also a stupendous cook!)
Rawley loves Grandma Suzanne!
Because Paul is really nice and knows what I like, he took me to this one house in his hometown that always puts up a really nice lights display. It was even better than the picture shows!
So this truck was in Paul's dad's neighborhood. This pretty much explains the type of communities Paul and I both grew up in - complete with the "MHURICA" license plate.
Sometimes we have to improvise with keeping Rawley warm.
Just a baby in the wilderness.
This is probably one of my all-time favorite pictures of Rawley. He's developed a very intense love for holding his toes and feet recently!
We went to the National Gallery of Art with Rawley and met up there with my mom's sister. I particularly wanted to go to the sculpture section - I admire sculptures probably the most because many of them seem like they'd be almost impossible to do to me. I'm glad that Rawley hasn't had to be fed by a wolf like Romulus and Remus!
Note how the picture comes out of the frame - we saw a lot of art like this, and I'm feeling pretty inspired by it. I think I'd like to try and make some 3-D pictures like this in the future.
Rawley visits the Capitol! We actually only went to the art and space museums while we were there. Paul humored us by going to the art museum, although he admitted a lot of it was interesting. I humored Paul by going to the space museum, and I'll admit that a lot of it was interesting ;)
THIS. To me, this is Virginia. I really, really want to move back there after we're done with school, or at least to a place very similar to it on the East Coast. It was a foggy day making everything that much more mysterious and old-world feeling. I told Paul as we walked on this road near my house where this picture was taken I half expected to see some lords and ladies ride over a hill on their horses at any second. My heart definitely belongs in VA, so I hope we will get to live there on a more permanent basis again someday.
Any of you all who know me well know that I am a cat magnet. It doesn't have to make sense, it just happens. Paul and I went to the little gazebo in my hometown where we said goodbye to each other about 5 years ago when I was returning to school and he was prepping to go on a mission. It was nice and romantic (and cold, just as it was then) and suddenly out of nowhere this ADORABLE little cat just comes up to us in the gazebo, meowing and begging for attention. If there was any plausible way that we could have kept that cat, I definitely would. I don't think I've ever been so charmed by a cat from the get-go in my whole life- she was just so small, friendly, and fluffy!
Although Paul may not want to admit it, he totally likes cats now. I've got 'im ;) That little cat definitely loved him!
I really, really didn't want to leave that cat behind.
On a similar note, this cat started showing up to my parent's house a couple of weeks before Christmas break. Mom calls him Notch because a notch was taken out of his ear, likely as part of the local spay and neuter program for feral cats being put on by local organizations. He visits almost every day now, begging for food - he's a super friendly cat as well. When do I get to have my own cat again??!! I can hardly wait.
Paul and I planned a little getaway for ourselves at the end of the trip. There's a really awesome place in Stanardsville (his hometown) called the White Lotus Eco Resort. The building in this first picture (I took this one from their webiste) is where we stayed - it's called "the treehouse" although it's obviously not actually in a tree. It certainly is pretty high from the ground, though! It was wonderful to be surrounded by nature in such a pretty setting. When we first got there and I was sitting on the bed, I realized I could actually feel the entire house swaying in the wind a little bit - not in a dangerous way, but a pretty fun way, haha! When someone would walk on the boardwalk up to the house, it would also cause the whole treehouse to shake some, but once again not in a particularly worrisome way.
A pretty view from the treehouse of the patio and "lunar sauna."
A view of "the castle" from the treehouse.
The pretty woods surrounding the treehouse. Impressively, yes, those vines were that green in the middle of winter.
Paul walking the boardwalk down from the treehouse.
The Blue Ridge mountains are just a giant forest and I love it.
We went on a hike the next day on the Appalachian trail. I missed doing that too; my family and I would always go hiking there and so would my youth group, friends, etc. It was super windy at the top but we had a great time anyway! It felt wonderful to be surrounded by all those trees again. I really miss it so much.
Yeah, we generally like being outside :)
The flight home was generally uneventful. It was pretty hard to leave, honestly. Paul and I talked about why we have such positive associations with Virginia and less so with Utah, and it's probably because we only equate Utah with school, which is just kind of hard and grueling in general. Virginia has historically been a pretty free and happy place for us. We're going to work on making a lot of happy memories here in Utah too, though! We're sad Christmas break is over and we'll miss our families, but we definitely have important things to get done here in Utah. With the new year, we've set a few goals, but we're pretty happy with the way things are going and how last year went.
This is definitely what you do after a long, awesome Christmas break.
And finally, here's a bunch of pictures and videos I'll just tack on to the end cuz there weren't really good places to fit them in the narrative. Enjoy!
Although this shirt definitely didn't come from the Philippines, we got it cuz it looks a lot like a traditional "barong" or Filipino dress shirt.
The Little Bub is getting really good at holding his head up and he's enjoying tummy time more!
Along with his ability to roll around comes with an amazing ability to consistently get stuck in the crib slats.
He LOVES to chew on everything. As soon as he gets a hold of something, it immediately gets pulled into his mouth.
Chewing is hard work apparently.
Sometimes, yes, Utah can be kind of beautiful.
"Will the paparazzi NEVER leave me alone???"
I can't even believe how cute our little nub is.
This piano was our present to Rawley for Christmas, and he totally loves it!
Rawley loves flying around with a little assistance from Daddy.
Mobiles are apparently pretty much the best thing in the entire world.
Rawley loves trying to grab his feet! He even has started pulling his foot all the way to his mouth to try and chew on his socks.
