How Santa gets in, and what he does when it's not Christmastime.

We have been having some problems with our air-conditioning. Ice kept building up against the coils behind the air filter so that no air could come into the air conditioning system, which meant that we had to turn off the air conditioning and wait about 12 hours for the ice to melt enough that we could turn the fan on to speed up the process of the ice melting. It happened about five times, and two of those were after the filter had been replaced (as you can probably imagine, the old filter was falling apart after getting wet and soggy so many times). I think the last four years have spoiled me, because I grew up without air conditioning and also slept on the hot top floor of the house for much of that time, so I should not be having a problem with sleeping in a hot apartment. But I was dying. Anyway, the last time it happened we called housing support and asked them to come take care of it. (One benefit of not owning a home is that you don't have to take care of your own air conditioning!) One thing I will praise UNC for is the good housing support we get. Generally when I need something fixed there is somebody there to take care of it within a couple of hours, and they do a good job. Well, a couple of maintenance men showed up and refilled the coolant and said that should take care of the problem. And it did. For a couple of hours.

Unfortunately, we figured out that the AC was dying at about 5:30 (too late to call for help), and the apartment was at about 89 degrees all night. The fan worked, but no cool air was coming out. It was a miserable night.

In the morning I called housing support again. And that was when Santa Claus showed up with two of his elves, one of which was one of the AC repair men from the day before. The repair man had noticed that our lock was sticking, so he called for some help to get the lock fixed since they were already there fixing the air conditioning. It turns out that Santa Claus is a locksmith most of the rest of the year. So that's how he gets into your house at Christmas time. (He told me himself that he was Santa Claus, so I'm sure.)

I always wondered about that growing up, because our house was heated by a coal furnace in the basement, and if he came in by the chimney Santa Claus would have to squeeze into a small space that held the coal and then somehow manage to get the door open, and I just couldn't see how that would work. This makes a lot more sense.

And the AC seems to be working fine. Phew!

11 months

Kevin turned eleven months old yesterday! He is learning and growing in all sorts of ways.

• He likes to wave hi to us (although not always to other people).
• He has been crawling for real for a while now, but sometimes he still reverts to his army-crawling ways when it's convenient (meaning he wants to move fast or be sneaky).
• He's also becoming more willing to walk with help, but isn't too interested in balancing by himself.
• Lately he has been really interested in the metal silverware and the dishes that Mommy and Daddy use and sometimes insists on having his own. We got into a habit of having dinner after he went to bed because it was easier to deal with it without him begging for attention, but now I'm trying to get back into the habit of having dinner ready in time that K can have some of whatever we're having in a bowl of his own. Chopped and cooked potatoes, carrots, and zucchini have been a big hit recently.
• He's also really taken off with the whole sippy cup thing. For quite a while there, I was afraid he would never figure it out, but now he will drink out of one for a long time, as in, a really long time, and he does it by himself. The first sippy cups I bought were the cheap plastic Kroger brand ones because I figured that would save me some money, but soon I realized that what I really needed were the nicer ones with the handles on each side, even if they were more expensive. Next time I'm just going to get what I want the first time.
• It's so interesting to watch his mind working. Yesterday morning he had a cheerio caught between his pinky and ring finger, and he held up his hand so he could get a good look at it, carefully contemplating what would be the best method of retrieving it, before grabbing it with his other hand. Not too long ago, he couldn't have done that!
• He's also figured out how to bonk things against his head, and he thinks it's hilarious.
• He loves opening and closing drawers and taking out whatever is inside. For example:

How could I be mad when I came in and saw him having such a good time pulling piles of shirts out of his drawers and shrieking with glee? All I could do was laugh.

Yesterday he was playing with his toys and I turned to see the sweetest expression on his face. He had his little mirror and he was staring into it, completely thrilled, with shining eyes. Hey, I'm in love with him too, so how can he help being in love with himself? : ) Unfortunately, I actually didn't catch the look on camera, but these are still pretty cute.

No, a flower hasn't grown on that patch of carpet yet. Then again, Kevin's attention span isn't long enough for him to stare at his own adorable image long enough for him to turn into a flower. I think he was just excited to see another little person. We need to invite more friends over for play dates.

Apparently my sisters think I need to post more pictures and videos, so here's enough to keep you occupied for quite a while.

Pictures:

What? He figured out how to climb up the gate? Well, no. He got a little help from Daddy. But his upper body strength is quite impressive, isn't it?

He used the footstool next to the exersaucer to climb up on top of it. I was quite impressed with his ingenuity.

And lots of videos. I always have mixed feelings about uploading videos, because I'm afraid they'll be boring and people will think I should be ashamed of myself for posting several minutes of nothing but Kevin eating bread (or shrieking). Hey, it doesn't feel like four minutes while I'm doing the video. But I know my family likes them, so . . . I'm going to do it. Shameless, I know. These are several of the movies from the past couple of months that I either haven't gotten around to posting or couldn't post because I couldn't find the movie button (which, it turns out, is only on the old blogger interface). Have fun watching if you're so inclined. (Those who get my blog emailed to them will have to go to the actual blog to watch.)

Top left video: Kevin kicking. That's all.
Top right: Eating an apple. It's pretty cute about 3 minutes in when he figures out how to bonk it against his head.
Middle left: Hanging out in his bedroom.
Middle right: This is to give you an idea of what I put up with all day (and why my videos are far from perfect). Pretty fun!
Bottom left: Pretty boring, but I still think it's cute. Skip through if you want. It's just Kevin eating bread. But someday he'll have better manners and I will probably want some kind of record of how cute he was when he ate. He's really good at feeding himself.
Bottom right: Sometimes he thinks he will die if he doesn't eat his food this way. He has to get his hands into the mush. But then he gets frustrated because he can't grab anything, so I have to put cheerios in so he can still grab something. You can imagine what happens when he takes out his hands and waves them around, which often happens. And I thought meals were messy before!

amnesia

Me two months ago: "AAARGHH! I hate math! I hate Calculus! This is the worst semester ever! I am never going to get through this class! I'm never going to take a math class again!"

Me today: "Hmmm . . . I can take Calculus 3 to fulfill that requirement? Well, Calc. 2 wasn't too bad. I think I'll sign up for Calc. 3."

All I can think is that I must be crazy, although to my credit, my advisor did say that it would be a really good idea to take the class since it comes in handy for a lot of different geology career paths. It's not that I don't think I can do it, since I've taken the necessary prerequisite classes and did fine in those. But then again, I've taken the necessary prerequisite classes, so I have a pretty good idea of what I'm getting myself into--namely, lots of time spent on math homework. I just think it's interesting that I just finished one of the most difficult semesters of my life and now I'm okay with doing it again with another Calculus class.

disappearing ham

It really bothers me when my food disappears. Like the time about a year ago when I thought I had half a bag of carrots and then I went to make some chicken soup and the carrots were all gone. I didn't find out until recently that Ryan had actually eaten them all and thought I knew that. Well, on Thursday I bought a ham. It was a great deal, and it was boneless. I was quite excited about it. Then I came home and put away the groceries, and the ham was gone! I searched the house, checked the fridge and freezer to make sure I hadn't just forgotten it was already put away, and then decided to check the car just in case. No ham. So I'm pretty sure the cute pregnant lady behind me arrived home with a free ham. It was the last thing scanned, so I think it got mixed in with the other lady's stuff, which was already coming down the conveyor belt as the bagger put the bags in my cart. I was pretty concerned, because I didn't want to lose out on the money I had spent. But I went to customer service at the store yesterday since I was on the way home from Costco anyway, and the guy at the desk said, "Oh, just go get another ham, and I'll put it in a bag for you." I did hand him the receipt, but I don't know if he even looked at it to find the ham on it. So if you come home and realize some of your groceries didn't make it with you, that is what you do.

While I was at Costco, I got my eyes checked. I was surprised to find out that my eyesight has actually improved since I was last checked. I've noticed lately with my old contacts that sometimes it seems like I see better once they're out, but I sort of thought I was imagining it or that it was because it was the end of the day. The doctor also gave me larger contacts than I was wearing before. Apparently my old prescription was a little too tight. The larger ones should allow more tears to get beneath the contacts. That would explain why my eyes have been seeming dry at the end of the day lately. I think I'm noticing a difference with the new contacts, but it might just be because it's a new pair, which always feels better than an old pair. I love the feeling of putting a new pair of contacts in. New contacts slide in so naturally and painlessly--quite a contrast to the feeling of putting in an old pair of contacts, which I think could best be described as "like shoving a piece of plastic in your eye."

I'm getting frustrated with all the bureaucracy at UNC. Everything is so disorganized and a lot more complicated than it needs to be. All the important parts of the university's website are buried so deep that you can't find them unless you know what you're looking for, which I don't, and even if I do find them it's hard to sift through all the useless information about all the clubs and dining services and on-campus housing that I'm not really interested in. It does look like I can finally enroll in classes (if there are any openings left in the classes I want to take!). I keep feeling like there are all sorts of things that I'm supposed to do that nobody has told me about. There's just no centralized place to find out what I need to know and do. I'm working on meeting with an advisor soon to get things planned out. UNC also seems to love using the College Board forms. You have to fill out the form on collegeboard.com and then pay exorbitant fees for the College Board to send the form to UNC, which might also ask for additional information. Maybe I should have known what I was getting into when this is what I saw after clicking submit at the end of the UNC application (click to enlarge):

I did not have these problems at BYU.

I love that Blogger fixed things so that I can preview this page and see how it will actually look when it's published, not just a white page with this post showing on it.

On another note, Kevin learned how to knock. He also learned how to throw a temper tantrum.

There was a ward ice cream social tonight, and part of the social included a homemade ice cream contest, so we entered some lemon ice cream into the contest. It was really yummy. This was the first time we have used our ice cream maker, even though we got it for a wedding present. We'll definitely have to use it again soon.

The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings

Over the last five months or so, I have been gradually rereading The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy by Tolkien, and I have really enjoyed them. If you have never read these books, I really think you should. They are amazing (and even though I am an avid reader, I do not think that about very many books).

visiting the zoo

Last Friday we spent the day at the zoo. We were very impressed. It had a very logical setup. There was one main road, and the exhibits branched off the side, which made it so you didn't have to worry about what order you were seeing everything since you could just follow the main road all they way through the zoo. It was also split up into a North America side and an Africa side. The San Diego zoo may have a lot more things to see, but the couple of times I've been there I felt like it was hard to know where to go because there were just things all over, so it was nice that the NC zoo is so organized. Several of the exhibits had fun signs to warn kids and parents not to get too close or climb the railings, which RT posted about here. He also posted about pothos ivy, which we saw at the zoo and also have in our apartment, here.

Here are some of the animals we saw:

 Cougars

Alligators

Quail

Flamingos

Giraffes

Elephants

Some pictures of us:

Trying to get Kevin to wave:

And Ryan took a lot of nice pictures of flowers and plants:

Our Dreambaby

In case you weren't aware, Kevin is an active, curious, determined child. And the kitchen is one of the most interesting places there is. This means that every time I open the dishwasher or the fridge, he's there to take everything out and make messes and be in my way. And he loves to eat the newspapers in the recycling box and mango skins out of the garbage, which is not cool. I have great memories of playing with the pots and pans in the kitchen growing up, but our kitchen is too small to share with an active baby, especially when you've lost 1/4 of the floor space if you open the dishwasher. I got tired of this a long, long time ago and knew that I wanted a gate. A really good, tall gate that swings open and closed, not a cheap gate that I would have to step over every time I wanted into the kitchen.

So, yesterday we welcomed a Dreambaby Extra Tall Swing Close Gate into our home. Yes, it's more expensive, but like I said, I wanted a really good gate.

Here's what we were using before:

And here's the fix:

I had a video of K's reaction to the gate, but I can't seem to figure out how to post videos now that blogger has changed some things. Where's the button with the filmstrip?

At any rate, so far he is actually pretty excited about the gate. He's so thrilled about the interesting new thing he can use to stand up that he hasn't noticed that he's being locked out of the kitchen. I'm a little surprised, because I thought he'd be upset that he couldn't come in. This gate is going to make life a lot easier.