Kotter Family

The weather here still hasn’t warmed up, and we have had rain all day today, and it looks like tomorrow will be the same.  I have work off so we were hoping to be able to do something fun, but with the weather not looking good, I’m not sure what we’ll find to do.

McKinley is getting closer and closer to crawling.  She can now get up on her hands and knees, and she rocks back and forth.  She has taken a few kind of ‘steps’ but usually just falls back down on her belly.  But between her army crawling and rolling, she basically can get herself around the entire room.  But I’m sure any day now she’ll be able to crawl.

 

We found a high chair that just attaches to a normal chair, kind of like a booster seat with a tray.  She absolutely loves it.  The other high chair we have takes up a ton of space, as well as it is hard for her to sit up in.  So this was a good find.

I bought a new grill, as the one we had was just a cheap, portable charcoal one.  I was going to just buy another cheap little one, but figured it would only last a summer so I might as well invest in a nicer one.  We bought it from Lowes, and they would have put it together for free, but it wouldn’t have fit in our car.  So I had to put it together myself, which took a couple hours to accomplish.

Finished product, other then I put the front panel on the back, which I still need to switch.

There was a bunch of styrofoam pieces that came in the grill box, and Lucas knew just what to do with them: build a ramp for his cars.

Cute girl trapped in her crib.

Taking a bath together.  We finally got this blue bath seat from my parents house, and McKinley loves baths even more now that she can sit up and splash.

We’ve had some really nice weather the last few days here, high 70’s and not too windy.  And it looks like it is going to be 50’s and rainy for at least the first part of next week, so we’ve been trying to enjoy the nice weather while it lasts.

We went to a farmer’s market that is pretty close to us.  There really wasn’t much to look at, but it was nice to get out.  We found this hat on clearance at The Children’s Place.

Lucas always wants to wear my sunglasses, and they had kid glasses at The Children’s Place, so we had to get him some.

Taking a break from playing with bubbles for a picture.

Just a day or two after getting back from Utah, Kryssi decided to take the kids and go with my mom to Lehi.  Lucas loves playing with Kayden and Kennedy, so he was excited to go.  But after a few days away from his dad, he was ready to be back home I think.  He had a little bit of a melt down when I called him the second night he was there, wanting to be back in Idaho with me.  But all-in-all, I think they all enjoyed it.

I guess this was a gummy octopus that Lucas ate the legs off, which he thought was pretty cool!

Brother and sister playing together.  I think Lucas is having more fun than McKinley!

Cute girl!  She is getting closer and closer to crawling.

As mentioned previously, my work provided a day at Lagoon for all employees and their families.  So last Saturday we got up early and made the drive down.  It was a beautiful day, which we haven’t had many of those yet this year.  Lucas didn’t go on many rides, which we figured, but he had a lot of fun.

Lucas was pretty excited about getting a stamp.  He thought he was pretty cool with it on his hand.

One of the few rides Lucas went on, the Merry Go Round.  He was even hesitant about this ride, but we convinced him he would like it, and he did.

They have a couple of these cool water sculptures around the park, and Lucas liked playing with them.

Taking a break in the Western town.  McKinley was pretty good during the trip, but she liked being carried more then being in her stroller.

We decided to spend the night and extend our mini ‘vacation.’  We won a bid for a hotel in Salt Lake that we weren’t too sure about, but it ended up being really nice.  They had tempur-pedic beds, which I loved.

The view from the top of the stairs, looking down into the lobby of our hotel.  It is an older place that has been renovated a few times.

Checking out the water fountains at the Gateway Mall.  Lucas wouldn’t dare get in them, but he liked watching them.

We stopped at Temple Square before heading home.  It wasn’t quite as good of weather as the day before, cloudy and rainy, but the morning wasn’t too bad and there were plenty of pretty flowers to look at.

Well I am no officially done with school!  It really hasn’t sunk in yet, as I’ve been working this whole semester so school wasn’t as big as a priority to me as in semesters past, so emotionally I’ve felt done with school for awhile.  But it does feel good to be officially done, and able to just work full-time now.

I’ve had multiple people ask what my actual degree is, so I guess I’ll get that out in the open, so to speak.  I have an AAS in Web Development Technologies.  According to Kryssi that just means I’m a nerd.  But I’m hoping to stay at the company I’m working at right now, but it depends on pay and benefits.  I really don’t like looking for jobs though, and if I do look elsewhere, it will probably have to be either Boise area or Salt Lake area, as there aren’t a ton of available jobs here.  But I guess we’ll see.

We are going down to Lagoon tomorrow for a work party.  It is looking like it should be high 70’s so it should be a pretty fun time.  Lucas is real excited, but we’ll see if he actually goes on any of the rides, since the last ride he went on (at Bear World) was quite the experience.  But hopefully we remember our camera so we can get some pictures up of that.

Below are some pictures that were from Jared and Kara’s wedding, which was a couple weeks ago.  It was a fairly nice day, a little chilly but not too bad.  It was, like always, a great experience to be in the temple, especially for such a great thing like sealing two people together forever.  It was almost exactly a year from when we had been sealed together as a family, in the same temple, so it was nice to be back in the temple at that time.

Here is a picture of McKinley at 6-months.  She is now 7 months old, so this is a little outdated but we’ve been having camera issues so we don’t have a whole lot of recent pictures.

Lucas loves playing with his sister but not as much as she loves it.  Her face just lights up every time she sees him and you can tell she just wants to get done and run around with him.

All dressed up, ready to go to church.

I’m not currently at home so I don’t have any new pictures but I figured I’d write a quick update. McKinley is officially six months old now! It is amazing how time flies. She is healthy and doing well. I don’t remember exact numbers but she was around the 10th percentile on weight, so nothing amazing but better then Lucas has ever been. She is getting more vocal and loves to laugh. She will still roll onto her belly the second you lay her down on the floor, but she enjoys it more now and doesn’t get upset as fast. She sleeps great (most times) and lately she has even been falling asleep on her own, which is great, since we struggled with Lucas sleeping good until he was almost a year old.

Speaking of Lucas, he continues to amaze us with how smart he is. He remembers things that I don’t even remember myself. And I think we can say he is pretty much potty trained now, which is great! It really wasn’t that difficult of a thing to accomplish (which is easy for me to say since I’m at work and school all day) but he has never had any real issue with using bathrooms in other places, like at stores or at church, so that is great. He is excited for it to start warming up so he can play outside.

Kryssi is continuing to be pretty crafty, making bows and now even making bibs.  She is getting better and better at it and enjoys it a lot.  I’m in the process of building her an online store so she can try and sell her wares, and hopefully that will be done soon.

I still really like my job and hope I can stay on once I’m done with school.  I know they really want me to stay, but it depends on salary.  I built a subsite for a March Madness promo one of our clients wanted to run, and they landed a $20,000 client out of it, so that was pretty cool.  It’s nice to see my work actually getting used, instead of just my own personal sites I’ve made in the past that get very few visitors.

But life is good at the Kotter house and we are hoping it finally starts looking like Spring around here.  We are all a little stir-crazy after being cooped up all winter.