Season of Change

Not only does it finally feel like winter, Lorelei has also seasoned. She now sits up on her own, with the exception of a few falls when she looks behind herself. She laughs and smiles frequently, eats rice cereal and vegetables daily, and has figured out how to play peek-a-boo. Since she was born, I've been counting her age by weeks. On this website, I grouped pictures by every four weeks. So from her birth to one month old I labeled her pictures as her "First Month". However, now that she is six months old, we will say she is seven months old on December 10th. This way, she will turn one year old on May 10th.

Lorelei's first Halloween and Thanksgiving have been a lot of fun for us. Lorelei was a pumpkin along with her pumpkin family. We didn't trick or treat, but family came to our house for a visit. For Thanksgiving, we celebrated all week. We had a dinner at Grandmom Pat's house with Gramma Jana and Grampa Guy on Monday. They were all out of town later in the week. Then we had a vegan Thanksgiving at Grampa Milan's house and a potluck Thanksgiving at Nana and Papa's house. Thank you to all the family who hosted the wonderful meals. As a side note, on Thanksgiving night I felt a sharp point on the bottom of Lorelei's mouth. Here come the teeth!

John is continuing to enjoy his new position in the Turbine group at the Fort Collins Woodward. Lorelei and I visit him once a week for lunch. I started tutoring a small group of students at an elementary school three times a week. While I'm away, Grampa Guy and Uncle Duane, Aunt Jill, and cousin Izzy, have been watching Lorelei. Gramma Jana helps when she gets off work and Grandmom Pat looks forward to watching her when she gets back from her vacation. Thank you to all the family for being such amazing caregivers for Lorelei while I'm away. I wouldn't trust anyone else.

September

The leaves are changing color, but the summer heat is hanging in there. I know I'm happy about it. Today it is supposed to be in the 90s and then the 80s the rest of the week. I'm somewhat dreading the winter this year due to the fact that I will have to dress Lorelei in multiple layers of clothing and then take them all off when a dirty diaper occurs. I guess we will be staying in more often than we are now. September has been a fun month full of birthdays (mine being one of them!), family get togethers, and changes. The month began with an 80th birthday party for Nana up at Aunt Kay and Uncle Ron's house near Kremmling. Duane drove Lorelei and I up for the event. It was great to catch up with my best buddy. Then for my 27th birthday we had dinner at 3 Margaritas, which was concluded with a serenade while I was wearing a sombrero! Got to love those Kodak moments. Also to celebrate coming of age, I chopped my hair off and am loving the 30 minutes I save not having to style it every morning; although since Lorelei was born, there was not much time for that anymore and I found myself in a ponytail daily. John and I have spent most weekends this month at Camp David. Lorelei loves being outside and is very relaxed at the cabin, which in turn is relaxing for John and myself. We had many lovely meals (side note: since the end of August I have started a vegan diet. My life changed once I watched the documentary "Food Inc.", read some books containing graphic details about livestock, and thought more about the fact that I'm still nursing Lorelei. She eats what I eat.) John has been very supportive of this transition and when I try making a new vegan recipe, he smiles politely and says, "It's good, honey". As of yesterday, Lorelei turned 5 months old. She rolls onto her stomach, makes a ton of chatter noise, laughs when we tickle her, and mimicks facial expressions often. Well, that's it for the month of September. Love to all our family and friends.

Videos are now posted

I know I've been saying for weeks now that we would soon post video. That day is here. John set up a new tab at the top of the website for videos. Once you enter the video page you can click on individual videos and your computer should automatically open them in windows media player. It takes up to 5 minutes for the long videos to load. The window is pretty small when you view them this way. If you would like to see the video in a larger view, you can right click on the individual video, then click "Save link as". You can save it to your desktop and then view it after it downloads. If either of these steps don't work for you, let us know and we can make a DVD and mail it to you. Hopefully in the next week I will also be posting video from John's birthday.

Two Weeks and Counting...

Lorelei is two weeks and two days old today. It has been so much fun taking Lorelei home and figuring out all this parent stuff. It was an easy transition home from the hospital, especially with John home for two weeks. The hardest thing has been dressing her. Why would any clothing company make infant clothing with the smallest head holes possible? She probably feels like she is going through the birth canal again every time I change her. Sorry Lorelei. At least someone thought to put buttons on the back of some of her clothing. John went back to work on Monday, and Lorelei and I are managing just fine. She sleeps pretty well during the day and the night, so I'm not as exhausted as I expected I would be. We'll see how long it lasts. Family and friends have been visiting daily bearing gifts and food. Lorelei is quite popular and it gives me a break during the day. I feel so lucky to have such amazing family and friends.

Lorelei is born

On May 10th at 4:51 a.m., our beautiful little girl was born. It was the most amazing thing I've done yet in my lifetime. She was 7 lbs. 9 oz. and 19 3/4" in length. Check out her pictures under "Lorelei's birth". We will be adding video clips soon of family visiting us in the hospital. Thank you to everyone for the visits, kind phone calls and emails, and food delivery for us in the hospital!

Time Flies

It is amazing how fast this year has flown by. Realizing my last post was in February, so much has happened in what seems like only a few weeks. In March I was busy at work with CSAP testing (my least favorite aspect of being a teacher), my baby shower, and spring break. My mother put on a fantastic party, with many of my family member's help. Everyone was so generous and our nursery was full of clothes, furniture, and supplies. Then on top of this, my colleagues at work threw me a baby shower, and now our cup runneth over! In April, we continued to stay busy with Easter and family birthdays. My neice, Izzy, turned one year old on April 13th. Again, another example of how time flies. It seems like she was just a newborn. As I continued to work, my belly grew larger, my legs grew heavier, and my patience grew shorter. I finally had my breaking point at a field trip with my students when my body started to tell me I needed to rest. A week and a half later, I'm on maternity leave at 38 weeks pregnant. I'm in no hurry for baby girl Karspeck to arrive, although John and his mom are convinced she will be here by the end of the week. I'm looking forward to a couple of weeks of rest, before she arrives, because I assume this will be valuable time that I will not get back for awhile.

Arella and Justin's Wedding

Arella and Justin's wedding was a beautiful event. In the two weeks leading up to the wedding, southern California was having terrible rains and flooding, but the skies opened up and the sun shone brightly for the blissful union of Arella and Justin. The weather was a warm 75 degrees; a nice change from our gray and cloudy skies of Colorado. It was great to see all the family and I also was able to visit with my best friend from grade school, Anna, and her husband Brian. We were fortunate to stay in a guest house on the Occidental College campus, where the ceremony was being held. We could walk everywhere and John was one of the drivers of the rental car. This way, whenever the need to eat beckoned to me (about every hour or two these days), John could drive me to the nearest cafe. Arella was glowing and gorgeous and Justin looked dashing in his suit and was all smiles. We couldn't be happier for them.

6 months

In the pregnancy sphere of my life, I've made it to six months. I had my monthly check up and baby girl Karspeck is healthy and I'm sure happy. She wants to be fed on an hourly basis these days, so I've been gaining weight rapidly. Inversely, as I grow larger, my energy level is depleting. Everyone tells me it is only the beginning. I do, however, enjoy being pregnant and feeling her kicking inside of me. It still amazes me that a human being is growing in my womb. As for our preparations, John and I started to paint her room last weekend and had trouble getting the new paint to not drip down the wall in a clumpy mess. I ran out of steam after only an hour and John tried to clean up the mess. My dad luckily stepped in to our rescue. It seems Behr paint does not like cooler temperatures, so my dad finished painting the room in 80 degree temperature. Love you Dad! John started to read the What to Expect In the First Year book, and this is asking a lot of a man who enjoys reading mostly engineering textbooks. It melted my heart! After he read a little, I asked him what he read about, and he said, "breast feeding". Men, go figure.

2010

I can already see that 2010 is going to be a life changing year. I'm 5 1/2 months pregnant and there are many preparations John and I are starting to see we need to get going. John is set on finishing the basement so it is a usable space by the time baby girl Karspeck arrives. I would like to get the baby's room painted, decorated, and set up in the near future. Besides these home improvements, John is busy as ever at work. He is working on a project that he may be going to Australia for in a week in February (as long as it doesn't coincide with Arella's wedding). I have a long semester ahead of me at school before I'm off for maternity leave. Luckily, I have a great group of kids this year who are easy to manage and motivated to learn.