New tricks and being cute

I cant believe my little baby Dextin is 8 months old already! Where has the time gone? I haven't said much about him lately so i thought since i have the time that i should post about all of his new accomplishments and cuteness. He has been so much fun. I love how smart he is, its amazing to watch all that he is learning and what he catches onto. Here is a list of what my cute baby can do at 8 months:
* Dextin is great at crawling. He was just 6 months when he learned how and now he is very quick. He loves to crawl around with something in his mouth, like a dog. That is how he brings things with him most of the time, sometimes he does crawl with something in his hand though.
* He just loves food, he is obsessed really. If he sees me eating food then i have to share, he seems to always know when i am. The only way to not share is to hide while eating, and even then he tends to usually find me. He really doesn't care what it is as long as he gets to try it. Mac & cheese was a huge hit as is anything with sugar, of course.
* Also he wanders around the house and eats anything he can find. His little pincer grip is getting quite good and his eyes seem great too because he finds everything. I have so far pulled out of his mouth a penny, piece of plastic, rubber band, lots of paper and cardboard, leaves, grass, and a seashell he found in the house somewhere. I'm sure there is more to come.
* He loves to babble. He has the cutest little voice and has been using it more and more to talk to us. He also sings. It really is the cutest thing ever. It goes like this: lalalalaLaLaLALALA!!! Starts out quiet then gets louder until it turns into a scream.
* He has 8 little teeth and knows just how to use them. He will bite anything and everything in sight. He especially likes my shoulder when I'm not paying attention...ouch!
* Dextin has a shoe fetish. He can spot a shoe from anywhere and get ahold of it before i even realize its there. He has put so many shoes into his mouth, yuck. I try to hide them, but he always finds them. I have teeth marks in most of my flip flops.
* He loves to be on his feet, he always has, but now he can do it by himself. He loves to walk around furniture (which we have very little of currently) and will even let go for quite a while before falling. He will be walking very soon i think.
* He can also climb stairs. I didn't realize this until we actually lived somewhere with stairs. Its super cute, but very scary. He is too little to know what he is doing and i worry he will fall one day.
* We currently are sleeping on an air mattress. Its a nicer one, about 2 feet high. Dextin loves to climb up onto it and then go back down head first. We had a few sad incidents the first few times he tried, but now he knows how not to land right on his head.

I think that's about it. I know he can do many other things, but that's all i can think of for now. Here are a few cute pictures and videos of his new talents.

Standing up!

Bird watching

Eating the door hinge...not a lot of toys here

All worn out

Yummy yummy ice cream

Stuck in his pool tube

Someone has to make sure the washer is doing a good job

Loving the beach

Climbing the stairs

Just being cute

The Beginning of Something Amazing

About two months ago we made the decision to go to Hawaii for the summer. We had an in with one of Justin’s brother-in-laws for a security system tech job. We weren’t really sure about the whole thing and figured we wouldn’t be bringing much money home because of all of the costs, but it was Hawaii. We still aren’t a hundred percent sure about the whole thing, but here I sit, in Maui, wondering how this all happened. It is beautiful here, to say the least. I am loving the weather and Dextin loves the beach and the pool. Justin is staying quite busy with work, so hopefully we will bring home a little bit. We miss him though, we aren’t used to not seeing him so much. We spend our days out walking, or playing in the pool or at the beach. It is nice to get to be a stay at home mom for a little while. We are staying in a really nice condo with Justin’s sister Karli and his brother-in-law Bill. Bill’s family and two more little sisters will be joining us in June. I am trying to remember to enjoy the peace and quiet while I can. So far it really has been so nice.

Getting here was pretty crazy. Everything was very last minute and stressful. We were on a plane the day after our finals, so we had to get ready for those besides Hawaii. We also were trying to sell our CRV and motorcycle. And we were getting ready to go through the temple. It would have been nice to have a few extra weeks or so to get it all taken care of. We did end of getting everything done, but not exactly the way we could have with more time. Definitely the most important was the temple. We were able to go through and be sealed as a family on April 21, 2011, which was amazing. I am grateful to everyone who helped out and joined us. Dextin did end up screaming throughout the entire thing, but it was still wonderful.

We had to take three different flights and had two layovers in order to get here. It was one full day. Dextin did great, thankfully. He slept through most of the flights. I was especially grateful to have Karli fly out with us. She has been such a huge help. We haven’t done a ton of things so far, but we have found time to have a few small adventures. We have been to several different beaches and hopefully we will hit a few more while we are here. We drove up the road to Hana last week. It was a long, but beautiful drive. We ended up at twin falls, but we were only able to see one of the waterfalls because it was getting late. The boys all went for a swim while me and Karli watched. This is definitely an adventure for our little family and so far im really glad we made the decision to come. I am excited to see what else we will get a chance to do.