Birthday Dinner

We got together with the rest of the Buhler family last night to celebrate Bill and Eric's birthdays.


I made Bill's cake - it's devil's food with melt-in-your mouth vanilla buttercream frosting.


Just in case you are wondering, there are 33 candles on that cake.


Here is Eric with his cake. My sister-in-law, Julie, added a cup of sour cream to a chocolate cake mix. It was so moist, I'm going to have to try that.


Then she frosted it with cream cheese orange frosting, yum!

Nice Day

Sandy and Sage sitting on the back porch
enjoying the fabulous fall weather today.

It's such a nice day we had planned to go to the zoo with a friend. But then Sandy woke up with goopy eyes and we went to the doctor's office instead and learned that she has pink eye. So, we're stuck at home until she's been on the antibiotic eye drops for 24 hours. And Bill and I are dreading wrestling her three times a day to get the drops into her eyes.

Oh, and of course....

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BILL!!

New Toys

Bill got a new toy or um...tool: a multifunction unit that prints, scans, copies, and faxes. He was very excited when it arrived and immediately started setting it up.

Sandy immediately claimed the styrofoam packing material for her new furniture.

Halloween

Chick or Treat

Sandy dressed up as a chicken this year. We went to a Halloween party at the local community center a week before, a trunk or treat at our ward the night before, and grilled hot dogs in our driveway Halloween night. It was a fun Halloween season! Bill and I dressed up as farmers to corral our little chicken, but I didn't manage to get a picture of the three of us.

Sandy experienced trick or treating for the first time at the ward trunk or treat. We went to the first car, they gave her a candy bar, and she immediately pulled it out of her bucket and handed it to me to open. She did the same thing at the second car and I was ready to call it quits but somehow at the third car it clicked and she got the concept of holding out her bucket and leaving the candy inside.

First Snowfall

We had our first snowfall today. It was a little early for me, but Sandy was excited!

Books & A Trip to Temple Square

Sandy loves to read books, and it has become a lot more fun to read with her now that she turns pages and lifts flaps!

This afternoon we walked around Temple Square.

walking along

sees the water

Mom intercepts

15 Month Stats

I took Sandy to her 15-month checkup today. Her stats are:

*Weight: 21 pounds 9 oz (25th percentile)
*Length: 33 inches (95th percentile)
*Head Circumference: 46.5 centimeters (66th percentile)

Dr. Baar said Sandy looks healthy. I did ask her about some of my concerns: Sandy not drinking milk (she said it's fine, just try to get 3 servings of dairy through cheese or yogurt), I asked about a multivitamin (she suggested infant vitamin drops available at any pharmacy), I asked about Sandy's temper tantrums and gagging to make herself throw up (she agreed the best way to handle was just to ignore as we've been doing).

The big challenge came when I mentioned Sandy's new bed. Dr. Baar agreed that a toddler bed was the best move since Sandy has fallen out of her crib. But she gave me a pep talk about letting Sandy cry it out to sleep since I've been sleeping in Sandy's room for the past week. She also added another twist: she suggested we go cold turkey on the binkie at the same time. She said she'd normally be okay with her keeping the binkie until 2 but with the new baby coming it would be good to get it away long before Sandy sees the baby with a binkie. Also, she suggested that it would be hard to let her cry it out while she gets used to sleeping in her bed and hard to let her cry it out while she gets used to no binkie, but we might as well just get it over with at once.

I really like our pediatrician and so I came home and put Sandy down for a nap, without a binkie. It took 1/2 hour, but she is sleeping now. Oh it's hard to hear her cry, though!