Group Picture

It seriously took 40-50 shots to get this picture and they still aren't looking at the camera!

The ones of just the 2 of them together were surprisingly easy today! It's so cute that they interact now! I'm glad they like each other...most of the time.
Abby is crawling all over the place now. It still makes her mad sometimes though.
Emma got her first haircut yesterday. Just a trim so I don't know how noticeable it is in this pic.

Apartment

We're getting much closer to making our move official. It looks like we will be moving the 1st of July. The manager is processing our application now and we should know for sure early next week. I'm sure there aren't any problems since we aren't felons or anything like that. I will be glad to know for sure so I can get started packing. I'm sure that will take twice as long as usual - we've never moved with kids before. Emma likes to help a little too much and now that Abby is mobile I'm sure she'll be in on the mix too!

It looks like are going to start attending Rolling Fields once again. I'm sure some of you have already heard. The reasons that made us leave in the first place are long gone now and I'm really looking forward to the switch. I do love State Street and when we first started talking about it I was pretty much neutral about the whole issue (and still am). It seems now that our decision has pretty much been made though. I'm sad to be leaving our current church family, but at the same time, excited to be rejoining our old friends at the Fields.

More Sickness

The past week has been kind of crummy. After Emma got better, the rest of us got it. It isn't fun being sick and having a sick kid and having to stay on top of daily chores (not that I've done a very good job of that lately!). Scott and I are still sick, so it does help that the girls are feeling better except they got in the habit of be cuddled and babied a little too much. I'm working on getting Abby to leave me alone at night still. Last night she was only up once so it wasn't too bad. At least she doesn't expect to be fed at night anymore. Hopefully it won't be much longer. I guess I should pretty much plan on not sleeping until I'm about 50 and can't have kids anymore. I don't know.

I finally got our application put in at the apartments where we want to move. It took me long enough, but I finally got it done. Now we just need to wait until some one moves out so they have an empty one. Who knows how long that will take?! I called today to try and find out if they had an estimate but no one answered. It will be very stressful, I'm sure, but I'm really looking forward to moving. I really need to go through our stuff. I came up with an entire plan to go through everything and get organized within a couple weeks. I was off to a pretty good start and then everybody got sick again. Once we're back to normal, I plan on trying again. Hopefully I can stay on track!

Zoo Trip

Merideth and I took the kids to the zoo today. It was an adventure to say the least. I don't think I'm ready to tackle that again until I have a double stroller! My plan was to let Emma walk and if she needed to be in the stroller to carry Abby in my sling. That worked for about the first half of our journey. Abby went to sleep and Emma got really tired and wanted me to carry her. She weighs a ton, in case you didn't know! It wouldn't have been as bad as it was except we apparently decided to go on field trip day. There were elementary school kids everywhere. It was hard to keep an eye on Emma with so many kids around and she wasn't doing a very good job of staying with me cause she wanted to follow everyone else. We still had a good time. It was just very exhausting. We came home and Emma put herself to bed, literally. She's just now waking up - 3 hours later!

Crawling??

Well not quite, though she has made it a few feet! She sure does look cute though!

Poor Little Emma

Feeling sick all day!!

Missing the Celebration

Today was Kyla's 1st birthday party and we had to miss it. Emma had been very grumpy all day and this afternoon she ran up and gave me a hug and it felt like her head was on fire. So I took her temperature and she did have a fever. It wasn't outrageous or anything, right at 100. I gave her some Tylenol and I laid down on the couch cause I was pretty exhausted after all the fussiness. Emma crawled up on the couch with me and was sitting next to my head and the next thing I know she's completely passed out! It was only 6:30! I apparently had fallen asleep myself. Scott said he said something to me and realized I was asleep. Oh well...If he says so! I felt too bad to wake her up since I knew she wasn't feeling well so I just transported her to her bed. Hopefully I don't regret that decision. No partying for us today. Well, Happy Birthday Kyla!!

Jonah's Bedding

I got Emma back to sleeping until 7:00 or so, but now Miss Abby decided she likes getting up at 6:30. Oh well. It really hasn't been that bad. I've been getting to bed before 10 every night so I think that's helping. I took a break from my house organization project today and just took it easy (as much as is possible anyway). I've been working on it pretty hard lately and it's definitely starting to effect my back. I picked out Jonah's bedding today. I found a great deal at Walmart.com - a 4-piece set for only $31!! I didn't want sports really since this family isn't really into sports and I don't like the car/truck theme very much. The one I found has rockets on it, so it's a little different at least, and for the price, I love it! Here's a peek.



Abby has really been moving lately. She actually got up and crawled about 3 feet or so a couple of times today. I'm thinking that by this time next week she'll completely be able to crawl. I'm pretty impressed since it's earlier than when Emma started. Yay for Abby!!

Babies!

Rising Early

Well here it is, 5:30AM, and Scott just left to go work for his dad for a couple of hours. I thought I'd roll myself out of bed too and get a head start on a few things. I plan on getting quite a few things done today, mostly going through as much of our stuff as possible and packing up stuff to give to Goodwill and somewhat organizing whatever is leftover. I started yesterday with our food cabinet in the kitchen. My plan is to start in the front of the apartment and just work my way back. Who knows how long this is going to take me!? I hope the girls are as cooperative as they were yesterday.

Emma actually stayed up until a little past 9:00 last night. (Even though I'm up early anyway, it's nice that I didn't have to get up. I still hope she sleeps in a little!) Scott got home a little late and I figured she might as well eat with us since she was that close already. She did pretty good with. Wasn't too grumpy. At dinner she did start acting like a goober though. She kept doing this crazy fake laugh instead of eating. It was obvious that some one was sleepy! Everything went fine last night. Pretty good actually. Abby finally made it through the night without a peep. Well she did wake up once, but that wasn't her fault. I'm pretty sure Emma woke up everyone in the building around 12:30 last night! She just started screaming and came out of room in a full blown tantrum - convulsing, throwing herself of the floor, just inconsolable. She didn't want me to be nice to her, she didn't want me to be firm with her, didn't want to be held or talked to at all really. I put her back in bed and told her to sit there until she felt like being nice. When she came back out of her room, she calmly laid down in our bed and went to sleep. It only took a few minutes for her to pass out so I moved her to her bed and everything was perfectly fine for the rest of the night. The entire episode only lasted 15 minutes, so overall I would say we had a pretty good night. Pretty soon it looks like I'll be able to let Abby sleep in her room in stead of the living room! That will be nice!

A Good Day

Not much has been happening. Just anxiously awaiting the deposit of our stimulus check! Sunday was Mother's Day. We didn't too anything too spectacular. Scott and I left the girls with my grandma and went to eat at Famous Daves. I had been there before and have been wanting to go for a while now. To Scott's surprise, he actually liked it. I told him he would. He even wants to go back! I do too, cause it was a very unenjoyable trip. This past week, I had been having some serious belly pain. It kept getting worse and worse and by Sunday evening I was sure I was going to die. I couldn't eat cause the pain was so bad it was making me dizzy and everything and I just completely lost my appetite. I wasn't nauseous or anything, I just couldn't eat. What a waste of a trip out to eat on my part! Oh well. After I went home and relaxed a little and took a hot bath I felt a ton better which is good cause I was on the verge of going to the hospital.

I got my new cell phone yesterday and so far so good. It was just a cheap $20 refurbished phone. It seems a little old school as far as the way the menu looks and the setup of things. It was definitely worth 20 bucks at least. I can make phone calls and text and that's really all I need. If Emma ends up destroying it, at least we won't be out much.

Emma has been waking up at 6:30 every morning for the past week or so. Today I decided to keep her up. We will actually get to eat dinner as a family this way, so it is better in some ways. It's past 8:00 now and she's getting a little giddy. She usually goes to bed at 7:30) Hopefully the outcome of this will be a later awakening from my chubby little alarm clock.

We have had a great day today. The past couple of weeks have been very stressful for me for many reasons. I have been extremely irritable and impatient though. Today, I felt fantastic. I got some things accomplished around the house and didn't freak out all day. This is how I want every day to be!!

Abby wants to crawl so bad! She'll get in position and rock a little before getting really mad. I'm guessing it will just be another week or so before she figures out how it works. I know she would like to be able to get to Emma more quickly. Soon enough.

Ultrasound

I now have a little more time to write about some details. The baby looks good and everything. He's a little on the big side, but we've come to expect that in this family. I know my dates are extremely accurate when calculating my due date and according to that he should be weighing at about 8 ounces. According to the measurements taken during the ultrasound, they have him weighing in at 11 ounces. That doesn't sound like a big difference, but when they're that small it kinda is. That's OK. I'd much prefer a big baby. I figured it was big anyway and almost thought it was twins since I'm quite a bit bigger this time around. I really thought we would be having another girl because after comparing belly photos with past pregnancies, I seem to be carrying the same and I definitely don't feel any different or anything. However, it was quite evident that our new little bundle of joy was a male! I really wanted a boy, but now that it is, it's kind of got me freaked out a little. I don't know why. The ultrasound tech did say that it looked like I had a low-lying placenta again. We won't know for sure until the radiologist looks at it and I go see the doctor again though. I had that with Abby and when they did the 2nd ultrasound to check it, the placenta had moved up and out of the way on it's own. So it's nothing to worry about at this point. If if doesn't move on it's own, we might have some problems.

The Results Are In

To my surprise........................................It's a BOY!!

Darkness

Last night all the ladies from Bible study met at Debbie's house for a little game night. Everyone was chatting and eating their pizza and all of a sudden the power went out in the entire apartment complex. It was off at least half of the time we were there, so we didn't get to play any games. It was fun to just sit around and talk in the dark though. Maybe next time we can squeeze in some games before it blacks out!

Abby's second tooth followed the first one out right away. I think it took Emma almost 2 weeks to get her second one in and Abby's only took a few days with minimal fussiness. She has wanted to be held quite a bit more than usual. Most of the time she is content to just roll around on the floor all day, but not so much this week. She hasn't been up all night screaming or anything, so I think I'll manage.

Out of nowhere this week Emma has gotten pretty good at combining words. I've been really impressed. It started out with "bye-bye water" as I let the water drain from the tub after her bath. Then today Abby was sitting in the floor and started crying (I think Emma hit her in the head with a car) and Emma went and patted Abby on the head and said "Cry no more". This morning we actually had a conversation! It started because Emma laid her banana she was eating for breakfast down on the couch. It went like this:

Me: Aren't you going to finish your banana?
Emma: No.
Me: Why not?
Emma: Want no more.

I know it wasn't a very long conversation or anything, but I was really excited about it. A lot of people like the "little baby stage", but I really think it gets better as they get older. It's so neat when they start doing new things. I always said I couldn't wait til Emma started walking and everyone said I would regret saying that. I definitely prefer it once they start walking though! Everything just keeps getting more fun and entertaining, especially with the whole talking thing.

Tooth Number 1

Kara and I have been trying to get pictures of the girls done for about 3 weeks now and have had to keep rescheduling because of the weather. We finally had a clear day yesterday and that's the day that Abby decides to pop her first tooth out. Needless to say, she wasn't very cooperative. The hardest thing was trying to get pictures of them together. It's pretty much impossible to get both of them to look at the camera and be happy at the same time. She did manage to get a few good shots. (Way to go Kara!) Abby wasn't really smiling in any of them, but there are quite a few good ones of Emma by herself. My girls might have Kara re-thinking her profession though!!

Only a few more days now until we find out about this baby. I'm pretty convinced now that "Jonah" is actually more of a "Dana". I can't wait until Friday!!! Luckily this is a pretty busy week, so it might just fly by.

Next week, I will be adding a little more chaos to my life. It will only be temporary though. I'm going to be babysitting my boss' 4-month-old baby girl. It's only going to be 3 days a week and I will be getting paid for doing something that I have to do everyday anyway. His wife is a principal, so I will only be doing this for about 5 weeks - until school's out. I've got to get used to handling 3 babies soon anyway, right? Not quite a 19 month, 7 month, and 4 month old, but that's OK. I'm sure it will be fine.

Fun Times

Today the girls and I went to the park with Krista and her 3 boys. What an adventure that was! Emma has only been to the park a couple of times and was mostly just pushed in the swing on those occasions. She wasn't too sure about any of it at first and I had to hold her hand and talk her into going up a few steps and keep holding it whole she went down the baby slide. It didn't take her too long to take on that task alone, which was good since I was lugging Abby around. I talked her into going down the second smallest slide which she made me hold her hand with again. It was sweet to know that she still needs me to feel safe sometimes. Things were going pretty well until some older kids arrived. They nearly trampled her on several occasions. Then she followed them up the stairs to the BIG slide. It was a covered twisty slide and I think she would have freaked if she actually tried to go down. It was also a lot of steps for her to fall down so I had to go rescue her. When we left Krista came over to our house to chat for a while since we couldn't get a lot of that done while keeping track of all the kiddos at the park. By the time they left Emma was pretty pooped. She's not used to so much excitement. So she ate steak and goldfish (good combo huh?) for dinner and went to bed around 7:00. It was a fun day, nice change of pace. I can't wait until Krista and I try to tackle the zoo with all 5 kids!!