Evie is 6 Months Old

6 months old

Evie's officially half a year old! And let me tell ya. She is a movin' and a groovin'! Alex and Abby crawled around the six and a half month mark with Abby beating Alex by about a week. Evie decided that she can do better than that and she took her first crawl steps two days before turning six months old. Go Evie! She started solid foods about a month ago with rice cereal but didn't really take too kindly to it. We waited a bit and tried oatmeal instead. She handled that much better, just like her sissy did. She's gotten pretty good at eating from the spoon. Not a pro yet, but more of it stays in that out. She even started bananas and applesauce and is happy to be expanding her palette. She sits up very well and can pretty much get to where ever she wants to go. I bought a walker/playstation for her and she is practically zooming around the house now, following Abby where ever she goes. It's pretty funny to watch. The only thing I'm having difficulty with is that she won't laugh. Oh, she's the happiest most socially smiley baby on the planet, but she will not laugh for me. She gets the happy squealies and can smile so hard it almost looks painful, but no giggles. It gets me down sometimes because I want to hear those baby giggles, but I'm sure she'll laugh when something is funny enough. Next stop: carrots and squash with a side of walking!

Preschool: Success

She did it! After a rocky start to the preschool year, Abby went and graduated this week. She did have quite the hard time when preschool started. We fought tears and separation anxiety when drop off time came. But, something happened to give her confidence somewhere down the line and she has been doing wonderful! She went from crying and holding on to my leg for dear life to walking in all by herself. She has beautiful handwriting for her age and has learned so much. She's even pumped about kindergarten. At the little program/graduation, I will once again admit, that I did get a bit emotional when she walked across the stage for her little diploma. And when they played the photo montage to touching music, I cried. Not a lot...but nevertheless, I did. Her last day of school was today and they released balloons into the sky to celebrate their last day as preschoolers. We'll miss her teacher, Miss Cindy. I just hope that she's still teaching when Evie heads off to school. My baby is growing up! I'm so proud of you Abby! You've come so far.

Releasing balloons on the last day. Abby has the pink one.

Abby and Miss Cindy.

The Graduating class.

Dinosaur Stomping song.

Abby and her best buddy, Natalie.

Space Woes

Guess who's almost half a year old? That's right! Miss Evie is almost there. And what has happened, you ask? The dark circles under my eyes have overtaken my face. She has begun to dislike her sleeping arrangements. The crib, like usual, is in our room. It's so easy to get to her when she wakes up for those midnight snack runs when she's just a few feet away. That's how breastfeeding goes. With Alex and Abby, it was the same deal. But right around this time with both of them, I had to make "The Move". Yep. The big one. They leave the comfort of their not-so-sleeping mom's ever watchful eyes and move into their own room. They sleep better. I sleep better. It's all part and partial to the growing process. You gotta leave the nest. Albeit, in small steps. But nevertheless. It must happen. Right?

So, Alex moved into that room at this age. Abby moved into that room at this age. The same room...the only other room in the house. It's a teeny tiny office space sized room. We manged to remodel it enough a couple of years back so we could fit Alex and Abby's beds in there together. It's tight. Very tight these days. So tight, in fact, that they don't really get to play in there as there is little room to actually do much playing. So as both brother and sister made "The Move", we had hoped that Evie would make the move as well.

Dilemma: There's no more room to remodel. Back when I was preggo with Evie, Josh was working. Working well, I might add. And we were ready to make a move to a house that didn't compete in the Smallest Housing Contest. Right as we were about to go for it and complete the need for space, Josh's job made like a dead fish and went belly up. We're out of room.

Oh, I can keep Evie in the room with us indefinitely, I suppose. It shouldn't be too awful, right? But it's already biting me in the butt. Actually it's biting me in the bed. I'm exhausted. Every time she wakes up or stirs at night, she sees her mama sleeping just a few feet away and cries. Angrily. Loudly. All...night...long. She's gone from peachy keen sleeping pro to I-ain't-gonna-sleep-without-mama-holding-me girl. I'm so tired. So now the question of the hour is whether or not to go for the bunk bed route. It's concerning. Alex has night terrors and nightmares all the time and gets out of bed a lot at night. Not exactly a safe candidate for top-bunk sleeping. Abby is still in diapers (shhh...don't tell anyone) and having a heck of a time kicking the problem and so needs access to the bathroom at night. Also not a good candidate for top bunk sleeping. As I am trying to avoid midnight runs to the ER for broken bones as a result of falling, I've hit a snag.

Three kids in one tiny room. I never thought we'd get to this point. I always assumed we'd move up in life and avoid snags such as these. Josh is jobless. My kids keep getting bigger (which is awesome, don't get me wrong about that part). And my house is getting smaller. I'm so tired...in so many ways. I wonder if the attic can be remodeled?

Pink Rag

Evie has a friend. We've lovingly named it the pink rag. Josh found a pink handkerchief some time ago and gave it to Abby thinking she might find some use for it. She ended up not caring one way or another about it's existence and it got shoved into the bottom of a toy box. I'm not entirely certain how Evie ever found it or how we ever had the thought to give it to her, but she instantly fell in love with it. She sucks on it, chews on it, holds it...pretty much anything that a baby can do with it, she does. It's super cute how she is constantly holding it in her mouth and I can't stop taking pictures of it. I thought that the third kid wouldn't get as many pictures taken but it's become apparent that this is most definitely not so.

End of School Dash

The first official year of Alex's schooling is about to come to an end and in school terms, that means the mad dash to fit activities in before it's all over. The last couple of weeks have been pretty crazy. But I'm very proud and excited to say that the first year of school went smoothly. The start of school had me in a royal panic every second. I was afraid to leave the phone in case of some food allergy emergency. Now, I can safely (and mildly confidently) leave the house while Alex is at school. That being said, field trips and the such still get numero uno on my attention level. If there is a school event, I'm there 100%. And the school events have been back to back lately.

Alex's first music concert was a hit. It was super cute to watch and Alex was...well...Alex. Since his exposure to The Wiggles, that kid has developed some mad dancin' skills. He can carry a tune and memorize lyrics with the best of them too (for a six year old). He also, much to my entertainment, has become a ham (his teacher's words. not mine.) He was doing all sorts of crazy dance moves at the concert that were not in the line up. He gets his pizazz from me and my willingness to bust a move with them while listening to music. Oh yeah. I dance like a crazy white chick! I'm doing my best to pass that along to my kids. The music teacher even had the parents join the kids for a couple of numbers on the gym floor. I volunteered while Josh recorded it. It was fun.

The arrow is Alex. He was really crazy in his dance moves. Made me laugh. My camera is not doing well with pictures these days it seems. I can't get very good pictures.

After the concert we had the typical zoo trip that nearly every kindergarten class in the area manages to go to at the end of the year. And we weren't alone. Nearly half the county was there as well. It was a mad house. I packed up Evie and Abby and toted along Mandy and Greta in my trusty mini-van and we all met the class at the zoo in the early morning. I'm not gonna lie. The zoo was crazy. It felt rushed even though it was over four hours long. But it also felt like one of the longest days I've had in awhile. It was fun for the kids though. Abby was a little upset because we didn't get to see some of her favorite things. I think she was used to the way we normally go through the zoo. I promised the kiddos we'd go back when things weren't nearly as insane. We do love our zoo trips!

I love having pictures with me in them with the kids. I rarely get this it seems. But luckily a friend snapped this for me.

Abby has been pretty terrified of the Gorillas in the past. She conquered her fear that day. I was proud.

This is Alex's class. I think I know all their names now finally.

This is Alex and his best buddy, Kyler. They do everything together. No idea why I can't get Alex to smile. I think he misses his sunglasses.

And this is how Evie spent the second half of the trip. Snoozin' in her stroller. Big day for her first zoo trip.

Long Bumpy Beardy Road

It's been a long couple of months here. Things have been rocky at best, but we keep trucking. I hate it when I feel focused on the bumps in the road, but they are there and only God knows why, so I can't deny them. But we must keep our spirits high or we shall fail. The last time we were swimming around blind in the waters of unemployment, we decided it would be fun to measure our time in the murky situation by the length of Josh's beard. So it's become a little game we play when he gets into bad work situations. Or rather bad UNwork situations I suppose. The last time we played the How Long Can You Grow (your beard) Game, we documented his beard at this length (click here). Now, pardon me for laughing while I write this, but when you see that old post, remember that we were in a very poor situation and thought that things were pretty darn bad at the time. I remember seeing how long his beard was back then and thinking, "Wow! I can't believe how long your beard is!" Fast forward to today. After seeing the previous beard project, you are going to think I've doctored his current beard with photoshop. But alas, it is not so. This is The Beard (it deserves capitaliztion as it is no longer just a beard, but rather an entity of it's own creation) one month ago:

Think that's crazy? Hah! This is The Beard as of tonight. Yes. I put it in three dwarf-like ponytails...laughing all the way:

Sooo...yeah...The Beard is fierce. The Beard is crazy. The Beard is back...and it's getting bigger.

Why can't I stop laughing at this?? The Beard...lol. Too funny.

Gimme a Break...oh wait...I already have one

Seven or Eight months ago, I'm not exactly sure on the time frame, I somehow managed to break my foot. At the time, I remember my foot hurting. Then after a poorly aimed attempt at catching what I've come to believe was a small tarantula in our house, I managed to take the pain in my foot to a new level. I fell onto the couch chanting, "I think I broke my foot. I think I broke my foot," over and over. Being a massive bloated cow of a pregnant lady at the time, I wasn't exactly gunning to go to the doctor and expose myself to xrays, so I came to my own conclusion that it was a sprained something or other and limped along for a month. Another month came and went all the while I still limped along with pain in the foot. Before I knew it, I was poppin' out a wee baby and the pain in my foot quickly became mentally dialed down from bad to simply bothersome.

Fast forward many moons from that moment to about two months ago. Still limping along and feeling sharp stabs of pain, I took to getting the medical advice from my brother the chiropractor. A broken bone was the last thing either of us thought of so he suggested I try to rub a spoon along the painful area and try to stretch my ligaments (or something like that).(It sounds crazy, but I don't have the tools he has so a spoon was suggested.) One swipe along that spot on the side of my foot and several colorful words forcibly leapt out of my mouth and suddenly there was a spoon imbedded deeply in my wall. (No. Not really.) I decided to bite the bullet and go get an xray done. Sure enough, the doc came back in with a pretty picture of my foot and told me I had a Jone's fracture. Apparently, being a giant fat cow as pregnancy sucked all of my precious calcium from my body made it so my foot decided to spontaneously break under the pressure. Nice, right? He told me to wait it out another month and if the symptoms weren't gone, I'd need to probably go to an orthopedic doc.

Fast forward again to two months later. My foot is still very much broken and I still look like a gimpy pirate when I walk. The ortho doc told me that these fractures are tricky little buggers and don't like to heal on their own. Had I caught it early, I might have stood a chance, but if it ain't healed after 7 months, it ain't gonna heal at all. He scheduled me for surgery to place a pin in it and it's supposed to happen next Monday. Guess who has a problem with that? Yeah. Me...and Josh...and Evie...and my sanity. The surgery will put me on crutches for a month and then a boot for two weeks after with physical therapy for a month after that. What?!? I don't have time for this. A few problems have surfaced. Surgery will knock me out for about five hours. Evie doesn't care much for anyone but me and will scream consistently until she is in my arms. Josh said he's not sure he can listen to her scream for that long and that this is not a great time for the surgery. Evie also won't take a bottle. At all. She gets so mad she throws up every time we try to give her one. Oh, and not to mention I will have to find a way to carry her around with crutches. We're talking about rescheduling the surgery for a month later so I can get Evie on some solid foods so she won't be completely starving while I'm out but I still need to talk to the doc about it. All around, this is just one big pot of boiling over annoying and I just don't know what to do. I've actually considered just having a broken foot for the rest of my life. Is that crazy? Yeah. Maybe a little.