It's been awhile

I am horrible at keeping up with this blog! I think it's knowing that nobody reads it! Still, I want to keep a record of what's been going on in our life. Since January a couple big things have happened.

1. We bought a house! We made an offer on the third house we saw. It was such an easy process and we feel so blessed. We put a significant amount down so we are actually paying less per month in the mortgage then we were in rent. And we are even paying extra. The goal is to pay off the house in 10 years.

2. Hannah is walking! She isn't walking full time yet, but she does more and more each day. Since writing my last post, she has also learned to clap (10 months), wave (8 months), and point (10.5 months?). She is completely off bottles too. I really wanted her off bottles by 1 year and we accomplished that at 10.5 months. The transition was so easy, but we did it very gradually.



I have less than 2 weeks with the preschoolers. A part of me is sad to see the year end. I had a really great group of kids and parents. And I will miss the kids that aren't coming back next year. But I'm so excited to be done with lesson planning for the summer!

Busy Week!

We met with a mortgage lender this week and got approved for more than we were hoping for. It was such a relief since getting all the paperwork ready for this meeting was so stressful! They require so much to approve you for a loan. Now we get to contact a realtor and start looking for a house!

Hannah and I took our first swim class today. She did really well in the water. She was a little scared at first, but by the end of the 30 minute class, she wasn't quite so clingy. There were some really nice moms there too. Speaking of nice moms, Hannah and I have our first group play date this weekend. I'm hoping to meet some great women and that Hannah enjoys the crawling time.

Oh and the day after I last posted, Hannah started pulling up on things. My mother in law thinks she's going to be a climber. I guess the higher energy level attributed to young moms like me will help!

Our life group is starting a parenting study next week. I'm looking forward to it, but I'm also a bit nervous. Parenting decisions are just so...personal. I often read/participate in parenting message boards and some of the philosophies I read just make no sense to me. I mean, I somewhat understand what they are staying, but I completely disagree. But I'm sure others feel the same about my views ;) We'll see how it goes!

Christmas & milestones

Hannah's first Christmas went so well! We spent the Sunday before at Dave's mom's where Hannah got new clothes, bath toys, a bath tub, sippy cups, and so many generous presents! She loved eating the wrapping paper. We spent Christmas day with Dave's dad and with my family at my grandparent's. Hannah loves playing with her new toys. It was so nice to have Christmas morning with just the 3 of us too.

I can't believe it's nearly 2010. It will no longer be the year that Hannah was born. But I think we'll start trying again in 2010-and sometimes it takes every bit of control to wait until summer. Hannah is so easy to deal with; it really makes us want another baby...

Anyway, I don't think I've really recorded her milestones so here goes:

Smiled socially at 5 weeks
Rolled over at 4 months
Tripod sitting at 4 months
Sitting unassisted at 5 months
Sat herself up at 6 months
Crawled at 6.5 months

And she is trying to pull up on things so I'm sure that will come soon.

In other news, we are getting ready to feet with a mortgage officer to get going on buying our first home. We met with a financial adviser to figure out a down payment so now we just have to wait and see on the loan. We are very excited to get things going!

It's nearly Christmas and I've barely begun my shopping

This happens every.single.year. I am not good at buying gifts for people. Sigh. Ah well, I suppose if it makes others happy, it's worth it then.

I am taking a class to continue my training as a licensed preschool teacher. It's on observing children. It's not hard, but a part of me is going "Homework??? But I already graduated last year! WAH!" I also took an in-person training on pretend play. I got lots of useful information, but laughed a bit at the teacher-coddling. Every 5 minutes, it was "oh us teachers work sooooo hard. What amazing things we do for children every day!" My job is actually really easy, and I in no way feel like superwoman but I know there are crappy teaching environments. And I totally understand why those people need encouragement.

My feel good moment of the week? When we brought Hannah up to the counter for check-in at the church nursery and one of the workers rushed over to get her. It is so nice knowing that people want to be around your kid haha. I'm so so glad she does well in there!

As for Hannah's skills, she is still working on crawling. She was getting up on all fours and rocking, but now she actually moves one arm and leg forward. Then she collapses. But she's definitely made progress! She also can get into the sitting position by herself. She'll be on her belly, then go to all fours, then sit up from there. In terms of gross motor development, she's definitely ahead. She's not babbling much, but I think her "focus" is on those large group muscles right now.

Mobility is coming soon...

Well Hannah is in the very beginning stage of mobility. She is doing a kind of creep/army crawl, but she goes backwards! It's cute to see, but it is frustrating for her. She also can get up on all fours for about 2 seconds, but then she falls down. I wouldn't be surprised if she was full on crawling by Christmas, but I know many babies take the process slowly.

In other Hannah news, she has a new favorite food-bananas! Dave and I love them too so no big surprise there. We're going to my mother-in-law's for Thanksgiving, and I think we'll bring bananas and/or sweet potatoes for her to eat. Her favorites!

Two days of work this week then Thanksgiving break. I'm ready for the vacation and I think the kids are too. I've been looking up training dates to keep up with licensing. I really need to sign up soon!

Dedication

The dedication went great! My parents and sister, Dave's dad, Dave's sister & her son all came out. My only small regret is not putting Hannah in the nursery after the dedication part. She just does so well in there, and it was a bit hard to concentrate on the service. It was really interesting too. It was a Q&A format on heaven and hell. I hope to get a chance to listen to it online the week.

So we're all sick. Dave is lightheaded and has a sore throat. I mostly just have a sore throat, and Hannah has a stuffy nose. She was up from 11:30-12:30 last night and up again at 5 am. I know that's not bad, but she usually sleeps 7-6 or 7-7 so we knew she wasn't feeling well. Hopefully it will pass soon for all of us!

My preschool students played in the leaves yesterday, and I so wish I had my camera. The pile was huge, and they were just laughing and jumping all around. Love it!

Today was a hard day

Dave's grandmother passed away on Thursday October 29th, and today was the funeral. It was a beautiful service, and it brought all the family together. I remember meeting his grandma. It was at one of his high school band concerts, and she gave me a hug and was so kind. Dave tells me how much he enjoyed spending time with her growing up. She really was a generous, caring, godly woman.

It was just a long day for the both of us and we ended up snapping at each other more than we should. It's so easy to take your frustrations out on the one you love the most! We had a nice talk tonight though so all is well.

In other news, Hannah is now 5 months old. I totally teared up yesterday because she held her own bottle for most of her feeding. It just seems like a lot is going on with her at once. In the past 2 weeks we have put the swing in storage, started solid foods, seen her sit up unassisted, and seen her hold her own bottle. I do not miss her newborn days at all, but I'm still a little sentimental about all her new skills. Dave's even worse. I had to convince him that putting away her swing does not mean she is getting ready to get married or even start kindergarten! I can't imagine what we'll be like when it's our last baby.

Unfortunately though, Hannah has been having stomach problems lately. Lots of spitting up, fussiness, and just seeming uncomfortable. I don't know if it was the squash or the new formula. We had been using Similac to supplement, but got a free sample of Enfamil, and I figured I would give it a shot. She seemed to like it, but I'm wondering if it's not agreeing with her. At this point, we're going back to Similac and just plain rice cereal for solids. We'll try squash again in a couple weeks to see how she does then.