Punctuation

I do know how to punctuate properly and use paragraphs, however for some reason blogger isn't making paragraphs. In preview it's seperated but somewhere between that and posting it gets all jumbled. So, sorry for the compression and once I figure the new tricks I'll fix it. :-)

September Catch-Up

September saw Alastair figuring out that whole crawling business and look out world 'cause he is not slowing down for anyone!

It also saw Karalee's first camping trip with her dad and uncles! She was so excited and had so much fun. (And yes this was also my first night away from her since having Alastair) This was right when she was obsessed with Monsters Inc and the best part for her was her uncle Gregg going to their trailer to watch it over...and over...and over...it's very safe to say Gregg had no desire to ever see Monsters Inc again lol. Of course between the movie watching she ran all over, got gleefully dirty, had her first s'more and throughly enjoyed being the center of attention. Dana was sent with the instructions that a ton of pictures were required, he obliged but the poor guy is only in one! And that's just to show he was in the truck leaving lol. Guess I'll have to instruct the uncle's to take pictures of Dana and kiddo next time. :-)

Alastair and I hung out at home. With a nice comfy bed. And heat. And no Monsters Inc. :-D We missed Dana and Karalee a ton though and it was so cute when Karalee came home she ran right up to Alastair and hugged him.

And on a less important note, September saw my 30th birthday so I have begun (as my best friend David and I coined it) 'the new decade of my life'. For those who aren't in the know David and I have the same birthday so we're both starting our new decades.


09/05/2009
Alastair succeeded in catching the block


I think I can, I think I can


You're in my sites now...


Gotcha!


Karalee was picture shy so this is one of the few I got that day of her, least she was happy long as Mickey hung out lol


09/06/2009
Hm...these things make noise when I hit them...


Karalee thought Alastair needed a little "cool mojo"


Ah that is soooooo funny


Jewels galore! I must be a Princess just like I always thought!


09/10/2009
Here's our beautiful hutch all filled



09/11/2009
Bon Voyage!




First S'More!




Nite Nite


09/12/2009
Uncle Gregg and Karalee hunting up good throwing rocks


1,2,3 throw!


Relaxing (and I suspect watching Monsters)


Jim has affectionatly named his pride and joy (not that one you gutter minds hee hee) Con-sway-low ;)


What? Another picture of lil' ol' me? Okay


09/13/2009
Headed home


09/17/2009
Karalee has discovered the joys of painting your nails...or in her case her whole hand






09/20/2009
Handsome little dude


09/21/2009
Alastair all bundled up for our first really cold day


Enough Momma!


09/22/2009
My boys


09/24/2009
Hardee har har honey


Karalee and Dana putting the candles on the cake


Karalee helping me blow out the candles


Karalee taking decorations off


Alastair - I love this picture, looks like he's saying "Where's my piece of cake?!?!?"


Help opening my gifts


Alastair and I

August Catch-Up

I started a post back in August but never finished it, likely I got pulled away but some little munchkin lol. Here's what I did get written and the pictures from August.

Alastair loves the jumperoo although he's still a tad short so a pillow helps boost him up. Gosh he just does so much! He loves to interact with people, he's reaching for toys and trying to pick them up, he's trying to crawl so hard, he "talks" a lot more, he's very alert, he's stronger then his typical age group so his doctor is blown away. He holds his head really well, he's working on getting his balance for sitting but we haven't quite gotten that down yet. :-)

As you can see Karalee discovered make-up and had a dandy time applying lipstick to herself. It's actually about 4 lipsticks combined lol. I suppose I should have been mad but really how mad could I get seeing that little face all covered in lipstick like that? I just laughed and told her not to take mommy's lipstick anymore. :-)

8/21/2009
But Mom the thing is....the lipstick was just there...and..and...well....


Pucker Up


1950's Here I come




8/25/2009
And another generation learns the proper way to eat black olives, thank you veddee much


Karalee wasn't too sure of this, it's our neighbors little ATV they bought for their son.




8/28/2009
Karalee's new bedding on her big girl bed



08/31/2009
Dana used our Handy Man magazine to build holders for our recycling bins


These are the shelves he built

The last 3 months have seen...

...Alastair go from 2 teeth to 6! 3 on top, 3 on bottom and I suspect he's working on another one right now given how grumpy and clingy he's been. He cruises around the couch, table and has started going from our coffee table to the couch and is standing more on his own. Still unsteady but I think it's more nerves then anything. :-) Little man also figured out how to go up the stairs...scared the crud out of me when I discovered that little talent of his. Now we have to teach him how to go down the stairs properly since he wants to go down head-first.

He's started sleeping longer at night which typically makes for more rest for me which is very nice! He's really gotten good about going to bed drowsy and rolling onto his tummy while I put his blanket on him and off to dream land he goes.

Karalee is potty training and doing pretty good. Some days are better then others but we learned from the last time we tried to just let her be in control and it's smoother. She has peed and pooped in the toilet but again some days she just has zilch interest in it so we just have to shrug our shoulders and go with the flow. I know she'll get there eventually.

She's all about her potty movie we borrowed from the library, Once Upon A Potty. She's very proud of Prudence for going potty..downside to this movie is it's short and she wants to watch it over and over and over. Plus the kids are freaking creepy on that movie! Lol

We changed daycares in January and have been very happy. Our new daycare is licensed and still in-home which we like for the kids. The big selling point is she has fewer kids in her care then our old daycare which just works better for Karalee and Alastair. They used to just melt down all night long when we'd bring them home from the other place and now the melt downs are few and far between. We get daily report cards on what they did that day, they go on field trips. It's just been really great and we're all very happy.

I found a surrogacy place in CO so I'm going to fill out the application next year as Dana wanted me to wait one year before going for it. I'm pretty excited. I feel like I'm meant to help a couple this way at least once so I hope it works out.

I'm so excited that in a month we can move Alastair into Karalee's Britax and we're going to move Karalee into a toddler seat that will give her more room to grow. I'm letting her have a say in her seat this time - I get final say obviously for safety etc - she was so excited when we were at Target and she got to sit in all the seats to try them out. I have a suspicion there will be a pink seat in my car soon lol.

Alastair is in 12 months and 18 months clothes. He's started to chunk up a little more now that he's eating so many solids. Karalee is in 3T/4T tops and 2T/3T bottoms. She can wear some size 6 stuff and she's now in size 7 shoes. She's still in a nudist phase where she just decides it's time to be (as she says) "Naked butt!!!"

The last 4 months have seen...

...Alastair figure out how to crawl and he is one fast son of a gun! He also started pulling up on everything starting in November and with that new skill brought standing in his crib! He's sleeping so-so, he still gets up about 3 times a night and I know the "rule" is now I should sleep train but I'm not up for that. I don't like to worry about sleeping thru the night until after a year because so much goes on before that with major growth spurts, teeth etc that I just don't find it worth worrying about for me. He laughs and gets this huge grin that just lights up his face when you tickle him or toss him in the air. He especially loves peek-a-boo with Karalee. He got his first dose of flu shot but hasn't been able to get the second dose because they ran out. He's wearing pretty much 9 months clothes now but can wear some 6-9 if they run closer to 9 months size. I did put him in a pair of pj's last night that were 12 months and they must have been shrunk because they're about 6 months size lol. He also got his first tooth and is currently working on his second! They're both on the bottom, his first one was bottom right and he's working on bottom left.

Karalee loves to take her books out and "read" aka flip the pages. I'm so thrilled she loves books so much and it's a lot of fun to read to her as she points out the animals and will do their sounds if you ask. She's also made the connection from books and movies if they point to say their nose, she immediatly points to their nose, her nose and my nose saying "they have nose, Kawalee nose, Momma nose!" Very cute and wicked smart my daughter is that is certain! She loves to hold phones and say "I tawk to Mickey, Sunsine, Gwama, Dada" however you hand her a phone with someone actually talking and it's a crap shoot as to whether she'll actually converse lol. She's figured out how to get out of her clothes so now and then you suddenly have a naked toddler dashing thru the house laughing like a maniac. She loves baths and even better if it's a bubble bath! It's to the point now where she'll tell me at random times of the day "I take bath now" to which I usually nix the idea of, yep I'm mean. She got the flu mist this year and did great with it, I was relieved she didn't need the shot! She's really getting into pretend play which is so much fun to watch! She loves to "cook" and for awhile it was only Dana she'd cook for, I wasn't allowed to play lol.

We have a pretty good routine these days where if it's bath night both kids get bathed together, then I take and get Alastair in pj's and to bed while Dana plays with Karalee and then gets her in pj's. By the time I come out from having put Alastair to bed it's about 7 so that leaves about 20 minutes for Karalee to play until it's time to settle down and head to bed.

Dana's work keeps undergoing change, they recently had layoffs of a department "they didn't need anymore" so I worry but he keeps reassuring me they need his department and his job is safe. I trust him but I can't help but worry because I just don't trust a company to tell their employee's the truth about something like that. Thankfully we paid my car off so that's one less bill to worry about!

Speaking of my car we had to get a new clutch, flywheel, shaft something or other (it goes on the shaft but isn't the shaft itself) and that was a very painful check to write. We're blessed that Dana's parents were able to help with the bill and we're very thankful. My car goes in for a new timing belt over Thanksgiving while Dana's folks are out visiting so I'm hoping that it's an easier job then my clutch. Clutch jobs are typically fairly easy but there were other problems that they couldn't figure out so all told it took about 3 weeks to get my car fully up, they'd fix it then I'd have to bring it back because it was a fight to get my car in first and I couldn't get reverse at all unless I was rolling (which is the problem we brought it in for) they'd think they fixed it, I'd have to bring it back same problem. Sigh. It was very aggravating for the mechanics and us. They're an awesome shop but don't typically work on Hyundai's and the problem they had wasn't easily discovered at first. But it works like a champ now so that's all that matters!

On a sad note we did have to put Max down. He started to have cluster seizures again and we weighed the option of spending the money to get the emergency vet to get them stopped which we knew from experience would be a lot of work or letting him go because of how violent his seizures are and there would be no telling how long he'd go seizure free. So, we made the heart wrenching decision to put him down. The vet agreed because she saw how violent his seizures were and how much they took out of him. It was easily one of the hardest decisions we've ever made. We do have his ashes and a plaster imprint of his paw print so that helps.

Lets' see...my friend Mollie had a beautiful little girl she named Lola and her son has been awesome with her! Lola did/does suffer from colic so poor Mollie was having to deal with a screaming, inconsolable baby for 3 hours every.single.night. I think I'd have run from the house tearing my hair out. Luckily we were able to find out a few tricks to try and Lola has been much happier which in turn makes for a happier and relieved Momma!

I'm toying with becoming a surrogate but haven't found out all I need to know yet. I did find out one piece of information which stalled my will to look. When you carry another persons baby it is obviously their child, well if test should show a genetic issue or too many babies for them to care for (I'm only willing to do invetro so I wouldn't be using my eggs) then they can have them terminated or cut down on the amount of babies. Well...while I agree everyone should have say in their kids I honestly don't think I would deal well with termination. I know I'd have so much grief that I really would be heartbroken even though the baby wasn't mine. I don't know. It's a difficult decision and I'm not taking the idea of surrogacy lightly at all. I would love to be able to give a couple a child of their very own, I just need to make sure I can handle any decisions that come up.

Pictures to be posted as munchkins allow time for, by the time I get them to bed I'm ready for bed usually lol.

"Woll ovah!"

Karalee likes to help Alastair, whether he wants it or not lol. She always wants to "hol im" (Hold him) and she likes to encourage him to "woll ovah!" (Roll over) Alastair forgot he could roll from his tummy to his back for a little bit and he was quite upset when he'd roll to his tummy and get stuck. He's sleeping in his room but he wakes up every single time he rolls over so I'm a little sleep deprived and it just depends how long my energy holds out before I bring him to bed with us lol.

7/24/09
Karalee coaching Alastair


"I DON'T WANT TO!"


"Check me out! I'm jumping!"




"Yea, I rock"










Karalee using her spoon to distribute the water


Alastair hanging out


Karalee


Pool time!


Alastair and Dana"I'm big!!"


Making a break for it!