It's Been A While

So before August totally passed by without a single blog post from me (pretty crazy!) I thought I better get my act together.  I'll be posting updates of our adventures over the past month, but they will be back dated for my record keeping purposes.  Enjoy!

Eleven Months Old

My little bundles of joy aren't so little anymore!  Even doing these month photo shoots is quite the task now with two babies wanting to do anything but sit or stand in one place.  So I guess that is our first and biggest piece of news - Suzie is

now 

standing up on her own!  She even took her first solo steps while at my parents house tonight.  She had incentive each time, first it was to get closer to the TV and the second time it was to get a pack of fruit snacks I was luring her with.  Cruel, but hey - we got two steps out of her!  Suzie like to stand much of the time now and is very good at bending her knees to get a toy then come back up to a stand.

And as for Ian?  Well, just days (I kid you not) after we moved in he 

started to

take off 

 crawling!

 Which means he's been perfecting this skill for a few weeks now.  And man is he fast!  I had a feeling that was going to happen.  He also is able to pull himself up to a stand on the furniture and, after a few days, figure out how to bend his knees and get down by himself too.  Dave and I both agree Ian is much happier and very content now that he can crawl around and get the toys and go to the places he wants.  No more just sitting and watching Suzie move around.  It has also changed the dynamic between them a bit.  Suzie used to be able to take a toy from Ian then crawl away with it.  Now he is able to fend for himself by crawling after her to get it back.  It's been fun to see how both of them deal with his new found mobility.

Suzette has 2 teeth on the bottom now as well as the 4 on top and Ian is rocking 4 on top and 4 on the bottom.  I've tried to start feeding them even more finger food than I did before and it's been a hit and miss process.  Some things they like right away (mostly fruits like bananas, grapes and strawberries) and others take a few days to acquire the taste for (like cheese, squash, sweet potato and carrots).  I've been trying different combos of lentils, quinoa and pasta with a protein and veggies for their dinner meals and get mixed results each night.  Most often I think they're just so distracted when daddy comes home from work that all they want to do is get down and play with him rather than finish eating.  And sometimes that's exactly what happens, for everyones sanity sake!  I need to work more with them on drinking from a sippy cup.  We have 4 or 5 different kinds now (3 of those are with straws) and we never seem to get past the toy stage with them.  The day that they finally get the concept of drinking water/formula from the sippy cup will be one I'm sure I'll hear a choir of angels sing.  In all honesty, I probably haven't stuck with it long enough to give them a fair shake at it (I've read it can take 3 weeks to well over a month for the concept to sink in).  My days are numbered before baby #3 comes, so this will be my focus with them over the next couple months.  I'm open to any tips or suggestions!

I held on to their 10th month like nothing else, but it's funny now how the 11th month doesn't even seem to exist because when people ask now I say, "They are almost 1 year old."  And they are, but for a few more weeks they are still my little (big) babies.  Dave and I have loved this stage of seeing their personalities come through more and more.  Suzie is so sweet waning to just be near you and babble away (her first words, besides mama and dada, can't be too far off now) and Ian is quite the crack-up.  He loves to experiments with making all sorts of different noises with his mouth and tongue and will do anything to get a smile out of you.  Both Ian and Suzie love playing so-big and Ian's favorite is still peek-a-boo.  Bath time has become great fun and meal time the never ending sensory experiment with texture and taste.  Ian will let me tickle attack him every now and then and his laughter is music to my ears.  Suzie is a harder crowd to please and will only reward me with her lovely giggles when I make of fool of myself with all sorts of silly/crazy faces.  

Plans for their first birthday party are under way (it'll be a small event with mostly just family), but for now I just want to soak up each day I have left with my sweet and silly eleven month old babies.

Settling In

We've been busy unpacking boxes over here.  I didn't get many pictures during the actual move since Dave and I were too busy actually moving.  We were blessed to have great friends who helped Dave load everything up from the storage unit to the moving truck early Saturday morning on July 28th.  Then Dave's brother Sam, my uncle Phillip and some members and the missionaries from Bethesda ward helped load our things into the truck from my Grandfather's house AND move his furniture back into the rooms we'd be living out of.  When we moved in we put many of his pieces of furniture in the basement so there would be room for ours.  The third and final stop of our moving adventure ended at our new place in Virginia where we had some really nice guys from our new ward, Sam and our AMAZING friend Riley (who helped at all THREE locations!) get most of our things moved in.  I say most because there is still one large bookcase sitting in our garage that was unable to make the trip up the stairwell due to it's size.  Dave has plans to hoist it up over the balcony and bring it in through the sliding glass door - hopefully it'll work!

It was only a year, but it was hard having 90% of our belongings packed in storage.  It really has felt like Christmas morning for me as I unpacked box after box, especially all my kitchen goods.  The hours of entertainment the packing paper provided for Ian and Suzie was a nice bonus.    

taken with my iPhone - got a bit of double exposure action happening, oops

 As we've placed the furniture where we want it Suzie and Ian have had fun exploring their new jungle gym.  Which helps us to baby proof as we go.  Seems like everyday there is a new skill they've acquired to help peel off tape and open boxes.  It provides motivation to get things unpacked and put away for sure!

Our new place has 1800 sq. ft. and is a 2 over 2 condo.  From the outside it looks like a 4 level townhouse, but there 2 front doors - one leading to the lower two levels and the other to the upper two.  We have the top two floors with a large living room/office, dining room, kitchen and 1/2 bath on the main floor and 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and laundry on the top floor.  Each unit has a driveway, garage and balcony on the back.  For me the driveway and garage were a must when looking at places to rent.  I did not want to deal with only having 2 parking spaces outside while trying to get 3 babies loaded into the car.  So far it has worked out well here.

Slowly, but surely all the boxes will get unpacked, things will be put away and it'll start feeling more like home here each day.

Sick

Poor Suzie ended up getting a cold (probably from that dreadful Urgent Care center) just a few days after having stitches.  A few days in she developed her first and really bad diaper rash.  She is miserable!  I'm hoping the rash clears up quickly and this cold doesn't hang around long.  Her bibs have become snot rags because her nose in constantly running :(  She has no appetite to eat anything and it's hard for her to even drink from the bottle as her nose is so stuffy that she can't breath. 

My poor baby, hasn't she been through enough?!

Trauma

Not even in our new place one full week and we encountered some trauma.  It happened in the morning 7 o'clock hour while I was in the kitchen unpacking some dishes.  I heard Suzie scream a loud painful cry and bolted over to her where she was laying face down in between the chair and entertainment center.  I scooped her up and saw she was bleeding above her eye. A lot.  After getting some paper towels to dab on her cut I noticed it was pretty deep.  This wasn't going to be good.  I'm guessing she hit her head on the corner of the entertainment center, as that was the only sharp thing around, but since I didn't see it happen I cannot be sure.  And while you're wondering how that even happened with her wearing the helmet, she wasn't.  She gets three 30 minute breaks each day and I usually do one in the morning after she gets up.  She took her spill in the last 5 minutes of her break.  I took this photo with my phone and sent it to Dave who had just left for work not that long before...

 with the message saying, "I think this will require medical attention."  Of course he called right away and we decided with traffic there would be no point in having him come back home as I would need to take Suzie somewhere to get this taken care of ASAP.  Dave looked up Urgent Care locations for me and luckily there is one in the shopping center of our new neighborhood.  Not even having been to church yet to know anyone to call and help I felt really alone, but knew I needed to pull myself together and deal with this.  So I got myself, Suzie and Ian dressed, diaper bag stocked and loaded everyone up in the car.  Of course since Dave just started his new job we don't have the actual insurance cards yet which made checking in a pleasant process - NOT!  The receptionist was very unhelpful and seemed to lack compassion and understanding, which I really needed at that exact moment.  She kept insisting calling and verifying our coverage with Blue Cross Blue Shield over the phone using Dave's member and group number (which he got in a jiffy from the HR guy at work) wasn't enough, we had to have the actual card.  Are you kidding me?!  I've worked in a medical office before and that is just bologna.  After insisting on speaking to her manager and going into a bit of a mommy meltdown explaining how my daughter needed treatment NOW and I knew for a fact it was possible to submit a claim having all the info that would be on an insurance card, but not the actual card I was told they'd see her shortly.  

And that was just the beginning of it.  Once we were taken back and the doctor finally came into the exam room she stated right away stitches would be needed.  The nurse was asked to come in and hold Suzie's head while she was laying down on the table and I was to hold her arms and legs.  All the while Ian is still sitting in the stroller just watching things unfold.  With the numbing shot Suzie's wails of pain began and I tried with all my might to hold it together.  I sang songs and tried stroking her tummy while looking over and Ian to reassure him it was okay.  By the time the 4th stitch was done, Suzie's face covered in tears, snot and a bit of blood was the point Ian lost it and started to hysterically cry and scream.  I could do nothing but turn my head and try to verbally comfort him, but I couldn't even do that.  The tears started to come and the overwhelming feeling of both my babies being scared and in pain and I couldn't do anything was awful.  I couldn't even sing anymore.  I just layed my head on Suzie's tummy and sobbed, praying that the last stitch would be completed soon and I could scoop Suzie up off that table and walk over next to Ian to stroke his face and say we're all done.  It seemed like forever, but finally that moment came.  

With tears still streaming down my face the doctor actually had the audacity to ask if there was another adult in the house, why did I come alone and I shouldn't leave my children unattended for reasons like this.  I wanted to shout - WE JUST MOVED HERE A FEW DAYS AGO!!!  My husband works and the place obviously isn't baby proofed 100% yet, sheesh really - your timing couldn't be worse.  There were also comments and rolled eyes about me being pregnant with another baby.  Obviously I couldn't wait to get out of there and upon walking out the door I got a call from my mom and just lost it.  Tender mercy indeed because I really needed some words of comfort right then.

Suzie actually handled it all pretty well.  She had some bruising from the shot and stitches the next day, but that didn't last too long and we were able to find another Urgent Care center just up the road in the other direction to go to for her suture removal.  That was a MUCH better experience.  It was such a new center that it didn't come up when Dave did his initial search, but it worked out well in the end.

So that is our bit of trauma upon moving in.  Let's hope things just keep getting better from here!