Random Tidbits

I've never done a random tidbits post, but I've been thinking about it lately and decided that it's time. So here goes.

Yesterday, Sydney and I started swim lessons. We're doing with my friend Karie and her son. I'm so glad she gave me to motivation to take the plunge (no pun intended). I've been wanting to get Sydney in these lessons since we've been in CDA but we've never had a full month of not going anywhere. I was having a hard time making the commitment because I didn't want to miss any of the lessons (twice a week/4 weeks). Well, sometimes you just gotta do things even when you don't know what even the next week will hold. Sydney loved the lessons, she loves the water, period. She's not quite old enough to get everything out of it, but if nothing else, I'm learning a lot about what I can teach her once she reaches the appropriate developmental age. Also, Karie and I are the only ones in the class, so it's a great time to hang out with an old college friend.

We are on the very down hill slide of this deployment. John should be home in a little over a month. We're both planning on what we think is the latest possible time he could get home, which we think is April 15th. I'm having a hard time counting down the days yet, because I feel like, although we are close, a month is still a long time. Maybe once we hit March 15th, I'll start a count down.

Home, hmm, what is that anyway...
Well, we are not sure what our home will be. We currently have a contract on a house. The inspection and appraisal are complete but whether or not it will all go through is still pretty iffy. The house is a duplex that we put a couple offers in on before John left. So either we are thinking the 3rd time's the charm, or we're just really stubborn.

Kelsy and I spent the last 2 days taking care of our friends kids while they are on vacation. Four kids in all (with Sydney). I thought it would be interesting to see what it was like with four children under 7. It went very well, mostly due to the fact that these parents have their children very well trained and it made things a lot easier because of that. But it was also good to know that it is not even possible to have children as close together as the youngest two are (8 months apart). This is where Kelsy was a huge help because she pretty much handled there youngest, while I handled Sydney, who has a very short invisible string these days(more on that next). I'd say our time with them was a success!

Sydney's invisible string...
We're going through the separation stage right now. And let me tell you, it's bad. She no longer will let her aunt, who we've lived with for the past 5 months, hold her without crying. I can't even go to the bathroom without her crying, unless I bring her with me. Church has been pretty tough because if I take her to the nursery I spend the entire service listening her crying back there (yes the sounds carries into the main room) and if I keep her with me I get nothing out of the service. So I'm not really sure what the point of me going right now is. I guess I should be flattered that I'm so needed.

Thank you all for your support of the new etsy endeavor and spreading the news among your circles.

Whelp, that's about it. Hope you enjoyed the first installment of randomness. Sorry it ended up being so long.

Break,

Okay, here's the situation...

Many of you know, we have left Alaska, but we have not found a place to land yet. We are in a holding pattern. That holding pattern has us in an apartment with an other couple that are friends of ours that are also in a holding pattern. We are currently in Olympia, WA. Our apartment doesn't have internet, but the little clubhouse across the street does. So in my attempt to get a lot of blogging done I brought the car seat (so Sydney could take a nap), a towel (for Sydney to play on), the moose toy, her new squeaky giraffe named Sofie, water, phone, and laptop.

That may explain the sudden burst of blogging.

More to come on the craziness of our life!

Random Tidbits About Our 7 Month Old

* She is a world traveler (more on that, I promise), we are very proud of our little trooper, she made so many friends and only had a couple of rough nights

* Sleep is still going well, although we are trying to get back into a routine after all our travels and our still unsettled life (living in a hotel), last night she slept a good 10 1/2 hours, and today we are trying to get some good naps in, or at least try to figure out how much she wants to be napping these days.

* She is rolling over from belly to back and back to belly, trying to sit up on her own, but not quite there yet, her fine motor skills are quite refined as she loves to play with necklaces, earrings, and watches (expensive tastes, oh no)

* She loves her toes, they taste pretty good

*She is a big smiler, as you can see from the last post, she's learning what the camera is and that she gets a good reaction whenever she smiles and that thing is out. I believe she is also learning that she's quite a little cutie, she sure does play it up whenever a stranger comes up and oohs and ahhs at her (we're going to have to watch that one).

* No teeth yet, but she sure likes gumming things, especially the pacifier

* She still needs a good swaddle when she sleeps, but we're working on breaking that, so far, we've got a half an arm out of the swaddle (any tips for this would be appreciated)

*Yesterday she started walking while holding onto my hands of course, uh oh, I think we need to slow that down a bit, I'm not ready for a walker :)

* She is now a solid food eater, we pretty much started when we got back from our trip (I didn't really want to deal with the food thing while travelling). She's really only eating fruits and veggies, she loves her sweet potatoes and bananas. I'm really pushing the avocados (good fats), but she's not too sure about them, mixing them with apples seems to help.