It's been a long time!

Well, things have begun to slow down again. My neighbor is out of the hospital and has healed super-quickly, so she no longer needs my help. Thank goodness! It was a lot of work; I do not know how moms do it when they work outside of the home! I was exhausted not being able to do laundry, pick up the house, clean the kitchen, go grocery shopping, except for after the kids went to bed. Not to mention having so many kids together at once. I am sincerely glad that we never had twins or triplets. Yikes!

The family is doing well. All of us have been sick lately except for Jason, but we're all healthy for the moment :) It's still snowy and cold here, but there haven't been extreme temperatures for the past week or two. It's a little depressing when temps in the 30's sounds warm!! Especially when those of you in Arizona call me to let me know it's 80 degrees out. Thanks so much.

Rowan is no longer the easy, always happy, you could leave him playing on the floor for hours, baby you all know and love. He is now a VERY mobile baby! He crawls, 50% of the time on his hands and feet instead of hands and knees. And I am no longer surprised to walk into a room and see him standing somewhere, where he was previously sitting. He also now has opinions about things and isn't afraid to let you know. We have finally seen his tears! For the longest time I wasn't sure if his tear ducts were working because I had never seen tears on his face. But he really has a sweet personality, with a smile for everyone. Oh, and he loves to show off his two new top teeth :)

Ellie has been quite a handful lately, in good ways and not so fun ways. We have been trying really hard to find ways to have her play with other kids, because she really needs that social stimulation. I'm looking into a part-time preschool for her next school year, but it is expensive! We really don't have ANY extra income right now, so we'll see what happens with that. She has an unending thirst for knowledge, which is awesome, except when she asks you a million questions at inconvenient times. We have always been seriously thinking about homeschooling our kids, mainly for the educational benefits, but now it seems we almost have to so Ellie can continue to advance at her own pace. I know socially, as a 2-year-old, she is nowhere near ready for kindergarden, but intellectually she is at that level. She can read basic books, like Hop on Pop; knows all her colors, shapes, numbers; can do some basic addition, count past 20; etc. Learning is just something she's always liked to do. I always feel I have to make a disclaimer to other moms though, that there are other areas that she may not be as good at, since it doesn't interest her as much. For instance, I don't think she can catch a ball. Or throw with aim. Those just aren't things that we have practiced with her.

Other exciting things:

- Jason received a grading position through school, so he will be making a little extra money grading papers for two classes. Yeah!

- We're applying for YMCA membership, hopefully with financial assistance. They have some really neat classes, especially for Ellie's age. Not to mention free childcare, so Jason and I can get a break and get some exercise!

- One of our neighbors and I are sharing a garden plot this year at our community garden. We've been eating A LOT more vegetables lately (thank you Deceptively Delicious, so it will be great to grow our own. I can't wait for the snow to thaw!

Ok, now some pictures.

We will not be leaving the house today!

Not a good weather day today. Right now it is -9, feels like -34 with the windchill. Yuck! This past Wednesday was the "Storm of the Decade" as all the news reports called it. We had up to 21 inches of snow in some places, almost beating a record set in the 90s. I'm not sure if this was national news or not, but over 2000 cars were stuck on an interstate for over 12 hours Wednesday afternoon/night! I still can't understand how or why it happened, but they COULD NOT MOVE for 12 hours. Something about semi-trucks not being able to make it up icy hills on the road. Can you imagine? Most people didn't have any food, ran out of gas (which meant no heat in snowy weather!), how did they go to the bathroom? I cannot imagine the people with small children sitting there for 12 hours with no food! Finally they sent out the national guard to pass out food and give people gas who needed it. Here is a link to an article: http://www.madison.com/wsj/home/local/271390

Rowan is feeling much better, but he does still have a horrible cough. I wouldn't be surprised if that lasted for weeks; Ellie still has it. He also has a new skill, being able to push himself up to sitting from lying down. But still no crawling! He also has two top teeth to add to his two bottom ones. He likes to grind them together, which sounds terrible! Ellie is really enjoying us watching our neighbors kids, since she has the four year old boy to entertain her. Next week will begin the really busy time, since I'll be over at their house for 9 hours a day.

We had our very first date night since this summer! We swapped childcare with another neighbor couple who has 2 young boys (3 & 1), so we were able to go out to dinner. Ellie loves their mom and Rowan loves everyone, so they had a great time and so did we :) This week we'll be watching their boys.

Busy times

We're going to be busy this month! Our neighbor across the hall went into the hospital yesterday to have surgery done, and she'll be there for about a week. Guess who is watching her kids during the day? She also watches another baby boy, so I'll have 3 babies under the age of 1, a 2 year old and a 4 year old. Yikes! Luckily Jason will be home during most of the hours, so I can send Rowan or the two older kids over to him if it's ever too much. But I'll also be helping her out during her recovery, so we'll be doing this for the whole month of February.





The kids have been sick this past week, Ellie had a mild version first and passed it on to Rowan. He was sooooo sick! The first night I didn't sleep at all because I had to hold him up on my chest for him to breath while he slept. Even then he was coughing and gagging all night. The worst part was that he was barely keeping down any milk because I would feed him, sit him up, and then he would cough until he threw it all up. Luckily he is now a lot better, although he still has the cough. To top that off, he now has his first black eye! He was rolling around on the floor and bumped his face on the bottom of our tv. Doesn't he look like the most miserable baby?

And then beautiful Ellie (with a beautiful juice mustache)

"Drink"

Rowan learned another sign! The sign for "drink" is making a thumbs-up and putting the thumb to your mouth. Can you see his little thumb? Awwww, so cute!