She is getting so close!

P. is getting so close to crawling—like really crawling. It is exciting and dreadful at the same time! E. was trying to teach her yesterday and she was just watching him and then would babble back. I think the real motivator for her—just like the other two kids—is going to be that smelly dog. He walks by and she immediately cranks her head to watch him. Maybe since he is "untouchable." At any rate, he has gotten both E. and S. to crawl (and walk!), so we will let him stick around a bit longer. ;) Enjoy the cute video. Hopefully I will have another one for you next week that shows the real thing!



Mystery solved
Remember how I tried for an entire week to post some videos of the kids. There were fun ones of them blowing bubbles and jumping on the trampoline. And there was this cute one of P. eating her cereal and making a gigantic mess. Well, I figured out why I haven't been able to upload any of them: they are too large. I didn't even pay attention to their size, but just realized that the largest upload size is 100MB. I just took a longer video of P. doing this froggy jump yesterday too (which E. re-enacted as a donkey kick!), but it is 101MB. Bummer. (I still tried to upload it twice hoping that maybe the Google scale reads a little light. It doesn't.) So, now I know and will have to be conscious to keep them under 55 seconds.

Case closed.

The deed has been done. So now what?
We had our home inspection on Thursday. It didn't turn out exactly as I had expected. I either expected everything to be in good shape or for there to be something so badly wrong that we would have to cancel our contract. Well, we landed somewhere right in the middle and Tyler and I are trying to decide which way we are going to fall. There were many things that the inspector couldn't do or see, so a couple of factors are still at play for us—like the home appraisal we should receive soon and a copy of an inspection on the house when it first foreclosed. We don't feel like the inspection gave us the full picture of what we might be getting ourselves into, so I think we both are just waiting. I feel this urgency just nagging at me because we obviously can't wait that long before making a decision on whether to move forward. And I also feel anxious because any way I look at it, I feel like it is a real gamble to buy a "used" house. (Heck, I don't even like used cars!) This is one of the very few times during the home-buying process when I have been thankful that our pace to get to closing has been painstakingly slow.

Water galore

Thanks to wonderful weather, P. and I were able to get into the swimming pool for the first time this year. (Tyler had already taken the other kids a couple times.) She loved it! I couldn't find S.'s sunhat that we bought last year, so I used a baby bonnet our neighbor in Chicago had given to us. She looked a little Amish (wink), but it definitely did the job. Our pool here is really well maintained and not too overcrowded considering the number of apartments in our community. I hope that we will get plenty of opportunities to go swimming before we move. It sure has been hot and humid enough to necessitate a daily dip!
A lesson on Noah’s Flood
We had a really strong storm earlier this week. The two older kids and I just stood at the windows and watched it just dump on us. It didn't take long before we had a water show right out all of our windows (see pics). If you haven't been to our place, we live down a small hill that continues down until it comes to a creek. It was raining so hard that there were waterfalls down all the steps and water "fountains" at every storm drain.This storm made me extremely thankful that we are living here and not in Chicago anymore. If a storm of this capacity would have hit us in Chicago (and we did have a couple), our backyard would have flooded and went straight into the basement. I don't want to ever re-live having to walk through freezing cold water to carry our things up one level. This storm also was a great teaching point with E. when he asked why there was dirt and rocks and things everywhere. The water was rushing so fast that it was picking up pieces of asphalt, rock, and tree limbs and carrying them along. After the water finally drained there was a path of dirt and nastiness left behind. So we were able to talk about the global flood from Noah’s day and how incredibly powerful water is—that it can rip through anything and causes major disasters when there is real flooding. We talked about how canyons were formed by water and valleys cut out of terrains. Thankfully we didn't end up with any canyons or valleys out of our front door. I am even more thankful that God has promised to never flood the earth again as he did in the days of Noah!

Freeze-Frame!

“Freeze-Frame! Freeze-Frame! Freeze-Frame!
Freeze-Frame! Now Freeze!”

Why are the lyrics to this old J. Geils Band song going through my mind tonight? Well, it all started with a yummy delish Starbucks Java Chip Frappuccino. [Freeze-frame: If you have never had a frappuccino, I highly suggest you go get one today!]

I think that when you have a baby, you should be given special "freeze-frame" privileges. Not in the taking-a-picture sense, but rather in the the-whole-world-stops-but-me sense. You know, like back in those early 90s TV sitcoms. If I could just "freeze-frame" whenever I needed to, life would be much more livable and much less regrettable.

Today P. had her 6-month check-up. [Freeze-frame: It went really well. She is still holding steady at 25% across the board.] I had an important errand to run prior to the appointment that went much faster than I anticipated, so we ended up being 25 minutes early. As a special treat—and because I had a gift card!—I decided to swing by Starbucks and get a frappuccino for the kids and I to share. I picked up that yummy, delish Java Chip frap through the drive-thru and then pulled ahead to the curb-side garbage container. E., totally stoked that we have a frap, jumps out of his seat and comes to the front of the van to get the first drink. [Freeze-frame: I should have known things weren’t going to go well when he accidentally stepped onto the cup holder and almost knocked the full frap and a full courtesy water all over the floor.] He began to take his much anticipated drink when another car pulled up behind me in the drive through lane, waiting. I told E. to hold on and I turned the corner to just pull off to the side of the parking lot. Well, E. lost his balance and the entire frap fell out of his hands, bounced across one seat (conveniently knocking its lid off) and then landed top-down onto the floor. I couldn't even believe it. [Freeze-frame: Sadly, I am not sure what made me more upset—that I never got a drink or that I now had a major mess to clean up.] The wonderful worker at Starbucks gave me some clean white towels to clean the mess up with. It was on the windows, on the side of the van, on S.’s legs [Freeze-frame: Who amazingly stayed asleep through all of this!], and all over the chair and floor.

[Freeze-frame: So how did this event get this song stuck in my head? Well, when the frap was in mid-air, I would have yelled "Freeze-Frame!" of course! From there, I am not sure what I would have done. Licked the frap out of the mid-air? Tried to get it all back in the cup? Ran inside Starbucks, taken a towel, unfreezed the frame, and caught the frap in mid-air? What would you have done?]

I eventually got it cleaned up as best I could and returned the towels. I was wondering if you could sue over a spilled frap because they didn't put the lid on tight enough, but then the wonderful worker gave me another one for free. [Freeze-frame: OK, just joking about the lawsuit part. I would never pull one of those McDonalds’ hot coffee stunts. But I am not joking about the free frap; she must have seen the distress all over my face.] All in all, I don’t think the frap was worth the pain. Especially when the pain of cleaning out the van is only just beginning. [Freeze-frame: At least the van will smell like Starbucks. I could think of worse things. Like that time I left a poopy diaper in there for a few days. Yeech!] Oh, and we were late to the doctor’s appointment. Go figure.

In retrospect, I did learn an important lesson from all of this: regardless if there is a frappuccino in the van or not, never let underage passengers drink while you drive. [Freeze-frame: In all seriousness though, it really was my fault. I never should have let him out of his seat until we were stopped somewhere outside of the drive-thru lane. Can I plead temporarily insanity? I mean, there was a frappuccino in the van! And people can do crazy things when fraps are at stake!]

Craft blast

E. and I worked on crafts all week for the summer camp that is being held at our church next week. It was fun, but I didn’t fully realize how time consuming it was going to be. E. is planning on finishing his last project tomorrow—a beaded necklace for P. (He really has a special place in his heart for her.) We made five items in all and E. is really hoping that these sample crafts get sent back home with me after camp is over—especially the beanbag ball. He and S. have both had a blast playing with that thing. Tyler even gave it a whirl!

A whole new world

Now that P. is sitting up all by herself, it has opened her up to a whole new world of toys. Below is a video of her playing with a toy that she got for Christmas, but hasn't been able to play with until now. The mirror on it is almost like a fun house mirror. Depending on the angle that you are looking into it, it will give P. a Jay Leno chin (see photo above). I always wanted my little girl to have one of those. ;)

New feature coming soon!

To shake things up a bit, I have decided to start a new “column” on my blog—a guest blogger. The first guest is almost ready and may post on Sunday. So stay tuned for this super exciting event that will open up our daily lives to you even more!

Fuzzy prognosis?

I took P. to the eye doctor today for her infant eye exam. The prognosis is, well, still a little fuzzy (pun intended). She definitely has some traits of amblyopia in one eye like E. (his condition is the main reason we took her in at such a young age), but not enough of a discrepancy to require a prescription yet. The doctor wants to wait a year and then check her out again and see whether or not her left eye has improved or is becoming weaker. I am so thankful that we don't have to get her corrective lens right now—it was a real sigh of relief. And I am praying for her vision to become completely normal. Please pray with me.

What a workout!
No, we haven't been making our beautiful little girl do push-ups ... she actually does them voluntarily! P. has been so active these past few weeks—rolling all the way across the floor, getting up on her hands and feet and propelling backwards, pulling herself around with her hands to get to toys. It is fun to watch her. We have migrated from her little colorful play mat to a throw blanket because she just can’t be contained any longer! She is also sitting better and better every day as well. This again seems to confirm my 6-month hypothesis that everything just clicks at that mile marker and the real baby stages are over. I need to get some 6-month pictures taken before she grows out of this great stage she is in right now. Friends from church offered to do a photo shoot for us and I just need to get my act together. For some reason, I have this nagging feeling that I will never have my act together ... at least not anytime soon!

Where are the videos?
That is a good question. I have been trying for days and days to upload some videos and they just never finish uploading. I am going to try one more time tonight and then I will have to call it quits. At least on these particular ones!

Can you believe it? I can't!

As most of you have probably already heard, we finally had a house offer accepted! It was the last house that we looked at on the last day of May; our last chance at buying a house within the next 1-2 years. Praise God! It is also a better fit for us than the other four houses we tried to buy (in sooo many ways!). We are waiting for the final contract to come back to us, but we are expecting to close in early July. (We are pushing for a June closing so that we can move before S.’s birthday, but our Realtor doesn't seem too optimistic that it could happen.) The house is about 20 minutes south of the city, and also happens to be 20 minutes south of where we currently live. The best part about the location is that it is right in between both of Tyler’s jobs and close to our friends from church.

I will probably share more about the house as things begin to unfold. Due to my extreme pessimism, I think I am unconsciously waiting for something to spoil the whole thing.

Catching up
I haven't had much time to blog now that we are balancing three jobs. I have also been working on pulling together craft projects for a summer camp our church is hosting in a couple weeks. I plan on actually making the crafts myself next week as a test run, so I may post some pics. In the meantime, here are quick updates on the kids and photo/video highlights from the past week.

Update on P.
P. is doing much better eating her cereal. In fact, she barely makes a scrunched-up face at all anymore. Now I just need to keep her fingers out of her mouth! We will probably start trying vegetables soon. I just dread the stains that will make on her cute little clothes.

P. also has a new, preferred sleeping position (see pic). Yes, she is 100% face down and laying on her hands. I absolutely detest seeing her sleep this way because it looks like she is going to suffocate. She gets pretty mad at me, but if I find her this way I always roll her back over or try to force her head to one side or the other.

She gets to go in for her 6-month checkup next week. I am excited to she how big she has grown. Six months is an interesting age. It is like a light switch goes on inside. She is now able to sit up by herself and starting to pull herself around even more on the floor by her hands. (I had the thought tonight that I need to start being more careful so she doesn't go down our stairs!) She was even laying on her side in her boppy and almost pulled herself up to a sitting position. Amazing how fast it all progresses! She has her eye doctor’s appointment next week, too. Please pray with us that she doesn’t have the same eye condition as E. I really don’t want my little baby to have to wear contacts.

Update on S.
I wanted to include a cute little pic I took of S. It is one of the few times that her hair is still pulled back halfway through the day. She is getting slightly better about letting me put one clip in her hair. And I just trimmed her bangs so that even if she pulls her hair out of its bands, clips, etc., she will still be able to see!

I was informed that my blogs are becoming more informational and not as entertaining so I will refrain from writing anything about our recent trips to the stores where S. once again screamed bloody murder while I tried to find her a bathing suit or about her pooping on the floor and then sitting on our chair leaving a very large poop streak (which I didn't find until hours later when it was already dry). I think I could create a new blog and simply fill it with the tests and trials of a toddler!

Update on E.
He is becoming a young boy so fast and becoming interested in more and more things. He is also asking questions like crazy. His newest fascination is with anything sports and he has been getting in trouble with me for trying to play racquetball in the house. (Racket–check. Ball—check. Walls—check, check, check, check.) Tonight we stopped at the park for a little while so that they could play at the playground. He opted instead to watch the people playing tennis, soccer, and baseball. On the way home, he asked me if I knew how to play tennis and if I would teach him. It is funny how that came back around—Tyler and I used to play tennis all of the time until E. was about 10 months old and wasn't content to watch us from the stroller anymore. I haven't played since that time!

I will try uploading the videos of the kiddos again later; Blogger is taking too long and I am tired. Poor me. =) I will try to post them tomorrow.