Wow, January Went By Way Too Fast...

And now February is following suit. I can't believe that we've already finished the first week in February. It seems like it was just 2008 a couple of days ago, but it's already over a month into 2009. I'd like to say that I have some really great, extravagant reasons for my lack of posting this past month and a bit, but well, the only one that I really have is that every time I think of posting something I don't because I'm overwhelmed with how far behind I am and that I don't want to post about where life is at the moment but to make sure that I can catch up on all that I've already missed. So rather than starting where I was or what was happening at the moment I'd just say I'd do it later when I had more time to go back over the past ____ amount of time since the previous post. But well, I guess it's been so long that I'm just giving up a bit on that whole idea and if I get to talking about all the stuff that's happened in the past month and a bit, bonus. If not, well, hopefully you'll survive. At this point all the cute things that I wanted to post about will lack the "cute" part of them and become quite boring. So, that's where I'm at. A quick point by point overview of the past month follows:

- Syd had her 4th b-day party and it was awesome. All of her closest local friends (kids and adults) came out and had a great time enjoying the South Florida sun. The highlight of the party was when one of our best friends showed up in a Chick-Fil-A Cow costume. Syd was so excited and still constantly talks about it.


















- All three kids went for the well-child check-ups. Syd is growing great and is big and healthy. She's definitely bigger than most of her peer's (90%). Noah is also right up there, doing great and big for his age (95%). Luke, well, he's a record breaker. There isn't really a spot on the chart for him. It was his 6-month check-up and he weighed in at 26lb 8oz, and was 29.5 inches. He weighed more than 50% of 18 months old's and was taller than 50% of 12 month old's. Remember that was when he was 6 1/2 months old. I know he's already grown quite a bit so I'm sure the stats have changed quite a bit more as well.

- Syd and Noah went and had their first fillings at the dentist. Sadly they seem to have my horrible teeth, so hopefully this won't continue too much and next time we go in their teeth will be much better. They both did good, Syd really good, Bubba good until the end when he was tired of it and didn't want to cooperate so much. But he made it out and was happy and smiling quickly and ready to play.Their dentist is super nice and all of the assistants as super kind and helpful and the kids are very comfortable with them. They do a great job of making the kids cool with all the stuff that's happening to them and all the noises that they hear. Syd kept telling me of all the "names" for the different tools they used, like "Mr. Bumpy", "Mr. Sucky" and so many more that I forget.

- All the kids had their share of colds and nastiness. Starting with some lovely pink-eye making the rounds and then both boys having a horrible cold/cough. Luke's still trying to fight off the end of his cold.

-Luke made big strides in movement... he started crawling forward, emphasis on the forward, on Jan. 14th, 7 months exactly. Only a week later he started pulling up on furniture and is now starting to cruise around on stuff and even tries to let go momentarily to just stand. So far he hasn't had too many major falls, although he's really seemed to master the duck and roll maneuver.

- Luke's "started" drinking from a cup. It's in quotations because we've been working on it for quite a few weeks, really struggling and barely doing anything. Then we put it on pause for a bit because of how sick he was and how hard of a time he was having drinking from a cup. But now we're back on track, sort of. As of today he's taking two cups a day. I'm trying different brands of formula right now to try and find one that he might like because it seems that after one sip he refuses, at least of the first brand that I tried. So today we tried a different one and seemed to have much more success, but we'll just have to keep trying and see how it goes.

- We bought annual passes to SeaWorld at the beginning of January and have already been twice. The kids absolutely love it and today Syd and Noah were giving us "Shamu Shows" and doing tricks by standing on their little Shamu stuffed animals. It was very, very cute.









- Syd and Noah both went on all the kids rides at SeaWorld. I was amazed that my little 2 1/2 year old was loving riding on the Shamu roller coaster and couldn't get enough, Sydney too. I think this past time that we went to SeaWorld the kids each went on the roller coaster at least 6 times. Thankfully we've been able to go during the week and it's super quiet so there's practically no waiting in line. The weather has also been amazing, actually on the cold side and we had to buy gloves and warm clothes that we didn't really have. But so nice!


- Syd had her first haircut ever on Saturday. For the first 4 years of her life a pair of scissors had never touched her hair. I loved her long hair and so did she, but it was getting a little crazy. The knots were getting a little too much and so when I was cutting Bubba's hair (oh man, now that was crazy, I'm surprised CPS wasn't on my doorstep from all the screaming) I asked Syd if she was ready and she said yes so we went for it. I started off with cutting about 5-6 inches off but in the end it was probably closer to 8 inches because each time I'd cut she'd move a bit and I'd end up cutting on an angle or something and we'd have to "even it out". In the end it looks pretty good for a home haircut I think. She loves it and it's so much easier to take care of now. But I kind of miss the more blond parts that were on the end. Oh well, such is life. I did keep the first snip in an envelope for her baby book though. (I'll try and post an "after" photo soon but it's taken over an hour already to get these pics and I need to go to bed!)

- Luke has started to cut his first tooth. I'm not sure where the cold ended/is ending and where the tooth cutting/drooling/runny nose starts but it's all happening right now. So far it hasn't seemed to make him too miserable, but we'll just have to see. It's just barely poking through, hard to see much but you can feel the rough edges of it.

I know a lot more has happened and a bunch of great stories have been missed, but at least we're a little caught up and I can now feel like I can blog about random happenings rather than just trying to play catch up. So that's January and the beginning of February. Hopefully I'll be better at keeping up, but I'm pretty sure that I say that every time and well, so far I haven't been so good at it. But who knows, this might just be the month.