a lot has gone on since my last blog post! josh lost his job the day after we returned from orange beach at the beginning of the month; he has a third interview at staples in richardson tomorrow. they really like him and are excited about the experience he had at kinko's. so if you're reading this, say a little prayer for them to hire him!

in other news, my childhood friend, courtney, had her first baby on the 21st! he was lotus born (they did not cut the umbilical cord; baby and placenta remained connected until the cord naturally detatched from him yesterday, day 4), and born at home, unassisted! i haven't talked to courtney yet, but i can't wait to hear all about it!!

rowan has started talking! he says: mama, dada, micah, rowan, mia, dog, cat, owl, hop, walk, up, help, banana, and milk. he still signs a lot for milk and "all gone" or "all done". he's starting to make sentences; he says "i want to go on a walk", but the only word that's really discernable to anyone else is "walk". : ) he loves to go on walks in our neighborhood and play with sticks outside. his other favorite passtimes are playing with all his little matchbox cars, and playing elaborate pretend games with micah, involving dolls and doll strollers and pots and pans and pretend food. she is the director of the game, and he does whatever she says. : ) for now...

rowan falls asleep so easily these days. when he's tired, we lay down, he nurses to sleep, then i gently roll him onto his tummy and give him his paci, and he's out. if he wakes in the night while josh and i are still awake, i go in to him and lay down next to him, snuggle him up close, and he goes right back to sleep - i usually don't have to nurse him. he really likes his paci (i'll deal with that later; for now, it's nice). he wakes up happy and energetic and playful in the mornings - though not always from his naps. if he gets a nice, long nap, he does, but if micah wakes up him before he's ready, or he just wakes up early on his own, he's usually on the cranky side for a little while. he is starting to demonstrate his little 2-year-old will; he's been experimenting with hitting and kicking, and shouting "no!" but it's so mild compared to micah. when he hits, we gently take his hand and show him "gentle", and sometimes he hits again... but we just show him a gentle touch over and over, and eventually he moves on. and when we ask him to do something and he yells, "no!", we just say, "yes, please" and he does it. : ) i get the feeling he's going to be more joyful and pleasant in general than micah was at this age, but a more physically rowdy and rambunctious. which figures; he's a boy.

micah has been delightful lately. she has VERY few meltdowns these days, and they're short-lived when they do happen. she's learning letters and numbers, and even did a little subtraction with me the other day. she loves to be read to; i could read her 50 books a day, and she would want more. she also loves to sit and "read" her books out loud to me. what's funny is, she has an excellent memory, so if it's a book she and i have read together, she'll often tell the story almost word for word. micah's been enjoying doll play, dress up, and reading the most lately. she also loves to play outside, but seems to enjoy getting lost in an imaginary world in the playroom even more.

orange beach, AL pictures!

our second trip to orange beach, AL was amazing!!!! we had such a blast; our time in the sun and on the sand was so peaceful and relaxing, and the water was wonderfully warm. i actually got to dive and swim in the ocean, which thrilled me to no end. the trip over there was really perfect; we made excellent time (the trip without stops is 10 and a 1/2 hours, and we made it 11 and a 1/2 - which we thought was pretty darn good, considering we were traveling with six children under the age of 7), and the kids did great. the ride home was a little bit of a different story... unbeknownst to us, there was an LSU/AL football game on september 6th, the day before labor day, and the day before our return trip. SO, when we left the condo around 11 AM on the 7th, we hit traffic. and when i say "we hit traffic", i mean that we traveled 54 miles in 6 hours. !!!!!!!!!!!!! it was horrendous. it was a nightmare. in the middle of all that traffic, it started to rain... and one of the windshield wipers on alison's van flew off. we pulled off the road and into a shell station, where two very nice men (i think they were brothers - they looked just alike!) helped us fasten it back on. we continued on down the road... having no more mishaps (other than being about 7 hours behind), until later in the day, when a man driving next to us on the road signaled that one of our tires needed air. we pulled over and tried to use alison's portable air pump, but it wasn't cooperating... so we got out the spare change and tried to use the gas station's pump, but the little needle thing on the thing that goes on the tire valve was missing and we couldn't get a good seal on it for the air to actually go into the tire. a nice man tried to help us, but he didn't have much success either. we shrugged, said "i hope it holds!" and got back on the road. then later that evening during another patch of rain, the other windshield wiper flew off!! ?!? this time, we just let it go - the rain let up right after that. UGH. it was rough going there for a while... i called my dad to let him know what was going on, and he made me swear we would stop for the night somewhere, so that we wouldn't get too sleepy driving at night. however, once we reached monroe, LA and saw that shreveport was only another 2 hours away... and from shreveport, only 4 and 1/2 hours till home... we talked ourselves into pushing on through. i didn't call daddy because i knew he'd make me stop (funny how i'm 28 years old and would still do whatever my dad told me, even from 300 miles away), and we just kept on driving until we got to garland - at 3:45 AM!! for a total of 17 hours driving, with, i think, three short stops. BLAH!!!

for some reason, i'm anxious to go on another road trip. i think i'll go to austin for the weekend, after naomi gets back from maui.

we've been back to our regular routine since we got back. micah and rowan have been playing together very nicely. rowan started talking a little more on the trip, probably because he was surrounded by talkative kids. he said "i want that", "i want dada", and since we've gotten home, he's said "bath" and "october". it's exciting to hear him trying out new words!! every once in a while i get anxious about the fact that he's not talking much, but then i calm down and remember that boys usually talk later than girls, and he is completely engaging with us, making eye contact, playing with other kids, playing with toys, etc. (in other words, i'm not concerned about anything on the autism spectrum) he even answers our questions in his own way, and it's obvious that he understands everything we're saying. i can ask him to go get me something from another room, and he'll do it. i can ask for his help cleaning up the living room, and he'll happily oblige. he's such a sweet little guy... i can't believe he'll be 2 in less than a month. i've already got some ideas for his party...

speaking of parties, it's ridiculous that we never had a 4th birthday party for micah moon. we moved into this house the weekend of her birthday, and we were so busy with unpacking and getting situated over here, that we just never got around to it. LAME!! i feel so bad. i hope she doesn't remember how we neglected her... : ) we'll just have to make up for it by making her 5th birthday party extra special. earlier tonight we were talking about what kind of cake to make for rowie, and she suggested he might like a hello kitty cake. i grinned and asked if that's what she wanted, and she said, "yes, with a dora the explorer candle on it." perfect! i think i might attempt to make her cake and frosting from scratch next year. i may even try that for rowan's birthday next month... we'll see how brave i'm feeling.

our cat, sara, is about to pop. anyone wants a kitten or knows someone who does, let me know...

we're off to orange beach, alabama this morning!!! i'm excited for a repeat of our spring break trip. it was so fun hanging out with alison and her kids on the beach, and this time the weather should even be a little warmer and more pleasant for us. i packed last night, and went to the stupid grocery store at midnight because i had to wait for our EBT card to be loaded with this month's benefits. that was annoying. i was sooooo sleepy by 10 PM and wanted to go to bed (of course - had i not needed to do something later, i would've been wide awake at 10 and probably would've stayed up till midnight or later anyway). now i need coffee. when alison picks us up, we're going to stop at a gas station for a bag of ice for our little cooler (necessary to keep the A&Ws cold), and i'm going to get a cup of coffee for the drive.

i hope i have plenty of snacks and stuff for the kids in the van. when we made this drive for spring break, the kids did amazingly well for a 13-hr drive. alison and i were impressed. i hope this trip goes as well!

i'm sad to be away from josh, though. he's pushing himself really hard right now with work every day and school 4 nights a week, and while i'm sure he'll benefit from a nice stretch of quiet and low-energy time at the house by himself (he plans to work on the garage and get some painting done - and feed the neighbors' dogs), i know he'll miss us like crazy. his new schedule is taking some getting used to, but we both knew it would be difficult, and it's completely worth it so he can get his degree and get into his dream career. i can't wait to see him living his dharma!

i jammed my toe really hard on a leg of the hutch last night. it HURTS. hope it doesn't bother me too much on the trip. be back monday...

i'm annoyed with myself for not utilizing this perfect outlet for my random thoughts and activities. part of the reason for my chronic blog neglect has to do with the fact that for months now, our memory card for the digital camera has been M.I.A. it's fun to post recent pics of the family and our shenanigans on here, so i guess since i've not been able to do that, just journaling hasn't been a priority.

tonight was awesome. josh and i went on a much-needed date. we dropped the kids off at daddy and vesta's at 4, then we went to addison and had dinner at sweet tomatoes. i'd heard about this place from several friends, and had been told it was like souper salad, but a notch above. it was delish! i had an asian salad with crunchy wontons on top, a baked sweet potato with butter, some bread, and i tried two kinds of soup: corn chowder with potato and bacon, and yellow curried split pea. both were awesome, but i slightly preferred the corn chowder - the split pea had an aftertaste that i didn't love. for dessert, i had a warm blueberry muffin with butter. yummm!!! not the healthiest, i know - i could pretend i had "salad" for dinner and feel super healthy, but i ate a ton of carbs. and butter. after dinner, we met my brother, caleb, and his girlfriend, beth, at adventure landing for a game of miniature golf! it was josh's idea, and it was so relaxing and fun. not one of us has a competitive bone in our bodies, so we just played around and had a blast. i got three holes-in-one, josh and beth each got one, and my stinkin' brother got three also, including one which he achieved single-handed, with his LEFT hand, AND while talking on his cell phone. show-off.

in between dinner and golf, while we were waiting for my punctuality-challenged brother to arrive with his girlfriend, josh and i went down the street from adventure landing to super target to get josh a 3-ring binder, spiral notebook, and usb flash drive for his drafting class. i also picked up a new memory card for the camera, and a cute shirt for micah and a two-piece outfit for rowan that were on clearance. i fell head over heels in love with all of the autumn boys clothes that were there, and wanted to buy everything for rowan. i can't wait until i start making extra money typing for my dad and i can get him his fall wardrobe! as much as i love buying cute clothes for my kids, i'm glad my aunt and mom have micah pretty much outfitted in oilily for the rest of her life (until she becomes a teenager and decides she only wants to wear white, black and brown), because two wardrobes to purchase might be hard on the wallet. i still can't keep myself from buying cute stuff for micah at target or old navy. it's just too fun.

my latest hobby, knitting, makes my heart so warm, and hopefully one day soon it'll make my head warm, because i'm trying to knit a hat. i say "trying" because i've attempted this hat three times now, and it keeps coming out too enormous for my head. mama, katherine and i are going to dunn bros. in addison tomorrow to knit together, and to cast on our first "knit-a-long" - this booga bag. i'm so excited about this! i don't get to sit down and focus on knitting too often during the day, so i'm sure i'll be tagging along at the tail end of the knit-a-long, but that's okay. i'm just so excited to have a bag that i can actually use, that i MADE, at the end of it!

micah has been asking me to read to her non-stop lately, and i love it. we have gobs and gobs of books, a lot of them from my childhood, and looking through them gives me warm fuzzies. she wants me to read them all, every day. rowan likes books, too, but he seems to want to look at the pages on his own, quickly, moving from book to book. he's not too interested in sitting in my lap and being read to. he makes lots of sound effects to accompany the story, and doesn't like how long it takes me to finish each page. the super early-reader board books are right up his alley - the ones with a picture and one word on each page. he digs those.

in other kid news, rowan has sporadically been using the potty! usually before his bath, or right after. the other day, while he was naked in the playroom, he actually stopped playing, found me in the computer room, led me to the bathroom, climbed on, and peed - twice! i was impressed. josh and i briefly discussed buying him some training underwear, but quickly realized, upon turning and finding him sprinkling the hallway carpet, that he's not there yet. he just likes to do everything his sister does.

ahhh... that's enough for now. i have so much more to ramble on about, but i'm very sleepy, and i'm reading a great book, and am anxious to snuggle up in bed and read until i can't keep my eyes open.

i love to knit. i love to knit. i love to knit!

i haven't posted in a while; i've been busy knitting. :) we've been doing the same old things around here; taking care of baby lina (who is 10 months old now!), playing in the sprinkler out back and at the splash parks and swimming pools as often as possible, hanging out with friends, and doing fun family stuff. josh has been working and getting ready to attend classes and richland community college so he can get a drafting job. today he went and got a new driver's liscense, and returned some books and paid a fine at the college, so he's all ready to register for his two classes on monday! he'll take developmental math and auto cad 1 (don't know what that is exactly, but he's excited about it). i can't wait for him to be working in the field he's so passionate about. i'm guessing it will do wonders for his overall happiness and health.

he continues to be a sweet, supportive husband, even in the midst of really hating his job. tonight he took the kids to his dad's to swim while i went to my mom's house and indulged in my latest, greatest hobby and passion... knitting! mama taught me to knit when i was 7, and when i was 10, and naomi was in her waldorf kindergarten, i learned to knit mittens. i actually completed a pair, and mama has them somewhere... i will hopefully post a picture of them on my ravelry page soon. anyway, katherine, my dearest friend, has become something of a knitting prodigy since teaching herself (!!!) how to knit last thanksgiving. she's made all this neat stuff for me and the kids, and is always working on something... so when i ran across this baby blanket pattern online, i forwarded it to her, thinking she'd probably love to make one for, i don't know, me. she wrote back and said, "this pattern is super simple, why don't YOU make it?!" and as of that moment, i've resumed my knitting, after a 20-year haitus. so far i've made a little doll blanket and pillow, a doll scarf, and am currently working on a doll dress. after i finish the dress (and either a skirt or pants to match), mama, katherine and i are going to do a "knit along" - we're all going to make a booga bag at the same time! since i started up again, mama, katherine and i have been having "knitting dates" where we just get together, chit chat, and knit! it is so fun and relaxing and rejuvinating. we've met a couple of times at coffee houses, but tonight we all had some skeins of yarn that needed winding, and mama has a swift and a ball winder at her house, so we met there. it's so fun for me, the novice, to listen to mama and katherine talk about different yarns and projects they're working on. it inspires me to get better and better so i can do what they're doing! i have all sorts of things in my queue on ravelry - projects i'm going to do as soon as i can. this... is so much fun. :)

tomorrow i'm going to a blessing way for one of my oldest, sweetest friends who's expecting her first child next month. there are all sorts of reverent, meaningful rituals planned, and i wrote a poem to read during one of them. i'm a bit nervous, and i'm sure my voice will be all shaky... but i hope i can be calm, and deliver the words with the spirit with which i wrote them.

earlier today, before my knitting night, josh dropped the kids and me off at terrace pool (our favorite!) while he went to run his DPS and richland errands. we had lina with us, and samantha met us there. alison and her crew, and laura, eli and chase were there as well. it was such a fun afternoon! the kids had a blast, had some yummy snacks, and played hard. by the time we were ready to leave, josh was still an hour away from being finished at the DPS office, so alison was nice enough to drive us home. as soon as we got our wet suits off, we piled in bed and promptly fell asleep - but when josh got home minutes later, micah and i woke up. i was disappointed - a nap sounded sooo nice. rowan got a nice one, and micah and i got up to eat carrot cake. then the kids got to swim again at josh's dad's community pool in rowlett. they came to pick me up at mama's house around 11 tonight, we got home by 11:30, and both kiddos were sound asleep by 11:45. i was almost asleep in bed, but had to get up and upload some cute baby pics to facebook. and i miss my blog, so i had to post here. i've been neglecting it.

oh, and sara the cat is pregnant. : ) for sure, this time.

i just noticed that rowan's picture on the side of my blog here is a little outdated... he looks so different now, but i can't stand to remove that one!! i'll leave it there until his second birthday.

rowan and micah are awesome little swimmers! i really need to take some pictures and video of them swimming before the summer is over, and post them here and on facebook. i'm pretending it hasn't happened, but the huge memory chip for our digital camera has been misplaced (i'm not pointing any fingers, but rowan was the last one seen playing with the downloading component) and all i have are two really small ones that only hold about 15 pictures each. i have no idea how much memory chips cost. we may be buying a new one later this month, because we cannot find the old one. sigh...

tonight i did some reorganizing of the hallway linen closet and the medicine cabinet in the full bathroom. there was tons of stuff in the medicine cabinet that we don't use regularly, and it was taking up too much space - it's a pretty shallow cabinet. and the linen closet was not arranged in a way that made sense. so i waited until the kids were asleep tonight, and went after it. it's fun to get organized, especially in a new house. sometimes i still feel very unsettled... mainly because the kids' playroom has no storage or organization in it at all yet, because i haven't bought the stuff i want from target or IKEA, and the computer room shelves are all still mainly empty, and what is on them is just clutter that's been put there temporarily. i can't wait until those two rooms are finished, then i'll really feel like we've unpacked and moved in completely.

a couple of weeks ago we planted some pink periwinkles and some blue daze in the little flower bed by the front porch. it looks so neat and pretty! i'm so proud of our yard and our little house. i cannot wait until we have a swingset in the backyard for the kids. i'm hoping to get that by spring, so we can be out there playing and enjoying the gorgeous weather.

i have finally decided to start reading the harry potter books. it's ridiculous, i know, but i've never read a single one of them. my dad, brother, sister, and grandfather have all read them and are huge fans of the series. i just always reach for my crime dramas when i get a chance to sit down and read.

micah's cousin, sydney, is coming over to play with us tomorrow while my aunt susan attends some meetings at work. sydney's staying with susan and my uncle, tony, for a week and a half before school starts for her up in oklahoma where she lives with her mom, my cousin julie, and her dad, stephen. sydney and micah get along really well together, even though syd is 5 years older. my aunt's dropping her off at 8 AM, right as lina gets here too, so i am going to have my hands full tomorrow! i told myself i'd go to bed before midnight, so i better keep my word...