Changing

Month seven has been a fun month for Alexander. Although he is not crawling yet he is well on his way. Whenever he is playing on the floor he is always on his hands and knees rocking back and forth. It won't be long before he is chasing Hannah around the house getting into her toys. Won't that be fun for all? He is also sitting up and trying to stand! His two bottom teeth popped through and he got his first ear infection....a double ear infection. Most of the time he is still his happy-go-lucky self despite the problems with his ears and teeth. He loves "playing" with his sister and it is so much fun to watch them laughing! I can't believe another month has flown by.

Where's Waldo?

My girl loves to sleep with stuffed animals, especially ones that are as big as her! The other night when I went in to get ready for bed this is what I found. Can you see her?

Changing

Here he is looking handsome in his Easter suit at six months old! (Just pretend this was posted a month ago) It is hard to believe that he is six months old. It almost seems like he grows overnight, we wake up and he is bigger. He is eating his vegetables now, we are slowly making our way through them. He has had squash, carrots, sweet potatoes and green beans. Next he will eat peas and then onto the good stuff: fruit! He is still very grabby and everything goes directly to his mouth. Everybody we meet wants to know if he is always so happy, which he is...unless he is hungry or tired, even then he is not too bad. He just smiles so easily, all it takes is for somebody to look at him and he gives them the biggest smile. Such a cutie! As you can see he is very tall, here are his six month stats:
Height: 28 1/2 inches 95%

Weight: 17 pounds 7 ounces 50%

I haven't forgotten you

Ummmm, hi. What can I say....uh, the dog ate the internet and that is why I have not posted in so long. What? You don't believe me? Then you obviously don't know my dog! Anyway, we are in Ohio and Hannah is enjoying all the extra attention she is getting. She loves playing with her cousins and every morning she goes through the list of names asking if she is going to see them today. I see Yah-yah? I see Abbie? I see Anna? I see Grandma Pries? On it goes until we have covered everybody. A few times she has asked to go to Hannah's house, but for the most part is happy to be here.
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On the Daddy front, Hannah misses him so much. Occasionally she asks if we are going to see Daddy, or if Daddy has to work tomorrow. It is hard to explain how long it will be before we will see him again. She has her own little collage of Daddy pictures and shows them to everybody that walks into the front door. It is pretty cute. She finally talked to him on the phone, she is not a big phone talker so she was just listening to him talk. The other day she said about four sentences to him so he was excited! He says that he is bored over there, which is a good thing to hear! He is working the night shift so there is not much going on, but it does give him time to work on school work....or watch tv or play video games! When I talked to him on Sunday he said it was like living the movie Groundhog Day. Everything is the same over and over again. What more could we ask for?
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So, from now on I will try to keep this thing updated on a regular basis, especially since Alex is seven months tomorrow and I just posted his six month stuff! Ooops!

Just Because

Today was sort of an off day; we did not do much. I had to write two article reviews for my class, one in a memo format and the other in a paper format. Of course they were both due by tonight and I waited until today to do them! We did go to the post office and mail a package out to Tony. When we got back home I told Hannah how messy the living room was and she looked at me and said "Oh.My.Gosh.Mommy, it's messy." It was so funny I just laughed! I think she picked that phrase up from her daddy because I do not say that. Then, she was running around without a shirt on because she spilled water down the front of her and just because she has a perfect nose like belly button I drew a face on her belly! She was running around in her typical fashion and since I was busy most of the evening working on my papers, the hurricane Hannah roared through the living room again.
Alexander is just getting so big so fast...and I'm not just talking size wise either. He no longer stays in one spot on the floor because he scoots. However, he hates to be on his stomach so he scoots on his back. If I recall correctly this is how his sister started out. He is just so grabby, he will stare intently at something I have (like a glass) and as soon as it gets in his reach he is grabbing it! I have to be extra careful with what I'm holding now. He is also getting very vocal and is very loud. He just squeals away. Since Daddy has left he is getting pretty spoiled; when he wakes up at night I end up just leaving him in my bed. Oh well, we have seven months to break that habit.
I am so excited because Tony is settled in and has started working, which means e-mails. In the past two days I have gotten almost 50!!! Mind you that is back and forth chatting so most of them are only a couple of sentences, but I am so blessed to be able to stay connected with him. I talked to him on the phone last night as well. He is working the night shift right now, which is great for me because his hours are like 3pm-12am my time. Meaning I don't have to wait up to talk to him like I did last time.
Anyway, that is just a bunch of ramblings from today. My creative juices have not been flowing lately, so I apologize for the randomness of this post. I do have a picture to post of Hannah's belly face, but I will do that in the morning.

Top of the mornin' to ya!

One of the local beaches was having a festival to honor all the local Irishmen and women. So we went along with our friend Becky to have some fun. Hannah had the best time! Of course Becky spoiled her (and me) rotten. She bought her tickets to ride rides and me some coffee and food. The first thing she wanted to do was to ride the helicopter ride. I wasn't sure if parents were allowed so I just put her on the ride and left. She got upset and would not wave at us or even look at us the entire time. Instead she just sat there with her mad face on. We then attempted to go on a couple of the blow up things...of course she couldn't go in by herself. In both of them she freaked out and wanted to leave, but as soon as we got out she wanted back in, go figure. We finally went back and she rode the helicopter again. This time when I put her on the ride she said "Mommy watch." She waved and wore her proud face this time around. I think she realized that she could do it by herself. Alex was a trooper the entire time, just hanging out in the stroller. There was Celtic music (bagpipes) that Hannah really enjoyed, as well as lots of different craft booths. Of course what is a festival without food? Unfortunately, by this time it was getting crowded, Alex was getting fussy and we were all getting a little cold; so we just grabbed some food and left. No funnel cakes though:( I wish I would have thought to take the camera with me because I would have loved to get some pictures of Hannah riding those helicopters.

Update...

Just a quick update, so far we are doing pretty good in the Tater-tots household. We have an awesome ya*hoo group for the families that has been great! Haven't heard from hubby yet, but I got a message from the KV and she said the hot line had been updated today. So I called it and it said they were waiting for transport to their location. So, hopefully I will hear from him in the next couple of days. Tater seems to be adjusting well, she has been her usually joyful self. Yesterday when we were picking up her prescription she was prancing around in circles singing one of her praise songs. Very cute...until she started yelling them! Anyway, just wanted to put a quick update.

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Update on my update...I just talked to him!!! The connection was great and we got to talk for about 20 minutes! They are still waiting on transport so please pray for safe travels

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P.S. Are my comments working? I haven't gotten one in a long time, so give me a shout if you are out there....

Broken

Well, today was the day that we have been dreading...Daddy left for Iraq earlier today. It was a lot harder then I expected. I thought I had prepared myself mentally for it, but I was not prepared for the emotions that flooded me when I saw my husband say goodbye to our children. It was especially hard when Hannah was crying:(

We thought that she was prepared because she was so excited about going to Ohio, unfortunately I think that she was just focusing on that to "help" adjust. When Tony got dressed today and said he was getting ready for work, it was an instant meltdown. She did not want Daddy to leave. I think this made it even harder for Daddy.

Here are my two men, looking so identical:) Of course Alexander did not understand what was going on, so he was Mr. Personality. Smiling away at Daddy, which made me so sad. He loves playing with Daddy and all the sudden this person is going to go "missing" from his life. In seven months when Daddy returns, Alex won't even remember him.
I wish her hair wasn't blowing in her face for this picture, it is such a sweet shot.
Daddy with his two kids, notice the tears in the girls eyes! They are going to be so big when he returns...well Alex will be so much bigger, Hannah will just be older.

The highlight of the day was when Daddy took her over to the "big truck." It was the first smile of the day and it got better from there! Here she is driving!
She has already talked about him a couple times today; wanting to call him or show him a picture she drew. As you can tell it has been an emotional day. I do not remember it being this hard the last time!!! Thankfully, we will be going to Ohio soon and that will keep us busy for the deployment. If you haven't noticed there is a countdown at the bottom of the page. It is tentative because I don't know the exact date or time that he will be returning so I just have it set for October 15th at 5pm. Please keep us in your prayers as Daddy travels and we adjust!

Tub Time!

Changing

The boy is now five months, geesh he is getting so big. He has been discovering so much lately. About a week ago, he found his feet and now he loves grabbing them. He has also figured out how to really get his jumper to bounce. I think that is one of his favorite places to be, sitting in his jumper just a bouncing along. He has now rolled over I think three times without any assistance, but that is few and far between. Last night we gave him cereal for the first time. I was planning on waiting until he was six months, but I wanted Hubby to see it before left. Hubs laughed when I told him we were going to do it and said he didn't think he was ready. Well, boy was he wrong. Alexander opened his mouth right up and would practically eat the spoon he liked it so much. I guess he was ready!

I go to hio Mommy?!

I haven't posted about Badoo lately so here are a couple of little stories about what the girl has been up to:
Two Fridays ago I took her to get her hair cut. She was such a good girl, she sat there with no problem and admired her puppy dog cape. The problem came when she was all done. She. did. not. want. to. take. off. that. cape. She was so mad at the hairdresser. She would not even look at her.... Later that day we were talking and she said "Hannah, get a hair cut," and used her fingers as scissors across her bangs. It was so cute. Then she said "I wear puppies..." with a sad expression!
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We have been talking to her lately about Daddy leaving for Iraq soon. Trying to explain that he won't see her for a long time but he won't forget her etc. We also add that she will be moving to Ohio and will get to see her grandparents, aunts and uncles and play with all her cousins. I think she zones in on that point and forgets about Daddy leaving. The first thing she said to me this morning when I woke her up was "I go to hio Mommy?"
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We gave brother some cereal the other night, Hannah of course thought this was such a fun thing to do. She sat next to me as I fed him and watched. I asked her if she wanted to taste it and she exclaimed "NO! I TOO BIG!"

It's not polite to play with your food!

Alexander has learned a new trick....drum roll please. When he is nursing and is almost full he pulls off and makes a raspberry with his mouth....with the milk that is still in there. He thinks that it is so funny and does this over and over again all the while I am getting sprayed in the face with milk. I guess it is never too early to start teaching them manners. I can just see it now, he is sitting in the high school lunch room spraying all the cute girls with milk. The teacher on duty will walk up and say "Didn't your mother ever teach you not to play with your food boy?" Yeah, we better get on that one! Also, I think that we might have picked the wrong name out for him. He has been growing like a weed lately and already fits into 12 month clothes. So I'm thinking something along the lines of Jolly Green would fit or maybe Andre.

I was reading some old posts the other day and came across one where I was saying what a difficult baby he was. I guess I should update that because he is now the world's happiest baby. I mainly think that it was reflux because at his two month check-up he was put on Zan*tac and that made a world of difference. He is so happy the kid hardly ever cries, seriously it would be easy to forget he was around if it weren't for the squeals and laughter he shares with us. Of course as I'm typing this the voice inside my head is telling me that now I jinxed myself. Oh well, if that happens it will make for some interesting posts.

Apples and Oranges

Lately I have been noticing a couple differences in the personalities of how Hannah was as a baby and how Alexander is. For instance, Hannah loved the paci and used it all the time. In fact we just got her off it a few weeks ago. Alexander on the other hand, rarely uses one because he would rather suck on his fingers. Unfortunately, he hasn't quite figured out how far he can stick them in before gagging himself. Alex laughs so easily, a complete stranger can get a smile from him. Hannah was always a little harder to get laughing, and she would only "belly" laugh for her Daddy. Another difference, loud noises never seemed to bother Hannah, but Alex gets startled easily and then wails. He also shows a little stranger anxiety, but Hannah was always very social. When it came to bedtime, Hannah used to go to sleep easily and would wake up early (as a baby) and Mr. Alex prefers for me to put him to sleep and will sleep most of the morning. Nursing the two has been pretty similar in the fact that they ate supper fuss. The difference, Hannah would fuss a little to cue me in that she was getting hungry. Alex, the barracuda, can get really upset and when I pick him up he starts attacking me to try to get to the food! I'm sure that as they continue to grow there are going to be so many more differences. It is amazing how they are the same, yet different.

Dead Dog Walking

Last night as I was preparing for bed, I glanced over and saw a wet spot on the sheets. What? A wet spot on the sheets....the girl can't get on our bed without assistance so I was at a loss to what the spot was. I called to the hubby and asked him to do the sniff test. Urine he said. Well if it wasn't the girl, me or the hubs, that leaves the dog. Mind you our dog is not aloud on any of the furniture, let alone our bed but what else could it be. The dog peed on our bed. He jumped up there and peed on the bed....thankfully on hubby's side and towards the foot, but still. I was so mad, of course it was like 1:30 when I found it. So we had to clean the spot as best as we could, then we put a towel over it then sheets. At that moment, I no longer wanted a dog. He is just lucky that the hubs was in his corner or he would not be here today. However, if he ever does it again I'm putting my foot down and he is either an outside dog or an adopted dog!

Happy Valentines Day

Two very cute kids wishing all our friends and family a Happy Valentines Day!!

Time flies

Just a little note: I was sitting here thinking about the date and realized that one year ago today the faint pink line popped up on the EPT! I can't believe that it has been a year since then and the little Bubby has been here for four months already!

It's like finding a needle in a haystack

If you walked into my house right now you would see chaos, sheer chaos. I do not know what it is, but since I had the second child I cannot stay on top of the house work. I would be so embarrassed if somebody stopped by right now because that is how messy it is. I must clarify; messy, not dirty because I do manage to keep it clean, you know dusting, sweeping, mopping etc. It's just that I can't keep the "stuff" picked up. I just can't seem to find that balance of playing with the kids and cleaning during the day. Not to mention that I will pick up a room and five minutes later it will be messy again. Mostly from Tater, but also from hubs. OK and a little from me. Regardless, it never fails that when we need something it is nowhere to be found, until we don't need it anymore. Right now hubs is missing his beloved video game and apparently I am the keeper of all things in this house. I should know where this game is because the last time he saw it was in the computer room. Obviously if he would put it back where it belonged it wouldn't be missing, but that is neither here nor there. We tore the entire office/spare bedroom apart last night looking for this stupid game. Do you think we found the game? Nope, and I am tired of hearing him whine about it. So if it is not found by Valentine's Day guess what hubs is getting....the newer version of said game. That takes care of that problem, now if somebody could just send the maid over I would appreciate it.

Four month stats

Today was the dreaded four month check-up. He actually did pretty good with the shots. It was a little cute, in a sad way. He got four shots right in a row, I'm not kidding the nurse who always does our shots is awesome. It's boom, boom, boom, boom done before he really has a chance to realize what is going on. Anyway, back to his cuteness; he gets the first shot and kind of puckers up a little as I am talking to him. He acts as if he is going to smile when the second one goes in. It is then that he takes a huge breath in and just wails. As if to say, I'm ok with one...fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. After the fourth I picked him up and he was fine right away. Of course all day he has been a mamas boy and a little fussy, but not bad. The only problem was that I had a paper due tonight, so it was like pulling teeth to get it done. That is an entire different post, so here are his stats:

Weight: 15 lbs 13 1/4 oz
Height : 26 1/2 inches

He was about 55% for weight and 90% for height. I was a bit surprised because I thought he would be a little bit heavier, I knew he was pretty long because we had to break out some of the 6-9 month clothes. I can't believe that it has been four months already my sweet precious boy!

Changing

Here is Mr. Man at four months, getting bigger every day! He is so alert and loves to interact with Hannah. He is cooing all the time and laughs quite a bit. All it takes is a smile and he smiles right back. He is so ticklish that when I change his clothes he cracks up laughing, especially when I take his shirt off! He is also very grabby, when he plays on his floor mat he loves to reach up and grab the toys. We go for his four month check-up on Monday....uugghh shots, but I can't wait to see how big he has gotten. I'll be sure to post his stats when we get home Monday!

Lil' Miss Priss

Lately Tater has turned into quite the independent girly-girl. Not only does she have to pick out her own clothes, but usually she picks out a dress and her favorite color has become pink. If there is no pink available then purple will do. Along with this new girlness is fingernail polish. Her nails have to have polish on them at all times and can you guess what color? That's right pink. She also loves to have her hair in "pretties" as she calls them. Which if funny because a couple of weeks ago she would not even let me brush her hair! It is pretty cute when she dresses herself, especially her pajamas. She got a bunch of really cute pajamas for Christmas from her Dramma and Drampa Allison. The thing is Hannah does not think that whoever made them knew how to match, so she matches them herself. Pink stripe pants with a purple flowered top or snow signs on the top with pink flowers on the bottom. Like I said it is pretty cute.
On the potty front she is doing really good....except she has not had another successful poopy since the last post. For the most part she has stopped having wet accidents, unless she's busy and either doesn't want to stop what she's doing or just forgets. We have not ventured out with big girl pants on yet. Mainly because there are times right now when she has to potty every five minutes. (I guess she takes after her cousin Anna.) Maybe soon I will build up enough courage to do it. For those of you who have recently went through this (like Aunt Julie) we would appreciate advice on how you managed to leave the house for the first couple of times.


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The four month changing picture will be posted after the boy wakes up from his nap; along with an update about him.