Nathan at 8 months

Obviously he's stinking adorable.

The pictures were taken at Sandy Hook on the Jersey shore, compliments of my Aunt Marita. Thank you Re-Re!

So Nathan turned 8 months on the 17th of this month.

He has two teeth.

He can say mama and dada clearly and distinctly. 

I wasn't sure he really knew what he was saying until the other day when I walked out of the room and he wailed, "MAAA-MAA!"

And this morning when Aaron walked into our room he smiled and said, "Dada!"

So cute.

He army crawls every where. 

He can easily get into a seated position from his tummy. 

He can pull himself up and stand while holding onto something.

He eats EVERYTHING!

Seriously - I think if I let him he would eat like half a pizza, and still have room for more.

He is a bottomless pit.

He crawls and tries to find things to eat. 

Between him and the dog I SHOULD never have to sweep.

Seriously.

He goes to sleep around 7pm,

and I don't see his sweet face again until about 6am.

Lovely.

He still takes two naps a day, but I'm afraid he's trying to go to just one.

He has no bottom lip.

Okay not really, but you wouldn't know it, because he is constantly sucking on his bottom lip.

This has been since birth. Literally when I picked him up and held him the first time, he was sucking on his bottom lip. 

He has continued to do so for the past 8 months.

He always has a smile for everyone

and he really is a delight.

Yesterday I was fine... today I lost it.

I was pretty happy after dropping Olivia off at preschool yesterday. Absolutely no time for those feelings of "she's growing up so fast". Today I dropped her off and she didn't want me to walk her in, she wanted to go in by herself. She was so excited. She ran towards the door, and then at the last minute before walking in, she turned back and looked at me and did the sign for "I love you".

Cue tears.

I did the sign back, and her face lit up with a grin, and in she went. I was so grateful I was watching her. I wonder how many moments I've missed because instead of looking at my kids I was looking at my phone. Ouch.

It's funny the things that make me feel like a grown up. I've been married for SEVEN years, and we've owned a home, and moved across the country and taken vacations, had THREE children! and all this "grown up" stuff. But today before taking Olivia to school I made her go into the bathroom and wash her face and brush her hair. She came out of the bathroom all clean and pretty, and I just couldn't believe it. My baby who, four years ago couldn't do anything for herself, just got herself dressed, got her shoes on, used the bathroom, washed her face, brushed her hair... Usually I am just full of gratitude at her independence. Grateful it's one less thing I have to do. But today it made me feel kind of old. I am old enough to have a kid who can pretty much take care of herself. Okay, not really, but seriously. I felt like those never ending nights of nursing and rocking would never end. And now here we are.

Of course now I spend my time rocking and feeding another baby. But it's a lot easier when you've been through it and you realize how completely temporary it all is.

I've been waiting for this moment for 4.5 years...

Okay not really... but... I just dropped Olivia off at preschool! She will be gone three hours a day, three days a week. And it just happens to coincide with the younger kids' nap times. Perfection!

Olivia was so concerned she was going to miss something super fun at home while she was gone. (Which I take as a compliment by the way.) Anyway I explained that it was nap time and Abigail and Nathan would both be sleeping while she was gone. To which she replied, "Well there goes all your workers."

Ya know, because they are just SO helpful. Cracked me up.

And Abigail took it better than I thought she would. Fortunately it was during cousin play group that I had to run Olivia, and so Abigail was too busy playing to really notice. We'll see how it goes tomorrow.

In other news, maybe now I can get completely unpacked and all those little projects done that I've wanted to work on.

You don't even want to know.

Or maybe you do.

Aaron asked me not to blog about poop.

At least not the part where Nathan was eating it.

Sorry, babe.

This story must be told, in all its grossest details. Because I'm in a blogging funk, and nothing gets you out of a blogging funk like a good poop story. Am I right, or am I right?

First a little back story. I have a friend with magical pooping powers. Her name's Staci and she lives in Erie. And every.single.time she babysat my kids one or all would poop. Massive amounts of poop. Even my constipated kids who hadn't pooped in forever, would undoubtedly poop while in Staci's care. Even if it was only an hour!!

Poor, Staci!

So now fast forward... we are living in AZ. We decide to take a little drive to visit a friend from Erie who is also living in Arizona. It's about a 45 minute drive. As we start to get closer, we are driving past horses and cows and it's kind of stinky. The girls are complaining of the poop smell and I told them there was nothing I could do, it was just the farms and stuff. And then Abigail said Nathan was eating poop. Uhm, what? How is that even possible. I couldn't really see, but then Olivia looked and started freaking out. "MOM! HE'S EATING POOP!!!" So I pull over as soon as I can and find Nathan covered from head to toe in nastiness.

O M G

Seriously!?

I didn't have wipes. And I didn't have a back up outfit.

So as stinky as we were, we ventured into Target to buy wipes and an outfit and get cleaned up in the bathroom.

Oh it was so bad. It was literally the worst explosion of any of my kids.

Okay so no big deal, we get cleaned up, and get on our merry way. Had a great time hanging out with our friends. About 4 hours later, I get home and look at Facebook.

I have a comment from Staci, from 4 hours ago.

"Hey miss ya! Sending poop vibes your way."

Those are some strong vibes!!! I called Staci and told her to hang on to her vibes until we can get better diapers.

Meanwhile I'm thinking Staci should start some kind of business for constipated children. I am not the only person who's kids she affects this way! How crazy is that?

Poop vibes...

Another minute!

Aaron started rotations today.

I was a panicked ball of anxiety when he had to leave.

I have issues with Mondays. Mondays after almost 3 weeks together threw me for a loop.

But, prayers are heard and answered. Aaron was done at noon today.

And then another miracle -- right now all three of my kids are sleeping! In the middle of the day! What do they call that again? Oh right... naps! Yes, naps -- they have become far too foreign around here and I'm so grateful that they are all asleep right now. They desperately need it.

We are finding our groove.

I go running every morning at 5:00 with my neighbor, Amber. She is so sweet and has three kids the same ages as my kids. Today they all played together and had a great time.

Olivia starts preschool in two weeks. I'm so excited for that!

I am almost completely unpacked.

We are getting there.

Finally! A minute!

So tonight we laid Nathan down for a nap at 5:00PM.  It is now almost 10 and he is still asleep...

I have a feeling it might be a long night. Or should I say a very short night?

Anyway, I should go to sleep since I am going to wake up and go running at 5:00AM. But I feel sad for this neglected blog and there are many stories that need to be recorded.

Like how I broke the window of our van just days before our big move. And how it rained on our yard sale. And how a jerk at the airport insisted on seeing Nathan's birth certificate to prove he was under two!! My seven month old, in his infant seat, needed proof of his age! It was insane. Fortunately by some miracle his birth certificate was actually not on the moving truck, but with my mother-in-law in AZ. So she was able to fax a copy to the jerks at Southwest. Oh that was stressful!

Anyway we loaded the last of the boxes off the moving truck today.

I also got to meet a blogging friend in real life, and so now she is a real life friend! She was already real life friends with my husband (he dated her sister in high school or so I hear) so it wasn't like totally meeting a stranger. She is amazing and so awesome! She brought presents that she made for my girls, and brought me chocolate!! And she crocheted a Link for Aaron! Seriously so awesome. And then she unpacked and organized all of my daughters' toys. Seriously, Geneva you are a life saver!!

Becky and Sean also came over today and helped unpack. And brought us homemade blueberry muffins. My life is really full of amazing people.

Anyway we are getting settled in. I have to do my best to ignore the fact that I will be packing this all up and moving again in a year when Aaron is done with rotations. I realized yesterday that Olivia was born when we lived in our condo, but took her first steps in our Heber House. Abigail was born when we lived in the Heber house, but took her first steps in PA. Nathan was born in PA, but will take his first steps here at the in-laws house in AZ. That is just absurd. And a crazy to way to think about it.

We bought a van yesterday. It is pretty awesome. Has a few cosmetic issues, and smells like dog. But it has a DVD player and stow n go seats and some other bells and whistles so that is fun. We got a good deal, and that's all we were praying for.

Aaron starts rotations on Monday. I am soooooooo sad about it. My kids have been CRAZY since we got here. They have also been sick. Fevers, runny noses, coughs, etc. We need to get better and get a routine going ASAP. Olivia starts school next Monday. SO cray cray I can't even deal.