FEBRUARY 8, 2008

Long time no talkey.... So I realize my baby is still technically a "baby" but she seems so HUGE to me lately. She has gone through an amazing amount of growth in the last two months. She now smiles all the time and likes to talk. She makes this spit filled "geee" "geeeeeeeeeeeeee" sound while smiling that always cracks me up. We just had her first professional photos done but of courseeeee she couldnt be good during her photo session so we have a lot of sad, glossy-eyed Everly pictures now but - hey - she's still cute! In the last week or so you can tell shes picking up new sounds or at least noticing her voice more. She can for sure follow us around with her eyes and sometimes her head but she's not 100% perfect on following where noises are coming from. She loves to have her toes nibbled on and kissed while changing her diaper and she is very ticklish especially around the neck, sides, feet and practically everywhere else. She is now a pro at holding her head up and is getting more interested in her crib mobil and her play mat with toys hanging from it. She can grab things but its purely by accident however she knows how to put her hands or more precisely her fists in her mouth now. Its been sad and funny at the same time because she likes to clasp her hands together and shove both of them in her mouth at the same time. Thank heavens it doesnt all fit but its better than her shoving the one fist in and gagging on it which she has done more than once. She is also getting AMAZINGLY strong. Its all I can do to keep and pry her little fingers away from the nipple on the bottle because she gets so excited she tries to shove the nipple and a put a few fingers in her mouth at the same time. I am usually alerted to the problem by the strange sucking noises of something thats lost suction and the loud "smack" "smack" "smack" that follows it. Its hard to explain but its pretty funny. She is also so strong that she tries to turn and look at things when I am trying to hold her and I cant get her head turned back around. It's good though that she's getting so strong. I would hate her to be underdeveloped. At her last doctors appointment about two weeks ago she was 12 lbs 6 oz and 23 inches long if I remember right. I feel bad when I have to work at night because she has gotten so used to Dave and I both being with her all the time especially this last month and suddenly its all Dave.

For those of who don't or didn't know we had JUST gotten back from Christmas in Washington and hadnt even been home in Idaho for more than 3 days when we got a call from the police in Utah that Dave's mom had been found dead in her apartment (cause of death pending but no foul play suspected). So off to Utah we went for another 2 weeks and put our lives on hold only to come back to a place we hadnt been to really in over a month and we were behind on everything else in our lives so at this point we have spent the last two weeks playing catch up with everything. I dont know HOW people can live on the road. We are just hoping and PRAYING that life just calms down and becomes beyond boring for the next year. We have had enough surprises and drama in the last little bit over a year that no news would be good to us! Everly is only 4 months now and has already been to two major funerals :-( .... but thats life.

Other than that Dave started up school again and I am back -finally- at work. We are both stressed with life in general but hopefully routine will take some of the stress away. We are trying to figure out what the next steps we should take as a family and for careers and jobs and thats some major life altering decisions and unfortunately they arent always easy but we are optimistic that if we have patience it will all work out. We just need PATIENCE.... did I mention patience?!?