Wow! I am way behind on updating
so I think it is time to combine two months.
It is a bit hard to fathom writing two separate blog posts for October
and November considering tomorrow is December first. So unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), this
will be another combined post. I know I
keep saying this, but it rings true each month lately, and that is that life
has been a whirlwind.
Cold, but not too cold to take the kiddos along
:-)
Love this!
Starting in October we made the decision to just land in Louisville for
the remainder of our time waiting for our house. It was just getting to be too much for our
little family to be packing up twice a week to travel 1.5 hours to go back and
forth between my parents’ lake house in Falls of Rough and my grandparents’
house in Louisville. It was a little bit
of a tough decision because the time at the lake was the only time we had free
of so much stimulation and to just have time as our little family of four. However, we decided it was worth embracing
the season of 6 adults and two children under one roof. I am so thankful that we made that decision
now looking back. It was full of
irreplaceable memories that far outweigh any feelings of overstimulation and
living on top of one another that occasionally caused stress. It was so much fun to be able to see Alethea
and Declan warm up to Granpeg and Grandaddy as well as continue to absolutely
adore Mamaw and Papaw. There is
definitely something very special about living with family and having the
opportunity to share so many meals and experiences together.
Bedtime stories with Granpeggy
Rocking with Mamaw
Craft time at Granpeggys
More reading with Granpeggy
Chatting with Granpeggy
Hanging out with Aunt Debbie
Snuggles with Uncle Lee and Uncle Camden
Snuggles with Uncle Camden
Cooking in Granpeggy's kitchen
Rocking babies with Mamaw
Such a good big sister
Reading with Grandaddy
Cuddles with Papaw
We had a blast celebrating Declan’s first Halloween and Alethea’s first
time trick or treating this month while at my grandparents. On Halloween it was super rainy and cold so
trick or treating got postponed. We
didn’t know until after already getting Alethea’s hopes up so we decided to
have her trick or treat around the house, which she absolutely loved. Then we went out the day after Halloween to
trick or treat a few houses in my grandparents’ neighborhood. Alethea enjoyed it so much and since she got
to trick or treat two days in a row, she thought she should get to trick or
treat the next day. She even still
pretends to trick or treat even now.
They love each other!
My little Louisville cheerleader
Pre-treating
My little pumpkin with Mamaw
First house!
Out trick or treating as a family
Despite all the wonderful times, we were definitely incredibly excited to
finally move into our new home on November 15th! It was so nice to finally have all of the
things we needed on one level. We are
gradually getting back into our simple routine and tantrums are beginning to
get back under control (or at least happening less often). I am so glad to have all of my own kitchen
tools back and thankful to have a spacious kitchen to use them in. We have our open floor plan back and it’s
amazing! It is very similar to our house
in SC which makes things even more fun to get used to.
Sold!
Moving is hard work
Playing in our new kitchen
Ping Pong with Daddy in the basement
Fixing the ping pong table
Proof that the play area actually can be clean...for a little bit :-)
Last visit to the house before moving in
Pizza party the night of closing
Declan checking out the mirror in Mommy and Daddy's bathroom...he loves mirrors!
Alethea reading to her babies on move in day
Playing in the basement while the movers are upstairs :-)
We also had a fun time celebrating Thanksgiving at Granpeg and Grandaddy’s
this year. It was Declan’s first, though
he didn’t partake in any of the goodies. J He definitely enjoyed staring down all the
food though, lol. Alethea enjoyed all
the goodies, especially the gender reveal cupcakes from Aunt Justine and Uncle
Cody. She is super excited to have a
girl cousin coming in April and we are so excited to have a niece on the way!
Day before Thanksgiving....taking a break from food prep
Helping with a very important job....licking the spatula....and both beaters. :-)
Good eats
Declan sitting with Mamaw and Papaw...eating his giraffe
Turkey booty....mesmerized by Papaw
Pie face....crazy pony tail
Our little turkey on the table...he loved playing with the leaves
Life is feeling less and less like a long vacation and Kentucky is
feeling more and more like home. We are
officially licensed and have switched our license plates over to KY so I guess
on paper we are truly residents of KY.
We have been gradually getting acquainted with the Louisville area, but
now we are getting acquainted to the area from the new perspective of our house
in the LaGrange area. I absolutely love
the small town feel of the area while still being close to all the benefits of
the big city of Louisville. I guess
technically we are in the middle of an urban area since we are less than a mile
from the courthouse in the center of town, but it is a very small town feel so
it doesn’t seem like it.
Over the past two months we have really enjoyed attending Springdale
Community Church. Finding a church home
is very important to us and initially we thought we would go to a bunch of
churches before settling down. We
started out that way, but the second church we attended was Springdale and
after praying and lots of discussing Ben and I decided that we would attend
there unless we felt like the Lord was leading us elsewhere. For now, this is where we feel we belong
though. Most importantly they preach
directly from the Bible through solid expository scripture. They start with the Bible rather than a topic
they want to discover. They have an
excellent children’s program (we are even able to put Declan in the nursery so
that we can fully focus on what is being taught), life groups (similar to home
groups in our church in SC), mom’s bible study, large focus on missions, and
plenty of opportunities for us to serve.
We are not ready to jump in and be members yet, but we are ready to
follow the Lord’s leading and see where He leads us.
Ready for church
Ben is still very much enjoying his job.
Some days he is in the office dressed up all spiffy and other days he is
covered in soot from the coal at the plants.
I think it has provided the perfect variety to maintain his
interest. He has even been able to start
leading his own project and had his first presentation about his plans for it
that went incredibly well. He has also
continued to work out with great discipline and intensity and it is really
paying off. He is maxing out at
increasing weights and truly enjoying getting fit. And I may be biased, but I think he looks
pretty darn good as a result. J
I have been spending most of my time maintaining some sort of routine for
the kiddos while juggling appointments and getting things ready for moving
in/settling in to the house. Life has
definitely had a fair amount of stress for me, but thankfully I have still been
able to maintain sanity through regular time studying God’s word and running
with the occasional weight lifting thrown in.
November even marked the beginning of training for the Derby half
marathon. I have wanted to run a ½
marathon for several years now, but it hasn’t ever worked out. I made one other attempt when we still lived
in OH, but ended up with a temp of 103 and the stomach flu the morning of the
race and was only able to make it through the first 8 miles of the race. This time around I am hoping for a better
outcome and I will also have Ben joining me, which I am super excited about.
Alethea, oh how I love her so!
Through all of this craziness of the past two months I have failed to
write down all the crazy fun things that she is saying and doing. I am hoping I
can simply remember enough to demonstrate what a firecracker she is! She is always listening and absorbing
everything around her so there is not a single word snuck by her. And she is grasping concepts in conversation
that I pretty sure should be above her head.
I truly can’t believe that less than a year ago she was hardly talking
at all! One thing that has slowed down
is her growth, finally! I was starting
to wonder if I was ever going to be able to keep up with her clothing size
changes, lol. She is now 40inches tall
and weighs 34.6lbs at 33 months old. She
is also working on all four 2yr molars, though you wouldn’t know other than the
fact she has started chewing on things again.
She is a monkey!
Enjoying her first play in the snow for the year....though it was just a dusting this time
The past two months her pronunciation of words has grown leaps and
bounds. I truly believe this is greatly
correlated to all the time she has spent around adults and all the
conversations she has had with all 6 of us.
Plus, between all of us, she has had a lot of encouragement to improve
her pronunciation. She can finally say s
words with a consonant after the s (i.e. squash instead of quash, sticker
instead of ticker, etc). I know there
are probably many other examples of her pronunciation improvement, but that is
the only one I can think of right now.
The girl loves to read and I gotta believe that helps with her language development!
One huge change is that she finally says her own name. Up until early November whenever you asked
her what her name was she would always say “I’m Lala”, but all of a sudden one
day when we were talking about who each person in the family was she and “I am Alethea”
(which sounds more like Alay-C-uh) right now, but that TH sound will come with
time I am sure. Now she actually
corrects anyone that refers to her as “Lala” or any affectionate name by
telling them that her name is Alay-c-uh!
Entertaining Declan
She has become quite the little miss bossy-pants. I know it is just part of testing what she
does and doesn’t have control over, but sometimes it can be quite tiring to
redirect. We are really working on her
requesting that we do something rather than ordering it. One thing we are
finding is that she typically asks the first time, but then follows the request
with incessant commands to do the same thing.
It can be quite comical the things that she wants to order us to do
though. For example the other day she
was saying “Mommy turn the lights off outside!”
And when I proceeded to tell her that it was daytime and God doesn’t
turn the lights off outside until nighttime, she had a meltdown crying and
saying “turn the lights off” over and over again, lol!
Still a sleeping beauty, despite her bossy-ness :-)
She also loves to correct people. One day on the way home from picking up
pizza with Mamaw and Camden she saw Camden grab a cheese stick out of the box
and said to him “you are not sus-posed to eat the pizza til we get to
Granpeggys!” Then he said “I already
dooed it” and she proceeded to tell him in all seriousness “It’s not dooed it,
it’s I did it Camden!”. Also, one of her
favorite things to tell us at the dinner table is that we aren’t supposed to
talk while she is eating, typically shortly after we have told her to stop
talking and start eating, lol. And one
of my favorites is when someone at the table takes a bite of their food before
everyone gets to the table and she rats them out saying “you aren’t sus-posed
to eat until _____ is at the table!” This is most likely largely because we
don’t let her start eating until everyone has their food. J And of course I can’t forget the fact that
she is already correcting Declan and telling him what he is sus-posed to be
doing.
Just a chillin' in the tree
Now for a few more of the fun things she has been saying over the past
few months. In reference to squiggles
that Mamaw drew on the paper she pointed to the humps and said very matter of
factly “This is up and this is down”.
She also loves to ask “what does the sound look like?” We keep reminding her that sounds don’t look
like anything and rephrase the question for her to say “what does it sound
like?” wondering what the sound is that she heard. She is very in tune with sounds around her
and always inquisitive about what they are.
Two of my favorite things she says when something isn’t cooperating with
her she will say frustratedly “oh man!” or she might hit it (we are working on
that) and shout “It’s not listening to me!”
(She has also been known to make her babies/stuffed animals sit by
themselves as a consequence for this, lol.)
While carrying one of her kitchen tools, “I need to take your pro-time
Grandaddy” and she pretended to prick his finger. She picked this up by watching my mom take
his pro-time to test his levels since he is on blood thinning meds. Such a smarty pants! And last bit of cuteness, when we were leaving
the room after visiting Grandaddy in the hospital, the nurses were
complimenting her on her dress and telling her she was so pretty and she
pointed her little finger and said, “you need to go in there and fix my
Grandaddy!” She knew what she wanted and
ignored everything else, lol.
Chillin' at the hospital while we visited Grandaddy
Hammin' it up for the nurse/doctor
As always, I could go on and on about Alethea and Declan gets his own
update thankfully so this blog doesn’t end up so long. One last thing that must be mentioned though
is the fact that we have quite the little songbird. I think I may have cursed her, lol. She walks around the house singing what she
is saying rather than just speaking it…..yah I definitely do that and I am sure
she got it from me. J It definitely cracks her daddy up for sure
because she will be talking to him and then all of a sudden starting singing
the words! Love her and her little
brother so much! (oh yah and of course their Daddy is pretty spectacular too J) So thankful for a wonderful October and
November with them!
More of these to come, but we got the tree up before December this year :-)
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