Updates and Changes

Okay i know I have fallen behind on updating this blog.  Maybe everyone gave up and figured there would be nothing new.  Sorry!  Work has been so busy for me I don't get much chance to do anything on the personal side, I have even been working through lunch and when not working through I am really trying to get back to the routine of going to the gym.  For me it is budget season and we just had our big push of new hires and getting all the new employees set up, paid and going on the system.  For budgets I have a lot of data I pull and projections for salary and effort reporting so that our units can create their budget needs.  They have to present to the student fee committee and request student fee funding they will need next year.

Kris has been busy at work too.  Not too surprising I don't fully know what he does, but I know they have been keeping the work coming in and he is trying to learn and updated system.  I am so glad his shop has stayed busy during this time when the economy was struggling.  He went hunting a few weeks ago and did get a deer which makes him happy.  Me, I'm not as big of a fan of the meat, but I am glad he likes it.  We also go to the Beaver Football games in the fall so have been busy tailgating and have a full month of games ahead.  I just wish the team was doing a bit better.

Mallory is 8 months old now, 8 months and a week.  She has had the two bottom front teeth since about the middle of September.  They both came in at the same time.  She now seems to be chewing and drooling a lot so is maybe working on the top, but we have said that a couple times now and nothing has come through.  She loves to stand to play.  She jumps and walks in walker toys a lot.  She also wants whatever someone else has, so always wants the trucks Conrad happens to be playing with.  He is really good about giving her a car or truck he is not playing with at the time, but that still quickly gets abandoned and she starts to reach and go for the ones he has.  She says da da da da pretty regularly and did say ma ma ma ma at least once but hasn't stuck with that as much as da da.  She loves her blanket and usually wants it over her face when she is going to sleep.  It is a bit scary for us to see her in her crib with the blanket all scrunched up at her face like that, but she pulls it up there and we check that she is breathing and let her sleep.  At this point she does pretty well sleeping at night.  She usually wakes up around midnight or one for a bottle and then seems to stir again around four.  Sometimes she just puts herself back to sleep, sometimes she needs another little bottle.  Then she will usually sleep pretty well until six thirty or so.  The biggest news for her is that she finally crawled.  She has been scotching herself around somehow.  No obvious pulling or anything but seemed to be able to move enough to get to things she wanted.  She has also been getting up on those knees and doing the rocking, but not getting the forward motion.  For me I saw it for the first time last night.  Kris seemed to have seen her do it before that.  So she did actually move on her knees in a crawl.  Now Conrad really won't be able to keep the toys out of her reach.

Conrad is getting so much older lately.  He is far more able to get things he needs and wants for himself these days.  He is three now and just not a baby anymore.  He says the best things sometimes that surprise me.  Lately he tells me he will just get a little bigger like his dad and then he will ride the bumpy school bus.  He seems to really want to ride the bus and has absolutely decided it is a bumpy school bus.  He knows his alphabet, although we still need to work on him recognizing the letters correctly on some of them.  He counts to 10 perfectly, but gets a bit mixed up beyond that.  He knows the days of the week and the months of the year.  He does pretty well tracing letters on worksheets, I think.  he comes home with worksheets that look really good I am just not sure if he is really doing them himself or how much help he gets from Ronnie, his daycare teacher or perhaps her older grandchildren that are sometimes there with the kids.  We have a book at home we do letters in and he has done really good tracing and other times just wants to scribble.  This past weekend we decided to commit to potty training and did away with diapers.  He is fully in underwear except and night and is doing great.  He had an accident on the way to daycare Monday but other than that has been using the potty and staying dry.  We are excited to have him in this stage and out of diapers.  He has been using the potty off and on for a while now but just didn't seem interested in making it the norm.

For Halloween Conrad dressed as a cowboy, maybe Rowdy Yates, and Mallory was a pony.  Conrad was asked if he was going to ride Mallory and he sweetly said "not until she gets older."