Exhaustion

I think the stress is finally getting to me. Or at least I can admit that the stress is probably what has been getting me sick for the last couple weeks. I appear to be sick again. :( The kids also have running noses also.
We had the Godfather and his girlfriend over to help move some furniture into the garage. We are now living with half our furniture, well less than half our furniture and more than half our stuff. Eric and I loaded up everything they put in the garage into a truck we could get for free with our storage unit. If I wasn't already feeling rather congested and up late (taking a friend to the emergency room, she's ok BTW) last night, I probably wouldn't have dropped that sofa on Eric's foot! Haha just kidding, really we did a great job today, we put Nate in the jumper, Gwen wandered around and we put everything in the storage unit. This evening Eric and I have crashed on the couch watching the movie "RV" which is hilarious, after riding in an RV...
So onto some pictures from the last week, Nate and his little buddy...
Nate is sure going to miss him, I am not sure his friend is going to miss him, Nate is rather abusive...
He uses him to stand up on and loves to "pat" him, I am trying to teach him to be gentle, but he doesn't really get it.

Nate has finally decided to start walking this weekend. He is really trying to walk and has decided it is the he wants to try to cross rooms.

We realize this is going to cause NUMEROUS problems because he is already knocking Gwen out of the way so he can get to what he wants to and I think I am going to let that continue for a while, since she has boxing Nate out for a while. I mean I guess he has taken quite a beating from her, while she tries to "help" us out, policing Nate.

Here is Gwen and her little friend sharing a cupcake.

Gwen has already had a cupcake she somehow talked her friend into giving her some.

"Hide & Seek"

Gwen LOVES to be chased and play hide & seek and to be scared. Of course, she doesn't understand any of it, you could seriously walk up to her and yell "BOO" and she would squeal with delight. I don't know where Nate & Eric where but a couple weeks ago Gwen decided to play hide and seek with me...do you see her?
We have to pretend that she is not there and then we have to look for her and when you look for her you can hear her saying "I'm over here".

Still hiding!

She will keep hiding in the same place over and over again, or tell you where she wants you to hide. I do wonder how much longer it is going to be until she "gets" it!

UNC visit

I have decided to get the picture backlog taken care of, so enjoy. I finally have a couple of spare minutes. These are from our UNC trip earlier this month, when we found our house. Finally! I never downloaded the pictures from Mom's camera, so I only have these few. Eric and Gwen I don't know what this is called, but it is in all the UNC pictures, I guess I will learn!
A family portrait! Nate is not cooperating, but he was rather tired!

Mom & Gwen, at the thing I don't know what it is called.

Gwen, lolly gagging!

still lolly gagging...

she was pretending to be something here, I can't remember what now, dog, lion?

Posing at the monument...

sweet Nate.

Nate at Chic-fil-A.

Gwen in the "tubes".

Gwen & Grandma at the hotel.

First haircut

I have been pressured to cut Nate's hair. So today we all went to get our hair cut by my friend who also cut Gwen's hair for the first time. Gwen went first! She was excited because she got a lollipop for being a good hair cut victim.
Here are some pictures of Nate before, just so you know what to compare to.

Here we are getting ready.

Nate as you can tell was not thrilled, really I have to give Angela props, Nate did not like the hair cut. He didn't like the her spraying the water, combing his hair...really anything. And neither Nate nor I got any cuts with the scissors!

He was bouncing around too...

I thought if we tried sitting him down that would be better, because he wouldn't be able to jump around...

But he then tried to hit the scissors and still no cuts!

All done and super happy!

We tried to get pictures of the 3 of us, but it didn't work out very well!...Nate was still not very happy! :(

3 years

I don't know what to say really, I mean in some sense it seems like many, many years ago, but truly 3 years is not a long time in the overall scheme of things. I don't seem to be as affected this year as I have in years past. (if you are a new reader, check out here or here) I mean if you look at Gwen who will be 3 in 6 weeks (AH!!!) she has learned to walk and talk and grown so much. But generally it still sucks my Dad is gone. Fortunately, this year I don't have time to think much about it, I am so busy with this packing and moving, I don't have time to focus. I am thankful that this year I wasn't depressed, that's a good thing, but I can't be sure that the depression won't come back next year, I have no plans to be packing and moving next year! I can tell you, I got super excited to find an old show that Dad and I used to watch on Hulu that I am looking forward to show Eric, he has never seen it before.
I don't have any new insights, I don't have any new feelings, and I am not sure I feel any different. Sure, I don't cry as much, but I still get teary (and if you know me IRL that statement, might just blow you away!) of course having a baby and nursing for basically the last 3 years could have something to do with the hormones, not that I am trying to make excuses. I am sure this post is random and distracted, which I think is how I am functioning at this time. I suspect sometime in the next 3 months I will be less distracted. But then again, I have 2 kids, I might never recover!

Nate the Great

In cleaning up for the garage sale, I found the cord for the camera! Wohoo! How did I decide to celebrate, by doing an entire post to Nate! Nate, as I have mentioned before is a very happy, jolly baby. He doesn't really like Daddy kissing him, well, really anyone but me kissing him...I can always sneak one in!
Sometimes I really have to wonder about Nate, I think he is going to give me a run for my money, here he has figured out how to pop the top off his tray. Seriously, should he have been able to figure it out?
and now he uses it to play peek-a-boo!

Have I mentioned he likes corn?

CORN! from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

Here he comes! Watch out!Nate tries to open the gate, he LOVES to go up the stairs, he also likes to watch people through the bannister.
Nate makes it VERY difficult to do any chores...he chases after the vacuum. He doesn't listen when you tell him no...he just smiles at you shakes his head and continues on...
as seen here:

Vacuums! from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

The little man has started walking, fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, he doesn't realize this is a mode of transportation he can use to get from A-B!

Nate walking from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

update, bullet style

There is a lot going on, a lot I would like to document, but I don't have much time these days. Also missing the cord for the camera, so there won't be any pictures for a while!

• Nate took 5 steps today! He has been taking steps for a while, but that is the first time he tried to do more than one and maybe was conscious of what he was doing. There was much cheering and celebrating!
  
• We are cleaning out and packing. What we didn't realize is that we haven't emptied the file cabinet in months, we have a stack of papers to toss that I can not believe! Seriously, do I still need my utility bills from CA? I think not!
• We are doing the community yard sale, this is the first time we have done a yard sale and are selling stuff at rock bottom prices, ok maybe not, but we are selling stuff that doesn't fit into the next house.
• Nate is not yet sleeping through the night, but he will put himself back to sleep if something disturbs his slumber...which means if I hear him in the middle of the night I don't have to get him right away, he will put himself back to sleep. He has been sleeping to 5/6am. Nursing and then going back to sleep.
• Nate LOVES corn...and corn on the cob, you would think it is the greatest thing he has ever seen! He gets so excited and eats it all up...Gwen on the other hand, tasted the corn on the cob, still doesn't really like it, but she tried it, with no prompting, actually asked for it! YAY!
• I do not love the house that we have put an offer on, but there are several things I am excited about:

1. Although the house is smaller it is on one floor, this excites me because less space to clean, but means that when a child is crying in their room, I will be able to hear it.
2. Although I don't like that the front door is on the side and so therefore a side door, I will likely be able to open it during the day and still have privacy but be able to have a breeze.
3. The washer and dryer will be more accessible during the day...it is nice that laundry is upstairs by the bedrooms, it is a pain to get to during the day with the kids around...someone little man tries to eat the edge of the washer (it is a front loader) and will NOT be distracted from his target!
4. A YARD! small that it is, it is our own space

• We have a lot of packing to do. I have almost finished the kitchen of non-essentials, things we can live without for a while...I hope no one visits that wants coffee!
• Gwen is starting to remember her letters and recognize them, if she thinks there is a reward involved.
• I love having Eric home, but I am looking forward to doing some deprogramming, I kind of feel like he is cramping my style. This will likely be a time we look back on fondly and say remember when you were unemployed and we could run to the store and pretend like we only had one kid...do you remember that, it was lovely?
• Gwen is T-2 months from 3!
• Nate is T-1 month to 1!!!!!
• We have yet to finalize the details of the move...do you know crazy this makes me?!?!?
• We have yet to find out if we will get the loan...this does not drive me crazy, it makes me nervous!
• I have been reading a book that discusses interpersonal relationships and how to deal, it is fascinating to me and I hope that I am able to learn from it.
• Nate appears to be getting in 3 teeth, 3! That seems bizarre to me, shouldn't teeth come in pairs, this will bring his grand total to 7, 4 on top, 3 on bottom.

Off to get more stuff done on the house. We know how to live it up!

Swim lessons

Swim lessons are over now, which makes us sad. :( We love Miss Michelle. I think Gwen has made some great improvements, look at her, in the pool, without me...touching Miss Michelle! I can't believe it! These pictures are from a couple weeks ago. Here she is swimming with her little friend and some other girl. There are only 6 kids per class.

Gwen, messing around on the ramp, which she should not be doing! I think she is practicing "monkey walks".

Sitting on the steps, avoiding the splashes...seriously, if she was having a "cranky" day she would cry any time someone would splash her. I just wanted to say, seriously, you are in a pool and they are not drenching you, just little splashes, not even your face!

Here Gwen is doing her monkey walks, she loves those things and would probably do them around the whole pool...

getting out to jump in, Michelle teaches them how to pull themselves out of the pool using their upper body strength, straight up...I guess that is something they wouldn't do naturally.

JUMPING IN!

I don't know what is going on here!
I don't have any pictures of Nate in the pool, because I am in the pool with him. Needless to say he LOVES it! He just kicks and kicks. He also drinks some water, but really the thing he LOVES the most is watching me blow bubbles and trying to catch them, he just laughs and laughs. Completely different from his sister's first experiences, I had to devote whole blog entries to the lessons! I guess that is what happens when you have 2 everything is completely different.