Happy Valentine's Day!

Well hello my dedicated readers! As you might have noticed I've been on a blog-cation - we hit a bit of a rough patch here and had to go into survival mode. No worries though we seemed to have made it through unscathed. After my mastitis LuLu got an ear infection that just wouldn't quit. She was in so much pain she couldn't sleep (and thusly neither could we)- thank goodness Grandma V and Grandpa B could come over and give Mama and Papa a rest so we could regain our sanity and our perspective. She had an allergy consult with the thought that maybe allergies were the cause of her ear woes - she's allergic to grass and dust mites (bummer) and is now on a new Rx to try to keep her healthy. After that Little Brother and I have been trading a cold back and forth - we're on round three right now. When he doesn't feel well he gets up every 90 minutes or so, so while LuLu had begun to sleep soundly, it was brother's turn! Ah well, I have to say it certainly makes me in awe of anyone with more than two kiddos! (how do you do it??!!) Anyways LuLu was groaning again about some ear pain last night ...so beware- we may disappear again if this keeps up! (We have an ENT consult in early March for possible tubes in her ears- we'll keep you posted)

All that aside though the kiddos keep growing and changing. LuLu's language continues to amaze us - she's now aware of the concept of "pretend" which is fun - she's still mixing up they and their, hers and his, her past tense gets a little mixed up (drawed, sayed) and she's working out how to question "what is his name is?" but we're trying to repeat back to her the correct way so she can get it right. Oh, I forgot - in a chance meeting of vowels and consonants, LuLu has officially dropped her first F-Bomb!!! Yikes!! But so far it has only happened that one day, although it was repeated quite a bit (we did our best to pretend not to take notice!) In the movie department she is now a big fan of Little Mermaid and Alice in Wonderland (apparently Robin Hood is out, which is too bad, I like it WAY better than Little Mermaid) but on the other hand, thanks to Ariel we can get her to lean back in the tub without fuss so we can wash her hair! She's officially in her big girl bed now (thanks to some new Thomas the Train sheets) - she seems to be sleeping better since the move. I can't believe how much she's grown and how fast! And by far her best trick - she can lock the deadbolt on the front door - so far she has locked Papa in the garage and outside - luckily I happen to be home both times! That little stinker laughed and laughed when Papa tried to get back in the house (I have to admit it was pretty tough for me to keep a straight face too!)

Little Brother is now 5 months old - in mid-January he was 17# 8oz, so you know he's over 18# now (just ask my back!!). He's graduated to size 3 diapers and has discovered his toes. No rolling over yet - but he is soooooo close - it's agonizing! We put him on the floor as much as possible to try to help him work on it! We bought a jumper for him - and he LOVES it - he will just bounce and bounce and bounce - and now when you hold him he'll break out into fits of bouncing too - it's really cute. He had his first big swing experience in Mom's lap - he wasn't too sure about it, I think mainly because of the wind. He loves to pull hair and suck on faces and cheeks and necks....he loves watching his sister do anything, and has lately taken great interest in the cats as well too. He's started chuckling and full-belly laughing which is a lot of fun. He's had his first Superbowl party and his first Valentine's day...time is flying!

Our new digital camera takes great pictures...but our computer's memory is on the low side...so we're trying to avoid an all-out crash should we try to upload pictures...so those will have to wait (sorry) We'll keep it figured out soon and in the meantime thanks for hanging in there with us!