It's been a while

Late Halloween pictures. Quintin didn't appreciate his tiger outfit in the hot gym at church. Although I didn't get a good picture, I made my costume. There's a little baby skeleton on my tummy.

Quintin has had a Language explosion this past month and it is so fun! He specializes in nouns, but a few verbs and nouns have crept in.

• All letters and numbers are called "E," but I've started hearing a few more like T.
• He now says "sad" when he's sad. It melts your heart, so sweet. And he's learning to say happy.
• He can say almost all the common animals in his books and toys, many body parts, and clothing items. I can't say I appreciate those dirty little fingers poking into my mouth every day to say "teeth!"
• Drink, milk, juice, sandwich. His cue for us when he's hungry is "Bite!" We don't know what happened to 'more,' ...miss that one.
• He loves to gallop/hop around the room saying "hoppi" like he's a bunny. We often see bunnies outside our window and he just lights up when he spots them. He laughs/giggles when he sees them hop.
• Thank you sounds more like "tang goo" and he says it spontaneously without prompting, or repeats after whoever says it to him. It is often followed with his rendition of Your Welcome which is more recognizable by the tone and cadence than the words. We're just starting to work on please.
• He's just started to repeat back "Hi Buddy" to Daddy when he hears it. Absolutely adorable. He loves to say hi to us. "Hi Mamma," "Hi Dadda." (Ian's actually getting frustrated because even though Q beams when he gets home, he runs straight for Mamma and will only interact with him from my arms. I'm not sure what to do.)
• 'I want it' sounds more like "I wan-it" but it's cute.

Just this week we were using puzzle pieces with handles to clap and I started doing it 'front' and 'back' and 'side' 'side' as well as 'up' and 'down.' He thought this was fun and now does it every time he plays with that puzzle. It's a crack up to watch him direct us on which way to go and confuse front with side, etc. He absolutely loves the attention and I can hardly believe how much fun he is! He's a literal sponge right now!

Being a boy he's getting rougher by the day as I get bigger and more tender by the day. This past week he's been hitting me with something or slamming his head into me which results in a loud "OW!" Then he immediately reaches out and says "Hug!" Totally sweet but can we skip the first part and only do the hugs? I don't know where's he's learned to follow Ow with a hug, or maybe he's causing the ow to get a hug?

This weekend Ian taught Q 'ring around the rosies' and he's fallen in love. He already loved 'this little piggy' and 'patty cake' which you don't get to stop once you start. "Again!" we hear. Well, once again Daddy got more than he bargained for. Q requests it every night now (either saying "rosies" or "posies") and Mommy can't do it more than one or two times before getting too dizzy (as well as unable to get off the floor) so it's all on Daddy. :) It is such a delight to see Q learn and love life.

His mouth has finally decided to kick into gear and the molars have come rushing in, poor guy. He cut 3+ teeth within a few weeks. On the upside his ability to eat meat is increasing!

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I'm approaching 6 months pregnant and this baby girl is getting violent, all 1 lb of her. I joked with the OB last week that I'm going to have bruises on the inside from her and outside from Q. I don't remember Q being like this and since I know several '2nd children' that gave their parents a run for their money, I think this girl is going to be a livewire. I guess we'll know in a year.

Trying to get my clothes to fit nicely AND comfortably has been a challenge. I'm right in the middle of little maternity and big maternity clothes. Result = frumpy! Yuck. I'll live. I also noticed the crows feet growing on my eyes. My glasses hide them but they're there! I really didn't want that to ever happen. Grey hair is fine, but I don't want the wrinkles.

I've started going to Mops again and it's been great. I really appreciate the mommy time and the ability to talk about things I'm really struggling with with others that are going through the same stuff. Plus the devotionals are great to help me evaluate where I'm at and where I want to be in my faith, relationships and personal development. Q loves the nursery this year and that's a huge load off. He's so incredible. Unless he's sick he loves going to play.

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This summer 'we' used an idea that Ian heard on the radio during his commute. He cleaned out two trash cans and planted potatoes in the bottom. Then filled it in with dirt as the plants grew. We didn't start digging them out until about Sept/October. I have to say I'm pretty impressed with the result, even though a friend said it was pretty 'ghetto'. I'd say we've gotten about a 10 lb bag of potatoes out of each plant/can. It wasn't until yesterday that I finally got the shovel out and harvested the rest of one of the cans. I still need to do the other one. We'll certainly do that again.

Last week our external hard drive got accidentally bumped causing it to fall and break something in the internal hardware. UUUUUUGH! That little black box held ALL, ALL of our home videos and family pictures. I wasn't worried because Ian said it would keep them safe from viruses, etc. Guess we never thought of physical damage. Since he's a spiffy 'outside salesman' down in Seattle Ian has all kinds of contacts so he's gone to several companies to get assessments and quotes on rescuing the data. Uuuuuugh! It looks like we are going to have to pay over $1200 to fix it in a clean room in the mid-west with the promise of a 90-95% chance of success. Oh my. Precious memories are invaluable. You better believe it's all going on CD's and DVD's when/if we get it back!

The power went out last Friday evening. This was a good lesson for me (even though we have a generator).

1. Don't procrastinate taking a shower.
2. Don't procrastinate cooking dinner. (Turns out our cook-stove isn't connected to the generator circuit. Leftovers it is!)
3. Don't procrastinate starting the pellet stove for heat!

Luckily the power came back on in the middle of the night and life was normal in the morning. BUT it's only November and there are several more months of this coming. Hopefully lesson learned.

I apologize for no pictures. :(