Life lately

Having only 1 car has left the kids and I "stranded" in the house.  It's made some of our days miserable, but at the end of the day we are all on the floor playing, laughing and dancing.  It has got to be the best time of night.  I will be glad to have 2 cars again.  Should be about 2 more weeks.

Sterling turned 10 months last week!  I ordered her birthday supplies so we can decorate.  I can't believe in less than 2 months she'll already be ONE!  My oh my, where does time go?!?!  She's doing so much.

(I made this onesie and bow, I love it!)

~I was concerned she wouldn't walk early because she would NOT put pressure on her legs.  I guess practice was all it took because this girly is cruising along the furniture, pushing her baby stroller, and pushing on everything to get to where she wants.

~pulling up machine 

~She's still not "traditional crawling", but her butt scooting gets her to where she needs to be...and quick!  We are thinking she's going to skip the traditional way and do things "her" way.  

~She has 8 teeth and 2 more are on the way.  

~Her fine motor skills seem so advanced.  She understands how to play with toys in the manner they are to be played with.  I'm still working on getting Xander to understand the "right" way to play with some of his toys.  

~She eats everything!

~says da-da (all. the. time!), ba-ba, and just last night added ma-ma!  I've been joking with her that if she don't stop saying da-da all the time, mama was going to ignore her...ha!  It worked and all the practice of me forcing ma-ma into her vocabulary was a success last night (now if only she'll remember to use it all the time!)  She also babbles a million other things which I have yet to figure out

~wearing size 18-24 months

~size 4 shoe

~size 4 diaper

Xander has become very jealous in the last month.  He loves to sit and cuddle with me or just sit and watch Elmo...but he's most content sitting next to me.

  

He's started picking out his own clothes...this is the result, not too bad

We build forts

We dress like a jailbird..ha!  This was the funniest day!

Likes to photo-bomb his sisters pictures

Still loves the outdoors, even when it's only in the 20s, and screams when it's time to come in 

Xander's also getting his 3 year molars and boy is he cranky.  Maybe that's the reason for the extra cuddle time?  

~he's wearing a steady 24 months in tops, but 18-24 in bottoms

~size 7 shoe

~size 4 diaper

~we attempted potty training him last week.  We went 2 hours, had 2 accidents.  I realized though that he is NOT ready.  He would continue playing and not even realize that he had wet himself.  Once he can recognize that he pees, I think we'll try again.  He would also tell me "NO" every time I'd ask if he had to pee or if he wanted to be a big boy.  That's okay, I'm not going to rush him as he's probably too young still and he'll be ready when he's ready.

~we received an email from Xander's birth mom.  She don't say much, but it's nice to get those random emails.  She mentioned that Xander's big brother is turning 4 in a few weeks and that she's also 14 weeks pregnant.  We congratulated her and wrote back a nice long email sharing what we've all been up to, and shared a few pictures.  I wonder if I ever share too much with her because we never get a response back until months later?  I think it's a bit strange, but maybe that's how she is?

  

Our doggie even had extra loving this month.  Sterling is always all over him, sometimes sweetly, sometimes aggressive.  

I gave him a haircut on Monday morning.  I love his hair short, but man it's cold out and I think he's not loving it right now, ha!

I contemplated stopping the blog.  I have this horrible OPSEC (operational security) phobia right now and considered deleting all my posts.  I went on my facebook and deleted all but 4 pictures, removed almost all of my posts, and deleted my current location.  Then I come on my blog and look at my stats and see that I have a lot of traffic, good? bad?  I'm hoping everyone has good intentions and not stealing my content/pictures, not sure, but I notice a lot from Russia.  I don't have a problem with people from Russia, I even have a very close friend who's Russian.  I'm not sure what came over me.  Oh, then my sister sends me a blog post she found about sharing pictures online.  That really made me want to stop the blog.  I talked to Nick about it and he said I shouldn't stop, but I still thought about it which is why it's taken forever to write something.  I may end up going private to feel more OPSEC and safe about sharing our story.  But I also feel, maybe someone else is/are going through the sames things we went through and maybe our family can be inspiring to someone out there??  I also don't feel I share private photos that would be embarrassing to my kids one day.  I should be fine, right?

We still don't have word on our next assignment duty location.  We did receive an email from the assignment team stating we should receive notification by the end of February...yah!  This just means I have to get thinking of a new blog title, soon!

Until next time...Have a blessed day!