Aiden at 5 months

Aiden is 5 months folks!

He is a champ! He is still growing like crazy and hitting developmental milestones long before I'm ready! At about 4 months he started doing the tri-pod sitting. At 3 1/2 months he started rolling over from his back to his tummy. Like all the time. Then because he didn't like being on his tummy, he learned how to roll from his tummy to his back a week later. By 4 months he was rolling all over the apartment. Within the past week Aiden has learned how to army crawl. Well that's the closest name I have for it. He doesn't really use his arms too much. Mostly he pushes with his legs and scoots along on his shoulders. It's fun to watch. He gets stuck everywhere. Under tables, chairs, and Esther is always telling me he's going under the couch. :) But he can get whatever he wants by scootching there. Nothing is safe, much to Esther's shagrin. She's always grabbing whatever he has and saying "Mine!". Even toys that were purchased specifically for Aiden have now become hers. :) But I digress...

Aiden is sleeping really well these days. He will usually take a good morning nap and if we're lucky enough to be home in the afternoon he sometimes gets an afternoon nap too. He's sleeping really well at night too. He usually only gets up once. In fact, last night he slept through the night (9pm-7am). I pray that there will be many repeats of that. :)

He's still eating like a champ and gaining weight because of it. :) We haven't started him on solids yet because his doctor said he's doing so well nursing. Mike is dying to start Aiden on solids, but then I'm the one who would have to keep it up, so I'm fine waiting a little while longer. At least until we're in our new apartment.

We haven't weighed Aiden lately, but he's at least 18 lbs. He's short like his mama and still has a large head. He's in 12-18 month clothing. His upper thigh is seriously the size of my forearm. He's our chubsters man. :)

I'm sorry I don't have any pictures for you. We're in the middle of moving and I'm not exactly sure where the camera is. But believe me, he's really cute. :)

Achy, Tired, Happy and Grateful

This past week has been one crazy week! It all started a week and a half ago when Mike came home with a phone number for a townhouse that was for rent nearby. We've been looking for housing for people who are coming here for medical or dental school who want to move into our ward. When Mike told me the townhouse was a 3 bedroom 1.5 bath for the same price we're paying here in our 2 bedroom 1 bath apartment, I said "Let's look at it, just for fun." So we did. And guess what? We loved it! It's just about as close to the med school as you can possibly get and just down the street from about 5 other families in the ward. The 3 bedrooms are upstairs, the living areas on the main level, and a partially finished basement downstairs. The basement isn't shared either, so plenty of storage room and possibly a little play room. :) The backyard is really cute and there's a garage space for the car. So we talked about it and decided to put in our application and pay the security deposit. Then there was a bit of an issue when we found out the neighbors have a cat. Esther is severely allergic and so she can't be exposed to cats at all. But the owner called the neighbors and told them they needed to keep their cat indoors (which apparently they said wasn't a problem at all) and so that was all cleared up.

So this past Monday we got the call from the owner saying we passed our credit check with flying colors and we could move in anytime, but we didn't have to start paying rent until August. Isn't that so nice? They said it would be sitting empty anyways, so why not start moving some of our stuff over earlier. So we got to work and started packing up everything we could. We had so many friends come help pack and move stuff over to the new place. It was crazy and we're all exhausted, but we got out a lot of our furniture and so much of our stuff over to the new place (I can't believe how much we've accumulated!). Then we staged our old apartment to make it look open, clean and homely. Some people laughed at me, but I promise, staging your home makes the world of a difference!!! Last night we had an open house for people who were interested in the apartment (who we found through craigslist). 6 couples came and 4 of them were interested in renting. One guy is doing his pediatric endocrinology fellowship here and his roommate is a 2nd year med student. They were so excited about the place that they called our landlady last night and said they wanted to rent the place. They're signing the contract this Sunday and they'll move in on August 1st. Many people were asking why we were finding renters instead of letting the landlady do it. Well she didn't exactly accept our 30 day notice that we were moving and so she was going to make us pay for August rent. We can't afford to pay rent at two places, so we worked hard to find renters.

All in all I feel so blessed with how things have turned out for us! I know we don't need the 3 bedrooms yet, but since it's the same price we're paying now, we figured we should snatch it up while it was available. Who knows if there will be anything like this available when we need it? The owners at the new place are so nice! They've been so accommodating. They obviously take really good care of the place and seem to want to have us there as much as we want to be there! :)

So now we get to finish packing things and getting them over to the new place. Our new place is a bit of a mess right now with everything just thrown in, but I'm so excited to make it ours. :)

Thanks again to everyone who has helped us and to those who will help!

More Esther quotes

Sorry if any of these are repeats...

Esther this morning was listening to her own heart with her stethoscope, and supplemented the sounds she was hearing by saying 'boom, boom, hiss, hiss, clunk, clunk.'

I told Esther it was 'hot and humid' and asked her to say it, and she said 'hot and human.'

I asked Esther if she remembered seeing something at the museum, and she gave me a blank stare and then said 'blink, blink' as she blinked.

Esther: 'Daddy, what's my name?' Me: 'Esther.' Esther: 'yeah, you're right!'

'There's another moon!'

And my favorite, 'No potty in toilet. I go potty last week!'

Esther quotes :) part 3

I can't get enough of the funny things Esther says. And she is getting pretty good at singing. She even writes her own songs.
One went like this: "Cars go on road/I love you, Mommy/ I give you a kiss/ Teachers walk on dirt/ Ooo oo oo!"
Pretty catchy, eh?
She also is quite the artist. When Robyn asked her to come, she said "Not now, I'm coloring birds, Mom."
She is also very caring, as shown by these examples.
Slam! Slam! [Esther, to doll after forcefully and repeatedly slamming its head on the table]: "Oh, you bonked! I'm sorry you bonked."
While cradling her teddy bear: "Oh dear, it's ok. Dear, dear."
A different time, same teddy: "Shh, I gotcha, you're not gonna fall."
And while cradling a cookie: "I love you, little baby cookie. I love you!"
Some more good ones...
"No potty in toilet. I go potty last week."
"I hurt my... I hurt my... [trying to think up something to get our attention] I hurt my... FINGERS! I hurt my fingers!"
[From behind a glass door to me, Mike] "I want to say 'boo'... Boo!" then to Robyn, while peaking around the open glass door, "Where's Esther? Boo!"
And don't forget another fun imaginary phone conversation. "Hi, grandma! Yes, I be good. Oh, hi Papa! You play with me soon? Hi, Jesus! Sleep good. Bye!"
Just aboud every night, she makes sure to bless Jesus to sleep good. What a cutie!

Esther Quotes, part 2

Here are some more random things our little princess has said.

Robyn and I were talking about Esther's height, and Robyn said, "She has my genes. She doesn't have much of a chance." Esther repeated happily, "No chance."

On Sunday, (or any other day of the week she has a shirt that goes down past her diaper), she often says "I'm pretty dress!"

Esther walked up to Mommy making a silly face, and Mommy said "Oh, Esther, you are so silly." Esther corrected her, "No, Mama, I'm CRAZY!" and did a head wobble.

Sitting at the piano, Esther was pounding the keys saying, "Everybody wants to be a cat." [Aristocats]

On the way to church, Esther suddenly yelled "You can't trust anyone!" [Jungle Book]

Esther said to Aiden, "Aiden, you need to obey for me." And she kept repeating it seriously.

Speaking of repeating, a line in "Green Eggs and Ham" is "Try them, try them/And you may/Try them and you may I say." Esther was reading it to herself and said "Try them... Try them... Try them, try them... Try them, try them..." I lost count after twelve times since we were laughing too much.