Triumphant Return!

I'm sure you all thought my New Year's Resolution was to never write in the blog again. But, alas, we have dear husband to blame. He was fiddling around with the computer and, long story short, broke the Alienware. So he got on the Dell website (using his work computer) and ordered a ridiculously nice laptop, but because the are custom built, it took a month for it to come to us. But here it is! And here I am! I don't even know where to start for recapping. I still have to put batteries in the camera so I can upload the pics, so it will still be a few days before any picture posts, but I'll try to add some highlights.
Oliver's speech is coming along really great. I think the I'm the only one that can understand him most of the time, but its still fun to see what words he figures out. He loves watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and now sleep with a Baby Mickey and Baby Minnie. This is great because we are going to Orlando in April, so he will have a great time at Disney. He also loves Super Why and loves to turn things into wands and say "Zap!" he also likes to sing the alphabet, but only knows 2 letters, so he just sings "O, T, O, T, O, TTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!" Its the same with numbers..."Two, Nine, Two, Nine , Twooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!" He is sleeping great at night. It has taken over two years, but he easily and willingly goes down for his nap and for the night. Last week I had to wake him up from his nap, and when I went in he said "No, Mama, night night" and rolled back over! About once a week he still comes into bed with us at about 2-3, but we don't mind, and love the occasional closeness. His favorite time of day is Curious George time. He is absolutely glued to the "teebee" whenever that monkey is on. When I need to get stuff done, I know to do it between 3 and 4, because I won't hear from Oliver until the show is over! He also loves to read. He loves Richard Scarry's Cars and Trucks and Things that Go. He loves spotting the Goldbug (Bee!) on every page. I also have him find all the other types of vehicles on the page (Where's the Broom-o-cycle? The Banana-mobile? How about the cheese truck? Where is the green truck with paint falling out?) Today at nap time he pointed to the Book of Mormon yelling "Book! Book!" I handed it to him and asked him to read it to me. "Jesus, Jeeeeesus, Jeeeeeeeeesus, Amen!" It warms my heart that he knows the Book of Mormon is about Jesus. It means he actually listens when I read it to him! He loves to spend time with GaGaPopPop and MyMyPaPa and constantly talks about them. I love that he loves spending time with his Grandparents, and they love playing with him! He has monthly sleepovers at each of their homes and does okay. His big problem is sleeping through the night. How can he sleep when there are grandparents to play with!? The more time he spends with them, though, the better he seems to sleep.
Lily is continuing to grow like a weed. A very very pudgy weed:) At her 4 month appointment she weighed 17lbs 2oz. Just about a 10lb gain in 4 months! She is also 25.5 inches long, a five inch gain. Not suprisingly she is in the 90th percentile for weight, and 75th for height. She gets lots of yeast infections under her many rolls (neck and armpit), and we have to put nystatin on it regularly. She wakes up 2-3 times per night, which is okay, but she likes to wake up around 6am for the day, so even on the days Oliver sleeps in, I'm still up with Lily (isn't that how it always works!?) She loves watching Oliver do his crazy Oliver things she smiles and giggles at him nonstop. She has also started blowing raspberries, which are ridiculously cute. My arm muscles are growing rapidly because she likes to be held all the time, but doesn't like any carrier I try, so I just have to hold all 17 pounds of her when I clean the house, make dinner, play with Oliver, etc. She is also grabbing her feet now which is really cute too. She is playing in the exersaucer which can buy me about 10 minutes to run around and do stuff. I'm still adjusting to the differences between her and Oliver. Anytime something was wrong or he needed to go to sleep, I could just nurse him. Lily won't nurse if she doesn't need to, so we hear a lot more crying from her. She also needs about 10 minutes of crying time before going down for the night. I'm hoping that it will make the transition to putting herself to sleep easier. She probably only has about 2 months left before she outgrows the co-sleeper. We're not sure what we're going to do after that. She is still too young to be in a room with Oliver (as he can climb out of his crib now), but we definitely don't have room in our bedroom for a full size crib, so we'll have to cross that bridge when it comes.
In Jessica and Shane news, we came pretty close to putting an offer on a house in December, but after doing some budgeting realized we still weren't quite able to afford it, so we came up with a plan to pay off our debt and then save up for a down payment on a house. That way we can afford something a little nicer because we won't have to be paying off other loans. So in January we paid off our car! Its great to have that extra $200 a month to put away into savings. The next step is to pay off Jessica's school loans (which will hopefully be by the end of the year). As for Shane's school loans, we have another year and a half before we have to work on those, so that will just be a loan that we live with. Shane is back at school two days a week. He is not a fan of some of his classes, but is maintaining a 3.8 GPA. He finishes in December and it can't come soon enough so that I can have my hubby back every night! He has started training for a new position he will be taking on in a bit over a year. He has to learn several programming languages, and will be working out of Hopkinton, Mass about once a week. He seems to be learning quickly and enjoying all of the new knowledge. I think he would agree that he learns a lot more in his on-site classes than his SNHU classes.
As I said before, I am still adjusting to the differences in the two kids' personalities, but it is fun to see them grow together and I'm grateful for both of them. I've become a full fledged craigslist addict. In the past month I have bought a Boon Bath frog for $5(retails for $25-35), a Bumbo for $5 (retails for $40), a basket of 40 books for $10 (probably $100 worth) and sold my double jogging stroller (it took up the entire trunk of the car) that I bought for $40, for $75. Tomorrow I hope to get a Graco DuoGlider stroller for $60 (depending on if it fits in the trunk!) and I think that they retail for about $150. I love the thrill of the hunt and finding the great deals! So much fun! Shane's GPS has come in very handy for all of the places I have to drive to to pick up the goods. I've also joined the Barrington Area Moms, a local mother's group. There are about 3 different types of meetings every week, so there's always something to do, somewhere to go. So far I have been to two MiniMe's meetups (for kids 2 and under) , one all ages meetup, and one volunteer meetup (we tied blankets for Project Linus while the kids played) It is a great group of women who care about their kids and I'm excited to get to know everyone more. I still spend what time I can with the Laconia Boob Group, but its good to get to know some local moms.
Hopefully I will be able to update this more regularly now that we have a computer! Oliver and Lily do such fun, exciting things everyday, I want to be able to update it all!