Family Update

I realize it has been almost two weeks, so I can't do a "Week in Review" post. Wow, time flies doesn't it? I figure the easiest way to fill you in on all of our adventures is to tell you about us individually:

Ava
Not too many new behaviors from Ava, but her vocabulary increases on a daily basis and Elliott and I get such a kick out of carrying on conversations with her. Here are two more recent ones (and the ones we get an especially good laugh over):

* When Ava and I were cuddling and playing on the couch the other day, I was playing with her toes. I jokingly put her big toe in mouth (folks, she had been wearing socks all day until that point, so don't be too grossed out!) and made little playful chewing noises. Ava giggled at first then said reproachfully "Mommy that's gross. That's gross."

* Today I think Elliott was trying to shoo Ava out of the office so he could get some work done. He said "Go tell Mommy how cute you are" (we like to play the "go tell" the other parent something game as to keep her running back and forth in the house and hence occupied), to which Ava replied "No. I'm not cute. I'm a big girl."

Lily
Lily gets bigger and bigger everyday, as evidenced by her stunning mobility. At little more than eight months, she has mastered crawling and is trying hard to work on cruising along furniture, like the piano bench (now if only her feet would move when she wanted them to!). Along with her mobility however is a downside - sometimes I lose track of her. The other day I could hear her fussing somewhere at the other end of the house, so I went to investigate. She had crawled into the galley space of the kitchen and when I walked right past her, she got very upset at me for not noticing her there.

Lily now has two teeth and has bit me while nursing. Oh joy!

We did a pediatrician run to Dr. Duddy almost two weeks ago to rule out an ear infection, as her sleeping was SO bad. Dr. Duddy diagnosed her with a hunch we already had - it's behavioral not physical. The poor little girl has night terrors. She has been waking up between 2-3 hours after we put her to bed, screaming inconsolably. She's not awake though and no amount of jostling her or calling to her will make her wake up and snap out of it. Listening to her scream is pretty tough, knowing there is nothing you can do but trying to remember she is fine and won't remember this in the morning anyway. Aside from her nightly terrors, she also does wake up quite a bit at night and I am still working on solving this problem. It's a rather sad statement when I get excited that I only got up three time last night.

Besides the horrible sleeping Lily does at night, the time change really threw her for a loop. Last week she was up around 6am almost every morning, which in turn threw off both naps and bedtime. This morning though she got up around 8am so I very hopeful that that is where she will stay.

Elliott & Sarah
We spent Halloween afternoon doing some research at dealerships on which minivan we would like to buy (as we know this is a bullet we need to bite) and got some good numbers and deals/ideas to throw around over the weekend. By Sunday night though we had decided to pass on buying a new car, no matter how attractive the sales as we just shouldn't be spending that much on a car. So Monday morning I called the guy that Mom & Dad Kay use in Provo. He goes to car auctions in Las Vegas and is able to find some pretty good deals. After only 5 minutes on the phone with him I found out he had exactly what we were looking for in the price range we wanted to spend! I also find him perfectly trustworthy - Mom & Dad have always bought their cars from him; Josh & Lizzie got their van from him; he's a firefighter and personally knows both dad and the finance guy at the Provo Police and Firefighters Credit Union who we are getting our loan through (and who happens to be Elliott's old Boy Scout leader). Talk about a sense of peace! Everything just fell into place in under 30 minutes and we are so excited that we will be getting a new car at the end of this week. So stay tuned for pictures and details!

We either joined the human race or took a step back this week (I can't decided which) as we now have a home phone and are in the process of switching our cell phones to prepaid for emergency only. This will save us a good amount of money each month for we are not on the go nearly as much as we used to be. This would fall under the category of "things that change with children", like when I finally put away my martini glasses to make room for sippy cups in the cupboard (it's true!). You just have to come to grips that life is different and you need to do what you need to do. So we signed up with Vonage and have unlimited calling for local/long distance/foreign, voice mail and caller ID. Yeah!

We are anxiously awaiting the sale ads to start appearing for Black Friday this year as we are gunning for a cheap laptop and wireless internet. Woo hoo! I can't wait! We have decided that will be our family present to each other and, besides the car, the last big purchase we want to make. So hopefully I will be able to update this blog more often. Fingers crossed!