Getting over the hump of the blog....

Hi everyone, thank you for checking in, for the calls, and the emails. I love you and I'm sorry it's been so long since I've posted out here. Most of you know that earlier this year, my brother John died suddenly (within ten days) of being hospitalized for a rare blood disorder that no one knew he had, not even him. While that's been such a thing to endure as a sister, it's been even harder to watch my parents go through. John was a big part of my life, and my blog audience. It's been hard to get out here and realize that a big part of the reason I blog was to connect to him and that is well, gone forever. I post out here because my family and friends are far away from my daily life and so this would give us ways to connect and share pictures of what we're up to. I've not had much inspiration in the last five or six months to be out here, but I feel like I'm coming out of a fog. Bear with me, and again thank you. I've not felt like I could post out here until I got to say this. I realize it's not poetic or anything like that...it just really sucks and it's really hard to run from the thoughts of the reality of how torn apart our family is. We've tried gardening and making improvements on our home. We've made new friends and doing good things with old ones. We've tried celebrating the milestones of our little miss Evy and even conceiving another baby due in late April, or early May. We've tried celebrating holidays and birthdays and anniversaries. While we can see clearly how wonderful these other things and events are, there is still this underlying current of intense grief. Please don't post any comments to this post. Writing it was hard enough. I know the kind words and if you want to share something with me please email or call me directly but I don't really want to hash out this post anymore than I've done already. Now, it's time to get into my day and just be happy that I made this post so it can drop away from my mind and I can find this blog world a place of inspiration and sharing.
Love to you all.

nuh uh! Has it been that long?

Okay, so it took for my friend Tracy to get me to get some more pics out here. Thank you for kicking my butt into gear. Here are some new photos!!


This is another outfit that my great Aunt Wanda made for Evy. I love it, it's so soft and sweet!
































































What's up with us lately? my gosh, who knows! We are LOST in baby land. Everything really is just revolving around playing with this little girl.
Lets see. She's six months now, and has two teeth. She sits up and mumbles momomomom and whispers pahpahpah. She's so happy, she smiles all the time if she thinks she can get you to smile or if you smile at her. She LOVES it when I take her swimming and doesn't mind being dunked or splashed. She kicks off the side of the wall for me to catch her and I love it.
We'll probably be starting foods at the end of her six month. I'm so sad that her lovely baby breath will change as well as her pretty much stinky-proof diapers.
We've begun sleep training and it took about a week, but last night she went all the way through without waking or even moving. Lets hope it's a trend instead of a surprise! It was not easy and I was ready to get a hotel room and let Jordan take care of this milestone. She sits up, drinks from sippy cups (is it drinking if she's soaked afterwards?) okay okay, she 'plays' with sippy cups. She claps. She rolls around on the floor to get to her toys. She is so strong and interested. She sits with us at the table in her high chair ( thank you uncle Don!!! We love it!) and eats her spoon...or sticks it in her eye. So, she'll either learn to eat or we'll have to get her a seeing-eye dog.
Speaking of dogs, Jack brings her toys here and there, (which she promptly brings into her mouth! $%&* that is disgusting! He also "hugs" her which is his way of rolling into her to cuddle. She loves it and can't help but love to poke his eyes and pinch his ears. I protect him though covering his eyes. I think he appreciates that. Otherwise he pretty much ignores her...he'll walk right by her and maybe give her a sniff or just a lick and then he's on his way. They are going to be a good team when she can roll a ball!

In one of the pics, you'll see I have a hand brace on. I have encapsulitis or something like that in my left thumb. The doctor thinks it's from hormones from being pregnant that make your tendons soft and flexible...that I then did some damage after she was born by lifting car seats and Evy and such. In another month I should be all good. By the way, I made that baby carrier. It's a mei tai carrier. Thank you Mom for getting me to make that, I love it.