Be Still And Know: Maybe I'll Post Once A Month....

All right, all right. I've searched through the photo archives and I've selected a few to upload... I guess I need to sit down now and write something about the last few weeks! It's been a busy few weeks (it would kind of be a shock if it wasn't busy I suppose! I say that every time!). The Christmas vacation was a blur of get-togethers and Christmas celebrations, and it was good to see family again.

Exciting news over the holidays: dum de dummmmmmmmm Lauren and Tom got ENGAGED! Wahoo! Congratulations you two, and we wish you all the best as you plan your day! Unfortunately I seem to have a lack of good pictures of the two of you on my computer, so I will have to use this one...

[EDIT: As I look back over this post for mistakes to fix, I can't help but notice the weird similarity between this picture of Tom and Lauren and the one of Mike and I on the sidebar.... nah, we can't be sisters can we?]

Back to our regular programming...

The kids did fairly well being way out of routine, and generally slept all right despite being in several different places and in several different beds. They even let us sleep in a few times! It was a bit of an adjustment coming back home again, especially when Mike went back to school. Peter is pretty fond of his Daddy and sometimes, Mommy is just NOT good enough. This, as you can imagine, is not fun for anybody. He has also become extremely opposed to the nursery over the last month or so... we took him into church with us once in Strathroy to see how that would go. He made it until just before the sermon started, without being too much of a disturbance. Besides a few little eruptions of "Praise the Lord!" and "Amen!", he was pretty quiet. Since then, as bad as it may sound, he hasn't been in church. Either he or Aaron has been sick since then, so we haven't had to deal with the issue again yet as Mike and I have been taking turns staying home with them. Aaron has had a cough since just before the holidays started, and it is finally starting to break up a bit. For a while, he would hardly take a bottle and seemed to throw up everything he ate if he gagged just a tiny bit or if he had a coughing fit. Not fun! Then last Monday he woke up with a puffy, boogery eye and when it didn't clear up, I took him in to the doctor. Drops for Pink Eye seem to have cleared that up, but the poor little guy also got an ear infection. That seems to be getting better with medication now as well, and I hope everything will go back to normal again soon - normal involving not only a cheerful little 9 month old, but also sleeping through the night.

Ahhh, I miss that... Aaron's been waking up at 5, 5:30, it was 4:30 this morning, and he's just WIDE awake and not too keen on going back to bed like his Mom is... I might have an easier time with it if I wasn't already up with him four or five times during the night. Enough complaining!

I decided today that Aaron is no longer in the "not crawling" phase, but has graduated to the "very-beginning-first-stages-of-crawling" phase. He can haltingly move forward, moving one hand and knee at a time and although it is not too fluid yet and he doesn't get very far, I still think it qualifies as crawling. Way to go Aaron! He is getting louder as well, mixing in some shrieks here and there with his "Ba ba ba's" and "Ma ma ma's". He LOVES his exersaucer, and rocks it so hard that I am afraid he is going to flip it over one of these days. Perhaps it is nearing the time to put it away - all the better anyways since we are preparing our house for putting on the market. Yes, for moving! Although we love our house, we love our yard, and we love our location, a two bedroom house is just not going to last us forever and ever, and we would really love some more room for visitors and for the kids to run around. Hopefully the whole selling process will go very quickly, as I have to admit I am (more than) a little nervous about keeping the house in tip-top shape for home-viewings. It's a hard thing to do with two little kids to think about! We look forward to what the next few months have to bring for us. Anyways. On to what you have all been waiting for. Pictures!

A table shot of the Dekker family Christmas dinner.

That's a lot of people at one looooong table!