San Antonio

Over the last 2 months I've had a hard time blogging because I couldn't blog about the biggest thing going on in our lives: a possible move away from DC. Several months ago we began searching for jobs so we could move somewhere closer to family and more affordable. We were discouraged after having very little success. We were really excited when a great opportunity turned up in San Antonio, Texas. It is not nearly as close to family as we were hoping, but we decided to look into it.

The application/interview process took about 2 months long so I could never say anything even though it was basically all we were thinking about. Two weekends ago we visited San Antonio and the job offer became official. After a few days of consideration and weighing the options we decided to accept. We've both given notice at work, so we can finally talk about it. So in 12 days we will be leaving Maryland, on our way to our next adventure, in San Antonio!

Stephen will be staying in the education sector, working in the operations department at a charter school district. We are really excited about the schools, the leadership, the opportunity to move forward in a career, and a shorter commute (which hopefully means a little more time at home).  I, on the other hand, will be staying home full-time with Seth! I am so thankful that I was able to find a flexible job here in MD, but it's been hard to mentally juggle stay-at-home-mom days with work-days-- feeling like my efforts in both areas were inadequate. I'm sure I will still feel quite inadequate as a mom, but I am excited to be able to devote more of my energy to teaching and loving Seth.

We are sad to leave our church friends and regret that we ended up dragging our feet a little instead of  jumping in and loving this area from the start, but we'll always remember the great people we met and the fun memories we made here.

"We're moving?! To Texas?!"

"We need to start packing... NOW!"

"Hey if you turn this thing on I could really help out with some of the research for moving trucks and housing."

"Not sure why I'm wearing this funny costume, but I'm gonna miss this place. Bye-bye Maryland friends :("

"I could possibly get used to this- especially between the months of October and March."

"A riverwalk? And hanging out with Mom AND Dad? I'll take it!"

9/10 months

It's been 2 months since I did a post about Seth's milestones and development. It would be impossible to post everything awesome that this little guy can do... but I'll try :)

Weighing in at 20 lbs and at 29 1/2 inches tall (at 9 month appointment), we've got a strong, happy boy on our hands.

During the last 2 months Seth moved to mostly 12 month clothing and size 3 diapers, but it's no wonder with how much he loves to eat!

He has 3 meals of solids a day and nurses 3 times a day plus a bottle of formula before bedtime (biting mom can only be tolerated for so long). He loves pretty much everything we feed him, except pureed bananas- which also happens to be the very first baby food I fed him... strange! He knows how to drink from a sippy cup and from a straw and self-feeds himself all sorts of small cheerio/bread/cracker/soft fruit & veggie foods with a good pincer grasp and 4 sharp teeth.

Sleeping is still a slow and steady improvement. Happily 30 minute naps are completely extinct! He moved from 4 to 3 to 2 naps a day. These naps are about an hour each- it's no 3 hour afternoon mom-time, but I'll take it. He has no night-time feedings anymore and just wakes up occasionally in need of a pacifier. The remaining struggle is that he wakes up sometime in the 5am hour EVERYDAY and won't go back to sleep. I could handle 6 o'clock - 5 or 5:15 or 5:30 is just too early!! We've tried earlier bedtime, later bedtime, later dinner, bigger dinner, letting him cry, feeding him, etc. What an early bird!

Eating and sleeping used to fill our whole day when he was younger, but now it only makes up a fraction of the time. The rest is spent...

clapping dancing playing peekaboo 

 playing "chase" crawling fast  

laughing imitating sounds  

standing cruising bouncing balls 

turning pages brushing teeth taking wild baths

  babbling grinning biting  

taking walks riding in the car 

playing with friends being ticklish

Seth is learning something new every day. This week he imitated the sign for "more," copied me saying "Mom," "Dad," and "Jesus" with something suspiciously close in each instance, purposefully threw things on the floor, crawled as fast as he could to the bathroom when he heard the bathtub faucet, and made his parents very tired and very happy.

blackberry picking

teeth brushing

never fallen in this position- unbelievable

favorite red ball

new shoes and a cheesy grin

he loved the monkeys!

drum lessons with straws

taking over dad's job

cute thanksgiving PJs

Happy Birthday Grandma! and thanks for the fun visit!

messy cute scrunched face

"come here for a kiss, mom!"

loving blueberries

playing with one of his buddies from church

Washington Weather

Snowmageddon

5.9 Earthquake

Obviously a joke (http://famousdc.com/2010/07/16/dc-earthquake/). I know there was some real damage, but for our family and most we know it was just a good shake.

 Hurricane Irene

???

Washington's weather has been exciting over the last 2 years.And while these disasters have each been scary, the metro area's tendency to overreact has been a little amusing too.