Generations

My parents and my grandma visited this week. My grandma lives in Minnesota and won't fly alone, so my mom flew to Minnesota, from Texas, and picked her up, and then flew here. I'm so glad she did though, because I realized, my grandma is starting to get old, and I don't know how much I'll be able to see her now that I have a baby. It was a great visit, but much too short.

Since we had company, we could actually get a picture with all three of us in it.

The Navy Bean (trying out for an e-trade commercial) and my parents.

All four generations. We will never get to five generations because to do so, the Navy Bean would have to have a child awfully young, and then I would kill her and it would still only be four generations.

Four Months

My little Navy Bean is 4 months old.

(ok, she's a little older than that, but we had computer problems.)

She is such a joy to be around.

I think I've laughed more in the last 4 months than I did the previous 4 years.

Future mug shot.

Your little laugh is so infectious, even if I'm not sure what you're laughing at.

You smile all the time. You are so happy.

You fill me with joy.

But you are getting so big!

You can sit up by yourself for almost a full minute!

You love to practice standing up.

You cry when we lie you down:

big girls don't lie down!

Since you hate tummy time, I didn't expect you to roll over for awhile.

You rolled over, from your tummy to your back, on Monday.

You hand-eye coordination improves everyday.

You now take your binky out of your mouth,

examine it, and return it.

It amazes me how you learn so much, so quickly.

I just want to freeze you in time.

My favorite time is your only night feeding, when you are asleep.

You curl up against me and you are so calm and beautiful.

I can stroke your soft little head and your fluffy cheek.

When I burp you, you hold on to me,

your little cheek against mine.

You will always be my baby.

Get outside!

The weather is beautiful. It was in the 70s on Sat. and yesterday it got up to 85 degrees. Absolutely beautiful. Wes and I took the Navy Bean to the park. Ok, she slept through the park. We just wanted to get outside and Wes owed me for such a crappy birthday. And, utter excitement, I identified a new bird! I haven't had many chances to go birding, so that was very exciting. It was just nice to get out of the house. Today is also beautiful, but I have a long list of stuff to do, so I'm just going to open all the windows and look out them a lot.

I'm feeling better and the Navy Bean never got sick! Go breastfeeding!!! This is Wes's last week of school and then he has two weeks off. Since I was sick last week, the house is kind of disgusting, so this week I will clean. Next week, Wes will do the stuff I couldn't. My parents and grandma are visiting the week after that. I'm very excited about that. Victor becomes a boyscout next week, so I'm thinking maybe we'll stay in Raleigh a couple of days and do some sightseeing. The only time I've ever been there was to visit the kids. And it is the capital, and I do love history. I don't know, we'll see.

Well, I should try to get some stuff done while the Navy Bean is sleeping. Like, unpack my summer clothes!

Hiccup

This picture makes me laugh, and I really need to laugh today.

I have the hiccups. Which sucks, because I was going to take a nap, but you can't really do that with the hiccups. Anyway, I turned 35 on Sunday and the day absolutely sucked. Wes was really sick and Navy Bean refused to take a morning nap. Instead, she pretty much screamed all morning. Wes couldn't help because he was knocked out on cold medicine and I really don't want the baby sick anyway. And it was rainy and cold. To top it all off, I think Wes gave me his cold. I'm feeling pretty crappy myself today. I made myself chicken soup for lunch and I'm drinking lots of liquids. I'm trying not to touch Navy Bean's hands or kiss her too much, but that's about impossible. So far though, she seems to feel fine. Let's hope that sticks.

Do you know how nice our bank account looked when our tax return and Wes's paycheck hit it the same day? Too bad it's already gone. But, we have been responsible parents and set up 529's for Navy Bean and the other two kids. We figure we'll get enough to pay for 2 years of community college for the older two and hopefully enough to pay for four years for the Navy Bean (4 years at a state school). And I think we're going to start contributing to my IRA's on a monthly basis. Like a whopping $25 a month. Hey, anything is better than nothing and with the stock market on some serious clearance sales, now is the time to invest. We should have all of the x's credit card debt paid off by Sep. Then, we just have to start paying down my student loans. My car is more than 10 years old and has more than 100,000 miles on it, so we'll probably be buying a new car next winter. We're hoping car sales are still slumping then, so we can get a good deal. But this looks like it'll be a decent financial year for us. When Wes and I married, he had about $65,000.00 in credit card debt (yes, you read that right). And we will have managed to pay it all off in 3 1/2 years. What really sucks, that would have made a great down payment on a house. After a new car for me, that's the next big purchase, if the Navy keeps us here for more than 5 years. Well, the hiccups are gone. I'm going to take a nap.