Another way to remember

Yesterday we lost our Mamaw (Corey's maternal grandmother). It was quicker than any of us expected, but I think that is probably a good thing. Mamaw to us and Gigi to the kids was an awesome lady. Her house was always a place you could be sure to get a good meal and a rest from the world-it is by far the best place to sleep I've ever been. Mamaw wasn't able to do as much as she would've liked to the last few years, but she always kept up with her family. She loved hearing about the kids and Debbie always made sure that she knew when we updated our blog. So she would have been thrilled to hear that Libby is reading books to herself now-mostly ones she has memorized-especially since Mamaw was a teacher and an avid reader herself. She also would have been excited to hear about Joe trying food and almost rolling over.


I am so glad I got as many years with her as I did-I'm glad she got to be a part of our kids' lives (she was the first nonparent to hold Libby in the hospital.) I will miss her - her stories and her laugh-her constant inquiry as to whether or not we were hungry. I will miss her beautiful PJ's and her sharp wit. But we will remember her with pictures and stories, by the cardinals she loved and the meatballs Corey makes by her recipe. But we will still miss her so much.

Our Family is growing up.. and in Joe's case-just growing

Today is Joe's four month birthday- and we celebrated with a trip to the dock and vaccinations! His stats are as follows:
Weight: 17.5 pounds (90th percentile)
Height: 25.25 inches (60th percentile)

He is a good kid-he sleeps through the night, he eats every 3-4 hours and he smiles. Given that, he also cries in the evenings and sometimes just because. He spits up on EVERYTHING and we do at least 4 loads of kid laundry a week. He loves a bath and has peed on Libby 3 times while they were bathing together-I just laugh and Libby looks at me like I'm crazy.

Libby has really grown up in the last couple of month too. She is talking ALL the time and singing songs. She learned "Jesus loves me" at Sunday School and has gone around saying it. She is a coloring queen and loves to play pretend. She wipes her baby's face because she "spit up" like her brother does. Some other fun words she says are "kink" for pink, "pray" for gray. She is constantly asking "What are you doing" and "What's that" which I will definitely take over "Why" (which I think starts in around 3). She knows her alphabet and her colors and her numbers. She knows "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star." But if the 2's are fun, they are equally hard. She makes me laugh and makes me mad. She throws fits and fake cries. She is refusing to eat foods that she formally loved. And her favorite phrase at dinner is "I don't want it." But God gives us good and bad... so I'm enjoying the good and dealing with the bad.

Libby and I read books alot and Joe has started joining in on the fun. Corey snapped some photos of our latest book fest (there is never just one). It's fun to see them interact a little bit.

Changing as always

With kids nothing stays the same for very long-sometimes in a good way and sometimes not. In our world, Joe is sleeping 12 hours at night (a VERY good change) and taking 3 naps a day. Libby can say just about anything but throws fits (not a good change). The most recent change in our house is trying to potty train Libby. This is HARD work. She knows when she poops and pees, but she is still not great at letting me know. And our first day (yesterday) she would sit on the potty for a bit and as soon as I put a diaper back on she would pee. I am easily discouraged, but I'm learning. Today she is sitting on the potty in front of the TV until she pees. We'll see how it goes. I know if she just pees once in the potty that then I'll be able to talk to her about it.

Last post I mentioned that now the doctors are talking about bracing. She went up to UPMC last week for a second opinion and this doctor said that we should try Dynasplints first. He wants her to stretch as much as possible before they do surgery (if it even comes to surgery). I was slightly disappointed. I don't want Libby to have to have surgery, but I want her to be able to walk. But if these will help her walk, we'll try them. He said try them for 4-6 months and then we'll reevaluate. We still are waiting to hear back from her original doctor-so things may change after that. I'll keep you posted.

A busy week

We've had a lot going on since the last post. Corey and I went to the WVU vs. Marshall game with our friends the Taylors. It was great to win and to see our friends. Sunday afternoon we let the kiddies play (Danielle has all those pics) and we got to hang out. Libby learned how to open my lip glosses. I caught her in the act of glossing her whole face. She went to another ortho appointment and this one said no surgery-but braces. So we'll see!

A few days later, we bought a new dishwasher and Corey installed it. He did a great job, but it came at the cost of 11 cuts on his hands. The new dishwasher works GREAT! It is so nice not to have to wash our glasses when they come out of the dishwasher.

Last week my sister Kerri came in to see us and give us our souvenirs from her trip to the beach. Corey and I got WAY too much candy (so good) and Libby and Joe got the cutest onesies.