Jesse Tyler, Ten and Eleven Months

Jesse's Ten Months Pictures:

Eleven Months Pictures:

Some updates for Jesse, ten to eleven months:

•  Jesse is becoming less content with baby food and loves to eat with his fingers.
• He is starting to take one step by himself, but then drops back into a crawl if he is not holding onto anything.
• He still has four teeth.
• Jesse stopped nursing at ten and a half months.  We tried to give him some formula after that, but his stomach was definitely not happy about it.  Apparently, he does not do well with dairy.  He was also having about 8 or more dirty diapers a day.  However, we then started giving him keifer daily which has reduced that to 1-3 a day!  And it seems much healthier.  Thanks, Julie from the Motherhood retreat!
• He still loves cuddling and he loves attention from his big sister!
• He needs a haircut!

You may note that now it is indeed after his first birthday ... I am playing catch-up so those fun pictures will come soon!

Our Camper Home

Note: This was drafted in mid-December and I never posted it.  So, it is not current but I decided to go ahead and post it anyway!  More recent news soon ...
Here is finally a glimpse into life in our camper ... that's right, our camper.  We are currently staying in a fifth wheel camper at a campground in Gloucester Point, Virginia.  We are still hoping to buy a nine acre piece of property here in Gloucester but it won't be finalized until mid-January.  So here we are in the mean time!  It's small for two adults and two young kids, but do-able, with only brief moments of extreme frustration!  It's helped the weather has been nice enough to let us go outside most days.  Hopefully by the time we get really done with this, we will be ready to move!

Our camper has a small living area, which includes a pull-out couch (where Tyler and I sleep), a small cabinet, and currently a Christmas tree!  There is a dining area with a small built-in bench and table, and a kitchen area with a small fridge/freezer, stove, microwave, sink, and cabinets.  There is a bathroom with toilet, shower, and sink - although very small!  And a separate bedroom.  This used to have a queen bed in it, but we took that out to make room for Esther's toddler mattress and Jesse's pack and play.  Not too bad.  The hardest thing, I think, is that the bathroom is right by where the kids sleep.  So all early morning trips wake up Jesse, who wakes up Esther.  ; ) 

Here are some pictures of the camper, and of us playing outside on the campground.  I will say, being stuck in a camper is made better by being on a campground with a park, laundry facility, river, etc ...

Jesse Tyler, 9 Months and Gloucester Christmas Parade

Another month post for Jesse.  He is already 9 months – hard to believe!  Here is his latest news:

He’s been an excellent through-the-night sleeper for a long time but recently he started waking up anywhere from 3 am to 5 am.  Finally I realized that by this time I had been giving Esther more protein-rich food than Jesse had been getting.  I had only been feeding him organic baby food, which has some meat mixed in but still only a max of 3 grams per jar.  Not enough for this growing boy!  I added some jars of baby meet (not organic) and some organic yogurt and egg yolks.  Problem solved!  He is now back to sleeping soundly through the night.  Although if you make any noise at all after about 6:30 am, he will wake up and be ready for the day.  A slight bummer in a little camper when Tyler has to get up for work… (next post will be about our new living situation – promise!).

Jesse is pulling up and cruising using two hands but not close to walking yet.  Esther was just about walking by now, so I’m also encouraged to work with him a little more to get him to step – and put shoes on him more often to help with that right foot that still turns out.

He is probably also ready to learn some baby signs, but we haven’t started that yet.  He has recently started clapping his hands on his own.  He does it often, and it does seem to be when he’s excited.  It’s super cute. 

And, he has become a food beggar in the last few days!  We started giving him a few little pieces of our food and now if anyone is eating, he crawls to them and makes lots of happy noises until he gets some.  Uh-oh, we started something!

You can tell he wants to keep up with Esther.  That will get more interesting in the next few months, I’m sure.  We love him lots, and I can’t wait to see how much fun he has with Christmas.  : )

 

Here are pictures from the Gloucester Christmas parade.  It was actually on Jesse's nine months birthday so I decided to put the posts together.  Esther enjoyed the parade.  Jesse fell asleep before it was over.  Although, check out the last picture ... I've never seen Santa on a boat before!  I guess we are close to the coast.  ; )

Our Esther Jo

Finally here is an update on our beautiful Esther ...

She is 2 years and almost 9 months.  And talking ... and talking ... and talking!!  Whole conversations.  She continues to amaze me!!  And she really will repeat everything now.  The other day she said "do-do head."  I won't tell you where she heard that one.  ;)  So we are trying to be extra careful.   Other phrases I've heard include "That's right.  You got it."  "Don't worry.  Be happy."  And so many more.  I'll have to start writing them down.
She has done pretty well with all of the moving craziness.  A little whiny that sometimes I attribute to all the change and lack of schedule.  But overall, very well.

Here she is in the van, loaded down with stuff!

Although starting in the days since we moved from San Angelo, she's been watching more TV.  A lot more.  I thought it was just a season, but it hasn't ended.  And she loves it, way too much.  It started with Veggie Tales and then moved on to TinkerBell.  She loves TinkerBell and talks all the time about having wings on her back and learning how to fly.  (See fairy shirt below.)  And in the hotel we were in, we watched Curious George every morning.  She loved that! 

During our brief stop in West Virginia.  At Dairy Queen with Mimi and Deda.

Four generation picture with Nana, Mom, me and Esther.

At Taco Bell, Papa's favorite place to eat!

Here in Gloucester is a McDonald's with a playplace built like a big tree house. Esther loves it and points it out when we drive by.  Another tribute to the craziness of late ... Esther recongizes and even greets fast food places when we drive by, especially Wendy's.  "There's Wendy's.  Hi Wendy's!"

Look at the hair in this one!!  Still no haircut.  Ever.  She and Jesse will now probably get their first ones at the same time!

Sleeping.  So beautiful!

Life in the hotel...

Adorable child sized grocery cart.  She LOVED getting to push Jesse.

And now a picture in our camper.  That's right, we are now living in a camper.  More on that to come. 

So there are some recent photos of Esther.  Here are a couple of stories to record for our memories...

When we lived in Conroe, we had a townhouse with an upstairs.  Almost immediately Esther was scared to walk up the stairs by herself because a "cow" was in her way.  At first, I would go with her and we'd ask the cow to move.  Finally Tyler told her cows don't live inside, they live outside.  After that, she would often start up the stairs by saying "Oh, cows outside."  Don't have any idea where that came from.

One of her Veggie Tales videos has a little girl character named Emma.  The mom says to the dad "Go talk to Emma, she had a bad day at school."  Then they sing her a song.  Well, Esther has a baby doll named Emma so she started telling me to go talk to Emma.  Then she asked me to sing her the same song.  This progressed to leaving out the baby doll altogether, so often Esther will go off by herself to "talk to Emma."  In West Virginia, she left to talk to Emma.  When she came back, some one asked her how Emma was and Esther said that Emma was "sick and tired."  Don't know where that came from either!  I guess this qualifies as an imaginary friend.

Esther has a phenomenal memory.  She remembers lots of events and people, even from San Angelo.  However, everything that happened in the past is still "yesterday." 

She gets along well with her brother, and likes to make him laugh and smile.  "Jesse smile at me!" She does not like it, though, if he tries to take her toys or her food.  She is still sucking her thumb.  Pretty much only at night.  She tries to do it at other times but we tell her to stop.  She usually does, with occasional fits. 

One more funny story, even though I feel like I am telling this at my own expense.  We were talking to a lady (who happened to be a retired kindergarten teacher and clearly loved kids).  She and Esther were talking about Esther's baby dolls.  The lady asked if Esther fed her babies with a bottle.  Esther said that Jesse had a bottle.  The lady asked if Jesse drank milk in his bottle (I cringed inside) and Esther replied, "Yes, and from Mama's boobies."  That lady, bless her, kept right on going with the conversation.  A memorable moment, for sure!

Also, Esther can sing her ABC's and recognize capital letters.  She can write a mean "A" but that's about all. She just about counts from 1-20.  She learns songs very quickly and loves to sing them.  She is super excited about Christmas right now, which is very fun for me.  And we are totally done with Pull-Ups!!  Accidents are very rare now. 

So much else has happened but that's all for now.  Hopefully more soon!

Jesse Tyler, Eight Months

Okay, I had to put up Jesse's eight months pictures and a little update on him ... Esther is next, I promise! 

Jesse was eight months on November 3.  That was the day we happened to be in West Virginia on the way up to Newport News. Here he is:

Liked the expression in this one:

Nice WV backdrop here...although actually we were on the Virginia side.

He is so handsome, right?  : )

Jesse's lastest accomplishments:

He now has two teeth, in the middle on the bottom.  Both seemed to bother him a little right when they popped out but not too bad. 

He can sit up all by himself!  This happened right before he turned eight months.  My mom is actually taking the credit for this.  He was sitting up but he always kept one hand on the floor to prop himself up.  When we came out to visit my uncle Gene (the plane trip), she says she taught him how to sit without the hand.  I didn't see it, though.  ; )

And pretty much immediately after the sitting came pulling up and even cruising!  He is pulling up on everything and walking along it using two hands.  Not one hand yet, but two.  He can get around fast, though, and I'm sure the walking will come soon. 

He is also still so determined!  If there is something he wants, he doesn't stop until he has it.  Seriously.  But he is still super sweet.  He smiles all the time and likes to be cuddled and held.  I am hoping both facets of his personality continue.  : )

All for now ... so much catching up to do!

Back and Overwhelmed

Okay, so it's been awhile ... again.  I am a little, or a lot, overwhelmed about recording the last few weeks.  I'm going to jump in and see how it goes.

We are now in Newport News, Virginia!!  That's not Texas.  I know.  About a month ago I flew out her with Jesse to visit my Uncle Gene and Aunt Rie.  (More on them in another post.)  Tyler and I have talked about moving out here several times since we've been married but never done it.  While I was here visiting, I just looked around casually for jobs for Tyler and found a job with a nonprofit working in refugee resettlement - pretty much Tyler's dream job.  Except for really low pay.  Well, he applied for it and got a call almost immediately for an inteview.

We knew we were taking a risk, but we did it.  We sold almost everything - again - and loaded up a trailer.  We arrived in Virginia right around November 1st.

Side note - on the way to Newport News, we stopped in Bluefield to surprise my parents.  We hadn't told them about the move so we could surprise them.  The plan was to arrive in Bluefield about  8pm and knock on their door.  With our poor road trip skills, it ended up being about 1 in the morning.  So Tyler texted my dad and then asked him to let us in the door.  Luckily, Dad heard the text and we didn't have to head to a hotel.  They were pretty surprised, needless to say.  We spent the next day in Bluefield and saw both of my grandmothers before we continued on the next leg of the journey.  That night it was raining so hard, we had to stop AGAIN on a six hour trip.  So we ended up arriving at the office for Tyler's Friday 1pm interview on Friday at 1:01 pm.  Shew!!

However, we found out a few days later that Tyler did not get this refugee job.  Big bummer.  So the job hunt began again, as well as a hunt for a place to live.  We checked into an extended stay hotel.  (Tyler worked hard at finding the best deal at a decent place.)  Long story short, Tyler briefly worked for a couple of framing/deck building guys before being offered a job at a residential remodeling company!!  Congratulations Tyler!!  He was chosen out of over 300 applicants. It seems like a good company, one that's one many awards.  And they are going to have him do some design work too, something he is great at.  So my master plan, which I will record for future reference, is to have Tyler get a job with the Newport News Fire Department (inspired by our San Angelo days) and do some desing work on the side.  The FD has a test after the first of the year, so we'll see how that pans out.  ; )

The other big development is the possibility of buying a piece of property.  We found it through Craigslist and it really seems just perfect for us - although a LOT of work!  The tornado that came through this area several months ago actually went right down the center of this property.  It's about nine acres, and most of it is a huge mess of downed trees and even some debris left from a mobile home that got torn apart. But this means it is a really good price for this area.  Hopefully will know soon if this deal can go through. 

Here are a few pictures of it:

Okay that's all because the uploading here is very slow.  Hopefully more later!!