remington's big news!!

alrighty... this is the last part of my catching up! we'll start with january 2nd: that would be the day we left home. again. we headed south and a little west again, this time to little rock. we didn't get there in one day... with the kids, we decided it would be best to take two days. we made it to miner, missouri, where we stopped for the night. our three wonderful miniature travelers were happy to get out, stretch their legs and sleep in nice beds.

not sure what's going on here... must be a guy thing?

princess madison :)

somebody had the giggles

we got to our new place in north little rock/maumelle on tuesday around noon-ish. we signed the papers to get into our new place and then got the kids some lunch. the rest of the afternoon was spent unpacking, settling in, grocery shopping and making supper. there was stuff all over, and i had no place to put remington while feeding him, so i put him on the counter to feed him. yes, i have a kitchen with a counter!! (and a dishwasher. i really want to take this place back to wisconsin with me...). mind you, i'm not the type of parent that just sets my child on the counter and walks away... just to clarify. i was holding rem with one hand and leaning down to put his dirty bowl in the dishwasher when he did this weird sort of twist-and-lunge thing. totally out of the blue, since one of the things he's really behind on is reaching for things. anyway, he fell off the countertop and into the dishwasher. literally, into the dishwasher! the poor baby... he had a cut on his head that seemed awful (and i kept reminding myself that head-wounds bleed more than other wounds), a large egg on his forehead and various owies on his little noggin from the spokes on the bottom rack. normally i'm pretty calm when one of the kids gets hurt, but i flipped this time. i knew it was my fault and i was SO scared that he was hurt worse than what it looked like. fortunately, he showed no signs of concussion and after crying for awhile, settled down and started grinning again.

you can see the cut on his head... the swelling on his forehead about his eye is gone today and all that remains is the bruise. he's still got some abrasions on the top and side of his head (from the spokes) but he's healing up fast. please, no lectures... i give myself one with a heaping side of guilt every time i see his owies. :(

this is our new living room... i'm not a big fan of carpet (for sanitary reasons), but i LOVE the area rug! whoever decorated the corporate units did an awesome job. i'm head-over-heels with the red furniture.

our little dining room... carpeted too, which means vacuuming every day after supper, but that's not a big deal. granite table, leather chairs- classy!

one side of the kitchen

the other side of the kitchen. there's the dishwasher! it's more spacious than it looks, and i actually have more cupboard space than i need. such a nice change from home!

the rest of the apartment is just as nice- good solid furniture, two bathrooms, a balcony and storage space off of it, a washer and dryer inside a utility closet... it's nice. i love it. :)

this is what i caught rem doing this morning: resting on his elbows, sticking his rump up in the air. it was particularily exciting because of his motor delays AND he showed absolutely no signs of doing this yesterday. i was so happy... and then he did this:

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my friends, we have lift-off!!!! i cried. i literally cried, i was SO excited and happy! one of the things we'd discussed during his assessment the other week was a 6-month goal. what did we want to see rem doing by the time he was 15 months? crawling was the big one- crawling well, crawling far, crawling where-ever he wanted to go (within reason of course. safety first! says the mom who let said child fall into the dishwasher... sigh.). until today, i was a little concerned about whether or not he'd reach that goal. what if it was unrealistic for him? was i setting us up for disappointment if he didn't reach that goal? considering most babies are crawling pretty well by 9 months, i figured that it would give him any extra time he needed to reach it... and i've been pleasantly surprised! mind you, he's not actually going anywhere yet, but he's never been up on all fours before, so this is BIG for him. and i know that he won't be crawling all over tomorrow- he may wait a few days or even a few weeks before attempting it again, but he's done it once and that gives us SO much hope that he'll catch up to where he should be in time. oh, my heart just is SO full of love right now... and, i sheepishly admit, pride. i'm so proud of our littlest man!

so there you have it... we're caught up. three posts already, and it's only january 5th. i'm off to a good start, hahaha! tomorrow will bring something new for madi and cole too- they're starting martial arts classes down the road! it'll be a trial run (they have a special on try-it classes... three classes plus the uniform for incredibly cheap! if the kids like it and the classes are affordable, we'll enroll them), and i'm excited about it. i think it'll be good for cole in particular: learning martial arts is not only beneficial for physical fitness, it also encourages self-discipline, following instructions, respecting others and self, all things that are good life-skills. i'll for sure post about it, hopefully tomorrow night. i'm going to be one of *those* moms, toting the camera to martial arts class. our poor kids... ;)