First Impressions

Tim has just quietly watched Mia toddle around this week. But I have caught a few of his impressions - 'wow she's loud' and 'she's a tiny little thing' - she is rather petite, barely 20 lbs at 13 months old. But they are getting along _great_. She won't go to him when she's upset yet, but he's not losing sleep over it. We are working with her vigorously on those baby signs to hopefully lower her volume. She picked up the 'help' sign yesterday! That's a big one. Then this morning she got a hold of the remote for the ceiling fan in our room, figured out how to turn it on HIGH, along with the light on BRIGHT, and when her dad came in the room, she showed him the fan using the sign for 'fan'. She also is picking up new words to speak, such as diaper, cat, cheeseburger, shoes, bye-bye, bath, ball and eyes. I thought it was a quite a varied set of words for her age. She also can name almost everryone in our family. Mama, Dada, and Chas and Simon she'll try, but it isn't quite intelligible, and then Nana, PopPop, and Josee (also marginally intelligible, but a noble effort.)

It has been a very long week. Tim arrived home Tuesday morning, and has been recovering from jet lag, with the rest of us trying to live as normal (which actually doesn't exist, I am convinced). Then Tim had to go back to work this week, can you believe it? He calls it mandatory 'don't shoot your wife and kids' class, but I think the true name is Warrior Transitioning. After five men shot their wives and some even shot themselves at FortBragg a few years ago, Oprah did an expose', as did the local stations, that called for the military to claim responsiblity and do more for their members returning from war zones. So it's just half days this week and he is traveling back and forth every day. We looked into renting a beach cabin so we could be with him this week, but none were available. It's tough but nothing we can't handle. He's being a trooper. After this week, he'll go on leave for 30 days. We have plans to go here there and everywhere, of course. But first on the list is to Charleston, SC to look at Mini Coopers. A long time dream of Tim's is coming true.

We had a strange birthday party here on Sunday afternoon. Chas said that he wanted to wait to have his birthday party when his dad came home, and we thought it would be alright to wait on Mia's party too. So they shared! This was Chas' idea, and Daddy made the cake. It was half treasure chest and half lady bug. The favor bags were a mix of pirate treats and ladybug candy. It was great time, Nana Maggie and Papa Jody came with our niece Traci, Josee and Jim, Tim and LeAnn, and Nana Judy (the food was awesome, thanks Nana!) and PopPop Paul. We had a a pinata, a treasure hunt, and of course opened presents. Look for pictures soon!

What else? Oooh! a new computer monitor. We trucked the whole fam up to North Raleigh last night to purchase a 19" flat screen monitor. I am not sure what exactly was wrong with the old one, it was getting dim. But this new one is bigger than our first TV when we got married 8 years ago.

So I'll get some party pictures posted. Check back soon.