4 months Old!

Aiden is officially 4 months old !

Where has that time gone?

We took him to the doctor for his check up yesterday - he's perfectly healthy.

And, coincidentally the size of a 6-8 month old.

He weighs 18 pound 8 ounces and is 27.5 inches long.

Here are his 4 month pictures:

The original color looked like the shot below - I did some enhancements of my own with the photo above.

We also had family pictures done...






Grammy and Grandpa with the kids...

Great Mimi and Great Papa with the kids...And then the whole group. This is my side of the family...
And, a cute picture of Ral from last Friday. I'm enjoying playing with the photos on the computer...Love the colors!

And now, Aiden is crying...so I guess I better run!

Our Weekend...

Just wanted to share our weekend with everyone...

Mommy: "Raleigh, are you a cowgirl when you wear this hat?"

Raleigh: "No, I'm a horse girl....Neigh!"

We met Grammy and Grandpa at the Mall for dinner Friday night and they bought Raleigh Fairy wings, a crown, and a wand....

Mommy and Aiden. After about a thousand outtakes, finally one sort of decent shot! Just being snuggly!Sunday Raleigh got her Princess bicycle. She has been almost three weeks without accidents, and we promised her a bike. She was SUPER excited when she arrived home yesterday to see it waiting for her in the driveway. One small problem, she doesn't understand the whole pedal concept - so basically she just sits there. She makes a sound like "uuurrrrrrr" like she's trying to lift something heavy or push really hard - but she's just sitting there, doing nothing. Chris and I find this pretty funny. Oh and she likes to see Chris and I ride her bike - try to imagine a 6'4" man riding a pink princess bike with iridescent pom poms and a little purse in the front. I wish I had the camera for that moment!



I would say we all had a pretty good weekend!

Outdoor Adventures

Spring is here, and while most of our yard dosen't have plants in it yet, my orchids are in bloom! This particular plant must have 50 buds/flowers on it. Today Raleigh had a picnic outside with her most beloved friend "DORA!" (imagine it being said just like the beginning of the show for those of you who have seen it): She is learning how to use a "big girl cup" which is why there is water all over the front of her shirt. We also played in the sandbox since the weather is absolutely perfect today!

Aiden turned 16 weeks old yesterday. He came outside for a few minutes to enjoy the sunshine with Raleigh and me.Yes, I actually tried to get a cute picture of the two of them. Disappointingly I must report this attempt was unsuccessful. Apparently it is really difficult to get your 4 month old and you2.5 year old to both look at the camera and smile at the same time. For some reason I had convincced myself this would be easy. LOL!Raleigh's obsession with playdoh continues. Here she is playing octopus playdoh last night.

Growing Up

I have come to the realization that Raleigh is a big girl now! Where did my little tiny baby go? She has an opinion about most everything (she MUST get that from her father!LOL) and answers all your questions with the cutest little answers. As we drove by the church near my parents house she asked "Who lives in that house?" and I replied "That is God's house" she told me "No mommy, God lives up in the clouds with balloons in his hand." A couple days later she was telling me "God lives in that Church Mommy! " and so I asked her "Where else does God live?" Expecting to hear the cute clouds with balloons answer. She replied "Publix!" (That is our local Grocery store where she always gets a sprinkle cookie) Somehow she is pretty sure that God must live at Publix because every time we go there a sprinkle cookie is waiting for her.
And, I am pleased to report that it has been two weeks with no accidents! I know I shouldn't jinx it, but I want to brag on her great potty success just a little bit. She is now asking to go the majority of the time, and besides a few drops that have resulted from not getting to the potty quick enough, she has been dry every day! I think this weekend we are going to reward all her great effort with a princess bicycle (we've been promising this as a BIG reward for getting out of diapers!). I'll have to post pics of that!

Aiden is also growing and growing. I weighed him yesterday though and according to our scale he weighs only 17.5 pounds. I know some of you are saying "ONLY?" I mean, he is just 4 months old. LOL. But that isn't much weight gain since the last visit to the pedi at 10 weeks. He has gotten taller so maybe he was packing it on so he could grow! Who knows. In any case he is all smiles most of the time (except right this exact second he is fussing!) and is now enjoying looking at all his toys, doing some tummy time, trying to roll over, and playing in the "machine" (exersaucer).

And of course, Raleigh has discovered how "fun" it is to play with Chloe. Probably not that fun for Chloe who basically gets mauled in the process. She's taking it really well though!

Update

As we suspected, the car was a total loss. Unfortunately, even though we were paying almost double what our car payment for the past year, we were still upside down in the car. Hard to imagine. We are now wondering if we paid way too much for the car. Insurance has yet to cut us a check...but they did call to let us know that we needed to go get a new car because we can only keep the rental through Sunday. Nice.

We went last night and leased a Toyota Prius. We were really hoping to get the package two (they range from one to five) which had a back up camera, stability control for roll over accidents, etc... but the payments were just too high. The dealer had a base model they were willing to negotiate on (I guess there isn't much room to negotiate, these cars are in pretty high demands because they get 50 miles to the gallon around town!) And we just decided that was the better bet since we are out financially in other ways due to the accident.

Our main objective was just to get something good on gas, which this is. There was a $50 a month difference in price between this car and the next model up....we just couldn't justify it.

Anyhow, we are taking care of switching the insurance. I'm sure it is going to be outrageous.
Hopefully soon this will all be over. What a nightmare.

It's hard to believe...

Chris said he thought the car would look worse.....

I guess if you wern't in the car when it happened, it might not look that bad. I don't have any pictures of the car flipped over in the ditch, but that was a frighteningly surreal sight. The roof is caved in RIGHT over my head... I'm pretty sure the seatbelt saved my life.

I have to say this is by far the scariest thing that I have ever personally gone through. Getting out of the car and then seeing the two car seats hanging upside down all I could do was thank God they wern't in the car with me.

Unfortunately the insurance company is taking a while to get back with us on the status of the claim. Since I swerved to avoid contact, I am placed at fault for the accident as far as the insurance company is concerned, although the police report does not place me at fault. Believe it or not, they are actually considering trying to repair this car rather than totalling it. How safe can a car be when they have to cut the roof off and weld on a new one? If they fix it, we'll be getting rid of it ASAP. Makes you think twice about buying a used car dosen't it? Would you want to buy a car that looked like this just a few months before you purchased it? How functional do you think the safety features will be?

We are going to really push for them to total this vehicle if they don't decide to do so on their own. We looked yesterday at buying a new car. I think we are going to go the hybrid route and get a Prius. We don't really know at this point what we will be able to afford, because typically when cars get totalled they don't wind up giving you the entire loan amount back, which means we are most likely upside down in the cost of the car and will have to come up with money to pay off that loan first.

As for the person who caused this and drove away - there were no other cars on our side of the highway - so nobody got a license plate number or a description of the car. It was dark, so from the other side of the road, across the ditch, they couldn't really tell what was going on. I suppose their conscience (if they have one, which I doubt)will have to be their punishment. The only description I can give of the car is that it was black with darkly tinted windows and chrome trim on the door. That's all I saw. The rest is a blur.

Bad Day...

Tonight on the way home from work someone wasn't paying attention. They started to merge into my car and ran me off the road. I was heading straight for a steel post, so I slammed on the brakes and turned the wheel hard to miss the post. My car spun out of control and flipped over in a ditch of water. I had to swim out the window. The other car drove away without ever stopping to see if I was alive. Some very nice people stopped to help me get out of the car. I'm sure that they were put there to remind me that not everyone is a complete jerk like the person who drove off. The car is totalled. I am ok, thank goodness, just lots of cuts, scratches, and bruises. I am sure I am going to be super sore tomorrow. I am so glad I was alone in the car. Judging from how the car seats looked hanging from the seats, the kids would have been hurt really badly. I am very thankful that God spared me from something much worse.

More fun...

Thursday I actually got to attend Raleigh's swim class. Usually I am working and Grammy and Grandpa take her. This week I had Thursday off so I went with them.

We all piled in the van! That's Grandpa behind Raleigh! Oh! And Raleigh had her hair in a ponytail for the first time...just like mommy's!

Two weeks in a row Raleigh has not needed a swim diaper. She seems to be doing better a good portion of the time.

Raleigh sat with Grammy and waited for her class to be called! She has on her brand new swimsuit too!

Here is a video of Raleigh swimming out to the teacher and back to the wall. Considering in December she was really scared to get her head wet, I think she's doing such a great job!

Sitting with her classmates:

Friday we went out to Great Mimi and Great Papa's house. Great Papa made Raleigh a drum out of an oatmeal can (just like he used to do as a kid!) Raleigh enjoyed beating on this and anything else she could get away with.

Great Mimi and Aiden:

Smiley man:

Raleigh went for a ride in the golf cart with Great Mimi and Great Papa:

She was so tired when we got home that after 3 hours I had to go and wake her up. She was NOT happy that I decided to do this by flashing the camera in her face. Crying followed this picture.

Afternoon at the Beach

This is the view down Clearwater Beach this afternoon.
(Sheri please note nobody here is wearing a burly winter coat! LOL It was 86 degrees - a whole 82 degrees warmer than your beach trip. Kinda crazy!)

We tried to go to the beach yesterday. That really didn't go well. Raleigh was whining in the car, aiden was screaming and Chris had JUST said "In two minutes I am going to turn this van around because everyone is miserable!" Does that sound like a 'DAD' thing to say or what? He was of course kidding. I was chatting about how we needed to look into getting AAA since our other car just went out of warranty and therefore no roadside assistance for free anymore. Chris agreed. We got on the expressway to head to the beach. The warning light for the tires dinged a couple times. We don't really think much of this since the sensor goes off if one tire gets even a tiny bit less air than the others. Suddenly I hear this loud repetetive noise. At the same time Raleigh, who was wearing her big girl panties, says "Mommy I have to go potty!"Chris thinks it is a truck passing us but I knew it was a flat tire. I told him to pull over. Sure enough he came back to report that the rear passenger tire was completely flat.

Now, at this point I am thinking "Thank goodness it happened in the van!" This car is still only a year old and has the roadside assistance that Chrysler promised was included when we leased this van from them. Chris calls the roadside assistance number. They don't cover flat tires, only mechanical problems. FANTASTIC (note sarcasm here). We then discovered that the spare tire was very complicated to get out from under the front end of the van. And, it could only be pulled out on the side with all the traffic whizzing by. Inside the car, Aiden was screaming and fussing and Raleigh is crying because she has to go potty and won't go in her pants because we told her if she went in her pants we wouldn't go to the beach. In the end, Chris got the spare put on and we took the van to get the tire fixed.

Raleigh had a great day using the potty yesterday. She didn't have any accidents despite the obvious trauma of the whole van break down. We promised her we would go to the beach today.

When we arrived at the beach, since it is Spring Break, there was no parking! We wound up paying $10 to park a zillion miles from the beach and walked the whole way with all our stuff. We had originally intended on having a picnic on the beach, but we had to eat our lunch in the back of the van before we headed off to the beach. Raleigh thought this was hilarious of course.

Eventually we did make it to the beach...

Raleigh looking for seashells (for our sandbox at home)

Bringing the seashells back in her pail and then surveying her finds with Daddy!Aiden at his lunch on the beach! Nothing like beachfront dining!

Raleigh absolutely hated the showers, but we had to rinse the sand off. She was screaming and throwing a huge fit the entire time. I swear, I used to be on the other side of this whole parent thing thinking "Oh my what is wrong with that kid? Why don't their parents do something?" I now realize there is absolutely nothing you can do. When your two and a half year old wants to scream about the shower - just keep pouring water on her until she's clean and worry about it later.

Despite the fact that it was pretty hot, Aiden was so good. I carried him back to the car in the front carrier so that Raleigh could ride in the stroller. He was asleep before we got to the car! He slept the whole way home.

We quickly did baths and both kiddos are napping now. I think Raleigh had a lot of fun (despite one gross potty accident and a big tantrum at the showers!) but Chris probably won't be agreeing to the beach for a while. Guess it is a good thing we have a sandbox in the backyard now!