Behind the Scenes

Here's our official family portrait.  Don't we look so happy?  We are, but the truth is that we had to hide marshmallows behind our backs so that Lily would stay with us AND stop crying for EVERY SINGLE picture.  Also, it's strange to think that it was on this very day that we found our house.  I know it sounds weird but I'm glad I have lots of pictures of that day to help me remember that feeling we felt.

*We close on our house on October 29th.  Ben and my dad will be flying out to Utah on November 4th to pull our stuff out of storage from Idaho, and then we will be moving into our house around November 10th.  And although it is so thrilling to be starting a whole new adventure (I feel like ever since I left for college every year brings a whole new adventure), it has been soooo stressful.  Finding cheap home insurance, doing paperwork, budgeting, more paperwork, walk-throughs, and of course more paperwork.  Since my body is infamous for behaving badly when I'm stressed out this experience has been no exception.  My eyelids started swelling up (seriously????) and on top of that we've had a few rashes going around our house.  Honestly I just read that again and I have to laugh at how weird we are.  Let me rephrase that.  I have to laugh at how weird I am.  Sigh.

*I wish I could say that by now Lily is making huge improvements in her speech.  In a way she is improving because she says many more words and is able to explain more clearly what she needs.  However she usually just says one word at a time like, "snack," "water," "monster" (Sesame Street), or "walk."  The hardest part about Lily's speech is the fact that she says everything backwards.  Since we've been working so hard on getting her to put words together it has overwhelmed her and she has to work her memory backwards like this:
          Me:  "Say 'green block.'"
          Lily:  "Block..... green."
That is how EVERYTHING goes.  Her therapist has told us to keep working and eventually she'll grow out of it.  About a week ago she actually said "Help please" instead of "Please help" and I seriously almost burst into tears.  It was such a sweet experience.

*Skyler is my comedy relief right now (when he's not waking me up at 5AM).  His new phrase is "Oh boy!  Oh boy!!!"  He usually says it when he sees a very cool toy.  So funny.  He's also such a fast mover!  He doesn't run yet but boy does he hobble!  It looks like he's going to fall over any second but he just keeps going and going.  So much fun to watch!

*Ben loves his job.  To be completely honest, I think this may be an even bigger blessing than the house.  Perhaps it's the fact that we went through 10 months of unemployment aka constant freaking out/frustrations/feelings of worthlessness/etc.  I know of a few couples who are fighting the same battle that we once did and my heart breaks.  What a terrible thing to go through.  I can't say how grateful I am for Ben's job.  It really is a dream come true.

So there's a rough synopsis of our lives right now.  Yeah, we know we're weird.  :o)