Quick And Big Update!

First, let me just say, I have NO idea what was going on with my blog last week; it's much better now, whew. But the lilypie baby tickers seem to have lost a day and I don't know why. I redid them and everything. Oh well.

Secondly, I'm renaming Petal on my blog: From now on she shall be known as "The Bug," or simply "Bug." Because that's what I find myself calling her. I nearly named her Peanut because when she needs a bath she smells like a little peanut (seriously!), but I don't actually call her Peanut, and besides, the Queen of Spain is already using that name.

Now - we've been so busy lately, and I now have very good things to report.

1) We have renters for our house!

2) We have a place to move to!

We will be moving as soon after we get the keys (August 1st) as we possibly can. Our renters will officially be moving in here September 1st. YAAAAAAAAAAAAY! This is big stuff.

Our new place is just a short drive (about 10 minutes on back surface streets) from where Slipshod works. It has a big back yard which features a shaded grass area, a deck with a hot tub built in, and another area with some concrete and some grass/dirt area which is mostly covered by raised planting beds. Cool! The main indoor area where the girls and I will spend our days is made up of a huge open kitchen and a nice living room which has a sliding glass door which leads right out onto the deck in the back. The new place is more than twice as large as the tiny house we currently live in and is two stories rather than one (not sure if that's a plus and we will immediately be installing baby gates at the top & bottom of the stairs, but it puts all the bedrooms upstairs which is kinda cool). This place is a duplex, which is not what either Slipshod or I had pictured, but we're just renting for a couple/few years, so it should be fine. The person who lives in the other side is a single woman in her 60s and is reportedly very quiet. The house is in a nice safe neighborhood with parks and schools nearby-ish. Our side of the house is close to an intersection, but it is pretty quiet due to lots of trees between the house and the intersection, and we've been told that the town we're moving to rolls up its sidewalks around 9pm and traffic is rare later than that.

In case you can't tell, I'm very excited that we finally have these two things taken care of. I've been mentally moving into the new place for a couple days now. ha ha! As for moving, we're going to get one of those pod things and pack ourselves, though we may hire some mover folks to pack the furniture.

At home, we have a visitor: One of my teenage nieces. She flew in this Monday from out-of-state and is staying until the afternoon of the 26th. My sister sent her out to help us for two weeks. SWEEEEEEEEEEET! We're loving having her. Sweet Pea is especially loving having a live-in playmate, and I am temporarily spared the stress/guilt of not being able to play with her much. :o) Although, The Bug sleeps so much that today my niece, Sweet Pea and I were able to get a good start on making some sock puppets. ha ha! Sweet Pea started asking a few days ago if we could make sock puppets because Steve on Blues Clues had one, and also because the creatures on the in-between things on Noggin often have buttons for eyes and she thinks that's cool. She wanted to make a blue sock puppet and as luck would have it one of her little blue socks had holes in the toes, so she got her blue sock puppet! it's a kitty with blue foam ears. Her cousin's sock puppet is a doggy. ha ha! We don't have any pictures of mine yet, but it's a beige kitty with bright green foam ears. Hopefully tomorrow we'll be able to give our kitties red felt tongues, but for now they're serviceable enough. Sweet Pea was so cute making hers talk to her cousin's doggy. Ha ha!

Sweet Pea continues to adore her baby sister. YAY!

The Bug continues to be adorable and sleep well. She smiles more and more every day, and has dimples on both cheeks! SO cute! She has already been responding to me as Mommy for a while. You know, quieting when she's fussing with somebody else (even her daddy) and they hand her to me. I didn't remember how early that happened with Sweet Pea and was quite surprised to find her recognizing me so early. It's quite gratifying, really, but I also worry that I'm the only person who will be able to quiet her, like I'm the only person who can quiet Sweet Pea. Gratifying but also a lot of work and sometimes a very stressful place for me to be. Eep. But she's still sleeping tons and nursing tons and is just plain doing very well. We're excited to see her smiling at us so early too. She responds to both visual and auditory stimuli. She will grin when we grin at her and raise our eyebrows or sometimes if we just stick our faces in front of hers. She also loves high voice noises and grins when I talk that way. She loves to hear and see Sweet Pea as well. And her daddy, of course. Even though Slipshod can't talk as high as Sweet Pea and I can, she grins at him all the time too. I guess she just knows her family.

We took her to the doctor for her 1 month well-baby checkup yesterday (at 5 weeks) and she is growing very well. Her weight is up to 9lbs. 13oz., her head now measures 15.75" around, and unfortunately I just realized that I didn't hear how long she is now. But like Sweet Pea at this age, her head size is in the 95th percentile and her weight and length put her in the 75th. We grow 'em big.

We like our doctor so well that we're not going to leave him, even though it will be a bit of a drive to get to him. We know we'll be moving back down here in the next 2-5 years anyway, so we're going to keep going to him for regular checkups for the girls and whatever Slipshod and I need. Since we have a PPO we'll be able to also see a different doctor closer to (the new) home for more pressing situations like fevers and other things in the girls.