11 months and counting!

Somehow here we are more than half way to done with October and heading quickly to November. I went to grab papers out of Nathan's cubby when picking him up and it had a note that said "No School Friday October 23rd, See you Monday October 26th! I thought to myself wow they are early on this and then realized NO the 23rd IS this Friday! Holy Cow! We are set to head to begin our journey to California exactly four weeks from tomorrow. It is all quickly becoming reality. Ian gave our 30 day notice last week, I have begun calling to set up the shut off of utilities and need to make final vet, dental appointments, etc. I sent in our application for the movers to be set up last night and am hoping I can get my way of having them pack us the Friday before we leave and then come back and load us on Monday, thus while living surrounded floor to ceiling with boxes at least having beds to sleep in and couches to sit on. If not, they will most likely pack and load us Thursday and Friday. I am sure I won't hear from them until the week before. That is torture for this planner!

So far the boys are really excited about moving. I think it helps that our wonderful friends the De Leon's are there. The big stressor is still housing but I have come to realize that worse case scenario we live in an extended stay (yippe with 3 kids, two parents a dog and cat) for two months and Jacob will be out of school until after Christmas break. The school we will I believe put him in will be year round so they get until mid January off for Christmas break. If that is the case then we will do homeschooling as best as I can until then. Not the best case scenario but manageable.

Our baby O is 11 months now and doing new things daily. One of my favorites is if I start to count and say "One" he will respond with "Two!!" It is really cute. He has taken up to 5 steps and walks in between things at 2-3 steps often but still is crawling mostly. He is too fast at this point to give it up. But while he is still crawling he is climbing EVERYTHING. I am constantly pulling him off something only to turn around 60 seconds later to find him on something else. I thought Nathan was bad but either I have forgotten or I am in for it with Owen. He is starting to do animal sounds and will "moo", "meow" and act like a monkey (his personal favorite). I swear he says Jacob sometimes but really am not 100% sure. Of course he says "ma ma" and "da da" and he has said "bye" and "hi" and even "hi-lo" (hello) a few times. Oh and another personal favorite "nah nah nah" (no no no) to the dog. He is cute but don't let his cuteness fool you he is quite the handful!

Here are a few photos of this weekend and his antics. We love him!
Owen uses ANYTHING as a step ladder. Here he realized if he used a plastic halloween cauldron he could push it to the chair then climb it to climb the chair. Lovely, just lovely.

A mommy and baby self portrait

Dancing with Jacob. He LOVED when J "dipped" him.


Ian was having some banana split ice cream and Owen decided that it was his right to have some too so he attacked Ian for some. Ian is not really annoyed in the picture. If you look closely you can see he is trying hard to hide a smirk. It was pretty entertaining.
You can see poor J in the background. He has been plagued with a really bad sore throat and cough since Saturday and while he made it through school today he still is just feeling horribly. I am hoping another day or so and it will pass but if not I forsee a doctor's visit in the future.