Max - 9 & 10 Months

(No . . . he isn't close to walking I had to strategically place the truck next to the wall so it wouldn't get away from him)

Both these kids love baths

Green smoothy - YUM!!!

At nine months I brought Max to the doctors. At the doctor's appointment they had me feel out a developmental questionnaire. I was instructed to stop when I got to 3 NO's. Well the first three questions were: Does he get to sitting position? -NO, Does he pull himself to standing position? - NO, and Does he say Ma Ma and Da Da (Not necessarily with proper association)? - NO. I'm not sure what the question after that were, because I was done according to their instructions.

Then the Resident training with my doctor came in to check Max out. She got his measurements and at the end showed me his chart. She indicated that she was a little worried because he seemed to have leveled off on growing. I don't remember what the measurements were, but he was in the 5th and 3rd percentiles for weight and height. She wasn't too worried about it, but said it is something they would keep an eye on, but then when she showed the numbers to the actual doctor she ordered that I bring Max in for a weight check in 6 weeks. I'm not too worried about his weight. I find comfort in his rolls of fat. He is REALLY short, but I think that is just a reflection of his 5'1" mom and 5'5" dad.

A week after the appointment Max was saying Ma Ma and Da Da, and getting to both sitting and standing on his own. Also in the last month he has started climbing stairs, doing a more standard crawling, and cruising along the furniture. He has also gone from 2 teeth to 5 with one more to follow shortly.

It is a riot watching Max and Parker wrestle. Surprisingly Max holds his own against Parker, and usually is on top.

He seems somewhat picky when it comes to food. He will pick out what he doesn't like and throw it on the ground. I did introduce him to peanut butter recently which he, like his mom and brother, seems to LOVE.

End of an Era

In 2003 Troy bought a car that if you would have asked me at the time was OK. It was a 93 Subaru Impreza. There is hardly anything fancy about it, it doesn't even have AWD. We met later that year and the car has been apart of us since then. About 3 years ago the car hit 200,000 miles. I told Troy we should sell it, and by something else that was newer and would be reliable. We have been a one car family for a number of years so having a reliable car is important. After I thought about it awhile we decided that since our Subaru had only been in the shop 3 times since owning it we would just keep driving it until it needed something serious, and then we would just sell it. In the mean time we have been saving for our next car. Well we finally decided the car was NEVER going to die so we decided that we would replace it when we needed something bigger then we would get a van or something like that. Well a few weeks ago we had a family member that was in need of a cheap yet reliable car, so we decided it was as good a time as any to sell our trusty little Subaru.

I'm really going to miss:

*The gas mileage

*Virtually repair free

*Bragging rights that we are driving a car with over 225,000 miles

Upon looking at cars I feel we were blessed to find a good deal on a 2006 Chrysler Town and Country. It has a lot of bells and whistles, and low miles. It was also less then we had saved up so now we have some money in our next car fund. I'm still getting used to the fact that I am now a van mom. We had a little over a week overlap where we owned both cars, and I kept finding reasons to drive the Subaru around. After we brought it home Troy said we sure do have a thing with going from having little to no space to an abundance of space. When we bought our home almost 3 years ago we went from a little, 700 sq/ft, 1 bedroom apartment to our 2000 sq/ft 4 bedroom home. Well now we have gone from our cramped little compact car to our spacious mini van.

When we got done looking at vans we ended up going to a Big Lots and bought a large storage container, and a full size ironing board. When Troy went out to put them in the car he came back to tell me he was afraid they weren't going to fit in our car. They were too long for the trunk and with both kids in the back there wasn't room in the little 1/2 space left. We finally got creative and put the storage container in front passenger seat. I got the 1/2 space in the back, and the ironing board was carefully placed running the length of the car, between me and the door. I though it was ironic how we had been looking at vehicles where we could have easily carried this load times 3, and here we were smashed in our little Subaru.

We are really going to miss our Subaru, and I'm still thrown off when I look in the garage and don't see our trusty Subaru. It will however be nice to have more space when we go camping or even just get groceries. Hopefully in 9 years I will like this van as much as I've grown to love our Subaru.