I'm Still Alive

I swear, not being able to blog from my work computer means almost no time to blog at all! And it would take too long for me to use my iPhone keyboard to type you a full entry!

So this is my first post as a "secret blo

gger". My mom still hasn't said anything about it being blocked, which means she must not have tried to check it lately. I'm planning on telling her that a student found it. I'm still pretending like I have no idea what she said about me behind my back. While it bothers me a little bit, I'm pretty much over it. If she doesn't want to share her issues with me, it just makes my life that much easier. :P

Max:

So Max has been keeping us pretty busy:

• I feel like he's constantly got a cold right now. Ick.
• He's been teething. He's now up to 7 teeth! OY!
• He's wearing age 18-24 month clothes. They're a bit big, but by January they'll fit just right.
• At his last well-child check he was in the 99th percentile for height. If we were to calculate his adult height right now, he'd be 6'6" as an adult. LOL! Let's hope it's a few inches less than that. But not too much shorter.... ;)
• He's crawling like a pro and pulling himself up on everything. He's just starting to get the concept of taking steps. We've been putting shoes on him every day for stability.
• He waves hello to dogs, lawnmowers, and mommy and daddy. Everyone else is chopped liver. :)
• He seems very close to saying "dog". He says, "Doh". He also seems to understand Mama and Dada are actually us. And he says "Baba" for bottle.
• We carved pumpkins last night. Max loved the "goop". :)
• He likes to try just about everything we eat. He loves chicken nuggets...sort of. He'll gobble them up, chew on them for a few minutes, and then spit out whatever is left. Kinda gross, but also kinda funny.
• We are taking him trick-or-treating tonight to our neighbors. He is dressing as Dr. Erdahl. A friend of my mom's bought him the outfit when he was born. It's a 2T. I can't believe my baby is almost 1 and is getting ready to celebrate his first Halloween!!!!!
• I'm in the process of planning his first birthday party. I'm afraid not much family will be able to come. If you'd like to attend, let me know. I'm not planning on sending out many "friend" invitations. But you're always welcome. I'm thinking of theming it around dogs. Since he loves them so much. Now to decide if I'm making my own dog cake....hmmmm...

Me

• Leaving for Washington D.C. in less than a week. We leave on Tuesday morning at 6 am. We have a group of three boys that didn't make the deadline for turning things in for the trip. One of the moms has decided that she's going to drive them herself. They are going to follow our buses. RI-DIC-U-LOUS! I can't believe these parents are allowing this. You didn't get your money in on time, therefore, you can't go. They're all getting 4 days of unexcused absences and will be forbidden from speaking to the rest of the kids on the trip. What fun is that?
• I've been feeling overwhelmed and exhausted all the time lately. I don't hate my job, but I can't say I love it right now either. I hate that I don't get to spend my days with Max. He's doing find at daycare, but it makes me sad to think I'm missing these days. I have to find a way to job share next year. My fear is that it won't happen.
• We've been officially trying for baby #2 since about July now and still no success. I can't say that we're trying TOO hard though. Every month I say I would be surprised if I was actually pregnant. We're going to get really serious around Christmas. Jessica is trying for baby #2 and Natalie is too, and I'd really like to be pregnant at the same time as someone and have kids that are close in age. Please don't ask how things are going though in the future. We're planning on hitting up the fertility guys in February if we don't get pregnant on our own. I'll let you know when it happens.
• I've been feeling like my house is "old" lately. I am itching to do some remodeling and redecorating inside. I think this winter's goals are to take the wallpaper down in the laundry room and the powder room and to give them both a more modern look. I also want to gut the sink and floor out of the powder room too. I'd also like to paint our bedroom and bathroom and update the fixtures. Really, I want to gut the whole bathroom upstairs, but that will have to wait for a couple of years. This short term fix should do for now.
• Our next major purchase HAS to be a king sized bed. Kendall and I both have back aches on a daily basis and we've slept on too many kings lately to keep sleeping on our queen. We want more space. :)

Hope this is enough of an update for now! Probably get

back to you in a few weeks. Here's a picture of Max with the pumpkin goop!