Good friends

To continue my update, I'll share how MJ and Joey have been. Hopefully, they haven't been too disturbed by our major life decisions. They really love hanging out together. Joey continues to be more interested in everything MJ is doing. If either one of them is awake without the other, they look around to see where the other one is. Just this morning I was up blogging with Joey when I heard the familiar thud of MJ jumping out of bed. Immediately, Joey headed to the stairs and started to climb up there to get him. And if MJ is awake and Joey is napping, when MJ hears Joey on the monitor he exclaims "Joey is awake! I'll go get him" and runs upstairs to play with him.

Joey has mastered cruising and even tries to climb things. He can go upstairs with no trouble (but of course still needs spotting in case their is an accident) but that to me seemed an easy feet once they figure out how to crawl. He's excited about bath time and tries to lift his leg over the edge and climb in. That is still too tricky for him. I've been terrible about feeding him baby food lately as I've been distracted. It seemed on our whole trip all I did was nurse him and hand him crackers and snacks in his high chair. This seems to have caused him to need to nurse more at night (pointed out to me by a friend). So I suppose I could work on that. Now that I'm paying attention to it, he really does enjoy eating solid foods during the day.

MJ is doing very well with potty training. I was worried about how he would take the to long road trip, but he did great. No accidents the whole time. I would either have him in underwear or a diaper, but it didn't seem to matter. When we stopped, his diaper was try, and I'd take him in to use the bathroom. Now that we're home he's doing funny things like saying he doesn't want to wear underwear, but I put them on him anyway and he's fine.

I'm still attempting to get them to sleep together in the same room. Any suggestions on how I should approach this? Joey is so good at falling asleep by himself, I just don't want to mess that up. Lately, MJ has given up naps on a few days so at night he falls asleep quickly. Maybe they could do that together?

I suppose I should go do one of the millions things floating around on the list in my head.

Another example of how Joey and my dad look alike.

Serious piano players.

Part of the big crew. How could we forget to take a group shot when we were all together on Thanksgiving?

Did you miss us

We are still alive, in case you were worried. I see it's been over 2 weeks since I did any sort of update, so I have much to catch up on. We've been a bit busy with traveling for Thanksgiving and making big decisions. It was nice to have a 15 hour drive to St. Louis to help talk through some of our big decisions. But if you know Mario and I, we really take time to think through all possibilities before doing something big. We have been debating whether this is the time for us to buy a home which of course depends on several things. The housing market, whether we want to live in Ashburn for a long time, and Mario's career options. I gotta tell you, we still haven't figured it out yet, and are going to revisit our two favorite home today. Perhaps it is best for me to inform you of our decision once it has happened.

Thanksgiving was quite successful. It is so much nicer taking big road trips with Mario and the boys. The boys were great, stops were easier b/c I didn't need to get out a stroller for them, and we could even leave them in the car while we took turns running into the rest area/restaurant/gas station. Plus, it's nice to be able to share driving.

Everyone in my family flocked to St. Louis (we were only there 3 days). Both Erin and Dave and Bobby and Suzanne have homes there. Kathy returned from college, we obviously drove, and my Grandma DeWulf and Grandmother and Grandfather Keppel both came in as well. So, there was lots going on at the Keppel home. My mom accomodated us all very well and turned our home into a cozy bed and breakfast sort of thing. We had Thanksgiving dinner at Bobby and Suzannes house where her parents were staying.

Our camera has been upset with us and sometimes chooses to say that it is out of power when we know the batteries are fully charged. So I took pictures with my mom and sister's cameras when I thought of it. We learned that Joey really does look like me, which since I look more like my dad, would make him look more like my dad as well. I think this picture says it all.

Here are my Grandma (mom's mom) attempting to juggle all of her great-grandchildren.

We rememebered to take one family photo.

I'm not saying Joey doesn't look like a Suarez, but her certainly has a lot of Keppel in him.