Some pics from our zoo trip

Yeah, yeah, I know, it's been a while.

Mia finally has more teeth! She got her two bottom front in when she was three months old, but since then, nothing. Yesterday both of her top two front ones pushed through...which totally explains why she's been crabby lately. She's been pulling herself up on furniture (and my legs) for about a week and half, and walked with a walker for the first time yesterday. I can't believe how big she's getting already!

The boys are good, and are enjoying the warm weather. Dom loves to kick the soccer ball, while Zack is more inclined to play with their big trucks outside.

The van is being fixed this week, and the insurance company is paying for it. Yay! It took me spending half a day on the phone with various mechanics to find out what the problem was...yes, you read that right. The garage had my van for a week and couldn't figure it out, but I got the problem diagnosed over the phone. But hey, at least it's getting fixed.

Even if it's broke, they apparently can't fix it.

After more than a week at the garage, the van is still broke. Not that they didn't give it a good go, but apparently not only can't they fix it, they can't even tell us conclusively what's wrong with it. All they know is that one of the computer systems is fritzing out and ticking off the rest of them. They dissasembled the van and ran diagnostics on all of them, but didn't find the cause. So then they put $2o in gas in and drove it around for few days trying to get it to freak out, which didn't work. So apparently all we can do now is hope it spazzes out when we're close to home, so we can take it to the garage and they can diagnose it while it's having a spasm. Lovely, eh?

Dom's staples are out, and his head has healed beautifully. I don't think they'll be a very noticible scar at all. With the exception of demanding a sucker from the nurses afterwards, the removal process was a breeze.

Otherwise not much is new, we're enjoying the nice weather...it's supposed to be mid-60's all week! YEA!!!

Peanut butter and jelly and...salami?

Yup, salami. That combination is Zack's new lunchtime favorite. All I can think is "ewww" but he gobbles it right up. Today he tried to stick baby carrots on it too, but they wouldn't smoosh down so he couldn't fit it into his mouth.

Speaking of baby carrots, Mia loves them. She seems to eat anything I mix with them...avacado, homemade rice cereal, and bananas so far. She's 'army crawling' quite effectively now, and can get just about anywhere she wants to go. She also got herself up to sitting from laying down last week. She's growing so fast!!

And the biggest news is that we've had our first really bloody encounter between the boys. Dominic intentionally knocked over something that Zack was building yesterday morning. Zack chased Dom into the hall and pushed him down in retaliation. I followed Zack to discipline him thinking it was just another minor scuffle. I turn to comfort the screaming Dominic only to see blood freely running down his face and onto his clothes and the floor. He'd apparently hit the corner of the wall, and split his head open a good inch and half. I got the bleeding to stop and called my in-laws who were on their way over to help me take the van to the garage (more on that later). Thankfully, they were almost here and they were able to help me get Mia and Dom dressed, and my father-in-law and I took him to Urgent Care. The doctor and nurse were wonderful, but my heart just broke every time he started crying again. Can I just sing the praises of the Urgent Care at that clinic? We were in and out in less time than it would have taken us to even be seen in an ER.

We were given three options for getting the gash closed:

a) topical numbing cream (which would take 45 minutes to soak in and it might not completely numb the area) before they stapled it.

b) injected anesthesia which would probably hurt more than the staples and would require him to pinned down at least twice.

c) just stapling it with no anesthesia.

Great options right? I decided to just let them staple him without anything since that would be the least amount of pinning him down, and it would be over quicker. They wrapped him in a blanket and had the stapling done in literally 20 seconds. He did really well with it overall, and wound up with seven staples in his head. I have to take him back in about a week to get the stapes removed, which after having them removed from my c-section I know won't hurt him. Here's a pic:

On to the van. After the accident, the computer would cause the van to freak out. Periodically while the van was being driven, all of the warning lights would come on, all the gauges (speed, RPM, gas) would drop to zero and not work, and the CD player and radio would try to run and then turn off and on. The only way to get it to stop was to pull over, turn the van off, and open the driver's door.

I told all of this to the garage we took it to when we got the body work done. Apparently they didn't think it important enough to address, so they never looked at it. The van stopped doing it for a while, so we assumed it was fixed. Then, last week it started doing it again. We called the garage, and because it was in the file that they were told about it before, they agreed that it should fit under the lifetime warranty they have on repairs, but the final decision would be up to the insurance company. The insurance company doesn't want to pay for it, because they are claiming there is no way to prove it was caused by the accident because, "it was a rear-end collision, and rear-end collisions don't usually affect the computer systems because the computer is in the front of the vehicle." Um, yeah. Let's see. In a year, the van never did it once, and it started doing it after the accident, so we're pretty sure the incidents are related. Idiots. We're currently arguing with them about it, and we'll see what happens.

Guess that's it for now!

Trying a video clip...

I haven't tried to add videos before so here goes.

Dom was really tired at dinner tonight...what you may not be able to tell is that he kept saying he wanted more food, even though he couldn't keep his eyes open. I don't think he knew if he was more tired, or more hungry.

EDITED: I removed the video clip so I could submit it to AFV...who knows, we could win some $$$!

Sitting Pretty!

Mia had two milestones on St. Patrick's day. She said "mama" and she decided she was ready to sit on her own! Here is a picture, I didn't feel like fixing the redeye:

Doesn't she look proud of herself! If she reaches too far for something (or gets excited, or looks around too fast) she falls over...which she's not too keen on. But you could tell she was very intrigued at being above floor level on her own.

We found out the issue we'd been having with our camcorder is a recall issue. So the good news is, they're going to fix it for free, the bad news is it could take several weeks for that to happen. Hopefully she doesn't do too many new things between now and then!

Half a year already?!

So Mia is six months old today, and I just cannot believe it. There has been so much going on I just lost track of time. It's a shock to me to realize that half a year has gone by since she's been born. Oh, yeah, and I'm turning 30 tomorrow...that's a bit of a shocker too! Other than everyone getting older, not a whole lot is new. I'm going to take some six month portraits of Mia and I'll post them as soon as I do. Hope everyone is well!