Ella
She is a growing little girl. She is 8 months! One of her current favorite toys are her keys and the exersaucer. We have our first toy fatality :( One of the pieces of the exersaucer is attached by ribbon and she pulled it off this past weekend. Everything else still works though! There is always something that she does that is cracking us up whether it is a face, movement, or reaction. She has a few favorite songs thanks to daycare. What Does the Fox Say?, Wanna Build a Snowman, and Let It Go. Ella now claps and is getting a little more noise from it every day. She started clapping with Wanna Build a Snowman at daycare and now does it for a lot of things at home. This past weekend was VERY nice out and we went on a walk and tried out the swings for the first time! Ella was a pro and loved it. She has been healthy and doing well. She is working on her first set of teeth but they are the top ones! You can feel them every now and then but so far, nothing. False alarm, her two bottom teeth have broken through! We can't believe it! She also started trying purée meat. She wasn't a huge fan of the chicken but when mixed with squash it was better! :) We also have an army crawler! Her major incentives to crawl are the cat and Julie's phone.
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| Ella's Valentines for her Teachers |
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| Ella's 1st Artwork! |
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| Cheeeese! |
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| I wrap myself up in my blanket like Mom |
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| Decked out in our camo! |
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| Excited about my seahorse! |
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| Daddy's nose is for chewing |
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| 1st Time Swinging! |
Julie
Add 2 more "snow days" to Julie's make-up days :( That is a total of 7 this year. There are 2 more Saturday schools that Julie has to work at the moment and she has almost made up her 2 days on her own time...less than 3 hours to go! We won't even get into that because it gets kind of confusing. To make up for these most current "snow days" they will be adding on 20 minutes to the school day starting March 31 until May 8th. Spring Break is during that time, April 14th - 18th which won't be that bad but too bad that wasn't the original solution! In the end, Julie is thankful to have a job, no matter how difficult it may be at times to understand the decisions that have been made.
Julie is still waiting to see the Drs for her heel and her wrist. She was able to schedule the appointments for Spring Break to avoid missing any other work, especially after her initial appointment for her heel got cancelled and she didn't find out until she got to the appointment. And THEN her wrist appointment was scheduled for the wrong thing but thankfully she found that out before it was too late. Kind of a mess but finally back on track! The possible plantar fasciitis and carpal tunnel have gotten better thanks to testing at school and being able to rest it but neither are completely gone. Better safe than sorry to get them both checked out!
She is still enjoying her fitbit and the challenge to get a minimum of 5,000 steps a day! The "club" at school has been a huge help in the motivation department. Julie has also been learning some new things at school thanks to her professional learning classes she has been signing up for and coworkers that help her with computer issues. The library got over 200 new books last week and Julie and her head librarian have been busy putting genre stickers and series numbers on the books! Their current big project is putting genre stickers on ALL of the fiction books to hopefully increase circulation. This project has probably been in the works for at least a month and they are only on the Fs. AND on top of it, Julie has been shifting the collection! It has been a challenge but in the long run it will be worth it! Slowly working on making the library a more user friendly and accessible space! She will try and take pictures soon! They keep kicking themselves for not having taken before pictures to show the progress :( Next up...shifting the nonfiction! Eep! The Kindle Book Club has been a hit! Actually...the website Julie helped make has been great too! Check it out! She is VERY proud of it :)
Curtis
Curtis just found out that he was not picked up for the Intel Officer's Program. There were 96 candidates and only 4 were selected. He also took the advancement exam for E-5 last week. He won't know those results for some time but we are all hopeful and keeping our fingers crossed. Curtis was supposed to be going back to Fallon, Nevada in a couple days but has been selected to stay back in Virginia Beach instead. We are all excited, even if it means he won't be making a little extra money because of the trip. We greatly appreciate the extra family time we will get!
