We hope everyone has a safe and fun holiday!

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Alyssa is now 5 months old! Time flies! She is busy trying to sit up (which involves a full-body crunch as her head comes off the floor at the same time as her feet and she strains to get vertical), blow kisses (often with her tongue sticking out- very funny to watch), roll over, chew on her toes and stand up (just not at the same time). Some attempts are more successful than others, but she just won’t give up!

We have been blessed with longer stretches of sleep at night, too! She is waking up once or twice over 10-12 hours and we are psyched! We’ve been able to have non-baby conversations and get 4-6 hours of sleep at a time. YAY!!!!!!

The latest look of the sweetie……

This week also marked 10 years together for Mike and I. We had our first date on October 25th, 1997! WOW!

Do we look young or what?

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If you have been following our blog, you may remember that Mike posted about our childcare situation a while back. He mentioned that we had arranged our work schedules to allow us to share the daily baby responsibilities. We were SO thankful to be able to keep her ourselves rather than use daycare.

Unfortunately, Mike came home about 2 months ago with some nerve-wracking news. He would not be able to continue with the schedule that we had set up. I FREAKED OUT! It has always been important to me to raise my own kids, so I was distraught at the thought of having to do something different. We spent some time looking into our options… churches, in-home, etc. If they had availability they would not take an infant. Or if they would take an infant, they would only take one full-time (or we would have to pay for full-time even if we didn’t use them 5 days per week). We ran into one dead end after another.

Enter the saviors… My parents decided to change my Mom’s schedule to allow her to keep the baby for us! (Visualize the heavens parting to a soundtrack of the Hallelujah Chorus) I am now working at home Monday and Tuesday all day, in the office Wednesday (and Mike is home with the baby), at home Thursday morning, and bringing Alyssa to Mom at the office Thursday afternoon so she can take her home and I can work! My fabulous boss allowed me to pick up the additional at-home time and I can breathe easier knowing that my Mom is keeping Alyssa. Mike isn’t working Saturdays anymore (so we have weekends together again… YAY!) and I have dinner with my parents at least once a week (and I don’t think they are complaining about the guaranteed baby time, either!)

We’ve also been really thankful for the babysitting time outside of work. Mom and Dad have kept her overnight and multiple other times so that we can still be a couple. We’ve gone to the movies and dinner enough to still feel like we’re married! Ashleigh has kept her with her friend Lauren and also with Steven. I think Ashleigh will be one of Alyssa’s favorite babysitters… she is the only person that can routinely get Alyssa to sleep on her shoulder. I have a sneaking suspicion that they will have lots of fun times when Alyssa get older! Bring on the pearls!

Although Mike’s family no longer lives in the area (his parents have been in Texas since not long after we got married, Jeff moved to Arkansas to buy his first house and start his first real job… in that order!, and John just moved to Florida), they have also put in some babysitting time! When Mike’s mom came to visit in June, she and the boys watched Alyssa so that Mike and I could get dinner and a movie. After John injured his hand at work and was unable to go back, he came over a couple of times during the day so that I could work without worrying about Alyssa.

And even though they are not family, we are very lucky to have great friends and neighbors who have been so thoughtful. Our next door neighbors Jennifer and Brian have kept Alyssa for a dinner out one time, and have brought us breakfast and dinner and lots of baby goodies on several occasions. My friend DD from work brought dinner for the whole family back when I was still out on leave. And you have seen the pictures from the shower at my parents… this child has so many clothes that I don’t know if she will ever get to wear them all (but I am trying!) You may not know that we also had a shower at my office and we were blessed with all kinds of other gifts (before Alyssa was born, so we didn’t know if she would be a boy or a girl). We have had so few expenses for baby items thanks to all of our generous friends and coworkers!

We feel so lucky to have family to count on. I am so glad that my parents are local and are so willing to help us raise Alyssa (they are keeping us sane!) We have a very broad definition of family now, too, because we have friends that are as special to us as family. We are so blessed!

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Finally, a boy for our girls! My friends Crissy and David Gautier welcomed their first child, Evan Patterson Gautier, into the world at 7:01pm on October 2nd. He weighed 9 pounds, 12 ounces and was 23 inches long at birth. Congrats, Crissy and David! We can’t wait to meet him!

I failed to post details on Alyssa’s 4-month checkup on the 28th… She weighed in at 13 pounds, 13.5 ounces (53rd percentile) and was 24 inches long (27th percentile). Dr. Forte was very impressed with her progress and said that she is doing some things that are not common until 9 months! We think we have a little genius on our hands!

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