Earmuffs

Here is our little bug helping Dad eat breakfast. She is sporting Jeran's noise-cancelling industrial earmuffs that he wears while studying.

Qualifying exams are now officially done but results don't come in until September. Jeran feels like he did pretty well on the second one so that is great news. Now for a few weeks of relative freedom!

Happy Early Birthday

Yesterday we celebrated Jerans birthday several days early. He will probably have a pretty lame real birthday this year because it's (finally) qualifying exam week! Jeran has been studying all the material from his classes of the last year to prepare for the Masters qualifying exams, which are given between years one and two. The first six hour exam is on Tuesday and the second is on Friday. We are all sooooo ready to be done with the studying for a few weeks until school starts mid-August. Allison and I just try to stay out of his way so he can study study study, which can be pretty boring in a small house

Anyways, good luck to Jeran and the other students this week!

A quick run down of things going on for us right now besides that:

Allison and I need to find new health insurance in the next two weeks.  Ugh.

I'm managing a few projects that need to be completed by Monday but still have lots of work to be done. I think we've got sobe good developers working on them so I'm not to worried (yet) but I may end up working a good amount this weekend when Jeran will finally be free to go have fun.

We're starting to make plans for a graduation (last one!) trip for next spring.

We're getting excited for Mary to come visit us!

And some Allison updates:

She loves grabbing her toes now. She has a hard time getting them to get mouth - either she's too long or she got her mom's flexibility, or both.

Her legs are good at crawling but she doesn't lift herself up with her arms so she scoots forward face-down, leaving a trail of drool like a slug.

She went through a period of crying every time we drove somewhere, but now she sits and quietly looks around or makes quiet little sounds. The crying in the car was getting very old so this is a wonderful turn of events.

Sappy thoughts this morning

I just can't really describe how much love and happiness has come into my heart and our home because of this little angel.

4 Month Appointment

We just went in for Allison's 4 month appointment yesterday. She's weighing in at 14 lb 5 oz (50th percentile) and is 26 inches (96th percentile) for height and 30th percentile for head circumference. She was a trooper through her vaccinations, crying briefly after her shots but then settling down and being pretty good all afternoon.

She rolls from her back to tummy but not tummy to back (at least not that we've seen), so when she gets frustrated of being on her tummy, she flexes her legs and scoots forward, scooting when she's in the crib until there is no more room to scoot.

It's been slightly cooler than June was so we've been trying to spend some time outdoors in the shade most days. This week we went swimming again, walked on the American Tobacco Trail, and visited and ate lunch outdoors with some friends.

Summer activities

We've been doing some fun summer things. We've gone on several hikes at the nearby state parks. This one is at Umstead Park.

We went to the pool for the first time with the Young Women. She's the cutest little swimmer!

 Allison was pretty indifferent to the water, but that may have been because she was hungry and distracted with eating her hands.

 And we sometimes spend time sitting outside on the hammock just looking around at all the trees.

Still sick

Happy 4th of July!

So I thought we were just about done with this sickness stuff but now Allison is getting more congested again. I suspect Allison and I had a mild cold that we were about over then Jeran got this more severe cold (or whatever it is), then I got it, then Allison got it. Oh well. This to shall pass, even if it means staying sequestered for all of July, which is often the most social summer month.

Otherwise things are good. Allison has rolled over several times in her sleep but she doesn't do it deliberately or when she is awake or unswaddled. We put her in some footie pajamas instead of swaddling her last night and she did all right, especially one she fell deep asleep. It took a while because I think she's used to having her feet move more in unison and swings herself about that way, which wasn't working so well being unswaddled. Overall night one of that was a success.

Work is going well overall. Lots of things are getting done which is good news for my stress level. Allison is being good when I have to have her with me on conference calls and Jeran is good about taking her on walks and stuff in the afternoon when I need to get work done.

Life is good. Getting excited for August though. Lots of good, fun stuff happening then: tests finished, babies born, visitors coming!