Happy New Year!!

Happy New Year! We spent the day walking around downtown and going to the mall!


On New Year's Eve, Grandaddy and Amos played "Mr. Ticklehand" ...

...while Nathan played the mandolin...

...and I ate the last of the Ben and Jerry's ice cream before my diet started!

Sorry it's taken so long to post on our new blog. No, Uncle Dan, it's not a bloax!! :)
It's just been a very strange week, and I'm trying to get back into the swing of things. The guys are still working on the house, and right now, half of them are upstairs and the other half are working on the stairs and hallway, so it's tough to go up and down in the house. Right now, my computer is in our room and Amos doesn't do so well while I'm on the computer. He gets into stuff, wants to type with me, on my keyboard and doesn't want to type in his keyboard from Grandaddy. Yeah, a bit irritating! So it's been a bit tough to get in here and blog!!
There are many things that he is doing, though, that I want to try and document so as not to forget them. The last two weeks, he has been favoring his left hand, which makes his dad and Uncle Jesse super thrilled. Sure, he can be like me in other ways, so I'll give them this one! We think this is the appropriate age for him to be favoring a hand, so we're not worried. He's not walking yet, but is very confident on his feet, so that's good!
He now talks on the phone, while holding a fake phone or anything remotely close to looking or acting like a phone, and that is sooo funny!
Nathan taught him how to say "wa" for his water cup, and he says it regularly, which is fun!
He has been playing alot by himself, which has been great. He likes his toys that help him pretend, (his play kitchen, his tool bench and tools, his cleaning toys, etc) and will sit and pretend for awhile. Usually it's after he eats, and when he starts to get tired, he comes to find me and whines at my feet. But it's good to see him doing things on his own, figuring things out and such. I think the next step is to get him into books and puzzles, things that will continue to challenge his little brain!

We had a sleep breakthrough New Year's Eve: Amos stayed up way too late (due to a late nap and a late breathing treatment). My dad wore him out, then we put him to be, in his pack'n'play in our room, at 11:30 and he slept all night in his bed, until 8:30 the next morning. We were all shocked! But that is not a formula I want to repeat, so the next night, I put him to bed much earlier and he work up, as he usually does, 45 minutes later, and I tried to get him back to sleep. When it didn't work (and I was frustrated), Nathan went in with him and that made him really mad because he really wanted me.(Apparently, this is what Nathan was like as a baby and to get him to sleep through the night, his dad would have to go in, instead of mom!). So he was in there for an hour, but got him back to sleep and he slept for another good stretch. I think that when we change the current sleep patterns (after all the work is done), that Nathan will have a role to play. And thankfully, he's up for it.

Thursday night, Amos was so overtired by his bed time that he had gotten his second wind and could not go to sleep. He finally fell asleep on Nathan as we were watching "Friends."

Yesterday, Amos and I were ready for a nap as soon as we woke up, so after breakfast, we got back into bed and slept for awhile. I woke up from the noisy work being done, but Amos slept through it all, stirring only a few times. I was amazed when he finally woke up, almost three hours later!! I wasn't feeling so great, so it was awesome to lay in bed, drifting in and out of sleep, knowing that Amos was ok, not getting into trouble and having a good sleep, himself.
Last night we went shopping for light fixtures and ceiling fans for the upstairs. We got some great things, from Lowe's of all places! When we returned home, it was cold in our house and we discovered that the furnace broke!!! After calling the emergency repair guy, and finding out that he didn't have the part we needed, Nathan went to Walgreens for some small space heaters and we prepared for a night of extra snuggling! Amos got his super warm jammies on and we put on layers before bed. We didn't need them, though, as the heater worked really well. Thankfully, it wasn't 5 degrees last night, as it's been all week. It has been so cold this week that we have not left the house, making our little lighting outing last night very exciting!
Today we slept in and are doing things around the house. Poor Nathan has been on unclogging drain patrol and has unclogged all three drains in our bathroom. This morning, the electrician came over and installed the lights and fans we picked out, so that was exciting to see.
And yesterday, we received a call from our favorite Aunt and Uncle in Africa, with news of the gender of their baby...hopefully, they'll announce it soon! http://robbinsabroad.blogspot.com/