Loving and Missing the Outdoors

I haven't really been excited enough about anything these last few months. I guess that happens when starts to get cold. My favorite activity lately had been riding my bike (with Crystal in the trailer) to neighborhood playgroups 2-3 times a week and taking extra loops around the lake. I had to stop about a month ago because our garage door fell apart and it became too difficult to open and close in order to get the bike and trailer out. Well, the garage door should be getting replaced tomorrow! Hurray!

Click for some recent photos of our fall camping trip to Shenandoah and Crystal's Halloween costume.

Crystal 18-36 months

Other news:

At church, Crystal loves being in nursery while I teach the Sunbeams class.

Crystal 20 months old now and is part-time potty-training. I would let her be naked all of the time at home, except that she gets bad eczema (dry rashy skin) on her bottom in the winter and she needs clothes on to keep her skin protected from the dry air. So, right now I'm just letting her be naked every hour or so until she goes potty and then her clothes go back on. I'm afraid that that would be punishing her for going potty, so I still don't really have a coherent plan yet. I think that I should get some cloth diapers/training pants or something.

Crystal is also able to say pretty much every word now and several small sentences. She's very good at being polite by saying please, thank you, excuse me, and sorry all on her own. She counts to 12 and she sings some ABCs. She can even say prayers! But, she is still pretty quiet and shy in front of other people, just like her mommy and daddy are. She's also getting better at jumping. She has 16 full teeth.

She goes to sleep 8-9 pm, regularly wakes up for help-milk at 2am and 4am, and gets up at 6-7 am. I sleep on a separate bed in the same room. I think that I'll keep breastfeeding her until after she's at least two. It seems that I still haven't been able to get pregnant while breastfeeding which is fine because we're in no rush.

We're still living with just one car and it works just fine. I loving paying $800 less car insurance per year and not worrying about oil changes too.

We're trying to find a mortgage so that we can buy half of our house (the half that my Mother-in-law doesn't own). The house appraised at $245K, pretty low for it's size and neighborhood, because of its need of major remodeling.

I've also started math tutoring at home and I love it! It has all of the good things about teaching without the bad things like grading, classroom discipline, and bureaucrats. I charge $25/hour and I've only been advertising on craigslist. I need some more students, so please refer me to anyone you know that's looking for a math tutor. As I have a B.S. in Mathematics, I can help with pretty much any high school or college math course.