hitting our stride

It has been quite the year I'll be honest. We've had so many transitions it's hard to know where to begin. Sometimes it was hard for me to sit back and enjoy the ride, but I feel like now we, as a family are starting to get the swing of things.

Starting mid-January it felt like we went from zero to sixty all at once. We had a short reprieve from the craziness after we settled into our rental in Bellingham, but as soon as the house buying/fixing up/family visits started, it got pretty darn busy around here!

In the matter of a few weeks we had a laundry list of things that had to be done on the house before we could move in which included; painting trim, painting Keelan's room, putting in new carpet in the refinished basement, refinishing the bedroom floors (they're fir!), installing a closet, major cleaning of the whole place, unpacking TWO shippments of our belongings (one from Alaska and one from China), and a whole list of handyman stuff - like missing doorhandles, adding new locks and the like. I'm so glad that we decided to do as much now as we could afford, that was a piece of advice I got from my Mom who said "do it now or it will be years before you get to everything!"

In our parade of visitors, we also had both Todd's dad Bruce (twice!) and my Dad, Steve who did a lot of the random handyman stuff that had to be done. And Todd's mom Sharon and my mom Susan to help with the biggest task of all... Keelan. He's a busy one, to put it lightly.

Now that the house stuff has started to slow down, I'm starting to focus more on getting involved in all the wonderful things there are for babies and tots here in Bellingham. Right now we have so many fun things that are availble to do throughout the week, and many are FREE! MOM's club activities like play dates and swimming, library story time, a free yoga class (for me!), an open play gym in Ferndale, Nature Babies - exploring local parks with toddlers, and Music Together classes - my Mom paid for this one (Thanks Mom!). We've also gone to a handful of other playgroups recently that have been a lot of fun for Keelan. I guess I just really enjoy having something that we can do everyday, whether we actually do it or not, that's another story ;-)

For myself I've been helping out in the local Baha'i community Children's classes on Sundays - teaching songs and doing crafts, and also taking the free yoga class. Todd has been playing in a co-ed soccer league on a team called the 'Road Turtles', isn't that the cutest name? I love it, they're the little bumps in the median of the road. We've also been going up to Mt. Baker pretty much every Saturday, which can be trying on me sometimes, but it's worth it. It's about an hour and a half drive up to the mountain then Todd and I trade off and on a couple times (with skiing and watching Keelan in the lodge) before driving home. It's a commitment both of time and finances (gas, the season's passes), but after four years of living in Shanghai and no skiing, it was high time to be up skiing again!

Here are a couple of pics of the inside of our house. It has been so fun decorating with all the stuff from our travels, it reminds me of how incredibly lucky we are to have done so much exploring before Keelan was born. There is also a major 'Asia' vibe going on in our house :-)

these are a few of his favorite things

In the past three months, Keelan has morphed from baby to full on toddler! He is a walking, running, climbing, dancing, babbling and signing champ. He amazes me how much he is absorbing and how much he retains! Here is a list of some of his current "skills" :-)

-Points at the ABC cards hung in his room when he wants me to sing the ABC's

-Puts his fingers together when he wants me to sing itsy bitsy spider

-Makes the sign for 'eat' and 'milk'.... the kid loves eating, what can I say?

-Kisses pictures of babies, and sometimes other actual babies.

-Nods his head, swings his arms and does baby squats when he's getting his dance on

-Plays chase around the house with Todd and I, or any visitors who are willing

- Has learned to LOVE snow, not afraid to walk around, sit, eat and play in the snow up at Mt. Baker. 

- Says: Dada, GaGao (for our cat Xiao Mao), car, and the occational 'Mama'.

On another note, within the last three months we've moved into our new house and had a long parade of family visitors/helpers. This parade continues on pretty much through the end of March and then tapers off for our summer travels. My efforts to document these big changes for our family hasn't happend yet, but I hope to get my act together before I forget everything that's happend :-)