a move, a sickness that won't go away, a little teether, and giving thanks regardless

Ugh. Where do I begin? The good news is that we moved! We are all out of the old house and into the new one. We love our new house. It needs a lot of work, but we feel like it's a great, great house to raise our little family. Aaron commented that in the first 48 hours after moving in, we'd already met more neighbors than in the 6 years of living at our old house. We were especially thrilled to meet the family nextdoor. They have a little guy (Gunnar) who is a month younger than Neko. We haven't met Gunnar's dad yet, but Gunnar's mom (Devon) is very nice and bubbly. We also met the young couple across the street, the young couple behind us (a firefighter and a private school fundraiser). They are living with their parents while they remodel the house. It looks amazing. She invited us inside to see the work they are doing on it. And finally, the people across the street are older and very nice as well (a teacher). Marissa came over the other day, and we took Neko on a walk to let Aaron sleep. We walked over to the community garden at Rocky Mountain School of Expeditionary Learning and from there to a really nice park. I felt ecstatic. No hypodermic needles or creepy lurkers! Just quiet houses with children playing and people walking their dogs. Such a drastic difference from our old neighborhood. Thinking of this reminds me that the toll this move has taken on us has been totally worth it. Also- I got home yesterday in less that 30 minutes. Amazing!!!

**Aaron's been such a good sport. Putting up blinds so that we could have some privacy. Working hard to take care of his family, even while sick. I'm so thankful for my awesome husband.

I hope Neko looks back on this blog post and thanks us. Ha. He's such a little sweetie, we'd do anything for him. He's had a rough few nights (and, in turn, so have we). I'm not sure if he's teething (he drools a lot and chews on everything) or if he caught the virus Aaron had, but he's been up every 30-45 minutes for three nights. Aaron went to urgent care on Sunday night after his two-week cold turned into projectile vomiting. He got and IV for rehydration and some medication. Now I'm sick too. Such is life in the winter with a little one, I suppose. We are just trying to take care of ourselves and focus on what's good in our life. I won't bore you with the details of our plumbing disasters (flooding in the kitchen, still no sink in our bathroom- thanks Home Depot- you SUCK!), but suffice it to say that things have not been easy around here. Whenever I feel distressed, I watch videos of Neko giggling, then I start giggling, and I feel better.

*Clearing junk out of the old house.

What's new with him? He may be teething (as previously mentioned). He seems to have a little girlfriend, named Taylor. We got him an exersaucer (the new and improved version of what our generation called a "walker") because he likes the one at school. I dropped him off yesterday, put him in the excersaucer next to Taylor, and they just stared at each other and smiled. He's really noticing when we eat. He is fascinated by it. We'll probably start solids around Christmas. Aaron wants to make some baby food, and Melisa gave us a good book full of recipes. We like listening to our "Daddy Plays" lullabies. We have the Beatles one, the rock and roll songs, and the Christmas carols. They are really quite good. Liz, Irena, and Scott: Let us know if you'd like us to burn you some copies.

*Dachshund pants are from Kayla. So cute!

In spite of all of the madness, we were able to give thanks over the holiday. Aaron's parents very kindly drove out to help. They watched Neko in their hotel the day before Thanksgiving, (moving day), since his school was closed. It was so extremely helpful! On Thanksgiving Day, Aaron and I had to go back to the old house to get more stuff out (why do we have so much crap???). At about 5PM, we started wondering what we should do for dinner. Penny called several restaurants (all were closed). I finally thought of Mimi's Cafe. They were open, and they were selling traditional Thansgiving meals to-go. Score!! Aaron and I left Neko with his grandparents and ran out for food. It was surprisingly good, and we were all very thankful.

That's about it for now. Apologies in advance if you don't get any Christmas presents from us this year... We are so overwhelmed, I can't even think of it until we have a working bathroom, an unpacked house, and a healthy family. Happy holidays.