I think I've mentioned that Katie has found her thumb, and has determined that it is an acceptable alternative to nursing for 3 hours at a time. Overnight she has gone from hell baby to angel baby! She's fantastic! I'm now able to move her out of the bed and into her bassinet when she's done feeding. (It's only been, what, 4 months of her sleeping on top of me?) She still wakes up at the drop of a hat, but is able to sooth herself with her thumb. (Oh thank god!!) She is AWESOME!! Wonderful wonderful wonderful! I can’t say it enough!! She is just a happy, laid back, generally content little kid. In the mornings after her 5 am feeding I’ll move her from the bassinet (which is getting too small anyway) into the crib in JD’s room. Well, this morning JD came running in to sleep with me at 6:30 (like always) and actually crawled under the covers and fell asleep (like NEVER!) so at we got up quite a bit later and I’m feeding him breakfast and thinking – wow, Katie is really sleeping in, so I finally go in to check on her and there she is, completely happy, laying wide awake on her back playing with her fingers. What a great kid!!!!! She really is a joy.

Took Katie for her 4 month check up. She's 80 percent weight and 70 percent height. (IE bigger than 80 percent of all other babies) She weighs almost 17 pounds, which is less than I thought. The doctor always seems so amazed at my kids - he said she is obviously thriving and seems healthy as a horse. He said I could start her on food if I wanted, but added that there was absolutely no need to do so and that if I could get to 6 or 7 months it would be better. (He then had the audacity to ask if she was sleeping though the night, which of course she isn’t!) She was pretty irritated with him pulling on her legs and such and let out a few indignant screams, and gave him one of her world famous pouts. So the Doctor thought that was great and said, "Boy, she can really turn those tears on and off!" So Katie got a clean bill of health. She got several shots, and I just gave her some children's asprin. She wasn't too enthralled with that. Hey - if it's not a breast she doesn't want it in her mouth!!

She's amazingly strong. She can basically stand on her own. When she's awake she's amazingly alert. So people are always telling me how cute she is. Her eyes are still HUGE. And when she smiles it's this huge open mouth thing - like how Joker laughs in batman cartoons. She is also very gabby! She sings and sings! It’s almost like she’s having a conversation with you. She sit on my lap facing me, looking me straight in the eye, and she’ll babble something and then she pauses and waits for me to answer her. God am I in love with this little kid! What a difference a thumb makes!

On to JD. He is still smack in the middle of her terrible twos. What an independent, stubborn, frustrating, adorable little kid he is. One day he was particularly fussy, and I guess he wasn’t feeling well. So I gave him a morning nap and it was obvious he needed a second one. (Which had about the same chance as happening as Tim becoming Pope.) So he's been yelling and carrying on all day – throwing things at me and wanting to hit me etc. Well, rather than kill him, which is my first instinct, I decided to let him cry it out. (All the books say, take away the attention and the temper tantrum soon stops) This was a mistake as instead of working it our, he worked himself up and is TOTALLY out of his mind!! Running around throwing himself into things etc. I was afraid he was going to grab Katie and hurt her so I tried to bring him down here to calm him down but he's way out of it. How long do the terrible twos last? Although, he’s really not that bad. But boy oh boy, he does have his moments.

John’s parents came up the weekend of October 10-12. It ended up being really nice. John and his dad put in two new really nice outdoor lights over our two back steps. Before that we had lights that basically looked like hanging bug jars. Anyway, these are heat sensing lights, so if someone were to walk through our backyard they would go off – but they won’t go off for moving tree branches. We also even managed to go out to eat the one night, so that was a bonus. Oh yeah – at church that Sunday the family in the pew behind us had 8 kids. Wow!

We went to Pittsburgh the following weekend. Which was a total blast! On Friday Dad and Terri took John and I to my new favorite restaurant. It’s an old HUGE church they’ve converted into a restaurant. It’s simply gorgeous – they’ve turned the pews into the seats for the booths. It’s a really neat atmosphere, and the food is fantastic (and expensive). SO it’s always fun to go there with dad and Terri because they don’t mind dropping more on one dinner check than John and I spend in groceries in one week. So that was Friday. Sat. I spend most of the day with mom, and took the kids over there to spend the night. We ordered Pizza and Tim came over, than Tim, John and I went to the Penguins Hockey home opener. Spent Sat. night at my mom’s with the kids so that they get to know her better. It’s a little tight – JD’s on one bed, I’m in another and Katie is on the floor! However, they are great fun in the mornings and I think it’s important for Mom and Buck to have them over.

We came home Monday and of course had many kids eagerly awaiting our arrival. Got home and as we pulled in the driveway we had young people eager for attention following us into the driveway. James's stepdad has a huge pile of mulch sitting in the road in front of their house, and they said anyone can use it. The guy down the street with all the mulch - he gets it free because he drives a truck full of the stuff all day long. SO he drove his own truck to his front yard one day last month and piled it there. He then used maybe 3 cubic yards of it and has since asked the neighborhood to join in and use the rest of it, I guess so that he doesn't have to haul it away. Trust me – by using the mulch we are doing the entire neighborhood a favor since it appears he is going to let the remaining mulch (about the size of John's car!!) sit in the street until spring.

Anyway, John and I never have time to get wagon loads of this stuff, so last night we told James we would pay him 5 bucks for 5 big wheelbarrows full of the mulch. So he filled it up and dumped it where I said and all I had to do was rake it out. And JD followed James around like he was a God and tried to help out with his little shovel. Also, the thing about only paying James 1 dollar a wheelbarrow full. This is one of those occasions where I know he would do it for free simply to have me pay attention to him. (He's offered to cut our lawn for a dollar, which of course I won't let him do!). JD runs down to the mulch pile and "helps" James, which is hysterical since it usually involves JD climbing up on the top of the pile and rolling down it getting mulch absolutely everywhere including up his nose (a new record) and then JD uses his little plastic shovel to throw mulch in the general vicinity of the wheelbarrow. (all over James)

So, as you can guess John and I now have a friend for life! The school bus usually gets here about 2:40 and at 2:55 my doorbell was ringing. We got so much done that we are paying him another 5 dollars tomorrow for more mulch. I'm not sure we really need another 5 wheelbarrows full, but he was so excited about it. Is 5 bucks too much to buy a friend? I'll probably give Amanda .50 cents a wagon load (since it's smaller) so she can help and doesn't feel left out. (Day three of attempting to write this!) So James has now brought more mulch to our yard then we will ever need - mulch that I could get on my own, mind you, and not pay anyone. He thinks 10 dollars is a huge amt. and I even gave him a dollar tip for putting up with JD.