Team Bolen

2012 has started out pretty well. Team Bolen was finally able to kick that nasty sickness funk that descended upon our house on 9 Nov. I know the date it started since Victoria came home from day care with a runny nose the day before Alexandria was born and it just progressed from there!

So we are all healthy again. Lex is growing like a weed. She is just over three months old and is already 12 lbs! What a chunker! She's now wearing 6-month sized clothes and is very focused on filling her tummy! She is such a happy baby though, always smiling and giggling. She's quite ticklish and when I tickle her ribs she gives me this deep baby belly laugh. Its just too adorable!

Bean's hair is continuing to grow (we were wondering when/if it would come in for a while there!) and its getting redder and curlier with each day. I doubt she'll have classic curly hair, but it definitely curls and wings out at the ends! She's still using her baby sign language as her main communication method, but her words are starting to get more defined. Hi and Bye are probably the most clear while "B-Dee" (binky) and "bots" (pants) are some of her more frequently used ones. "Cheeze" (cheese) is still a favorite of mine.

We went to JC Penny this past weekend for some family pictures and it was a hoot to watch the circus in trying to get two babies to look and/or smile at the camera. J.E.B. and I were laughing most of the time at the theatrics. Bean was rather unsure of what to make of the photographer so we have no pictures of her by herself and only a few of her and Lex. She pretty much demanded to be in J.E.B.'s arms or in his lap the whole time. Lex was happy and placid as you might expect from a full belly! Overall we had a pretty good time.

As many of you know, we are getting out of the military this summer and things are now starting to happen in that respect. For about a year, J.E.B. has been working with a placement agency and things were progressing but slowly. I mean, really, what company will hire someone 12 months before the job opening?! But with early June as a potential start date for him, the beginning of the final stages is happening. We are going to a hiring conference in the end of March and then things will (hopefully) start to happen rather quickly. We still don't know where we'll be headed but that is part of the excitement of this process for us. We'll know soon enough though!

That's about it for right now. Its going to get rather busy here in a bit but for right now things are good.

Here are a number of pictures from the past two months. I also uploaded some videos to dropshots, so check out the link to the right.