Matt and Courtney: January

This month seems to have flown by thought it really wasn't too busy. We started off the new year with Matt heading to Boston for his national sales meeting. It is always sad for me when he goes, because I so wish I could go with him and visit with my dear friends from when we lived there. But when it comes down to it.......early January in Boston is NOT the time to visit especially with a toddler. So while we missed Daddy, Hannah and I had a great week getting back into the swing of things from all of our holiday travels! We got back into the routine of going to the YMCA, which Hannah has been tolerating so well! The first few times we went, she cried when pulling up to the building, but starting this January, there have been no tears!! Unfortunately, a couple weeks into the month, Hannah started to spike fevers though she seemed to feel well. The doctor determined that she didn't have the flu or strep throat, but just a virus. So a few days later, her fevers stopped, but then the cold began! She was coughing a ton, hoarse, and had a runny nose. Of course then, I got sick! So we had a week and a half of our routine down the drain trying to get everyone well again! I was most sick the weekend of my birthday which was also MLK weekend. Besides not feeling great, Matt and I went out to a wonderful birthday dinner while his Aunt and Uncle watched Hannah. We are so thankful to have them near and so thankful that they love our daughter!

At the end of January, we closed on our first home!!! We are so incredibly excited to move into our house, and finally settle into our little life in Huntersville, NC. We will be living just down the street from Lake Norman and a few miles away from our new church.

Oh and I almost forgot, in the middle of January we had our 20 week ultrasound! I cannot believe I am already halfway finished with this pregnancy! We are pleased to say that the baby is healthy and active! He/she was being very shy and did not give us a good image of his/her face, but on the positive side, we get to see him or her again in February! The way the baby was positioned, the tech was unable to do all of the heart measurements (everything is good, they just need a few additional measurements), so they want to try again and see if he/she will cooperate a little better! As I did with Hannah, I'm pretty much carrying this baby all out front, and again, as I did with Hannah, I'm already getting comments asking when I'm due and unbelief that I have so much more time left!

Hannah's words really took off this past month. She is starting to try to repeat words when you ask her. A few new words are balloon, please, coffee, ice, goat, owl, bye, see you, ball, hat, and tons more! Her vocabulary is growing by the day! She still doesn't say mama and refuses to try to say her name. If you ask her to say "Hannah", she ignores you first, and if you keep asking, she just says "no". I'm sure it will come in time! She still loves to talk on the phone and loves bedtime. She has also gotten quite possessive over her toys. She will have toys all over the house, and when I start to clean up something she isn't playing with anymore, she immediately comes over wanting to play! But that just means that whatever she was playing with is now all over the floor! The good thing is, that she is very obedient and when I tell her that we are cleaning up the toy (ex. blocks), she will help me. While she has always been very interested in books, she is getting to where she can really sit down and listen to you read the whole book! She also loves to point to things in books like different animals, balls, babies, hats, glasses, trees, flowers, etc. It is very cute to watch her searching for whatever I ask her to find.