Time for a Family Update

I thought I would give a little paragraph on each one of us and what we have been up to recently.

Dan
Dan has been pretty good. He really enjoyed his trip home for Labor Day Weekend and his time that he got to spend with Katelynn before Junior and I got to Minnesota. I think it was really good for them. He did some farming with my dad to in Hawley for a few days which probably just made him want to move home that much more and be a farmer. (I am trying to hold him off at least a few more years before we really look at the situation.) Dan's work is starting to pick up again for him, so he has been much happier about that recently. He has been doing a lot of bidding on jobs with his contractors, but most of the jobs were not starting until February or March. Finally, a few of them are throwing caution to the wind and digging some holes and building a few houses. Most recent for Dan has been taking one for the team (our marriage and family) and going in and having the deed done. Our family is complete with a Mommy, Daddy, a daughter, and a son and as of last Friday there will be no more for us. He has been pretty good about this ordeal and really did it for me. The doctors had told him that is was much healthier for me not to be on birth control for the rest of my life and he made the decision that he would then do this for us, what a nice way to show his love for me.

Katelynn
Katelynn had her 4 year wellness check today, she did great! It put butterflies in my stomach to see and hear her interact with the nurses and the doctor. They asked her a bunch of questions and her face would light up when she knew that she was getting them right (and so did mine!) She had her eyes checked and did pretty good for the first time of holding something over one eye and then the other, although by the end I'm pretty sure she was bored with what she thought was a game and just started throwing out answers. Katelynn is big for her age. The doctor said that she is measuring at the same as an average 5 year old and that most strangers that meet her would assume that she is 5 1/2 years old.

The funniest thing of today was while the doctor was examining her, he would ask her questions.
First Question: "What is your name?" Answer: Katelynn Rose Davids
Second Question: "Does your mom have a name? Do you know it?" Answer: Mom (she wasn't sure she said what other name I had).
Third Question: "Do you know your Dad's name?" Answer: Dan
Later again with the Second Question: "Have you remembered your Mom's name?" Answer: No.
Doctor: "Okay, well, what does your dad call your mom?" Answer: Wife
That answer got her a pretty good chuckle and he told me and Katelynn, ya know your mom used to be a person too before she was mom and wife!

After her exams then she had to get 2 shots and her flu shot, she did pretty good and only a couple of tears. The doctor's office gave her a new book and a prescription for 1 free scoop of ice cream at an ice cream shop, which happened to be open at 10:30 am (it's a coffee shop too) so, we went after her appointment and each had a scoop of ice cream in a bowl and enjoyed some time just me and her.

Katelynn still has her little posse of friends waiting for her as soon as mine or Dan's vehicles pull up at the end of the day. Today she had 6 friends waiting for her car door to open when we got home and she couldn't wait to tell them how brave she was that she got 3 shots in her arm and then she got ice cream!

Junior
Junior is going to be 8 months old at the end of this week. Seriously, where has 8 months gone? This last weekend he has become mobile. He started getting rather frustrated, which is unusual for him, last week and now has started dragging himself across the floor to get to where he needs to go, or whatever toy of Katelynn's he thinks that he needs. I have a feeling it won't be much longer and he will be crawling. This is going to be quite a change for Dan and I, we never had to deal with Katelynn crawling and things being at that level in the house because she never crawled. This weekend we will need to start baby proofing, not easily done with all of Katelynn's things! Junior is still eating like a champ and has now mastered the graham cracker as well as pancakes and blueberry muffins for breakfast. Slowly I am starting to share tiny pieces of my supper with him and so far he has gobbled them all up. He also has his 2 bottom front teeth and we are waiting for more to come. He recently also has started to have a little separation anxiety over being left (or unseen) in a room. Poor little guy gives the saddest cry like he just lost his world if you leave him alone for a second. I haven't yet figured out if it's just me or with everyone. He is still sleeping like a champ, bedtime by 7:30pm and up around 6am-6:30am, although this last week with all of his little changes he has been trying to have his wake up time be 5:30am, but that doesn't work in our house, so you can talk in your crib or go by to sleep little man! (He usually opts to go back to sleep, which makes for a happy daddy during the week when he has to get up with him.)

Taryn
Work -
Work is going good. The transition / training into my Business Analyst position is finally starting to pick up speed. I have cleared my work schedule and have asked for 40 hours of BA duties (hoping for 30 since I guess I do have a few things on my plate still). I am going to be getting a few more projects in October and will hopefully be wrapping up my first project in the next month or two depending on the developers. I am still training on writing Crystal Reports and have now schedule 3 hours at home in the morning once a week to work on it. I will also be taking a 5 day training in Denver in November, they are even going to put me up in a hotel for the week, because it would cost almost the same to pay my mileage there and back every day. My soon to be boss, also said that I will probably need time to review what I learned and prepare for the next day, so time alone is going to be key, we'll see how Dan deals with that for 5 days?! I am looking at the first of the year to write my re-classification and finally be and be paid as a Business Analyst for the county!

HOA -
The HOA has again become a little busy. I am now going up against the Town Planning Commission Board and the Town Planner. I have been to one meeting and riled up a bunch of people in my subdivision regarding the town planner wanting to change our land use code to allow manufactured homes in any area and subdivision in our town. We feel that this is not a good decision for our town or our home values. The next meeting is October 7th and I will be there again after getting the last vote continued. This is some pretty good experience for me, for what, I'm not sure yet. So, here is my complaint about this ordeal: Nobody really knew, except for a few neighbors, that I was the president of the HOA or what I looked like, after attending the town planning board meeting and getting a lot of our residents there, now they know. The very next day after the meeting Dan had walked outside for a minute and there was a lady standing in our driveway, "Is your wife home?" - Dan came in and said someone was asking for me (he thought it was the mayor, it wasn't). I walked outside and it was an older lady from down the block that met me the night before at the meeting all riled up about the situation and wanting to talk or vent or who knows what. As soon as she opened her mouth about the HOA, I stopped her and asked her if it could wait because it was 6:10pm and I was eating supper and feeding my children supper. I walked down to her house, with both children in tow (just to let her know she was imposing on my family time) to ask her what she needed. She wanted me to call the local newspaper and put in an article regarding the changes to the code. I am probably not her favorite person anymore and was probably slightly rude or aggressive with her, but told her she could call the paper, but if she was looking for me to do it on behalf of the HOA that wasn't going to happen and explained to her that I have to deal with the town staff and boards on other issues besides just this one and basically I am not going to piss them off. My issue with this is, I have never seen or heard from this resident before on any issue and now that I let her know about this one, she is up in arms stating that the town is trying to hide things and such, uh, no lady, it's posted on their website every month what their agendas are and the minutes after - hello! Well, enough of that, hopefully the meeting goes well, I have my notes on what I want to state to persuade the board not to pass the code changes, but also have a few things regarding my HOA and covenants to protect us in case they do.

Life
Everything else is running pretty smoothly right now. Some days of course are a little dejavu, but I can deal with that. If anyone would like to come and mop my floors or even better buy me a new Scooba to do it for me, I would love you forever! The laundry never seems to be done and I have still given in a little more that my house will just never be completely in place and clean for awhile, lately I even feel that I have been just moving stuff from one room to another room only to then have to move something from that room to another room, what the hell?
We are enjoying our Sundays watching the Vikings Football games as well, there's nothing like Football Season!