Settling in

Here we are on Weatherstone place. Woodstock, GA is our new home. Settling in hasn't been easy. Of course Mark has been starting a new job, and that is always overwhelming. Here at the house, most of the boxes have been unpacked and collapsed. We had to fight to get our little Nora accustomed to a toddler bed and her new room. The first night was a nightmare. She screamed when we closed the door, then later in the middle of the night, we heard her crying again, then a huge thud and a scream. I woke up from a very tired sleep to a bad stomach ache from panic and soothed her till she was quiet, only to hear Audrey screaming! I now have been feeding Audrey in the middle of the night every few nights. Oh, and night #2, Nora woke AGAIN in the middle of the night, and she would not let me leave her. I ended up camping on her floor till daylight. Man did I feel old when I woke up with bruised hips. The sleep thing has improved for Nora...well until she recently got Hand Foot and Mouth Virus AGAIN!!! She has been feeling terrible. Her mouth is all blistered and eating and even yawning hurts and makes her cry. She has hardly eaten or drank for the last few days. The only part I secretly enjoy is how cuddly she now gets on the couch when I put on a movie. Poor baby. Now her high fever is essentially gone and her little sister is getting really fussy and hard to feed or put to sleep at night. I PRAY that she doesn't have it too now.
Since we have been here, Nora has turned 2, and has begun speaking in sentences quite regularly. Audrey has turned 6 months, sits up very well on her own, is contemplating crawling (but has more interest in log-rolling), popped her first two teeth, and started solids. The girls now play together, eat together and bathe together. It's all pretty fun to watch. My favorite part is when they sleep together--er--uh--at the same time anyway. That's when mommy-time happens...or house cleaning anyway. Any kid-free time is pretty therapeutic for me these days.
It's funny, Nora has a few new fascinations she has discovered here in GA that she never knew in Arizona. Mailboxes. The kid LOVES mailboxes. Wants them all to be hers. We cross train tracks in old-town Woodstock, and she LOVES them too. "Thomas goes!" she shouts every time we cross them. She loves passing horses, and she liked that back in AZ too, but here she gets to go see them up close because I have connections with three different stables here. Every night when I tuck her in she tells me she wants to "see horsies" tomorrow. And sometimes we do. Rain is one of her favorite things here. She will hear thunder...or just see a nice little cloud and say "Rain coming! Rain coming!" It keeps our spirits up on overcast days. She is pretty happy here. I'm trying to learn from her and take note of the simple pleasures better. Oh, and she loves "Packick!" Patrick Flowers is 9 weeks younger than her. Their relationship has been long distance until now. Those two are hilarious together. Patrick's little sister, Madelyn is 11 weeks younger than Audrey as well, and those two are as chummy as babies can be...which is a very limited amount of chumminess...but it is still cute to see them together. They'll be great buds someday! Of course Toby and Angie, their parents are wonderful old friends of ours and we are SUPER excited to be near them again! Things are very good here. Tired and somewhat stressful right now, but good. We love our home, and our neighborhood, and the people and weather here, and we are indeed blessed.