It's been a long time.....

I didn't realize it had been over a month since I updated. We've had a lot of things happen, so be prepared for a long one.

• I already talked about when Téa took her first steps, but she hasn't really used walking as her primary means of transportation until this past week. She would take a few steps, but as soon as she fell, or got to another couch/wall to hold onto, she was either crawling, or holding onto something to walk. Then, finally, in this past week, if she falls, she gets up and continues walking. She doesn't hold onto the couch/wall, even if she's right next to it. She's so cute - she looks like this tiny midget person walking around. We love it!
• Elena is still not potty-trained. We're not being that vigilant about it. I put und*es on her, but then after a few accidents I get frustrated and put the diaper back on. I don't know, maybe she's just not ready. She definitely wants the candy reward, but she just doesn't tell us when she needs to go.
• On the subject of candy - she's HOOKED. I can't get her to not think about the stuff. She's constantly talking about how she loves candy. One day she came to me and said, "Mom, Nena sick. Nena doctor office. Nena shot. Nena Band-Aid. Nena candy." (The final sentence said with a huge grin.) What a manipulater!! Then when we had to take Téa to the doctor's, we were waiting for him to come into the room and Elena got all upset and said "Mom, Nena no need shot. Just candy".
• On the talking subject, she has really started talking a lot lately. It's weird. She was talking before, but just basic things, you know? Now all of a sudden she's talking in sentences and using big words, and just sounding so grown up. It's just going so fast.
• Oh, and today, she started singing a new Eminem song that Keith likes and sings all the time. She was walking around the house saying "Shakin that butt on the floor" over and over. Thanks, Keith. Really.
• Amya is reading!!! Kind of. Well, yeah, she is. We got some 1st reader Dora books from the library and have been going over and over them, and she's really reading a lot of the words. She already knew some words before, but now she's doing 'and', 'the', 'at', 'we', 'look', and other ones like that. We worked with some of the word cards she has and she learned a lot of words that way to. For example, one of them had the ending '-ay', so she learned say, play, pay, and stray. She's so smart!!!
• The pregnancy is going pretty well. No real nausea or anything. I do have a major pain in my hip/pelvic joint today though. Really making walking hard. I think I'm starting to feel the baby move, but not that much. I have an appointment on Thursday for a regular check-up. I'll be 18 weeks this week. Hopefully we can find out in 2 weeks what this baby is!!!
• Now for the last part of my post today. I really didn't want to talk about this just because it's been upsetting me so much, but Joe died yesterday. We still don't know exactly what happened (we shoudl find out later on today or tomorrow) but Noel found him in the bathroom at the farm yesterday. I guess what's bothering me the most is the fact that he was alone. No one was there to comfort him, to tell him they loved him, or that they'd miss him. He was just alone. And who knows for how long. And also, he's been pretty upset the last few weeks, and I feel bad that he left this world in a not happy state. I know he's gone to a better place and that he's much happier now, he's not crippled anymore, and all that, it just still makes me sad about how he spent his last few weeks. And I think about how if we had known, we would have spent more time with him. It's just sad for me.

So to end, here's a picture of Joe with Amya and Elena at the farm on Aug 20, 2005. The girls had wanted to show him something and he gladly went to the back with them. He always had candy for them when they came over, or he'd buy some for them if we were out together. He'd give them money to play games at the pizza place. He bought Old Yeller and Savage Sam for Amya when we were at Sam's because he heard her telling me that she wanted them. He really loved the girls, and they loved him. Especially Elena. She was always with him when we were at the farm. We're really going to miss him.