Rachel's Walking!!!!! (and January)

Okay, so I was going to write about what happened in January since I haven't yet, but most important things first: Rachel is officially WALKING! Over the last week or so she's been making the transition, but today she pretty much refused to crawl anywhere and so it's official. I don't know how my baby can old enough to walk, but it's true. I have pictures, but they're still on the camera; I'll try to get them up by the end of the week (how's that for a goal?).

Another development, much more annoying but also important, is that Karen started asking "why" this week. Now everything she sees, she asks why. "Why are we stopped, mommy, I want to go" "why is it raining still" "why does daddy have to go on campouts" and on and on... Of course each question is followed up by another why question, until it feels like all I'm doing is answering questions while following Rachel around trying to keep her out of all the things she can now reach! And it seems like half of her questions always come back to "Because Heavenly Father wants us to do that" or some other version of the same. At least she accepts that without question for now, but I know it won't last too long. I think I keep falling back on that because it's easier than getting into a discussion with a 2 year old on photosynthesis, aerobic v. anaerobic, or other difficult science question. Yesterday I got away with telling her that it was raining because heavy clouds came from somewhere else with rain, and the rain was too heavy so it had to fall down (technically true, but still a bit fuzzy).

Now to January, but just the most important features of the month. Of course Rachel's birthday was on the 18th, which I already put up the picts for. The other big event was Joe's qualifying exam. For those who don't know what that is (which is totally understandable...), think Comps. or Comprehensive Exam. If that doesn't help, it's a really big test over 2 days (8 hours long) that was devised especially for Joe by the professors that know him best, testing whether he had enough knowledge on certain specific subjects to start his dissertation process. Scary? Yes! However, he took it just before the semester started in January and he passed!!!!!!! YEAH!!!! What does it mean? Just that now he can continue in the program, work on his dissertation, and that someday (maybe just over a year????) he will actually be done with school and we can have a real job that pays real money (okay, so he makes real money now teaching, just not that much of it)! I was so excited for him that I threw a huge party at our apartment clubhouse the night after the test. We didn't even know if he'd passed it yet, but it was such a relief that it was over! And our turnout was amazing, too! Almost all of our friends here in the Charlotte area came, over 50 people! We had lots of yummy food and visited while Ratatouille (sp?) was on, then (when in Rome, right) watched the Carolina Panthers get creamed in the playoffs. Thanks to all of you who came to hang with us that night, it was really great. And to all of you who didn't, that's okay. I'd put up pictures for you, but I was so worried about everything else that I forgot my camera that night. Sigh. So, if any of you who came took any pictures I'd love a copy...

Really for me in January it was all about Twilight. I borrowed the books in December and read them all in 5 days, no mean feat for a mom with 2 little girls. Joe bought the box set for me for Christmas (love Amazon.com) and in January I read them all again, and then again. (yes, I got a little obsessed, and I did in fact read the entire series 3 times in 6 weeks. I'm better now, I think). We also saw the movie for the first time the week before Valentine's day and it got Joe interested enough that he read them too! Sad, I know, but I can't wait until the movie comes out on Saturday!!!! (even though it wasn't very good; the next one will be awesome though!)

That's more than enough information in one post I think; I'll try and break it up with some picutes later this week. As a last note, it's been so long since I did a lot of typing that my skills are not as good as they used to be. This really took me too long to type.