THE Banana..

Hi my name is Hannah Elizabeth Greutman, my mommy calls me Banana.

I love to growl like a dinosaur.

I love to eat rice cereal in the morning and cry when I sit in my highchair when I don't get fed it at dinner time.

I sleep 10 hrs a night without waking to eat, except I make my mommy put my binkie back in my mouth around 5:30 am every morning (my mommy is working on breaking me of this).

I smile all day long, seriously, all day.

I laugh only when I am really tired, and it is not a girly laugh, it is a big goofy laugh.

I love my brother a lot, he makes me laugh a lot!

I love sitting in my new girly exersaucer.

When I cry I stick my bottom lip out and pout.

I talk a lot at night during the hours of 7pm and 9pm, I think this is the time I have the most energy.

I have reflux and i try to close my mouth every time my mommy tries to give me my medicine. recently I have been grabbing my medicine dropper and trying to pull it out of my mommy's hand.

I recently learned how to pull my binkie out of my mouth but I just can't seem to get it back in there the right way. Usually I try to put it in my eye but that doesn't feel too well

I love my mommy and will only eat from a bottle when she is feeding me. I throw up a lot when anyone else feeds me.

I love watching TV, when my mommy feels nice she puts me on the floor with my brother in the morning to watch Curious George.

I love my Daddy and laugh the most at him.

I take 3 naps a day and one short nap at night.

I am 4 1/2 months old and REALLY cute!

I think that is about it right now. I have a great life and am a lot of fun!

My handsome boy!

I love my son!! He always makes me giggle, always keeps me honest and on my toes, and never lets me forget how much smarter he is than me (or so her thinks). Andrew has had a harder transition than most of us. Living in different houses without his friends next door, starting a new school, having to deal with a stressed out mom the first few weeks. Through lots of prayer and petition he has finally started to settle into a new groove. He has made some friends at his pre-school. He has adjusted to living with my sister and brother in law. We are excited to move into our new townhouse on Tuesday

Our side is on the left when looking at it (where the black car is parked). It is a small townhome with 3 bedrooms and 1 1/2 baths. It probably is around 1100 sq. feet. It will be tight, but it will be awesome to be freed from the burden of paying a large monthly mortgage.

Anyways, back to Andrew. He makes me so proud of him when he is in school. He is doing such a great job obeying his teacher and brought in one of his GeoTrax trains for show and tell today. I am loving my new schedule. Andrew in pre-school 3 mornings per week. Hannah sleeps for 2 hrs while he is at school. I have some much needed alone time where I can sit in prayer or pay bills or be on the computer uninterrupted. I am just loving this new season that we are in. Still missing SC but it is not as hard as I it was a week ago. I have such great friends here and am so thankful!

Here is my little man when apple picking a few weeks ago!

Surprise Baby Shower and Baby girls everywhere...

One of my best friends Rachael is due with her 2nd baby in the beginning of December. My sister Jenna threw a surprise baby shower for her on Sunday. I don't know why I didn't take any pictures from the day. Rachael and I met when I was a Junior in college, she was a Freshmen. We became really good friends right away, we both went to the same Christian Campus Group. Mark and I had just started dating when me and Rach met. Rachael started liking Mark's really good friend Tim. Rachael and Tim got married 2 yrs later. They now have a beautiful and very active 2 year old boy Logan. Yesterday he stuck a metal paint can opener in a light socket, and when I was on the phone with her last week she had to go because Logan rode his tractor down the stairs. To say the least Rach has her hands full and is now preparing for the arrival of her baby GIRL in the next few weeks. It was such a great time for me to get re-connected with old friends and be able to bless Rach!
My other really good friend Robin had a baby girl 2 weeks ago. Here is a picture of Hannah and beautiful Julia.

Hannah is now 15 lbs.

With Jenn getting her this week we are going to have 6 baby girls in the span of a year. Bella is the oldest. Then my friend Cory has a baby girl Amelia who is 6 wks older than Hannah. Then Hannah, Julia, Rachaels' baby girl, and my sister Jenna's baby girl due in January. My sister Caitlin is also having a baby girl due in the begining of March. I am so blessed and prayed so hard that Hannah would have girlfriends who grow up and who love the Lord. My prayer has been answered more than i could have imagined. Although I am missing my friends from SC, I am so blessed to have such amazing friends here. Friends that I have weathered through many storms with and will continue to raise our families together.

Missing 'home'

I am sitting here laying in my bed at my sisters home surrounded by mess. My mattress is on the floor, my clothes are laying around me wanting to be washed. I am surrounded by unpaid bills that I keep on forgetting to pay, and I am missing my 3200 sq. ft home and my friends. I knew that the excitement of moving back 'home' to NY would soon wear off and I would be sad and miss SC. I didn't know that it would be this quick. Andrew cried today asking when he would see his friends again. I cried knowing that we didn't know when we would see them again. I sit here in tears, wanting to see my friend Lora's smiling face, hear Sooz's laugh and let Andrew play with his best friend Ivory. I want to feel Lindsay's hug and prayers for me. And be able to walk a few houses down to Jenn's house to hang out with her and just relax. I want to host a chocolate fondue party with all my best girlfriends from 'home' in SC just one more time and give you all big hugs again.
I love being here in NY with all my friends here. I love being back at the church where Mark and I met and started our lives together. I don't love living out of boxes. One of the greatest things I have learned since moving back here is how important I am to my children.'Home' is not a place, it is wherever my kids and my husband are. Andrew has been acting out lately, he misses SC a lot, I can tell. We don't have any friends here that live less than 30 minutes away who have kids Andrew's age. We need to find local friends. He is lonely, I can tell. That breaks my heart, I need to step it up more as a mom and love him more. Spend more time with him, quality time where I am listening to him, playing with him, loving him. I love being near Mark's parents. I love being able to just go over there for dinner, drop the kids off for a date night like we did last night, and hang out with Jenna and Isaac. I am just missing my own space I guess.....missing my amazing girlfriends who I left in SC. I can't wait for Jenn to get here, I think that will help me a lot when her and Joel get here....give me some part of SC back to me. My time in SC was probably the most amazing 3 yrs of my life. I have learned so much that I can never change, and I love that.
I love you girls, my friends in SC! I can't wait to see you again!
Oh and I forgot to post pictures of Andrew's first day of school. He is doing great there, despite all the crazy changes here. Oh and please please please pray for our family, the swine flu is breaking out at his school, I have asked my mother in law to send an mail out (she is the principal at his school) to have parents come to pray over the school with me sometime next week. Pray that we stay healthy, especially Hannah since the flu would affect her the most since she is so young... Speaking of Hannah, she ate her first bowl of rice cereal tonight. Pictures to follow...
Proud mommy with Andrew

Andrew with grandma AKA principal Greutman
Oh and I also got a new hair cut....

Also, Mark and I did something daring last night....wanted to be crazy. We snuck into the local college ice hockey game. I know I know, that is illegal, but it sure was fun!!!

Phew....

We found a rental home!! We can move in Nov 10th at the latest. It is a small 3 bedroom 1 1/2 bathroom townhome with a garage. It is perfect for us now. Many of you whole read my blog have never been here in Oswego. Let me first just explain to you that rental property in Oswego is NOT nice. The houses are old, like 150 yrs old, they are usually really outdated and dirty. I looked at a rental house yesterday with part of the roof missing, garbage in the backyard, and some windows missing. Not to mention most of the floors are crooked in these houses. The fact that we got a 20 yr old townhome in great condition is a miracle!!! Just another miracle to add to the miracles that have happened the past 4 months.

I found out yesterday that my sister Caitlin is having a baby girl too! That means that me and my 2 sisters will each have girls within 8 months of each other. I am so excited, and this means that Andrew will be forever chased by younger girls.

In other news, we still have no closed on our SC house, the bank is taking a long time to finalize everything, but we let the buyer move in two days ago dispite this. I know it has been weird for my friends to see someone else living in 'our' house. Jenn and Joel are moving here next weekend, we are REALLY excited to see them and get to hug my nieces and nephews.

Ben and Bekah has their baby boy Nathanael on Oct 21st. Everyone is doing great there! I am now an aunt to 5, and 2 more on the way....

Wow, there has been a lot going on in my life lately. On top of taking care of 2 kids and living out of suitcases. God is so good to us!

Crazy days!

Since leaving SC we have been on a crazy train. We were so eager to get out of SC and sell our house that we did not think about how much work it would be to live with ppl here. We stayed at Mark's parents house for a week, which was amazing, relaxing, and refreshing. We did not want to leave there, Andrew cried a whole lot and that made me cry too. We had been house hunting all week and found a house that we really liked, we were all prepared to put an offer in. But a few things came up and we are no longer going to be buying a house now. Since Saturday we have been living with my sister Jenna and my brother in law Isaac. It has also been great living here too. They have a 4 bedroom house, one of the bedrooms is my sisters photography office since she runs her own, very successful, photography business. During the day I have to move Hannah's pack and play into Andrew's bedroom, then I have to move the pack and play into our bedroom while Andrew is down for his nap, and then at night time I move her pack and play into Jenna's office. To say it have been crazy is an understatement. I am so exhausted. I want my stuff, which is in storage. I want my own space. It sounds great to live with others but i forgot how hard it is.....

We have found a few rental properties that we are going to look at in the next few day and continue to save for the next year to put a large downpayment on a house. I can't wait to get into our own place.

Here is a little picture of Hannah. This is how she shows me that she is really tired, it is so cute!!

In the meantime I am enjoying not paying a mortgage and having ppl to talk with and fellowship with every night. I love my sister and she is having her first baby in the middle of January so I am having fun rubbing her belly a lot too!

we're here!!

We are here in NY. It is stinkin cold here. Yesterday it was 48 degrees. The trip went very smoothly! Both kids were great. The first 6 hour stretch that we did on Friday Hannah decided she didn't want to sleep. So by the time we got to the hotel in Maryland she was a wreck. I kicked everyone out of the hotel room so Hannah could sleep. It was really fun because Joel decided about an hour before we left to come with us. So all 6 of us (Mark and I , our 2 kids, Joel and Amy) crammed in a hotel room for the night. Hannah woke us all up at 5:30 am, so we got ready and were on the road by 7:45. The last 6 hrs was a breeze, we stopped only one time. I fed Hannah in her car seat. She slept a few hours out of the 6. Andrew was amazing as he usually is in the car. We got to NY around 2 in the afternoon and had the house to ourselves. Mark's parents were camping that day and so we had the house to ourselves. My mom and sister drove up from Saratoga to meet us and we had the night to hang out with my pregnant sisters and my mom. It has been very busy since we got back. We have looked at 6 houses so far, nothing that really fits with us yet. We are looking at another 5 today and if one of those don't work for us, we are going to have to rent a house for a year. It has been great to be with our old friends!! I miss my girls from SC terribly! I miss the weather there too. I know that this was the right decision for us, as soon as the excitment of moving home goes away I am sure I will miss it more. I just wanted to update you on what is going on with us. I will write again in a few days to let you know about our house hunt.