Where do I even begin??

It's been almost a month since I last blogged, yet it feels like soooo much has happened and changed since then that I don't even know where to begin.

Let's start with the girls...
Ashley has really taken off with so much lately. She is so bright--she can spell her own name, when she is asked her name she will say "Ashley Grace Shohen". She knows daddy's name is Matt, and mommy's name is Lisa. She knows that we live in Oakland NJ. She can count into the teens, she knows colors, shapes, ABCs.
Ashley's imagination has also really taken off. She loves to play make believe and pretend, whether it's playing with her baby dolls, cooking in her kitchen, finding bugs to collect, playing doctor,  playing house with her "Ashley girl", etc. It's so cute to watch what she comes up with.
She varies between wanting her independence, to recently asking for mommy to "come here" and help her a lot.
She is a happy go lucky kid who always has a smile on her face, is saying "hi" to people that we pass, or singing some song (which half they time she says "no mommy, no" if I try to chime in...lol).

Ashley is really liking her new house. It was funny, she had seen the house a couple times here and there while we were working on things, but we waited until the rooms were finished and the house was safe to move into with the girls before bringing them over. Well, once Ashley's room was painted and her furniture was in, I brought her over to show her her new room. Before we even got to the room, she had to stop in the bathroom and try out her new potty (although she's had little interest since then).
After the first night sleeping in the new house, Ashley said that her new house was "too cool!"

We've met a few friends, but her "best friend" here is Amanda, which is equivalent to her Eli and Katie (closest friends that she talks about a lot). She is excited that Amanda lives close by too.

Emily has taken off a ton too! For the longest time she was rolling everywhere, but with a new house and so much to see and to get to, she finally decided it was time to start crawling. About 2 weeks before she turned 9 months, she started crawling and hasn't stopped since. She gets around pretty fast too, and gets into EVERYTHING. I swear that girl has radar for things she's not supposed to touch, and goes straight for it. Haha.
Emily can also get herself into sitting position (has been for about the same amount of time now). She has mastered movement. I remember when Ashley was sitting up, she'd still fall backward from time to time or bump herself. Emily has great balance, and if she is going to fall while sitting or crawling, she almost always catches herself. I don't worry about her sitting up on a hard floor the way I had with Ashley--which is good since I'm not able to monitor as closely now that I have two.

About 4 days ago Emily also figured out how to pull herself up on shorter things, like pulling herself up onto the first stair, or onto Ashley's mini-seat. It won't be long now before she's pulling up on everything and walking.

She also "talks" a lot more--some actual words, others sounds/babbles but attempts to talk to you.

She still has some issues with swallowing food, but I brought it up with the pediatrician at her 9 month check up and she wasn't concerned. She said some are just slower than others, but she's still ok for her age. Although there are swallowing issues at times, she has no problem with fine motor skills and picking up food and bringing it to her mouth. At her 9 month appointment, she was up to 50% for her weight (which the doctor was pleased with), and 80% for her height. She was happy, healthy and on track with milestones. She didn't even cry when she got her shots--maybe it was because Ashley was singing the ABCs to her during them.

Emily went on her first real vacation last week. We went down to Wildwood for a few days and stayed with Lisa and Bruce. We had a blast--we spent some time on the beach, although Emily kept wanting to eat a pile of sand the whole time and wanting to crawl away...haha. She LOVED the boardwalk though, and seeing everything and everyone around her. We played at the playground, went on some amusement park rides, and spent time with grandmom and grand pop, along with aunts, uncles and cousins who visited for a few hours. Mommy and daddy also tried taking Ashley to the water park, but it was still too advanced for her. She was tall enough to go down the slides, but she had to go down alone and they were too big and scary. They had a "kiddy pool" area, but there was this huge bucket of water that came crashing down and scared all of us since we didn't know about it. So grandpop came and picked her up and Matt and I stayed and had a blast. He and I also visited the restaurant that we had gone to the night Matt proposed back in 2004, and we stopped at Stockton college where we had met on the way back. It was cool having the girls with us, knowing that that was where it all began for our family.

As for the house, it's starting to finally feel like home. It's really coming along. We had a "painting party", where some family and friends came and helped us paint the bedrooms, put up ceiling light/fan fixtures, change out outlets, change toilets, etc...It took us most of the day even with lots of help, so I can imagine how long it would have taken just Matt and I.

So far we have new light fixtures, new carpets in the bedrooms, wallpaper removed and kitchen painted, new washer and dryer in downstairs "laundry room" done. Everything is unpacked and in it's proper spot with the exception of pictures and china cabinet--waiting to paint before those get taken care of. Once my pictures are up, THEN it will really feel like HOME for me.
We have been enjoying it though--it was like Christmas morning when we first moved in and unpacked all of their old toys. They had EVERY toy out to play with. It was so sweet.

Well now that we have a lot of the "big stuff" out of the way, we can finally slow down a little and breath (hence the reason I am able to sit down and write after all this time). I will post pics of the girls and the house soon!