Feeling blessed

I am really enjoying having my parents here.  Even with all of their move stuff to do, they have been a huge help.  I have gotten more done in the last few days then probably in the couple of weeks before.

A few of my friends have also had some really rough things happen, and these really put things in perspective.  A friend from Huntington who now lives in Ohio had her basement flooded.  But an even sadder one happened to a fellow graduate student.  She was ahead of me and the first projects I worked on, including the giant panda foraging one, were her projects.  She helped me in designing my masters and we had reconnected over facebook, sharing being academics and mothers and commenting on each others cute photos.  She has a 5 year old girl and 2 year old boy.  They live in Bastrop, Texas since her husband does cancer research at MD Anderson Cancer Center.  They were out of town in Dallas and a huge fire burned through their neighborhood (http://www.kvue.com/video/featured-videos/Update-on-Bastrop-fire-129290693.html).  All they most likely have left is their lives, some clothes, and some toiletries.  Their pets were most likely killed, but they cannot get back to check.  I cannot even imagine how horrific this would be.  It definitely makes the day to day stressors seem so insignificant.  Every now and then something like this comes along to remind me how cruel life can be and how you must really focus on your blessings and enjoy what you have.  And that you need to be prepared the best you can.  It is not a bad idea to have a video surveillance of your home and to keep photos digitally somewhere besides your house.

We continue life as usual, staying busy.  Sam does not like to nap, so we let her "rest", which usually involves reading and singing.  The other day she fell asleep with a book on her head.

And we have been so busy with everything that I have hardly taken pictures.  But here is one with my mom and the girls.

Sam keeps trying to bring the 80's back.  These made sense in WV winters, not so much in FL summers.

Zoey is loving sitting up and playing with toys.

And she keeps trying to crawl.  She can go for 3-5 strides and use rolling to get all over her room.  But she often gets in this downward facing dog position, bottom up, legs stretched out, and seems to expect to move forward.  

She usually ends up sitting though.

But she can crawl short distances now.  I am sure she will put it together soon.