My last few months in pictures:  (see, we're all still alive!)  I've been working on crocheting a new afghan lately, I'm more than halfway done!  If I remember to I'll post a picture soon. 

Ricky is talking plenty now, finally!  He's still "behind" but he's progressing so quickly we're not worried about him anymore.  He says probably at least 40-50 words now, when just 6 months ago he barely said anything.  He learns a new word or 2 practically every day and can combine 2 words together sometimes!  His vocabulary is limited more, now, by us than by himself.  He'll learn any word we teach him easily and quickly, but we don't bombard him with words every day.

Owen is 5 months old now, and is already almost crawling!  He'll probably be crawling by the time he is 6 months old.  He already gets up on his hands and knees and rocks back and forth.  He gets very frustrated when he does that because he can't move forward yet like he wants to, and he usually starts to cry.  Very impatient little guy, Ricky just got bored when he couldn't figure out how to crawl and decided to roll to where he wanted instead.

Other than that, Owen is very very mild tempered.  He only cries when he wants to eat.  He smiles as soon as you look at him usually, and aside from his amazzzing blue eyes, his personality is what we get the most compliments on.  He's just a sweet happy little boy.  What else could I ask for?

Eric is doing great at work, hopefully up for another promotion within the next 6 months or so.  At that point we'll almost definitely be financially independent again, and I'll sigh the biggest sigh of relief knowing we'll easily (hopefully) be able to afford all our bills and all we need without having to budget so tightly or stress out so much. 

Unfortunately, the cost of Eric succeeding in his job is that we don't get to see him much.  He works 5 days a week, sometimes 6, and very very rarely works a shift that's shorter than 10-12 hours, and frequently works up to 14 or 15 hour shifts.  His shifts always vary, sometimes he might start work at 6 in the morning and work until anywhere between 4 and 8 in the evening, and then other days he might start at 3 in the afternoon and work until almost daylight.  But whenever he gets that next promotion he'll have more control over his schedule.  It should probably get a little better for us eventually. 

I guess one more thing that deserves mentioning is that I've been losing weight!  I'm currently almost 40 pounds below the highest I ever weighed when I wasn't pregnant.  I've probably lost about 50 pounds since I was 9 months pregnant with Owen just 5 months ago, and I weigh less now than I did when I met Eric.  I still have a ways to go, but I'm pretty excited.