Toddlers and sleeping...

The fight almost every day at naptime is getting my two little ones to sleep. Since we haven't moved (were suppose to move last July, but the builder didn't follow through and got fired, so maybe in a couple months, if we are lucky!!), the kids share a room. An almost 11 month old and almost 3 year old in the same room doesn't work well for naptime. Today was nothing out of the ordinary... the little ones laughed and played instead of sleeping and when the youngest was almost asleep the older one started kicking the wall. He always claims he can't sleep, but soon after I put him in my bed for nap, he is out! So, then tonight the kids are in bed shortly after 8:00 (maybe closer to 8:30 since the toddler didn't want to clean up and put up a huge fight!!). My husband and I were watching tv down in the family room and I hear footsteps around 9:30. The toddler has come downstairs and says he can't sleep. We are about to tell him to head back upstairs and he just lifts up the blanket by my husband and crawls under the blanket onto the couch. Doesn't sound too funny as I type it, but it was the funniest at the time. So, stays down with us until around 10:00 and then heads back up to bed (not without a fight, though!). He surely is into arguing these days.... we argue several times a day! I guess that is life with a toddler.

Travel with little ones...

This past weekend I spent a long weekend visiting family in Twinsburg, Ohio (just outside of Cleveland). It is a five hour trip, so with two little ones I just never know how easy or hard it may be. This trip was a breaze with the two little ones. I always stop 2 to 3 hours into the trip so we can eat lunch and nurse my youngest. The stop is usually over an hour, but so worth the trip. Both ways went fairly well, with only a little whining by the toddler and a little crying by the little one. We dealt with some yucky weather, most of the way there, and had to have the heat on 80 degrees for most of the trip on the way there, due to freezing rain. The trip home we dealt with a little rain and snow, but nothing too bad. I was praying we would make it home safely without stop over night somewhere because when staying overnight in a hotel, I never get a great nights sleep. All in all, it wasn't bad and we made it safely both ways, so no complaints!!

Visiting with family was great!! Arrived at my parents around 4:00 p.m. Friday and family arrived sometime after 6:00. Much of the visit my mom and I talk, a lot. We talk often on the phone, but I don't think we can ever run out of things to talk about. She is due to retire in June from teaching and I can't wait!! More visits and hopefully we will get to work on some projects together!! My dad and I talk some too, but he isn't very talkative most of the time. My mom and I took our usual trip, with the two little ones, to Joann Fabrics, just looking for fabric, but she walked out with a new embroidery machine! I'm so excited for her, but jealous too! She is going to have so much trouble when she retires and has time to play with it!! I can only imagine all the projects she will be working on. I can't afford the one she bought, but thinking about the next model down. It is still a big investment (almost as much as my first car), but there are so many things Iwill be able to do. If I make the purchase I'm gonig to have to start selling a bunch of creations so I have a little spending money!

Also got to see my younger brother and had fun finding houses for him to view. He is in the process of looking for a house, but it is tough finding a house that doesn't require a lot of work in a good neighborhood and in his price range. I'm so excited for him and hope he finds what he is looking for! I'm trying to convince him to move closer to us, so now I need to find him a job and houses in this area. It would be so nice to have him close!! He works in the restaurant business, so it isn't always easy for him to join in the family gatherings unless they are at my parents house and that isn't always possible.

Cute things kids say...

These days the kids play upstairs a lot in their bedroom or hallway while I spend time in my craft room sewing or working on my computer. At one point today I was in the room changing diapers or feeding my daughter (too late to remember exactly what) and my son is talking (always talking!!). I'm listening to what he is say and he states.... fuzzy wuzzy was a bear, fuzzy wuzzy had no hand. I ask again what he said and he repeated the same thing. I had to laugh because I use to say this a lot, but in the correct version of fuzzy wuzzy had no hair. Where he picked up the hand, I don't know. Figured it was something cute that needed to be recorded somewhere and since I'm not good (never been good) at writing stuff down on paper, why not write it in my blog!

A day with friends...

Last night I stayed up late, until around 2:30 a.m., working on dresses for my daughter. In about two hours I almost finished two reversible a-line dresses and two matching headbands. The dresses are themed for Valentine's Day, but can be worn any time of the year.

So, this morning I was up at 8:30 a.m. to get a shower, get the kids up, dressed and fed and get us all out the door to meet our friends at Michael's. I was about 5 minutes late, but that is still pretty good for me!! We looked for ribbon to put on the dresses we have or are going to make and then headed over to one of my favorite stores, JoAnn Fabrics. I visit there quite often and almost always spend more than I plan to, but it is fun shopping for fabric and other crafty stuff! My friend just started sewing right before the holidays because she and her husband wanted new Christmas stockings. She did such a great job on those and then moved onto making other things, such as dresses for her girls, headbands (we all wear headbands), a quilt and I'm sure there are other things I am missing. I am so proud of her for projects she has accomplished. I've been helping her with patterns and answering her questions as best I can. I've been sewing for several years, but there is so much more I need to learn!! So, anyways, back to JoAnn's, I got a little sidetracked, which isn't hard for me. We looked around JoAnn's and found buttons for the dresses, some remnants and my friend found some really cute monkey fabric to make dresses for her girls. I can't wait to see how the dresses turn out.

We checked out and headed back to her house, nursed the babies and then fixed lunch for all of us. While we ate the kids played in the play are in the basement and like always, my son made a mess by dumping stuff all over the floor (for no reason except for it is fun). We didn't find this out until we headed down after lunch. He dumped two containers, one with letters and numbers and the other with foam pieces to make bracelets and necklaces. I never figured out who picked them up, but they all ended up mixed together, so us adults, my son and the oldes girl dumped them back out and seperated them (not a short task!). During this my 10 month old daughter crawls around and works her way back to us and wants to pick up the pieces and put them in her mouth. Always fun trying to clean up with her around because whatever you put in a container, she wants to take out, so we had to keep her from getting too close to the containers. One task finished and now onto sewings....

My friend was very productive yesterday and sewed up thress matching dresses for her girls and 3 matching headbands. It turned out that one of the dresses, the one for her older daughter, was shorter than she wanted, so we had to tear the dress apart in order to add a ruffle. Ruffles aren't too hard when adding one to a dress that isn't reversible, but for the life of me I could not figure out an easy way to do it on a reversible dress (that is until long after we got it all done). I thought I knew what I was doing until I needed to sew the side back together and realized the ruffle was going to be sewn into the side, which means it would not hang down and would look very funny! I sat there trying to figure out how to sew it all back together and still have the ruffle hanging down. It got sewn back together and the ruffle hangs, but the side where I sewed the ruffle together and sewed the hole that was left was not a pretty side. Luckily it is on the side and not easily noticed (hopefully). As I sat there at 4:30 p.m. nursing my half asleep daughter and talking to my friend as she tried to get the button holes sewed on (and the sewing machine not cooperating), I realized all we had to do was sew a ruffle on the bottom instead of sewing under the bottom. I'm so tired right now, I'm not sure that made sense, but I'm going to give a try on one of the next dresses I make for my daughter. For my friend, the button holes never cooperated, so she sewed the buttons through the front and back of at least two of the dresses (not sure it is going to work on the third since the hole for the head probably isn't big enough). An easy fix for the problemed buttonholes and you would never know she didn't put the buttonholes on the dresses. Buttonholes are never easy or fun!!

A long, but fun day with our friends and we arrived back home around 5:30 p.m. Our get togethers usually end around 3:00 ish so I can get my kids down for naps, but today we skipped the naps so I could help my friend and the kids had fun too!! Now, off to do more sewing....

Nap time

Afternoon naps around our house take place around 2:30 every afternoon (except the days we are out shopping or playing with friends... then it is later or not at all). Having 2 kids in the same bedroom doesn't always work with naps, especially a 2 year old (3 in April) and a 10 month old. They think it is fun to laugh at each other and play instead of sleep. Some days they go right to sleep, but today they decided it was going to be a fun day and at 4:00 were still fooling around in the bedroom. At this time I decided they needed to be split up, so the oldest is moved into mommy and daddy's bedroom for his nap and little miss stays in her crib. Neither were happy and both cried for a short time, but within a few minutes, they were both asleep!! Yipee!! I can't wait until we are in our new house (which we were suppose to be in July 2007) and each child has their own room!

Monday mornings....

Monday mornings are always an adventure. With two little ones, I rarely get to sleep past 9:00 a.m. Yes, many other moms are up much earlier, but my husband and I have a bad habit of staying up well past midnight. Even when I do go to bed before 1:00 a.m. I have a hard time falling asleep. I think back to the day when I worked and was up and in the shower by 6:00 a.m. When I worked I liked to get my day started early (usually to work by 7:00 or 7:30 a.m.), so I could be out of the office at a decent time. My husband has never been an early riser. He tries every so often to get up early and get into the office and I love those days because he is home by 6:30 and we get to all have dinner together. Most of the time now I feed the kids and eat with my huband when he gets home. This is not the way I wanted to raise my kids, but my husband has a horrible time getting himself out of bed in the morning, even when he falls asleep on the couch early the night before.

Today started out the usual way, me getting up with the kids and my husband laying in bed, unable to motivate himself. He's worked for a company for 11+ years and has done a great job, so nobody fusses when he isn't there by 10:00 a.m. (which is the latest he is suppose to be in the office). So, today he finally walks out the door just a few minutes after 10:00 a.m. and a minute later I hear him come back in and he asks me to come back downstairs, by myself. Well my 10 month old was in my arms because I was getting her changed, so I walked downstairs to hear my husband say, "my car has two windows broken and my gps was stolen!". Not a good start to the day. So he goes back outside and I look up the number for the police department, but want to wait until he comes back in to call them. I get my daughter dressed and lock the kids in their bedroom (behind a gate). In the meantime he yells, where is the phone, so I tell him it is right by the door on the table. He calls the police department and we wait for them to show up. We wait and wait and wait..... an officer finally shows up sometime after 11:30. My husband talks to him and I work on getting dressed because now I have to pick him up from the dealership, where his windows will be replaced, stop at a sub place so he can pick up lunch and then drop him off at work. I then head home, get the kids there lunch, sit down to eat mine and the phone rings, before I take my first bite.... it's my husband and he starts asking questions about the car seat we are trying to sell because my daughter no longer fits in it. I finally ask, can I go eat now.... And he says, you haven't eaten yet..... And I say, no, I had to get the kids their food.... He just doesn't understand how long it takes to do everything with the kids...

Now to go start sewing some dresses before the kids wake up!!