Weekend fun....

My daughter turned one this weekend, so Saturday we had some friends over for a party. My brother also came in from two hours south of us with my niece and nephew. I had spent Thursday night working on a birthday dress for my daughter and stayed up until almost 3:00 a.m. putting it together. I couldn't just do the usual a-line... I wanted something different from the usual. I never tried the dress on her either, so I was lucky when I put it on her right before the party that it fit and it looked so cute!!

The party was fun, the food was good and my daughter received some nice presents.... luckily everybody followed the rules and we didn't get anything too big. We are trying to sell our house while our new house is being finished, so it is cleaned often, so we didn't spend hours the night before and the morning of cleaning! This was nice because we weren't tired all day due to the many hours of cleaning. So, party ends and we start to clean again, but it wasn't too bad. We finished up Sunday afternoon after my brother and his kids leave and the kids are down for naps. It is so nice to have hubby helping out on a regular basis now. Getting him to clean regularly has alway been a chore in itself, but now that the house has to be ready to show any time, we make sure things are in order every night. Every morning I also spend some time working on stuff, just to keep everything sparkling!!

Church on Easter Sunday

Today we went to church. It had been a while and we were trying out a new church. If we went to our church we would have put the kids in the nursery, but not knowing anybody at the church we went to today, we kept the kids with us throughout the service. We were prepared with a bag of snacks to keep the kiddos happy, but there was still the occassional whine. Toward the end of the service my daughter started to get antsy, but she servived! When it was time for communion the ushers came out with the plates of bread and the mini cups of grape juice. My son, almost 3, says, I'm hungry. He was ready to did into the bread and we had to explain it wasn't for him. Everybody around us thought it was funny too and giggled a little.

Spring has sprung!!

Yesterday was the first day of spring and what a beautiful day it was! Unfortunately I spent the day running errands with the kids! Today, while I was trying to get myself out of bed, my friend called to see if we wanted to join her, her 3 girls and another friend, who happened to have the day off, and her two kids for a walk. It sounded great, but I needed to get my day going before I committed to meeting up with them. Pulled myself out of bed, got the kids up, changed diapers and while I nursed my daughter called my friend back to tell her we were in for the walk. Boy, am I glad we joined them. Not only did I get to hang out with two great friends, I got some exercise and so did the kids after we all ate lunch. Time with our friends always flies by and almost 3 1/2 hours later we are pulling out of the parking lot from where our walk began. It really felt good and although it was a little cool when we started, the weather quickly warmed up and we started peelilng off the clothing. Even my son, who loves to wear his coat, took his coat off because he was warm!! And another great thing about having the kids outside for hours is they took extra long naps.... 3+ hours!! I'm looking forward to more nice days and more days of walking on the trail.

Living with an almost 3 and 1 year old...

These last few days have been very long! We are in the process of building a house and just put our current house on the market last week. Building the house has been a long ongoing projects for close to a year and a half. Long story short, our original builder was fired for basically letting the house sit and not doing much of anything.... we got tired of the excuses and seeing not progress!! So, we signed with a new builder the middle of December and it took approximately two months for him to get things going because he was trying to find out from the city if there was any way possible to hook into the sewer (which we were told we could and has turned out we can't!!). The city works slow and it took them forever to get out to our land to make a determination.

All weekend my husband was out at the house dropping wire for our phone lines, cable, networking, security and surround sound. Luckily he had a friend from work who has done this at least a couple times! The project took longer than expected and my husband was out there again today finishing things up by himself. So, while he spent time last week preparing and then working all weekend it was up to me to finish getting the house in better order for showing and pictures, which took place Sunday morning. What a relief to get it done, now just need to keep it up. Once the weather warms up there will be more to do (i.e. clean the outside of the windows and clean up the gardens). While my husband was gone all weekend and today I was stuck at home taking care of the kids (felt like a single mom!) and didn't have a car I could take both the kids in because my husband had my car with both car seats in it! I am dying to get out of the house tomorrow and do some much needed grocery shopping and possibly a few other errands.

With all this house stuff going on my son is asking a lot of questions. He's a talker to begin with, so the only peace in this house is when he is sleeping! Thank goodness for afternoon naps!! Sometime over the weekend I was working on stuff around the house and I think I was in my kids' bedroom and he starts asking, "are we taking the clothes to the new house?", "are we taking my stuffed animals to the new house?", can I take my blanket to the new house?" and the list goes on for quite a while. I'm sure at his age he doesn't understand everything that is going on, so I try to be patient, but my patience these days is wearing thin! He asks a lot of questions and doesn't stop until you answer him.

My daughter will be 1 at the end of the month. She's been crawling since around 6 months, pulling up on things around 7 months and started cruising a little shortly after that. At the nine month checkup the doctor asked if she was walking since she had been crawling since 6 months. She wasn't at that time, but has been working on it really hard these past couple weeks. She took her first steps probably about a month ago, but it was only 2 or 3 steps up until a couple weekends ago when my in-laws were in town and watched the kids so my husband and I could get some house stuff done without the kids. Today, instead of playing a lot, she was working on walking around the living and dining room. She'd pick something up and then walk. When she'd fall down she would get back up and try again. She's so cute when she walks and sometimes get's pretty excited and then falls to her bottom. Today she also started clapping her hands. I think she was sitting in her high chair when I looked over at her and she was done eating and started clapping her hands. She got pretty excited about that too! We worked on that some more today. She got a kick out of it!!

Bathtime...

So, this morning I decide to give the kids a bath before putting my daughter down for her morning nap. Bathtime starts out ok, but then the phone rings and it is my husband. At this time the noise level in the bathroom goes up about 10 times and I'm trying to listen to my husband and barely hear what he has to say. We get off the phone and my daughter is ready to get out, but still needs to be washed and the phone rings again. It is my girlfriend. I ask to call her back, but she just had a quick question. While I am answering her questions, the kids decide it would be fun to pull one of the bathmats, which is on the edge of the back because I was just about to clean up my daughter and the edge is always wet. So, into the bathtub goes the first bathmat. I pull it out while I wrap up my phone call with my friend. Phone call is done and my daughter is screaming, I'm guessing I pushed bathtime too close to nap time, so she has had it! I'm trying to wash her up and she won't sit down, which makes it hard to wash up her feet. She usually loves bathtime, especially when big brother is in there to play. I finish washing her up, rinse her off and get her dried off, lotioned up and dressed and into her crib. She's not happy, but it is much needed. Back to cleaning up my son and the floor is soaked!!! I realize the second bathmat has made it into the bathtub and then back onto the floor, soaking wet! I grab a third bathmat to help soak up the water and keep my feet from getting too wet. I wash him up and he wants to just play. Get him cleaned up, rinsed off, dried and down to my room to get him dressed. I forgot to grab him socks out of his room (which he shares with his sister), so he keeps saying, "I'll be quiet and get me socks". He is almost never quiet and would probably start talking to my daughter, so I sit him down to watch Sesame Street and I got get him socks. My daughter still isn't quite asleep, but thankfully wasn't bothered by me coming into the room. Now I get a few minutes of peace!!

Out, without the kids and wonderful suprises...

Saturday afternoon was a day out with some good friends. I've know one for about a year and a half and the other for just over a year. We have spent many mornings/afternoons together with the kids, but this was the first time without the kids and boy, was it nice. It was nice to be able to focus on a conversation without one or several of the kids interupting or us having to tell them to behave them selves. Time flew by and next thing you know it was past the time I told my husband I would be home. So, once we got to the car I called my husband to tell him we lost track of time and were just now leaving the mall. No complaints!! Now I start heading to my friend's house to drop her off and decide to return my mom's phone call (she called as we were leaving the mall and I didn't answer). When talking to my husband he mentioned my mom was trying to get in touch with me, so thought I should make sure there wasn't something she need to ask me right at that moment (we often look for things for each other while out shopping, so I just didn't know). Call my mom and tell her I was returning her call, did she have something she needed to talk to me about. She said, "are you driving?"... "Yes, but I can talk for a minute". so, she tells me she and my dad were talking and wanted to give me some money to get the embroidery machine I wanted (one just like the one she had just bought... a Husqvarna Viking Designer SE). I had just purchase a Designer I, but after getting it home and starting to hook it up I found out it didn't hook up to my machine like I was told the weekend before when my mom bought her machine. My mom wanted me to have the one that hooks up to my computer and decided to give me money to cover the difference in the price. WOW, what a nice surprise!! I was just about in tears because it was such a nice gesture!! I call my husband back while my friend runs into a store to get change and ask him if he knew why my mom was calling. He didn't, so I told him. He jokingly commented that he should mention things he wants around my parents and maybe he would get money to buy a new computer he wants. I replied to him, "you are not my parents' daughter". LOL

I arrive home and my husband has taken good care of the kids. I feed my daughter, call the dealer at the Viking Sewing Gallery to find out if I could get the same deal my mom got, get the kids dinner and throw something into the crock pot for my husband and I and then ask my husband if I can run back out to exchange my machine. He looks at me like I'm crazy for asking since I was just out all afternoon, but says ok. I'm gone for a little over an hour and expect when I come home the kids will still be up and in there regular clothes, but to my surprise they were all ready for bed and my daughter was just waiting for her last feeding of the day and her teeth to be brushed. What a nice surprise and so helpful!!