Wordless Wednesday

Wordless WednesdayCan you resist this?

Missing in Action

Yes, I have been missing in action. I was finally getting some organization and rhythm to my blogging, and then life came and it was gone! Here are some numbers to give you an idea of how busy we have been the last two weeks:
Trips to Walgreens: 8
Doctor's Appts: 3
Volunteer Trainings: 3
Conference Calls: 3
Firefighter trainings: 4
Birthday parties: 2
Cheerleading tryouts: 1
Wedding Shower: 1
Trips to Target: 4
Trips to Border's (Twilight obsession): 2
To BOK Center: 2
Trips to Owasso (for JBF Sale): 2
Books read: 3 (Twilight series)

Wow. Now, this may seem like a normal couple of weeks for some of you. Its not at all normal for me. First of all, now that I work from home, I just don't drive that much. Since I am not already out, or in a certain area, I really re-consider my trips to the store and such before I go. I make sure there are more than just one or two goo deals before I make a trip to the store. In fact, thanks to my coupon stockpile (and tiny kitchen with no cabinet space) I have not been to Wal-mart (Neighborhood Market, my main grocery store) in over a week! I am happy about this, because I am trying to use some of our stockpiles because our kitchen is bursting at the seams.

The amount of doctor's visits were definitely not normal. All three trips were in one week. First, Henry had his one year check up, where he received 5 shots and had blood drawn. Two days later, Cadence had a check up for her perforated eardrum. That same evening Henry came down with a 103.3 fever (too late to be caused by the vaccines) and was miserable. I took him to the doctor the next morning, where they discovered he had double ear infections. He was also mildly dehydrated from such a high fever and from feeling bad. Unfortunately to make sure he got enough fluids, we had to give up weaning (we had two nights down!) because he drinks so much better from a bottle, to make sure he got re-hydrated. The day after his appointment, he started dripping from his eyes and mouth, so I gave him some of his as needed allergy medicine and if it is not better on Monday, we will call the doctor. He also has a follow up visit next week from his ear infection. You can always tell when Henry is sick because it changes his personality so much. Normally, he is a smiley, non cuddling baby who is too busy to stop and is a voracious eater. Sick Henry falls asleep while I am holding him (which he has not done since he was 6 weeks old!), never smiles, rarely eats, and only wants to be held. He is getting a little better, but is definitely not back to his normal self.
So, in a nutshell, these are all the things that have been going on that have caused me to be MIA. I am back. Thanks for your patience.

More things I can't live without...

3. Garnier Curl Construct Mousse.

This mousse is the best product for my curly hair that I have ever found. It doesn't make my hair crunchy or stiff, even if I add more after it is dry. And it really helps prevent frizz.

4. Oxyclean

I adore Oxyclean. I use the laundry booster as well as the stain remover. For Henry's clothes, which get soooo dirty, I spray the stains with oxyclean, put detergent and the laundry booster in the machine, fill it up with water and clothes and let it soak for up to 30 mins before I start the washer. The stain remover has taken old, dried in stains out of KK's clothes before. I love Oxyclean!

14 Days of Love

In an effort to give my blog more structure and to do something fun, I have decided to do a "14 days of love" post. My friend Jenny gave me the idea! Now I know I am behind since it is already February 6, so I will try to do two a day. I have never done this before and I don't know the "rules", but I have decided that I am only going list things or items I love. I would be on here for months if I listed people!

1. Graco Pack N Play

This play pen was KK's and is now Henry's. KK could sit in it for hours and play or just watch, the tv, us, me cleaning, etc. In fact, I was still using it when she was 2 when I would get in the shower, until Ben made me put it up because she was too old for it. Henry does not like it nearly as much. However, with Henry being such an acitve and into everything baby, the play pen is a god send!


2. Palm Centro

I have had this phone for almost a year now and I have really liked it. When I first got it, we did not have internet at home, so this was my only source of internet (except work). While I am not stupid when it comes to technical stuff, I am also not as good with things as my husband is. However, this phone is so easy to use that I got the whole thing set up by myself. I don't like being idle, so when I am stuck in traffic, or waiting for an appointment, I like that I can get out my phone and get on facebook, or check the weather or my email, or play ms pacman.

Feeling the stress

Over the last few days, the stress of our current situation has really been creeping up on me. I think hotel living is hard enough, let alone when you add two children, 3 dogs and a cat to feed every day, driving all the way across town 2 and 3 times a day, etc. Here is how our last week has been.

The first part of the week was really not bad. I felt like I was getting a routine down and things were working. However, living with transition in my home and my job is still very hard, even when things are great. By Friday, I desperately needed to get out of the hotel and get away from my children! Because Henry goes to work with me, I usually have zero time by myself. Most of the time this is fine, but sometimes it gets to me and this was one of those days. I had some drama/stress to deal with at work, which made my pray this transition is over with as soon as possible (but the work transition is on hold until the house is finished!). My mother in law agreed to have KK and Henry spend the night, so we headed out to Bourbon Street for dinner, where we ran into a friend and neighbor and had dinner with them. After dinner, we met up with Rachel and Kathleen at a sports/karaoke venue (which is really not our type of place!), but we had a blast although we were all hoarse from yelling over the music all night.

Saturday morning Ben went to work and I picked up the kids and headed to Claremore for a play date with my long time friends Lindsay and Daniele and their kids. We each have two children, a boy and girl for each of us. KK is a full year older than their oldests but all our our second babies were born within a 2 month time span. The babies played by themselves, but interacted with each other a bit. The older kids played together and had fun and us mommies caught up. After that I went to my mom's to see my sister off to her first dance. Then we headed back to Tulsa and KK went to spend the night with her cousin Will.

Sunday, Ben, Henry and I headed to Home Depot to buy paint for KK's room. My poor daughter's bedroom was still the blue cars and trucks design that they boy who lived there before us had. As we were mixing her paint, we found an "OOps" can that was the exact color I wanted for our bedroom so we picked that up also. We had to apply two coats of Kilz to the bottom half of KK's room because it was bright, primary blue! My mother in law ended up watching all four grandbabies so my favorite sister in law could come help me paint. (Katie is my push behind getting KKs room done and even offered to do the whole thing herself!) We painted for almost 8 hours before both rooms were done! While we did this, Ben layed down the missing quarter round and did some little things that needed to be done.

So needless to say, we are all exhausted today. KK spent most of the weekend away from home, and playing and she was worn out. Henry missed a nap each day, which makes him miserable. We all had to get up and over to the house early this morning. Ben had to meet with the hardwood floor people and I wanted to be there when KK saw her room for the first time. Then the kids and I ran some errands and are back at the hotel. I think the kids and I have a touch of the stomach flu and we are exhausted, so we are trying to rest, or at least not leave the hotel today! Tomorrow starts the week (thankfully a short one), so there is always the typical "getting ready for the week stuff" to do. This was supposed to be the week we were moving home and moving my office home, but unfortunately due to some problems with the floors, it will probably be next week, which puts a wrench in my office and work schedule. I am trying not to stress about that today!

Thanks for reading, now I am off to try to take a nap while Henry is down.

Tired

We are home from school/work another day due to the icy roads. Yesterday I was glad to be home as I needed the extra day to get stuff done. But by the end of the day, KK was driving me crazy. Bless her heart. We had spent alot of time together over the last week and 4 year olds are emotionalyl exhausting, as opposed to physically exhausting like younger kids. She ended up staying the night with her grammie, and it was a nice break for the two of us.

I stayed up later than normal last night because I knew we had no school and I could sleep in a bit. I also wanted to finish my book, "Second Chance" by Jodi Picoult. I finished it close to one and right as I got in bed, Henry woke up. He ended up spending more of the night crying than anything, so I am exhausted today. He is also a bit feverish and still recovering from his cold. Before KK came home this morning, I remembered an appointment that I could not miss. So as soon as she was home we bundled up to go to this appointment. I am glad I went, but its way too cold to be outside.

Now we are home. Henry is napping and hopefully will wake up feeling better. KK is watching tv and I am contemplating my next move. Shower? Nap? Lunch? Clean? Probably shower, since I did not get to this morning. One of my goals for today is to get pics of the fire damage posted here and on myspace and facebook. Hopefully I will get that done today.

Fluttering

I have been "Fluttering" for about 4 years. For those of you unfamiliar with Flylady www.flylady.com, fluttering is where you do just bits and pieces of her program but never fully commit. About two months ago, I got serious about starting again. One of the things she does is a new habit every month. November's habit is menu planning. This week I did my first menu plan. It has been so nice to know what I am going to fix for dinner. When Cadence was Henry's age, I cooked every night and tried out new recipes. For the last year or so, I have just been cooking the same things over and over and lots of stuff from a box. I forgot how great I feel about myself as a mother and wife when I cook! Last night I made Mexican shells and we had none left over. Tonight I made Jambalaya pasta. Cadence has started to become a picky eater, especially here recently. The last two nights in a row, she cleaned her whole plate and told me I was the best cook ever. This is high praise from her!

With the onset of menu planning, I decided to also start planning outfits for the kids for the whole week. I was doing it the night before, but the last 2 Sundays I decided to lay out everything for each day based on the forecast. This has also been incredible! Henry still spits up so he has to wear a bib every day on top of everything else. This has made my life so much easier! And I love anything that does that. I am really trying to get back on all of Flylady's programs. They have always made such a difference in my life. Go check out her website!

Weekend

This weekend, Ben and I were supposed to go to OKC for a "Stock the Bar Party" for Holly & Austin. We had babysitters, hotel, everything.... except enough money to do it! So we had to cancel and are now staying home this weekend. Ben is going to the Hockey game tonight with his dad and some friends and my lovely mil still wanted the kids so I am planning on hanging out with Rachel, one of my closest friends that I don't see enough! However, this morning it appears that both of the kids and possibly Ben and I have a touch of the stomach bug. Hopefully this will go away as the day goes on.

This week, I have really been struggling with some issues at work. Henry goes to work with me and he is just getting to the point where it is just not working anymore. He is mobile and there is no way to child proof an office enough. He is not napping as well, and gets tired of being in his play pen. I won't get into specific issues, but there is the possibility of some changes being made at my work and if they are, I will get to fulfill my dream of working from home doing what I love and not putting Henry in child care. Friday I got the opportunity to work from home. I just had a few things that "had" to be done and really needed a day at home. Henry slept for 2.5 hours for his first nap! At work, I am lucky if he sleeps for 45 minutes. I got everything I had to do done by 11. It really made me see that I can work from home and how great it will work for us. Now, I am just praying that all of the pieces fall into place that need to in order for me to transition to home. Hopefully by January they will.

Infancy

Its amazing how fast a baby changes in the first year, especially that last half of the first year. Henry is now 7 months old. He started crawling not 3 weeks ago and as of today he can crawl VERY fast, sit up by himself, get himself into sitting position, and pull up to a standing position. These are all great and fun things to watch and experience but they all come with a price. My floor has to be much cleaner than before, which means that I have to clean my floors once a day. If KK is being extra messy, or Henry is spitting up alot, or one of the dogs spent alot of time inside, then I have to mop once a day also. Pretty soon I will have to figure out how I am going to corral Henry. When KK was little, our living room was the perfect set up and shape. I had two baby gates on the entrances leaving the living room. The enterntainment center had lower shelves that I filled with toys for her. Now my living room has three entry ways to other rooms and one of those would require an extra large baby gate. We have a different entertainment center with no room for toys. But I do now have KK. She is a life saver because I can have her check on him, or tell me if he is getting into things. She is not too keen on entertaining him though, because tv is much cooler than her baby brother for more than 5 minutes.
Pulling up to standing is actually one of my least liked periods of infancy. Don't get me wrong, this is such a great and exciting time and I know this is part of the process. But during this time, babies fall. ALOT. Henry already has a huge bruise on his forehead that I don't think will ever go away because he keeps falling. Also, he has learned to stand up in his crib, but hates to get down. Last week he did not even know how to get down. Now he knows, but that requires him to fall, which he is not too keen on. Ben walked at 9.5 months, and I have a feeling Henry will do the same. He is going through these all a lot faster than KK did. He does not yet have any teeth though, although the doctor said he could see some "buds" so it will probably be any day now. He is getting so big and growing so fast. He lookds nothing like he did as an infant and as of today is only 2 lbs lighter than KK was on her 1st birthday! He really is not a chubby baby, in pictures she actually was chubbier, so he may just not gain any more weight. We will see. Let's just pray for now more bruises this week!

Week & Weekend Review

Last week was a trying week. Ben was away for work and Henry, bless his heart, decided to give up sleeping through the night, which he had been doing no problem for 3-4 weeks. I was averaging 3-4 hours a night, sometimes less. I think (know) he is trying to get a tooth and that must have been keeping him up. On top of that, it was KK's first week of school and she was exhausted (aka cranky!) every night. It was one of those weeks that was not really awful, but just trying. Ben got home early and was able to pick KK up from school on Friday. All day at work on friday, I was having some horrific sinus pressure and feeling really crappy. So that evening I gladly stayed home while KK spent the night with Will & Bella and Ben went to listen to some music with a cousin he has not seen in 5 years.
On Saturday, I got up feeling better and went an got KK to run some errands and get some (facial) waxing done. We stopped at a garage sale where I found a brand new high chair for Henry. He has been eating 1st step baby food for a couple of weeks now and feeding him in the bouncy chair on the floor was just not cutting it. This chair also has toys to play with, so after he eats he usually plays in it for 20 minutes. It was a great investment. (No matter what I do, I can't seem to get the pictures to post where I want them, so the pictures is up above!). Then I got a call from my mom to go shopping at Plato's Closet and the mall. I went home and fed lunches and loaded us up. We ended up closing down the mall. I never go out South and only go to Woodland Hills Mall twice a year. But I love Plato's Closet, I love thrift and consignment stores in general. I don't usually buy new clothes any more for a couple of reasons: 1) I am cheap. It started out as necessity but became a way of living. 2) I am really not that trendy. Most of the clothes I like are pretty simple. Even when I do like the current trends, they don't usually look great on me. Most clothes designers are not designing for my body type, so I usually find more of a selection at second hand stores. 3) There always seems to be something better to spend my money on. Although I have recently realized how much I am lacking in my closet (especially dress clothes), so I am going to try to get some more stuff when we have the budget.
While at the mall, shopping in a junior's store that i frequented in high school, a sales clerk (maybe 17-18) stopped me and commented on how cute the baby was and asked how old he and KK were. She then said "And your pregnant again?" I wanted to melt into the wall. I know I don't look like I did 10 years ago, that's okay, I have had 3 pregnancies and 2 children in 4 years. And just to brag a bit, I only gained 10 pounds with Henry and lost 16 after his birth, so what I have left is simply extra skin. When I said, no, I'm not pregnant, she then replied, "Oh, its just the leftover?" Even though it really made me feel bad about my body, I can now find it a bit funny and know that she will probably never again ask someone if they are pregnant, at least until it is completely undeniable.
Sunday was a day spent playing catch up and helping Henry with his teeth. We were supposed to attend my cousin's 10th birthday party, but Henry was simply too fussy to make the trip to Claremore.
Here lately I have felt very behind on a lot of things. Laundry, money, relationships, etc. Feeling behind makes me feel out of control. I know we have had alot of changes in our life, but it is still frustrating. So I am trying very hard to get caught up. One of the things I used to do is couponing and price watching on grocery items. I am working on doing this again regularly, so I am sure you will here more about it. In the meantime, here is a great site that is actually run by my director's daughter in law.
www.tulsacouponqueen.com Check it out!

Louisiana

Over the weekend, we made our annual trek down to Shreveport, LA. Ben's Uncle Johnny has a cabin that has been in the family for years on Caddo Lake and we started making the trip with the younger generations about 4 years ago. This year we carpooled with Katie, Bella, and Will for the trip to save money on gas. Driving 6 hours with 4 kids under 4 sounds scary, but it wasn't bad at all. We arrived on Thursday afternoon and were able to spend a couple of hours getting settled before Candace and Josh arrived. We then got to spend the evening with just the two of them. It was very nice because we only see Candace once a year since she lives in LA and Josh about 3x a year since he is currently working in Canada. Ben also caught two catfish that day. The next day three more groups arrived, but all at separate times, so we were able to enjoy everyone before it got too big. Saturday we spent another day of hanging out, fishing, sleeping. The kids played in a small inflatable pool and helped fish. On Sunday, we headed out to the Mudbug festival which we do every year. Before we left, I got stung by a wasp which has never happened to me and by the way hurts like hell! This year it was hotter than ever. We stayed long enough to eat (Ben had crocodile and I had catfish), let KK make one of those sand jars they always have at the fair, the kids played on some inflatible toys and then we were out of there. It was too hot!

One the way home, Katie and I ran into a local Wal-mart and found some really great deals on clothes for the kids. When we got up to check out, we stood in line for 30 minutes (I kid you not!). We then headed home to rinse off and relax for our last evening. We had a fish fry with the fish that had been caught during the trip and just enjoyed everyone. The next morning we packed up to head home and this time the car ride was more eventful. When we were ready to stop for lunch, we pulled up to a DQ and waited in line to order for 10 minutes. When we got to actually order, we were told there would be no food for 20 minutes. The best part was this DQ had a sign that said "Fastest Drive Thru in Town". Seriously? So we opted to find another drive through. Poor Henry was overly tired and cried for a good portion of the car ride. About two hours from home, I checked his pants to discover a poop explosion. KK was in a foul mood for most of the ride because she had had no down time throughout the trip and was cranky to all of us, especially poor Will seated next to her. And Bella is learning how to us her lungs and had a period of time where out of no where she would just yell really loud. We were all ready to get out of the car when we got home!


The next day was thankfully my day off, so I was able to stay home and try to get the laundry done and get the house picked up. Unfortunately, most of that did not happen because poor Henry is not a good day time sleeper (which we are working on). That evening we went to dinner at Rib Crib with some of Ben's family to celebrate his birthday, which was the day before. He is 27!!!

Now the end of the week is here and our weekend consists of:
Going to see Sex and the City tonight with Katie
Cadence's dance rehearsal and recital
Hopefully bathing the dogs
Recovering from the short week
And continuing to get Henry on the 90 minute sleep cycle. I stuck with it yesterday and he actually took 3 45 min naps and went down at 9 pm and slept in his crib till 1:30 am. This may not sound like alot, but it is for him. He never sleeps during the day!

Have a great weekend!