When hubby's away...

...this is how fix-it projects are engineered:

I used wood glue to glue the red top back on the toy milk bottle, and to fix the picture frame.  I've never used wood glue before, and I expected it to be the same consistency as hot glue.  It's not.  It's more like water, so don't squeeze the bottle with all your might.

Since wood glue is not like hot glue (or super glue, for that matter), the parts I glued together did not automatically stick.  Hence the spice bottles helping weigh down the objects, and the chip clip instead of a clamp.  Who says English majors can't be engineers too?!

Thursdays

For a while now I've been meaning to post about our new routines.  Our daily schedule (during the week) now has a lot of structure and has changed a lot since Chet left for deployment and Sydney started preschool.  It's been amazing, and somehow (before our new routine started) I had lost sight of how well we do when we have structure (especially Sydney and me).  No wonder I felt like I was going crazy all the time!

So today I'll give you insight into our Thursdays, since that's what today is.  And, actually, Thursday is my least favorite day, because it lacks good structure.

This particular Thursday, and every other Thursday (so twice a month), the girls and I attend MOPS meetings.  We all love them, and they are good for my soul.  I attended a MOPS group the year Lorelei was born, but didn't last year, and I'm really glad to be involved again.  Anyway, the meetings start at 9:15 a.m., so we leave the house a little after 8:30 a.m. to make sure we're there in plenty of time.  We usually end around 11:15 a.m., and Lorelei falls asleep in the car once we're on the road (11:15 is close to her usual nap time).  Any other day of the week, if she starts to fall asleep in the car, I do everything in my power to keep her awake, like singing really loudly or grabbing at her feet behind me or throwing stuffed animals at her head, but on Thursdays, the car is where she naps.

We drive home, and Sydney and I sneak out of the car (I leave the car running -- I'm not interested in being featured on the five o'clock news) and into the house.  I feed her a snack/lunch, she changes into her dance clothes, and we sneak back into the car, even though Lorelei usually wakes up as soon as we open the doors to get back in.  Syd's ballet/tap class starts at 1:00 p.m., and Lorelei and I just hang out in the waiting room at the studio (or outside if it's not too blasted hot, which it usually is) while Syd dances for 45 minutes.  I pack a snack/lunch for Lorelei, and we usually eat that while we wait.

When it's time to leave dance, Lor is feeling pretty refreshed, having recently napped and been fed, but Sydney and I are in horrendous moods a little on the tired side.  Every other day of the week (and weekend) Sydney naps from 1:00 p.m. until 2:00 p.m., so you can imagine why she's so cranky come 1:45 p.m.  And every other day of the week while the girls nap, I put my feet up for at least 30 minutes, not only to rest, but to relieve my aching, varicose-vein-ridden pregnancy legs.  Those 30 minutes make all the difference in the world, and I'm a little miffed at Thursdays for not allowing me that time to myself.

On MOPS Thursdays we usually drive straight home after dance, since we've been out of the house mostly all day.  That's what we did today, and here's how the rest of our day went down:

2:05 p.m. - 3:15 p.m.: I turned on an episode of "Daniel Tiger" for the girls to watch, but they were more interested in making a mess playing, so I turned the TV off and tried to sneak in some rest time for myself in the big easy chair.  The girls like to make sure I don't get too comfortable, but it was still nice to sit.

3:15 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.: I'm desperately tired by this point, and Lorelei is rubbing her eyes, so I decide to put her in her crib and lay on the couch to elevate my feet.  I give the iPad to Sydney, and she kills brain cells stays quiet for the next 45 minutes. 

4:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.: I'm feeling much better, and Sydney and I head upstairs to save Lorelei from her crib (she never fell asleep, but was still happy to lay up there, chewing on her burp rag and playing with the nine or ten stuffed animals leaving her no room to lay down surrounding her).  For an hour I put different outfits on the girls, trying to figure out what they're going to wear for our family pictures on Saturday.  I realize that Lorelei looks disheveled in whatever I put her in, no matter how cute the outfit.  She really is cursed with some sort of 19-year-old-surfer-boy syndrome, as far as appearances.

5:00 p.m. - 6:15 p.m.: I decide there's no point in making Thursday worse by cooking dinner and having to clean the kitchen, so the girls and I head to Subway.  I love making messes for other people to clean up -- not on purpose, of course.

6:15 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.: We head to our friend/neighbor Kelly's house for a change of scenery; we haven't seen her or her little boy almost all week (she's usually the person I see the most during the week).  Lorelei had been feeling under the weather with a cold until today, so we steered clear of other people as much as possible.

Just as we were leaving Kelly's house, Sydney decided to lay down on her front door step, right on the welcome mat.  I whisper-hollered for her to get up, because I did not want to bathe her tonight -- no matter that she has school pictures tomorrow.  She didn't seem too dirty, and she smelled fine, so I let the welcome mat incident slide.  I treated it like the 5-second rule, where you're still allowed to eat something off the floor as long as it's on the floor less than five seconds (a strict rule in our house...not).

When we got home we all chipped in to clean up the play mess that we left before heading to Subway.  I doled out vitamins, milk cups, and water cups, and we trooped upstairs for pajamas (not baths though).  I did take the time to wipe their feet with baby wipes though.  We read a couple of books, and despite pleas to "watch a movie" from Sydney, I said goodnight.  They were asleep within 15 minutes, which is always the case on Thursdays.  Woo hoo for me!

***On non-MOPS Thursdays we usually stay at home all morning until it's time to leave for dance.  I put Lorelei down for a nap around 10:30 a.m., and she sleeps until it's time for us to leave the house.  During that time Sydney helps me get chores done, or just plays.  Non-MOPS Thursdays are a little less hectic, but still tiring for Sydney and me since neither one of us gets the rest we are accustomed to.***

Sorry if that bored you to tears!  Happy Thursday!

Happy October and 2 Months Down!

Happy October, everyone!  I love this month, and I am super happy I have a daughter born right smack in the middle of it (rather than another January birthday; we have already succeeded in saturating the month of January with birthdays).

October in this house means eating lots of candy corn and wearing Halloween garb all month long (as soon as I wash it, they're wearing it again -- gotta get your money's worth!).

These pictures were taken yesterday; they're both wearing orange again today.  Bring on the cold weather so I can put them in their long-sleeved Halloween garb!

Also, today marks two months since Chet left for deployment -- woo hoo!  Here is the progress we have made on the M&M jar:

August

 

October

Are you thinking that it's impossible to tell from these pictures if there is actually less candy in the jar?  Yes, I agree.  But I know there is less, since the girls have eaten 124 M&Ms between them.  Yikes.

25 Weeks

25 weeks along!

In my opinion I'm not looking all that different from week to week yet.  Although I can attest that it is getting noticeably harder to bend over and pick up things from the floor.

I had my 24-week OB appointment Tuesday, September 24th.  It was uneventful, which is always a good thing at OB appointments.  Next month I will take the glucose test (I failed the 1-hour test when I was pregnant with Sydney, so I'm always a little wary of this test).  No other pregnancy news!

Sydney and Lorelei wore cute outfits to church yesterday, but I can't prove it because I didn't get a good full-length-ish picture of either of them.  Lorelei was a crab when she woke up yesterday, but then perked up a little right before we left for church:

Sydney was immediately in a good mood when she discovered she was wearing "down sleeves" to church:

 

I know it's hard to tell in the pictures, so I'll tell you that both girls are wearing dresses, sort of.  Lorelei's top is not technically considered a dress, but her legs are so short she can wear it as a dress for now.  She has ruffled pants in the same polka-dotted pattern as Sydney's dress that go with the solid orange top.  Sydney's is a dress, and she has brown leggings to go with hers.  Neither of them wore their pants yesterday though, because it was too hot by the time we left church to even wear the long-sleeved dresses.  Oh, well, it was fun while it lasted.

 

Happy Monday!

21 graces

I've not been good at keeping up with the "21 graces" posts, and this post is a combination of this past week, and a post that I started that should have been posted four weeks ago (time is flying!).  I could have just erased the old post and started over, but the things I had already listed were too good to let go.

1. Meeting a friend's newborn daughter
2. An event hosted by a member of our spouse's club that she called "Taste of Asia"...oh, my word, she should open her own restaurant!
3. The best childcare provider (not a babysitter, since she's a grown woman) on the planet, living just one street over
4. A morning at the coffee shop with a neighbor/friend (who tolerates my wild children well), despite the pouring rain
5. Not going crazy in the house on a Saturday, again despite the pouring rain
6. Popeye's chicken
7. Going back to church after two weeks away (due to travels)
8. Pruning our front bushes without keeling over due to the heat
9. The girls acting very concerned and taking care of me after I banged my elbow on a rocking chair (perhaps in the future in the midst of their chaos I will pretend to be injured in order to get them to focus on something besides their squabble of the moment)
10. Finding out we're expecting a healthy baby boy!

11. Buying myself a new, and very snazzy, BLUE diaper bag (to be used when Baby Boy arrives; for the next three months I am relishing the ability to carry a large purse, instead of a diaper bag)
12. Stocking up on Bath and Body Works' fall scents
13. An uneventful (read: good) 24-week OB appointment
14. Target's Cartwheel app
15. Candy corn
16. Attending a (free!) base-sponsored self-care workshop, which ended with chair massages by local masseuse-school students (not sure if "masseuse-school student" is the correct term though...)
17. Spontaneously sorting through top-of-the-closet boxes
18. A phone call with my brother on his birthday
19. My first meeting with a new MOPS group
20. Sydney playing at a new neighbor's house
21. Dairy Queen ice cream cones

21 and 24 Weeks

I'm still taking belly photos, sort of.  My dad was visiting at the 21-week mark, so he took my picture, but then we went out of town for two weeks.  So I was in Orlando at my 22-week point and in Baltimore at my 23-week point -- no pictures.  But my neighbor took my picture today, so woo hoo!

21 Weeks

21 Weeks

24 Weeks

That's sort of a "yikes" picture.  I think it needs to be the last time I wear that shirt for a while...

Just for fun, here are my 24-week pictures with Sydney and Lorelei:

24 Weeks with Sydney ("yikes" again...what was I wearing?)

24 Weeks with Lorelei

Anyway.

We arrived back home this past Tuesday.  It really is nice to be back.  I didn't realize how tired all that traveling would make me.  In fact, I went to the hospital in Houston on Monday, because I was having more contractions than I thought I should be having.  (I always experience Braxton-Hicks contractions during my pregnancies, but Sunday night/Monday morning I felt like they were more frequent than normal.)  Anyway, everything is perfectly fine.  I was just a little dehydrated, super tired, and thrown off from my drastic change in daily schedule.  Apparently all of those things (or even just one of those things) can make you have an "angry" uterus, thus the contractions in my case.

And since I feel like I've been a bad mommy blogger lately, here are some random pictures of my children...

Lorelei's ridiculously chubby toes (check out the flip-flop arrangement on that right foot):

Lorelei, door police:

A rare picture of the three of us:

Papa John reading to Lorelei...

...while Sydney acted like a cat/dog:

Some pre-bedtime brain cell reducing, I mean, TV watching:

Sydney specifically requested I take this picture:

Crazy hair going on here (Sydney has two clips in her hair also, a Christmas present and an Easter egg):

This was earlier today.  I asked Syd to take this pile of clothes to the laundry room, and she did.  But then she brought the clothes back and arranged them into a "crib."  She is pretending to sleep in the crib.  Weird.

I hope everyone's having a great weekend!

Still Here

For anyone who may read this blog and is waiting with bated breath for news of Baby #3, we are having a boy!  The ultrasound went really well.  More on that later.

(By the way, the theme of this post is "more on that later".  I just need to get something written so I don't go too long without posting.)

We've had a very busy last couple of weeks.  On a whim, I decided to drive to Orlando for a family party last weekend.  More specifically, Chet's sister lives in the Orlando area, and she was having a birthday party for two of her three kiddos (one is born in late August, the other born in early September).  All of Chet's family was going to be there, and I felt strongly that we needed to go to see all of them.  I know for a fact we are not travelling anywhere for Thanksgiving or Christmas (I will be too pregnant), and there's just not an event in the foreseeable future that will gather us all together.  Not to mention that the sequence of events of early 2014 is 1) have baby, 2) Chet return from deployment, 3) move to Washington D.C.

But moving to Washington D.C. in March (approximately) is a topic for a whole 'nother post (or, "more on that later").

Anyway, the drive from Gulfport, Mississippi to Orlando is 9 hours.  There was no way I could do that on my own, so I enlisted my neighbor (whose parents live in the Orlando area) to ride with us/serve as the girls' slave during the drive.  She was an absolute saint, and I feel like I should pay her about $6,000 for all the help she gave me.  We departed Gulfport at 6:30 a.m. Friday (September 6th), and arrived at Jenni's house 11 hours later.  The party was Sunday, and we departed Orlando at 7:30 a.m. Monday (September 9th) and arrived home 11 1/2 hours later.  The girls had a blast playing with their cousins:

Tuesday all I did was laundry and repack, because we were headed to Houston the next day (September 11th), as soon as Sydney finished preschool for the day.  We got on the road a little after 12:00 p.m., swung through the New Orleans airport to pick up my mom (it's only about 80 miles from Gulfport to New Orleans, so she was able to help us with the majority of the drive), and arrived in Houston at 9:00 p.m.  We rested Thursday, and then Syd and I hopped a 7:10 a.m. flight Friday morning (September 13th) to Baltimore for a wedding (Lorelei stayed in Houston with Didi).  The older sister of the girl's wedding that Lorelei and I attended in San Diego last July (2012) was getting married, and it was fun to go Northeast (although I realize Maryland is technically the South...yeah right) this time of year.  The weather has actually been quite hot in Baltimore, but Thursday storms brought a cool front, providing absolutely perfect fall weather for Stephanie's wedding weekend.  Sydney and I loved getting away, just the two of us, and wearing long-sleeves and long pants (or in Sydney-speak, "down sleeves" and "down pants").  We both had a lot of fun at the wedding, and it was beautiful.  Here is a picture of the enthusiastic wedding guest:

Unfortunately, we had to depart Baltimore early this morning, at 7:50 a.m.  We were back in Houston by 10:00 a.m., and now I need a nap.  We are headed back to good ol' Gulfport Tuesday, so that Sydney can go to school Wednesday morning.  After that...I'm not sure we're doing any more travelling at all until the baby comes.  But, by all means, come and see us!