Daydreaming

Whenever I have something I want to avoid doing, I come up with some Big Project I would like to do. Now, I'm not quite sure what I'm avoiding right now, but I have several Big Projects on which I'm ruminating.

One is a redo of our downstairs half bath.

We already have a white medicine cabinet to hang up in there, so I thought this vanity would go nicely:

Along with this faucet (except for less money if I can find something similar):

I really like the squared-off look of this one. It makes it a little different than the others, and I prefer straight lines whenever possible. Although, if I'm going be honest, I really, really want this faucet, but can also think of better ways to spend over $900 (!).

Also, does anyone really still buy faucets like this one?

I mean, if you purposely went out and bought this faucet, I'm sure it's beautiful and you obviously have wonderful taste. It's just not for me. It looks dated and reminds me of my grandma's house. Also I have these on every bathroom sink in my house right now, so, you know, I'm in no place to judge.

(Side note - I'm at least going to make Aaron go out and buy and replace the half bath faucet this week. His parents are coming in just over a week and they've never been to our house before and my nesting is worse now than it ever was when I was pregnant.)

Of course, if I'm going to replace everything else in the bathroom, I will also have to paint. So far we have painted one room on our main floor and I'm trying to make the colors flow nicely from one room to the next, so - the family room is this color:

 I kind of like yellow and blue or grey together, so this color might work well:

Although, if I'm honest, I also like this color, with a white bead board on the bottom half of the wall:

However, like hell is Aaron ever going to let me paint any walls any color even resembling pink. He also doesn't understand my love of florals and botanicals. I say they remind me of my grandmother (who had excellent taste), and he says EXACTLY.

Anyway, that's probably enough daydreaming for right now. I just have one more thing to share. So, let's say your husband came home with a new video game last night, and felt guilty about spending the money on it, and so he said you were also free to go out and buy something of your choosing, whatever you want. How sad would it be if the thing you wanted was a new mopping system? Yeah. I thought so.

Even a mom to two can act like a noob sometimes

As always, Sophie decided to be OMG-SO-HUNGRY-FEED-ME-NOW right when I sat down to eat dinner last night. It's awesome and happens about 99% of the time. So, I took her over to the rocker to nurse her and as I layed her down, I noticed something strange. She had a weird raised bump on her neck right behind her ear that hadn't been there earlier.

Since she will not hold still for even a split second, I had a hard time looking at it, but started to get worried. I called Aaron over to take a look, and he was a little worried too. Neither one of us wanted to touch it; it kind of looked painful and we didn't want to mess with it too much. My usual response to any suspicious looking red marks is to undress my kids to see if they have any more spots. Since it was almost bath time anyway, I decided to take her upstairs and examine it in the brighter bathroom light where I could distract her with bath toys.

So we go up and get her undressed - there were no other red marks I could find - and put her in the bath. That mark was still bothering me though, so I decided to touch it with my now-wet hands.

And it came off.

I'm a dork.

Then I recalled the raspberry flavored yogurt covered pretzels that Gabbie had been eating earlier, right before she decided to hug and kiss her sister. And apparently plot to nearly give her parents heart attacks.

Our Girls' First Camping Trip

This weekend we continued our string of great-camping-trips-cancelled-prematurely-due-to-the-sky-opening-up-and-flooding-us-out. Meaning, we were having a good time and then it rained about an inch and a half in fifteen minutes. So we packed up a night early and headed to my parents' house (halfway between the campsite and home) arriving at 11:00 at night. (As an aside, I haven't been in bed before 11:00 pm in over a week, and oh my goodness am I EXHAUSTED).

But, before the deluge we had a fabulous time. On Saturday morning at 5:30 the girls got to experience one "fun" facet of sleeping outside: birds. It started with crows that I swear were sitting on top of our tent, and then proceeded to all sorts of different birds calling out and singing and generally celebrating day-break. It was loud and sudden, and even though the noise died down after only about ten minutes, we were up for good. Gabbie's eyes got great big, and I could just see her brain going behind them. I know that she might not remember this camping trip when she's older, but it was so much fun to get to watch her experience all these things for the first time. (Including s'mores - she thought they were okay, but in true Gabbie fashion, eschewed the s'more as a package deal, and was perfectly happy dining on marshmallows and chocolate bars. Also, a sugar detox is happening for the child this week, because we totally sugared her up all weekend.)

We were in the absolute minority at the campground in that we camped in a tent and cooked all of our food over the campfire. Aaron and I are both of the mindset that staying in a camper or RV that is equipped with a full kitchen or at least a grill, a tv, a bed, and air conditioning is not "camping." It is simply moving your comfortable living situation to a more nature-filled place. So, we went with our tent, a few sleeping mats and sleeping bags (and a pack and play for Sophie so she had a safe place to sleep), and a grill grate to put atop the campfire pit. It was awesome fun. We didn't do pretty much anything we had planned to do (another trend in our vacations), but we still had a great time. We took a couple of walks, watched the sun set over the bay, sat in chairs around the campsite and read books while holding napping babies, and ate our fair share of junk food (candy, chips, s'mores, etc. - also a camping tradition).

Unfortunately, we have the girls completely off schedule, and they both seem to think that 10:00 pm is a perfectly acceptable bedtime, so this week will be spent getting them back to sleeping at a more reasonable hour. However, the camping trip was so much fun I kind of want to head out again this weekend. We won't, but it will be happening again sometime soon.

Here are a couple pictures of the girls in the (orange, so that's the cause of the pictures' tint) tent.

Early morning portrait of a girl who just spent her first night in a tent and loved it.  

Ditto.

Silly Girls

I am a big fan of encouraging silliness at all (appropriate) times with my kiddos. Which is good, because they're all for silliness, intentional or not, as well. For example:

Intentional silliness. What you can't see (at least not well) here is that she's wearing a chef's hat, an apron, and no pants. And she was dancing and making up a song, while serving me imaginary cupcakes. It was awesome.

Unintentional silliness. Sophie's teachers put her "Crabby Pants" outfit on backwards. I couldn't stop laughing at this, especially because this takes some effort due to the fact that there are snaps all the way up the supposed-to-be-front, so she had to be flipped over and snapped, and she doesn't stay still when she's on her belly, not even a little bit.

First thing in the morning silliness. My mom started a tradition with us when we were kids that I'm carrying on with my kids, which is that first thing we do in the morning is pile into mom and dad's bed and talk about the coming day. The girls usually get each other giggling during this time and love to give each other hugs. It's more than fantastic.

Speaking of fantastic, we took Sophie to see an orthopedist yesterday to check on her hips; a precaution due to Gabbie's problems with hip dysplasia which can be genetic. She had a checkup for them at six weeks, which showed she was fine, but the doctor wanted to see her again at six months just to make sure. She had some x-rays done and after the doctor checked these out, she proclaimed them perfect, and so we never have to see the orthopedist again (unless we have more kids, then they need to be checked out too)! It feels so great to be able to be done with all this mess. After the appointment I told Aaron that I felt like I finally let go of a breath I didn't know I was holding. We're done worrying about hips, probably for always, and I am over the moon about that.

This is why I have a category called "Random Randomness"

I'm pretty sure I just burned my butt when I got into my car, simply by sitting down on the seat. It has been (as with pretty  much everywhere else) ridiculously hot lately, and I am looking forward to the cool-down promised for tomorrow. Highs in the mid-70s? Yes, please! That sounds like perfection.

I have been sick for about a week now, and my biggest issue right now is that it feels like my ears need to pop and I can't get them to do it. Thankfully I feel approximately 95% better than I did just a few days ago. Stupid allergies plus a sinus infection. Summer colds are the worst!

I hesitate posting this next part, because I'm not completely, 100% sold on the idea that it's purposeful, but Sophie has been saying "mama" for a while now, and on Sunday, when the girls and I got home from visiting my parents over the weekend, she looked at Aaron and said "dada." Several times, in fact, and she has been saying both regularly ever since, and sometimes it really seems like she's using it correctly. If she is, in fact, using the sounds as words, she has Gabbie beat on a first word by about six months. Craziness.

Sophie has never been quite as good at keeping herself entertained as Gabbie was, so we have had to be creative in ways to keep her occupied so we can get something (anything) done around the house. One surefire thing that buys us a good ten minutes? Ice cubes. We put them in either the mesh feeder or a sippy cup. One day last week I needed about twenty minutes to get dinner together, so I gave her two ice cubes, one in the mesh feeder (which she will then eat) and one in the sippy cup (which she can't quite figure out, so she shakes it to make noise and then pours out the water as it melts, and then splashes in the water (I taught her how to splash and so now if she sees liquid, it's splash city!)), and you would have thought I gave her a diamond-encrusted puppy for how excited she was. So, of course, I had to take a picture (see the cuteness above).

Over the long weekend two weekens ago now, we decided to go out to dinner one night. While waiting for our food to arrive, we were looking for ways to keep Sophie entertained (this is what takes up the majority of my time and energy when I'm not at work lately; I'm totally blaming her for the fact that it has been nearly a month since my last blog post. I'm brain-dead because of my adorable (time consuming) baby!), and Aaron thought he would try to see what she could do with a straw. So he put his water near her, and she grasped the straw, put it in her mouth, and started drinking his water. She's a straw savant!

While she will drink pretty much anything, this girl will not eat food (hey! There's a thing she has in common with her sister (grumble, grumble)). We've tried rice cereal (she will eat it for the daycare ladies, but not me), sweet potatoes (gag city) and pears (four bites then gag city), and she's not much of a fan of any of them. I'm going to keep on keeping on, though. Tonight? Bananas! (I'm guessing it will be Banana Gag City!) She remains a huge fan of nursing and would nurse 24-7 if I let her (I don't let her (don't worry, I'm not starving her, but I'm also not letting her use me as a human pacifier)).

Despite the fact that neither of my daughters will give me the satisfaction of eating one damn bite of real food (okay, Gabbie will take "a couple more bites", but that's it), both have been doing some major growing lately. One weekend a few weeks ago, Gabbie's shoes fit on Friday, but not on Monday. Needless to say, Gabbie has new shoes. We went for her 3-year appointment the following week and she had grown an inch and a pound in a little less than a month. Craziness. She's been complaining of growing pains lately, and I swear she wakes up noticibly taller than she goes to sleep some days. Sophie's 6 months size clothes are starting to get tight - Gabbie never got into a size until she was at least that age, and Sophie is growing out of things at approximately the age listed on the label. Despite all of Gabbie's growing, it has, as usual, gone to getting taller, not wider, and she can still comfortably wear size 24 month shorts (and does - I'm not spending money if I don't need to). I'm not looking forward to winter, when I have to make sure her pants are long enough, and will probably be shoping for tiny, pink belts.

Speaking of my girls getting bigger, we are almost completely done getting Sophie's room together. We just have to remove the blue tape from the trim and arrange the furniture, and she'll be sleeping in her own room. We painted the walls a pale green ("Celery"), and painted the trim a cream color (creatively titled, "Creamy" (Aaron says he hopes I like the trim in the rest of the house, because never again! (I say I hope he forgets soon because he is SO painting the trim in the family room))). I'm hoping to get some Beatrix Potter wall stickers or posters for decorations and then her room will be complete (and I'll post pictures!).

He also painted the family room over the past weekend. We chose "Afternoon," which is gorgeous in person, but looks really bright in pictures. I will try to take some good pictures soon, when we have everything more assembled. Aaron had been complaining that because we still had the same furniture and hadn't really done any decorating, he still felt like we were living in an apartment. Decorate away, I told him, and he is. We've actually let Gabbie pick out every paint color we've used so far, except the color we used in our bedroom, and she has done a great job! (We have not, and need to repaint the bedroom, because it's not great.)