Falling Behind

It seems like I'm falling behind on everything these days. None of it is really important, but I still feel like I'm treading water sometimes. For instance, it's been a long time since I've had a chance to update this blog. Even longer since I've had a chance to clean my bathroom. I'm definitely realizing how much easier it was to get things done when Mason was in preschool - even though it was only two mornings a week.

Since my last update, Dave spent a week in Germany for work. I was dreading the trip since I wasn't sure how I could handle two kids by myself for 7 straight days. However, my mom and dad came up for most of the week to visit and help out. It was definitely a big help to me. I was able to get the car inspected and visit the doctors office without having to take the kids. It was also an enormous help to have them come with us to have professional pictures made. (Which was something else I've been behind on... poor second kid has a lot less pictures than the first.)

Now I just need to find the time to go grocery shopping, update Lauren's baby calendar, get my haircut, buy Lauren some new clothes before she outgrows everything, organize closets, figure out what to do with all the outgrown baby toys and clothes, change my sheets, finally finish the ongoing porch re-screening project, stain the new kids' table, scan pictures, and clean the floors.

However it seems like my projects for today are taking a shower, feeding everyone a healthy meal, and dancing with the kids in the living room. If I can get all that done, it will be a pretty good day. Everything else can wait until tomorrow.

A Raleigh Fun Time

This past weekend we went up for a quick visit to Raleigh. We've lived in North Carolina for almost 5 years now and figured it was about time we check it out. We left Saturday morning around 9:00 after stopping by the Harris Teeter (grocery store for you out-of-staters) for some breakfast muffins and a DVD to watch on the computer after the kids went to bed. We had a few nursing and potty stops along the way, but we made it up there around 12:00.

Our first stop was the capital building uptown. Dave was somewhat disappointed by the size, but I'm sure he was comparing it to the last capital building we saw in Austin, TX. (Think our nation's capital but bigger.)

After our little walking tour, we headed over to the Marbles Kids Museum for lunch and the exhibits. This turned out to be well worth the trip alone. It was a fantastic place for Mason, and he had a blast. I highly recommend our Charlotte friends to make the drive with their little ones if they haven't yet seen it. There are lots of interactive exhibits and things to climb on and water to play in specifically geared towards the toddler set.

Mason loved the little post office\ package delivery section the best. I think he could have moved those packages down the rolling bars for hours:
He also enjoyed walling himself in with giant lego blocks:

And playing in the "peas and carrots" ball pit:

Lauren wasn't too impressed and she fell asleep:

After the museum, we headed to the hotel which Mason had been looking forward to all week. (He's been playing "hotel" ever since the last time we stayed in one.) We all enjoyed the pool for a little while and then got the kids to bed pretty early.

We got a room with a separate bedroom area so we were able to put Mason to bed and not disturb him while we watched the movie we rented on our laptop (while Lauren slept in her pack-n-play in the kitchen.

The next day we went back uptown to see the NC Museum of Natural Sciences which was right across from the capital. It was well worth the price of admission - it was free. The exhibits were much better than I anticipated for a free museum. There's even a full dinosaur skeleton on display. Mason was mostly interested in riding the elevator to go between floors though.

After the museum, we took our first stab at Geocaching. If you're not familiar, it's a type of world-wide hide and seek game where you use your GPS and some latitude\longitude coordinates to find an object hidden by some other geocacher. I looked up a coordinate and knew there was one right outside the capital, but I'm either not very good with my GPS or the hidden object was not there anymore. It was supposed to be a relatively easy find, so I'm going to have to try this again somewhere else. (There's supposedly one hidden very near my house, so that will be my next try.)

We headed home around 3:00 and were all warn out from our quick trip by the time we got home. All in all, it was a fun way to celebrate Father's Day weekend.

A Swedish Meatball, Cat Cookie, and Iced Coffee Day

It's been pretty hard to make church on Sunday lately. Not because we don't want to go, but because our daughter usually naps at the same time as the service. So this morning when it became apparent she wasn't going to wake up in time, we started thinking of alternative plans. We finally settled on a shopping trip to a couple of new Charlotte stores we haven't ventured to yet: IKEA and Trader Joes.

When we lived near Houston, we went to IKEA a couple of times. The gigantic home furnishing store apparently wasn't big enough for the likes of Texas (where everything really is bigger), so they were in the midst of building an even bigger one next door. Nevertheless, it's was one of the biggest home furnishing stores I've ever been in. We marveled at the winding maze of rooms, all with ultra modern furnishings we liked, but never figured out how to incorporate into our fairly conservative home. So although we enjoyed shopping there, we never bought a thing. Even so, it's a fun place to go, so we checked it out the new store in Charlotte today.

Let me tell you, if you've never been, you have to go just to see it. It's fantastic. We had a great time just looking at all the cool things. I think Mason even had a great time. Especially in the kids rooms. This time, we actually bought a couple of things: a new kids' table with chairs for our kitchen and some light bulbs. (Dave was tempted by the pickled herring he found in the grocery section, but decided it might get too hot in the car.)

About halfway though the maze of rooms, just when you get ready for a little break and a snack, you come up on: the IKEA restaurant! It's a self service cafe with some really great food. We shared a plate of the famous IKEA Swedish meatballs with mashed potatoes and ligonberry sauce, and a slice of almond cake. Delish!

After IKEA, we headed over to Trader Joes. Although we've always heard good things about it, we've never been. There's never been one close to where we lived. I love to shop for all natural\organic things and there were lots of good things for reasonable prices. As a treat for Mason, we bought some Cat Cookies which we tried in the car. Turns out they are really good, and I wish we had bought some more.

And what goes good with afternoon cookies? Coffee! So we headed across the parking lot and got some iced coffee from Starbucks. We enjoyed our little snack all the way home.

And when we got home, I think Dave was a little hopped up on caffeine, because he finished the next step on the porch project we've been working on for awhile now: staining all the wood beams so they'll be ready for rescreening.

Hopefully, God will forgive our napping daughter for making us miss church this morning. Especially since we were able to spend such quality family time today.

Sleepless in Charlotte

Coffee is not an old friend. It's a relatively new friend that I've come to rely up every so often since Mason was born. I used to even hate the smell, but now I can tolerate it. Lack of sleep will do that to you I guess. Usually, I drink it only when Dave (a coffee addict) makes a pot. I only recently even learned how to make it myself. However, this week, I think I've set a new record for myself and made a pot of coffee every afternoon in a futile attempt to keep myself alert enough to function normally. All because sleep is not my friend this week.

Take last night for instance: I went to bed at 9:30, about 5 minutes after Lauren finally went down. (She was up late due to all the napping she did during the day to make up for the sleep she missed the night before.) At 11:15, she was up for who knows why. Maybe teething, maybe an upset tummy, maybe because she learned how to drive Mom crazy. I went in, cuddled her for a minute and put her back down to fuss herself back to sleep. She settled down after a few minutes, as did I. A few minutes after that, Dave came to bed (after staying up late working - or was that to watch the Magic game on TV?) which of course stirred me again.

I went back to sleep relatively quickly and all was fine until 3:15 when Mason called me to to take him to the potty. He only wakes up a couple of times a week to go potty, and I much rather he do that than wet the bed, but he always seems to pick the nights where I'm already getting little sleep. It's been suggested to me several times to just wake him up to go potty before I go to bed and maybe it will help him sleep longer at night. I'm afraid to do this because he's such a light sleeper and I don't want it to backfire on me. He usually gets upset when I try to take him to the potty when it wasn't his idea. Maybe one day if it gets bad enough, I will try it (except it would be pointless when I'm forced to go to bed so early as I've been doing the last few days.)

As usual, it took me awhile to get back to sleep after taking Mason to the potty. Finally I drifted off and what was probably a couple minutes later, at 4:15, he called me to take him to the potty again. This time I tried to get Dave to go, but he just said, "What?" and rolled over back to sleep. So I let it slide and got back up to help Mason. But for whatever reason, when I got him on the potty, he said he didn't have to go. He was more interested in looking at the toys left in the bathtub after Lauren's bath last night. I think he just never went back to sleep after the first time, and he was scheming for some middle of the night company. Back to bed again.

This time, I didn't get back to sleep at all when Lauren's 5:00 wake up call came from the next room. I got up yet again, this time making lots of noise and loud sighs to try to show my frustration to my blissfully sleeping husband. It was all I could do to fight back the tears of exhaustion.

After Lauren was fed and changed, I put her back in her crib to sleep. But go to sleep she didn't. I let her fuss for several minutes and finally realized, she wasn't going back to sleep. I reluctantly got up and took her downstairs. After about an hour, she was sleepy enough to go back to bed so we both got back down around 6:00.

Not long later, Dave got up to get ready for work. Thankfully, he was paying a little bit of attention last night, so instead of making lots of noise in the bathroom, he just went downstairs and waited until I got up (which was 8:15 when Lauren called again). He went into work a little late so I would get a little extra bit of sleep.

Things look better in the light of the morning, so I don't feel so frustrated now, but I'm certainly glad today is Friday and the work week is almost over. Not only have I not been getting enough sleep, but Dave's was out of town this week for 2 1/2 days for work and Mason and Lauren have both been extra whiny. I've also been busy trying to keep us all entertained now that school's out for the summer. Maybe I've been making us too tired during the day and it's affecting us at night. I think today and this weekend we'll just take it easy and try to get back to our normal routine.

But I will definitely keep my pantry full of coffee. I'm gonna need it.

Movin' and Grovin'

Lauren is getting bigger and more mobile every day. The time sure does fly by faster with the second one than with the first. It seems like just yesterday she was my tiny little blob I could just lay on the bed without worrying about her falling off. Not anymore. She'll roll off in just the time it takes to turn around to throw away a diaper (just ask Dave).

Just last week while we were on vacation, she learned how to go from her tummy to sitting up. She can also army-crawl like a champ now. It only took her a few days to master it, so now I have to keep my eyes on her at all times. She can move pretty fast too. In just a couple of minutes, she can make the loop around the bottom floor of our house.

Here she is pulling herself up on her toy box. I think she likes being able to actually see inside to get her own toys out. She's kneeling here, but several times now, she's pulled herself up to standing.

And just this week, I've caught her crawling on her knees. She still mostly does the army-crawl, but she's up on her knees all the time, even if she's not moving.

Another good thing about getting bigger is how much better she is at sleeping. There have been several nights now that she's slept from 7:30 until around 4:30 or 5:00. Then I'll feed her and she'll go back to sleep for another hour or two. And a couple nights ago she slept from 8:30 until 6:30 without waking up. It was the first night I've gotten almost 8 hours of consecutive sleep since I can't remember when.

It's amazing how much they change in so little time.

Seven Years Ago Today...

... I married my best friend.

Happy anniversary, sweetie! I love you!

Tour de Grandparents

For the last week and a half, we've been making the tour of the grandparents - both sets of which live in Florida. On Wednesday, we picked up Mason on his last day of school with the car loaded, and headed down I77 to Orlando to see Dave's family first. We knew the trip would take about 10 hours, so the thought was we'd leave just in time for Lauren's afternoon nap, then the kids would both go to sleep for the last couple of hours which is always the hardest. Our plan worked pretty well except for all the rain we got on the way. That made it a little hard with a son who won't go to public restrooms and insists on peeing in the grass (see a previous post about our trip to Myrtle Beach) but we made it with relatively few issues.

We visited with Baba, Grandpa, and Uncle Matthew in Orlando until Tuesday. We also got to visit with some very dear friends while we were there, but with all the rain we had, we didn't get to do much else. At least we were able to enjoy most of Memorial Day outside by the pool at Amy and Ryan's house.

Mason enjoying yummy cake poolside...

Tuesday morning, Dave flew from Orlando to New Jersey for work, so I loaded up the kids and headed north to Perry where my parents live. It was my first time travelling for any length of time with both kids, and I had only done it once with Mason before Lauren was born. The three hour trip took about five hours, but it was relatively smooth. We had a good time visiting with Grandmama and PoohPa. We even got to see Aunt Amy and cousins Kellon and Chandler, plus good friends Aunt Marge and Uncle Don while we were there.

Mason and cousin Kellon on the computer...

Cousin Chandler and Lauren...

Friday morning I loaded up the kids again and headed to Jacksonville where we were to pick up Dave who was flying back from New Jersey. I have a pretty good husband because his flight actually connected in Charlotte on the way. He was just flying down to be with me on the longest part of the drive home. His flight was delayed out of Newark as usual, but he made it to our hotel at 10:30pm. In the meantime, I visited with a good friend from high school who I haven't seen in 14 years. Saturday we made the long trip home, and I think all of us were ready to get out of the car by the time we hit South Carolina.

He must be worn out to fall asleep in the middle of a movie...

To cap off our vacation, we hit the Carowinds waterpark on Sunday. Mason had such a good time in the splash area, swimming in the wave pool, and going down the kids' slide. I think Lauren didn't really know how to feel about such a big bathtub. She did enjoy napping in the stroller though.

Mason and Daddy enjoying the waterslide at Carowinds...

Both kids were certainly warn out after such a busy several days an slept very well last night. It was wonderful to get to visit so many of our friends and family on our trip, but it is very nice to sleep in our own beds again and get back to our regular routine.