Bad dream and a long night.

Last night Hannah had a bad dream. It was about bugs. I think it happened because she was eating an ice cube yesterday when we went out to check the mail and a bug landed on her ice cube. She freaked out and threw the ice cube. I found this odd, as Hannah is the one who is normally picking up every bug she finds two of her favorites being the rollie pollie (pill bug) and tree roaches, for those of you not familiar with a tree roach see the picture below, they are huge and often are "swimming" on their back when found, otherwise they're very fast and not easy to catch.

But anyway, back to Hannah's dream. She dreamt there were bugs on "other puppy" this would be the puppy she HAS to have when sleeping and loves dearly. Well she woke up just after 11 pm the first time and Nathan went in, he came back and was like I think she's dreaming, she said something about bugs. Well, a couple minutes later crying again. I switched her puppy out for her backup as she requested and thought we were ok. I went back to bed, but a couple minutes later she was calling again and saying there were still bugs, at this point I turned on the light and rocked her for a few minutes to try and calm her down, well it worked until we went back to the bed and she wouldn't go near it due to bugs, so she suggested I get a kleenex and get them all and bring them downstairs and throw them away, so that's what we did, she wouldn't even go near the trash can when I went to throw the kleenex in it. Back upstairs we headed, hoping she would go back to sleep for the night, as it was approaching midnight and I really wanted some sleep. Well she went back to sleep for a few minutes, but then started calling again. Now there were butterflies in her bed. I turned on the light, got a kleenex and took care of those for her much faster than the bugs as I now knew what I needed to do. She laid back down, but continued calling for us, Nathan went in the following time and she didn't say anything was wrong, so the next few times he let her cry for awhile before going in, then her crying woke up Evie and by that point it was 1 am. Ahh, the joy of kids. And you would have thought she'd sleep in, but no, she was up by 6:45 am.

Toy Rotation

Rotating toys is the best thing in the world. I'm not nearly as consistent as I should be on rotating the toys, but whenever I do the girls are so excited to see the toys. The first time I did Hannah saw a guitar we have and said "Mommy, that's just like ours!" and it was. :-) Today when I brought out new toys Evie was thrilled, I just kind of dumped them out and she had a blast. It kept her entertained for a couple hours. For a 9 month you really can't ask for more than that!

what day is today?

Nathan has finished the night shift, he finished on Monday night/Tuesday morning. He stayed up yesterday to get himself shifted back to a normal schedule and ended up working some from home as well. He's in the office today, so it's more of a normal day. But tomorrow he'll probably be off. Boeing has a wonderful flex plan where you just have to work 80 hours in a two week period, once your 80 hours are in you don't have to go in. However if you have a project or something you have to be in for they pay overtime too, so it all works out well. With him working the weekend and odd hours it throws off your sense of time, it will be nice to get back to a little more normal schedule. This week has been a much quieter week, Monday we went to the library for story time, yesterday and today we went to the park. Remember how I said it's been HOT here? Well we got our gas bill, and they put the average temperature on there, it was 89 degrees. That's for a 24/7 average, my friend said her bill had daytime average for this past month and it was 99 degrees! It's been a little better this week, low to mid 90s. :-) Well I finally have both girls napping again at the same time today, so I'm off to clean.

This week continued...

Potty training day 3: We were off to such a good start, she only went potty three time in two and a half hours, much better than every 15-20 minutes or less she was doing the past two days. Then she asked for juice, I thought this would be a good thing, helping her feel when she had to go and encouraging her to go since she had been doing so well. That was a mistake. She had several accidents, and things pretty much went down hill from there. I thought maybe after nap time she'd be back on track, but after nap time it was no better. She didn't ask to go potty, she had twice as many accidents as actual uses of the potty. Then less than five minutes after sitting on the potty and going, she had an accident, and at that point I gave up. So yet again we'll try some other time, maybe when Nathan's not on night shift and Evie hasn't been sick. Such is life......

Potty training day 4: so I decided to give it one last try, but to no avail. Something about me only have five and a half hours of sleep last night probably didn't help things, but also the fact that Hannah had to be put on the potty every 15-20 minutes or she had an accident still just makes me conclude she's not ready. Or I'm not ready for that kind of commitment, one of the two.

As for the rest of today we got our bedroom set delivered, and it all fits in our bedroom (did I mention it's a HUGE set?) which is good. I was up late clearing everything except the bed out of our room last night. Having one person sleeping during the day and one person sleeping at night doesn't leave much time for doing that type of thing at a reasonable hour, so I did it after Nathan left for work. I can't wait to put everything in place and have it all setup. But it might take a couple weeks for that to happen. We'll see. That took pretty much the whole morning. In the afternoon we got out of the house (after I decided that I really just had to stop attempting the potty training) and went to a friends house for dinner. It was nice to have a change of scenery, although Evie was a bit tired, evidenced by the fact that she feel asleep in the highchair during dinner. :-) It was pretty cute though.

The Week in Review

I know it's only Thursday, but a lot has been going on this week. Sunday we sold our foosball table. The last item we had up for sale on craigslist. For those conservatives out there I've learned of a new site similar to craistslist it's gipperslist.com, check it out. Monday Nathan's car hit 100,000 miles! Yay for Toyota! We also went to look at a bedroom set Monday night, on the way home from looking at it one of the girls started laughing in the back sit, and then the other was laughing too and they pretty much laughed the whole way home. It was great. That's one of the best things about two kids, contagious laughter. Tuesday Evie had a fever, so it was pretty low key day and she slept a LOT. She took three naps, and didn't want to be put down. This is the kid who sleeps less than her two year old sister and would much rather be playing and exploring than being held by mommy. It was kind of nice to snuggle her for a day though :-) Wednesday Evie still had a fever in the morning, so I decided well, since I'm going to be home all day I might as well work on potty training with Hannah. Hannah did great! She only had one accident, she had a few more today, but still did well. I have to say potty training wears you out, at least she your child is going to the bathroom every 20 minutes or less. I'm hoping to start increasing the time a little between trips tomorrow, we'll see how that goes. Nathan also started his shift in the Mission Evaluation Room (MER) for space station support while the shuttle is up there. He was lucky enough to get the midnight to 9 am shift. That's always fun. Plus, he bring in food to share so we made cinnamon rolls (which is everyones favorite), so it was a late night for me. Nathan went and looked at a second bedroom set last night, and we decided to put an offer on the one we saw Monday night and will be picking it up this weekend. :-) Hopefully next week we'll have some before and after pictures up. That's the exciting stuff for the week, we also changed VoIP service on our phone to lingo, as our old service was not having calls ring through consistently and just wasn't that great. We'll see how lingo does. So far so good though. And I found someone to pick up the bedroom set for us, it's a HUGE set, so it wasn't really practical for us to move ourselves, plus we don't have a truck or anything big enough to put even one piece in so we'd have to have rented something anyway. That's the week so far and this is long enough. I hope you are having a good week too!

As for this week.....

I've been trying to continue the organization and clean up efforts that Debbie helped me start last week. One thing that we need is a bedroom set. This is a key item in my organization because Nathan and I are currently using dressers that Becca and I bought when we were younger, these dressers would be perfect for the girls, who really don't have any where besides the closet in their rooms to put their clothes, and Evie's closet is full of junk (we didn't get to that closet before Debbie left) from the office, as her room used to be the office. So currently all Evie's clothes are on the changing table, which is easily accessible by both girls and clothes end up all over, that and that fact that I haven't used the changing table since Evie was about four months old make it a pretty non-useful object that I'd like to get out of her room, hence the need for a bedroom set for ourselves. So I've been looking on craigslist to see what I can find, but there hasn't been one that both Nathan and I like yet, so we'll keep looking.
I also attempted to try the cold turkey method of potty training with Hannah, as many of my friends have successfully done this recently, however I ran into a few problems, such as when cleaning up accidents I had a very interested eight month old trying to get in on the action and when Hannah ended up in time out for hitting Evie with a piece of the foam floor mat in the play room there was no regaining control from there. Oh well, as they say no one goes to college in diapers so we'll try again later.
I also braved the heat and we went to the park. It wasn't that bad and Hannah had a grand time. Evie was in to eating the rocks a little too much, so I ended up holding her more than I had hoped, but over all it was a lot of fun.
Evie is also into trying to copy everything Hannah does, she tries to put hats on, we have a zebra bouncing toy and she goes over to it, pulls up on it, but is too short for the seat, so she can't actually sit on it, but she'll stand next to it and bounce and bounce, it's so cute. She also has figured out how to go from sitting/crawling to standing without anything to pull up on! She also has been way to interested in our kitchen cabinets, we have lots of room in our kitchen so Hannah has her own cabinets and Evie has started playing with the toys in them as well. Although she still likes to get into my stuff, one day Evie was in a cabinet she wasn't supposed to be and Hannah said "here Evie (opening the door to her cabinet) come play in my cabinet" it was very cute! And "in" is probably the correct term. :-)

And we're back...with lots of pictures!

Ok, so Debbie has been gone for almost a week now and I'm still trying to get back into a normal routine and get caught up on things like updating the blog :-) We had a great time with Debbie and she was a HUGE help. Nathan and I got a date night and lunch! Yay! Debbie also helped me clean out clothes and other miscellaneous junk from the house that needed to go. We brought a full trunk load to Goodwill! So the question is now how many shirts does one really need to own? I think I'm down to five at this point. :-) That includes ALL shirts, which would only be t-shirts, because I don't think I'll ever fit into my work clothes again, so I gave them all away. And living in a place like Houston I think I might need more than one and a half pairs of shorts.....how do you get a half pair of shorts you ask? Well, the second pair I have is probably over ten years old and is a pair of umbros, so I don't normally wear them in public much :-) Debbie also helped me post a few items on craigslist, two of which are sold already! Besides all the work we did have a little fun, as you can see from the other posts, we also went out for Mexican and had a fun pizza night with Debbie and one of her friends who lives on the north side of town. Below are some other pictures from Debbie's time her.

Thanks for all your help Deb!!! You are wonderful!!!!!!!!!!!

Family picture!

You can see Evie's bottom teeth!
(that's why I put this one up)
She cut her past one this past week too, so now she has three teeth.


We tried to get a good picture of Debbie and the kids...

And tried....


and tried...

And finally got one with everyone looking AND smiling!

Daddy with his girls :-)

The cool girls

Awww, so cute!

Swimming!

While Debbie was here one of the things I wanted to do was go swimming, as it's much easier to have one adult per child when swimming then two on one. Well we got to do just that. And as a bonus Nathan got to come along too. One of my friends just happened to invite us to their pool, so on Friday we all went for a dip. I'd say it was cool and refreshing with all the heat we've been getting recently, but because of the heat pools around here run in the low 90s for water temperature, so it was more like a luke warm bath :-p But we still had fun.

Hannah enjoying time with Aunt Debbie

Daddy and Evie

Hannah having way too much fun with Daddy

Did I mention that neither of the girls would swim with me? Oh well, Ana, the daughter of my friend thought swimming with me was great, so it was ok.

A date with Aunt Debbie

Hannah had talked to Debbie the day before she was coming into town and had asked Debbie it she would take her to the mall. Debbie of course had said yes, being the wonderful Aunt that she is. The only thing she didn't realize when saying yes and adding I can take you tomorrow night is that Hannah has some concept of time, at least when it comes to days she seems to. So the next day Aunt Debbie comes into town and Hannah excitedly starts asking her about going to the mall. Well, she didn't get to go on Friday, but Aunt Debbie did take her to the mall and Hannah was very excited. Before the mall trip we had gone to Goodwill and Hannah had gotten a purse, so Hannah had a purse, just like Aunt Debbie, and put on a necklace, just like Aunt Debbie, I believe is actually ended up with sunglasses on before they left as well and she didn't take those off the whole time she was walking around the mall. Needless to say she had a great time! Here's a picture of them right before they left for the mall.

Aunt Debbie also stopped at Sonic and got her a drink, this totally made her day!

Fire Safety

Another fun activity we did while Debbie was here was go to a fire station. The kids got to watch a movie about fire safety with Elmo doing the teaching while the Moms got a lesson on how to put out a grease fire. I was surprised how many people didn't know the proper way to put out a grease fire. I suppose I have an unfair advantage since I've had experience with it. :-)

But do YOU know how to put out a grease fire? The recommended way is by suffocation. This can be doing with a paper bag (no it will not burn), dish cloth, or lid. Don't you feel safer now? Ok, here are some pictures since you've had your safety lesson for the day.

I took Evie with me to the moms session

Hannah and Evie sitting on the fire truck with some of the other kids in the group

Hannah and Aunt Debbie in the fire truck
Hannah was scared to go in at first, but then didn't want to come out.

4th of July

We had a fun fourth with the Barnes coming down for a visit and lots of watermelon. Good stuff! Debbie was also in town which added to the fun and excitement of the day. The best thing about the 4th was Sarah taught us how to eat corn! Ok, so I'm sure you're thinking corn really isn't that hard to eat, this was a skill you didn't already know? Well let me show you what I mean by eat corn. Take a look at these cobs:


the whole kernel is eaten and the cob is much cleaner and nothing gets stuck in your teeth! We ate lots of corn while Debbie was here. :-)

Hot Summer Days

It's been REALLY hot here the past couple weeks. We've been trying to stay cool by going to the library, and getting together with friends who have kiddie pools and shade. Our yard doesn't have any shade, which makes it extremely HOT. Yesterday we got together with my friend Niki and her daughter Ally, the girls had fun playing in the water and eating yummy watermelon! I had the camera on the wrong setting for the picture of them eating watermelon, so it didn't work, but even Evie was sitting at the kids picnic table eating. It was very cute. Here are some pictures form the day.

Evie got a little cold in the pool so here she is taking a break after swimming
still not too sure what to think of it.

Hannah looking forward to cooling off

Once back inside Evie decided the pool toys were worth playing with and got right into the ring and just chilled (ok, so maybe Evie doesn't chill because she's always moving and doing things, as you may be able to tell she's actually trying to get the fire man hat behind her in this pictures and whatever other toys she could reach) there for a few minutes.

The Children's Museum

On Monday we went to the Houston Children's Museum for a few hours. They put an addition on that was finished a couple months ago that included a "Tot Spot" and we hadn't been there yet, we got a free pass from the library so I figured I'd give it a try. Sarah offered to go with me so I had no excuses. All in all I think everyone had a good time. Hannah was a little scared at first, as there were lots of people, but once she got into the toddler area and saw all the cool toys she was off and running. Evie loved it, as there were lots of new toys for her and new places/things to crawl and pull up on.

Hanna loves to drive!

Evie enjoying the mirror and soft blocks

Stairs

Evie has now started to climb stairs. She really enjoys it and is pretty good at it. On Saturday she went up our entire flight of stairs. Yes, I was right behind her, but she did really well, even when Hannah came down and touched her twice. Hannah is also doing well on stairs, she can go up them without holding on to anything and alternating feet. Not bad for a two and a half year old. She's been working on going down them standing up as well without holding on to anything. This has been a bit harder for her to master, but she's getting there.