Oh nap time

I just spent an insane amount of time getting Lenorah to look like this:

 She has spent most of the morning looking something like this:

 And I need her to sleep so that she can look like this again:
                                      
I do not understand why children fight sleep so much.  The kiddos have been exhausted this past week and when I looked at my diaper pail vs. the amount of diapers in plastic bags (which means we were not at home for those diaper changes) it's no wonder.  We have spent much of the last week and most definitely all of the past weekend away from home.  Kids are so weird in that they need routine to be happy, oh wait, adults kind of need that too huh?  Anyway, we had a great weekend that started really early with my Mom and soon to be sister-in-law staying the night on Thursday.  Then we spent all day Friday helping her with wedding planning.  Saturday was a birthday party and Sunday was church and dinner with the in-laws.  So apparently my kids haven't been home lately and it is infringing on their sleep and ability to fall sleep.  At least that's what I'm going with, because if that isn't it then Lenorah is clearly possessed.

Dresses

I wasn't a terrible girly-girl growing up.  I did the usual girl stuff, Barbies and dress-up and playing house, but I also played in the mud and the dirt and despised wearing dresses to school.  I always wore them for special occasions of course and enjoyed feeling all dressed up and pretty, especially since I went through a lovely phase of being a giant with an Afro wearing glasses and braces, a pretty dress seriously helped.  I remember my mom always telling me I would never steer you wrong, I want you to look your best too!  But you know how hard it is to believe our mothers when we are young, it takes having your own baby to know they are the smartest humans on the planet!  

My good friend Stacey recently commented on what a girly-girl Lenorah is.  I reminded her that is just because I dress her that way, so far she only plays with cars and seems to be a bit more on the rough-and-tumble boy side then the sweet and calm girl side.  And I'm not complaining believe me!  I love a good tom-boy and I'm sure she will have no trouble learning to mow the lawn, change a tire, and change her oil (kind of like her mom, not to brag or anything).  So back to the dresses, I love them, I love playing dress up with my little girl and I know that someday, like me, she may grow to despise dresses so I am going to put her in one every chance I have until she tells me not too.  

So here she is in her lovely birthday dress from Grandma Jane.  I know she is actually holding a doll in her hand, but it goes with her very own car.  I love this bright dress with polka dots and pink and butterflies!

 And last night I put her in the dress I wore on MY first birthday, so sweet!

 Oh yeah, but she hated it....already...

 Okay, really she was mad because by this point I had changed her dress a few times trying on ones she hasn't worn  yet, and I put a few more on her after this too...mean mommy.

 This, this is how many dresses she has.  Everything you see here is a dress.  I actually get stressed worrying that she won't have time to wear them an adequate number of times before she grows out of them.

 So today she is in a dress from Grammy Laurel, looking sweet and trading in her doll-house motor home for a hammer.

I'm back!?

I haven't posted anything to this blog in ages, and so I decided maybe I just shouldn't anymore because clearly I don't have a lot of time for it.  But then I started reading through old posts last night while drinking a bottle glass of wine and I realized that there are some really great stories and pictures and sometimes I'm even kinda funny.  So even though I only have a splattering of followers I will keep posting to remind me of all these stories and pictures and times in our house!  Dietrich is THREE now!  See, he can show you.

 And Lenorah just turned one, now she walks and laughs and I'm trying very hard to convince her to use some words instead of the incessant uh uh uh that she does whenever she wants something, which is of course all of the time.

So after a several months long hiatus I am back, and I am going to try my best to get on her more often and share more stories, so that I can remember what this crazy time was really like.

New flooring!

This post is a bit late in coming, the floors have actually been done for a few days now, but things have been crazy and I'm just getting around to sharing it with you.  Over Thanksgiving Bryce ripped up the carpet from the stairs and the hallway.

 Then he removed a bazillion staples and scraped up glue, ugh.

 After the boring prep work he put down our beautiful new laminate flooring.  He had it all in within a few days and then it took me several days to get around to painting the back side of the stairs.  I told Bryce I have spent way too much time sitting on the stairs painting (the railing took three coats, if you have been reading that long).  Also, both of my children now have clothes in the same size with the same brown paint on them.  It is a challenge to paint with a crawler on your hands.  On Monday evening Bryce finished putting in the transitions.  It is beautiful and we wake up every morning thinking, oh my gosh who's house is this?

 We will be putting a runner down on the stairs, kind of hard to cover up part of the beauty but with all the little kids around who have all taken a tumble down my stairs, including one broken arm, we will need the extra padding.  Also, Rico is apparently incapable of going up and down them, he falls every time he tries. HILARIOUS, I mean, SAD.

Some days are like this

I have barely slept the last two nights, which is only a slight upswing from the little bit more than barely sleep I usually get.  Dietrich has suddenly taken to uncontrollable, sobbing, choking, crying before bed, and then again about 30 minutes after he falls asleep.  This lines up perfectly with me finally getting to bed almost being asleep and Lenorah waking up.  The crying thing is freaking me out, he used to love going to bed, he would tell us, "go to sweep" and he would go crawl in his bed and fall asleep.  His staying asleep has always been an issue, but at least he went to bed easily.

Today I decided to go somewhere, silly me, leaving the house!  Have you ever invited Jehovah witnesses in just because it's nice to talk to someone during the day?  I have.  Anyway, Dietrich loves going to the store and Lenorah hates the car, so it's about 50% fun and 50% torture to go somewhere.  Since it's almost Christmas picture time I decided to stop and check out dress shoes and a black sweater for Lenorah to wear with her 5 (that's right, count them, FIVE) Christmas dresses. I found boring black shoes, not cute velvety ones with a bow, NO, just boring old black plastic feeling dress shoes.  And no sweater.  Sleeveless Christmas dresses are oh so cute, but seriously, we have snow here.

So then I head to the boys section, and this is the store I always go to for cute boys suits for Christmas and Easter.  I am not looking for something trendy with sleeves rolled up, I am looking for classic black pants, white shirt, vest and tie.  Preferably in Red to go with the "Red" Christmas dress (as opposed to the green, purple, black/red, and red/black dresses) to wear in Santa pictures and Church on Christmas Eve.  And do you know they had one, count them ONE, sort of red vest, pants missing, outfit in D's size.  O-N-E...and no pants.

So I'm annoyed, and they ask at the register when I am leaving and they just got a ton of new inventory and no, nobody saw any Christmas outfits.  Seriously?!?  Do only little girls dress up for Christmas because I saw like 5 bajillion GIRLS Christmas dresses and ONE boys outfit?  Come on people!  Dress up your cute little boys!!!

Then the alarm on the door goes off because I bought a movie for 3.99, yeah, better make sure that is alarmed.  Then in the doorway there is a stupid little vending machine with "balls" in it and Dietrich wants one and no he will not leave the store without one while I carry my stupid black shoes, alarm starting movie and Lenorah, who is slipping down my slippery coat.  Finally he agrees to leave the store if I promise to drive over every speed bump within a five mile radius, which I do, because he loves it and really how easy is it to drive over a speed bump while an excited kid screams "bump, bump!"

Then I get home and he promptly needs his shoes off which he screams to me while I try to lay Lenorah in her crib without waking her up (fail by the way).  So I take off his sandals that he wore with socks and shorts to the store in 40 degree weather with snow on the ground because that is how we roll, when he starts freaking out because "baby shoes off" is now super important.  Her shoes are soft leather, like socks, she can leave them on.  But NO, they must come off and this is the most important thing on the planet which he lets be known by throwing a major fit over the baby's shoes.  Finally I relent and take the damn shoes off because whatever I guess, and then I realize that although I remembered to put mascara on before I left the house I did not remember to put a bra on.  F-A-I-L.

New Carpet

Since we moved into this house we have wondered what the heck the previous owners were doing?  Not only did they have some interesting style choices but they also left us some interesting stains...GROSS.  I have cleaned the carpets repeatedly, and tried to wear out my in-laws carpet cleaner.  We've had it professionally cleaned, but in the end the stains came back, and our kids added new ones.  The carpet was too light and too old to keep it up.  

I threatened Bryce often with tearing the carpet out while he was at work.  Apparently my threats made him nervous because he agreed to replace the carpet in the living room, oh happy happy day!  Here are the before pictures, although most of the furniture was already moved out.

Oh yeah, check out those stains...

                                     Baby couch surfing in the kitchen...
                                     

 Dietrich helping Dad tear out the carpet and the old wood floor in front of the door.

 No more yucky carpet, yay!!!  But look at all those stains on the wood, yick.

                                                        And here it is...TA-freakin'-DA!!!

 Oh yes, Babies love new carpet!

And this is a good color comparison since the old carpet is still on the stairs.

We bought the carpet from our favorite place, Pro-source,  Bryce gets a free membership through work, SWEET!  It has a lifetime stain warranty and apparently if a stain is really bad you can use bleach to get it out, whoa.  I will let you know how that works if I ever have to try it.

It feels so good to have fresh clean carpet for the kids to crawl around on and lick.  At least now I know they are only licking our dirt, nobody else's.  And coming soon...new flooring on the stairs, YIPPEE!!!

Love/not so much

I have been obsessed with this thought since Sunday morning when a well meaning lady at church asked if Lenorah was sleeping through the night.  I REALLY do not LOVE that question.  Are there seriously babies who sleep through the night?  Who are they?  I want to call their parents at 2:00 a.m. when I am up with one/both of my children and or dogs for the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th time of the night.  Who are these amazing babies???  Lenorah sleeps well I think, she wakes up one or two times a night.  Dietrich still wakes up one or two times a night.  So I wake up 1-4 times per night, on average.  Bryce: here is the reason you think I might be losing my mind.

Lately I have a knack for doing really stupid things.  Like leaving an open beer sitting on the floor where children who can walk and now crawl can easily get to it, what sane mother would do that?  Then I stab myself with a sharp fork thingy while trying to hurry and do dishes so that I can get back to whatever other stupid thing I left laying around so that the kids could make a big mess and Bryce calmly asks me "are you okay?"  Clearly not.  But to be clear, I'm not whining!  I love this whole being a mom crazy thing.  It entertains and challenges me daily.  I also pray a lot more than I used too, lots of "please give me patience and help me to parent my children well Lord."  It's good, and I will totally do it again.

So while I H-A-T-E (shhh we don't use that word in front of children) being asked if my baby sleeps through the night, No, and neither does my toddler, thank you so much for reminding me! (insert crazy mom eyes), there are so many things that I L-O-V-E!!!

I LOVE how Dietrich watches the same Monster truck show every day, and now he can recite it!
How he told me all about trains and dark tunnels when I told him he's awesome.
That Lenorah can crawl at just over 6 months old and since she learned that two days ago she now thinks it's time to climb things.
That Dietrich only wants to take a bath with Lenorah.
That although I risk them waking each other up, I love that they share a room.  They get to be close and not alone.
How Dietrich wakes up and says "awake now mama!  Baby awake?"
That Lenorah doesn't want to nap because she wants to play with Dietrich.

Most days life is just life, you are just living, getting through another day, but some days you look at it all and it's just pretty awesome, and funny.