2015 - Week 6

Another week! Kicked off with some tummy issues. Amelia was still questionable, so we kept her home from daycare, just in case. But, she ended up going over to my in-laws with Eliza, so it worked out. At the last minute, I decided to still take the day off. There was plenty I could get done at home, and that way if Amelia did go downhill, or if Olivia fell ill, I’d be close. I received the last of our tax paperwork today – FINALLY! But, our mortgage statement seems to be incorrect, so I’ll have to connect with the bank. What a pain, I swear it’s always something! I started off the day a little lazy…watching some of my shows, blogging, ate some breakfast. Then, I got to work! I finally finished cleaning up the toy room…I cleaned the carpet, vacuumed, and got everything organized and back in its place. Next up, I hit the laundry room. It was dusty and dingy, there were empty laundry bottles all over, we had a ton of storage stuff in there. So, I got all of the trash out, swept up, cleaned the machines and went through all of the stuff. We had A LOT of trash after that cleaning, that’s for sure. I did come across our box of wedding stuff, including our wedding video, and I can’t wait to show the girls! Sometimes cleaning is worth it. I can’t wait to redo our laundry room one day…I want it to be a nice, inviting room – not just a dingy, dark room. I want real walls, and some kind of flooring, and fun storage. One day! Finally, I tackled our storage closet. Organizing the shelves of games and blankets and random crap. Bags of party stuff….bags of gift bags. I could literally open a gift bag store with all of the gift bags we have. It’s ridiculous. I was exhausted, but I made a HUGE dent in the basement progress. I just have to clean up the spare room and the main living room, one day, but it’s getting there. After my busy day, I picked up Olivia and we stopped at Target for some groceries. She looked pretty out of it when I picked her up, and started complaining she wasn’t feeling well at the store. Eventually, she fell asleep in the cart. Poor thing, she definitely wasn’t doing too well, and school tomorrow was looking unlikely. We met Christian and the other girls at home, had some dinner, and everybody was off to bed. At this point, all I could think was PLEASE don’t let this bug hit the baby!

The Wedding Box...

Uh Oh, Not a Good Sign

On Tuesday I was off to work for ½ a day, while Christian was home with Olivia. She didn’t seem super sick, but definitely had a bug. I didn’t want to risk her spreading anything, or getting worse while at school. So, I rushed into work for a meeting, and to get as much done as I could. Then, made my way home to relieve Christian, so he could head into work for the afternoon. I was actually going to work from home for the afternoon, but my system wasn’t working, so I just took it off. Olivia pretty much napped most of the afternoon, but she kept waking up in tears, just bawling like she was in pain. I’d ask her what was wrong, and she’d say nothing, but continue to cry. I don’t know if she was having bad dreams, or what the deal was, but it was strange. We finally picked up the other girls from daycare at closing, and made our way home for a quiet night. Dinner and rest. Olivia seemed to be doing much better in the evening, so fingers crossed for a successful Wednesday!

Trying to give the big girls a bath, and somebody wanted some attention!

Wednesday was my work from home day, my fave! I got a little bit of an earlier start than usual, which was an added bonus. Because of that, I got a little extra time when I finished work, before I had to pick up the girls. So, I did some dishes and some cleaning up around the house, and started going through our drawer of random “paperwork” in the kitchen. I’m about the opposite of a hoarder…seriously, I love throwing stuff away. EXCEPT for paperwork. I swear, I keep everything, No more! I’m going to take some stuff to work to scan in, and everything else goes. No more paperwork hoarding for us! When I picked the girls up, Eliza was PASSED out in her crib at daycare. She was so dang cute. It sure sucked having to wake her up. She did fall back asleep on the drive home, so I was able to get dinner cooked up while she napped. It was a pretty quiet night around the house

Somebody is finally getting the hang of writing her name!

On Thursday I woke up feeling a little more refreshed than usual…it was a rare sleep through the night night for Eliza. LOVE! And, it’s official folks, a second tooth is finally poking through! So, I think that’s what has been bothering her. She had a great week at daycare, and even came home in the same clothes she went in EVERY.SINGLE.DAY. That is a huge success in our world. Sad, right?! She sure loves being there, which makes me so happy. Our day as a whole was pretty standard today. It was my Friday at work, so it’s always a little busier than usual, trying everything up before the weekend. Christian has been busy at work…he still works is 2ish hours of overtime every day, and continues to work most Saturday’s. They keep him busy, that’s for sure. Olivia continues to do great at school, and seems to be quite the little sponge, with something new to share every day. Her reading is getting better and better every day, I just love it. Amelia slowly seems to be maturing in her Pre-K setting. She seems to be becoming more responsible, more involved, which makes me very happy. I know she won’t be quite as prepared and mature as Olivia was when she starts Kindergarten in the fall, but I sure hope she’s ready. Our evening was pretty standard…dinner, baths, a little TV and bed. Nothing too exciting.

Friday was my Friday off, my fave! And as an added bonus, today Christian dropped the big girls off at daycare! I usually have to rush to get them up, ready and dropped off, and get back home before he leaves for work (so that I don’t have to drag Eliza out with us), so that was a nice treat. Once I settled in back at home, I did the usual checkbook balancing and bill paying, and then I finished filing our taxes. We ended up with a larger return than I expected, so that was exciting. We have a few small “debts” to pay off, otherwise we get to just leave that money sit tight – we’re saving up a down payment for a new vehicle for Christian now. It’s nice that we don’t have to just rush and pay it all out towards something for a change this year! Once Eliza was up and fed, we were off for a quick trip to Walmart for a few groceries and necessities. Then, I was back home for a day of binge TV watching, relaxing and napping. A nice, low key Friday. We picked the big girls up from daycare at closing, which included a little measles discussion. With this crazy measles outbreak going around, they just reminded us that none of the older kids, including Olivia and Amelia, are allowed in the infant room (which, I never bring them in anyway). I did hear them talking to another family…apparently as part of this new initiative to nip the outbreak in the bud, the centers are checking everybody’s vaccination history. I guess this family was not up to date and they were told they either need to provide the documentation, or get their boosters ASAP. I was pretty happy to hear they are taking some action, that’s for sure. After that fun, we were off to meet Christian at Applebee’s for an impromptu dinner out, YUM! Eliza can be a pretty fussy baby a lot of the time, but she is SO amazing when we’re out – she loves to people watch and just take in all of her surroundings, so we’ve gotten pretty lucky there. All of the girls passed out pretty much as soon as we got home. Christian and I settled in to watch “Machine Gun Preacher” and it was actually a really good movie, very moving. Of course, we pretty much passed out after.

Somebody is really starting to get around!

Out to Eat, she loves it!

Saturday was a pretty low key day. Christian didn’t have to work, which is pretty rare, so it was nice to have him home. We had breakfast, I cleaned up a bit, and we all got ready to head off to swim class. The girls love when he’s there to watch them, that’s for sure. After class, we stopped at Target to do a little shopping, grabbed some lunch and made our way home. Christian took a pretty good nap, but woke up CRAAAAAAAABY. Good Lord, that kid, in some ways I’d venture to say she rivals Amelia in the crabby factor. Maybe because we don’t have a young toddler to deal with at the same time, maybe because we’re older, maybe because we’ve just gained more patience I don’t talk about it too much, but she gets into these phases where nothing makes her happy, AT ALL. Hopefully, like Amelia, the more she starts moving and the more independence she gains, the happier she’ll be. Meanwhile, while she was napping and I was dealing with her crabbiness, Christian and the big girls were off to his parents’ house to hang out for a little bit. Today was her birthday, but they didn’t make any actual plans, so they just went for a visit. Christian and I actually got into a little tiff over him not taking Eliza with (well, he really didn’t even invite me to go with, which was annoying on its own, but I REALLY could have used a little time to myself with the way she’s been). But, I got over it. Amidst the playing and comforting I finished catching up on “Hart of Dixie”, and not I get to binge the latest season of “Bates Motel”. Seriously, thank god for Netflix, my source of entertainment. The girls were pretty much off to bed as soon as they arrived home, and we just watched a little TV and had a quiet night.

Also, Eliza turned 9 months old today. She's just growing up WAY too fast, and she seems to take on a whole new personality every day. She's weighing 20lbs2ozs and she's about 28.5" long. She loves exploring, people watching, eating, her sisters, and music. While she's not actually crawling, she can get into the crawling position, but will immediately drop to the ground and throw a fit, waiting to be rescued. She sleeps through the night more often than not now, thankfully. She's wearing 9-12 month clothes, we just swapped her closet out last week. She's eating all of the (appropriate) fruits and veggies, yogurt, "baby snacks" and we're slowing giving her table foods now. She has one tooth completely out, and one that just poked through. She's still nursing like a champ, but is WAY too easily distracted these days, which makes it quite a task. She's waving and clapping , and holding herself up against toys and furniture now (she wants to pull herself up SO bad, but there's a lot of substance there to get up you know), and she even took a couple of TINY baby steps along her music table. She'll be cruising in now time. You just can't help but love this girls...she has rolls, and cheeks and personality for days, she's just so amazing. Next up, I think she'll be moving to her convertible carseat soon, because she's getting HEAVY!

Well, although the crabbiness has been aplenty, Eliza has actually been sleeping pretty well the last few days. Hopefully that keeps up it, it just about makes up for the exhaustion of trying to make her happy all day long! On Sunday, I was up and at it early, getting laundry started. We had some breakfast and hung out with the girls. I got back to work on the basement a little bit while Eliza napped. Today I focused on the spare room…cleaned it up, got some stuff together, ready to sell, went through the girls’ clothes and got them organized. TEAR, I’ll be starting to sell Eliza’s clothes in the next couple of months, and it’s so hard to believe. The spare room is basically our storage – old kid stuff, clothes from all of us, coats. But, it has to be cleared out REALLY soon, as the big girls will be moving down there to reside (scary!). So, hopefully when I start selling stuff off, it moves quickly! After that task was complete, we all spent a pretty low-key evening together. Christian made us some fried taquitos and rice for dine…OMG, so good!!! We watched the Grammy’s and the girls took their very first shower. We’re finally moving them out of baths and into taking showers and they loved it. This should definitely save us some time on “bath night”.

A little funny to end the week. I'm not sure what sparked the conversation, but as we were sitting around this evening Olivia announced that she was going to live in our house forever. I [jokingly] told her, “Oh no, you have 12 more years and then you have to go”. She argued, so I compromised and told her she could wait another year and a half after that and then take her sister with her. She kept telling me all of these reasons why she has to stay in our house and live with is, and it was just cracking me up. And, who am I kidding, I don't know what I’ll do with myself when my babies grow up and leave me. I will say; I do cherish the fact that they WANT to live with us forever. I know that sentiment will be changing....all too soon.

Until Next Week! XOXO