Exhausted yet again!

Yeah, last night, one of the worst. KK got up 4 or 5 times. I can't even remember it happened so much. I put her back in bed and stayed with her everytime until the last one at 5 a.m. I just couldn't take it anymore. Guess that means that I failed and taught her that if she is persistent, in the end Mommy will give in. So I guess I took two steps forward and three steps back. BUMMER!

The girls were invited to a bounceopolis bd party today and had fun. Aly couldn't wait for the pizza and cake. KK was very hesitant on all of the bounce equipment and never really got comfortable. I have noticed the past 6 months she has started to change from being the one that will dive into anything carelessly to a very cautious little girl who needs to take things slowly.

I booked our August camping trip today. We are going to meet up with my brother to see the coastal redwoods. I am pretty excited for that trip as well although I will dread the 7 hour drive. Now I just need to find a camping trip fro September and we will be set for camping this year. I hope the girls enjoy it more now that they are older. Perhaps I should wait until after the beach camping trip in a couple of weeks before I schedule a September camping trip.

Monday my cousin will find out if she is having a boy or girl baby due this November. I can't wait to hear. I know she will be happy no matter what she has. She said initially she wanted boys but the idea of a girl is warming up to her too.

Hopefully tomorrow will be a mellow day. Looking forward to sleeping tonight, hoping it is not too interupted.

good things happening

Woo hoo, we booked a campsite in Petaluma so that we can join up with a friend at Dillons Beach. It will be so fun to go camping. It will be our first time this year. I am really looking forward to it. Hopefully we will be able to fit at least Aly's bikes, she never gets a chance to ride it. The campground looks really cool, it has a brand new playground, a swimming pool, and even a petting zoo! Can't wait!

KK did really well in gymnastics today. She only threw fits during stretching time--I can't blame her it is kinda boring to stretch, especially for a 2 year old. The rest of the time she would sit with me and wait her turn without really fussing. It was great. She actually got to go first one of the times because she was behaving so well.

Aly and KK are so funny together. They love making eachother laugh and KK laughs at things just because Aly is. It is so cute. The both had a lot of fun with our dog Nevada today. We let Nevada stay in the house most of the day and they played quite a bit with her. Not always nice--I had to tell them not to pull on her tail. Nevada was such a good dog though, she would let the kids pull her tail and wouldn't even respond to it. It would be cute one day if each of the girls had a dog to sleep in bed with.

Well, KK got up at 2 and 4 am. last night. I brought her back to her bed both times and stayed with her until she fell asleep. Yes, I am tired, but my hope is that eventually she won't get up anymore or maybe just once or twice a week. Am I dreaming or what?

Everyday brings big changes!

Wow, I didn't have a chance to come back on and tell what happened late afternoon. At 4:40 Ray shows up to cut down 5 of our big pine trees on the hill. We needed them cut down for two reasons:
1. They were too close to the house and we were worried they could fall on the house in a bad storm.
2. It should give us a good satellite signal.

Well it was amazing to watch him fall the trees. Do you know how long it took him? Only 30 minutes. It was like Paul Bunun in the forest. The sad thing though is that they knocked a baby blue jay out of his nest. The baby was alright and Ed wanted us to try and raise it. I went on the internet and found out that it needed to be fed every 45 minutes and said, "No way, I don't have time for that. My kids need me enough and I have several places I have to go over the next 3 days and I won't be around to take care of the bird." So I read some advice online and it said to put the bird and makeshift nest in a box and nail it to a nearby tree. Hubby did that and it looks as if the birds mom and dad found him. So hopefully he will survive the natural way.

KK slept bad again last night. I am soo tired. I have made a plan and I am going to stop letting her come and sleep in my bed in the middle of the night. I am going to bring her back to her bed and stay with her till she falls asleep. Hopefully this will work. She is two and I think it is about time for me to be able to enjoy a full nights sleep.

I am soo over due for a nice break from everyone. I am hoping soon I can take some time to myself on a weekend. A nice big block of time. I feel like I am on major burnout and it can really effect my patience level with the kids. Staying home full time and not getting any break from your 24/7 job can make it really hard. Some moms are great at handling it and never having time away but I am just one of those moms that needs at least one or two days a month to rejuvenate.

Wish me luck sleeping tonight!

A little better

Well last night I slept a little better. I think it was because I was so tired it was easy for me to fall back asleep. KK came in around 3 a.m. and woke me up again around 5. This time I was able to fall back asleep so I feel much better today.

KK had her developmental playgroup today. They finally addressed the primary reason we were referred to them. We were referred for KK's choking issues. She was choking quite a bit at snack time and they took notice. This was the third time it has happened out of 4 visits there. I have mentioned it every time. So I guess they will be working with her at snack time each playgroup and start helping her with the primary reason we went there!

Hubby had to stay home and finish the water pump on his jeep. He started working on it yesterday and spent nearly 6 hours on it. He finished it up today after nearly 3 more hours. He saved us a lot of money though. The pump was only $40 and I am sure if we took it to the shop it could have been $200 plus in labor. I am glad that he is handy enough to be able to do some of these things on his own. I know he much rather would have paid someone but we just aren't in a position financially to do it right now. He spent over $300 last month just getting his jeep to pass smog and now the Corrolla is at his brother's house waiting to get the steering rack replaced which will probably be $300+. So we need to save every penny we can now.

I can't believe the month of June is almost over. It seems like just yesterday we were having the girls birthday party. Hopefully Ed will take some time off next week for the 4th and we will be able to relax. We are supposed to try to meet up with some family in Reno at some point but we haven't quite decided when.

Aly's sense of humor is getting very cute. She thinks everything is funny and it is a blast to watch her grow. Anytime we are watching TV if we laugh she forces her laugh out and it is soo funny. I will have to try and remember some of the funny things she says and post it here.

I am still doing an annoying amount of research on crossover cars. It is soo hard to figure what will be right for me. I want a car to seat 7 or 8 but I also want good gas mileage which is pretty difficult to find. UGH!

Better go take care of my girls--KK doesn't seem to nap anymore so no more daytime breaks for me!

If I could only get a good nights sleep

Man my little KK is driving me crazy. I know, it is mostly our fault. We co-beded with both of our girls. We started transitioning them to sleep in their own room 6 months ago. This is working quite well for Aly but KK is another story. She has only slept two complete nights alone in her bed. Most nights she is coming into our room between 12-3. I think she came in close to 3 a.m. I was able to fall back asleep right away but then she woke up at 5 and had trouble going back to sleep which kept me awake too long. So, I got about 6 hours of sleep last night. I guess that is pretty good compared to the 4 1/2 to 5 hours I got the previous two nights. It is just too many nights in a row with not enough sleep. I think I need to come up with a new plan like putting KK back in her bed when she comes in to ours in the middle of the night.

Yesterday we tried to take the girls to the movies to see Surf's Up. About 3 minutes into the movie I had to leave with KK because she just couldn't handle it. Aly stayed with Daddy and he said he really liked the movie. We then tried to go to Carrows for dinner. For whatever reason we sat there over 15-20 minutes and never saw our waitress. So we left and did drive thru fast food.

Today is going to be another one of those chores days. Hubby has to replace the water pump on his jeep. I can only imagine that is a big job. I need to clean up the house some. What I really wish I could do is have a garage sale and get rid of more junk! Since our road is only a one way road it makes it too hard to have a garage sale so I have to try to do it at friends houses. I haven't gotten lucky enough this year to find one who is doing one. Hopefully someone will want to at some point and I can get rid of more stuff. Then we can save that money for an October disneyland trip!

I took some really cute pics of Aly the other day. I will have to try and post them at some point. I tried so hard to get good ones of KK but she is just too busy. Maybe I can try again this week.

I am soo tired

Two nights of horrible sleep thanks to my darling little 2 year old KK. Man Thursday night she was up from 3-5 a.m. and last night she got up at 4 a.m. and never went back to sleep. I suppose it is ultimately my fault. She is trying to get rid of naps so Thursday she fell asleep at 7:30 and slept and hour then was awake until 10. Then last night she went to bed at 7:45 and I guess her body just felt like it was time to get up!!! I need some sleep.

Hubby and I got to enjoy dinner out last night without children. It was really nice. The last time we had time without the children was his Christmas Party. So I guess we are averaging to twice a year. It was fun to have uninterupted adult conversation and be able to eat my meal without KK climbing all over my lap.

I am going to run for now. I will try to post again later today.

pajama party

My poor daughter Aly has never forgotten the day at preschool when they were having a pajama party. She couldn't go because she had croup. Ever since I she talks about how she hopes she won't miss it next year and she was sad she didn't get to go. So, she came up with her own idea to invite her friend Nick over for a pajama party. Yes, it is the middle of summer but they had a good time anyway. It was really cute and Ncik seemed to enjoy it himself.

KK on the otherhand is amazing me on a daily basis. About a month ago she wouldn't respond to directions or questions and now she is doing both. Each day she is learning new words and phrases. Today she said, "No, don't want wear diaper, don't like it" Now that is pretty amazing to go from just saying no, to saying an 8 word phrase. I definately feel like she is just a late bloomer in the speech department and is rapidly catching up!

Yesterday I made plans to have a girls night out on a Friday. I asked hubby and he said I could go. While I was lying in bed I realize at 11:00 at night, I can't go out that day it is our anniversary!!! I wake hubby up from his sleep to tell him. I feel so lame that I didn't realize it myself. I am normally so good with these things. I guess if I would have actually looked at the date when I was scheduling the night out I would have figured it out.

Did you happen to watch the oprah show about Jessica Coleman, the 15 year old girl that killed her baby? Man that was a hard show to watch! I felt so much sympathy for all parties involved. I really don't think at 15 you have the ability to rationalize exactly what you are doing. I think you don't really get the impact of your decisions. They have done a lot of brain research and concluded that the frontal lobe in teenagers isn't fully developed and they have a hard time making rational decisions over emotional ones. I would have to agree with that. I remember doing some pretty stupid things myself at such a young age and not really "getting it!"

Running, running, running

Well today has just been a typical day. We had to get the oil changed in the car and then off to gymnastics. KK my youngest daughter is still giving me a hard time. She has been doing gymnastics since April and still cries and throws fits everytime because she doesn't want to wait her turn and she doesn't like the stretching portion of the class. Her class size is rather large, I think we currently have 8 toddlers in the class and it can go as large as 10. Well, since she throws fits everytime waiting for her turn, she always has to wait until every child has gone. So I have to sit with her for 5 minutes of temper tantrum throwing. Today I tried singing and rocking and it worked for about 3-60 second intervals but then it was right back to the tantrum! Hopefully it will get better!

Aly is doing well in gymnastics. They finally split her class in two which has been nice since she can be in the older children's class and is doing more challenging activities. Last week was the first week of the split class and it was so cute. When class was over she said, "Mommy, that class was really hard work!" I am glad to see her being challenged.

We are still trying to figure out what to do for the 4th. I have a campsite reserved but it is for large groups and the people we had invited are no longer coming. So, we have a large expensive campsite meant for 12 people and it is only the 4 of us. We are probably just going to cancel and only get half of our money back. Hopefully we will have it all figured out in the next day or two.

My current problem is trying to figure out how I can fit 3 car seats in the back seat of my car. In a year we are supposed to start a carpool but I am not sure if my current car will work. I think the only way I can have 3 car seats in the back is if I use all booster seats and my guess is that KK will still be too small to be in a booster. While the timing is right for me to buy a new car at that point, I am not sure if I will be ready. I kind of want to wait the market out to see if they will be coming out with more fuel efficient midsize vehicles. I want a car that holds 7-8 passengers and ideally fuel economy of 28 highway miles or better. Rumor has it that the Toyota Sienna hybrid should be coming out anytime and the claim is the gas mileage could be between 35-40 MPG. I don't really want a minivan but if it really gets that good of gas mileage then I would definately consider it.

Better run for now. The kids need me;-)

My first blog

Wow, after months of reading blogs from other people, I have finally gotten around to making one myself. It will be interesting to see if I can think of something to say each day.

I first starting reading a friends blog from myspace. I enjoyed reading through her daily trials of being a stay at home mom to one child and I found many things I could relate to. She inspired me to want to start my blog. (Thanks Lia)

The second blog I started reading I check on almost a daily basis. Have any of you heard of Trevor Kott? Well he was this amazing little boy that was diagnosed with cancer within days of being born. His parents did everything in their power to try and save him. They needed to find a bone marrow donor but unfortunately did not find one in time. This story has touched me in more ways imaginable and I think of him and his family daily. Because of his story I got swabbed and registered. Hopefully I will be able to save someone's life someday. If you want to read more of his story: http://www.trevorkott.com/












Well, June sure tends to be such a busy month for us. Kind of funny that the first weekend was my eldest daughters birthday, the second weekend my youngest daughters birthday, and the third weekend is our wedding anniversary. I don't think we will be doing a lot of traveling in the month of June for many years to come. June will be a month of cake and celebration.

I don't want to make my first blog to long and boring so I guess I will end for now. Hopefully tomorrow I can come back.