Tangled, friends, and skyping John

This week with school starting, one of my struggles has been getting Abigail enough sleep. She has trouble falling asleep early enough at night, but then she's so tired when I wake her up in the morning. We're working on it. So maybe it was yesterday morning that Brady woke Abigail up and I was annoyed because I want her to get as much sleep as possible. This morning, Brady didn't wake anymore up. He just kinda explores sometimes. Helps himself to a granola bar and whatever. 

I woke Abigail up. I need to have her start sleeping in a handkerchief or something. She is a real life tangled. Which was especially awesome this morning since she was wearing her rapunzel nightgown... Which is her very favorite. She got it for her birthday along with a frozen nightgown and I thought she would love them both. But this one is a size six and so it's super long and touches the ground. That makes it far superior to a size four frozen nightgown that does not come anywhere close to the ground. Anyways... Tangled. Every morning. 

What's that on the top left? Oh, just a giant rats nest of a mess. 

And the back. It's like tiny little golden threads that just get all woven together during the night. Her hair is soooo fine. 

I took Elizabeth and Brady to costco during kindergarten. I love kindergarten. It's so much easier to only do two kids. Especially when one of them is Elizabeth. Anyway, costco was great. Next time I go back, I want to get Brady some new winter pjs that have sports stuff on them. He's gonna be so insanely excited. We got gas on the way back and he was awake. So when we got home, I opened the door and started talking to him, only to find out that he was fast asleep. At 11:45. The kid is so sleep deprived these days. Y'know... Since he used to sleep for something like 16 hours a day and now he only sleeps for maybe 10... And it's always broken in some way. 

I left him in the car while I unloaded groceries and then we picked Abigail up and Brady popped his eyes open and started fussing when we got home again. So that was a super quality 30 minute nap. He maintained a decent mood this afternoon though, which made me really happy. He took pictures of Elizabeth and me. I love this little punk face. Don't let it fool you. The girl is as sweet as pie. 

Then Brady took my phone... "Mom, i want to take a picture of Abigail?" Sure bud, go right ahead. When I got my phone back, I reviewed his photography. I always love looking at his shots. 

I made the kids clean the playroom. I wish I'd taken before pictures because it was an insane disaster. Like even I didn't really know where to start with it. But, I'm a really good slave driver and I sat in my chair and barked orders and eventually we got the room 99% picked up. I need to invest in toy storage for that room. Desperately. But in the meantime my "okay, now pick up that puzzle and put it on this shelf over here" orders worked well enough. 

Lucy and Presley came over at 2:30. I told my friend that I would watch them for a few hours while she took her parents to the airport and then went to the gym. So the kids all played upstairs in the newly cleaned playroom and they were good at keeping it clean. No one wanted to mess it up because they knew how messy it had been. 

Meanwhile, honey texted me to record the golf tournament on tnt. But I never ever watch tv and had no clue what channel it was on. And when I did a search, there were too many options because a bunch of channels show the golf tournament... Not just tnt. So I did a trial and error thing by sending honey pictures and asking "is this channel good enough?"  Eventually I got it right. For the record. TNT is channel 245. 

Around the time honey got home though, Presley got homesick and, despite my best efforts (and marshmallows), she was still sad. Stephanie said we were welcome to go play at her house, so I left honey with a napping Elizabeth and his TNT golf show and took lucy, Presley, Brady, and Abigail to lucy and Presley's house. 

I don't let Brady cross the street without holding someone's hand. I also thought this would be a nice teaching moment about chivalry. 

Blossom made herself at home on my lap. 

The kids played in the sandbox. Brady stayed mostly in the house because he's terrified of the dogs. Even though ruby is barely bigger than a rat. ; )

These two enjoyed some ice cream together. 

And spent some time coloring. Presley is such a sweet girl.  I think she gets frustrated with Brady sometimes because he can be a crazy little boy (and Presley doesn't have a single ounce of crazy in her), but I think Brady is trying to be better behaved with her because she's the closest thing he has to a peer right now. She's nine months older but they get along pretty well. Brady's attention span was much shorter than Presley's, but I helped him color a football and he was very pleased with that. 

When their dad got home, I took Brady home with me. Chris and his dad were watching football and eating hummus. They Skyped john on the phone and Brady had a blast talking to him and seeing his fish tank. 

Last week, Brady found a john Deere hat in honey's part of the closet (he must have gotten it from his john Deere client) and was all "mom, this is John's hat?" over and over again (john is always wearing john Deere stuff because he works for a john Deere in Idaho) and it was really cute. Also endearing that he remembered john and what he wears because we haven't seen much of john at all since Christmas in Costa Rica. Brady and John really bonded that trip. Like when we were out in public and at restaurants, people would think that john was Brady's dad. Anyways, I told Brady to show john the hat and he was so excited to go get it. So adorable watching him walk through the house and to the very spot of the hat, just carrying john on the phone. 

And then he tried this hat too. He loves baseball caps. Especially his one that has a soccer ball. He wears it around the house all the time. 

Golf ended at six and Brent left. We fed the kids and got them to bed. It went pretty smoothly, but maybe that's because I was up taking care of Elizabeth. I love that she gives me an out out of bedtime so often. Sorry, but it's true. When I got her down, I went straight to Brady's room to sit with him. Honey came in a minute later to snuggle me. We've barely talked all week because it's been busy and he's been caught up in work and out of town some... So I appreciated that he came to spend time with me, but I felt so unsettled about reprimanding Abigail two minutes before. I'd lost my patience and been harsh and made her cry. So I told honey that all I wanted was for him to lay with Brady so I could lay with Abigail for a bit. Being with Abigail is the best because she doesn't neeeeed us. So it's purely because we want to. I laid with her and started talking to her about her kids are so forgiving. She didn't even give me crap about being too harsh (granted, I was right in that situation but I wish I'd figured out a better way to get my point across), but just acted like that didn't even happen. I asked her about school (I'd wanted to when she came home and even had a snack all prepared so I could just sit and talk to her for a few minutes after we got in the door... But it didn't happen because Brady woke up crying and Elizabeth was fussing and needing to eat) and just listened and asked even more. Anything I could to get her to talk. I don't know if it's normal, but she always says "I don't know" to everything we ask her... Without even trying to remember what it was. Like "welcome home Abigail... What did you play at Lucy's?" "I don't know.  Will you get me a snack?" So we're trying to work with her (and work on ourselves asking better questions) on encouraging her to try to remember things and explain them to us. So I asked about her classmates and if she knew any of their names and what they looked like and if the girls she mentioned each wore dresses or pants or shorts and how they wore their hair and what kind of water bottle did that little boy have and stuff like that. I asked who shared their "me bab" today and she as all "I did."  What?! Why didn't you tell me?! "Well, I was just waiting for you to ask." Man, glad I came in for this little chat... I could have just never known until weeks from now when I would ask why it was never your turn to share your bag. They were supposed to our five things in a brown bag. She put its Barbie princess crown because she likes princesses, a diving ring because she likes swimming, a picture of our family from two years ago (and apparently she never mentioned that she has a little sister because "well Elizabeth wasn't in the picture I brought"), a book (which apparently her reach just our right in her lap so Abigail didn't say anything about it), and a little coloring and sticker on a paper because she likes to color and so art. Anyways, I talked to Abigail about kindergarten for at least 30 minutes and it was the best part of my day. I asked if she had any questions for me (not tonight) and told her how much I love her and how much I love being her mom. We also prayed together. Honestly, if I have a rough day with Abigail, then I feel totally depressed. If I have a good day with her (or in this case, a good 30 minutes at the end of our day), then I feel on top of the world. My happiness is so directly (and probably unhealthily) tied to her. Brady can put me in a bad mood when he's getting into stuff and making messes and a good mood when he's being so adorable with Elizabeth, but with Abigail, it's this whole other level that I can't even describe. I am so invested in her. I hope I don't screw her up for life, but if I do... I'm thinking she's at least got to know it was because I loved her a little too much. 

Today was a really productive day. Costco, cleaning, watching lucy and Presley, straightening up even more... And topping it off with my snuggle time pillow talk with Abigail was just perfect. Most days I kinda suck at life, but today made me feel like maybe I've got a chance at doing alright. ; )

Also...

My friend, Amber, from church brough by such a perfect little blanket she made for Elizabeth. It's the perfect size for a car seat blanket and I loooove the colors and pattern. Liza, want to coordinate with that color scheme? I'll send you pictures! 

My hair was so bad this morning (I've got to stop going to sleep with my hair wet... It looks horrendous beyond repair in the mornings) that I put it in a braid. Like it was even too fried and frizzy looking for a pony tail. A braid!  I can't remember the last time I wore my hair in a braid in public. I'm sure it's been over ten years. 

Elizabeth set a new pr for her sleep habits. She went to sleep last light at 8:45 and slept all night. Even though she was awake when I woke up at 8, she was just chillin in her crib and I only knew she was awake because I could see her eyeballs on the video monitor. I needed to get dressed and pack a snack and get the kids ready and all that morning stuff so I didn't even get her out of her crib til 8:45... And she was still not making a peep. The girl has a good personality for a third child. 

Elizabeth has her two month well check tomorrow.  I'm not very punctual on my kids' appointments lately. She'll be 3 months on the 28th. Whoops. 

Everywhere I look around my house, it's so disorganized and messy. Master bathroom, laundry room, hall closets, garage work bench, and on and on. And the basement. Oh the basement. I'm trying to reclaim this place one space at a time. It's a never ending process. It makes me think of world wars one and how they would just go back and forth with losing and reclaiming the same trench.. and it lasted for years!  That's my life. ; )  Just reclaiming lost trenches. 

How is tomorrow Friday already?! We're already through the first week of school! I feel just slightly guilty at how much I love it. This every day kindergarten thing is aaaammmmaaaazzzzziiiiinnnngggggg.