too many hours of shopping

tonight i didn't get my kids to bed until between 11 and 11:30.  we didn't even get home from shopping until close to 10:30.  have i mentioned lately how much i hate being home alone (especially at night, especially during the winter when it gets dark at 5:30) when my honey is out of town?!  i dread it all day long when i know he's going to be gone.

this morning we went to the library with friends and then to target with those same friends.  i got a bunch of clothes for abigail (and a thing or two for brady) and didn't get home til after 2.  brady only took a 45 minute nap and after 30 minutes of waiting for him to go back to sleep i realized that was a lost cause and woke abigail up from her nap.  and by 5 or so we were off.  gone when it's still daylight... just how i like to do it.  we dropped off [HOPEFULLY!] the very very very last of the yw stuff to the new president and i am FREEEEEEEEE.  we stopped by a girl's house to maybe go out for frozen yogurt but apparently she's sick so we'll have to do that another time.  i took the kids shopping instead.  i'm sure my honey loves that i spend all of his money every time he leaves town.  he's going somewhere next month for 3 nights and 4 days so i decided that would be the perfect time (for other reasons as well) to go to utah.  even buying plane tickets for myself and abigail (hallelujah that brady's still free for another year), i'm pretty sure this will be "cheaper" than staying in town and shopping every night because i don't want to be home without my honey.  i mean, we got an amazing deal on airfare and everything and my parents will be in utah and i'll get to see my friend's play so it just makes sense, but really, it's a small price to pay to avoid this i'mafraidofthedarkwheni'mhomealone feeling.

anyways, we went to old navy and ross.  i got soooo much stuff at old navy for super cheap.  two new swim suits for brady at $.97 each and two new swim shirts at $.97 each as well.  i could have gotten abigail a cute ruffled white and navy polka dot swimsuit for $.97 a piece but.... those two pieces didn't add up to be a modest swimsuit so we left that little bikini behind... although i did let abigail wear it while she had a dance party in the dressing room.  i got good stuff for all three of us.  but on that note, should you see any of us wearing something that seems a little out there or the sizing seems a bit off... well, remind yourself that it's probably because i got it for cheap.  don't hate.  ross was disappointing this visit (our last visit there was pretty incredible though... you win some you lose some) but we still managed to find a few things there too.  of course.  this is really the first time that i've had to buy clothes for abigail... more than just the occasional "she needs a pair of jeans" sort of thing to fill in the gaps in her hand me down wardrobe.  and even though brady has an incredible selection of clothes right now (thanks to generous friends and my wonderful sister), i have to think ahead to next summer (and future seasons) so he won't have to run around nakey when the weather warms up.  two main thoughts about all of this... kid clothes add up fast (they cost just the same as normal adult sized clothing!) and ohmygoodnessthisissomuchfun!  i was not at all excited about shopping for boy clothes because i thought girl stuff was so much cuter.  well that's definitely true for little baby stuff but not at all true for toddler stuff.  i am loving shopping for boy stuff.  like really loooooooving it.

and now hopefully i'm sufficiently tired to go to sleep.

b for brady, v for vendetta

*this post is a prime example of how i write without intending for anyone to actually read it.  i wouldn't recommend this post to anyone.  it is winy and confusing and just plain boring.

"v is for vendetta"  that's the phrase that kept running through my mind last night.  i know it's actually "v for vendetta" and not "v IS for vendetta" but i'm a mom and i read a lot of "a is for apple" and "b is for book."  except around here it's thomas style.  "c is for coaches, annie and clarabel."  "d is for diesel" "e is for engines" "f is for freight cars" "g is for gordon" "h is for henry" annnnnd it's time to stop.

anyways, my honey left town again.  this is happening with increased frequency i feel like.  i don't know what it is but brady always has a hard time when i'm single parenting it.  like when my honey was gone over valentines day and brady had run out of his reflux medicine and he spent that week crying all day long when he wasn't being held and frequently even if he was.  or he'll go through a growth spurt or teething or something that makes him super cranky or a bad sleeper like when honey was in california weekend before last and it was saturday night and i was attempting to get him to sleep and it was 3am and i hadn't been to bed yet and i needed to finish my fast sunday lesson that i was teaching in yw and he wouldn't eat and no matter what i tried he would not go to sleep and he wouldn't take a bottle which was stressful because my second counselor was coming over at 7am to watch my kids while i went to a special two hour ward council before church and on and on.  that sunday turned out awesome (it was the day john got set apart to be a missionary!) but ohhhh the stress and anxiety leading up to it and during it.  so the short of it is that when my honey leaves down, my baby goes from high maintenance to ummm... i can't think of a nice way to sugar coat it.

well, sometime early monday morning my lovely honey kissed me goodbye (it's very "sleeping beauty" although i'm positive those are not the words that he would use to describe my grogginess) and i rolled over to enjoy a few more hours of sleep.  when i woke up i checked out the baby app on my phone and was pleasantly shocked to see that brady had slept for over 8.5 hours... a new personal best for him!  and he was happy, though still very sleepy, for the hour and a half he was awake and then he went down for his first nap without a single peep.  and he slept and slept and slept and his nap was an epic 3 hours and 40 minutes long!  i was kinda thinking he wasn't feeling well so that's why i let him keep sleeping instead of waking him up to eat.  and my morning with abigail was a glorious girls morning of eating chocolate and treats for breakfast and painting our toes and playing the piano and doing all those things that girls like to do together.  so then brady woke up right as abigail went down for her nap and i got some awesome one on one time with him while i got some stuff done around the house.  and then after an hour and a half of that i put him down for another nap and... once again, he went right to sleep without a problem.  after two hours, i actually had to wake him up because we were going out to dinner with my mother in law, brother in law, and sister in law.  he was great all during dinner and stayed awake in the car on the way home.  sweet!  now i can just put him down for the night and go to sleep myself!  or not.  he's got an adverse reaction to the night.  as soon as that sun sets, and the lights go out, BAM!  jekyll turns to hyde and this kid fights sleep like rocky fought the russian.  so last night i finally got him to sleep and then i did a few things and wrote a few emails and was wrapping things up when i heard brady fussing.  he'd woken up after less than 2.5 hours... whatever, i'll just feed him and get ready for bed and go to sleep.  it took a few tries but it happened.  and then i got to sleep.  and then 40 minutes later, that kid's crying woke me up.  i was so tired i couldn't think straight.  it was 2:15 and as annoying as it was, i was pretty sure i could just feed him and be back asleep within 15 minutes.  not the case... because brady doesn't abide by those rules when i'm husbandless.  noooo, he spent the next hour happily refusing to go to sleep.  and then he spent the next two hours screaming.  some crying, but a lot of screaming.  that high pitched piercing scream that irritates the headache you were hoping would go away with a night of sleep.  he was crying so hard he had trouble catching his breath and he would. not. eat.  i tried every trick i knew.  changing clothes, changing swaddles, changing diaper, giving drugs (reflux medicine, orajel, gripe water, and finally tylenol) and a million other things.  it was like he hated me.  i was so congested i could barely breathe, so tired i could barely see straight, and i had a headache that was threatening to detach my head from the rest of my body.  he felt warm and had a temp of 100.5 so i did feel compassion for this poor uncomfortable soul.  but really?!  just go to sleeeeeep.

so at 5:15am, as the morning sun was rising... i finally got to sleep.  for another 40 minutes.  because he woke up again at 6am.  and then i got him to bed again and we both slept for two whole glorious hours.

and then it was crazy difficult to get him to sleep for his first nap.  he was so sensitive that even readjusting the way i was holding him would send him into a screaming fit.  he would fall asleep in my arms so fast (i'm sure he had to be just as exhausted as i was!) but the second i moved to put him in his crib it was screaming for dear life.  finally rigged a plan that outsmarted him and he slept a nice full 2.5 hour nap but woke up super sensitive again.  once again, not eating well, and crying if you even look at him the wrong way.  but then he went down for his next nap without a peep, slept for a full 2.5 hours, and was happy for all of his awake time and went down again without a peep.  and then tonight when i got home from yw (my awesome mother in law watched the kids for me) he woke up but then went back to sleep after a quick feed, diaper change, reswaddle.  maybe he's feeling better (he wasn't so hot tonight) or maybe that tylenol brought his fever down enough that he wasn't so miserable.

y'know that talk where president uchtdorf talks about how nothing is more consistent than change?  well i always think of that when i think of brady... "nothing is more consistent than inconsistency."  maybe he'll sleep for 8.5 hours that night, or maybe he'll wake every two hours, or maybe he'll only sleep for two hours and then be awake for three and then wake every hour.  or maybe he'll go right to sleep when you put him in his crib, or maybe you'll walk up and down your stairs fourteen times over the next three hours.  maybe he'll be super happy and smiley and laugh like crazy while he hangs out on the floor, or maybe he'll fuss and cry and scream no matter if he's being held, rocked, fed, burped, or anything else you could possibly imagine.

not a day goes by that i don't think to myself "i birthed jekyll and hyde in the body of my sweet baby brady." hopefully soon we'll start seeing a little more jekyll and a little less hyde.

on a happy note, baby girl's prayers are so cute and hilarious and the highlight of my day.

brady's like a box of chocolates.  really sweet, but you never know what you're gonna get.

another day of purple

today was one of those days where i got to the end of it and thought to myself, "what have i even been doing for the past 12 hours?!"  so i looked at these pictures for a little refresher.

when i went to get baby girl up this morning she kept repeating some long and unintelligible phrase about what she had been doing in her crib.  finally she said "i'll show you" and put her legs in her pj's to do this mermaid amputee thing again.  ha.

baby girl decided brady was cold.  also, she strongly prefers this purple side of the blanket.

and since we had no plans of leaving the house, i let her pick out her outfit, which went like this...
do you want to wear your purple pants and skirt?
yeah! and thomas!
this thomas? (as i held up her shirt)
yeah! and a sweater! the purple one!

oh hi there.  i still can't stop staring at your eyelashes.  which will be even more gorgeous if your blocked tear duct ever clears up.

"i'm on your way!"  on your way, in your way, whatever.  i got the message.

i frequently put my phone on silent when i'm taking pictures of abigail... being stealth is important to good kid photography.  sometimes i forget that i have it on silent and then i feel really loved when i see that i was missed for a few minutes.  

add a purple hat and grab diesel... it's time to watch some thomas.

look who found her little bag of long lost dress up accessories!  tiny santa hats, beaded necklaces, and pink/purple floral dora sandals.  i think she's a girl.

this literally made me laugh out loud.  i looked up from what i was doing and was so caught off guard by this cow driving a pink minivan.

naptime!  in purple pj's!  with a purple blanket!

we were hanging out while i gchatted with weed.

then i ran a few things to the mailbox. (does it look like we had a "blizzard" two days ago?)

while i was gone, brady fell down a little.  don't worry, he was still perfectly happy, despite his horizontal positioning.

we were reading this richard scarry book when abigail kept telling me "it's like elle's busy town!" and pointed to this character... "elle has that!  in her busy town!"  i texted jodi and sure enough, her name is hilda and she's part of elle's busy town.

bath time with two kids always makes me feel like i'm great at multitasking. 

when i lifted him out, abigail's towel happened to be laying on top.  i think he makes a pretty cute pink bunny.  he can be a tough guy next time.

i can't remember if there was a reason for this picture... other than that i think he's beautiful.

remember when i found a tooth in brady's mouth?  i've been feeling it and watching it for the past two weeks, rubbing orajel on it and letting brady chomp on my fingers.  then yesterday, all i felt was gums.  after doubting my sanity and fearing hallucinations, i googled it.  based on the many forums i found, apparently i'm one of millions of mothers trying to figure out how their baby's tooth disappeared.

honey has been in texas.  of anyone i've ever heard of, he has the worst luck with delayed flights.  so tonight we texted while his flight was delayed over three hours.  how he functions on 4 and 5 hours of sleep a night is beyond me.  he really is turning into his dad.

so that was the day.  it wasn't productive (i just couldn't find my focus) but it included a lot of purple.  i got a few things done, i enjoyed my kids (brady was in a great mood today, napped really well, and didn't even get fussy tonight!), and ummm, y'know, i just did normal life... like reorganizing my freezer and wearing pajamas all day.  be jealous.

the lack of posts

last week almost did me in.  christopher was gone from early monday morning until late thursday night. and monday night i gave brady the last dose of his medicine before it ran out so tuesday, wednesday, and thursday, i was dealing with an unhappy, crying babe.  there was a lot of awesome monday through thursday but a lot of difficulties and seriously, it put me back in survival mode.  when christopher got home thursday night (which was particularly rough for brady... like he only slept less than two hours... of 8 or 9) i was so grateful he was home.  and when we finally got both kids to bed and climbed in bed ourselves, i just cried.  so so thankful to have my honey back.  and i'm sure he was equally happy to come home to this emotional nutcase.  that's what eternity is all about, huh?  anyways... there's a million things i could blog about but i've got another million things that just need to get done and it seems like there's just never enough time.  sooo, now i'm going to go to sleep and make a goal to do better this week.  mondays are so cleansing for me.  i love mondays.

shopping without honey

it's busy season and honey's out of town again.  left for work as usual friday morning and won't get back until tuesday night.  so today basically felt like a friday again.  my days are easy because they consist of three parts.  morning: baby and i have an outing... play date, errands, or hanging out together at home.  afternoon: naptime.  evening: dinner and hanging out as a family.  when honey is gone it's normally during the week and mornings are simple during the week because we have story time and friends to hang out with.  night time and weekends are a different story because we're on our own.  everyone else has husbands and is doing stuff as a family.  and we've normally already completed all of our errands and we really don't have many to begin with.  so with my honey gone for this many days in a row and over the weekend i was more than a little worried.  but i'm happy to report that it's going really well.

last night baby girl was sad when i told her daddy wouldn't be coming home to play with us but we went to a middle school play (two of my young women were in it) and met up with people there so we had a good time.  this morning we went to the dollar store and goodwill.  i sure love the dollar store but i really do hate our goodwill.  it's full of crappy, overpriced junk.  today though i got lucky finding the 7th harry potter book in hardback in absolutely pristine condition.  since it's a kids book it was only $1.  retail is $35 so i was thrilled.  it's not really in the budget at that price y'know?  now i have the 4th and the 7th in hardback.  send a note to my goodwill and tell them i'm looking for 1,2,3,5, and 6.  then we went to the park on main street and it made me realize that i should make more of an effort to take baby girl to parks populated with kids.  our neighborhood park is empty more often than not and i think half the fun for her is just watching the other children.  

2-6 was naptime.  baby girl had some cheese and pineapple and we were off shopping.  because who wants to sit at home on a saturday night?  not me... it still creeps me out being at home at night without my christopher.  will i ever grow up?  we went to old navy and ross.

i found some awesome maternity jeans at old navy but they were $40 so i didn't get them.  don't ask why i tried them on in the first place.  probably just to be rude to myself.  i found some other good deals but i exercised restraint and didn't buy anything for myself.  i just kept repeating my new mantra.  just kidding, i don't have a new shopping mantra.  but i kept reminding myself that even if something is cheap and a really good deal, i don't need to buy it unless i have a specific need for it.  sooo, tonight i've been back and forth fifty times about kicking myself for not buying the stuff i was contemplating and patting myself on the back for not spending money on things i can do without.  

while i was going through the maternity section (located right next to the little boys section), baby girl found this awesome thomas shirt... in her size and everything!  she was SOOOOOO excited and when i told her it was time to go to the dressing room she kept telling me that she was bringing thomas to try it on.  need something to melt your heart and make you giggle?  have your two year old tell you how excited she is to go to the dressing room to "try it on."  

seriously i wanted to get her this shirt soooo badly.  just look at that happy face!

but it was $15 and, as i said, i wasn't feeling spendy.  we escaped with a $2 t-shirt for baby girl instead and headed next door to ross.

it's typical when we go to ross for baby girl to pick a toy or item of some sort and carry it with her throughout the store.  i like that because it slows her down and keeps her hands a little busy.  this time though she picked out a chair (and tossed a hat/mittens combo on there for good measure) and pushed it around the store while we shopped.  and because i'm more add than usual when i get inside a ross, we probably made the rounds with that chair a good four times.  for probably about an hour.  just killin time.

add some heels to the mix...

 

 

 

 

and we definitely got some comments.  i very rarely see black people in parker (it's white suburbia at its finest) but there were several black women at ross (probably because it's in centennial... sliiiightly more diverse) and they were so hilarious and friendly about baby girl and her heels.  we all had a good time in the shoe section tonight.

meanwhile, honey is just living it up in south dakota...

life is good but i can't wait til tuesday!

my last full day

last night i started freaking out that since my flight is friday, thursday would be my last full day.  so i set my alarm and woke up at 7:30 this morning to shower and dress and eat by 8 30 so mom and i could get in some good quality time together organizing before baby girl got up.  we organized for a few hours and then whipped baby girl out of her crib, threw some clothes on her, and handed her a granola bar to eat in the car. we hit up homegoods and target for baskets and organizing stuff and were on our way home by 12:30!  i couldn't even believe how much we'd accomplished in one morning.  nap time was spent putting everything in place.  it all looks so good.  someday i'm going to have to break down and spend the money on pretty and quality storage baskets like that.  in the meantime i'll keep up my excellent cardboard box improv skills.

another time i'll have to post pictures of all of the projects we've tackled but here are just a few from dad's computer software shelves and the laundry room/closet .

before

after

after

with these shelves, i tried to make things more streamlined and less of an eye sore but without making things too difficult for dad to see or get to.  this really didn't take long at all because, for dad, everything was organized and he knew where to find it all... it was just a matter of hiding it from view.  steal some magazine files from the basement, buy a few boxes and BAM... less terrible.  mom is so excited.

last night i was reading this blog post on one of my favorite blogs and got the itch to organize mom's laundry room.  i sent mom a link to the post and told her to just scan the pictures and let me do the rest.  she got the itch too and the both of us had a fun morning re-configuring things to make this area a little nicer and more functional.

before

after

after

even the "after" has a lot going on that will thin out with time but it's a vast improvement having similar cleaning items all corralled together in baskets and bins that are easy to pull out when you're looking for something.  that way your goo gone doesn't get lost in the back of the top shelf!

while we were at target i got a fierce need for mellowcreme pumpkins.  and then ate my weight in sugar, unknown ingredients, and artificial colors.  sorry baby in utero... i hope your SAT scores don't suffer as a result of my indulgence.

and then we woke baby up at 5 30 to head over to liza's house for dinner!  it was delicious and oh so fun!  thanks for hosting, liza!  

i wore my hair curly today for the first time in a year and told mom to make sure she got a sibling picture of our matching hair.  well... buddy and liza seemed to have forgotten their curly hair today.

trying to get a good picture of skye and will and baby girl proved difficult.

"stand still and hold hands and look at the camera and smile!" yielded this gem.

the paparazzi.  

i'm so so so excited to get home and see my honey tomorrow but i'm also just so sad to leave my parents'.  it feels like i've been here forever and that colorado life is so long ago and so far away but it also feels like this trip has absolutely flown by.  like it feels like yesterday was monday.  i'm so confused that tomorrow is friday.  who wants to come pack for me?  i'll pack my clothes if you pack all of my childhood junk my parents want out of the house.

any takers?