Haircuts...

I cut my kids hair. It makes me feel like a champion among mothers, even though I know at this age most moms tackle it themselves. Here's some before and after shots...

Adelle before and after
Not the best pictures but it's hard to get that kid to sit still!

Baxter before and after

At least I can strap him down in a chair so he can't escape.

Also, please note the adorable track suit Baxter got for Christmas from the Grandparents Rudd. Dare I say that my son is looking dapper? Yes. Yes I do.

More Christmas pictures to come!

A few things...

I vacuumed out my car the other day. No need to worry about food storage. I'm pretty sure that we've got at least our 3 months supply in cherrios and graham cracker crumbs alone. If you haven't got yours sorted out yet then don't worry about it. I've probably got enough to keep you covered.

Thanks, Daylight Savings for giving me back a baby that wakes up every hour all night long. We had actually started to get 5 and 6 hour stretches of sleep at night before we had to "Fall back." I think I'll be moving to Arizona to have any future children.

I joined a group called Freecyle and I highly recommend that you look into it for your area. I received a 7 foot Christmas tree and a bunch or ornaments! Now we're really grown ups right? We've got our own Christmas tree!

Getting started...

Looking better...

Merry, Merry, Mary!

Adelle and Baxter are beginning to interact more. Even if sometimes she does act like he must be some kind of dangerous animal. I frequently hear, "MOM!!! Get Baxter! He's going to touch the table!!!" Every once in a while she'll look at him and when he smiles at her she laughs which makes him laugh which makes her laugh harder which makes him laugh harder...basically it's heaven. The moments are few and far between now but I'm so excited to get a little taste of the all the giggling they'll be doing together soon.

Adelle says "CHEESE!" instead of smiling lately.

We are blessed.

Some pictures and a video...

I want to get into a long sappy post about all the things that have happened in the past month or so but we've been pretty busy selling our condo, moving out, and then loosing the sale. So I've got rent and HOA dues and a house I'm trying to get organized after the move. The landlord should be here shortly to put in a new toilet and flooring in the rotted out bathroom we've been enjoying... all things considered we're very blessed and happy but this is far from a smooth ride. Without further commentary, take what you can get Mama! I love you!

This is a picture I took of all the things we had to leave behind in Virginia. It broke my heart! Especially the bookshelves which had belonged to my grandmother. When I took the picture below I realized something...


Apparently when we move Jordan likes to stand in this position and make this face. Kind of hilarious. This is in the middle of packing up the condo. It was.... so much fun. Just like Jordan's expression.

Adelle got to ride a pony!! We went to a little event in Issaquah one Saturday. It was called "Green You Halloween" because this is Seattle.

Adelle was Ming-Ming from the Wonderpets. If you don't know what that is I actually feel sorry for you. But also I feel a little sorry for myself since Adelle sings the theme song at least 20 times a day. It's good, but maybe not that good. We had little duck feet that went over her shoes and goggles to complete the aviator hat but it was really difficult to get her to hold still long enough to get a picture this year. Sharon came through for us again and made this whole costume possible with her amazing sewing skills.
Baxter loves food. LOVES it. and it's a revelation in my life. I have to take special food and snacks everywhere I go with Adelle. With Baxter I might take some graham crackers just in case, but he will eat whatever I eat and it's wonderful. I don't even mind trying to get the food off that has been plastered on every surface after each meal. Totally worth it. You should come over and have breakfast with us sometime. It looks a little something like this:

Eureka!

Just saw this in an article I was reading about kids need for sleep:

"Kids who don't get enough sleep show other changes in the levels of hormones circulating in their body, too. Hormones that regulate hunger and appetite can be affected, causing a child to overeat and have a preference for high-calorie carbs. What's more, a shortage of sleep can affect the way the body metabolizes these foods, triggering insulin resistance, which is linked to type 2 diabetes.

A lack of sleep at night can also affect motor skills and concentration during the day, leading to more accidents and behavioral problems, and poor performance at school."

So if It's true for my three year old it's true for me. I'm officially fat and clumsy because I should be taking a nap everyday. Someone needs to get me on a better schedule if they want my "behavioral problems" to go away...

Rental properties...

Searching for a new place to live. It's quite a process. I don't know how I would manage it without my mother-in-law who took Adelle to story time and generally made her extremely happy from 10:30 until 3 so I could drive all over the place and try to find somewhere to live.

I've been to two places now that seriously give me the jibblies. The very thought of taking my sweet, precious, fluffy baby and putting him on the musty dank floors of these properties makes me shrivel up inside.

One that I went to tonight was so terrible it actually had me laughing. As I wandered through the dingy rooms of a basement duplex with asbestos on the ceilings I couldn't help but sing the first 25 seconds of this song over and over.



No no no no no no nonono nono NO no nono nononono. Just... no.

My job.

I felt like super woman the other day. Not only did I manage to both shower and blow dry my hair (wow), I also supervised a play date with Adelle's cousin, Lexie, cleaned the house, did laundry, made cookies with two three-year-olds, got Baxter to take all his naps on schedule, went grocery shopping, walked the dog AND...made dinner (white chicken chili)! -with cornbread no less! Whoo-hoo!
What is most frightening about that list is how little I get done on one of my "more usual" days. It makes me start to wonder that I'm bi-polar or something. Sometimes all I manage in 24 hours is keeping everybody around here in the basic necessities while eating handfuls of food right out of the refrigerator and all without needing to change clothes to go to bed since I never got out of my pajamas.

Yes. Yes, Adelle. I deserve your look of disapproval.

Baxter is a sweet baby. He truly is. Jordan is convinced that he's fussy but that's because Jordan has never been really exposed to an actually fussy baby. We have been very blessed. But for all of the sweet, precious sleep Adelle gave us as an infant, Baxter is determined to take it back, chew it up, and spit it out at us by screaming non-stop between the hours of 1 and 5 am. That's the real reason I'm bipolar. Some nights I might get as many as 3 blissful hours of uninterrupted sleep. Some nights I might get 2. or just and hour and half.

It's a good thing he was born with this face.

So I've been living my life with this constant "As soon as Baxter starts sleeping through the night I will _____." Inserted in that blank is every missing piece of my dreary, sloppy, staggering attempt at motherhood. And here we are, six months in (which, admittedly is a lot earlier than some babies ever sleep through the night...) and he is awake and screaming and I am exhausted in ways I didn't know were possible.
I guess I'm just having a realization that a large part of motherhood (at least my experience with it) is just picking yourself up and dragging onward regardless of the fact that it means that you will resemble a zombie. Possibly forever. Because Baxter will never let me sleep again.

Here's hoping it doesn't mess these guys up too bad...

Tubing

A couple of weeks ago we took Adelle out on Grandpa's boat on one of the few sunny Saturdays of this summer. She seemed to enjoy it more than years past. She also went on the tube for the first time without an adult.

Adelle is definitely not aware of this, but "thumbs-up" is the tubing/water skiing/wakeboarding sign for "go faster". Otherwise she probably would have kept her thumbs to herself.

We managed to cram six cousins on that thing.