Bath Time

I asked Ryan to make sure Aric's hair was shampooed tonight since his hair was extra crispy.

I guess this is proof that Aric's hair is clean.

Drive In

Last week I looked over to see why Aric was making such a racket.  It turns out he thought it was a grand idea to turn the living room into his own personal drive in movie theater.

He had a good time, but I'm sure he had trouble viewing the entire screen that close.

The End of a Long Bumpy Road

I haven't written much about Ryan's new job because it's been a source of frustration for us both.  Ryan hasn't actually started the job.  For the last five months he has been getting his "packet" ready for several boards that have to approve him before he is able to begin the job.  There have been several speed bumps along the road that have slowed things down and caused so much grief and frustration.  It's been a sore subject for us both.

We found out yesterday that Ryan was approved by the final board.  His new boss called him immediately and wanted to commission him yesterday afternoon.  Thankfully I had the day off.  The kids and I ran home, ate lunch, changed into nicer clothes and went with Ryan to the impromptu ceremony.  It was wonderful to witness it.  Except for a few minor issues with the kids which were quickly resolved by a prayer in the middle of the ceremony that they would both settle down.  (I'm glad God can answer prayers immediately!)

The best news is that he starts his job next week.

Crash!

At least that's what Aric said right before he did it:

Good thing Kellyn is one tough little girl!

 

Does This Mean...

...I should quit talking on my cell phone while driving the car?

A Change

We tried to have Aric and Kellyn share a room.  It turns out that even though they are close in age, they are too far apart in maturity.  We've had to keep the bassinet set up in our bedroom and choreograph how we get the kids to sleep in the same room and how/if they should wake up in the same room.  It's been a little stressful and a typical night consists of Kellyn falling asleep by 7:15pm.  I take her up to our room, put her in the bassinet and make sure the bedroom door is closed.  By 7:30pm Aric usually is ready for bed.  One of us will go through his bedroom routine and put him in his crib.  Aric usually protests rather loudly going to bed for the next 10 to 15 minutes.  Then I work out for an hour.  After working out before I take a shower I go into the nursery and check on Aric.  While there I turn off his nightlight, make sure the heater is on and then get Kellyn from our room.  I very carefully pick her up and move her to her crib in the nursery hoping that she doesn't wake up.  This doesn't even touch what happens overnight if/when one or more of them wakes up.

Ryan has suggested that we move Kellyn's crib to the guest room and so far I have resisted thinking that the room is too small, where are we going to put guests/kids when they visit, and what are we going to do for climate control, etc.  This morning, while lying in bed after going through an unusual night where Aric woke up crying, I was thinking about the guest bedroom again and it occurred to me that the current guest bedroom didn't have to be a guest bedroom.  Then the wheels started spinning and I came up with a plan.  After a couple of text messages back and forth with Ryan he decided to come home early today and help me with my plan.

Ryan moved Kellyn's crib to the guest bedroom and moved the guest bed into Aric's room, which is a much larger room.  It solves several problems and if we have guests they'll just use Aric's room and we'll move him to the pack and play in another room.  Here are some preliminary photos of Kellyn's new room:

Don't worry the Texas decor will be gone.  She has a Hawaiian Noah's Ark quilt which I plan to decorate her room around.

When the weather gets nicer I'll move that dresser out and refinish it to match the crib.  It'll be a good dresser for Kellyn to grow up with.

There's so much more to do and bare walls to decorate but it's a start.  At least tonight we won't have to go through our nightly dance.  It'll be nice to lay Kellyn in a crib and not have to move her an hour later.

Daylight Savings Time

Until I had children of my own, I never gave daylight savings time much thought.  I don't like it so much.  It does strange things to them:

Well, except for the missing pants.  That's his own doing.

Big Girl

Today was day three of rice cereal for Kellyn.  We've been giving her some cereal while we eat dinner at night.  She's done really well with it.  Sadly, it has not miraculously made her sleep through the night.  She is still waking up about two times a night to eat.  Oh well, it'll come with time.

Good Parenting

There are times as a parent when I'm busy making dinner, cleaning house, etc. and I suddenly realize that things don't sound right.  Like today when I realized I could hear the sounds of the jumperoo while Kellyn was in her bouncy chair in the kitchen with me.

Sometimes that kid is too clever for his own good.

Genetics

I was born in Hawaii and lived there for the first few years of my life.  Due to the warm climate, the majority of the time I lived in diapers and didn't wear much else.  It wasn't much of a problem until we moved to Seattle during the winter.  My parents love to regale people with stories of their embarrassment when they picked me up from Sunday school.  I was always in only a diaper and my teachers apologetically handed them a pile of my clothes saying, "We tried to keep them on her".  My parents would then dress me out in the hallway while everyone walked by in their winter coats.  It would only seem fair that I would pass on those same genes to my child. 

It started a couple of weeks ago when Autumn handed me Aric's shirt one day when I picked him up from daycare.  He apparently took if off repeatedly during nap time until she finally gave up and let him leave it off.  Early this morning Ryan found Aric in bed unzipping his pajamas and trying to get out of them.  Later on Ryan checked on Aric after realizing how quiet he was and found Aric in the kitchen trying to remove his clothes again. 

Hopefully it's just a phase, but I'm sure my parents would think it was payback if Aric decided to strip in Sunday school tonight.

Birthday and Getting in Shape

Last week I celebrated my 31st 25th birthday.  I left work a little early, did some shopping by myself, picked up the kids from daycare at the usual time, went home and cooked dinner.  Yes, I had to cook my birthday dinner.  Ryan spent all day working on our car with some buddies and they were having problems removing some of the old parts off of the car.  The car is 12 years old with 182,000 + miles on it.  We're just trying to nurse it along for awhile since it does get great gas mileage compared to our truck, which is what we've had to use lately.  I digress, though.  It was a good birthday spent with family and friends.

Ryan bought me a new seatbelt purse for my birthday/Valentine's day present.  I used birthday money to purchase the matching wallet.  I feel very spoiled:

To work off all of that birthday cake baby weight, I began using Ryan's birthday/Valentine's gift on Monday:

Today I completed day 3 of 90.  I'm alive, but barely.  My goal is to use this as my boost to get back in shape not to achieve a ripped body-builder figure.  It helps that Ryan is doing this program also.  We're exercising at separate times of the day, but we've been motivation to each other to get up and do it.  Hopefully by the time the 90 days is up I'll be in amazing shape and have my treadmill put back together and usable.  Then all I will have to do is maintain.