I love my job!

There are days I actually miss going to school. Even more often, I really miss my work as a substitute teacher (a job I really enjoyed). But, most of the time, I just love the work I gave all that other stuff up for. It's emotionally draining, socially lagging, and way underpaid (at least as far as monetary gain). It has long hours and usually the shifts are expected to be done off of as little as 2 hours of sleep a night every night for a week. It's one of the dirtiest jobs I've ever had, and every day my list of tasks needing to be done ASAP only grows longer.

But... it does come with some of the best perks! Who needs health benefits or Christmas bonuses when you get moments like these?:

Temporary Genius

So, I'm feeling pretty full of myself. I know there are several other moms of toddlers that might peek over here (if their day is going slow enough) so I thought I'd briefly share my genius here:

Cadence loves fruit cups. It's so convenient to open up a fruit cup and give it to her as a side to her lunch of chicken nuggets, or hot dogs, or whatever else I whip up. Today, as I stacked our fruit cup collection in the pantry, I complained to James that vegetables were not so conveniently stored and I feared Cadence's vegetable intake was woefully inadequate. We have canned, but the idea of opening up a whole can just to spoon out a small serving and then try to remember to put the leftovers into a container and into the fridge while trying to make dinner and feed Megan. And then to remember that I have an already opened container of vegetables to grab... Like I said, the fruit cups are simply far more convenient.

That's when the genius struck:

I could take these little 4oz Gladware containers and fill them with pre-cooked (okay, I'm lazy so I'll admit: canned) vegetables. Then, I have handy, nicely portioned servings of vegetables to plop next to the plate of chicken nuggets or her sandwich, as well as fruit options. Then it occurred to me, I could just buy twice as many containers and start buying canned fruit and sort that as well, which is about half the price of buying it in the fruit cups. And for you Target shoppers, Target does have their generic version of these tiny containers, so you can even save money on those as well!

See? Aren't I smart? Feel free to spread my genius, just make sure you give me credit. ;-)

Rough mornings

We had a rough night last night. Megan didn't get to bed until 11, Cadence was up until 9, and I was unable to fall asleep until after 1am. Cadence woke up for the day at 5:30 and Megan woke up at 6:30, which means I had to be up then as well. Around 8:30, both girls ended up on the couch to snuggle with me, and well.... a half hour nap did us all wonders.

Food, food, food!

Megan has gotten a real taste for food lately. She'll eat just about anything you put in front of her and make a huge mess doing it. For lunch, she gets purees mixed with iron-fortified oatmeal. It's my way of making sure she's getting something beneficial, because dinner rarely is (at least for her needs). For dinner, she gets either a big of what we are eating, or I'll find some crackers/finger foods for her to practice with. Last night, she enjoyed some rice with chicken gravy. The other day she got a big serving of baked beans, most of which ended up on her instead of in her. And she also got to pick at some taco meat and cheese when we had tacos. She loves the corn chowder I make, but didn't get as much as she'd like since I cut her off after a few bites of the milk-based treat and gave her crackers instead.

She's been given a sippy cup and enjoys it, but hasn't quite mastered it. It doesn't help that her sister will steal it and finish it off before she can get more than a few sips. We started it when she had the stomach flu and needed to get fluids in her (that weren't mommy milk), but I've tried to continue to offer her one before bedtime every night so she can practice.

Megan has also gotten a taste of things that I have not purposely given her. I gave them to Cadence, Cadence chose to share, and I decided it was safe enough I wasn't going to stress. Due to this lazy parenting strategy, Megan has gotten to also try (in small amounts): every brand of cereal we've had recently, cheese puffs, Nacho Cheese Doritos, french fries, graham crackers, cookies...

Anyway, before I leave, a few videos to share:

My $20 find

Up until recently, the girls have been sharing an oversized 3-drawer dresser. I had built in removable partitions for each drawer to avoid mixing their clothes, Cadence's size was starting to overflow. So, I've been browsing craigslist for the past few weeks and stumbled onto this great find. It cost us only $20 and a trip to Tehachapi. James and I took advantage of the child-free time and stopped for lunch before we headed back. We kept looking out over the small town and talking about how much we'd prefer living there instead of Bakersfield. Obviously not a good option for us, given the van's poor gas mileage and James's work being in SW Bakersfield, but it's still nice to daydream.

Anyway, Megan's first tooth has finally come through. She'd be happier if the second tooth wasn't trying to edge it's way in as well. We've also officially introduced her to real table food. Friday night she got a couple spoonfuls of our chicken gravy and rice and tonight she got a small serving of macaroni and cheese. Both things she loved. Of course, she's extremely fond of food. She wants bites of everything she sees anyone eating. Cadence thinks it's great and I have to keep stopping her from taking her leftovers off of the table and going into the living room to feed Megan. I'm not the best about putting her lunch leftovers away right away, so it happens fairly often.

Cadence has hit another vocabulary explosion and is trying out new words. She says "down" when she wants to be picked up, so we're trying to correct that. She now says "go bye-bye" when she wants us to leave and uses "bye bye" only when she's being cute and walking away. She says "sister" and is finally using "daddy" and "mommy" fairly frequently. She's mimicking like crazy, as well.

We're planning for a trip in a few weeks. Well, it's still like 3 weeks away, but we're still planning. We bought Megan's new "big girl" car seat for the trip, but it's still not installed in the car yet. She's still in her infant carseat until she can sit up a bit better. I'm a little nervous about driving 11-12 hours with the two girls, but since a large chunk of it will be overnight, hopefully they'll just sleep through the majority of it. It kind of pays off to have a husband used to being awake at odd hours.

Just another post

Before we get started, we must share a few very random pictures, since I'm 99% certain that's the only reason most people come to this blog. We'll start with Cadence's fabulous photography skills:

Megan looking all sorts of happy, as usual:

Cadence looking entirely too tall:

Both my girls are still feeling pretty under the weather. It's still a stomach bug, but now it's coming out the other end, which is miserable, especially for Cadence. Megan doesn't get enough solid food for it to be too bad. But Cadence has a nasty diaper rash that makes even sitting painful for her. She cries for about ten minutes after each diaper change, probably from continual stinging. I feel so bad for her, even though I know the frequent diaper changes are the best thing right now.

I'm unsure what to do about Church this week. We missed last weekend because of Megan's throwing up. We didn't want Cadence to be a symptom-free carrier and get the rest of nursery sick. And if this is another bug, we definitely don't want to be passing this one on either. It turns out, having a kid in nursery is harder than not, some days. Maybe we can at least go to to Sacrament...

Anyway, it's been a pretty quiet week. James is sick. The girls are sick and Megan is SOOOO close to having her first tooth finally cut through. I've been playing nurse all week, unable to do anything without having to hold at least one daughter, and my apartment's a mess because of it. A visit from my mother-in-law had us briefly discussing priorities, and I've decided... I'm okay with my apartment being an embarrassing mess, because at this moment, cleaning my apartment would mean not taking care of my two girls the way they need to be cared for right now. Still, I need to get some cleaning done tonight, even if I won't have time to get it done completely.

Visiting Family- Part 2 & Sick baby

Unfortunately, despite charging my camera battery only a few days ago, my camera did not last through the rest of the week, so I am depending on my sister's pictures for any photo documentation of the last half of her visit.

We kept Wednesday night quiet at home for the two girls who were quickly getting fussy from having such a hectic schedule. However, Robyn and Veronica (my cousin) did come over for a girls night movie: "Dear John".

Chad graduated Thursday night. Due to Highland's tickets policy, I ended up not going. I had the opportunity, but passed my ticket on to my aunt (who'd come in from out of town) and chose to focus on Cadence's bedtime instead. Cadence has been having a rough time at bedtime recently, so I think it was the right decision. Besides, I get to go to Chad's seminary graduation this weekend, so I didn't miss out on much at all. :-)

Friday night, once half of visiting family had already left, we had a barbecue at Jastro Park. We invited some friends to join us as well, so it was a ton of fun. Cadence and Lynne loved the spray park there. Cadence wasn't too sure at first, but once I started running through the water features with her, she let loose and had a blast. Lynne took no coaxing and was running through the water as soon as she got there. Just that half an hour or so of running around with them made the whole evening a blast. But getting to eat good food, sit on a blanket, and talk with others made it even better.

Friday night I was having some stomach issues and had to throw up bright and early Saturday morning. I assumed it was something I ate since I had just had McDonalds for lunch the day before and after I threw up the worst was over and I was able to eat. But around lunchtime, just as I was settling down to feed Megan her second feeding of the day, she threw up everything I'd fed her earlier that morning! A second attempt brought about the same results, so we switched to shorter feeding periods and Pedialyte from a sippy cup. She still ended up throwing up again when I tried feeding her too much in too short of a period right before bedtime.

However, it's now the next day. She's sleepy, probably due to the lack of calories yesterday despite my best attempts. And she woke up with a lowgrade fever. But so far she's kept everything I've fed her down for the past hour or so and went down for another much-needed nap. I'm hoping we're already on the downside of this. Still, even with a rumbling, empty tummy and an achy fever, Megan is still smiling and cooing and being as sweet as ever. You'd never know she was sick except for the throwing up.

So far, it's only the two of us that have been hit by this. Cadence, so far, appears to be virus free. James has no symptoms. I'm really hoping it hasn't hit my sister's family, either. They've got a car trip to finish today. And we definitely don't want my sweet, brand-new nephew getting sick!

Visiting Family- Part 1

Sunday night, we our entire local family over for a barbecue at our new place, claiming it was a housewarming barbecue "because we could finally fit everyone". Well, it was... partly. But the biggest reason for the barbecue was to unveil our surprise: Erin, Jeff, and their two children had driven in from Utah for a surprise visit! The look on my mom's face was priceless when we walked outside and instead of just holding the hand of one toddler, I was holding the hands of two.

It's been a pretty fun week so far. Nothing special. Trips to Nana's house, watching the Cadence and Lynne play together. Cooing over my newest nephew, Lucas. Aunt Christal is also in town with her kids, whom we haven't seen in ages (Will get pictures later). Grandma is in town. And Grandpa will be coming into town sometime tonight. So we'll get lots more extended family pictures once I have my camera (with a charged battery inside of it, instead of sitting on the charger at home...)

Anyway, pictures, so I don't have to post like 20 in one post. So we'll do one post of pictures from Sunday through Tuesday and then another post of Wednesday through Friday pictures. Enjoy: