I try to make sure I post at least once a week about the family, since I know a few people check in on this blog as a way to keep up to date on the going ons in the Smith household.
It's been a quiet week, though, which are normally some of the best. James had to go back to his first full week of work after having two 4-day-weekends in a row. On top of that, they sprung an extra 2 hours on him on Friday for mandatory forklift training (following a death within the company from a forklift accident). The girls and I have kept busy enough. Tuesday we went shopping, Wednesday we walked to the store to drop of a game we rented. Thursday we had a playdate so the girls to to play and I got to talk to other adults. Thursday night we went grocery shopping, then had Papa Steve's birthday, which we really only went to for the yummy carrot cake. Friday we went to the library, where I quickly learned Beale library is simply too big for just me with the two girls. We'll stick with visiting the Northeast branch from now on.
The girls continue to grow up, despite my best efforts. Megan has picked up a small vocabulary, but she doesn't use it very much. She surprised us by saying "go!" earlier today when she saw me pick up my purse, but hasn't repeated it since. She says "belly" and "baby" which both sound the same, except one has her holding up her shirt and playing with her belly button and the other has her carrying a baby doll around. She babbles far more than Cadence ever did. Her favorite game to play with me is at bathtime, while the tub is filling. I'll say "hi" when she's sitting at my knee and she'll run away. So I'll say "bye" and she'll grin at me, take a few more steps away, then run right back at me, receiving a hug, a kiss and an enthusiastic "hi!", which then demands a repeat of the previous steps. She also thinks it's hilarious to try to run past me when I say "come here" instead of running towards me. She does it just to get caught, though, and thinks it's great fun when I catch her around the middle, blow raspberries on her neck, and tickle her as I lay her down to change her clothes or diaper or whatever else I needed to do.
Cadence has picked up so many new words I won't even bother trying to list them. She's combining words well. She's got possessive down pat. Everything is labeled as "Cadence's" or "Megan's" or "Mommy's" or "Daddy's". She's pretty good about accepting it when I tell her something is Megan's and will immediately offer it to her sister. She still doesn't have a wide variety of verbs to use, but she's trying. She's very opinionated, as expected, but now she has the words to make that opinion clear. Unfortunately, her favorite form of expression is screeching. And also, unfortunately, she has mastered opening our doors. Luckily, she only ever opens the door to our bedroom to let Taz out.
Our biggest achievement is we've gotten in the habit of cleaning up their room every night. I've been lazy about it and usually just tossed everything in their proper place on my own once or twice a week, but we started doing it at night and Cadence has really done well. The first few nights she needed constant prodding, but just last night she kept cleaning without me needing to point out things, except once in awhile. Megan does well, too. If you give her a lego, she'll put it in the proper bin and even pick up a few more if she sees any more nearby. If you give her a stuffed animal or a book, she puts it on the shelf. She gets a little confused with the "everything else" that goes in the big bins, but there's usually plenty of legos to keep her occupied.
That's all. I'll be sure to take pictures so I can post some with my next post. :-)
And this is the mess the cuteness can create in my living room. I'm showing this, because I intend to clean this living room and this way, my random blog readers can hold me accountable:
Two hours later, here's what I've gotten done. Still need to vacuum and mop (and a few more things off the table), but:
