It's raining, it's pouring

Wow, over two weeks since my last update. Oops.

I have little news to share, really. I have spent pretty much everyday of the past 3 weeks chasing two way-too-energetic toddlers around and picking up the mess. Or, sitting on my butt and thinking how much I don't want to pick up yet another mess. Welcome to motherhood, right?

James continues to enjoy his new position. He's had a few hiccups as he adjusts to a few changes between his old shop and this new one. But, overall, he's still well-liked by his managers. He's working crazy hours, unfortunately. Since some of the machines are still not up and running after the move, the workload on the machines that are running is doubled, which means they need as much as they can get out of their operators. James, naturally, is working as many hours as they ask of him within reason. Once things run smoothly, the hours will calm down, but he expects to be pretty busy for quite awhile.

So, most of the time, it's just me and the girls.

Yesterday we got caught in a decent downpour. We'd experienced some Houston rain shortly after reaching the city, but Thursday's downpour put it all to shame. I pulled into the small parking lot of Babies R Us while it was overcast (lots of thick, low, gray clouds threatening to rain at any second at this point). The parking lot really is tiny. Four parking spots deep with the extra row along the far side. I parked at the "far side". As I was checking out ten minutes later I noticed it was raining outside, so I put Cadence into the cart and ducked into the rain. It took me all of one second to decide my best option was to run. So run I did, as quickly as safely possible. Megan, who hates baths and swimming pools, immediately began freaking out. Cadence, my water baby, was bouncing in the cart and laughing. And in the time it took me to get to the car, we were all soaked.

I'm not talking our hair has a sheen of water over it and our clothes are damp. By the time I got the girls in the car, their hair was plastered to their heads. My jeans remained wet for the entire 20 minute ride and for the next hour indoors. It was crazy. I turned my windshields to their highest setting and it barely kept up with the rain we were experiencing. There weren't rain drops on the places the wipers missed. It was a solid flow of water pouring down my windshield. Craziness!

Later, I learned I walked out into the absolutely worst of the day's storm at just the right moment. I have to say, I'm rather pleased. It was an awesome rain experience, lol. If it wasn't for Megan, I might've enjoyed just strolling to the car so Cadence and I could enjoy it. :-)

But, that's really the most exciting news of the past few weeks. Unless you count paying someone to mow our lawn, or the delivery of our washer and dryer. Well, I guess the TV's exciting news, but not really blog-worthy. We really got it so we could fully enjoy Skyrim when the time comes (uh-oh, my geek is showing...) And, no, I will not bore you all with a geek review of Skyrim when the time comes. Just... when this blog goes silent again in November, know I'm too busy to care about any of you and my kids are probably being unwashed and unfed. ;-) (Totally kidding about that last part, mostly...)

Unfortunately, my camera has officially gone kaput for the time being. No real worries. I'll be getting one next week for an early birthday present. Then I'll get lots of pictures for you all to enjoy. And maybe I'll even get some family pictures done soon so you can see the whole good-looking brood (maybe, it'll take a lot of sweet-talking on my end to get James to spend his free time in front of a camera, lol).

House Pictures (part 1)

Rather than wait and hope my house comes together any time soon, I figured I'd show it off as best I could under the circumstances. Obviously, we are not fully settled. There are boxes of books in one corner and I was in the middle of cleaning (thus the pile in the middle of the room) when I decided to take the pictures. Anyway, just the front room for today. The bedrooms are still a WIP. The girls' playroom has a stack of empty boxes filling an entire corner and I want to hang pictures and such before I take pictures there.

But, the front room. This is the view from the front door. Had to buy a cheap desk for our desktop computer since our old one is currently in about a dozen pieces in our garage. But this works, because the smaller desk means the whole thing takes up less space in general and I'm happy with that:
The view from the opposite side of the main room. Unhung pictures and piles to be picked up and all. The rug in front of the couch is covering a very worn spot in the carpet, but it works, so I'm happy:
A view of my living room from the loft. A nice overhead look to give you a good idea of the whole thing. Enjoy:
So, there it is. A little peek into my new world. :-)

Just some pictures

Day 16 in Houston and still living in a hotel (day 21 of hotel living in general). The novelty has worn off and rubbed raw. But, what can you do when your stuff is sitting in a moving van 800 miles away? We spent a lot of time in the car running errands, driving over to the house to let the girls run around, and picking up lunches and dinners (pretty much over eating out as well).
I loved this picture of the clouds. I think it describes Houston weather pretty well, lol. See those storm clouds coasting in right over the blue sky?
We brought our laptop to the house when the cable guy came to get our internet up and running. James taught Megan how to play Bejeweled. He moved the mouse and she'd click when he told her to. It was super adorable to watch.
Then they just started goofing off together. James is such a goof with the girls and they just love it!
The girls love the hotel bed. Cadence is pretending to sleep. She was even fake snoring. The girl cracks me up.
James went back to work on Monday. He was getting antsy with having 2 1/2 weeks off. I can relate. Even after almost 3 years of not working or going to school, I still have antsy moments. Anyway, the only thing that stinks is having to wake up at 5:30 to drive him to the shop. The girls did well the first day, though they did take two naps each. Yesterday, they both dropped by 8am and slept until I woke them up at 10:30 to go run errands.
My final picture is me bragging (again) about my brilliant child. While drawing on the hotel wall is obviously a bad thing, I was impressed with her skill. I did a little google research and rediscovered some things from my various child development classes that implies she's well ahead of the curve artistically. I remember seeing similar pictures drawn by one of my more talented Sunbeams near the end of our year together. Probably not the best ruler to measure Cadence's development with, but...
Speaking of Sunbeams... guess who'll be one in only 5 months?!?!?!