Happy Birthday: James

James turned 26 on Thursday. We'll do a quick post just in case he browses through this blog (as he tends to do randomly), so he knows how special I think he is. :-)
We didn't get to do much for his birthday. He had to work (extended hours now, as well, since he's the sole operator of his machine and they need stuff done). But he got to pack a single serving of carrot cake to take to work for at least some kind of special treat. While at home I made the full-sized homemade one. I also got to work on something he requested awhile ago: a new dice bag. In the end it wasn't quite what I wanted, but it's better than what he had up until now, so it'll do until I find the time to crank out another one.
Once he got home, we dropped the girls off with Nana and went out to a special dinner just for him. Got a free steak dinner from Black Angus since it was his birthday. We could have afforded not to use the coupon, but we had it so... why not? Actually, I got the free steak dinner since my entree was the cheaper one, but we still got dinner half-off. And since the coupon we turned in said it was his birthday, along with the check, he got a fresh cookie-pie with a scoop of ice cream and a candle on top, along with a birthday song. We were both too stuffed to eat more than a bite or two of the cookie, so we scooped it into our to-go boxes and let the girls have at once we got home.

At some point, his mom will be dropping off the present she got him. I'm both leery and excited about the present. It's going to take up a lot of space, but I've heard quite a bit about James's capability with this particular present and I am intensely curious (though I'm sure he's out of practice). Plus, it comes with a surprise "free gift" that I can play with, so I'm excited about that, too. Either way, I've cleared the space in our closet to fit it. (I'll update what it is once he's received it. His mom really wants it to be a surprise, so I'm trying to keep hush around him).

Megan's 15 months

A fairly uneventful visit, as most doctor visits go. Cadence was even pretty happy hanging out with us in the exam room, so not even a tantrum to talk about. We got Megan measured, got into the exam room, and they just went crazy talking and exploring (within certain limits). It did go downhill once, when I attempted to put her clothes back on.

There were a few concerns. But before I go into that, let's get into the stats:

Height: 30.5" (50th percent)
Weight: 18.5 lbs (pretty far below 5th percent)

For comparison, 1 year stats (3 months ago)

Height: 28.75"
Weight: 17lbs 3oz

Obviously, the biggest concern is that she was staying around the 25th percentile for her first 3 doctor visits and then began dropping. She was noticeably below the 5th percentile line last check-up. And she was even lower on the chart this time around. Her new doctor (her old one left the practice) expressed concern. I admit, I know she's small, but even as the doctor was lecturing me on how I should put butter on her vegetables and add a scoop of mashed potatoes to her meals to plump her up. I'm reluctant to change her eating habits. Other than having fast food more often that I'd care to admit, my girls eat fairly well. I'm adding carbs to her diet, as the doctor suggested, but I just can't bring myself to add butter to her diet just to make her fat.

Other than the weight, the doctor had nothing but good things to say. Said all her breathing sounds and such were great, heart sounded good, etc. She continues to meet her milestones (which is why I'm so unconcerned with her slow weight gain), she's full of energy, and her height is gaining steadily overall. She did drop from 90th in height early on, but she's stayed around 50th ever since about 6 months. She's just a tiny thing. I also gave up nursing only a couple weeks ago, so I suspect the sudden loss of those calories might have resulted in some mild weight loss. Really, I am not concerned.

She did get the booster shot for her flu vaccine and then I had the pleasure of pinning her down in the lab for a blood draw. I thought they'd tested for anemia last time, but I didn't remember that until we'd already done the blood draw, otherwise I would have asked if it was necessary to do it. On the plus side, no vaccine shots. So at least only one thigh is going to hurt for the day.

Welcome home, Elder

Seth is officially home! :-) We all were anxiously awaiting this day, of course. By the time the final hour arrived, most of us were pacing. Beforehand, though, we just hung out at Nana's house (since they borrowed our minivan to transport our RM and his luggage in comfort).
In those final moments, mom was sending Robyn texts to track their progress. We had announcements of "They're at California and Mt. Vernon" and "Just passed College!" Naturally, the girls had no idea what was going on, they just loved chasing each other outside:
But Chad and Robyn were anxious staring at the hill that the van would soon drive over. We did have a good laugh when my announcement of "there they are!" (before the constant street updates) had Robyn almost getting whiplash as she turned to see.
Oreo had her own message, all ready to share so Seth knew exactly what she was thinking (in case he didn't get the memo when she began jumping all over him):
As the van pulled up, Chad attempted to jump in front of the van in an effort to greet Seth first. Robyn did her best to hold him back so she could get there first. Despite both their efforts, Seth crawled over mom and escaped out the other door and ran right into Cadence who got the first hug (not counting mom's first hug at the airport when they picked him up, of course).
A boy and his dog reunited. Aww. Oreo was so happy to see him. She followed him around for awhile, refusing to leave his side.
The only picture I have of Cadence and Seth so far. As expected, she's being a little shy. She'll warm up eventually. Until then, Seth has 2 other nieces and a nephew who are a little more open to his attentions.
Everyone kind of just congregated after the initial hello hugs were done.
Then we all just hung out for the rest of the evening. Seth got BBQ Pringles as a welcome-home gift, but it was also perfect for bribing his nieces to come to him. Megan was not sure what to think of him. Even this morning she was still unsure, but I suspect she'll warm up to him soon. He's just too fun of an uncle to not want to hang around!
So, that was the evening. It was pretty low-key. We had pizza and just hung out. Tonight we're having the more "official" welcome-home dinner with family, but it'll probably be just as low-key. Still, there probably will be more pictures (eventually). And, of course, there are a few more on Facebook for you Facebook friends. :-)

Bathroom Blog

And... we're potty-trained (knock on wood)! After a few very fussy diaper-free days, a light turned on and Cadence realized using the training potty was far superior to holding it and being stubborn. We had several tantrums where her little bladder was about to burst from her refusing to go. It helped when we got Dora emblazoned underwear and suddenly wearing them was also far superior to wearing a diaper.

So other than bedtime, Cadence is no longer in diapers. She even made it through nursery and several shopping trips.

We have a few hurdles to cross. Currently she still tries to hold in #2 until she's diapered at night, but since she generally doesn't do anything overnight, if I give her too long in the diaper in the morning (like the 15-20 minutes it might take to drive James to work in the morning), well... She also prefers using her potty instead of the toilet and refuses to even try public restrooms (can you blame her? lol).

But she empties her own potty (so mommy doesn't have to) and she gets through naptime without accidents. Yay, Cadence! ("Yay, Cadence!" is her way of announcing she's successfully pottied if I ask, lol. Mommy: "Cadence, did you pee?" Cadence: "Yay, Cadence!") It only took 2 weeks for me to feel confident enough to announce her success.

And I did have the epitome of mommy embarrassment in a public stall with a potty-training toddler, who proudly clapped and cheered ("Yay, Mommy!") and announced exactly what I'd done in that private stall to everyone else in the bathroom. What else can one do but laugh in a situation like that?

All about Megan today

It's been a quiet week. Megan and I came down with a head cold. It kind of stinks, because we had just gotten over the lingering symptoms of the chest cold we had the week before. So we haven't done anything blog-worthy exciting except a few trips to the store to get some cold medicines and kleenex.

Anyway, Megan's gone and done some adorable things recently. Her personality's really begun to shine since she got so fully mobile. She still uses only a few words ("all done", "belly", "hi" and "bye"), but she's got the cutest grin that wrinkles her nose whenever she gets caught doing something. And she's climbing onto and into everything. We recently took the doors off our entertainment center when the screws on the bottom hinge wiggled loose and stripped the hole. Rather than fight with it, we just took the doors off. Megan spent about half an hour having fun with that:
She's also REALLY into mimicking. Mostly she copies her sister, but sometimes she'll copy me. She did this the other day as we headed out the door. I picked up my purse and she stopped to pick up hers before we walked out the door. It was so cute I had to run back and snatch my camera:
I seriously love this girl. I can't believe I was ever worried her personality would always be overshadowed by her big sister's. They've both got enough personality to shine equally (which can be a frustrating handful, don't get me wrong), with some to spare!

My living room

Okay, so this is the cuteness (she insisted on me putting the ribbon on her like a headband and it was just TOO cute with her curls):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:

We're a McDonalds kinda family

This morning I had to run to Kmart and return James's boots. We'd just bought them about a month ago and the other day the zipper popped right off. Luckily, Kmart was cool with us returning tagless boots without the receipt (gave them the card we used). Anyway, I've been searching for a basic skirt, since my jean one doesn't fit anymore. Sadly, it's become a pain in the butt trying to find a skirt that would actually go to my knee that isn't ankle-length.

We got a late start since I was perfectly content to spend the first half of the morning with my feet kicked up, playing facebook games while the girls made a mess of my living room. So by the time I'd finished browsing at Ross (and found a dozen things I wanted to buy, but could only rationalized spending the money on a skirt right now. Next week, however...), it was past lunchtime. Luckily, I remembered that the McDonalds right down the street was recently remodeled and has a great set-up for toddlers that the girls love. And this time, I had my camera. And since my girls are just too stinking adorable for words, we'll let the pictures tell the story:

In 3 weeks and 1 day...

... we get a few more moments of this:

And 2 days after that, we'll have an updated picture of this:

(Yes, that's Cadence. That was the last time Seth saw her!)

PS- I'm excited!!!

Yesterday

You know those days that are quiet but so perfectly enjoyable you wish everyday could be just like it? Yeah, I had one of those days yesterday. A morning of cartoons and playing and reading books. Lunch time without any major tantrums. Playing at the apartment playground where Megan mastered climbing up and dared the slide several times. A peaceful naptime. A tasty dinner with Daddy. And the cherry on top? Ice cream sundaes before bed!

Been a week

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. :-)