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:
(Yes, that's Cadence. That was the last time Seth saw her!)
Megan thought being this close to the fish was awesome.
Cadence was equally as thrilled. She LOVES fish.
Not only is this an awesome shot (at least I think so), the bubble window was awesome in and of itself. It extended INTO the aquarium and when you leaned forward enough it literally seemed like you were in the aquarium surrounded by the kelp and the fish.
Naturally, the place they came alive was the "house" ecosystem. It was for children only under the age of 7, so everything was childproof. Except this puzzle, which Megan thought was lunch:
I did not intend to dress them matching today, it just worked out that way. They LOVED this red couch in the mini living room of the family play area/house ecosystem, though.
They had toys for part of the science exhibit. How cool!
For $2 you could experience hurricane winds. Cadence insisted on joining us for the experience.
Cadence was NOT amused in the end. (This picture makes me giggle)
The best part of the new visitor's center? The coloring center, of course!
Playing near the fountain. Cadence was excited up until she realized just how cold the water was.
No, she did not fall in. Robyn had a good grip on her. She just really liked the water.
Yes, I still love my husband.
Family picture did NOT work out well at all. Megan's crazy hair and blank stare, James blinking, Cadence refusing to look at the camera. But in the other one, James was making a face. Butthead.
Robyn & Cameron. Who knows, if they get married at the LA temple (that's awhile away, but hey, who knows? It could happen!) they can have this pictures to put side by side with a similar one on their wedding day.
A few videos to enjoy of our time outside, including Cadence chattering at me. She's really begun to grasp simple sentences, but since her verb lexicon is so limited, she babbles a lot recently.
We then headed out to my mom's house for dinner (which is always a good spread). There were a few more presents. James got a cool looking sword set, I got an all-time favorite DVD: "A League of Their Own", and the girls got a Dora DVD (which Cadence has already watched twice). We headed home for naptime, then back to mom's for pie and a phone call from Seth, who should be coming home from the Philipines in only 6 weeks! All of us are beyond excited to see him again. And whoever else might be showing up around then, too *wink wink nudge nudge, Erin* (I'm honestly not sure who I'm more excited to see, lol).
Cadence wasn't a big fan of any of it. But she's loving the reindeer antlers we got from the $ section of Target:
We stopped at the dollar store to pick up some snack containers that we saw last time we were there, so the girls had little snack containers for church (since sandwich bags and sharing were not going well). We'd searched for similar containers while out and about running other errands recently, but found nothing. So back to the dollar store we went! Outside they had some rides and I happened to have some quarters:
Let's see... upcoming plans. We have the annual Christmas luncheon for James extended family next weekend. Trying to decide whether to crash another ward's Christmas party, just for another shot at Santa pictures. Looking forward to the next few weeks. Next week James only has a 3-day work week. And the week after that is yet another 3-day work week. So we get lots of James-time coming up. Two 4-day weekends in a row. Yay!
