What I've Been Up To

OK, I know it has been an extremely long time since I last posted, (hence the extremely long, picture heavy post today). I have been incredibly busy. I watched a whole lot of the Olympics. Now I'm busy watching the political conventions as the presidential nominees explain their platforms. I have to say I enjoyed the Olympics a lot more, but I know it is important to be educated about the issues.

I also received a new calling (cub scout den leader) and did a bunch of training for that. I completed some scrapbook pages. I'll come back and post those later, after I gather up all of the credits and finish the titles for a couple of pages. I have also spent a ton of time learning how to effectively clip coupons and use the sales of the local grocery and drug stores. I have already saved more than $100 on my grocery bill in the last week and a half and I got a ton of stuff for free. It's very exciting for me, and every thing else got put on hold for a while. So here is a rundown of some of the stuff that has happened during the last two weeks:

The Kids
The kiddos have been busy too. Here is BittyBit with the animal school that she set up a few weeks ago.LittleMan has perfected his walking technique and has even learned how to run all over the house.They have been playing so nicely together lately. Sister is getting so excited now that her little brother can interact a bit more. She is his biggest fan - she cheers and claps whenever he walks by himself or signs something to communicate with us. She is trying to teach him his ABC's and all the noises that animals make.LittleMan is going through a clingy phase. He screams anytime I leave the room. I mean bloodcurdling, why-are-you-beating-me screaming. It makes it very difficult to get anything done around the house, but I sure do love the cuddling that has resulted. He'll sit still in my lap for a long time and listen to a book or say nursery rhymes. We have a duck puppet that Connie brought back from a weekend trip somewhere. It quacks when you open and close its mouth, and LittleMan loves it. Here is LittleMan again after he learned how to work the mouth of the puppet. He was so proud of himself!

The House
I've been in a real "spring cleaning" mood. I know, I know, it is fall, not spring, but the feeling is there anyway. Tyson took apart the gargantuan dollhouse that Santa left in our living room last Christmas and put it in BittyBit's room. Then we moved around some of the furniture, pulled out some of the clothes that she has outgrown, and threw in a couple of toys for good measure. I'll load it all in the car and donate it after I finish with the rest of the house.

I reorganized my closet as well and today I tackled the baby's closet. I pulled out some of the gadgets that he has outgrown and made some more space in his closet.

Tyson primed the trim in the bathroom, and we are a little closer to finishing that room.

Activities
My brother in law is awesome. (Derek is awesome, not my good-for-nothing, soon to be ex-brother in law N., who had better be glad that he lives too far away for me to damage him after the last stunt that he pulled.) I had my niece over a few times in the last couple of weeks before school started. One day when Derek came to pick her up, he stayed and talked with me for a while. He realized that I could use a day out, and that his wife could use a day out, so the next day he called me and asked me to please bring my kids over that night and go out with Jenni. He even suggested that I call Julie and have her drop her kids off too so that she could join us. I think he deserves brownie points for a year for that move. :) We wandered around an outdoor mall for an hour or so then bought smoothies and talked on a park bench outside. It was a nice and unexpected outing.

My friend Rhiannon came over on Saturday to take maternity pictures. I'm a lazy bum and have only processed a couple of them, but check them out.That evening I met Julie, Shannon, and Sarah at Chili's for dessert and girl gab. Afterward Julie and I joined her sisters Lauren and Kara for Karaoke at a local sports bar. We got there kind of late, and I didn't sing, but I had fun hanging out with the other girls. I'm so jealous of Kara's dimples though!
Monday I went with the family to a Labor Day BBQ at Rhiannon's house. I got to see her house for the first time and swim in her pool, which was so nice after the hot weather that we've had lately. That night we headed over to Tyson's dad's house for another BBQ dinner. I'll admit that I was so stuffed from the first BBQ that I didn't have room for anything, but the company was nice.

Today finds the entire family well. The kids wrapped up the day with a team horsie ride on daddy's tummy. I had to crop the picture close because BittyBit is in a habit of "losing" her pants lately. I'll look up and she's just in her training panties and a t-shirt, which I usually don't even notice until I've taken pictures of whatever cute activity is going on and then realize that I can't post underwear pictures on the blog. That's OK, that habit is less annoying than her most recent middle of the night activities. On the plus side, she is starting to wake up in the middle of the night when she has to go to the bathroom. On the downside, she is starting to wake me up in the middle of the night when she has to go to the bathroom. 3am, give or take an hour and she's banging on my door yelling, "Mom! I have to go potty!" I have got to rig a nightlight or something so that she can take herself. She can't reach the light switch to turn on the bathroom light. We don't have any outlets in the hall, so I can't put a nightlight there. The one outlet in the bathroom is wired into the light switch, so unless I leave the overhead light on, the nightlight won't work. There has got to be a happy medium. It probably involves Tyson climbing into the attic and rewiring something, which will not make him happy, but that's a story for another day. OK, I think I'm done. I'll try not to take so long between posts next time because I don't want to leave poor Jenny hanging all the way in South Texas!