Leslie Lee’s Weblog

For Tabs first Halloween she was an apple and Olivia was Snow White. It was extra special for me because it was my first Halloween I got to make their costumes. I have seriously been waiting for this moment my whole life!

Last night we went to downtown Campbell for their trick or treating festivities. We had an early dinner at Aqui’s and sat out on the patio, it was perfect for people watching. Tabs was very pleasant and sat in her stroller and watched everybody with a smile and although Olivia had a rough start, as soon as she got some food in her she was a happy little Snow White. We met some friends and my mom joined us as well. Olivia walked around with Grandma and did some trick or treating, then we all went out.

We got home about ten to eight, Olivia fell asleep in the car, stayed asleep in Johns arms when he carried her in and slept right through her pajama changing. Tabs on the other hand was wide awake. Until 10. This last week has been so hectic, everybody’s schedule is off. Olivia then woke up at 8:45, super excited about her Halloween book – I’m talking oooo-ing and ah-ing and high pitched screaming accompanied with feet kicking, all over owls and pumpkins, it was a little ridiculous for bedtime. Finally everybody – including me – was asleep by 10.

Today we had a long day. Tabs got up about eight this morning, O slept in til about 8:45, which was nice. We did our regular routine, breakfast, play, bath and nap. O slept for three hours! Nice! Tabs even got a bath, too! Then we costumed everybody up, we headed to Target to find a costume for John – yeah, that’s right, it’s Halloween day and we were searching for a costume for him to wear to work tonight. They were out. That’s right, not one adult costume left. Figures. He found a mustard colored shirt and ended up going as Zulu from Star Trek, not bad for totally last minute.

Anyhoot, then we headed to John’s parents house for a visit then over to my dad’s house. He lives on the best street for trick or treating. We went sort of early to beat the crowd so that Olivia could walk around and not get trampled. There was this one house that was really cute. It was all decorated with lights and giant spiders and then they had a little decorated table in the middle of the lawn and 4 old ladies, all dressed up as witches having tea, or whatever it is that witches do, it was really cute. Olivia only made it down the block and back by the time she wanted “up”. So we headed back to the house. Dad & his friends were watching football, Cyndi and the kids were out trick or treating, so FamiLeezy took over the handing out candy position. I think Olivia had the best time doing that. She was grabbing handfuls of candy and stuffing them in everybody’s bags, it was great. She had a ball. Then the meltdown, and we headed home.

Overall, Halloween #2 was a success! I can’t wait til next year when Tabs can really enjoy it too, that’ll be tons of fun!

Happy Halloween!

I can’t believe that the holiday season is upon us already! I can’t believe that this is Olivia’s second Halloween already & that we already have Tabs with us! I can’t believe that Thanksgiving is in only a few weeks and that Christmas will be here in no time. I am so ridiculously excited that Santa is visiting this year too, you have no idea! He’s already started his shopping even! Can’t wait to see O’s face when she gets her big Santa gift, she better be excited, cuz I am!!

So, we had a little getaway in the beginning of the week to Napa. We stayed at the Vino Bello and had a one bedroom suite, which was really like our own little apartment – full kitchen, washer/dryer, living room, dining table – it was a really good time. We vacay’ed with some friends and their 6 week old baby, they were in the room next door, and we even went on a family outing wine tasting! Ha!

Olivia was very excited about our hotel room, she ran around like a maniac checking things out…

Tabs was pretty excited too…

Wine Tasting….

Although it was pretty undercover, we found out that the Top Chef finale or something Top Chef, was being taped at our resort! I was bummed that I haven’t been watching it this season, that would’ve been so cool! Here’s O running around in the lobby with her owl…

The first day we were there the weather was really nice, we hung out by the pool. I was the most perfect start to our mini-vacay. John & Olivia and Dan & Natalie (our friends that had stayed there the night before) swam and Tabs & I hung out with Victoria and gossiped, it couldn’t have been a better day! The resort had a family pool area, which was right outside our rooms, it had a regular pool, a 1&1/2 foot deep pool and water feature that had the padded ground and a bunch of spouts that spit water up into the air, O didn’t like that too much, it kinda freaked her out, but she loved the kiddie pool.

She wasn’t too fond of getting in her bathing suit though…

And these are my lovely girls when they’re hungry & tired – they actually kind of look alike when they’re miserable. Somebody was looking throught these pictures and said I was really mean, here they are both crying and I’m snapping pictures….huh. I never thought of it that way. But I wanted to capture this moment of family togetherness…

We had a great time, and my fears of being away from home with two little ones has settled, I think we could travel the world now! Although next time we go anywhere that involves driving, I think I’ll have Tabs FedEx’ed there. She has still not gotten over the whole car thing. It’s as bad as ever, and she’s 5 months old now! So the drive up to Napa wasn’t bad, we planned it around the morning nap, so she slept almost the whole way there – not that it’s that far, only about an hour and a half. And she was surprisingly super pleasant the entire three days we were there! But then we decided to leave. We checked out of the hotel and then decided to drive to St.Helena, about a half hour north of Napa. We walked around, did a little shopping and then we started to head home around 5:30. Oh lord, she was NOT having it. The screaming was so bad that we went back to the hotel to hang with John and Janet (our friends were staying the rest of the week) and have dinner, until Tabs got tired enough for us to drive in peace. So 8:20, Tabs fell asleep, Olivia is exhausted too, so we head out. I swear, as soon as that carseat snapped into the car, WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! From Napa to Concord, nonstop screaming. We pulled over at a gas station, blood curdling screams (which O just sleeps right through), I unstrap Tabs, pull her out, all smiles. No joke, smiles! What the?? I feed her, wide awake. 45 minutes later, sitting in the parking lot in front of a gas station food mart with my boob still out and she’s just staring at me like, yeah, I dare you to put me back in that car seat! I did, and scrrrrrrrrrrreaming. Ugh. So there she is, strapped in, pissed off. I whip out the boob again, on my knees on the back seat, I hover over the car seat and feed her while she’s strapped in. Jackpot! Quiet! So I tell John to just go. Anyways, I hovered over that dang carseat for over 20 minutes on the freeway til we got past Dublin, and she finally had fallen asleep. I put my life at risk to make this little munchkin happy. She had better remember this when she’s 16 and hating me because she has an 11:30 curfew and no car. I risked my life for you!!

Wednesday we made halloween cupcakes and Thursday we carved our pumpkins…

Tabs was sleeping & Daddy was at work, so they missed out, but me & O had fun…

Look for our costume studio pics tomorrow!

At the beginning of the month we headed out to Pacifica for a Sand Sculpture Competition. It was a good idea in theory, but when we actually got there it was ridiculously windy. We first had lunch in the car, then trekked out to check out the sand art. We saw one sculpture, took a picture next to it & headed back to the car. Then Tabs proceeded to scream like a maniac, so we started our way home. Tabs just would not let up, so we stopped at Serramonte Mall & hung out til she got tired so she would sleep the rest of the way home. overall our beach trip was pretty much a bust….

Tab’s Portraits

Tab’s enjoying her big sissy’s company….

She’s been eye-ing our food for weeks now…

So we started her on solids, and she just can’t it in her mouth fast enough!

& Olivia loves her ice cream cones!

O’s new “smile” face….

Tabs loves her jumpy!

O helping daddy install our new faucet…

Bath time fun

Tabitha sits up – BY HERSELF! (not for very long tho)

but she’d still rather be held

Last weekend we went to the pumpkin patch in Morgan Hill, we had a lot of fun despite the heat. Olivia was so excited to pick out her own pumpkin & we rode the train, too! We’ve been reading our Halloween books lately, and she’s picked up quite the Halloween vocabulary, it’s hilarious. She now gets very excited over “punguys”, whether we’re in the car & pass a pumpkin patch or see a pumpkin in a store window, her face get absolutely elated and yells “PUNGUY!”  She’s also way into owls, and knows they say “hoo hoo”, as well as bats, she loves them. Her other new words - apple, tree, two (knows its two when you hold up two fingers, but also says two when you hold up 3 fingers, so….) witch, ghost, moon, star, hair, Jodi (joo-joo), Jeri (jee-jee), tv, cow, pig, mouse and some more I’m sure but can’t think of…oh, towel, she knows that one. The other day she was splashing in the bathtub, and I said, hey! You’re getting me all wet! So she stands up grabs the towel, hands it to me and says “Towel!” Hahaha, cracked me up!

Tabs had a good time too, but she didn’t last very long, she went on her first train ride, checked out a few pumpkins, then fell asleep. Better than crying, I guess.

Here’s O watching the train while we waited in line. It was nice, kids under 36″ ride for free! We won’t have to pay for a looooong time!

So serious….

I wish the pumpkins weren’t so distracting so we could’ve got a good sister picture!

O wasn’t so sure about the scarecrow

My little shorty dancing to the live band playing behind us

She found the perfect pumpkin!

Big girls help daddy push the wheelbarrow!

 class=”mceItemHidden”> pre=”">Welp tomorrow we’re off for a much needed mini-vacay! We’re headed to Napa for a few days with friends, I’ll post pictures when we get back!

Getting ready for Tab’s first haircut…

she had quite a mullet going…

Snip, snip, gone!

Olivia’s diaper wedgie…

We went to the Children’s Discovery Museum to check out the Curious George exhibit. It was fun, but I think we’ll wait a little longer before we go again. O is still sorta small to really enjoy it.

Miss Tabitha

You would think that the girls were the ones doing all the walking!

Olivia is now 18 months old! & Tabs is now 4 months old! How time flies!

Tabitha’s 100 day celebration was in mid-September. It was very odd. Well, that’s harsh. It just wasn’t what I expected at all. John & I aren’t really that into football, so unknowingly we scheduled the party on opening day of the NFL – whoops. So of course I wasn’t really expecting any of our friends to show up. But they did! Just about all of them! It was a very nice surprise. We had a great time. The odd thing was that last year, for Olivia’s 100 day, it was a huge deal & all John’s family showed up. This time hardly any Korean people showed up. To be frank, I’m pissed off about it. Poor second child. And then to top it all off, I forgot my camera so John’s brother took all the pictures, there were 148 picture total. None of them of people at the party & only 4 of Tabs, yes, 4. Out of 148. You have no idea the guilt I feel. I almost want to stage the whole thing just to have proof that we do care about you Tabitha!

(& yes, of course I made the cupcakes)    ;o)

Oh! There’s Tabs…..poor second child.

More to come!

Are you mad? I know, I know. It’s been A LONG TIME…

So what’s happened during the entire month of September? I don’t even remember! It’s been a transition month for us. Mom went back to school, John started taking night classes & my sister moved away. It’s been a little rough getting used to sort of being on my own with the girls, we’re managing though. It’s a little lonelier than I thought it would be. Some days I’m by myself with them from the time they wake up until they go down to bed, without hardly any grown up interaction. I’m not complaining though. I’m lucky I get this time with them. I decided to try out the mommie-group thing, so that will be my next adventure to write about. I don’t really have any friends with kids, so I think this will be good for me.

So what’s new with the girLees? They both change so much every day it’s amazing. Especially Tabs. Gosh, in the past week she’s turned into a whole other person. She’s discovered her hands and Cash (the dog, not $$, thank gawd) and she has learned that the saucey (the play saucer thingy) can actually be entertaining, which is a total lifesaver for me! She also tried out the jumpy again, and loves it! It’s cute, Olivia is still interested in both the saucey and the jumpy, but she’s too big for those now, but she “plays” with Tabs while she’s in them. Today in the jumpy, Olivia pried open Tabs fist, points her finger and showed her how to press the buttons to make the music play. Adorable. In the saucey, Olivia is more interested in the toys than Tabs, and Tabs is more interested in watching Olivia than the toys. Either way, Tabs cracks up in the saucey & it’s fun to watch.

She is such an extreme baby. She gets so mad & so happy. There’s nothing really in the middle. I’m thinking what that’s going to be like in the future and it makes me a little nervous. She’s still not that great in the car, either. Jeez, I thought this would have passed by now, but no. I thought once she discovered her hands and the car seat toy – which she has – that she would get over screaming bloody murder in the car. But no. She’s still screamin. Ugh. It’s awful. I feel bad for Olivia. We went to the Pacifica last weekend, to this sand sculpture competition, and she did really good on the way up, she slept the whole time, but then she was up on the way home. I sat in the back in hopes to entertain her and distract her from being a pissed off screaming baby. It only worked for about ten minutes, then she didn’t care about me or her carseat toy, she just wanted to scream and cry. Oh. My. Gaaaaaawwwwwwd. I don’t know how Olivia isn’t crying too. Tabs is so flippin loud. It is seriously awful sitting back there with her. I was in the worst mood and  had the worst headache afterwards. I couldn’t believe what a difference there is from the front to the back seats. Anyways, cross your fingers that this ends soon, for all of our sakes.

Let’s see, what else? Olivia is talking more these days. We’ve added a few more audible words to her vocabulary. I know, I probably over use this word, but it really is amazing. She has HI and BYE and DADDY totally mastered, and she’s (finally) added the UH in UP – it used to just be PUH, but now it’s UH-PUH. And she now uses DOWWNNN. I’m MODGY. And her binky is also MODGY, I’m not sure why me and the binky are called the same thing, still trying to figure that one out.  She’s been responding to questions with something that resembles OKAY, which is pretty funny. And she tells Cash to GO AWAY pretty clear, too. She says CHEESE when you take her picture & when you take it out of the fridge, she can also say TEETH, but it sounds a lot like cheese. There is also JUICE, CAR, WOW, WHOA, BATH & SHOES. Oh, and words that start with a “b” – like bubbles & baby, she just calls those things BEEEEEE. But almost every day it’s something new, I can’t wait to see what’s next!

I’ve taken on a new project, Olivia’s Halloween costume. I’m sewing it! Yah, I’M SEWING IT. Atleast I’m trying to. She’s going to be Snow White, and Tabs is going to be an apple. Depending on how that goes, I’m going to be the evil queen and John’s going to be Prince Charming or whatever Snow White’s prince’s name is. Usually I’m not really into the whole licensed character thing, but I couldn’t resist how cute of a Snow White Olivia would be, so I gave in. And I am sort of dying to make a Halloween costume, that’s what I always imagined myself to be. One of those moms that sews the most amazing Halloween costumes. I don’t think this is going to be the year of amazement, but it’s a start. I figure it doesn’t start to count until they get to school, right? Sigh. I’m so shallow.

Anyways, I want to share a bunch of pictures with you, and uploading seriously takes forever, so I’m gonna cut my post short and start doing that. I’m sorry I’ve been away so long, I’ll try to get back again soon!

**omg, John is downloading some program right now so uploading a single picture is taking like 5 minutes! (and it’s already almost one o’clock in the morning) sooooooo, I’ll post pics tomorrow. I promise!**

Not much to report this time around.

Everybody’s getting bigger and doing well.

They both amaze me more and more each day at how much they grow. Today Olivia was repeating words and they actually made sense! She said, very understandably, “pweeeeeeeeze” (please) & ”die-pee” (diaper). She says other words too, but I think I’d be the only one who knows what they mean. Anyways, it was pretty awesome. I read this article recently that said that from now (she’s 17 months) until she’s 2 years old, she’ll be speaking roughly 200 words! Isn’t that just crazy?! I mean within the six months or so, we’ll be able to have a conversation! That just blows my mind! I’m both excited and terrified at the same time.

Tabitha is getting so big, too. I weighed her this afternoon, and she’s about 13 & 1/2 lbs! I think she’s really long, way longer (or taller) than Olivia was. I think it’s kinda cool how different they are, I think it’s teaching me a good lesson.

Tabs is so strong! And she’s so happy! Except for the car, she’s rarely in a bad mood. My favorite thing is that I am totally her most favorite person. Olivia comes in at a close second & Daddy’s behind her. O & Tabs are just the most adorable thing together. Olivia just wants to take care of her, it’s so cute. The other day Tabs was laying on the floor in just a diaper – I had just changed her, so the wipees were laying next to her too – and Olivia comes over, takes of her diaper and starts wiping her! Tabitha just smiled at her. Hilarious!

Anyways, here are some pictures. This month we took our first trip to the beach, Olivia was (as sort of expected) absolutely fearless. She just wanted to run right out into the ocean! It was very stressful, but fun to watch. She had soooo much fun, it’s amazing how much excitement can come from such a teeny tiny person.

Olivia has developed a shoe obsession. She only wears ladies shoes too! Never Johns! How does she know the difference??

Tabs can hold her head up so high, she is only about half an inch from peeking out of her bassinet!

Last weekend we got up early & went all the way to Hillsdale Mall to see Raggs in concert – of course, we were late and missed it! (it only lasted 15 minutes!) They had a Meet & Greet afterwards, but it was PACKED, so we just observed from upstairs. Olivia still got all excited & Tabitha had a good time, too.

Tabs wasn’t too impressed by the “celebrity” showing, she was more intrigued by her hands.

But she got into things….

Auntie Jodi’s (AJ) birthday was last week, we were picking her up from the airport so I decided it’d be fun to make a sign. Then I thought of posting a picture of the girls with the sign on facebook – it was an interesting photo shoot. John kneeled behind the chair to hold the sign, since O refused to hold it herself.

Oh, and did I mention it was Olivia’s nap time?

(I love how Tabs hand is on her shoulder!)

Tonight the three of us girLees had a very pleasant evening. John had to work at 6, so we were on our own for dinner & bed time. It went surprisingly well, better than usual. I actually made dinner (mushroom pizza – Olivia’s first pizza experience, and she loved it!)  and was able to clean up with minimal crying! Amazing! Tabitha was very cooperative all night, while I quickly made the pizza she sat happily in the Bumbo on the counter. It was funny, Olivia didn’t know where she was, so to keep her busy I kept asking her, “where’s sister??” And she’d from the kitchen down the hall and check every room and come back with her hands up, like “I dunno!” It was pretty comical, it lasted a good 10 minutes. Then during dinner Tabs decided she needed a little catnap, so she slept while Olivia & I ate and I even had time to clean up & do the dishes! Wow, I know!

After dinner it was still early, so we played in the play room then in Olivia’s room. She’s getting so tall! Today she reached the door handle in her bedroom, so she can now close and OPEN the door! But for some reason she can only reach her bedroom door handle, not the handle in our room, or the bathrooms or the playroom. Her rooms must be lower or something, weird! Anyways, she’s very proud of herself and so she played the open-the-door-close-the-door game for over 30 minutes, meanwhile me and Tabs just sat in the chair and watched. Cash even played along by wanting to come in, Olivia yelling at him, laughing and then slamming the door in his face. She did let him in a few times, but once he did get in he realized he just wanted back out.

We’ve been working on Tabitha’s announcements, and I want one picture of T&O together, but I just can’t seem to get one where they’re both cooperating. Olivia took a long nap this afternoon, so she only woke up minutes before John left for work, so he set up his lights and camera for me to take pictures. Let me tell you, it doesn’t really work that well trying to take pictures of a toddler and an infant by yourself. I must’ve taken over 100 pictures, and none of them turned out great. Not announcement worthy atleast. Olivia’s not looking, Tabitha’s tipping over, Olivia is trying to strangle Tabitha, Tabs is crying, O is trying to “sooth” her by pounding on her chest. I was pouring sweat by the time I gave up. I’m downloading them as we I speak, so we’ll see, maybe they look different on the computer.

After we played a little bit more, I put Tabs down in Olivia’s crib & went to start O’s bed time bottle. She is such a good little helper. As I fixed her bottle, I asked her to put all the tupperware away (she had thrown it all out while I did the dishes), and so she did the she slammed the cabinet door and did a “Ta-Dah!!” (her new thing she learned on Sesame Street, just this morning!) She got jammied and all the while Tabs just sat there in the crib as happy as could be! Then we all went and laid in my bed, read a story and I put O down without a peep. Tabs stayed up a little later that I had wanted, but she was pleasant enough that I didn’t mind.

And that was our night! A success!

Dinner Pics…

One person photo shoot…

Nah, it wasn’t ALL bad. I did catch a lot of good “expressive” shots

Like, “Uh oh, are you feeling sick, baby?”

And the, “What?? Am I not doing what you want??”

Out of the hundreds, I think this one is my favey!

Olivia reaching the door, yelling at Cash (in a loving way), then checking under the door to see if he’s still there

And a happy Tabs, chillin in the big girl crib (probably thinking her sissy is crazy)

Just gonna jump right into it…

I think I blogged about it in the last post, about how John was “sick” (& I was totally irritated by it) – well he passed it along to the rest of us and we all got it at the same time. (so, naturally, the irritation was extended)

Man, what a learning experience. I realized that I’m pretty good at putting on a game face and persevering through a sore throat, cough, congestion & fever. Toddlers with runny noses are disgusting. A mucus-y cough pretty much sounds the same for an infant, toddler & adult, but it’s really hard to listen to coming from a toddler, and even harder to listen to coming from an infant. A steamed up bathroom really does work. A cuddly toddler is the best medicine for a grown up cold. Children’s Tylenol apparently tastes like candy. I can drive to Tahoe and back in 24 hours with 2 sick babies and no daddy. And finally, Popsicles are a godsend.

Olivia never really got sick as an infant – except for that one time she had Hand Foot Mouth disease, but it wasn’t that bad, just ugly. This cold, on the other hand has been awful.

So I started out with a scratchy throat, I thought it was nothing. I had it for almost a week, but it never progressed into a full on sore throat. Then Olivia started showing signs of getting something, but that was sort of clouded by her teething – you know, they say that with teething comes runny noses and a low grade temp. But then the ugly, yuck-o cough started. I hate that cough. I’m not a germ-a-phobe or anything, but when kids have that cough I get totally grossed out, you know, that one. That loud, low, rumbley cough that you can just tell is filled with green, gooey mucus that is always accompanied by a nice flow of snot that runs down to their upper lip. Ugh, it makes me shudder just thinking about it. Well, yeah, that’s what Olivia had. The snot was unbearable. I really had to dig deep inside myself to find the strength to deal with it. It’s only partially true what they say about it being different with your own kid. Omg, for about 4 days she had a waterfall of clear snot that no matter how often I wiped, it ran down to her upper lip, hopped onto her binky, and a couple times when I didn’t get to it fast enough, would even run down the handle & drip onto her shirt. I know, GRRRRROSS!

Anyways, Jodi & I  had planned to go to Tahoe to visit my aunt on Saturday. (John had to work, so it was an all-girls weekend. Fun!!) I was struggling over whether to go or not, but Olivia’s nose problem was getting better, Tabs didn’t seem too bad, I felt okay and I really wanted to go & so did Jodi, and I really didn’t want to disappoint anybody – including myself.

We left about 9:30 Saturday morning, both girls usually nap about this time, so it was perfect. They did surprisingly well in the car. Tabs (who is a nightmare in her carseat – she never stops screaming! It’s awful & I was so nervous about it) slept almost the entire way up there, she woke up once for lunch, then went right back to sleep when we got on the road again. And Olivia didn’t sleep as much as I thought, but was very pleasant.

We got up there around 2:30, we visited a little bit, then Olivia & I went downstairs to take a nap. I was really nervous about the whole sleeping situation. We haven’t really been on vacation  – we went to Tahoe last Sept & stayed in a hotel, but O was too little to really notice or care that we weren’t at home. And even at my mom’s house it’s not easy to get her to sleep, there’s a lot of tears involved. And to add to that, I didn’t bring her pack & play, so I wasn’t sure how well the two of were going to do sleeping together in a regular bed (she’s a crazy sleeper, all over the place!)

Downstairs we had our own bedroom with a king bed – okay, before I go on, I have to talk about this bed. I cannot stop thinking about this bed. It was theeee most comfortable bed I have ever slept in. No, seriously. The most comfortable bed I have ever slept in. Look, it’s been a week, and I’m still thinking about it. Today I dragged the girls and my mom to Macy’s Clearance Center all the way in Union City, just so I could see how much money I’d have to save up to get a new king sized bed. Yes, just the size of the thing was impressive. I wish John had gone with us, then I don’t think that he would think that getting a new mattress would be a luxury, he’d think it was a necessity too. Yes, that’s right I think it’s a necessity. We have a queen sized bed, it’s only about 6 years old, but it is ridiculously hard. I have a history of back problems, so it was recommended that we get a firm mattress – well we might as well sleep on the floor. I can’t believe I lasted through two pregnancies with this thing. And now with 2 fast growing babies with parents that like to sleep in, I don’t think our dinky queen is going to hold all of us in the morning (when O wakes up at the crack of frickin dawn, she comes in bed with us & watches cartoons while I get another hour or so of sleep). A year from now I really can’t see that happening with a one and a two year old without a king size bed. Therefore, a necessity.

So getting back to the story, we pushed the bed against the wall & O and I took a very nice nap. I slept for about an hour, then snuck upstairs while she slept. She was exhausted from not sleeping on the way up. I was all paranoid, because I didn’t want her to wake up all freaked out, not knowing where she was. Anyways, a couple hours later I heard her cry, so I ran down stairs, and there she was. Snowman in hand, running down the hall. What the?? The bed is hella high! How in the world? I checked her out for any injuries, cuz she must’ve fallen, right? She was fine.

So we hung out for a couple hours, we noticed that Tabs cough and breathing was getting sort of rough, and croup-y & I wasn’t feeling that great. Aunt Cindy BBQ’ed the best london broil ever for dinner and then she set up a humidifier for us. And we headed to bed. That’s when I discovered that Olivia canget down from a three and a half feet high bed like a pro. Feet first & backwards, just like I showed her. I was impressed! (Btw, I brought Tabs’ pack’n'play – so she slept in her bassinet) We said our goodnights and lights out – well half of the lights out. Yes, I’m a 30 year old mother of two, and still am sorta afraid of the dark. But hey, I’m pretty much blind without my glasses, that’s scary enough. I don’t need black out conditions as well.

But at bedtime I was totally bummed. Back in the day – hahaha, like it was soooolong ago or something – but before babies, an Aunt Cindy visit meant a late night with lots of wine and gossip and a moderate headache the next morning. Uh, not for me. Not this time. I was in bed, & flippin sober, by 9. Boooooooo. Atleast the bed was uber comfy. I surprisingly slept pretty well though. The king size was enough room for crazy Olivia to unconsciously toss herself around in and not bug me or fall off. I even think, had John been with us, there would have been enough room for him to sleep comfortably.

But Tabs tossed and turned all night, coughing and snorting. I was all paranoid, I kept getting up and feeling her back to make sure she was still breathing. By the morning she was really bad, and freakin me out. I didn’t know if her getting worse was just a natural progression or if it was because of the altitude, but she wasn’t sounding good at all. And this is my first experience with a sick infant – it’s kinda scary. And on top of that I was feeling like crap myself. So after much debate (with myself) and a call to the advice nurse we decided that it would probably be best if we went home. And I didn’t want to be getting everybody else sick.

I packed everything back up and was going to start packing up the car. It’s 7:30am. Uh, but wait. Where are my keys? Okay, so I don’t think I’ve expressed the concern I have had recently with the state of my mental health. I think I’m loosing my mind. I think I may be getting Alzheimers. No, seriously. Like I understand that I have two little people to take care of – and one big 30 year old man person – and I have a lot on my mind, but it’s getting ridiculous. A year ago, I lost my keys, never to be found, I have no clue where they disappeared to, but they’re gone so now I use John’s set of keys to my car, the only set of keys to my car. So I’m going to pack up the car, but the keys aren’t where I thought they were. Not on the counter, not on the table, not in my purse. Me, Jodi and Cindy are tearing the place apart, an hour goes by. No keys. We call AAA because I must’ve locked them in the car. Nope. No keys. We call a locksmith to see how much it would cost to get another set made – uh, $300!! Holy shizz! No, I’ll stay a week, no a month before I have to tell John we’re out $300 because I can’t remember what I did with my keys.

Cindy says, “Are you sure they didn’t fall under the lining in your purse or something?”

I swear I checked under the lining, but I check again. Oh. Look. Keys. It’s 9 o’clock. Yup. Over an hour of searching, and panicking and sweating, and they’re there. Right there. Sigh.

24 hours, and we drove to Tahoe and back. Sucky short, sick trip. I was so sad that I didn’t get to wine it up with the Herbert girls. Next time, Aunt Cindy! I’ll bring John too, that way he can go to bed early with the babies!

When we got home it really hit me. I was on the verge of loosing my voice and felt like complete crap. I had a little fever but an awful stuffy head and runny nose. It’s been a week and my voice and my dry nose still haven’t come back completely.  Tabs got worse the next day too, then sort of plateaued and stayed there for a while, which wasn’t good. Olivia was doing much, much better; but Tabs just wasn’t. Tuesday night was bad, she was up a lot during the night coughing & we spent a lot of time in the bathroom with ahot shower running. I got worried enough to finally take her to the dr’s on Wednesday morning. She’s fine. She has an upper respiratory infection, and it usually takes about 2 weeks (!!!) to clear up, and there’s not much I can do about it medicine-wise. If it goes past 2 weeks though, she’ll probably be put on antibiotics. She is a lot more pleasant though, so I think she’s getting better. The cough is still horrible, it’s so sad. It must really hurt, it sends her into a mini crying fit every time, it’s hard to watch.

So what else is going on? Not much. We’ve been (finally) working on Tabitha’s announcement, hopefully that will go out next week – I mean she’s only two & a half months! Well, Olivia’s announcement didn’t go out until she was a few days past 3 months, so I guess this isn’t too bad.

Tabitha laughed for the first time yesterday. Jodi made her laugh, it was so cute. I tried to catch it on video, but only got the tail end of it when she was pretty much over being tickled and seeing Jodi’s silly face. Oh well, I’m sure I’ll get plenty more chances!

I’ve been working on getting Olivia to call my name when she wants my attention. I think it’s working. Unfortunately “Mommy” is apparently not the word. It’s just plain old “Maaaaaaaaaaaaa!”. It still makes me feel good though.

Here are our August pictures, so far…

For some reason O has become obsessed with the Boppy pillow, we were getting ready for a bath and she disappeared. This is where I found her…

Cute bath time pics…

Tabs & Daddy

Our little breakfast routine. Yes, we love our Bumbo seat! Olivia still fits in it at 16 & a half months and Tabs fits in it at 2 months! We love, love, love this thing! Best seat ever!

Our WestGate Mall excursion. I should be glad that I’m saving money because Olivia freaks out when the rides move, but it’s kinda sorta a bummer.

Olivia doing her impression of an 80’s aerobic babysitter taking her job very seriously! 

Our little thumb sucker!

Did you know that there are mini drumsticks! Too bad they don’t make a mini-mess!

Noooo, it’s not obvious she’s the second child…Tabs in her Bumbo

Tabitha’s Glamour Shots  

Sisters (this little sequence cracks me up!)     

Wow! Olivia & Tabs wearing the same exact outfits, sitting in the same exact Bumbo seat, at the same exact age! Nothing alike!

Wow.

I was just planning on just posting pictures, but I’m waiting to see if Olivia wakes up AGAIN, so I guess I’ll tell you about my evening…

John went to work, my mom stayed and helped with dinner by holding Tabitha while I cooked and fed the big girl. We got Olivia jammied and just like any other night, laid the two girls on the bed while O had her before bedtime bottle

A few things were out of “routine” but not terribly, she seemed to go down fine. My mom left, I tried to keep Tabs up a little longer, as it was only 7:30. But I gave in at about ten to eight. I took her into my room (where her bassinet is) & got comfy on the bed to feed her. Five minutes into it, crying and screaming coming from Olivia. Ugh. I waited a few minutes, sometimes she’ll just go back to sleep on her own, but no, not this time. I cut Tabitha short, laid her on the bed and went and got MissO. I tried to hold her and get her to fall asleep real quick, but again, no. Tabitha starts crying, so I just bring O into our room. She lays on our bed, with Snowman and her blankie, I start feeding Tabs again and O closes her eyes. Score!

Tabitha eats and goes down easily, Olivia, not so much. Her eyes shoot open, she wants to see sister in her bassinet, she’s climbing all over the bed, she’s handing me blankets to put on the baby, she’s handing me the sound machine for who knows what reason, she’s “talking” to me like it’s 3 o’clock in the afternoon. Uh, hello?! You’re tired!

So we go through the latter half of our bedtime routine, and she goes down without a fight.

I go out front to water the lawn (my job now, sigh) about ten minutes into it, crying. Again. I let it go a good ten minutes. Still crying. I go in, she’s standing there, “Hi!” she says.

Sigh.

But there’s a poop in her diaper, so I sorta feel bad. That’s why she’s not sleeping. She had a tummy ache. I change her and she’s as pleasant as can be. Wide awake. I swear, she’s trying to kiss my ass so that I’ll let her stay up. Guess what? It worked. She is just so dang cute. So we cleaned up her room, she had thrown out all of her books, so we picked them up. Then we went out to the family room and she helped me collect her toys and bring them back to the playroom. Then we picked up the playroom. I was surprised at how good she was, she didn’t try to play with the toys or “argue” that we were putting them away. She’s a very good ass kisser.

We said good night to the play room and turned out the light, we went into the family room, said “Good night family room!”, she waved to it, we turned out the light. We went back into her room, grabbed Snowman & blankie, went through the go to bed routine, turned out the lights and I shut the door. Silence.

Aahhhhhhhh.

Ten minutes.

Crying.

Sigh. Again??

This time I let it go a good 20 minutes. It’s turning into shrieking. I go in. Poor thing is all sweaty from crying. She says a very long, over enthusiastic, “Hiiiiiiiiiii!”

Anyways, we ended up on the couch watching Finding Nemo. This was Olivia’s first movie experience. I don’t think that I’ve watched Finding Nemo on our TV, or atleast I don’t remember, but it was pretty freakin awesome. (We have a 56″ Samsung DLP – ateast I think that’s what it is, a DLP, I’m not savvy on things like that, I just know it’s big and sorta fancy) Anyways she was pretty into it, or just super tired. She started rubbing her eyes after Marlon (Nemo’s dad) met the sharks, so I just turned the TV off and took her to bed.

That was at about 10:45 (!!!!), it’s almost 11:30 now, so I’m assuming I’m in the clear now. Hopefully there will be no more “me-time” interruptions!

Well, as I promised, here are the girls monthly pictures…

We had a little photo shoot with the girls, Olivia just loves her little sister. She got really into it, she wanted to hold Tabs like a little mommy. She was a little rough, as you can see from the photo’s but it wasn’t anything Tabs couldn’t handle. Her crying wasn’t from being man handled, it was from just being tired.

Olivia, 16 months; Tabs, 2 months

Olivia “patting” Tabitha to sooth her – just like mommy pats Tabs back when she cries.

Little mommy trying to change baby’s diaper….

Little Miss Mischevious

My tired little missy, holding up her itty bitty head

And some of Tabs that I took today…

Could she look any more like John??

A happy girl after an explosive poop (TMI?) and a sub-sequential bath

Yesterday Tabitha turned 2 months, and tomorrow Olivia will be 16 months.

Monthly pictures to come…

I love seeing Tabs getting bigger and turning into more of a “baby”. Having both babies getting bigger has been both easier and harder to deal with. Tabitha is pretty much up most of the day, which makes it more challenging to get things done, but at the same time it’s a lot more fun because there’s a lot more interaction and way more smiles. It’s easier because they both pretty much sleep through the night. Usually by 9 o’clock everybody’s aleep, and I have some time to myself. Tabitha wakes up around 4am, but as soon as she gets fed she’s back asleep. My problem is that I can’t seem to get to bed before midnight. Not because I’m not tired, but because there’s so much to get done – picking up, doing laundry, folding laundry, ironing laundry (which I’ve become a fanatic about), changing the sheets, scrubbing the bathroom, doing dishes – it’s all impossible to do while holding an infant and chasing a toddler. I could possibly get laundry done during the day, but it’s so frustrating to have a neat pile of clean, folded clothes and then have Olivia come and rip it apart and start scrubbing the floors with those nice white shirts. So instead, I opt for these loveley dark circles under my eyes.

So, it’s funny how different the two girls are. Olivia was, and still is, all about the binky. Tabitha on the other hand won’t have anything to do with it, but she really likes her thumb. She’s getting better at finding it and holding onto it, thank gawd, because I really do think that the whole sucking thing is helpful in self soothing. Having John back working at night, I’ve given in and have been trying to get Tabs to take the binky, but she refuses. Today I even went and bought a different brand (from what Olivia uses), but no luck. She (Tabs) just makes a yuck face and squirms to fight it, I don’t remember it being a struggle for Olivia.  But tonight when I was putting her to sleep she found her thumb on her own and slurped and sucked on that thing like none other. I put her down, she wasn’t quite asleep yet, but she held onto that thumb and put herself to sleep! Yay!

This weekend wasn’t too exciting, we didn’t have much planned. I went to a skin care “party” on Saturday and took the girls with me. Olivia, as usual, was a really good girl and entertained everybody, and Tabitha was quiet and happy. She doesn’t smile a lot, but she definitely smiles more than Olivia did at this age. I don’t think Olivia smiled until way later, and it took a long time for O to actually laugh, not that she was an unhappy baby, she was just serious. I think she was busy taking it all in. So far, I think this is the biggest difference between the two of them.

Tabs is holding her head up really well now, laying on her stomach she can fully extend her arms, head up and check things out. It’s pretty cute, her eye (yes, just one eye) gets all big and curious. I hope her eyes even out, because one is way bigger than the other, I joke around that she got one of my eyes and one of John’s. Oh well, if it doesn’t, she’ll make a really good pirate for Halloween.

This week we have our first double dr’s appointment, that should be exciting. I love taking them to the doctor’s because it’s always fun to see how much they’ve grown. I think Olivia has really gotten taller and leaner since her 12 month check up, and this appointment she’ll be able to stand on the big girl scale, rather than lay down in the baby scale. And Tabitha has gotten huge since her 2 week check up, I’m gonna guess she weighs atleast 12lbs and is way taller than Olivia was at her age.

Olivia’s new word: “Buh-bye!”  The cutest thing everrrrr! I posted a 5 second video of it on facebook. I wish I could post videos on the blog, but I’d have to upgrade my subscription to a paying subscription. No thanks. Free is good.

I bought Olivia a cute little pink potty chair last week. We have yet to use it. I don’t want to push it too hard, I think she’s a little bit afraid of it. It’s a little cheap one from IKEA ($3.99), I’m thinking that a fancier one with the bells and whistles might be better, but I don’t know. Her poor little butt kinda falls in the “hole” and that freaks her out. I was thinking that one with a toilet seat might work better for her. I’m still debating on a mini-potty chair just for her, or a mini toilet seat that hooks on to the regular toilet. I’m sort of leaning towards the toilet seat, but for selfish reasons – I don’t want to clean out her business of the potty chair. If she goes straight in the toilet, that’s a lot less work for me. But I guess, ultimately, it’s up to her, huh? Gawd, I hate that. Either way, she’s still young, so I’m not stressing yet.

The last two days Tabs has been really good in the car. 3 car rides with NO screaming! Two five minute drives, and today we went all the way to my mom’s (a 20 minute drive) without any crying! We would have made it home with out a peep, except I put the froggy stretchy toy on her carseat…

and Olivia hit the rattle toy, and I think it scared Tabitha. She started wailing away. It was kind of comical, you should have seen the look on Olivia’s face – she was like, DAMMIT! And she grabbed onto the bar of the carrier and tried rocking it to quiet her little sister. It didn’t work. I think we all are over the crying in the car.

Olivia, rocking out on her giraffe….

Her “funny face”….

She finally fits in the cutest shoes in the world! (her first pairs of VANS that she got for her bday)