This...

See that little white sheet of paper?  That right there is the key to maintaining order in the car.

Despite the fact that we bought all 3 car seats at the same time, from the same store, one of them has a different latch that the girls can actually buckle themselves.  That's the "easy" seat, right behind the driver.  The other two are called "tricky."

We've had many near brawls over seats, so this little sheet of paper keeps us in order.  As long as we remember to rotate it between trips in the van.

Trying to hold it together

Today is the girls' half birthday - I can't believe they're 1 1/2 already. I've heard that it's the point where I have to stop referring to their age in terms months. :(

This past week was a blur... the girls haven't been sleeping well again, which means that we're practically zombies. On top of that, they've been waking up at 9 or 10, so we don't get those few precious hours before we go to bed to actually get things done. It was just one of those weekends where I put a check mark next to "Everyone is still alive" on Sunday night and call the weekend a success.

We still hadn't moved the car seats to the van yet, but we had been taking the van on short trips during the week, mostly to the gym. When I actually got in on the highway, I noticed that it was pulling pretty hard to the right. We wanted to get it looked at right away... but the dealership is about 30 minutes out of our way. We went there after we picked up the girls from daycare on Friday afternoon. We stopped for dinner on the way back, and since we were in a part of town we never go to, we didn't know the high chair situation in any of the restaurants out there. And, of course we picked something that only had 2 high chairs in the whole place. I help Becca in my lap, but it was just very stressful: it was getting late, and Greg and I pretty much have to inhale our food. Oh, and the girls had chocolate chip cookies... with really melty chocolate chips. They were a mess. I had to take each of them to the bathroom to try to wash off all the chocolate.

But we survived.

We got our usual Costco trip in on Saturday morning, and then Danny and Victoria got here for a super quick trip this weekend. They bought the Jetta from us - - found a cheap flight to get down here and get it. We got to see them for a few hours in all.

We tried Red Robin for the first time with the girls on Saturday. We knew it was going to be dicey - we left late (I had fallen asleep on the couch), plus we had to wait when we got there.
Waiting...


"You expect me to wait?"


We inhaled our food, but we still got home late, and the girls went to bed about half an hour late. I don't know it was that half hour or what, but that was about the worst night of sleep I've had in a long time.
Eating, finally



We went out for lunch on Sunday, and ended up sitting behind Nigel Robertson (one of our local NBC news anchors... one of the VERY few that don't drive me mad) at Chipotle. And while his wife is beautiful and his boys adorable, I think we still upstaged him.

Emma was whiny at dinner on Saturday, but we figured it was a combination of a new place, eating later than usual, and the fact that it was kind of loud in there. But Greg checked her temperature on Sunday afternoon, and sure enough, she was 102. And then late on Sunday, Greg started feeling lousy. Greg stayed home sick on Monday and didn't get out of bed until about 3 in the afternoon. I stayed home with Emma, who was fine by then (of course), but clingy.

Of course, by Monday night, Julie's temperature was up. Back down by Tuesday morning, so everyone went to daycare (and work). And by the time we picked them up on Tuesday afternoon, Emma was running a fever again.

I don't know what Wednesday will bring. It's one of those weeks where I feel like everything is falling apart, and like I'm crazy for doing this without family here.

New and Used

I took Rebecca to the ENT last week for a recheck on her new ear tube and everything checked out ok. There shouldn't be any reason why this one won't stay in. When we were leaving, one of the nurses gave her a little beaded bracelet and a plastic ring. Well, actually the nurse had to give them to me, because Becca wouldn't take them from her. We got all the way to the elevator before I realized what a disaster taking home *one* bracelet and ring was going to be, so we turned around and begged for two more sets. Of course she cried when we got back to daycare and I had to take the bracelet away from her.

Cell phone pics of R at the ENT:

Getting ready to start up the pony.

After her appointment, we stopped for ice cream. I was reminded how easy one kid must be, because I could actually take her inside and not use the drive thru. She sat on the chair and looked around a bit, but was really good ... until the ice cream ran out. Then she cried.

It was bound to happen sooner or later, but I'm still a little disappointed that Dusty took a swat at (and scratched) both Julie and Rebecca, within about 20 minutes of each other. Dusty was laying on the back of the couch, and Julie got up on the couch and was excited to see the cat. She started waving her hands around and must have gotten too close. Becca did the exact same thing a few minutes later. When Dusty got Becca, Julie started crying all over again, too. For a dAy or two afterward, Julie would get scared when she saw the cat, but they don't really seem to be afraid of them now.

Our big news of the weekend is that we bought a minivan! We've been talking about it and putting it off for a long time now. We finally got serious about a budget a few weeks ago and have been doing the research ever since. By the time we went out on Saturday morning, we knew we were getting a used Honda Odyssey. It was just a matter of where we were getting it and how much we were going to pay. We ended up with one with slightly more miles than we would have liked, but it was a better fit for our budget than the first one we looked at. Plus, they wouldn't budge at all on price on the first one. I kid you not, the guy came back and said the best he could do was the sticker price. Plus he showed us a Kelley Blue Book report saying the car was worth $29,500. Except Greg found the original (new) window sticker and it said the car was $29,500 new. At that point we walked out and went to the dealership that was recommended by multiple people, and bought one.

That's our new ride. Not crazy about the look of the bug deflector on the front and the shield things on the tops of the windows... but it's cosmetic. I can live with it.

April came and stayed with the girls for the day. We are so lucky to have her baby sit for us! The girls do great with her. Plus, she washed our dishes. I was reading on some message boards recently about what people expect their babysitters to do for them, and I told Greg that I just expect my kids to be alive. I don't know that I could get dishes done if I was home alone with the three of them.

Not to fear, we did manage to get our family Costco trip in late Saturday afternoon. Nothing terribly exciting from this trip.

Julie at Costco from a few weeks ago. Just found the pic on my phone.

Emma and Rebecca from this past weekend. Have you tried those Sahale cashews with vanilla and pomegranate? I can't stop eating them.

I did take the minivan out for a bit on Sunday morning, "to fill it with gas" and go get groceries. We haven't had a chance to get the car seats moved in there yet.

We had some friends that we don't get to see very often come visit on Sunday. Scot and Nanditha got to meet the girls and we all went out for pizza.