Jelly Beans and Banana Splits: My Two Sweeties!: Where to Start?

Lately my "free time" has been pretty few and far between, as the girls are on different napping schedules. But when I do have a few minutes to myself, my choices have been: Blog, clean or rest.

I've been doing a lot of "resting".

At first, I was resting because I was in that weird (well...weird for a person with young children, I guess) phase of actually getting enough, and possibly too much sleep at night, which somehow always makes me extra tired during the day....and then, starting on Friday night, I went back to the state of being tired because my baby/toddler/dog kept me up all night. Ahh. Such is life.

Anna had several great nights' sleep beginning with the night after her 4 month check up. She slept through the night on and off, and on her "off" nights was waking up around 5:30 to nurse, and then going back to sleep until 7:30 or so. Then the 5:30 wake up time started...migrating? until it was happening around 2:00. I believe that I learned with Adele that the 2:00 hour is like my *prime* sleep time or something, because when I am up during that time of the night, even if I'm only up ONCE and for half an hour or less, I just feel like I miss out on so much sleep!

In reality, she is still sleeping great, even our "rough" nights the past two nights have only meant waking up twice.

Adele's nights have been crazy to say the least. She has woken up with a dry diaper for two days in a row...earning her suckers for breakfast.

(Healthy, I know! Don't worry...we follow her sucker with a "normal" breakfast too!) She seems to be waking up less at night because she's itchy, but she's waking up for other random reasons, most recently because her knees "hurt". I'm not sure what that's all about, but my knees used to hurt when I was a kid, and my mom told me (as yours probably did too-especially you, DeeDee)that it was "growing pains"...however, I still get those "growing pains" to this day, and I'm pretty sure that any growing I'm doing is not in my knees anymore!

It seems that Fall has finally settled in Indiana, and the girls and I are trying to make the most out of the gorgeous weather! Cookie is getting spoiled with walks again, and Adele actually enjoys riding in the stroller most of the time, which means I am almost getting exercise on a daily basis (I say almost because Cookie isn't exactly a power walker...)

We've also taken trips to the Children's Museum, Conner Prairie, the Zoo and the library. I think that soon I will attempt to take both girls to the Y by myself. In the summer, it wasn't so bad, but now that it's cooler outside (NOT complaining!) I am worried (probably overly so if you ask Daddy) about keeping Anna warm once she's out of the water. Yesterday the whole family went to the Y, and I went and changed while Daddy stayed in the water with Anna so that I could bundle her and change her without getting her wet from my still-wet suit...Oh well, I'm sure I'll figure it out!

Today Anna actually spent a few minutes in "childcare" at church...sort of. The infant room was closed (she was the only infant there, and we didn't bring her in until half way through the service) so the director of children's ministries just held her as she walked from room to room checking on the other children. Anna's a sucker for one on one attention, and she's not terribly picky anymore about who's giving it to her! Starting at the end of this month, Daddy and I will be taking turns volunteering in the childcare classrooms.

Adele is obsessed with Halloween right now (she was last year too-that's when she coined the phrase "Scary Boo" to refer to anything Halloween. She still looks for "scary boos" (meaning any kind of Halloween decorations) on our walks, but refers to the individual decorations by their names. She is pretty unimpressed with the amount of decorations that are currently up, so hopefully that will change.

In addition to going on outings, I like to do some sort of "craft" or "project" with Adele each day. Some days we bake (her favorite is making "birthday cake" or Rice Krispie Treats, which I can't really argue with-they're Daddy's favorite, and SUPER easy!) We also make little art projects. Last week we put "tissues" over dum dum suckers and added google eyes to make little ghosts. now Adele thinks that there are suckers inside of ALL ghost decorations. We made pumpkins out of foam, and she put them on the door...upside down. She's a HOOT. We got her Halloween costume at Target on Saturday and so far she hasn't asked to try it on, which is a good thing, I don't want her to wear it out before Halloween!

I gave in and started feeding Anna some rice cereal. She got a little rashy. Go figure. I can't tell if she likes it or if she's just particular about being "hungry but not too hungry" when I feed it to her. Some days I can't get the spoon to her mouth fast enough, and some days she'll hold the food on her tongue and scream as if it's hurting her or something. I'm a little surprised, because Adele LOVED her solid foods from the very beginning...well, except for the avocado.

She desperately wants to sit up, and will even do little baby "sit-ups" when laying on the floor, as if she can will herself to standing or something. She watches Adele so closely and I feel like she already wants to be just like her big sissy!