A whole lot of nothing

is what we have planned for the weekend and it's lovely.

Today we ran errands (we braved Costco this morning - probably my least favorite place to go on a Saturday morning) and then came home after lunch.  We chatted with the neighbors for a minute, then after Jayden's nap we watched a movie for the first time in the theater room!  So exciting.  Carmen really did a great job of picking out all of the technical stuff (projector, screen, speakers, etc.) and the movie really just looks great.

Family photo in the theater room!  Both Dakota and Jayden were mesmerized by the tv.  But at least neither of them are crying.
Sad story: After the movie we opened the door and Jasmine was sitting by the door waiting for us.  We felt so bad that we totally locked her out.  Poor little doggy girl - always getting left out and neglected.  

Jayden and Carmen sat up front and Dakota and I sat in the back row.  

Amazingly, Dakota put herself to sleep during the movie.  She sucks on her fingers way more than Jayden did, and she sucked on her two fingers until she fell asleep.  She also woke herself up a lot more easily, but it was impressive that she fell asleep on her own.  

The week was a productive one for me, in that I got a number of things in the house organized.  The frustrating part is that we won't have an office for me to work in until a day or two before I got back to work.  Which doesn't leave me a lot of time to organize and set it up.  So it means I'm going to have to try to purge without actually putting things away.  We'll see how that goes.  In the meantime, I'm really just trying to clean up the house as much as I can before Jayden's birthday party next Saturday.  The treadmill is finally out of our living room, which is good for two reasons: it's no longer in our living room and it's in the gym room, which means it could be used (I suppose this is both good and bad - until now Carmen and I have had a reason why we can't use the treadmill; now we have no excuse other than that we don't want to!).  I spent quite a bit of time working, which is not so good.  And mostly just causes me more anxiety about going back to work.  Part of me is looking forward to it, because it means I'll actually get paid for all the work I'm doing,but part of me (a large part, to be honest) is just freaking out about how I'm going to manage two kids and a full-time job, especially because I'm going to get them, probably alone most of the time, from 5 to 6 or 6:30, which is clearly witching hour, while I'm trying to prepare dinner.  I gotta figure it's going to be a disaster most nights.  And it makes me a little sad that most of the time I spend with the kids will be when I'm trying to "manage" them, rather than enjoying them.  I guess we'll see how it goes.

When I do have dinner already prepared and all I have to do is microwave, I'll do anything to keep Jayden entertained.  For instance, allow him to put temporary tattoos all over my arms.  And also promote water safety, by the way (the tattoos are from his swim school, which promotes the safer 3, a program to prevent drowning.  One thing I learned is that I will no longer put temporary tattoos on the top of my forearms.  Rubbing them off with all my little hairs is not fun.  We'll have to stick to biceps, the bottom of my forearms, my legs - anywhere without much hair.  :)

I do love picking Jayden up from preschool.  Once he's home, you never know which Jayden you'll get.  So, in the ten minutes or so I have from when I pick him up and when we get home, I try to get as much out of him as I can.  I read an article once about how you should never ask your kid "how was your day?" or "did you have a good day?" because then they can answer "okay" or "yep," and it teaches them to not give real answers.  They suggest other, slightly more specific questions, like "what was your favorite thing that you did today?" or "what was something you did today that made you happy?"  So I try really hard to ask a question that requires an actual answer.  And it usually works.  Once he answers one question like that, he'll usually come up with stories on his own and I just get to listen to him on the way home.  And try to follow along!

He actually looked like this when I picked him up one day.  He didn't want to put his shirt back on because it was inside out.  And he had apparently been painting and got paint all over his hands.  He went to his teacher to tell him about the paint on his hands.  She looked at him and asked him about the paint all over his face.  He had no idea what she was talking about.  They tried to clean him up, but he'd done a good job of getting paint everywhere - ear, hair, forehead, cheek, etc.  So cute.

Another day I picked Jayden up and he was wearing a cape.  I asked him if he was superman and he looked at me, said "No, Mom!  Superman has a RED cape.  Mine is BROWN."  So then I asked him if he was "super Jayden."  And again, looked at me like I was crazy and said "NO!  I'm JUST JAYDEN!"  So yeah.  Just Jayden with a brown cape.  He wore it back to school the next day too.  ;)

Dakota is twelve weeks old.  I just said that to Carmen and he looked at me like "duh."  I mean, I get that we both know about how old she is since she'll be three months old next Saturday.  But, sometimes milestones hit me harder.  For some reason, twelve weeks seems like a lot.  And it feels like minutes, hours and days are flying by now, rather than crawling by, which is what it felt like a few weeks ago.  She is growing so much.  She always wants to sit up.  But she really isn't strong enough.  So I'll prop her up. And seconds later she'll tip over.

Also, can we talk about the cute little dress and the ridiculous shoes?  I actually don't believe in shoes for babies because they're just pointless.  But these are just too ridiculous and Jayden keeps asking me to put them on her.  So she often wears shiny silver shoes with bright pink bows, no matter what the rest of her outfit looks like.

And she's down.  Or at least heading that way.

Other than that, there's not much to report on with Dakota's development.  She is talking up a storm, and laughing in her own way.  She actually changed Carmen's mood the other night (thank goodness) from something not so pretty to something a whole lot better.  You just can't be mad when she looks at you and gives you her silly grin.

Sorry the video is sideways - the best way for me to get a good shot of her is to try to hide the camera and keep her vision focused on my face so that she doesn't get distracted.  She'll keep up a "conversation" like this going for minutes at a time.  And she's constantly coming up with new noises, which is adorable.

Our friend Shawna makes these awesome crowns for kids, for their birthdays and sometimes just for fun.  She offered to make one for Dakota, and then I had one made for Jayden too for his 4th birthday.  They came last week, and they are seriously so great.  She customizes them for each kid, and can do just about any theme.  If anyone ever wants to order one, let me know and I'll connect you with her.  She's great, and they're not expensive - less than $30 per crown.

After the crown photo shoot, we had some sibling cuddle time.  He was so cautious with her, and was trying really hard to support her.  It was very cute.  Unfortunately she was being fussy, but she didn't freak out immediately - probably because she loves her brother that much.
Today we were talking to the neighbors for a bit and she seriously spent half the time staring at Jayden and smiling.  It was so cute.  They are so cute. 

Carmen has a fantasy football draft tomorrow afternoon, so I'm bracing myself for an afternoon alone with the kids.  If we don't go swimming in the morning, we may try to get in the pool in the afternoon.  Or come up with some other activity to keep everyone occupied and help the time fly by.  We'll see.  I make it sound terrible; it's not.  It's more challenging and tiring, but it's not terrible.  Other than that, we have no plans, other than getting to the grocery store at some point and continuing to get ready for Jayden's birthday party next weekend.  Speaking of which, does anyone realize that Jayden is FOUR in a week?!???  That's so crazy.  I think that's crazier than Dakota being three months on the same day (I still really love that I have two 12s - I'll never forget their birthdays!).  I'm hoping we'll get more rest too; we'll see how the kids feel about that, since ultimately the amount of rest Carmen and I get is directly related to our kids' temperaments.

Hopefully everyone else is having a relaxing (or not-as-relaxing-but-fun) weekend!