Everyone has one: that one friend that seems to have it all pulled together. Their kids' clothes never have stains, the girls always have perfectly brushed hair WITH a bow that matches the outfit, the mom has no leftover baby fat, etc. You know what I mean. I know a girl like that, and I can't help but wonder how she manages to be so perfect.

If you walk into my house unannounced, you will find the floor littered with toys (and crumbs, and who knows what else...), dirty dishes in the sink, and a pile of laundry in the laundry room. You will see a baby who is probably still in her pajamas, and a toddler with a dirty face and bed-head. If you're lucky, I will have morphed into "daytime mommy", but that's not always a guarantee.

Even if you do announce your coming, you won't walk into a spotless house with perfectly coiffed children. The toys will probably be picked up, but they will still be visible. The dishes will be done, but there will still be that ever-present pile of mail on the counter. The children will be dressed, but toddler will probably have messed her hair up 5 minutes after it was brushed. I'm okay with all of this. It's just how life is when you live in a small house with 2 small kids and one large dog. I'm okay with it, that is, until I see that someone else manages to do it better.
Seriously though, how do you keep a house spotless when you have kids? At first I thought that she must just spend all her time cleaning, but now that I know her better, I know that's not true. She's a great mom. Very involved with her kids and interacts with them all the time. I don't know, I guess she's just got a clean/organization gene that I missed out on. When I look at her perfectly-groomed life, I get irritated with myself that I can't be that way. Then I get irritated with myself for being irritated.

After writing all of this, I feel like I need to get off the computer and go vacuum those crumbs up off the floor and maybe put a dent in the laundry that is overflowing into the kitchen.....it still won't be a perfect house, but it'll be a start!

If anyone has any great organization tips they'd like to share with this under-organized mom, please feel free!!

Sick, sick, sick

Sick kids are no fun. It started on Thursday with just a runny nose. Then a cough. Then came the fevers and the whining. Ugh. Of course, along with congestion comes sleepless nights. Poor babies. I feel like they've been sick SO much this winter.

Since Avery was pulling at her ear yesterday, I thought I should take her to the dr. to rule out an ear infection. I decided to get Kate checked out too since she was still miserable. Bad idea. The whole way to the office, K was whining, "mommy, I don't want the dr. to check me out." I drove on, just praying that she would behave when we got there. No such luck. They call us back to the room, and K has a complete meltdown. Picture me: I'm carrying the giant diaper bag (note to self--get a smaller one!), my purse, and my wiggly 18-lb baby in one arm, and literally DRAGGING Kate with the other. Once we made it into the room, the nurse asked K to step on the scale. More screaming ensued. I handed Avery over to the nurse (Avery immediately started screaming), and tried to convince K to step on the scale. I even tried bribing her with McDonald's for lunch. No dice. Then we did temperature, and blood ox levels with both kids screaming the entire time. I seriously didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

So, for $50 and much frustration, we were told that they just had terrible colds and there was nothing they could do for us. Ugh. I just get so frustrated with Kate. She's usually such a good girl, but she is SO stubborn. If she doesn't want to do something, she's just not going to do it. It's all good now though, they're both sleeping, and I'm not feeling like running away from home anymore. Let's just pray that they get better soon because I can't handle being trapped in the house with these little bitty whiners for much longer!!

I'm baaaaack!

My blog has been so lonely the past couple of weeks! I have a good reason--I promise! My mom was in town all last week, so I had entertainment and childcare, yay! Seriously, my life is great now, but would be even better if mom lived here. Kate loves her so much, and Avery is definitely on the same path of adoration as her big sister. Let's see...the week in review:

Monday: We went to the zoo. Fun, fun, fun. The weather was perfect, and there were no crowds since Ft. Worth's spring break isn't until this week. I don't think I've mentioned this yet, but we're working on potty training with K, so she was in a pull-up. Those things suck. One pee, and they leak. Anyway, that happened at the zoo, so for the last part of our trip, I had the dirty kid walking around with only a shirt and a diaper on. I used to frown upon those kinds of parents--"geez, can't you even put some pants on that child--think ahead, pack the diaper bag!" Yeah, having a kid has taught me NEVER to judge others based on the appearance of they're children! For the record though, I did pack extra pants, they were just in the car, not the diaper bag!

Tuesday: We felt the need to shop (we always do when mom's in town!) We hit a few stores to get some spring/summer clothes for the kiddos. Let me tell ya, there are way cuter clothes out there for babies than for toddlers! I honestly don't know where the rest of Tuesday went. I guess we just putzed around until bedtime.

Wednesday: The weather was terrible, so we couldn't do any of the fun outdoor things that we had planned. So what did we do? Well, we shopped some more, of course! We needed to find the girls some things to wear for picture day on Friday. We weren't too successful, but we had fun anyway.

Thursday: Avery had her 6 month checkup in the morning. The office was painfully slow, so we got out of there later than I had hoped. Oh well, it's par for the course. After that, I went home to pick up mom and Kate and we headed to the children's museum. The parking lot was pretty empty, so I was hopeful that we'd have the place to ourselves. Imagine my suprise when we walked in and were greeted by hundreds of elementary school kids! We were infomed that the kids would be leaving shortly, so we decided to stay. Right before we payed though, the manager came in and told us that although these kids were leaving, he was expecting a busload of 180 3-year-olds within 30 minutes. That's where I draw the line. It should be illegal for 180 3-year-olds to EVER be in the same place. We high-tailed it back to the car and decided to take K to Chuck-E-Cheese instead. I hate that place on a normal day, but it was even worse that day b/c there was a field trip of 5th graders there. Ugh. I wish I had gotten to go on field trips to CEC when I was in school. Instead, we went to museums and the Alamo. Guess times are changing!

Friday: Got the kids pictures taken (a miserable experience for everyone involved). Got ZERO pics of K b/c she refused to look at the camera. Got a couple cute ones of Avery, but nothing to get excited about.

Saturday: Hung out with friends and just chilled after our busy week.

So, that's our week in a nutshell. We all get a bit sleep-deprived when mom's here b/c we feel like we have to pack everything in before she leaves. Today, we're catching up on sleep. Both girls slept until 8:30 this morning (yay!) They're napping now, and have been for about 2.5 hours. I'm about to have to go wake miss K up, or she'll never go to bed tonight!!

6 months old already!

I cannot BELIEVE that my sweet baby is already half a year old! Where in the world has the last 6 months gone? It really doesn't feel like that long ago that I was screaming at Josh to drive faster as we headed to the hospital.

I swore to myself that I would savor Avery's babyhood more than I did Kate's, but I'm not sure that I really have. With Kate, I was so concerned with doing everything right that I forgot to just enjoy her. With Avery, I'm so busy dealing with Kate, that I don't have as much time to just watch her sleep, hold her, and cuddle her. I guess we make up for that in the wee hours of the morning when she wakes up and wants nothing more than to be held. In honor of Avery's half-year mark, here is a glimpse of what she's doing these days:

-Sits on her own and can get herself into a crawling position, but doesn't quite know what to do from there.

-Will eat anything that you put in front of her, but her favorites are squash sweet potatoes, and baby mum mum's. Definitely not a fan of applesauce, but will eat it because, well, it is food afterall!

-Shows a distinct preference for mommy. If she's tired, will only tolerate mommy, not even daddy will do. Screams like a crazy woman if she's left with someone she doesn't know.

-Loves, loves, loves Kate. When no one else can make her smile, Kate always can. I can't wait to watch the two of them grow up together.

-Still a pretty pitiful sleeper. Most nights, she's up 2x, but about once a week, we have nights that she's up 4 or 5 times. Those nights, she ends up in momma's bed!

-Just a all-around happy baby. Very easy-going and adaptable. She really is a joy, and I can't wait to watch her grow and see what she becomes.