So I find myself always waiting like a year before I write on this blog. I can't believe time travels so fast and I haven't written anything down so I can read it later! I just typed that today would be different, but who am I kidding. I'll still try though.

I shouldn't have zoomed in, but this is Rhys right now, building his star wars lego set that he got for his birthday from his grandparents. He's super excited that he's old enough to build these, but he also gets quite frustrated that it is quite difficult at times. He has cried a few times as well, but thankfully Brian came to the rescue. He's such a good kid.

This past Sunday was their first t-ball game together!

Rhys did quite well, but Maddy was done after one inning. I guess that's about as much as you can ask for a three year old. Let's hope the rest of the season goes well. I just think they look so adorable in their matching uniforms! Maddy could pass for a boy for sure, lol!

Carol is leaving for Bahrain in a week exactly. I'm definitely not ready for this to happen. I'm not ready for all the emotion that I am going to have to deal with that day. Thankfully I was able to switch shifts with someone so I don't have to go to work that night. I think I will probably be a wreck. For tonight though, Carol and her crew are coming over for dinner. The menu? Kimchi Jjigae with kalbi and corn on the cob with some jap chae. Sounds a little weird, probably cuz some of the food is left over from the weekend. 

Oh yea! Rhys had his 6th birthday party over the weekend! We decided to do it at chuck e cheese. 

Maddy was sad that she initially wasn't allowed to go into the ticket tunnel, but the nice guy working there let Maddy and Mia get a turn too. I think all of us were helping Maddy and Rhys get as many tickets as they could. It was fun, but I realized later that Anthony was upset because he found out that we were helping Rhys get tickets. Qiana told him that it was because it was Rhys' birthday, but that didn't help. I imagine it is cuz he is the center of attention at his house since he is the youngest, so he is not used to not being paid attention to.

Carol and I actually decided to have a dual birthday party for Rhys and Taylor. It was probably one of the better ideas we had cuz the kids loved it and it was easier for us since there was no cleanup and the kids could run around all they wanted.

New Rooms

Today we finally moved rhys into our spare room and maddy into rhys' old room.  We have been sleep training maddy but thought that she needs to be in her own room for it to really work. I went in to check on her every 5 minutes...about 3 times. She finally went down after about 20 mins of crying. That was at 8:33 pm. Its been about 1.5 hrs. We shall see how the rest of the night goes. I hope to tell people that we have a good sleeper soon. They can sleep 10 hour stretches at this age apparently. Maddy seriously wakes up every 1.5 to 2 hours throughout the night. She has also recently started tossing and turning more and more violently in bed. She wakes up and sees me and then proceeds to toss onto my face! I'm like dude!

I hope we can have 2 good sleepers so brian can have a good night when I'm at work...so he's not butt tired after a busy night of wakings and feedings. I pray!

On a positive note, because Rhys and I are out and about so much, maddy sleeps quite well in the carseat. I can actually transfer her to our bedroom and she will still sleep there for an hour.

Here is a pic of both of them sleeping

Baking with Rhys

Today I spent the day with Rhys and managed to keep the Octonaut watching to somewhat of a minimum. I think we watched maybe a total of an hour...and even that was broken up into two sessions. Rhys always says to me, "Mommy, can I help you?" Whenever he sees me doing something, he wants to take part in it. So I figured, why not bake and have him help me I out! So we went to Chipotle and then walked around the Petco to look at the animals. Then we went into vons to get some missing ingredients. There is a scary skeleton that is on sale at vons that rhys is scared of. The skeleton is in a jail and he screams, "Get me outta here! I don't belong here! Rawr!" I always ask him if he wants me to take him home and he says no. In fact, he tells me that he wants to get out of here. Lol.

Anyways, we came home and after I fed maddy and put her on my back, we started baking. I hadn't used the stand mixer since Rhys' 1st bday that I had to wash the dust off of it. He helped me put most of the ingredients in and he also scooped out the dough and put it on the pan. It seemed like he had lots of fun. He ate 4 cookies! I was only gonna give him 3, but I gave him the 4th so I could take a picture of him holding the cookie.

It actually took a bit of time so I was able to burn it well! I need to do more activities like that with Rhys. That way he has some fun and the time flies too!

First day of bottle training

Today was the first day of bottle training for Maddy. It's been a little tough, but we know that if she is very hungry, she will take the bottle...but only enough to keep her from starving. I'd say she takes in about an ounce at most. But my breast produce about 1.5 oz.

Update @ 10:10 pm: Maddy has taken the bottle! And not just an ounce, she took about 2 ounces and then later took maybe another 1 or 2 ounces! I warmed the bottle up to mimic my breastmilk temperature. I put about a third of my milk in the microwave for about 20 seconds and then mixed it with the cold milk. She took it like a charm! I was surprised and so proud of my little maddy cat. It only took a day for her to figure it out! I remember it took weeks for rhys to get it. But I also think that I maybe wasn't ready for rhys to get it either. I was always a nervous and anxious wreck when Rhys was an infant. I stressed myself out but I also stressed Brian out a lot. 

Today was totally different. I took Rhys to preschool while maddy was taking her morning nap (brian was at home). Then I came home after getting a car window shade for rhys from target and started officially bottle training her. She wasn't taking any by lunchtime so I pumped around 12:30 and then Brian and I were off to get some lunch and go to trader joes. She napped for us while we ate (yay!) 

......today is 3/18/16. I didnt realize i never finished this blog post. But I will still post.

productive day

I have to say that today was a productive day for me. I took Rhys to daycare around 9:30 am and then came home and got right to doing paperwork for work that I'd been putting off for days now. I knew that if I didn't get it done today, I wouldn't have time later. Well, I think after printing everything and then filling everything out, it took me about 2 hours. Then I started to wonder what I wanted to eat for lunch as well as what I was going to feed my family for dinner. I looked to see what was inside my fridge and I really started to scratch my head. How can it be that I spend $50-$100 at the grocery store about once a week and still have nothing in my fridge to eat? I only have a family of three! Rhys does eat a lot, but he eats one of his meals at daycare! I opened the freezer door to find a few items that I made to freeze (won't use those unless I'm working on the weekends) and not much more! There were some frozen dumplings, some frozen ravioli and Dino nuggets, but nothing else really. I saw the bag of mexican cheese I bought a couple weeks ago and noticed that there was a recipe on the back of the bag for spanish rice! So with that, I was all set to make a spanish dinner. I went to Albertsons to buy the ingredients for the spanish rice as well as some chicken and coleslaw. Can you believe it!?? It cost me $40!! How??? I guess it would have cost me $30 if I didn't buy fruit. But in any case...$30! I might as well just eat out! It's just as much money and I don't have to cook or do dishes! Sigh...but I want to cook somewhat healthy meals for Rhys so I try to cook. Oh yea, I realized that I really suck at cooking. My spanish rice was more like spanish mush. Good thing the recipe called for cheese. That's the only thing that saved my sad dish. Thank goodness Rhys ate it up!! Hehe. He will eat almost anything if it has a sprinkling of cheese on it. Also...I thought I liked cooking too! I don't really like it these days. I really am starting to understand what my mom would mean when she'd say, "I love eating food that other people cook for me!" Nowadays, I cook because I have to, not because I want to. 

I find myself always stressing over what to make for dinner. I buy cookbooks that have recipes that I can make for my family, but I honestly don't even try to attempt most of the recipes. Poor Rhys...and poor Brian. I should just do it, but the few times that I do, it just doesn't turn out right...and I don't have the patience or the time to try and do it again. I don't know where my passion for cooking went. I used to love going to the grocery store every other day to buy the few ingredients I would need to make dinner for the next couple of nights. I remember when I first moved to SD, I'd actually make lunches for Brian. 

I used to bake too! To be perfectly honest, I don't have time. I spend most of my days trying to keep our home from looking like it's been recently burglarized or catching up on sleep after a night of working. Sometimes I think to myself...if I can take an hour to bake a pie, I can use that time to cook a meal and freeze some of it for later in the week. 

Overall I feel so bad for both of the men in my life that I haven't been making delicious meals. I am so thankful that they eat what I give them though...I love them so much!! 

A case of Urticaria

Rhys has come down with a case of Urticaria...hives. He basically started with some weird looking bumps on his legs yesterday in the late morning that quickly progressed into these welts all over his armpits and his belly area. Rhys was still fortunately a happy camper so I wasn't too worried. However, at the end of the day, Brian and I decided to load him up with a dose of benadryl so he could sleep and hopefully have the rashes/hives go away. Unfortunately for us, his hives persisted even after a 2nd dose, so Brian took him to the Dr.'s office to get a checkup. I pretty much had a feeling that they wouldn't really be too concerned with the hives because he was afebrile and not lethargic. But I'm kinda glad he went because we at least ruled out an ear infection which was the reason he broke out in hives the last time. Brian ended up dropping rhys off in daycare and he did fine. 

Where was I during all of this you ask? I was taking an IV certification course that day. Caitlin and I decided to take it to try and improve our skills. I'm not sure I would say that I came out of the class feeling like I was much better skilled at starting an IV, but I did learn a few tips to try and hopefully make it easier for my future attempts. We shall see. The last two IVs that I started at work were a success so I hope that streak continues.

I'm really starting to consider picking up knitting again. Now that the weather has started to somewhat cool off, I am getting into the fall mood. Before Rhys came into this world, I was really getting into cable knitting and I think this is what was making knitting really fun for me because I was no longer knitting my boring designs and actually making something that looked more intricate and fun to look at. I am currently sitting on my bed with some yarn and some needles...debating whether I should pick up my needles and start knitting. I may...but I find that these days, sleep trumps just about everything. I start reading and within 20 minutes, my head is already on the pillow and I am snoring away. I love sleep! I am sleep deprived to say the least. On the days that I work, I get a max of 5.5 hours of sleep....and that ain't enough!! I probably should be sleeping now too. I think the only reason I'm awake is because of that iced coffee I had with my bagel sandwich from Einsteins Bros bagels today. 

I work two days: Saturday and Sunday and then I'm off for like 7 days! Well not totally off. I have a New Grad meeting on Tuesday and then two days at an OB/GYN conference on Thurs/Fri in downtown SD. Caitlin and I are going together and we are both really excited!!! I am excited to learn more about the field of nursing that I'm in and become a more informed nurse. Yay for education!! 

Sigh...my eyelids are falling...I should sleep. good night!! 

Best Fridays!

The best Fridays are the ones where I'm not working in the evening AND Rhys is in daycare. Today is that such day! Brian also has the day off today as well so that is an added bonus. Unfortunately Brian has scheduled doctor's appointments today and is stuck at the Dr.'s office due to a 45 minute delay. The cleaning lady is here today so I can't leave the house, but I'm happy that our house is getting cleaned while I rest!

I can't believe that the last time I wrote on this blog was when I started working as a nurse! It's been about 6 months now since I've started and I think I'm starting to get the hang of things now. Working nights actually works okay for me surprisingly. I think having Rhys to take care of tires me out enough that I never have any problems falling asleep. Brian and I fell asleep on our lovely new couch last night and didn't wake up until 4 in the morning. That couch I tell ya..it's so comfy that it's dangerous.

Stephanie moved out last Sunday and we miss her a lot these days. It still feels like she is just away for the week...but I'm sure in another few weeks it will really hit me that she is gone. But she is visiting next weekend so I am excited! Too bad I have to work the whole weekend. 

I tell ya...I start writing these things and I get about 2-3 paragraphs in and I go..."Hmm...that's it. That's all I have to say about my life." Many times I have started writing on this blog, only to erase the entry because it doesn't sound interesting at all. But you know what...at this rate, I'll never get a blog entry out. So I decided to write about anything. Even if I sound like my brain is all over the place, I'm just gonna write whatever is in my head at the time.

Here goes...
When I went to pick Rhys up from daycare yesterday, I asked his teacher how he liked "water day" this past Wednesday. She told me that he liked the water the most out of all the kids in his class. While the other kids were afraid of the spraying water, Rhys' remarks were of pure joy. He kept saying that it was raining! I knew Rhys would really love water days because he loves playing with water when we are at home.

The only downside to his love of water and playing outside is that he has developed quite the farmer's tan. 

My days these days are ridiculously the same day in and day out. So nothing really new happens that I really feel like I need to write about. What I do notice is that I'm always looking at my watch to see how much time I have free so I can get as much done during the day before I have to pick Rhys up. I have 5 hours before I need to pick him up today and I have two things I need to get done. I need to figure out what we will eat for dinner and cook it, and also get my nails done. I probably should read a little too. Currently I am reading For One More Day by Mitch Albom. I borrowed it from my coworker so I should finish it soon. Pretty quick read

 though...I'm already halfway through and I've only sat down to read it twice.

Ok ok...I will write more another day. Time to get some stuff done.