Completely unmotivated

All the houseguests have left the building. Shirley and Gerald left this morning for their 1,100 mile journey to Maryland for Jeremiah's cousin Valarie's high school graduation this weekend. We had fun while they were here. We played a ton of games and although there was some controversy involved, Shirley and I remain the "Sequence" champions! Ha!

So all the nana's and the papa's have gone, but the ants remain...yes, ants, not aunts. All of a sudden we have a bunch of ants running around near the back door. I've been killing them all morning. I need to go to the store and get some Terro, but I'm going to have a hard time finding a place that either the kids or the dogs or cat can't get into. I need to find their hill and bomb it, but who knows where that is. It could be under the deck and I am not about to go crawling around under there.

Jeremiah is running in the Torch Run for Special Olympics today. I talked to him earlier and he had just finished running about 2 miles. He will run again later when they get into his city. In between he gets to ride in a big van with all the other runners. They are supposed to end the day somewhere near our house so if the kids aren't napping we might go out there and watch. Right now Brady is playing outside. He loves to play in the backyard and he usually stays out of trouble so I can stay inside and clean or do whatever while he runs around. Of course I can't get a lot done because I have to check on him like every minute, but you know. All the fresh air does him good...and it wears him out so he sleeps really good. Right now he has a really stinky diaper, but he won't let me catch him to bring him in to change it. I'm going to have to grab him when I am done updating this though because he stinks!

Mackenzie is taking a nap in her swing right now. Yesterday I pulled out all of her 3-6 month clothes. Some of her newborn clothes and 0-3 month clothes still fit, but most of them are getting kind of snug so we're going to swap out all of them. I can't believe she's 3 months old already. Good grief. The 3-6 month clothes are a little loose, but they will do.

Well, I have to go grab Brady now. I have some photos to upload sometime. I'll try to do it this afternoon.

Felling hot hot hot

Man it is hot. All of a sudden today it is like 92 degrees. Ick. The past week or so has been really nice in the 70s. It's supposed to get cooler again in a couple days so right now we are sweating it out and trying to make it without having to turn on the a/c. It wouldn't be so terrible if it wasn't so sticky and humid.

Robin and Rustin went home Monday about an hour after Shirley and Gerald got here. We've been staying busy. Jeremiah and I have been working all week and playing cards at night. Yesterday while I was at work Jeremiah and his grandfather planted a ton of veggies in our garden. They planted tomatoes, onions, brocolli, cucumbers, radishes, and a bunch of peppers. They also put some strawberries in. We were both off today so we got to go to Perkins for breakfast. Yummy! It's been too hot to do much else though so we spent the afternoon playing cards. Shirley won.

Brady has been enjoying the weather. He loves to play in the yard. He drives his four-wheeler all over the place and plays fetch with Holly. He also likes to try to climb the trees and get into everything. He has scratches and bruises all over his legs from his exploring. He's definately into discovering!

Mackenzie is STILL not sleeping through the night. Ugh. She's getting a little better, but it is so exhausting. Last night I was up with her twice between 2 and 3 and then she and I were up from about 5:20 until 7:30. Luckily after that I was able to sleep in until about 10. I figure tonight she'll sleep good because I have to get up and be at work at 6:30 a.m. and won't be able to enjoy it if she does! Oh well. One of these days she'll get it figured out. I was talking to one of my friends at work who has two kids and we were laughing about how there is always something to worry about. I said one of these nights Mackenzie is going to sleep through the night, but will I? No, I will probably wake up a couple times worried that something has happened...like when she first started sleeping longer I asked myself - oh my gosh, why hasn't she woken up yet? Then I would go check on her instead of sleeping anyway. I stopped feeding her in the middle of the night about three weeks ago but she still wakes up and just cries until I come in and put in her pacifier. I'm thinking I should start letting her cry it out, but I want any sleep I can get so I usually give in and go put in her paci and climb back into bed until it falls out again.

Well, the herd is off to Kmart and I am going to take a nap for 20 minutes! Hooray!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO BRADY!!!!

It's Brady's birthday. I can't believe he's 2 already! Two years ago at this moment I was thinking labor wasn't all that bad. I had been in labor for three hours already. I was having contractions but they didn't really hurt all that bad. My water had not yet broken, but I was off the Pitocin for a while because Brady wasn't handling it well inside there. I was hooked to tubes and monitors. In about an hour from now I would ask Jeremiah to sit my bed up more and my water broke. Then it was eight more hours of labor before we finally got to meet Mr. Brady Boy!

We're having a Spongebob party to day. Jeremiah is going to smoke some ribs and a brisket. Yum. The weather is supposed to be really nice. Yesterday it was really hot - like 87 degrees. Ick. Today is supposed to be in the lower 80s so it should be nice. Brady is going to have fun playing in the yard with his cousins later this afternoon.

Shirley and Gerald are coming to town tomorrow. They're driving all the way from Florida. They're already on the road, but they're making a few stops on the way. Robin and Rustin have been here since late Thursday. They have to go home tomorrow night. Brady has had a ton of fun playing with "memaw" and "papa wustin." He is so funny.

Well, I have to go do a few things to get ready for the party. I have to pick up the cake in an hour! It's really cool. I'll take a picture of it and put it on sometime soon.

Funniness

Ha ha. Brady was just standing in the kitchen and I was signing on to the computer so I could put some updates on here when he got the "I'm pooping" look on his face. Then he looked all concerned. I said, "What's wrong buddy?" So then he walks over to me, grabs my arm and says, "Help" and then hunkers down to finish what he started. What a goof!

Yesterday morning I woke up at 4:30 a.m. to get ready for work and saw there was a message from the alarm company for work from 4 a.m. I called them back to find there was a burglary alarm at 3:38 a.m. (Someone stole a tractor) So I was trying to rush around and get ready quickly so I could get up there and start looking at video and whatnot. When I went to pull Brady out of his crib he was soaked from head to toe. I couldn't imagine how much he would have had to pee to make his diaper leak that bad. Well, when I put him on his changing table and pulled his pants off I discovered he was without diaper! I said, "What the heck, where is your diaper???" He was still half asleep so he didn't answer. Turns out he had apparently taken his pants off at some point in the night, removed his diaper, thrown it on the floor and put his pants back on. Last night I made him sleep with some plastic underwear over his diaper so we would not have a repeat performance. Needless to say I didn't have time to give him a bath before work so he got wiped down with wipes. Silly guy.

Mackenzie is doing really well. She's started smiling a lot and cooing! She has a bald spot on the back of her head from laying down or sitting in chairs so much. She's getting bigger though, so now she gets to spend a little bit of time in her exersaucer so that should help. She still doesn't like tummy time very much, but we are working on that.

Robin and Rustin are coming in town tonight for the weekend. I can't believe Brady is going to be 2 on Sunday. He's definately been working on perfecting the art of the "terrible twos" lately. It doesn't help that he has not been taking naps at day care this week. Oh well.

Well, the house is a disaster area. I had to work 6 days then had one day off, then 6 days (including mother's day - lucky me) then I had jury duty Tuesday so it didn't really count as a day off, then I worked yesterday so I am ready to be off today! Unfortunately I have to clean! I think 5 of the 12 days I worked were 11 hour days so I didn't get any cleaning done. It's overrated anyway, right?

Special Olympics

http://www.firstgiving.com/jeremiahwaters

Jeremiah is going to run in the Torch Run to raise money for the Special Olympics. Each year the police department does something to raise money. One year Jeremiah sat on top of Krispy Kreme all day for "Cops on Donut Shops." The above link is Jeremiah's web page for donations if anyone wants to make one. I think you get a t-shirt if you donate $25 or more.

In college one of the philanthropy events during Greek Week that all the sororities and fraternities did was help out with the Special Olympics track and field events. It was a lot of fun. Those kids could care less if they won, they were just glad to get out there and have some fun. And seriously, a lot of them were way better athletes than me and my sorority sisters! I never was very good at track.

Does teething ever end????

We got pictures done this weekend since Brady will be 2 in a couple weeks and we don't have an updated picture of the whole family! So here some of them are...

Brady on his 2 block!
Mackenzie sleeping like a little angel!
Brady and sissy.

Everybody.
Daddy and Brady.
Mommy and Mackenzie.

There are a bunch more, but I'll have to edit them and flip them to face the other way before I can put them on.

Well my pain has pretty much gone away. Turns out I was dehydrated and had low potassium levels. I've been trying to drink more water and eat lots of fruits and veggies to fix all that. I've been feeling better. I think I wasn't drinking enough at work. Plus, it was hot in there last week since the air wasn't on yet and I was working on the dock off and on and also with nursing I was losing more water than I was taking in. So I'm better now.

Brady has been teething like a crazy man! Poor guy...no wonder he's been biting again. He is getting his back set of molars which are coming in VERY slowly and also his front teeth are moving down into place since we took away his pacifier. He pretty much spent all weekend with his hand in his mouth. He's funny. Every day I ask him to show me his teeth and he opens up and shows them to me by biting down. Now he shows them to me and then says, "Closer!" because I always say that they look good and are getting closer together! It's cute.

Mackenzie is so close to sleeping through the night I can taste it! Two nights ago she ate at 11 p.m. then woke up around 3 a.m. I changed her, gave her a pacifier and then put her back in bed. She fell asleep for about 15 minutes. I went in and gave her pacifier to her again and she fell back asleep until I had to get her up at 5:45 a.m. Then last night she ate around 8 p.m. and went to bed around 9:30. She didn't wake up until 4! I changed her and put her back down, then she woke at 4:45 and I fed her. After that she slept until 8! Wow! What a good night's sleep! I loved every minute of it. Except Brady woke up screaming from about 5 till 6:15. I'm not sure what that was about. Probably his teeth. I gave him some teething tablets and he fell asleep pretty quickly after that. I should have given them to him sooner! Live and learn!

Oh, we had our first tornado warning of the year last Thursday night. There was an actual tornado in the middle of the night about 3 miles from my work, just a mile north of the babysitter's house. Too bad it didn't knock out the store! No one was there when it hit - it would have been the perfect time! Earlier in the evening when I was working we had a tornado warning so I had to get everyone to the lower level which is partially underground. We have to get all the customer and associates down there and then lock the place up so no one can wander in and take everything! It lasted about 45 minutes. Luckily our electronics department is down there so we could watch TV.

I had to work 6 days in a row last week and starting tomorrow I work six more before a day off. Yesterday was the 6th and I worked from 6:30 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. I was exhausted afterwards and when I got home Jeremiah wanted to go across the street to run on the track at the school. We took the kids and I pushed them around in the stroller. Brady got out and did a lap and a half of running/walking/laughing histerically by himself! He loves to run. Next time we're going to take a soccer ball with us and let him kick it around. When we got home we made dinner and ate and then after the kids went to bed I laid down on the couch and crashed. Sometime later Jeremiah woke me up to go to bed and apparenly I was pretty out of it. He said he tried to wake me up and I said, "I'm going to the track." Then he tried again and I said something about walking around the track. Then the final time he told me to get up and go to bed and I said, "I tried." That was apparently a lie because he said I didn't move a muscle! I guess somehow he finally got me to wake up enough to walk down the hall and collapse into bed.

Today I don't have much planned except taking it easy! I need to clean the house which is pretty much a disaster area! Really it's just the same old laundry and toys that are always lying around where they don't belong. It's supposed to rain this afternoon so we probably won't get out much, but if the forecasters are wrong - which is always a possibility - we might get out and play. We'll see.