Life with 2...week 3

Well the past week has been NUTS! :) In a good way of course. :) Last week we were super busy as I had to get the Books and records for our church reviewed on Thursday, we had to go to Target and the grocery store to stock up on supplies and CiCi and PaPa were coming to visit on Friday. So the girls had a week full of activity! Monday and Tuesday I spent the day doing laundry and catching up on work from the shop. Not the easiest things to do when you have a toddler on the loose and an infant to look after, but we managed pretty well! Thank goodness my parents were here, because Christopher was out of town on Monday/Monday night and then ended up having to work pretty late at Sam's Club on Tuesday night to fix some electrical problems they were having. I am not sure how single mom's ever get both kids bathed and in the bed by themselves!

On Tuesday I found out that I had to take the Minutes Books and Records up to a church near Pineda so that they could be reviewed by the Central Florida Presbytery. This is an annual thing that happens to make sure the church is following the Book of Order (rules). The Presbytery didn't have my e mail address correct, so I hadn't received the e mails the three weeks prior detailing when we needed to be there and all that good stuff. The only other person to receive the e mail was our Pastor who happened to be on vacation for the past three weeks! So Tuesday morning when he went through his 300+ e mails he found the one telling us that we had to be there on THURSDAY! Yikes! Good thing I had gotten the books organized back in June prior to Caroline's arrival! :)

So Wednesday, all three girls piled into the car and headed to church to pick up the Minute Books and to drop off Katherine's "blue form" (immunization record) at preschool. We did both and then came home for lunch. It takes ALL morning to get both girls dressed and fed, mom showered and dressed and all three of us to get in the car and go anywhere. This is sort of nice because after lunch it's the downhill slide to nap time...my FAVORITE time of day! :) hehe. Of course it didn't help that the night before I had been up every hour with one or both of the girls. Ugh!

Thursday we were up super early and I had been up every hour AGAIN with one or both of the girls all night long. So I was tired and grumpy from the start. But, after a shower I was ready for the day. I got both girls up, fed and dressed, got myself fed, showered and dressed and we were out the door at 9:50am...a record for us! :) We dropped off some thank you notes at the post office and then headed to my mom's office. She was going to take Katherine to lunch while Caroline and I went to get the Minute Books reviewed. We got to Mom's office, signed some forms she needed, got Caroline's car seat switched over to Mom's car and off we headed in different directions. Caroline was wonderful the entire time we were at the church getting reviewed and didn't make a single peep! Yay! We finished around 11:50am and dashed over to the Sea Park house (our beachside house that was turned into a Marijuana grow house by a former tenant...see previous posts!) to switch back to my car and take both girls home! Mom was scheduled to show the house at noon to prospective buyers/renters. We made it just as Mom and Katherine arrived, so after a quick switcheroo of Caroline's seat the three girls were headed home...and Mom was worn slam out! :)

Friday was a nutso day from the beginning. My mom was off for the day as it was my parents anniversary! :) Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad! So Katherine did not understand why she couldn't play with Grandma all day...Grandma had a long list of things to get done for Grandaddy across the street at their house. I finally managed to get Katherine settled down and then Katherine, Caroline and I made our first venture to Target and the grocery store. I was not too worried about Target since they have these monstrous carts that Katherine can sit in and the baby carrier will fit in as well. However, I was slightly worried about Publix because the carts that Katherine likes (the race cars) do not have a place for the baby's car seat, so I knew I would have to put Caroline in the baby carrier thing that I wear...wasn't sure how this would work. Well we got to Target and as we pulled into the parking lot Caroline woke up in a screaming fit! Not like her at all. I finally got her calmed down, but there was no going back into the car seat then. So, I broke out the baby carrier thing at Target! We had a pretty successful trip there with the exception of a Katherine meltdown as we were going through the check out line. It was a doozy with screaming, shoes coming off, tears and fist pumping. She refused to sit down in the car, so I picked her up put her on my hip (which she HATED...so I was not carrying her like a sack of potatoes), still had Caroline attached to me in the baby carrier and pushed the monstrosity of a cart out the parking lot. I'm sure I looked ridiculous. But we survived! Then onto Publix. This trip went much easier than I anticipated. Luckily Katherine had learned from Target that if she didn't behave she would be carried out like a sack of potatoes, so she behaved quite well. Caroline put up a little fuss getting back into the baby carrier, but nothing major. All in all, it went very well!!! I was completely dead, but we survived!!! :)

Friday night CiCi and PaPa arrived just in time for dinner. We had a great dinner with them and Katherine was THRILLED to have CiCi and PaPa down here for a visit. They were worn out from a LONG drive from Virginia, so we all turned in pretty early. Caroline managed to sleep for 5 hours that night, so I actually felt somewhat rested on Saturday morning! :)

Saturday we spent the day at the house swimming and just visiting with CiCi and PaPa. It was really nice. Katherine was definitely spoiled rotten by her grandparents this weekend. :)

Sunday we went to visit CiCi and PaPa at their hotel on the beach. It's sad to say that Chris and I rarely if ever go to the beach...and we live less than 2 miles from it! It was nice to look out from the balcony of their room at the ocean and the pelicans. Definitely a peaceful scene! The girls and I came back to the house for nap time, while CiCi, PaPa and Christopher went on a walk on the beach. We then had a dinner at home (thanks to my mom the chef!) and were able to spend the evening together before CiCi and PaPa had to head back to their hotel for an early wake up call the next morning. :( Katherine was not pleased with CiCi and PaPa leaving at all!

Yesterday we ran errands in the morning (to the church to drop off the books and to the shop). Then we came home and I was very much anticipating the wonderful nap time hours! So we had lunch and I quickly scooted both girls up the stairs for nap time. I was SO tired, I was just counting the minutes until I could go to sleep! Yeah...the girls had other ideas. I spent from 1:15 until 2:15 attempting to get Katherine down for a nap...she finally conked out at 2:15. As soon as I shut her door, Caroline woke up...ugh. Caroline usually sleeps most of the day...well not today! She decided that 2:15 was PLAYTIME! So from 2:15 until 3:40 I was up with her...she finally conked out at 3:40 and I gladly collapsed on my bed for a much needed nap! I figured I had at least 30 minutes and probably close to an hour and a half before Katherine would wake up...NOT! 3:58pm..."Mommy, I'm awake, I'm awake!" So after an 18 minute sort of nap, we were back up and in action again!

Caroline has also thrown me a curve ball the past two days as she has changed her sleep schedule from 9:30pm-2am and then 2:30am-5am and then 5:30am-9am to 9:30am-3am, then 3:30am-6am and then 6:30am-9:30am. You would think this is a good thing...but NO. Because now when I feed her at 6am, it wakes up Katherine...which is about 1 1/2 hours earlier than her normal wake up time. So now I'm up earlier and Katherine is up earlier too...which means tired Mommy and grumpy Katherine. :( Gotta see about changing Caroline's sleeping schedule! :)

Well I guess that's the update on us for now. I will post pictures sometime this week...they are all on Christopher's camera which he has with him. :)