I seriously can’t believe how long it’s been since I’ve blogged.  In short, I stopped blogging in order to have a little more time for my home and children because I was spending more time with work tasks than I had before, but I’m finding there are weeks when I’m not entirely slammed at work and this week just happens to be one of those weeks.    So, it’s time to get back on the blog.

Let’s catch up.

Carter just turned three years old on March 1st and I can’t believe how quickly the last year flew by.  And he’s grown tremendously – mostly mentally.  He continuously makes Matt and I laugh with the things that come out of his mouth and he’s starting to question me on things that aren’t so easy to explain, like “what does consciously mean?”.  In his free time he prefers to practice writing his alphabet and has mastered a few of them.  He had his 3 year checkup today and with a height of 35 1/8 inches and a weight of 29 pounds he’s been categorized in the 5th and 13th percentiles, respectively.  In other words our child is averagely small.  No surprise.  He’s happy and healthy though and that’s all that matters to us.

Just this week Carter had a new milestone.  Matt was finishing dinner by himself when he heard a noise in the bathroom.  He went in to find Carter coming off the toilet – after going potty all by himself!  Pretty big event and a sign things will be getting even easier with him.

Cadence is 9 months old as of today and she’s been on the move for a few weeks now.  She’s mastered the army crawl and will crawl wherever she wants to, taking breaks if the distance is long.  Getting up on her knees and then her feet is easy for her now and there have been a few times when she’s taken a couple of steps along an object.  A couple of weeks ago she refused to be fed baby food anymore and so we started her on finger foods and she’s been doing wonderfully ever since.  She now feeds herself over the course of 30 minutes which allows the rest of the family to eat with her.  She’s also getting better at using sippy cups but still loves her bottles and uses her paci at nap and bedtime.  We’re still waiting for a tooth to sprout and the hair on her head to grow out long enough for cute hair accessories.

Cadence’s 9 month measurements:
* Height = 27″, 25th percentile
* Weight = 17# 11oz, 43rd percentile
* Head = 18″, 90-95th percentile

Matt and I also celebrated our 4 year anniversary last Thursday.  Well, the anniversary was on Thursday but we celebrated on Friday.  Both of us took the day off and spent the day together looking at a couple of new daycares, taking extra time for lunch and running errands.  Then on Friday night my dad came over to watch the kids while Matt and I went to dinner.  I can’t explain how nice it was to get to spend so much time together without the hustle and bustle of work and the kids.  We need to do it more often.

While work has been extremely busy, it’s been very rewarding as well.  I’m still enjoying my new role and responsibilities and wake up excited to go to work nearly every day.  I’ve been making trips to Sidney pretty frequently and I don’t expect it to stop as I have multiple training classes to take this year.  Business analysis, management, leadership, and lean six sigma green belt training are the main ones.  This year will be busy, but it’s a great opportunity for me to gain career exceling knowledge so Matt is taking one for the team every time I leave and stick him with the kids.  Just makes me love him more.

Some recent photos of the kids:

This week was Halloween, and it wasn’t just a day of trick-or-treating, eating candy, and reading Halloween books.  It was a realization that the holidays are upon us.  In less than a month, Thanksgiving will be here.  And a few short weeks after that, it will be Christmas.  Yikes.  Time is already flying…I don’t need the holidays to help it along.

With the passing time, things have been changing with the kids (as always).  Let’s start with Cadence.

Our little girl is getting bigger, as expected of course.  At her last doctor appointment we found out that her height and weight were in the 25-50 percentile while her head is in the 90^th percentile.  Even though she’s grown, she’s still small to me.    A few weeks ago she started rolling over, which proved to be a problem at night because she doesn’t like to sleep on her stomach like Carter does.  It only took a couple of nights before Matt thought to roll up a blanket to keep her from rolling over.  It’s been working perfectly and she’s back to sleeping through most nights (6:30pm to 6:30am).  Her happiness is finally in hand now too.  Sure, she’ll fuss when she’s tired or hungry or has a dirty diaper, but for the most part, she’s very pleasant – smiling, giggling, and generally enjoying life.

A couple of weeks ago, I stopped nursing Cadence, but I continue to pump.  Just this week I’ve added “bread with milk” back into my diet and so far it doesn’t seem to be bothering her.  Next week I’m going to try adding butter as that’s the lowest on the allergen list.  It would be nice to have a wider variety of things I can eat by the time Christmas arrives.  Cadence will start solids on December 8th, which may help her ability to digest milk.  Dr. Russell has us starting her on fruits and veggies first because of her MSPI…I’m excited to get her rolling on real food.    Only a month away!!

Carter is doing really well these days too.  He’s improving with potty training and he’ll generally tell us when he has to go to the bathroom, but not if it’s #2.  I sure hope he’s fully trained by his 3^rd birthday.  Cleaning poop out of underwear just isn’t cool.  We’ve been doing it for way too long.

A big step for our little man, he realized that his Mr. Froggie had seen better days and agreed with Mom and Dad that it was time to throw him out (mainly because the frog stunk to the point it made Mom want to vomit).  So, we put a fresh trash liner in the trash can and then had Carter toss him.  Don’t worry…once Carter was in bed, Matt and I retrieved Mr. Froggie to wash and keep.    It will make for a good laugh some day – or at the very least some embarrassment, which I think will be fun when the right time comes.

Carter has been keeping busy with trucks, trains, computer games, moon dough, and sidewalk chalk these days.  He’s also been attending Toddler Team Up at
the museum and loves getting to see his friends, play with the new exhibits and go out to eat pizza with Daddy (where he actually gets to eat cheese for dinner – yum!).

On Friday, I got a phone call from daycare to tell me Carter had an accident.  He was running across the room and stumbled, which led to him falling onto a plastic chair type thing that resulted in an injury to his eyebrow.  I took him to urgent care where Matt’s cousin Nicole cleaned him up and set the little guy up with some glue (it wasn’t deep enough for stitches – thank goodness).  I’m surprised with how well Carter did though.  It looked so painful!!

On Saturday, I took the kids to the Roca Berry Farm to give Carter his first experience at a pumpkin patch.  I took them during the 11am game, so there weren’t a lot of people there.  It worked out perfectly!  Carter enjoyed running around wherever he wanted, sliding down the big slides, and watching pig races.  We also picked out pumpkins, gourds, squash, and kettle corn.  Some photos of the day -

And photos from Monday (Halloween) -

I’ve been back to work for five weeks now, and it shows by the number of blog entries I’ve had. If you hadn’t already guessed, I’ve been overly busy trying to find my balance again. Between 45-50 hour work weeks, spending time with the kids, keeping the house clean, mouths fed, backs clothed, and finances in check, I hardly have any time to myself, so to speak. I realize there will come a day when I wish I were this busy again (when our children are out of the house and I feel like I have too much time to myself), so I’m doing my best to just enjoy each day, but that means there’s not much time for blogging anymore. Let’s see if I can catch up in a few paragraphs….

Carter is still our little chatterbox, and recently he’s become quite the little artist. He’ll put pen (or marker, crayon, etc.) to paper, draw a few lines or make a few squiggles, circling round to connect to where he started and then he’ll name the object he drew. “Look Mom! A dinosaur!” Usually he’s spot on for identifying what he’s drawn. He drew a camel the other day that remarkably resembled a camel, so we put it on the fridge and it continues to amaze me daily. This may be his strength. He continues to pay close attention to everyone’s feelings, but has become lazy when it comes to listening to Mom and Dad when we tell him to stop doing something. He’s taking more frequent trips to the naughty corner these days. But of course, we still think he’s an awesome little boy. I just feel the “twos” coming on stronger than before.

Cadence is growing rapidly and is amazing us by rolling both back to front and front to back (she started doing this about a week ago). She scoots around in her crib these days too. We often find her flipped around and unswaddled in the mornings, but always faced up, thank goodness. She continues to have an active case of MSPI. I tried eating a Runza last weekend, which has milk in the dough, and it wasn’t too successful. Cadence has been a spit up queen too, so last Sunday I decided that I would try giving up soy for two weeks to see if it might help. I would say that she’s better this weekend, but I’ll give it one more week before deciding whether it’s really helping or not. Despite her tummy troubles, she’s a pretty happy baby, starting to form her own little giggle and hating to be left alone in a bouncy seat or the swing.

As for Matt and me, we’ve been hanging in there. It’s taken a lot of responsibility juggling for us to keep things rolling around the house, but we’re making it work. I’ve been awfully busy with my new position at work (I’m now a business analyst instead of a developer), but I really enjoy the work, so the days fly by and it’s easy to put in the extra effort. Matt’s work has been about the same, so he hasn’t seen much change except for having to help out more around the house now that I’m back at work.  And I’ll be making more trips to Sidney for work in the coming months, so he’ll be on his own from time to time.

So, things are busy, to say the least.  I wish I could blog more often…just haven’t quite fit it into my new balancing act.  Hopefully I’ll squeeze it back in soon.