Cabinets!

I triple heart love them! The island isn't done yet, but it looks great! We decided to glaze them, so that adds an extra step and an additional 8 hour drying time, but I think it's worth it. I can't wait for the kitchen to be totally finished!

Today I went and had lunch with some of the moms from Isabel's preschool class. It was so nice to laugh and chat for two whole hours without worrying about chasing after kids.

Logan decided to not take a nap today. He's been resisting them the past week. Hopefully it's just a phase and he's not done with them.

It's been beautiful weather here. I would still prefer some cold winter weather, but I guess this is what I get for living in Austin. Can't complain.

We're jumping in!

We're refinishing the kitchen island this weekend! The kitchen cabinet redo has begun! We've sort of eyeballed it and split it up into 8 manageable sections. Hopefully seeing how good the finished product looks we'll find the motivation to get the project finished by April. Our goal is to have it done by Isabel's birthday. I'm sure we'll get all excited and do a few sections and then get burnt out for a few weeks, but we'll see. 3 months should be doable, right?

We're all in short sleeves over here. The high today is 79 degrees! You know that feeling when you've been working really really hard at the gym and doing great with your eats and then excitedly putting on a pair of pants to see how they fit because surely they will be loose? Yeah, that didn't happen to me this morning. I was mad at my jeans for not being loose. Come ON. Why is weight loss so hard after 30 and after 3 babies?! It was so much easier 10 years ago!

Here we are waiting for Logan to finish PT. can you see how red her eyes are? Silly cedar pollen.

Busy!

We had a very busy Wednesday and I'm pooped. Logan had OT bright and early and then we headed over to a play date with one of Isabel's friends from school. The home it was at? It was amazing. Like straight out of a magazine gorgeous. Complete with pool and golf course view. She must have been an interior decorator in a previous life because the way it was decorated and furnished... I was speechless. I was then served the perfect latte. I was just praying that Logan wouldn't take a shit all over the place. He's been having a lot of #2 accidents lately and he hadn't gone yet. Luckily he was ok. After staying for a bit we had to leave to go to dance. A quick HEB trip and we were home for lunch.

Then Logan pooped ALL over the place. Literally 5 minutes after I put him on the potty. I don't know what's going on with him. He has been completely potty trained for 6 months! He doesn't have accidents at school, so I need to find out their secret.

My stupid sinus infection is back. It's my own fault. I didn't finish the Cipro. I know better. I just kept forgetting and then said 'forget it.'. Now I probably have super mutant bacteria up in my sinuses ready to take over my brain. I called the nurse at my doctor's office and she's going to talk to my doctor and see of he'll call in something or if I need to be seen. Fingers crossed I can just get more drugs.

Visual migraines

Ever had one? I started getting them about a year ago. Luckily I've only had a handful, but they are terrifying! My vision starts to get very unfocused and then the flashers start and it usually ends up with crazy ripple-like effects in my vision. I went to the eye doctor and she said its like regular migraines, some people just get them. Today I got one on my run with just over a mile left on my route. I stopped running and walked, but it was taking forever and I just wanted to close my eyes and lie down, so I started running again. Luckily there isn't pain associated with them.

I did get a nice headache this afternoon, but that could have been from wrangling the kids to the car after preschool. Isabel had to go potty and had a tiny accident on the way. She pulled down her skirt and started waddling down the hallway. Omg. So since she was wearing a skirt and tights I told her to just take her underwear and tights off and we would go home in the car with just her skirt on. Of course she decided to start flashing the entire parking lot and saying she was itchy. I'll probably be known as the crazy mom who doesn't put underwear on her kids.

Here are pictures from drop off. They get to play on the tree after school, but today we were early (shocker) and they played before school. Logan and his 3 cups. He was very proud.

No bed luck

So we went to a few more stores on Sunday, but no luck with a bed for Isabel. We did hit up a new to us 2nd hand store and found some barely used tap shoes for $9! I think I paid over $30 for a new pair when Isabel first started dance class. I'll never buy a new pair again as long as I can find used ones! Now I just need to find some ballet slippers. They had a couple pairs, but they were pretty gnarly looking. We were going to head up to our favorite resale shop, but got hungry and stopped by BJ's for salads and kid's pizza. It was really really good. I like to be a little snotty and turn my nose up on chains because I think I'm too cool for anything but local, unique restaurants. But I'm always really happy with BJ's and the beer is pretty good. It was a gorgeous day, so we sat outside. I always jump at the chance to sit outside when I can (usually it's 105 degrees and way too hot) because I don't feel so bad when Logan runs around and is loud. We had the patio to ourselves for a while and it was really really nice.

I bought a Groupon for this meal planning website called The Fresh 20 a couple of weeks ago. It is awesome! It uses 20 ingredients for 5 days worth of dinners for a family of 4. The cost is always around $75-80. You need to have staples on hand, but they are pretty spot on with the pricing and seem to estimate high. We always have leftovers, so it ends up feeding us for at least a week. Sometimes we will eat all of the leftovers for lunches, but the food seems to really stretch. The recipes have been really tasty. If you know me you know I'm a very non picky eater. I just like my food to be relatively healthy, but I'll pretty much eat anything. The kids haven't been thrilled with a couple of dishes. I think maybe they were too spicy. Oh, and the meals usually includes sides. The side dish is usually a salad or something similar.

Anyway, I just really like the plan. I like buying things like cilantro, carrots and celery and using them in multiple recipes so that they don't go bad.

Today was spent cleaning since we didn't do any over the weekend. 7 loads of laundry, vacuuming, sweeping and scrubbing the kitchen floor and tile. My absolute least favorite thing. I usually don't mind cleaning because the house looks so good and I feel like I've accomplished something, but the kitchen floor.....is just gross. No matter how much I scrub or clean it still looks dirty. The white tile has chips in some places and the tile is brown where it's chipped, so it looks like there is dirt on the floor. Oh well. One day we'll replace the floors.

I'm hoping to go on a nice long run in the beautiful weather tomorrow after I drop the kids off at school.

Oh, today Isabel randomly asked me if she could call me Jesus.

Outing Roulette

This is what I call going out with Logan. Anywhere. Today we decided to go looking for a big girl bed for Isabel. She's currently in a toddler bed that takes a crib mattress and is rapidly outgrowing it with her long legs. She is VERY attached to her princess bed and doesn't want to 'get rid of it.' I can understand. A comfy bed is pretty amazing. She has also requested a pink bed. Yeah, that's not gonna happen. The idea is to get her a double bed with maybe a trundle. That way we can have people stay in her room and have another guest bedroom if needed. I want the bed to last until she leaves for college. So we went to a couple of furniture stores and I was pretty underwhelmed with the quality. Isabel saw and fell in love with this ugly Disney carriage bed. It is seriously hideous. No way that's living in our house. The bed will be white to match the other furniture, but we compromised and said she could get the pink canopy thing. They have one at PBK that she loved. I think this bed buying process will take longer than we thought.

After going to a couple of stores in town we decided to go to San Marcos and see if the PBK outlet had anything. They did, but for the price I wasn't excited about it and I think the color was off white, not white. So while we were there Logan just wasn't having it. He was writhing around/screaming/whining/crying. You just can't go shopping with him. It's pretty much impossible. And embarrassing. I love how Brian said something like 'wow, you're really upset today' when this woman near us gave us 'the look'. I was like 'come on now. we know this is his normal behavior.' Sometimes when I'm at the grocery store I'll pretend that he's just having a hard or difficult day, but more and more I just don't care. I've gotten a little jealous of people who have typically behaving kids. I wonder how different my life would be if I wasn't constantly worrying if we had 2 minutes or 5 minutes at the grocery store before we made a scene. I've taken Isabel out by ourselves and sometimes I've been like 'so THIS is what it would feel like.' It's pretty easy, not gonna lie.

Logan has started OT twice a week. There is a waiting list for speech therapy. I want him to go to the same place for speech and OT, so we'll just sit tight on the waiting list for now. He's been doing great with OT. Just the sweetest little thing. The therapist got to witness a meltdown on our way out the door on Friday. Now she knows it's not all sweetness, hugs and roses all the time. I think she was a little shocked.

Getting back in a routine

After being sick for what seemed like forever it is taking me a long time to get back into my routine. I really thought this week would be it, but 4:45am rolled around Monday morning and my body was like 'no effing way you crazy lady.' So I skipped the gym. Again. Last night I got my workout gear on and left to go to an 8:30pm class at the gym. I left really early to stop by the grocery store and pick up some essentials. Yeah, after heading back to my car and realizing that if I went to an 8:30 class I wouldn't get home until 9:45, I decided to go home. I took a bath and read instead. So maybe tomorrow when the alarm goes off I'll jump out of bed and be excited to go to the gym again. I used to love my 5:30am spin classes.

It has been freezing here in Austin. I love it! It's supposed to get warmer again tomorrow, but the high today is 45! Finally it feels like a little winter!

Pictures from the weekend. Logan really wanted a Juice box. Isabel in her adorable dress (day after Christmas sale!) that she insisted on wearing all weekend! at least we convinced her to wear pants underneath when we went outside. And Logan and Brian watching the Texans game.

Bye Aunt Jenn!

We said goodbye to Jenn this afternoon. :(. She has been such a big help these past couple of months! I know I'll miss running to the store to get a couple of things while the kids are napping! That was sure nice. She watched the kids, fed them, bathed them, and put them to bed while Brian and I saw 'Zero Dark Thirty.' Excellent movie. It was pretty awesome just walking out the door without giving someone detailed instructions and not having anxiety while I was gone. She keeps better tabs on my kids than I do! They don't go out of her sight! She will be missed.

This morning we had a birthday party for a classmate of Isabel's that was really low key and awesome. It started at 9:30am and we were greeted with the smells of bacon, coffee, sausage, muffins and the sounds of fun music and kids laughing when we walked in the door to this super modern, hip home. After being offered mimosas, coffee, tea, and/or Mexican hot chocolate I wanted to move in! It was supposed to rain, but be fairly warm. It didn't rain, but we had lovely cloud cover and warm temps for the awesome bounce house with gigantic slide in the backyard! I was taking down ideas for Isabel and Logan's birthday parties! Too bad our yard is not nearly flat enough for a bounce house, because that thing was amazing. I also loved this party because it didn't look like Pinterest threw up all over it. I mean, I love Pinterest, but sometimes enough is enough. No cheesy goodie bags and the 'cake' was Shirley's donuts. That was too bad because Isabel can't have donuts from a donut shop due to her nut allergies. She was upset until I promised her that we could go get Oreos after the party. I should have made her a special cupcake and brought it, but I didn't. Next time.

After the party ( we stayed until noon!) I went out for fufu with Jenn and another RPCV. I took the first bite and almost threw up. The fufu was fine, good even, but the "spinach in sauce" was NOT up my alley. I will typically eat anything, but this almost got spit out. It was unlike anything I've ever tasted. There was a very strange fish sauce taste that I couldn't put my finger on but I just didn't like it. At all. There was another plate with rice and spinach that was very tasty. I tried to stick with that. We ate Togo style. With our fingers. It was a good time and I enjoyed hearing some stories and listening to French.

Brian took Logan on a special mission to get a solder sucker(?) to try and fix the tv in our bedroom. And 'maybe get a milkshake.' I'm embarrassed to admit how much I miss the tv in our bedroom.

I also decided today that I really want to tackle refinishing the cabinets in the kitchen. It's a huge multi weekend project, but I know the end result will be worth it. I'm so thrilled with our bathroom kitchen cabinets! I think we'll start with the island and see how we like the color for awhile before doing the rest. Anyone want to come volunteer to work on our crew?! Watch the kids?!

Here's a picture of fufu and aunt Jenn after we did DIY avocado masks.

3 doctors in 2 days

I broke down and went to the doctor this morning. I couldn't sleep last night due to the amazing pain in my jaw and eye socket. It hurt to lay down. Super fun. I picked up some cipro and hopefully will be feeling better soon, although I still can't chew on my left side and my nostril feels like there is a hole in it when I blow my nose. I've never had a sinus infection like this. By far the worst ever.

I then headed to the cardiologist and had an hour wait. It didn't bother me since I took a book and actually had time to read! Everything is fine and I'll head back next year for an ECHO.

Tomorrow I'm going to take Logan to the doctor. He's still snotty and congested and his little eyes have been watering. We're going on 2 weeks. :(. I think he might be fighting a sinus infection too.

Tomorrow I have to be in 2 places at once so aunt Jenn is coming to the rescue again and taking Isabel to swim lessons while I take Logan to therapy. I thought tomorrow was her last day of classes, but it's actually next week. I lucked out and found a babysitter to take Isabel to swim since Aunt Jenn will sadly be gone. :(. It's her last class and I didn't want her to miss it since I'm not sure she'll take lessons in the spring.

Somebody played beauty parlor tonight!

3 month follow up for Logan. And we are still sick.

Logan had his 3 month follow up with the developmental pediatrician yesterday. It was pretty overwhelming. There were lots of acronyms thrown out and lots of suggestions. There is a game plan and I feel like we are headed in the right direction and that his doctor is really looking out for him and knows her stuff. She's fairly young and has some seriously impressive credentials. Her bed side manner is not exactly warm and fuzzy, but that's ok with me. Sometimes I actually prefer it that way.

Basically she recommended that Logan start OT twice a week (we had previously been scheduled for once) and that he add speech therapy twice a week as well. That's 4 hours of therapy total per week. His expressive speech is not a problem and his vocabulary seems to be average to above average, but his communicative/ pragmatic speech is the area of concern. For example he will rarely answer yes/no questions. I think the phrase that most grabbed at my heart was that she described him as being 'difficult to play with.' Not in a mean way, obviously, but very matter of fact. Yes, he is difficult to play with. Typical play is hard for him. We aren't sure if Logan is on the autism spectrum or not. The doctor said she is seeing behaviors that are concerning to her, but she's not ready to diagnose that yet. When he goes back in 6 months he will undergo testing. At that time he will be 3 and eligible for the elementary schools program if he is indeed on the spectrum.

So, all in all, an overwhelming day. On top of that the cardiologist called to tell me the results of my genetic testing came in and that he wanted to schedule an appointment for this week. Wtf? This week? I was like 'uh, next week is better,' but she was like 'how about this Thursday?' I asked her if she could tell me the results and she said everything was negative, so I'm hoping he just needs to meet his weekly quota of patients or something!

In other news we are all still sick. I think I'm going to go to the doctor tomorrow if there is not some awesome healing powers that clear out my sinuses magically overnight. Poor Logan's eyes have started watering too. I think he might be fighting a sinus infection. The doctor looked in his ears yesterday and they were not infected, but one was 'dull.' I'll keep an eye out for him pulling at the left one.

In some fun news I bought tickets to see 'Zero Dark Thirty' on Friday night with Brian! Jenn is going to watch the kiddos. I think she's the only person, besides maybe a grandparent, who has ever put them to bed without one of us.

Here is a picture of Logan and I splashing around in the rain while sister was at dance class and aunt Jenn nursing one of her injuries from her 4 days of working out. And sleeping on the guest bed after one of the slats fell through instead of getting us to help her fix it. Silly aunt Jenn. Or considerate aunt

Oh, and Logan had to give blood yesterday and he didn't even cry!!! So proud of my brave boy!

This is how we roll today

Yep, even gave Logan a paci to try and stop him shoving Kleenex/towels/shoes in his mouth. Desperate today!

Sick

Again. Well, still really. I think this is going on week 2? 3? Tonight I had horrible head congestion and pressure. Maybe a sinus infection? Just when I was finally starting to feel better. I guess if things don't improve in the next couple of days I'll head to the doctor. :(. Waking up with a headache is so fun, right? That's a picture of me giving a thumbs down. I don't have the energy to turn a light on or figure out the flash. Ha.

Poop Ornaments

Today we took down the rest of the Christmas decor in the house. I finally had to deal with the 'poop ornaments.' If you remember these are the ornaments in a box that some rodent got into and decided to poop all over. GROSS. I tossed all of the ornament boxes, anything paper/cardboard and washed, clorox wiped, clorox sprayed everything else. Now everything smells like disinfectant, but at least it should be clean and ready for next year. We tried to get rid of cardboard boxes and put more things in plastic containers to avoid this problem in the future. Here's a picture from the de-pooping.

We spend a lot of time at the playground today walking some of the trails (until Logan decided to grab a cactus) and playing on the equipment. It was such a nice day in Austin. The high was probably upper 50s/lower 60s. So very nice.

I almost forgot to add that I found the advent calendar my mom gave (that my Grandmother had made)! It was in a box that we didn't open this year. It now has a safe home right next to the wreath made out of the kids' hands. Two of my prized possessions!

Last night Jenn was kind enough to offer her babysitting services while Brian and I went out. We tried a new Mexican restaurant, Tres Amigos, and both gave it a B. Brian had a stuffed avocado, which was amazing, and I had a shrimp chili relleno, which was not great. The salsa was amazingly good, but I had a horrible margarita. I'm not a fan of fruity drinks and when I ordered a habanero margarita on the rocks I did not expect a pink drink that tasted like trash can punch. Yuck. After dinner we saw "Jack Reacher." I liked it but Brian thought it was 'meh.' Those kind of thrillers are just up my alley, so I enjoyed it.

Tonight we're looking forward to Downton Abbey premiering and relaxing after our hard work around the house. Jenn had a babysitting job from 11am - 5pm, so she'll probably need some relaxing too! We stayed up until well past midnight watching the last few episodes of Gossip Girl. Jenn was a little behind because apparently they don't really get Gossip Girl in Togo, or electricity for that matter.

Picture Saturday

I forgot to post pictures of some of our Christmas decor. I had a hard time figuring out picture placement, so I'm putting a few pictures here for easy reference next year. And here is a photo dump from Christmases 2010, 2011, and 2012.