Cailin's 2nd Birthday

Cailin's birthday party went really well. We were rained out of course, but spent a nice afternoon in the house playing with new toys. Two of Cailin's little friends showed up, Olivia and Devanie. I was disappointed we weren't able to spend time on the new deck, play in the water table, kiddie pool or bouncy house, but that's okay.

Cailin got some really cool stuff - a lawnmower that makes all sorts of noise; a baby she can take in the tub/water table; a vet kit complete with shaggy puppy; a baby penguin you feed and much more. She's been playing with everything non-stop. Oh, and don't forget the keyboard complete with microphone... She's been playing with it like crazy (truth be told, so has her dad).

I didn't go crazy making a big, intricate cake for her party, instead choosing to go with cupcakes. I made orange blossom tie-dye cupcakes with swirly pink and purple icing (purple and yellow on the inside), and ones with chocolate icing. I like how the cupcake "tree" turned out:

Nana and Papa brought the birthday girl balloons (which needed to be immediately freed from their weight and released into the house) and the much loved lawnmower.
A good time was had by all, even Ryan - who ended up grilling hamburgers in the pouring rain. Thank you all for coming and sharing Cailin's special day with her!

Rhino Ride and Big Girl Bed

Whew. Another crazy action packed weekend! On Friday we risked a trip to the mall to get Jellybean some sleeping quarters - namely, a 'micro-bassinet/playpen'. Thank you Auntie Ro, Uncle Don and TJ for the Christmas money! We used it on stuff for the kids. Cailin got a pink diaper shirt to cheer on Papa's hockey team:We had fun in the mall. Cailin ran around and had a great time collecting items for the cart. She found a fuzzy blanket that really needed to be cuddled and packed around the store. We got a lot of errands done - including paying for the supplies for our new deck. Weather permitting, we will have it finished by the end of this coming weekend.

We headed out for the farm and watched the hockey game. Kind of. Cailin ran around the downstairs living room and distracted everyone a lot. She can open the door knobs down there and has a lot of fun just opening the door and closing it behind her. She shouts, "Bye!" to us as she's leaving the room.

On Saturday we loaded up the Rhino and took it down to the Dunes for a ride. Ryan had the great idea of strapping Cailin's carseat to the Rhino with a ratchet strap. It worked great:
Cailin enjoyed the ride like crazy, whooping and wheeeeeeeing and laughing. Until we went down a hill - at which point she slapped her hands over her eyes and they pretty much stayed there until we went back to the truck. Well, she alternated between covering her eyes and then covering her ears. Towards the end she was almost asleep. That kid could sleep anywhere. And yes, I am eight months pregnant and going 4X4ing. I got a lot of stares on the trails. I can't imagine why!

We each had a turn riding by ourselves without the carseat poking us and then packed the Rhino up. Cailin had a great time playing in the gravel pit and digging up rocks to throw. We drove back out to the farm to drop off the trailer and ended up staying for supper again. Cailin had the greatest time playing in the Power Wheels Jeep:
For her first time driving it, she did magnificently. I followed her as she drove around in circles and laughed. She insisted on wearing her sweater, buttoned to the top with the hood on of course. And don't forget the suckie. I'm convinced she will be hiding a suckie in her desk at school. Sigh.

Nana and Papa were willing to watch the Smartie overnight so Ryan and I could go to a movie. We were practically in the truck backing out of the driveway before they said yes. No, not really. But once Cailin was bathed and tucked into her jammies, we left and went to see Bridesmaids. It was funny, but not as funny as I expected it to be. Still, it was so nice to have a date night. Since it was the late show, we were home after 1am. I thought we'd turn into pumpkins.

Sunday found us lazily picking up around the house and cleaning. I went and printed birthday invites for Cailin's party. I also got a few prints of recent photos I've taken, and I was pleased with how they turned out. I can't believe my baby is going to be two in less than two weeks.

Today I had to take Bailey to the vet for her booster shots... and a nether-region issue. Don't ask. She's just fine now and feeling much better than she has been. This is the first day in a few weeks that she's actually been herself. It's nice to have her back.

Because I'm a sucker for punishment, I also fit in a quick trip to Walmart for a mattress for Cailin's big girl bed. Surprisingly, I didn't feel homicidal after leaving the store. And I found everything I needed in quick order.

Once I got home, we set up her bed right away:

We thought maybe she would even have a nap in her new bed. Of course, she was way too excited about it to settle down to sleep in it. She played in it, and would tell us 'bye' and shut her door and jump into bed. Approximately five seconds later, she would open the door and come find us to tell us 'bye' again. Rinse, repeat. She also rolled out of it backwards and whacked her head off the floor five minutes after getting her big girl bed. I'm glad she got that out of the way so early. I'm proud to say that she's extremely careful getting in and out of bed now.

So, needless to say she ended up napping in her crib. I think we have lots of time to get her into the toddler bed so we'll be taking the transition slowly. Jellybean will be sleeping in our room to start off with and that gives us a few months (as much as six even?) to get her accustomed to her big girl bed.

We were supposed to be getting a crib from a guy at work, but that deal fell through when they found out it changed into a toddler bed and now their child is using it again. We were going to buy a crib, but after careful deliberation, we decided that it's simply not needed. It would have been super convenient of course, but not entirely necessary. We have time to switch Cailin out of her crib and then Jellybean can use it.

Tonight we watched the hockey game (boo, hiss) and had a lovely taco dinner. I'm sure Cailin jinxed the game by eating tacos in her Canucks diaper shirt and getting it completely filthy. It soaked in the sink with dish soap through most of the game.

I also made chocolate chip muffins for dessert, much to everyone's delight. I see quite a few are missing from the muffin jar.

Cailin passed the time by waving to us and saying, "Night, Cailin! Night, Cailin!" and shutting her door and getting into bed. Much giggling ensued, then the door would fling open and she'd come back out to tell us each in turn that she was going night-night. She tried to get Bailey to go to bed with her, but alas, the dog refused (smart dog). This of course, caused Cailin much strife and we had to listen to paint-peeling shrieks of anger as she was thwarted by a dog.

I also managed to clean, tidy and organize different nooks and crannies of the house in between all our excursions this weekend. Today we went really crazy and cleaned as much as possible in the basement. We're gearing up to tackle the storage room - aka The Pit of Doom. I also cleaned out the hallway linen closet and we organized the toys in the baby's room. There is a lot more work to be done before he gets here, but it felt good to accomplish so much today. The laundry is caught up and 80% of the house is spotless.

I was so tired after all the activity from this weekend that I sat on the couch during the game and had to shut my eyes for a moment. Cailin finds this offensive for some reason. There is no greater way to get her attention than to try and nap in her presence.

I can't believe there's only six weeks left before we become a family of four.

The Princess and the Pee

Apparently we need to invest in some duct tape around here. Cailin has really taken this nudity thing and gone to the next level. It doesn't seem to matter what I dress her in - jeans, shorts, leggings - she can Houdini out of them the second I turn around. I usually hear the sound of two tabs of velcro releasing, and, moments later, am confronted by a streaking baby. This happens especially after she's already peed in said diaper. And no, pull ups are no better. She can get out of those equally as fast.

I realize she's almost two, and it's summer. By golly, if she wants a few minutes of naked time, I'm willing to give it to her.

However.

There's always a time limit on this nakedness. Sometimes I let it go too long though. For example, the other night she appeared before me (naked of course), patted her bum and told me quite seriously, "Poo poo!"

I sighed and asked her to show me. She had peed down the register under the front window. Upon removing the register vent to clean, I realized that the duct work below had been transformed into some sort of sacred Froot Loop burial ground. Both Cailin and Bailey were very concerned about the abandoned cereal. Make that abandoned, slightly damp, cereal.

No worries, my germ-phobia provided me with the extra means with which to fumigate said disaster.

I've been trying to keep a lid on the nudity since then. Unfortunately Cailin continues to thwart me. At nap time today, I put her to bed in her clothes with a fresh diaper on. After a normal nap length, I could hear her talking in her room. I finished up my laundry and was about to make my way upstairs when she started crying. It was an upset cry, not a gee-I-wish-someone-would-get-me-out-of-bed-or-at-least-watch-me-while-I-jump-in-my-bed cry.

I ran up the stairs and opened her door. She very sadly told me, "Poo poo!" and pointed to her pants. She was upset. I patted her pants where she pointed. They seemed wet. Upon opening the window shade, I realized her pants were in fact, soaked. And backwards. On closer inspection, I found her diaper tossed negligently into a corner of the crib. She had taken her pants off, removed the offending (yet dry) diaper and put her pants back on. While standing up at the edge of the crib, she had had an accident.

Casualties of the pee incident included a very sad stuffed dinosaur with a wet leg and a puppy with a wet tail. These were immediately air-vacced to the casualty cleaning center, followed shortly by a moderate amount of bedding which was immediately laundered.

All nudity has been completely suspended following said actions. I'm now in the market for some very cute diaper shirts that Cailin cannot get out of. Failing that, I'll be duct taping diapers on my kid until this stage is over. I'm thankful there hasn't been anything more... serious... than pee.

Other highlights of the day:

We ran the car through the laser wash today, proving to Ryan that I can in fact, have a clean car. For a while anyway. Cailin isn't keen on the laser wash, but she braved through it, mostly hiding behind her blankie as some type of car wash repelling shield:
She didn't make a peep, but put the blankie over her head every time the jets would whoosh over the car. Occasionally she would peek out over the blanket. She seemed surprised to have lived though the ordeal when we drove out the other side.

We also braved the doctor's office today for another prenatal appointment. Cailin knew where we were the moment we parked. She insisted on being carried and was extremely shy in the waiting room. When it came time for me to be weighed, I thought I would take the opportunity to weigh her first. She is 24.4lbs. Huge, I tell you. She also burst into tears on the scale. Kind of how I felt too.

Me? I AM huge, no denying it. I have now gained 28lbs and still have 7+ weeks to go. Somebody hold me.

Jellybean is lively (ha! understatement) and is doing well. His heart beat rate today was 159 bpm. He is measuring 33 weeks and we're only 31 weeks tomorrow. He is so going to be a big boy. My blood pressure is 130/70, which is high-ish for me, but doc says it's great. She also told me that if Gaviscon isn't cutting it for me for the heartburn relief, the tablets she prescribes won't help much either. Great.

I don't get referred now to the surgeon until after my next appointment at 34 weeks. It's not that I'm especially impatient to get a firm date on Jellybean's birthday, it's that I'm thinking he's gonna come sooner than expected. The original plan was to refer me this appointment, but she changed her mind saying we have lots of time. The way this baby moves around in there, I tend to disagree with the 'lots of time' notion.

Cailin's been talking a lot more lately - and a lot of it is even english. She tells me when her babies are "sleepy" or "sleeping". When we tell her not to touch something, she tells us it's "Mommy's stuff" or "Daddy's stuff". This is hilarious. I took some papers away from her at the dinner table and told her they were Mommy's. She looked at me and said, "NO! Daddy's stuff!" Ah, the arguing starts early. Sometimes when she wants more juice, she'll demand, "More stuff!" She also demands "pop" when she sees any.

We played outside today, and Cailin found the only puddle in a ten block radius - in our driveway. She took off running and jumped into the puddle, making sure to splash as much as possible. When that wasn't getting the desired effect, she bent over and started splashing with her hands as well, throwing as much water into the air as was feasible. Then she'd run to the lilac tree, decimate some blossoms and run back to the puddle to repeat the process.

When a neighbor's dog snuck three doors down to leave a present on someone else's lawn, Cailin made sure to point and tell the embarrassed owner, "Doggie poo poo!" He wasn't embarrassed enough to pick up said offering though. Cailin thought it was pretty funny.

We are having a really good summer. We're playing outside lots, Cailin is allowing me to leave child proof locks off more things, and life is getting easier all the time. Well, except for that gigantic heartburn-y bump I'm lugging around of course. I fall into bed absolutely exhausted every night and wake up every morning just a little less rested than I should be. We're definitely in the final stretch people!

Oh, and Bailey. She has managed to sneak in the big bed every night this week. She's acting very strange and skittish during the day, and has been keeping to herself. I'm not sure what's going on with her. Maybe she knows she's about to be tormented by not just one baby anymore? I'm thinking a vet visit is in store if she doesn't snap out of it soon.

And birthday prep has begun. I can hardly believe our sweet little Cailin is going to be two years old in two weeks. Also, when you tell her she's going to be 'two', she always says "three" right after. Hmmm.

Family Sunday

GramE is visiting in our neck of the woods and I was lucky enough to get to pick her up on Sunday for family dinner in the great Beaver City (Beaverlodge for you non-locals). Cailin laughed the whole drive out and was incredibly cheerful for having had her nap interrupted.

We had a wonderful visit with lots of catching up and drinking of tea. Dinner was wonderful too. After we ate more than was good for us (well, me especially, can't speak for everyone) we piled up in Ryan's pickup and drove out Valhalla way.

I worked at the Valhalla facility for a long time - a teeny oil battery/gas plant just north of Valhalla Center. I knew my dad's side of the family was from around in that area, but I never knew just where. I did think it was pretty cool that I worked in the same place my great grandparents all grew up.

I have always wondered where my great grandparents were laid to rest, and I got to find out. GramE led us to a tiny cemetery hidden in the woods. The church she attended as a girl is no longer standing, but the foundation is still there. Moss is growing on the floor inside the church and the chimney has long since fallen. I took a small piece of brick from the site and brought it home. A keepsake of my heritage. Here's GramE standing at the corner of the church by the foundation:
My great-grandparents are laid to rest under a beautiful tree, side by side. For family members who want close ups of their names, please let me know.
This was another grave, I'm not sure if it belongs to a relation or not. The cemetery was so beautiful and peaceful. This is at about 9pm and the sun was starting to think about going down.
We rounded the trip out by driving by the house that GramE was born and raised in. The house is still there, and I wish I could have gotten closer to explore it and take a better picture.
However, the old farmyard is now in the middle of the new farmyard and right beside the current owners' house. While they would more than likely enjoy showing us around, the yard was terribly muddy and it's rude to make ruts when unnecessary.

I really enjoyed our visit and seeing where my family is from. Now that I know where my great-grandparents are, I'd like to visit again.

Thank you for everything, GramE.

Busy Exciting Day

So this morning we got up and got ready to greet all the workers that would taking up residence in or around our house today.

First up was the tree chopper couple. They showed up with their trailer and saws and got right up to work:
First he buzzed all the branches off one by one and lowered them to the ground where the other worker cut them up and loaded them. I didn't get to see a whole bunch of the process because I was in the house baking a cake and cupcakes for a friend's birthday party. I did manage to get a few pictures though. Ryan bragged up my photography skill and now they want copies of their own. Hope my pics live up to all the hype!

I did get to see him chop down the very top of the tree and lower it to the ground. Strangely, I didn't feel bad to see that messy (albeit pretty) tree get chopped down today. All I could think of was how next year there will be substantially less mess in the house due to the lack of sappy things. And how much the shingles will rejoice now that their nemesis is gone. Plus we got a good look at how rotten the tree really was on the inside.
After, they raked up all the mess and took it with them. The only way you'd ever know there had been a tree there is to look at the stump. Well, and the confetti of sawdust everywhere. I'm very pleased with how the side of the house looks without the tree. It opened the area right up, and now our flower bed (stuffed with hollyhocks) is out in the sun.

I'm so glad that tree is gone and taken care of. It's a huge stress off our minds. And our house. Next will be cleanup of the roof and gutter and we're that much closer to being done our big chores this summer.

Meanwhile, the alarm system installer (er, installer-ette?) was working on the inside of the house putting up sensors and making holes in my walls. I'm pleased with the new system - it's very low key and straight forward to use. She taught me a few tricks to changing the settings and it only took minutes to learn how to use it once it was set up. I'm going to sleep a lot better downstairs now that we will know instantly if someone has entered the house.

Ah, on to the fun stuff. Baking. It's no secret I get a tad cranky-ish when I'm making a serious cake for someone. Today I embraced that knowledge and tried to curb it. Since I had tree cutters outside and an alarm installer inside (with a full on teething and needy toddler hanging off one leg to boot, heh), I really had to put my game face on and get things done.

Cailin wanted to help. I cringe at the thought of her 'helping' with baked goods that aren't intended for family consumption, but hey, desperate times and all that. So up she went on her chair at the counter. She really wanted the eggs. I have no idea why she wants to crack an egg so badly, but since I had a carton with only two eggs left, I put that on the counter and let her play with them. Usually, she moves them around in the carton or puts them on the counter and then back in the carton many millions of times.

Usually.

Today she tired of putting them in and out of the carton in fairly short order. For a change of pace, she held one in her hand and studied it... Before I could say a word, she lobbed the egg in an alley-oop volley that sailed in slow motion over the counter and seemed to hang in mid-air a second before it hit the floor with a familiar crunch-splat noise in the dining room. Ryan laughed his butt off. That is, until Bailey tried to dislocate a hip running and sliding to slurp up the egg. Then he was beyond grossed out. Like a good sport though, he cleaned it up for me.

While he was cleaning egg and I was mixing batter I heard the dreaded sound again: crunch-splat! Cailin had whipped the second egg in the opposite direction to test its endurance. She says it failed miserably. Bailey was ecstatic to get yet another egg. Which grossed Ryan out again. Which he cleaned up for me. Again. Unfortunately, I don't think the egg smashing curbed Cailin's obsession with eggs. I believe it may have made it worse in fact.

In between 432 interruptions, I was able to get the cake/cupcakes in the oven and managed not to burn them. Eventually the alarm system was installed, the tree was cut down/removed and Cailin went down for a short and crappy nap. We learned how to make the alarm not go boom (or perhaps, beep) and paid the tree cutters. Just in time for the carpenter to show up to give us a quote on the deck. We had people going every which direction. But as fast as they all showed up, they all left. We looked around and we were alone.

I cleaned up the baking dishes, made icing and got down to business. The cake consult suggested a seaside scene type theme and this is what I came up with:
The lighthouse is made of fondant. Of course, while I was sculpting said masterpiece (ha!), I was packing a picnic lunch for Cailin to eat in the truck and bidding my family adieu. They made a trip out to the farm to drop off all that neat firewood we suddenly had on our hands. Plus it's better if no one is around me while I'm icing any type of baked goods. Trust me. At any rate, they are out there harassing Nana and the puppies and watching the hockey game. You choose who is doing which activity.

Actually, this lighthouse cake wasn't all that bad to make. I've been stressing about it for a few weeks and how I was going to make it, but I like how it turned out. I also made matching cupcakes - blue 'ocean' foils and sand colored icing complete with brown sugar 'sand' for a garnish:
I kept the stress to a minimum while baking today. I took time out between each step to stop and clean. Once the kitchen was scoured and neat, I would proceed onto the next step. It was so much easier than working in a mess and then having the mother of all messes to clean up at the very end.

Once the cakes were finished and the kitchen cleaned for a final time, I realized that I WAS ALONE. All by myself. What to do?? So I turned on the tunes and went crazy cleaning the house. It was so wonderful to mop the floors and dust and clean bathrooms without worrying about a little one getting into mischief (ie - stealing the cleaner and spraying the dog with it). I had a quiet meal at the table all by myself. I vacuumed both floors of the house. I'm caught up on laundry, so I tidied everything downstairs instead.

So. We got an alarm today, got the tree taken down, got a very appealing quote on the deck, I finished my cake order, and I cleaned the house top to bottom. A very hectic and happy and wildly productive day.

I'm putting my feet up now.

Back to Bipolar Weather

Yesterday was a gorgeous day. A little on the warm side for me, but Cailin enjoyed it thoroughly. We played outside a lot. Cailin even gave her twin babies a bath in the water table. Not exactly planned on my part, but they did dry out okay in the sun. Well, one still has water trapped in the feet, but I can't seem to get them to drain out. She's currently napping with that water-filled baby so I'll try again later. I'm thinking she needs a water baby type doll to play with outside. You know, one that's impervious to the elements. It would be a good candidate to take camping as well.

It never fails - every time I wear my nasty green and white striped Old Navy shirt, someone stops by. It's a fairly unflattering shirt, but still fits over my rather large baby bump and it's extremely soft. It's a little worn, and a little ugly so I never wear it in public.

My hair was a mess from playing outside in the wind, my house was a terrible disaster and Cailin had just been convinced to put on a pull up (whew) when the doorbell rang. It was yet another alarm system salesman. I sighed. We just turned down a fancy system because it was too costly to install and the monthly fee was outrageous. However, this guy wasn't a salesman, he was on the promotional team - and giving away free alarm systems if we could be a 'promo home'. It's a straight forward system, nothing too fancy and the monthly fee is almost half of what the competition wanted. They give us the system, install it for free and all we have to do is display their sign in the front of the house.

I didn't take too long to think about it. I have wanted an alarm system ever since all this weird stuff has been happening around the block. I would have felt much better sleeping downstairs while Ryan was away if we had an alarm system protecting Cailin upstairs. While we don't have a lot in the way of valuables, the thought of having the police one button away to protect our daughter is very appealing.

I was however, the most embarrassed I've been in a while to invite that poor guy into our cesspool of a house. There were toys and crumbs everywhere. I wasn't expecting guests so I had been lazy all morning, choosing instead to play outside. He was quite taken with Cailin though, and thought she was cute. She decided to show him her new trick - stuffing items down the front of my shirt. Did I mention I was super embarrassed?

After the alarm guy left, it started to storm. It did thunder a little bit before it rained, much to Bailey's utter panic. I was able to get a bunch of pictures of the cherry tree before the storm ripped a lot of the blossoms off. I fell asleep last night listening to the rain pour down outside our window. Since the rain is hitting the ground two inches below our basement window, it has a really neat sound.

I'm really enjoying this basement bedroom arrangement. It is soooo quiet down there! I can't say enough how much I love having the laundry room just across from the bedroom either. We're still fighting with where to put all of Ryan's clothes, but having same-level laundry has been a real blessing.

It was still raining softly when I woke up this morning. It better get all that rain out of its system today because we need dry conditions to get that darn tree cut down tomorrow. I don't even mind the snow that's mixed in with the rain as long as tomorrow is nice. It doesn't have to be hot or anything, just no precipitation! This will be the third Saturday in a row that we've tried to get that blasted poplar tree cut down. My house is completely full of sticky sappy things and I've had enough.

Bailey is the worst offender for the sappy things. She waltzes around in the backyard and gets her paws just loaded with them. She then proceeds to lay on the furniture or bathroom mat and chews them off her feet and spits them everywhere. I'm also convinced that Ryan does a rain dance through them on his way in the front door. The front mat is always covered in them. Cailin uses them to decorate things and sticks them to herself. I broom-vac them at least half a dozen times a day.

Once the tree is gone, we'll be cleaning up the roof and clearing out the gutters. That tree is rotting out the shingles and there is actual grass growing in the gutter. Uh, when I say "we", I actually mean "Ryan". No ladders for this clumsy mommy!

The Last Ten Days or So

Whew. The last few weeks have been busy around here. It's been non-stop appointments, needles, rodeos and other fun.

It completely kicked my butt. I've been so tired the last few days that I felt like I was on auto pilot. You know, the wheel's still spinning, but the gerbil's missing? Yeah, like that. I woke up yesterday feeling better rested finally, and today has been much better again.

So last Tuesday was the get-up-at-the-crack-of-dawn-and-go-to-the-lab-glucose-test-day (hiss!) and Wednesday was needle-at-the-hospital-day. But after all that fun, we packed up Cailin and went to watch the chuck wagons at the rodeo grounds. She wasn't sure what to think at first, but it didn't take long before she was enjoying the horses and cheering from her stroller. Of course, she refers to them as "puppies".
"Mommy! Puppies!" she said. "No, those are horses."

"Puppies!"

"HOR-SES."

"PUP-PIES!"

She won. The next night we went back to watch the wagons again. She knew exactly what to expect by then; demanded mini donuts and cheered the 'puppies' on. A fellow spectator tried to correct her on her usage of 'puppies' but he didn't have any more success than I did.
She loved it. I see a lot more rodeo stuff in our future. I would also like to point out that even though I set foot on rodeo grounds, the Apocalypse did not begin as previously suggested. Ahem.

Friday saw me frantically scurrying around the kitchen trying to make this masterpiece for Cailin's friend Olivia's 2nd birthday party:
Cailin 'helped' by emptying the entire cutlery drawer into the dishwater. Twice. Yes, I washed every single spoon, fork and knife in the house twice. Plus cleaned up the shenanigans from the icing making adventures. And washed all those cake pans. And cleaned the microwave after someone got a little creative with plastic dishware and icing.

I wasn't sure how I was going to decorate the cake with the Smartie buzzing around the house and bouncing off walls. As I was getting the first layer of buttercream icing on my newly shaped "2" cake, I looked at the clock and realized that I was going to be late for my doctor's appointment. Panic ensued. At any rate, we got there only 5 minutes late. This would be the visit where the doc told me Jellybean is measuring 32 weeks at 29 weeks.

Once home, I put Cailin down for a nap and got jiggy with the icing. She complied by having a three hour nap and woke up as I was putting my masterpiece back in the fridge. Thank goodness for my little sweetheart.

The next day, we got up late and prepared for Olivia's birthday party. They loved the cake! The girls had a great time playing together all day. We went for a walk, played in the backyard, in the sandbox and on the slide. They jumped in the only puddle we came across:
Sunday was busy too. I don't quite remember what we did, but it was busy. I think we cleaned a lot and played outside. And priced out a new deck for our house. Cailin dumped popcorn in Ryan's truck and was extremely popular. Not.

Monday we tackled the mountain of bags of unsorted recyclables in the backyard. Even though some idiot helped himself to several bags of cans/bottles (and a gas can last fall), we still ended up with seven huge bags of bottles for the depot. We had three bags of just flattened milk jugs. It was gross. Sour milk and stale moldy bottle smell is truly nasty in the hot sun. Cailin helped tons of course. Once loaded in the back of the truck, we realized that none of the depots in a 50km radius were open on Monday. I was exhausted with a headache and Cailin was miserable with her teeth so we went home after a quick jaunt to the park.

Tuesday we went and picked up a new Peterbilt for one of the drivers at work and brought it back to town from the outfitters' place. Cailin loved sitting in the big truck. She had a nap on the way back to town. Then. We braved the bottle depot. We stood in line for 45 minutes with our huge stash of sour milk jugs while taking turns going to check on Cailin in the truck. The depot was full of crazy people and was so dirty that we didn't even entertain the idea of bringing her inside. Finally I told Ryan to go sit with her in the truck, got a cart and loaded the seven bags on it and waited for another 20 minutes for my turn. It took over an hour in the smelliest place on earth (after the sorting of sour milk hell) for a whole $47.90. It's much better than a swift kick in the rear though. The money is going towards Cailin's big girl bed fund.

Today we went out to the farm to visit Nana and Papa for the first time in a few weeks. We had a great day; played outside, walked dogs, ate pizza and didn't nap. Cailin walked a stroller out to the driveway, picked rocks, filled the stroller up and then brought it back to wash the rocks in a bucket on the patio. She had such a great time playing in the water. It was terrifically hot out too. I can say it's finally summer.

Other highlights this week:

- I bribed Cailin with playing outside if she would clip her nails without a fuss. Success! I even got one toenail trimmed too; hey, it's progress right?

- Cailin's birthday present came in - a bouncy house! She loves it. I can't wait to share it with her cousins. She didn't need any lessons, she knew exactly what to do with a bouncy house.

- Cailin will now willingly wear dresses! Yay!

- Cailin can now get out of all of her clothes and I routinely find a trail of discarded clothing punctuated by a diaper... and eventually one naked baby of course.

Jellybean is doing quite well. He is very active these days, kicking up a storm. In fact, you can watch my belly jump around from across the room like I'm hiding popping corn under my shirt. As you can imagine, it's hard to fall asleep with all that bouncing going on. Still, that's nothing compared to the heartburn. I think I'm finally going to give in and just take a prescription to stop the burn. I can't handle it anymore.

Bailey has settled down quite a bit now that Ryan is home. She's sleeping in her own bed again and has been sleeping through the night. Well, she was up once the other night but it's far better than being up every second night with her. Or multiple times in one night. There hasn't been any thunder for a while either, that's helping her quite a bit too I would imagine. She has gotten extremely bold with her food stealing though; the second your back is turned she will jump on the table and eat your breakfast. Cailin thinks it's hilarious.