another day when learning to relax hasn't happend

ok...Jade this is for you when i need to embarrass you or make people laugh on your wedding day (if we both make it that long)
Jade woke up at 5 am...5...it was dark outside...we went back and forth from beds, i finally got her to stay in bed by taking away a bunch of glow in the dark jewlery. At about 7ish i hear both girls up and laughing. Then crying because Jade who has climbed into Alana's crib cant get out again. We all get dressed cameron leaves and alana looks tired so i put her in her bed for a nap. Jade HAD to put on her new ballet outfit. So i taught her how to 'ballet leap' and twirl with her hands in the air. Then we just danced to music for a while. When she was done dancing we colored then alana woke up and we had a snack. It was about 11:30. we went for a long walk. I had to buy hair dye so we walked all the way to Smith's. I thought they would be happier if i got them something -plus i've been wanting to get Jade a snow cone for a while. Into the store with the snow cone we go- its all over her the floor, the stroller- awesome. On the way home the other half of the snow cone that was in Alana's styrofoam cup gets spilled and Alana proceeds to eat the cup. not kidding. Jade is yawning and talking about how hungry she is the entire way home- how she needs a sandwich. Its 12:30 when we get home. I make a sandwich for Jade. She will not eat it. wont do it. no. eat or go to bed now- bite. eat or go to bed now- bite. Finally the blessed hour of one comes and its NAPTIME! Alana goes right down. I put Jade in our bed as usual. She is up. I show her that I am throwing away the ballet outfit that is so cherished. bearly a whimper. get her in bed and she starts crying- you will stay in bed. Daddy comes home about 3 mins later. He is swatting flies hears him and comes out 'i'll deal with this christie' After the third time of her coming out i roughly grab her and chuck her in bed 'DONT GET UP!' cameron leaves 15 mins later. i look in my room to see if she is finally sleeping....She is sitting on my bed eating my BoM. literally ripping out the pages and stuffing them in her mouth. i am flabbergasted. She has turned over the basket of folded laundry so that she could stand on it and proceed to spread my jewlery all over the place. The filing cabinet in the closet has its first drawer open with papers pulled out of it. i'm about to pull my hair out. Alana is up again. i have to dye my hair, its already mixed. I pull both kids out of the rooms with strict orders to 'behave!' I get a little dye on my hair when i hear something tinkling in the kitchen. rush in to find Jade has pulled a chair up to the counter, climbed it and is standing on the counter sucking on the end of a tylonol dropper with all the medicine around her. i yell (i admit it). She runs out. i go back to the bathroom to finish and she and alana have pulled everything on my side of the sink off including the fake flowers onto the floor. I push them both out. i am the huffing wolf. I get everything back in place get most of my hair done and see that jade has pulled all the magazines out. drop of dye on the bathroom sink. alana tries to paint the counter. It works. drops everwhere...i'm almost done. 'mama, i need to wash my hands' I missed getting one tub of lotion. Jade took it into the living room and dumped it on her head, all of it, on her head. i'm done dyeing and about to die. she pulls her panties off and gets into the tub. I am about to lose it--honestly its gone, whatever it is, i am devoid of 'it'. I get both girls in the tub. Since one cannot take a bath without the other. First they are very cute getting conditioner all over each other, washing each other up--except...they are getting conditioner all over each other. I take every bottle off of the tub sides. I start to fill the water. my hair is setting. Jade starts pushing alana's head under the water...i am the wicked witch, where is my broom and monkeys i want to sniff in those popey flowers. send me down a rabbit hole. finally we are all in the shower and i'm getting the dye out and putting the conditioner in when jade in using the side of the tub as a slide hits alana they both fall and alana bites her cheek...blood coming out of her mouth.
In the midst of melting down i called sarah - my life line - please my let come over, or come here or at least get jade to play with ethan i am going to die. so after the shower we all get into the car and head to sarah's. Jade falls asleep in the car...of course. If she could only learn to calm herself down without being strapped down i think we all would be happier. in the mean time i hope that i make it through tomorrow- i'm driving by myself with both girls...maybe i should consider alocholism...

tenacious

there a few words to describe jade: stalwart, unwavering, really really smart, tenacious...we got these glow in the dark bracelettes (sp?) from micheals for a dollar the other day. last night cameron gave jade one before bed. he told her he was only giving her ONE. she wanted the other one, she wanted an orange one. ten minutes of arguing later and she finally realized that dad was serious. he would give her the 'orange' one tomorrow. she went to bed. In th wee hours this morning i hear jade's door open. it is dark. its the dark right before the sun comes up, so you know its morning but to be awake is a sin. then i hear a plastic bag, our door 'orange, mommy, orange' huh? 'orange dada' 'jade what time is it? you need to be in bed, get back in bed now.' 'orange dada' She had woken at the crack of dawn found the bag with the glow in the dark bracelettes hidden behind the couch and come to tell us that she wanted her orange bracelette now. it was tomorrow afterall. you know that this girl is always going to get what she sets her mind on...stand strong in the face of opposition and accomplish her goal because dang it orange bracelette are IMPORTANT!

normal day...

highlights:
i told jade that she couldn't play with the cue sticks. 'why?' 'because you're a kid and these are for adults.' 'i'm not a kid i'm a princess.'

we had to go to a funeral so i was trying to explain what a funeral was. i told jade that when this nice lady was done with life she was going home in heaven to heavenly father. 'i want to go' 'where do you want to go' 'i want to go with jesus.'

As i was getting ready for the funeral i was on the phone with friend ooh and aahing over her problem. i went into my bedroom to change my clothes. i didn't think about how jade and alana where still in the bathroom i had just left. when i went back into the bathroom jade had gone poop in the toilet and alana was playing in the unflushed toilet. Jade was standing on a chair in front of the mirror cutting her hair.

Joel, the boys and joel's girlfriend came over for dinner last night. Jade was on one. At first she couldn't leave nathan alone and kept getting right into his face or jumping on his lap. Next she moved onto Connor. She would stand on the arm of the couch and jump on him. over and over and over. finally he looks at me and i said, she's not going to stop. so he turns towards the tv and ignores her. she jumps on him. By the end of the night she is playing slide down luchie's legs. Alana on the other hand freaked everyone out with her climbing. she only fell once but was of course on everything. She flirted with everyone and then walked around and made everyone laugh--she walks like she is drunk all the time. And when she is trying to get a grin she pushes out her butt and chest and saunters away. pretty funny.

so that someday i will laugh...

mom suggested that i write some of this stuff down that has been happening so that someday i can look back and laugh...sure. jade is a maniac. she doesn't sleep. seriously. we have been fighting her for weeks on bed time. since we've moved into our new place we cannot tie her door closed. therefore we put her ot bed- she gets up- we put her to bed- she gets up and wakes up alana- repeat for two hours. so i gave in to cameron last night and we pushed her bedtime back an hour. why not put her to bed when she actually was falling asleep before...i put alana to bed first then sat on the floor and read to jade for an hour. we sang songs, we brushed her teeth, we said a prayer and i layed her bed. she was yawning and rubbing her eyes- so stinkin' tired, i thought this may actually work. my was i wrong. not even two minutes after i put her to bed she is up, she smiling little face peeking out the door- runs back to bed. three minutes later she wakes up alana. she wasn't asleep until ten. alana woke up at midnight, sometime later, three, and then jade woke up and then was up for good at 6:30am........yeah. the other night i prayed what to do and thought 'be more loving'. i'll tell you something thats the hardest thing to be. since i got a pass to seven peaks yesterday my new plan is the go every morning for an hour. we went, the girls were having a ball. after rescuing jade from trying to drowned herself under the tire swing for the fourth time it had been an hour and it was time to go home. i pulled jade out of the pool and the tantrum ensued. falling down, screaming, running away, trying to get back into the pool, a full blown death is approaching tantrum. finally strap both girls back into our car and i look over- lo and behold alana has thrown up all over herself...awesome. clean her up. on the way home i look back and more throw up and what is that, what is that all over her legs, her hands, oooooh diaherra...everywhere...throw up and diaherra all over everything....nothing could make this better. fast forward to after lunch. alana of course goes down like a saint since she is trying to transition to one nap a day. i put jade in my bed with books, toys, all her stuff. door, put her back to bed, door, put her back to bed, door....time out! crying crying crying crying crying crying crying crying crying. put her back to bed- she is finally out. maybe. yesterday she found the diaper cream i had accidently left on the floor and rubbed it all over her body, hair and the brand new carpet...this morning she found a blue colored pencil that i had left on the dest and marked all over a wall. how about some cute things? this morning cameron went to get alana out of bed and she was playing pook-a-boo with her blanket when he walked it. so cute. before the dredded naptime with jade we couldn't find her and she was sitting on her bed 'i'm reading daddy' dang cute. when i was stressed trying to clean diaherra and throw up off everything jade says 'i want to dance'. i cry most nights lately. if you wanted to know the truth here. motherhood is hard, i'm not good at it. i'm trying to figure out how to do this. but someday when i'm old and gray i believe i'll read over this and laugh and think wow what a ride that was.

so we moved...

we hated our old landlords, couldn't wait to get away from them but cameron hates to move. since he did it a lot of his growing up years he has a lot more experiance with it than i do. we looked and looked and couldn't find a dang thing. we thought- shoot one more flippin' year with these people! we signed the contract and gave it to our landlords. That same day i was talking one of our neighbors. They had found this 'perfect' apt but didn't want to move--they walked us right over. It fit every requirement we had. we moved in a week later! It is $25 cheaper than what we were paying last year- its mostly in the ground but wonder of wonders all the windows are above ground and therefore feels like its not a basement! The rooms but the kitchen have ceiling fans :D It has brand new carpet and paint. huge rooms! did i mention that? HUGE HUGE HUGE rooms. our master bedroom is enormous, i think its the biggest room of the apt. the girls are now sharing a room and i think its going to be great. with any move there will be some growing pains. The move---sucked. it really really sucks to move. as this is the first time that i have moved as a family unit i was surprised by how much it sucked. i lived my whole life in the same house. when you're single and moving its not a big deal since everything you own can fit your backseat. Cameron and I moved into our last apt before Jade was born and therefore we had almost nothing. fast forward three years and we have a ridicilous amount of crud! I now understand why cameron did not want to move. Most everything is unpacked which is great. and we really love this little gem. it has a backyard and everything. we are a block away from the park. Cameron can still walk to work which was a necesity. i mean the only negative about this apt is that it doesn't have enough storage. we hated having to leave our friends at the old place. but we are still close enough that hanging out shouldn't be too hard. Anyway- sarah was amazing and watched our kids overnight for us!!! we could not have moved if she hadn't done that. Jay and Jesse helped us load and unload...Anyway- we are so excited about this and just wish that all our friends lived close enough to see our new diggs and be excited about them with us. it just feels like a new start and even when you liked your 'old' life doesn't a new beginning just feel refreshing sometimes--like taking a shower in the middle of the day sometimes just feels really good...here some pics...befores and afters:

some pics to catch us all up...i'm really behind.

so...life has been good over here. cameron is still doing school- forever. the kids are so fun. its been a pretty busy time over here. we just got done with Amber's wedding- that is cameron's sister. I did her hair and make up for the event, but of course we didn't get pics of her...just the before hand. jade was the flower girl- so cute, and i was a bridesmaid. Amber and Justin seem so happy! so that is great! Amber looked beautiful. And Justin seemed so happy to get this lovely lady. Cameron's family was up here for the wedding and we had the privledge of having Ben and Lynn stay with us, it was really fun... I'm really finding my girl side of loving to shop and spend money...its a problem in our lives. Jade is getting better and better at talking. she cracks me up. I love her new phrase of 'a little bit' 'mama hold me a little bit' 'read a little bit'. So funny. Alana isn't walking yet, she is super close! but man she loves to climb. this is my rock climber for sure. She gets into everything, and is better at making messes then Jade, which is really saying something. They are playing together much better. its cute to see them chase each other. and then giggle. Anyway, life is really great over here. We're busy and i'm tired most of the time, but life is great. here are a few more pics

oh yeah...i fell and biffed it at amber's wedding...jade and i were the first ones down the aisle. awesome

Alana Mae Brady

Happy Birthday my dear baby. You are one years old. I know i'm a little late in posting here. Alana you came into this world screaming, you screamed for months afterward and now that you are finally sleeping through the night i feel like i'm really getting to know you- happy. You have become a happy child, thank you. I love how smart you are. It is amazing to see how quickly you pick things up, to see you figure things out. You love to tease your sister and it is funny. This morning you were trying to comb your hair (the little you have). I love to see you problem solve. It is amazing how you can figure out how to get what you want. You are the squirmest child i've ever come across. but right before we put you to bed i love that you snuggle with me. I love that you hug us and put your head down on our shoulders. You are definately my hyde baby- thank you. I love you ears, and that you are big like your mama was when she was little. I love your big cheeks and your amazing smile. your eyes are absolutely beautiful. i love your little soft hands. I love how much you use your legs- i think you have more control over those than your arms. I really love you alana and our lives would not be complete with you. Happy birthday baby.