Peace (thoughts at the end of a busy day)

Well. Not completely. Reilly may or may not be done coming out of his room. But I can promise you that if we could see Jaina, she would look like this (minus the dolly and plus some pajamas).

She is such a little fireball lately. So "I-am-almost-2-and-I-will-let-the-world-know-it." So opinionated. So antagonistic (towards her brother - she is always teasing him) at times. She delights in saying "no" to anyone and everyone. She screams like she's just shut her hand in the door when Reilly acts like he might want something she has. Or when he has something she wants but won't surrender it. She is such a little girl, but when did little girls get so loud? :) At the same time, she is a delight. She is talking more all the time, and her little voice is so sweet (when she's happy). She likes to give kisses, read books, go outside, and do whatever Reilly is doing. She constantly wants "snacks?" and is good about taking half of whatever it is to Reilly. She waves at everyone in Wal-mart (or anywhere else) and hopes that they'll wave back. She loves shoes, and I have to hide them if I don't want her wearing shoes inside all day. She loves her babies and likes me to swaddle them for her. She loves to unwrap them and bring them right back. She loves puzzles. She likes to pretend she's asleep when I open the door to get her out of her car seat. She loves to make messes and then act very upset that they're there. She loves the library, baths, yogurt, necklaces, Elmo, and her Daddy. She is a sweetheart, when she wants to be. It will be fun to see what kind of a kid she'll be, if we can just get past these next few years. :)

Reilly is growing so fast. He communicates so well, and understands things I don't expect. (Though his emotions and his logic are very "3") I think I miss his pacifier more than he does. He was so good at going to sleep most of the time with it. Now he has a hard time settling down. He must get that from his mommy. And his daddy. He is getting taller, and more capable, and can do new things all the time. Some of his more recent accomplishments include getting into his carseat (he's been doing that for a while) and getting the straps on and buckling the top part, playing with playdough for almost an hour at a time, getting really good at the puzzles he just got for his birthday, and saying his nighttime prayers all by himself. He is a wonderful little boy, and though he is very strong willed and frustrates us, we love him so much and are always excited to see what he'll come up with next.

Jeremy will be back tomorrow. He has been in Dallas, Texas, for a NUCCA conference since early Wednesday morning. It's been a little weird to have him gone. The kids miss him and wonder where he is, and Reilly is asking about it a lot more this time than before. The past few days when he hears a noise he can't explain he says, "Daddy's home!/?" To him anything in the future is "tomorrow" so I'm not sure if he really understands that we'll pick his Daddy up tomorrow, but I'm sure he'll be excited. It hasn't been that different for me, since there have been many weeks that he's been gone almost this much, but the nights are hard. I have a hard time making myself go to bed, and for some reason when I'm by myself I can't turn my mind off. We'll all be glad to see him soon! :)

Jeremy is having a great experience, learning a lot, and getting to use his new camera a lot, since he's in charge of photographing all the important stuff for this conference.


It's funny, because I was all excited to not have to really cook for almost 4 days (double-excitement because I have again re-dedicated myself to being healthy and losing some weight before the holidays - it's much easier if I don't have to cook meals every evening!) and then I ended up cooking for like 6 hours today... I'm not one that enjoys spending time in the kitchen. There are so many other things I'd rather be doing. The cooking's not SO bad, but I just can't deal with the mess. It's so depressing when you clean the kitchen up really good so you can cook a big meal, then you cook it, you all eat it, and the kitchen looks the same (or worse) than before you started the whole process. It just doesn't seem like you accomplished anything for all that effort! Anyway, I got it in my head in the last day or two that I wanted to finally turn our deep freeze on (it's been dormant since we moved last November) and start making a freezing some extra meals. I meant to do this little by little, along with regular meals (just cook a little extra), but for some reason I went crazy and (in the last 24 hours) made and froze a bunch of chicken meat for tacos, 2 big pans of "Lazy Lasagna," (which I haven't actually tasted...it seems like it will be good!) 3 sets of spaghetti sauce, some round steak for burros, and a bunch of extra Italian-seasoned ground beef/turkey. SO unlike me, but it's nice to know I did it. There was the incentive of not actually having to serve dinner after all that work, and knowing it was okay if the kitchen looked terrible for a while. A big crock pot of potato soup (another recipe I've never tried) is on the docket for tomorrow, along with some more chicken, if I get the urge. I'm guessing I won't get to the chicken, since my house looks like a tornado has gone through (mostly the kitchen, but several of the other parts could have used attention today too). I find it slightly annoying that it looks like this at the end of one of my busier days in quite a while (aerobics at the church this morning, then the library, then grocery shopping, home for lunch and Jaina's nap, cooked from 12:30 pm to about 6:30, started the kitchen clean up process, bathed and got kids to bed) my house looks so scary. Oh well, at least there's a bunch of packets in the freezer to show that I did something today! Now I'd probably better go work on that kitchen... (to anyone that read this entire journal-entry/novelette, I'm impressed!)