Bacon

This morning, I fried a whole package of bacon. All 20 pieces, crispy and delicious. I don't know why I made that much for 3 1/2 people, but I did. We didn't eat it all for breakfast, so I left a plate of the leftovers in the kitchen for convenient snacking.

And snack on bacon all day we did. I had big plans to incorporate bacon into every meal today, but after my bacon wrapped hotdog for lunch and all day bacon munching, I thought there might be such a thing as too much bacon.

Mmm, I love bacon.

We Made It

JD travels a bit with his job. I hate when he's gone because it means I am all alone with the girls without family close by to help me out. It is usually pretty rough for me even though I do 90% of the childcare when he's home. There's just something nice about knowing I have someone home with me at night to help with the other 10%.

The first couple of times JD traveled without us, I had a pretty rough go at it. There were tears, there were impatient moments, there were frustrations. And the girls had a rough time too, ha! I think it had a lot to do with having a newborn and a brand new 2 year old and feeling like I wasn't qualified to juggle both at the hardest part of the day: nighttime. With each trip he takes though, I get a little better at managing everything by myself.

This past week, JD was gone 4 days. It is the longest he has left me with both girls by myself. The verdict? We did great! It was such a peaceful, fun week for the girls and me. We kept busy everyday with fun activities with friends. I didn't cook or do laundry or clean a thing all week (heaven!). Nighttime was still a challenge as the girls have different bedtimes and both are very clingy/needy after dinner, but I learned that if I kept them busy during the day they went down really easily.

I usually have a terrible time sleeping when JD is out of the house, but this week I only woke 1 night lunging from my bed due a snake nightmare. They were coiled at my feet so I slept the rest of the night in the fetal position, careful not to stretch my feet to the end of the bed. Every other night I fell asleep quick and slept like a baby without any fears of intruders or snakes. I did check every closet and behind the shower curtain before bed every night, just in case. 

Even though we had a great week by ourselves, it is so wonderful having JD home. We picked him up this afternoon and promptly smothered him in kisses, showed him dance moves, and fed him his favorites treats. I cleaned, did laundry, and cooked like a madwoman this morning. It's nice to know we can make it without him, but we don't like it one bit. Everything is better when Daddy is home.

The Worst Thing About L.A.

The worst thing about L.A. is the traffic. I know everyone says that about big cities, but until you've experienced it for 9 months, you have no idea how terrible it really is. It's gotten to the point where I don't really want to go anywhere anymore. I can't handle the godforsaken traffic.

The traffic is so bad that it doesn't really matter what fun thing you've just been out doing, once you get stuck in traffic for 2 hours just to travel 30 miles back home, your fun has been ruined. Take today for instance. The girls and I went to the OC Fair. We got there quickly, had a great time with friends, and made sure to leave by 3:45 to beat the rush hour traffic. We sat still for an hour and a half, traveling an inch at a time, just to exit the parking lot. The parking lot! It took another 45 minutes to drive the 2 freeways back to our house. Once we got home, I forgot all about the cotton candy and games and fun day I had with my girls. I just wanted to scream. Argh.

The thing that aggravates me the most about the stupid, ridiculous traffic is that there seems to be no real reason for the jams. One minute you're cruising along, happily traveling at a reasonable pace and the next you're stopping for no apparent reason. JD and I have analyzed this strange phenomenon and we have concluded it always slows down near the ramps allowing more cars into the freeways. It appears that other drivers freak out at the sight of more cars and just stop excelerating. This causes the 40 bajillion other drivers behind them to slow down and before you know it, the whole darn freeway is still, all because some extra cars wanted to drive in one of the 12 lanes. Stupidity, I tell ya. 


I'm not a person that really minds driving in a bunch of traffic. Lots of cars do not intimidate me. When we first moved here, I went places all the time. I thought it was so cool to live somewhere with so much fun stuff to do. But I can't do it anymore. I can't get in my car knowing that it is going to take me 4 hours to go get a hotdog. I can't get back on a freeway just for something fun to do. I can't. I'm staying home.

11 months

Yesterday this sweet baby turned 11 months old.

Just a short while ago, she couldn't even sit up. She was a squishy blob of a baby. Now she feeds herself, drinks from a sippy, loves to plays with her toys, follows her sister everywhere, and laughs at our jokes. She is a big girl.

Our sissybug is sweet and spirited. Even at 11 months old, she refuses to be the quiet little sister in the shadow of her older sibling. Penelope is right in the middle of whatever big sis is up to and is not afraid to stake her claim on the toys/shoes/clothes/snacks she wants. She may be smaller than her sister, but she's no pushover.

As cliché as it sounds, I really cannot remember what our lives were like before we had our littlest daughter. Penelope is such a perfect fit for our silly clan, our family feels complete with her in it. Complete for now, that is ;) . 

I prayed for this baby. I loved her before she was even born. My heart grew twice its size the moment I saw her. She has made me a better mama, I feel like a seasoned pro with her. I cannot believe it's almost been a year since I laid eyes on her tiny, squirmy, pink body for the first time in that hospital room.

Next month is her big first birthday and even though it means my baby is not a baby anymore, I'm excited to watch her grow into a little person. I love you, sweet sissy!

Weekend Adventure: San Diego Zoo

Last Friday, we drove to the southern most tip of California to San Diego to check out the zoo. It's pretty famous as far as zoos go and we really wanted to check it out for ourselves. It didn't disappoint.

The thing with this zoo? It's huge. Way bigger than any other zoo I've visited. Just when we thought we had covered the whole place, we checked the map and discovered we missed a whole region of exotic animals. It took us about 4 and a half hours to see everything but the foxes. It was either cotton candy or foxes.

We walked until our feet throbbed. Finding the moving sidewalk escalator thing was a miracle.

We saw some great animals: hippos, rhinos, pandas. The exhibits gave excellent up close views of these guys.

 

The girls had a blast. Penelope loved riding in the Bjorn and Beatrice was happiest running around, checking out the animals on her own terms.

We had a great family day and can't wait to go back.

Today

I've had a really bad day today. I wanted to write about how I got stood up by the Orkin man for the second time this week after waiting around for 2 hours for him to show. I wanted to write about how not awesome it is when your baby refuses to nap while you pace the floors for an appointment that isn't going to happen. I wanted to write about how Beatrice has defied every single thing I've said to her today and how impatient I've been with her. I wanted to write about how when we finally did leave the house to meet friends, we were late and I had a near meltdown on the phone with JD. I wanted to write about how when we came home, tired and hot, we found our house had been intruded upon so we had to pile back into my car, tired and hot, while we waited on the police. I wanted to write about how the intruder was actually the Orkin man who was let in by our landlord, even after we requested to be home for all appointments. I wanted to write about how the Orkin man never sprayed for spiders because there were toys on the floor, left there because I thought he stood me up for the second time and I never imagined he'd ever be in our house without us there. I wanted to write about how much I hate the Orkin man and spiders and our landlord. But I don't want to focus on the negative.

Somewhere in the middle of my bad day, we went to the beach. It was hot and crowded, I was loaded down like a pack mule, the bad day was still happening all around me, but for 2 hours I didn't care.

 

The baby is screaming, it is stifling in our house, and I have no idea what we're having for dinner, but I don't want to write about that. I want to write about the 2 good hours we had today.

Beatrice's Room Tour

I have been wanting to do a house tour since we moved to our new place back in January, but there are still window treatments I need to decide on, walls without pictures, and floors without rugs. I realized that it will probably be another 6 months before I get everything completely decorated, so I'm gonna start with the rooms that are mostly done.

Beatrice's Room

We are living in another white space. White walls, white carpet, white trim. I love color, but we can't paint the walls. I compensate with colorful everything else.

We aren't supposed to hang anything heavy on the walls surrounding our beds because of earthquake threats. I had enough of the blank empty space above Beatrice's bed, so I made tissue paper pom poms to hang from the ceiling. The ceiling is apparently made of concrete or some other impenetrable material because nothing I hammered into it would pierce through. I gave up after the staple gun popped a smashed staple a little too close to my eye. I ended up using pushpins in the picture moulding.  Even though the poms aren't suspended over her bed like I planned, I think they turned out pretty good.

Beatrice loves them.

Her bed might be my favorite thing in her room. I had an antique white iron bed growing up (I slept in it until I got married actually!) and I really wanted my girl to have something similar. Ultimately, we want the girls to share a room once Penelope is a bit older so we chose a twin bed for Beatrice. We will get Penelope a matching one when she outgrows her crib.

At the foot of the bed is a little reading space complete with comfy chair, toddler sized.

In the middle of the room is a little wooden table and chairs. It was my little brother's and we painted it white. Both of my girls love this little area.

While we were living with my brother and sister in law last year, Beatrice fell in love with the menagerie of taxidermied critters. So after we moved, Seth sent her a mounted buck for her own room.

Beatrice still has a few pieces of furniture from her nursery. We didn't want to buy all new since we plan to have the girls share one day. One of the items that stayed is the bookcase.

I pick books off of the floor approximately 37 times a day.

View from the other side of the room and a few odds and ends:

 

The best part about Beatrice's room is the view. She has a gorgeous harbor view with the bright blue Pacific right outside her window.

She loves her room. I love that even though it is pretty pieced together without much theme in mind, it suites our girl and is a colorful space just for her.