Catching up...beware of long post :-)

Wow, sorry it has been so long! We've just been so busy, especially now that I am back to working. Our weekends have been booked (and will continue to be for awhile), and our evenings are always go, go, go. The house is getting pretty messy as we still have not quite figured out how to successfully balance working opposite shifts with family time, child care, and house upkeep. All of those things are getting done, except the house upkeep part is a little (okay, a LOT) lacking. We'll get into the groove eventually, it just takes time. And I'd rather let the housework slide a little instead of family time, or child care duties, of course. :-)

Thanksgiving was busy for both Andy and I. I had to work, so I stayed home while Andy took the girls to Virginia for Thanksgiving, and then to Cook for another couple of days after. I did drive to Virginia just for Thanksgiving dinner, and then drove back to Duluth since I had to work that night. I was lonely at home by myself, but I did take the opportunity to get some stuff done during my waking hours. Oh, and it was nice to have the bed to myself! And of course, Andy having the girls by himself (albeit with some grandparent's help) kept him plenty busy.

Coming up this weekend, we will be in Biwabik for my good friend Chelsea's wedding. Kaitlyn is a flower girl (cross your fingers for NO breakdowns...) while I am matron of honor. I am super excited about it, though it will be another busy couple of days...Friday night the girls are staying in Cook with my parents, and Saturday night they will be in Virginia with Andy's parents. I will be busy with wedding stuff, and Andy will be busy getting the girls from point A to B at the appropriate times, and making sure Kaitlyn is well rested and fed before pictures and ceremony starts. It will be nice to have a little break though - a couple of nights away from the girls. We haven't had a night to ourselves in nearly 2 years, so this will be nice. Though as fun as it will be, we will inevitably miss the girls like crazy and think/talk about them a lot. So anyways, stay tuned for some wedding pics...particularly of Kaitlyn looking beautiful in her little flower girl dress!

As for how Kaitlyn and Brianna are doing - great, as usual.

Brianna has giggled a few times now (though only for a couple of seconds each time) and her head/neck is getting increasingly steady and strong. I am still nursing (though only part time since I returned to work) and have been very happy to have gotten this far after a pretty rough experience the last time. Brianna has turned out to be a great sleeper (so far) just like Kaitlyn. She has been sleeping 10-11 hours straight at night for a week now, and before that she was sleeping 6-8 hours straight for quite awhile. We never did anything to "make" her sleep better (or Kaitlyn either)...we have just plain gotten lucky...twice. Brianna is way bigger than Kaitlyn was at her age...she is just growing so fast, it is incredible! She currently has the typical bald spot on the back of her head, while the rest of her hair seems to slowly be getting lighter...we might end up with another super blondie on our hands, but time will tell. In any case, she is such a beautiful little baby girl and adding her to our family was a wonderful decision :-)

Kaitlyn continues to talk more and more. She can count from 1-10 (although you have to catch her at the right time, or else she is too stubborn to do it for you). She regularly says "I love you", and several other phrases such as "Good night" and "I poop". She has started to say "bye bye" to anyone or anything. The other day when we were leaving for daycare, I told her it was time to leave and opened up the front door. She was still in the living room, and before she came to the door, she had to say "Bye bye moose" about 6 times. The moose is a Christmas decoration, that last year she was terrified of. And she was this year at first, too. But she apparently has overcome that fear, because now the moose is her friend. Our Christmas tree is up, and when Kaitlyn saw it lit up for the first time she said "oooooooooh, pretty". Surprisingly, she has been leaving it alone...not even trying to pull ornaments off of it! The cats are the bigger pain, although even they aren't as bad as I had thought they would be considering this year we have a real tree. Even with the fake tree in the past, the cats had a hey day so I assumed a real tree would be twice as bad. I was wrong, so far...hopefully I don't come back in a week to blog about how the cats knocked our whole tree over, or ate half of it.

I could go on and on about how much Kaitlyn is changing and learning, but I will stop here...I think I've blogged long enough for the day!