Better late than never!

Wow - it has been over a month since we have updated our blog. I apologize - things have been fairly hectic.

On April 20th I started a new job. Yep - after over 5 years doing nights at RSI, I called it quits and joined the ranks of normal people who sleep normal hours. My hours are now 8 am to 4:30 pm (instead of 9:30 pm to 7:30 am) and I work Monday through Friday. In the one month since I've been done at RSI, I've already had more full weekends with my family than I would have all summer, if I was still at RSI. Another benefit is that I now have all holidays off! Looking ahead for the year, if I had been at RSI I was scheduled to work pretty much every holiday. I would have taken some off yes, but would have had to use paid time off and found a replacement (not easy to do). Another plus of my new job - if I am sick, I don't need to replace myself (which was often literally impossible to do - nobody wants to work a night shift with a few hours notice). If I want vacation, I don't need to find a replacement. That will be great! Yet another positive of my new job - the pay. It isn't amazing, but it is a bit of an annual increase from where I was with RSI. And last of all...I actually get to work with people. I'm not alone all of the time! It was definitely a great move and the chance just came at the right time. It originally started out just as me scheduling an assessment, which I did along with 2 other people. When I was done, I was told I did good and we could schedule an interview...could I do it in an hour? I had no chance to be nervous. So an hour later, I have an interview. Then another with a second person. I felt good about it, and the next day I was offered a job! It happened so fast, but it has been great for our family. Definitely one of the best decisions we have made, second only to having our kids :-)

And speaking of the kids...they are doing great. Kaitlyn is your typical 2 year old. Cute as heck, talking up the yin yang, and throwing the occasional tantrum. For the most part she is a sweet and helpful little girl. I am so proud of her! She is doing really good using the potty but we still have to conquer using it at daycare, at night, and for #2. She has great verbal skills and is speaking in a lot of complete sentences. Just a short time ago she asked me "Mommy, can I have some yogurt?" Well, actually she calls it oh-gurt. But close enough!

Brianna is now 8.5 months old and growing SO fast. She is still much bigger now than Kaitlyn was at her age...wearing jammies that Kaitlyn didn't wear until she was 15 months. And just yesterday, on my 27th birthday, she broke her very first tooth! Kaitlyn's first tooth didn't come until close to a year old! Kaitlyn has also been a pretty rough teether, always getting high fevers (I don't care what some doctors say, fevers CAN accompany teething. High fevers even. No doctor will ever convince me that Kaitlyn's high fevers have coincidentally come along with teething more than a few times!) But anyways, at least this time, Brianna's first tooth came fairly easily. No fever, just a little bit of fussiness last night. It was rougher than usual getting her to bed. But otherwise, no biggie. Brianna is also really super close to crawling. She is a little behind Kaitlyn in that area, as Kaitlyn started (army) crawling at 8 months and 2 days old. But it will be any day now that Brianna does it. She can go backwards...and she rolls all over the place back and forth across the room. She just needs to get the forward crawling thing figured out. Also in the past week she has finally started to really babble a lot. She is saying a lot of "babababah" and "dadadah", and various mixes between the two.

It is so fun watching them grow...but it goes way too fast.

Soon I will try to put some updated pictures up.