A Little Update

I keep thinking our lives are going to slow down!  I'm not sure what we're so busy with, but weeks just seem to fly by, with us left in the dust thinking, "what happened? I wanted to get ______ done, but there was just no time."  Here are some of the things going on around the Janzen household:

I managed to get kids' rooms sorted out and nearly completed.  We finally decided where to put who: Annalise & Cole are now sharing a room, and the baby will go into what was Annalise's room.  It just seemed to make sense to place the two sleep-through-the-night'ers in the same room - rather than having an infant who wakes up every few hours keeping our toddler awake too! Not to mention naps during the day - Annalise is finally on a really great schedule for her nap(s) and it will be nice to keep her on that schedule as much as possible.. One solid nap in the late morning, and then (depending on time of day, etc), another "nap" (or more often, quiet time in her crib) for an hour in the afternoon.  I am SO grateful that we've gotten her used to having quiet time in the afternoon - I think I'll appreciate that a lot when Baby #2 is in the picture.  I had a lot of fun putting Cole & Annalise's room together - it was a fun challenge trying to figure out how to make it suitable for a 10-year old BOY, and a 16-month old GIRL!  I promise to post pictures once the finishing touches are done.

The transition into a new room for Annalise went so much smoother than I had imagined! I think I had a harder time with it than she did, actually. It's such a strange feeling (and I know I'm going to feel this a lot) making room for another baby .. especially before I really KNOW this baby.  It felt like I was taking something away from Annalise taking her out of her own big room that she's used to, and moving her into just a small "corner" of  Cole's room.  The first night in her room she cried a bit longer going to sleep, but then proceeded to sleep peacefully through the night.  Since then, she's been a little weird with her sleep, but yesterday (after an especially rough night) a cold that she must have been fighting finally surfaced, so I think once that has passed, we'll be back to peacefully sleeping through.

Derek is working between raindrops, and between weekend commitments, to build an extension on our deck in the back.  It's going a bit slower than he had initially planned, but he's getting work done on it here and there, and hoping to have it mostly done by the time Baby #2 comes.

Annalise seems to be changing every day & learning something new.  It seems like she's got another word in her vocabulary every-other day.  One of her newest favourite words is "baby", just in time (and she uses it mostly correctly, too!).  She's definitely become a toddler... this girl gets into EVERYTHING!  Some days I feel like I'm just following her around saying, "no, no Annalise, don't touch that" or "please don't climb on there". Luckily, at the end of most days I can just giggle about her crazy little personality & all the mischief she gets into during the day.  I'm so happy to say that I'm enjoying her so much more every day.


Baby #2 is growing well, and I'm still feeling pretty good.  I am 34.5 weeks now, and certainly starting to feel the aches & pains and discomfort of getting close to Baby Day!  Yesterday I vacuumed & cleaned our floors, and then I had to sit down for a while.  I had forgotten how exhausted such small chores could make me feel.  Simply bending over to pick something up is a pretty big ordeal! I'm doing my absolute best to LET IT GO when it comes to having a perfectly clean house.. that's pretty tough for me, but I realize a clean house might just be something of the past once I have 2 children to tend to. 


I imagine I'll be grateful for Annalise to simply be entertained - even if it means scattering the contents of my cupboards all over the kitchen floor.


Have a great summer all; stay tuned for another update, probably after Baby #2 makes his/her entrance into the world!
D.