I'm back!

Yep, I'm back! I took a break, a bit abruptly, after a particularly rough week. Everything's okay here - just a lot to get done. In the spirit of my last post, I've been trying to focus on my primary job - being a mama and a wife. I don't need to fit into any particular mold to do that. I've been enjoying a little bit of extra time with my family (I'll take as much of that as I can!), but I'm ready to be back sharing about our life as a family. I can't promise I won't need a little break again, but next time I'll try to announce it instead of just disappearing!

One of the best parts of focusing on being a mom has been developing a routine without questioning myself constantly. If something works the way I want it to, that's how it gets done. For us, this means cloth diapers don't work, and cleaning is much easier with traditional cleaning products. If I have to eat fast food once or twice a week because of my work schedule, that's okay. In the end, I've been much happier, and our house is much cleaner! The key to this is not the particular choices that we've made - it's not questioning myself. Living in a constant state of doubt is somewhat of a given for a new mama, so if there's anything that can be a sure thing, it makes sense to make it so.

Now that I have a little bit more sanity on my side, I'm excited to start decorating Emily and Erin's room! When the girls were born, we lived in an apartment. We knew we'd be moving soon, so we didn't do too much to decorate, but I did paint wooden letters in green and pink to spell each girl's name and we hung them on the wall. I've gotten some ideas in the meantime to make their room a little more girly, like making a bow hanger for their wall and adding some hooks for hanging up their little hoodies. We went shopping with Dan's mom yesterday, and found some very cute pink toy baskets and a pink closet organizer. I've also seen cute wall stick-ons that we could use to brighten up their walls. I want to get on Pinterest for ideas, but I'm a little nervous! Have any of you decorated a little girl's room recently? What was your favorite aspect of the decor?

Emily and Erin just turned 7 months last week. I looked back at some pictures from their first weeks of life, and I really have a hard time believing how far we've come. Both girls are very vocal and very mobile, especially on our hardwood floors. We have some toys that play music and make sounds at the push of the button, and those are the favorites right now. We also have an assortment of small rubber duckies, since their bathroom in the apartment was decorated in rubber duckies. One duck in particular has a sailor hat and necktie, and he is the toy worth fighting over. Other duckies are sometimes coveted, but this one always gets both girls' attention immediately. Their first crush - Sailor Duck. Awwwwww...

For some reason, they are both fascinated with our dustpan. In the apartment, I got the brilliant idea to 1) buy a red polka-dot dustpan and 2) hang it on the side of our garbage can with one of those stick-on hooks. I can't count the number of times I've had to redirect their attention from the dustpan in the past week alone. I don't quite know what it is or what they think they would do with it, but they sure love it. They also love our shoes, so we've had to get a lot better about keeping shoes out of their reach.

Erin loves books, which really means that she loves to chew books. She takes all of the books we have stacked up and pulls them out and samples the corners. Emily loves the bouncy chair and the swing, meaning she loves to nibble on the edge of them. It seems a little strange, but I guess there's really no harm in it. The world from a baby's perspective certainly is fascinating!

As far as size goes, both girls are in 9 month clothes, though that's mostly for length. They still fit into some of their 6 month pants, and when it comes to pajamas, they are almost in 12 month sizes. I don't know how much they weigh, but they are so tall that we've been looking at bigger carseats, so around 28-29 inches. Weight-wise, I'd guess Erin is around 17-18 pounds and Emily is around 16-17 pounds. When we were at the store yesterday, I saw some little preemie clothes, and I had such a hard time believing that we were scrambling to find those for our girls when they were born! Of course, they quickly outgrew them, but still. They grow up so fast. *Sniff*.

I hope you all have a wonderful Wednesday!