Aaah, the holidays.

I feel like a massive scrooge, but I hate Christmas. I love Jesus. I love that he was born. I just hate CHRISTMAS. The endless shopping and family and food and EVERYTHING THAT IS CHRISTMAS makes me nuts. Probably partially because Christmas involves long series of surprises, and I have never liked surprises. Definitely partially because Emersen's absense is particularly poignant during the holidays. But you know, on the good side, I was happy that I had to go to work for the first time ever this evening, because it meant I get to escape for a little while. And the girls wore cute matching dresses today, which everybody complimented. Elspeth's is no longer white, but hey, maybe it will come out in the wash. Toddlers are the reason that Oxyclean was invented, I'm sure.

FREE MONEY, woo!

I just got a bunch of money back on my holiday shopping, yay! Ebates is a website where you sign up, click through their site to get to your favorite online stores, and then they give you money back... plus, you can get a five dollar sign up bonus (and I get a five dollar referal bonus) if you use this link:
http://www.ebates.com/rf.do?referrerid=Zisa046jjHB4QMc0VuPqJA%3D%3D

No joke! No hidden fees or anything, and they will either send you a check or drop the money right in your paypal account, easy peasy.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Bottle problems

Wena does not like bottles. She seems to think that they are some sort of torture device. Which is odd, because a couple of weeks ago I was relieved to see her take a bottle with no fight, just drank it down. I think the only reason she did so was because she was half asleep. These are even bottles of expressed breast milk, I have never even tried to give her formula. This is creating a problem because I work eight hour shifts! When I worked during the day, she would take MAYBE two ounces... and most of that probably really went down her shirt. Now that I am working nights, she WILL NOT SLEEP. Poor Mark! I am actually handling my first graveyard shift a lot better than he did, because I at least expected no sleep. So, tonight he is going to cuddle her up in the mei tai, and get the bottle nice and warm, and make sure the nipple is warm, and when she's all sleepy he's going to try and sneak it in there. But seriously, she is five months old, I SHOULD be able to feed her when I leave and feed her when I get back. We will figure something out.

Yup, don't post very often.

  Too busy.  Byron's birthday was on the sixth, I made a cake (from scratch even, so Elspeth can eat some) and I didn't bake it long enough, so it collapsed in the middle and had a gooey center.  But you know what, he asked for a lava cake in the first place, so there you go.  Baked the same recipe for Elspeth's birthday, and it turned out much better because, you know, it was all the way cooked.  I also discovered that you can't just substitute oil for the butter in my frosting recipe, as it screws with the texture.  So, it was tasty, but looked kind of rustic, I guess.  Then we had Halloween, for which Elspeth dressed up as a witch.  And amidst all of this I was looking for a job.  I even got an interview to be an editor for Multiling, but they decided to "keep looking."  Blarg.  BUT, as of today I have a job!  I am going to work graveyard shift at the front desk of the Fairfield Inn, and I start tomorrow!  (Somebody please help me be excited about this...)  This week I will be working days, so I can get trained, though, so we don't know how it's going to work out with the whole "somebody has to watch the girls."  But, that is why I took graveyard shift, because it means I don't have to put my girls in daycare, at which Wena would have to wear disposable diapers, which make her poor skin get all scaley and bumpy and peeley.  Blargyay. 

New pics on Flickr

Pengin bottom
Originally uploaded by Driggs family

Lots and lots of them. No titles, tags, or descriptions, but definitely pictures. I'll probably get them labeled over the next week or so, so watch this space, I guess.

I miss Emersen.

Her due date was a year ago last Thursday, and I'm lonely for her.  That's all, I guess.

Secrets of potty training...

So you remember how I was all confused about how to get Elspeth to night time potty train?  Well the answer it turned out was simple... cloth trainers.  I just left her cloth trainers on her and VOILA, clean and dry every morning for THREE DAYS!  I guess she just figured that she was wearing a diaper, and diapers are for peeing in, so she peed.  But trainers are for keeping dry, so now she goes potty.

As a side note on cloth trainers, we are liking the cheap Gerber ones we got at Walmart.  They feel more like underwear, we guess.  They are also cheap, which is a winning quality all on its own.  But we also have a couple of Imse Vimse cloth trainers, and if you have the money for them they are FANTASTIC.  They have a layer of waterproofing in the outside, so they have to be mightily full to leak, and the inside is terry cloth so they hold a goodly bit.