First day 4K

So many emotions:

Excitement,

nervousness,

and a little bit of sadness.

4

Dear Abby-girl,

You are 4! You rocked your 4 year appointment.  You didn't cry after the shots and even thanked the nurse when it was done.  You are 40 1/4 inches and 36 # 8 oz.  You are perfect.

You are amazing, challenging, kind, fiery, loving, sassy, sweet, and spiteful.  You are a mini me which makes it hard for me to parent you.  It's difficult to teach someone to be a better version of yourself.  I am amazed how much you have learned to do in this last year.
You can write your name, draw a heart, draw stick people, draw basic shapes, count to 15 consistently, recognize all the letters.  Sometimes you even "read" a book title to me by saying all the letters you see on the cover.  You still enjoy anything art related - crayons, chalk, paints and now workbooks.  You are definitely ready for school.  This year you are in Preschool Adventure one morning a week and the teacher reports you are progressing every week.  You have learned many new songs there like "Rise and Shine and welcome to school today" and "I like the pumpkins with the happy face".

Cinderella is still your favorite movie but closely followed by The Lion King and The Jungle Book.  These are the three movies you most often like to play when you are imagining or playing with figurines.  Your favorite shows right now are Peg + Cat and Word Girl on PBS but you still like Curious George, Dinosaur Train, Super Y and Sid the Science Kid too.

You are really good at riding your trike.  You still can't catch a ball or hit it with a bat but you love to try.  You have really excelled in the water this year.  You are no longer afraid to put your head in and have been teaching Emerson to blow bubbles.  You often didn't even want us near you and just wanted to try floating and kicking by yourself.

Our current bedtime routine is 3 books, but long books count as two.  Then hugs/kisses, sometimes you'll say prayers, and then you want one of your music boxes on.  I kind of miss when you used to ask for us to sing all the Princess songs or Twinkle, Twinkle before bed.  You are able to calm yourself down a little bit better by yourself.  Sometimes you sleep with "Grandma Bear" or Dumbo and his mom but usually you sleep alone.  Well, until about 1 am when you come sneak in our bed for a little snuggle in your perfectly chosen mismatched pjs, because that's how you like them right now.

Your favorite meal is breakfast.  There is not a breakfast food you don't like.  Otherwise you have become kind of picky and don't like meat right now unless it's meatballs or sausage of some kind.  You still love yogurt and could eat 3 a day and fruit is always a good go too.  You still don't always like noodles or potatoes which is weird for a kid.  You'll almost always eat corn or carrots.  You will NEVER pass up chips or ice cream just like Mama.

Your friends you talk about the most are Orla, Broc and Eli.  In fact we are pretty sure you think Orla's name is really "My best friend Orla".  You often sing songs about how much you miss her even if we just say her yesterday.  We can't go anywhere in West Allis without you looking for Eli and questioning why he didn't show up.

Your favorite toys right now are still animal figurines of any kind especially to play Lion King, any dress up clothes and your Leap Pad.  Mostly you still do alot of imagination play so you are not that into toys.

You can do buttons but not zippers.  You can put your shoes on the right feet more than half the time.  You can use a fork, spoon and sometimes a knife.  You can use scissors for straight lines.  You can brush your own teeth pretty well, wash yourself in the tub well, and wash your hair in the shower now.  You can get food out of the fridge to help with meals, help clean up your toys, help vacuum,  and clean the mirrors.

But most importantly, you still love to be with your family.  You still love family hugs, family movie night and story time.  You are growing too fast but I'm happy to see you are still a sweet, kind, loving girl.

Love you Gator,
Mommy

A Ray Of Hope

Ms. Abby has been giving us a run for our money since she turned four.  She has not only gone deaf, but has become extra emotional.  She has horrible tantrums and often is too rough with her little brother.  I spent sometime sobbing the other night because we have obviously failed as parents and she is going to be a serial killer.

Then today when Emerson and I picked her up from preschool, she automatically handed him half of her snack.  I didn't ask her to, Emerson didn't ask for it (yet).  She just saw us, smiled, said hi and handed him some graham cracker.  She's still in there!!  My sweet, cuddle bug of a girl is still in there.  She's still kind, loving and thoughtful.  I just miss it with all the extra drama these days.

The sunshine and these sweet little moments today have renewed my spirit.  Happy Spring!

Keeping it real

I previously posted my goals for the year.  We're almost 25% through 2014 so time to be accountable.

1) work out 4 x a week to maintain my weight and reduce stress. - I'm making progress on this but not quite there.  Probably 80% of the time I have had 3 workouts a week and I restarted Body Pump so I'm satisfied with me progress there.  But I did surpass my weight goal and have reached a weight I can't even remember being.  Major success!!
2) Get a 3.5 GPA to maintain my scholarship. - First class completed and I NAILED IT!!
3) Become a better couponer and stick to the budget.  Otherwise I won't be able to do any of the other things I want to do in the list below. - I was doing great on this until March.  I got talked into a Wildtree freezer party and bought more meat in 1 month then I usually do in 3 weeks, so I think we can shave some of that off in the next quarter.  Also, by giving up Facebook for Lent I'm missing my couponing ladies and they're hot deals.

Other things I would like to do:
4) Purge this house of excessive stuff which includes a joint rummage sale with a good friend. - I successfully purged Emerson's room, much to Raina's dismay.  More clutter for your house my dear friend.  I had done the same to Abby's but she keeps bringing in new treasures.
5) Get the backyard presentable.  This includes getting a patio put in since the deck is falling apart. - The snow is almost all melted.  Abby and I cleaned up the remaining pieces of Frosty this afternoon, does that count?
6) Read the entire New Testament in one year. - Opps I forgot about that one, but I've been faithful to my Lent challenge.  Sorry Jesus.
7) Repaint Abby's room. - Nope
8) Repaint the kitchen. - Nope
9) Finish the toy room. - Nope.  
10)Stay on budget for our annual vacation. - So far so good.

I blame 5, 7, 8, and 9 on Spring never showing up.  By June I hope to have more of these things done.  Have you reached any of your goals yet this year?

Things I don't want to forget

Abby continues to amaze me with the things she says.  Recently she has been asking a lot of questions about seasons and starts most days by looking outside and saying "Spring Please".  She even wished on a star a few nights back for Spring.  When it snowed again Tuesday, she said "What? Where did THIS snow come from?"

____

She's very protective of her brother lately and gets mad at me whenever he cries.  She has told me several times in the last weeks to "Stop hurting my brother's feelings!".  

This morning the cat bit her.  Once I calmed her down she had a lot to say:

Cassie bit my shirt.  She bit Daddy's pants the other night.  This could happen to Emerson too.  I don't want it to happen to Emerson.  I will be really upset with Cassie if she does that.  Then I asked if she thought Cassie should live somewhere else, we talk about this sometimes but never move forward.  She thought really hard and said I think she should still stay here . . . for now.

_____

She's starting to understand some things about Sunday school and Bible stories.  She was reminding Tricia today that as her Godmother she is going to help teach her about Jesus.  The other night when we were driving home from dinner with friends she asked "Mom, why didn't Jesus's brother want his coat?"  

I quickly realized she must be talking about Joseph's coat.  "Do you know what jealous means Abby?" 

"No. Tell me".

"Jealous means you really want something that someone else has and it makes you feel angry they have it and you don't.  Did you ever feel like that?"

"No.  I just feel happy.  Jesus doesn't want us to be jealous, right?"

"Right".

"So why do they want his coat?"

"I don't know.  They must have really liked it."

"Jesus wants us to be happy, right?"

"Right."

"People are jealous of Jesus sometimes too".

"That's right Abby, because they want to be happy too".

This girl blows me away.

This really happened

Abby: I'm really disappointed that my nightlight still has poop on it.
Me: There's poop on your nightlight?
Abby: That was REALLY naughty of me to get poop on there.
Me: How did you get poop on there?
Abby: I was trying to poop behind my light.
Me: What does that mean?
Abby: I'm not sure.

How did she get poop on her nightlight? When did this happen?  Did it fall in her potty or did she use it to wipe?  Did she have poop on her hand that she wiped on the light?  Did she do it last month and just remembered today?  Kids are gross!

Sick Day

 Today this little Christmas princess stayed home sick.  Now I prefer to wear pjs all day when I'm sick but this little lady wore the dress in this Christmas picture . . . All Day.  Even through her 2 hour nap.  Maybe the velvet was soothing but the bottom is a scratchy material to poof out the skirt.  Every time I saw her red eyes and pale face in that dress I smiled.

When she wasn't sleeping, coughing or watching tv she was crying for Emerson.  She even told me that if I let her go to Lori's, "I won't cough on my friends, I promise.  I want to be with Emerson".  I'm so glad these two love each other so much.  Get well soon sweetie.

Embrace it

I'm probably the only one in Wisconsin that isn't sick of snow yet.  My favorite part about living in Wisconsin is that we have seasons.  Today was a balmy 27 so FINALLY Abby got to play in the snow with her brother.  I wasn't sure how he would do.

He jumped right in.

Crunched some snow in his hand,

Tried to dig it up, 

and marveled at the beauty of it.

While Abby relished the fresh air, 

the mountains,

And the quiet.

She couldn't stop smiling, 

inventing new games, 

and laughing.

And of course they BOTH had 

to have a taste.

We definitely embraced the season today!

Love

Abby: "Mom, why do you look so sad?"

Me: "Because I really wanted this job and they didn't want me to have it.  And now I feel like they are playing games with me".

Abby (in a very angry, self righteous voice): "They are mean!  You don't need to play games with them anymore.  It's not fair! I don't like those mean ladies!"

The fierce love of a little girl.  We're raising her right.

"I wanna take a picture with my mad face"

15

This little man can not wait to be big.  He wants to do everything his big sister does whether he can or not.

He says so many words it's hard to remember how young he really is.  His favorite word right now is "mines".  I just heard you say awww.  But it is NOT cute when you hear it 100 times a day.  He also says banana, apple, kitty, Jordy, Abby, Daddy, puppy, bye bye, baby, Mama, down, up, blankie, no, go-go, le's go, and bath.  Ba ba means blankie, nuk or a cup depending on the immediate need at that time.

He still keeps us guessing with sleep.  Sometimes he'll go down really nice but wake up hours later screaming.  Otherwise he'll be a nightmare to put to sleep and then sleep until 7:00 am.  Two weeks ago he cried for midnight until three AM for no identifiable reason.

He has 8 teeth and a couple we can feel may be trying to pop through.

Taking in the view of downtown Chicago.

His favorite food is bananas.  He could probably eat 4 at one sitting if we let him.  He is always hungry but is getting pickier.  But like his sister, there is no fruit he will turn away.  He also will never turn down cheese.

He doesn't really play with any one toy.  He did take to carrying around one of Abby's dolls for a few days but prefers to rip all her books now and break everything in our home including his skull.

At home he mostly screams mines and cries a lot but he does a really loud adorable fake laugh when Abby is laughing about something.  He has started giving kisses and hugs.  He loves to climb and snuggle.  He is a handful but at the end of the day he snuggles in so close when you read to him and it recharges your battery for the next day.  Love this little crying mess of a man.

Putting it out there.

People don't often tell their goals to others because then they will have to work on it.  How dumb do you feel when someone asks you how is such and such going and you haven't done a thing?  This year I finally followed through on a resolution.  I got to my goal weight and worked out 3 times a week nearly every week.  Sure I didn't really start until August but I did it.  Eventually.  And I found an activity that I can do to reduce stress and get the kids out of the house.  Friday nights is our new gym night where I go to Zumba and they "play with the kids".  Both kids love it.  It helps that one of the ladies at the Kid's Club is "Grandma Barb".  What better motivation then an hour away from the kids when they are enjoying themselves.

This year I want to:
1) work out 4 x a week to maintain my weight and reduce stress.
2) Get a 3.5 GPA to maintain my scholarship.
3) Become a better couponer and stick to the budget.  Otherwise I won't be able to do any of the other things I want to do in the list below.

Other things I would like to do:
4) Purge this house of excessive stuff which includes a joint rummage sale with a good friend.
5) Get the backyard presentable.  This includes getting a patio put in since the deck is falling apart.
6) Read the entire New Testament in one year.
7) Repaint Abby's room.
8) Repaint the kitchen.
9) Finish the toy room.
10)Stay on budget for our annual vacation.

I know it sounds like some of these "other" things could be down all together in one weekend but not in this household.  So if we accomplish 2 of thse "other" things I will be one happy lady.

What is the biggest goal for you this year?  Did you meet a goal last year?  Happy New Year!

My new skinny face.  12# down!