SUMMER RECAP!!

Happy to blog again! I don't really have any excuse besides the usual. Too busy! But we're about to make a comeback over here, so get ready. :) Much has happened over the last 6 MONTHS! This could get lengthy...I'll try to take it easy...

Ava tried out soccer this June. She looked cute and all out there, but she by no means loved this sport. The first 10-15 minutes into the practice were great. Then she sort of wandered around and did her own thing. Most of her practices were spent off in the middle of the field yelling, "hey mom!! you see those clouds up there?! you think it's going to rain!?"

 

 

Watching her sissy.

 

She didn't even dig the cute coach. ;)

 

 

This little guy happened to be sitting on a rock outside our water garden on the day I got my new camera. So he became my test subject. Pretty, huh?

 

One of our maannyy trips to the zoo this summer. One of our favorite places to go. This trip was with Aunt Tammy & cousin Torie. 1 Favorite Place + 2 Favorite People = SCORE! :)

 

Just hangin' out...

 

"Siiiissy...look...at...the camera."

 

Silly sweeties.

This Month...

**In my defense, blogger was acting up when I tried to post this last week. So, I would have met my goal of one post per month...just so ya know I tried! ;-)**

February has been awesome. Great weather - when's the last time I could say that about FEBRUARY? I can't complain...we've been able to get out of the house and enjoy sunshine, fresh air, fairly mild temps & playgrounds!


My work life (schedule, on call, mandation, classes, stress, etc) is actually improving and I feel like we've been livin' it up this month! Speaking of classes & stress - our entire unit (attendings, residents, nurses) have been mandated to become certified in fetal monitoring. You know all those lines on the neverending strip of paper that prints out of the machine that is attached to the monitors on moms belly while in labor? Maybe you have no idea what I'm referring to, but all those lines and jibberish actually mean something and we, as nurses and docs, have to "read" the strips in order to know if mom & baby are healthy & happy...-ish...pretty much. Anyway, I took the certification exam after a long weekend of 12 hr days of work & mommy-ing...needless to say, I wasn't feeling up for the challenge at that particular time in life. There was no studying or prep...just a wonderful teacher from Seattle WA who came and delivered a kick a** 6 hr review course before the test that Monday. I went in with the mindset that if I don't know this stuff, perhaps I need a new career! Received my letter in the mail saturday telling me that I am, in fact, not the absent minded dummy that I thought I was after taking the exam. ;-) Sweet.


My kids have been great. We're coming into a really happy time frame here. Stella is emerging into this babbling, bashful, yet attention-seeking squeally baby. She smiles all day long! We've recently dubbed her the pterodactyl baby...for obvious reasons...she screeches like a pterodactyl!! It's the shrillest screechy scream I've ever heard and it mostly debuts when she's hungry and sees that the bowl of food is close, but not close enough to her tummy!!! :) She's awesome. My baby now and always will be.  She loves food and is starting to pick up teeny tiny things (like carpet fuzz, etc!) and put it in her mouth. Finger foods aren't far away. She gobbles up baby Mum-mums (rice biscuit looking things) and I've started giving her frozen fruit puree cubes in her fresh fruit mesh feeder. This week I bought a variety of fruits & veggies to really start broadening her diet. Should be interesting - I bought kale, turnips, beets, blueberries, carrots, strawberries. She's pretty much just had greens & yellow/orange food. I've even seen some babyfood combos with chia seeds (high in DHA and some other good stuff) so I'm thinking about adding some of that. I have fun with the babyfood making - always funny to see what color her cheeks will be stained today. :) The vibrant colors from the fresh babyfood blow my mind.

Ava is growing in LEAPS & BOUNDS! I think she's at the height of the "why" asking stage. Oh Em Gee!!! My brain can't even keep up with her why's...lol. Our whole day is comprised of "why mommy?". I try to explain it all the best I can, but sometimes I'm like, "Ava, mommy's brain needs a break from thinking!" ha!! She so so so loves books. I can't read her enough books. She's also big into hearing random stories. After reading her a few books at bedtime she says, "ok momma, tell me a story" and we have to come up with the most random stories ever. Sometimes I'll tell her bible stories, or the 3 little pigs or something, but after awhile she wants to hear a "new" story and I have to make one up. More mommy brain power...lol :). The wheels turn so quickly in her little mind. Preschool is going really well. She loves learning. I've backed off on the "paperwork" learning and we just play, read, listen to music & sing songs. Although she has been asking me lately to tell her to find the shapes on old preschool papers I've printed off. We do paperwork type stuff for maybe 15 minutes at a time...then the attention span dwindles. She learns & retains so much through reading & musical play. We've added some little chores to her daily life as well. Just little things that make her feel accomplished like getting dressed, brushing teeth, making bed, brushing hair, clean up toys in bedroom every morning. I do them along with her and then she gets a sticker for her chart. I love watching her learn. It's one of the top reasons for my serious homeschooling consideration I've been bouncing around in my head lately. We're lucky to live in a mini metropolis with so many resources for homeschoolers at our fingertips. I'm just beginning to look into homeschooling co-ops & groups (there are so many around here!) and see if its something we could do. Even if just for a couple years. We'll see where this goes! We're always on some kind of adventure over here!


Some pics...

Disney on Ice

What a fun outing with our growing girl! Stella stayed home all snuggled up in her bed (under the watchful "ears" of Miss Kim of course), while Eric, Ava and I had a night downtown. Ava did bring a friend - who other than her favorite buddy Eli?! She's so funny, there was no hesitation when we asked her which friend she wanted to bring along. Her "date" even had a single pink rose for her on this special occasion. Such a gentleman...

Cute show & a great time! Although, we were B-R-O-K-E when we got home. $12 cotton candy & $14 slushies!?!? We indulged despite that ridiculousness...

Pizza dinner!

Beauty & the Beast

Pizza cheeks enjoying the show :)

Ava's favorite - Timone & Pumba!!

It was a great show!

My, Oh MY, Do We Have Some Pictures to Catch Up!

Bean at 4 months

Sissys...snuggling to some Dinosaur Train. :)

Christmas cuties!

Love her smiles.

Baby girl at 5 months!

baby sneeze...so cute!

Oh my... just perfect :)

Stella and her favorite bedtime bear! Appropriately named "Beary" - thank you Ava :)

Well, what happened here? Anyway - milk and cookies for Santa...and Ava didn't want to forget her letter to Santa...that never...got sent...ooops! ;)

Ava got a fishtank for Christmas...and a lovely new blue fish named "Glowey" :) She can name 'em!

Oooh, lets try some cereal Stella!

Pretty serious about that lil guy...

Glowey - up close and personal. :) After we put Ava to bed the other night, she came out of her room 20 or so minutes later and said, "Glowey did not yisten to me, daddy" Eric and I looked at each other and said, "what do you mean glowey didn't listen to you, Ave? What did you tell Glowey?" At this point, Eric went up to investigate...hoping to not find a fish in her bed. ;-) Well, what had happened was Glowey got stuck in that tube in the middle with the bubbles. Ava was telling Glowey to get out of that tube, and he wasn't listening to her. Silly Glowey.

Smiley Face!!

Stella lives most everyday with Ava in her face. Of course the pink headband kept her occupied this time, usually its Ava's hair that she's going after.

The Pink Bandit Sisters

Stinkerbelle trying to figure out the sitting up thing.

Stella's grandma face. Cracks us up! I need to get a better picture, because when she makes this face she looks exactly like an old toothless granny!!

I couldn't leave out the best part of Glowey's habitat...it GLOWS!! Imagine that! :-)

Shutterfly

Click here to view these pictures larger

A Stella-bean Update...

This blog is our life book...our family journal...my only written memories of my babies (baby books are hit and miss around here...and they don't capture the feeling of the moment anyways). So it looks like I need to post an update of my baby Stella bean!

Stella will be 7 months old next week! So big...yet so little. :) She really is so little. My petite lil princess. At her 6 month well visit, she weighed in at 15 lbs 4 oz...putting her in the whopping 25th percentile and her length was 27 & 1/4, putting her between the 50-75th percentile. Long little string bean!

Rewinding a little, she began rolling over (controlled & consistently) at 5 months and she popped 2 bottom teeth at her 6 month mark. I'm wondering what 7 months will bring - sitting up alone perhaps? She is eating like a champ nowadays. Still nurses about 5 times a day, eats a breakfast of oatmeal + bananas or peaches and for dinner she has had any combination of avocado, sweet potatoes, peas, and pears. It took a little while for her to get the hang of food. We started out with cereal, and have s-l-o-w-l-y made our way to real food. She has just in the last week or so, really decided to take off with eating.

Our baby has been sleeping straight through the night for a week or so now. Happy or sad? I can't decide. Happy to be getting solid sleep again, but sad to miss out on the once a night feeding. She sometimes wakes up and stirs a bit around 3 or 4am, and if I reeeaaallly wanted to I could probably go to her, but she's back to sleep in 5 minutes...just long enough for me to think about getting out of bed. ;) The video monitor is so neat...I love looking at her cute baby bum high up in the air and her legs tucked under her body.

Her naps are sporadic and inconsistent, but whatever, she's happy to be awake playing with her sissy. ;) love these kids...

Now, let's see if I can post some pics from my iPad on here. Blogger is not iPad friendly, so this may not work. A blogger app would be nice!

Back From my Hiatus!!

It feels like just yesterday when I made my last post ...clearly I've missed a couple months of our lives, but I'm making a comeback!

Since the new year began, I've taken on the daunting task of reorganizing our life a bit. Nothing major, but I felt like things were getting away from me...my house keeping, Ava's preschool, my fitness (listen, skinny does not mean healthy...cardiovascular fitness and tone muscle equals healthy...both of which I've been lacking for a long time), my other job, meals, this poor BLOG!...I just kept jumping from task to task and nothing was getting finished. Not to mention my kids are growing and I strive to drown in their giggles and get lost in their hugs and kisses everyday of our lives. Hard to do when other things are lingering over your head. Needless to say, I think I'm almost there...so close to the land of balance and it feels so good! The first thing I had to realize is that, brace yourselves here, I AM NOT SUPERWOMAN! ;) So some things I just can't add to my plate...like P90X...good lord I was working out 6 days per week for 45-90 minutes! Gimme a break!! It's a nice plan for those who don't have 800 other things to do on top of working out. Now, 30 minutes 4 days per week is so much better - and needed! Anyway, it's good to have my priorities reorganized to include all those things important to me - like this blog! My hope is to post once a month. At the very top of my list is spending quality time with my kids and baby daddy. ;) Everything else falls from there. If I'm faced with housework and requests from my daughter to "pway wif me mama!" then you better believe I am stopping everything to "pway"!! And I'll be taking full advantage of any opportunity Stella gives me to nap-nurse with her or rock her to sleep, nestled up on my chest. Bad habits or not, those moments give motherhood meaning!! Lord knows I will miss these days when they're gone, but I will never miss those chores. I encourage all you overwhelmed moms to remember this everyday:

"Good moms have sticky floors, dirty ovens, laundry piles, and HAPPY kids."

Ava's 3!!

(You know I'm grimmacing as I start this post...Ava was 3 years old last month! Darn it!)

Where did my toddler go? My little wobbly-walker? My 4 front-toothed, babbling, drooling, squealing sweet baby girl? Shoot - I blinked and her babyhood is gone! Instead of dwelling on how sad that makes me right now, I'll focus on the now...on the hilarious, witty, sassy, and energetic preschooler that Ava has become!

She is an amazing big sister to Stella, and cares so much for her little stuffed animals. They go everywhere with her. Her favorite thing to play is "doctor" to her animals. Dr. Dad & Dr. Mom, Stella is usually Nurse, and Ava plays the voice of the animals. It's entertaining to say the least! :) Her imagination is taking flight these days! She's always talking about Swiper and how he's being mean to her animals...so usually I have to stop what I'm doing and have a talk with "Swiper" and tell him to be kind to Ava's animals. LOL!

We had a minnie mouse birthday party for her. It was pretty low key with just grandparents and us... and Ava's best friend Eli, of course. :) She loves that boy...and they play so wonderful together.

Enjoy some pictures...

Ava and I made this shirt for her birthday party. She wouldn't hold still enough to put her other handprint on there, but at least I got one. The front just says "Happy Birthday to ME!"

Ahh yes...there's the sassy side of her.

My momma made the cake. Talented woman. :)

Ava's favorite present. She named her pony, "Socks" just like the one she rode at the zoo.

A bike!! She can't quite figure out how to pedal...but maybe by spring.

Tired girl. Fell asleep on the floor that night. 3rd birthday parties are exhausting. :)

On the actual day of her birthday, we took Eli with us to the Dora and Diego exhibit at Cosi. (Notice she's carrying Georgia the pony with her...told you her animals go everywhere with us!)

Cutie Pies.

3 months, 3 weeks, 3 days!

October 29th marked Stella's 3 months 3 weeks and 3 days milestone! For a little background on this family tradition, check out Ava's post. Funny to see the similarities and differences between the three of us baby girls. Such a sweet tradition...that dress feels like an antique.

Mommy (Feb 1985)

Ava (Feb 2009)

Stella (Oct 2011)