Wednesday Randomness on Thursday...

***Blog Frequency: Some of you might notice that I am doing good to blog a couple of times a week now. I remember when I started my blog. I was pregnant with Mariele, and Analese was still taking two hour afternoon naps. I also used pregnancy as an excuse to pretty much do nothing around the house, so daily blogging was very common back then. Life has changed! This is not a gripe or a complaint. It is just life as I know it now, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Taking care of a preschooler and a toddler is a very busy job. Add homeschooling to the mix and who can find time for blogging? I WANT to blog more often, but a blog or two a week is all I can afford time-wise at this point in my life. On the upside, the end of the year blog book should be easier to compile and cheaper this year!

***Birthday season: We tend to drag out the birthday celebrations in this family. Analese's official birthday is Sunday, May 2nd, but we have already started the festivities, and by festivities I do mean birthday gifts! Analese is about as pumped for her birthday as any one child could possibly be. I realized the other day that she does not fully comprehend when I tell her it is "x" number of days until her birthday. To assist her in learning about time, we did a fun birthday chain project for school the other day. She designed the top part of the chain. She drew a birthday cake with 4 candles, A smiley face for "happy" BDAAY ANALESE KRISTIN (I had to correct the K which she had drawn as an H) ARTHUR. We attached the links to this page, and every night at bedtime she gets to remove a link!




We had to hang it high up on her wall. Mariele ripped it down the first time because we did not put it high enough. Here Mariele is a little frustrated by the lack of havoc-wreaking opportunity.



***Speaking of Mariele, she is getting a little bored and feeling left out when we do school. She is not always content to just play in the diapers anymore. So I ordered her a little plastic table with two kid chairs. She likes to color now (with her left hand) and I thought she might sit for brief periods and color while Analese and I are doing phonics lessons.

***The Little gym: I am enrolling both kids in the fall. Analese will be taking a gymnastics class and Mariele will be taking a parent-child class. They are back to back on Tuesday morning, so PERFECT!

***500 in 2010 - coming right along there. Around 170 miles. Hoping to complete the 500 by our Dec. 5th cruise date!

***HOAs: GRRRRRRR! We have our heart set on a 12.5 foot play set to put in the backyard for the kiddos. Because it is over 12 feet, it will go to a variance committee that meets on June 2nd. It is a very nice looking, cedar wood play set. I am just irritated by HOA hoops. We did get approval to cut down a small, sickly tree. I was sweating that one out. I think I am more excited about the play set than the kiddos are. I can't wait to sit out there and watch them play!

***REMINISCENCES: I cannot believe Analese is turning 4! She has been sleeping in her own room in her own bed for about a week now. She had been sleeping in the crib that is sidecar to our bed for quite some time now. We have not pushed the issue. We were just hoping she would be ready to move at some point in the future. We have finally reached that point. For the first couple of nights, Lee was staying in there with her until she fell asleep. On about the third night she said, "Daddy, I'm big enough to sleep by myself." Lee asked her if she wanted him to leave and she said yes. Every night since, Lee reads her two bedtime stories, kisses her goodnight and leaves the room. She falls asleep almost immediately. AND....wait for it.....She makes up her bed when she wakes up in the morning! She loves to get my big reaction when I go in there! I'm just so proud of her! Again, I can't believe she is turning 4!!!!

***Cute pics of the week: Bath time fun!

Analese's growth spurt

Analese is in a major growth spurt. This is evidenced by the fact that she is......getting bigger! She is eating a lot, and seems to require more sleep. This afternoon right before Mariele's nap, Analese had a complete meltdown over the fact that Mariele messed up her memory cards (she was pretending that they were pies). I suggested that she was very tired, and she proceeded to melt down even further at the mere suggestion that she was tired. "I'm not TIRED! I'm not TIRED!" These are usually famous last words uttered right before crashing. I brushed her teeth, let her have her Leapster, and placed her in the crib in our room. I covered her with a blanket and promised to come back as soon as I got Mariele down for a nap in the girls' room. I promised that she could play Wii if she rested a little first. I left the room for about 2 minutes, found her bunny in the girls' room and took it back into our room. In that 2 minute timeframe she had turned off the Leapster and had already snuggled into the blanket to go to sleep. She quite happily took her bunny and drifted off to dreamland a couple of moments later. So here I am! Two sleeping kiddos! What do I do? Sleep? That does sound good. I'll just see how long the quiet lasts.

Busy Kids

Notice in this picture how Analese wrote her name on her paper (I don't ask her to do that since she is the only student) and how she put happy faces on her paper. She is making fantastic progress with her reading and writing. I am so proud of her! Mariele keeps occupied with the diapers while we are busy doing school.

Exclusive Interview

You read it here first!

A few of my bloggy friends have been interviewing their kids. It's been a hoot to read their responses. So I thought I would give an interview with Analese a shot. Here's how it all went down:

~What is something mommy always says to you?

Don't spit out your gum. (This is true - I do tell Analese to keep her gum in her mouth and not to play with it.)

~ What makes mommy happy?

That I don't spit out my gum. (Can you tell this has been an issue in our household recently?)

~ What makes mommy sad?

When I hide. (I did become a little overly panicky one day recently when Analese was really hiding out.....)

~ How does your mommy make you laugh?

When you say funny words like "cack." (Hmmm.....don't know about this one)

~ How old is your mommy?

3 (That is the first digit in my age:)

~ How tall is your mommy?

6 (I wish.)

~ What is your mommy really good at?

Folding laundry. (Sigh.....)

~ What does your mommy do for her job?

Fold the laundry. (Sigh.......)

~ What is your mommy's favorite food?

Tamales (It is a favorite!)

~ What makes mommy proud of you?

To color in school. (She has been coloring amazing pictures lately - in the lines and everything:)

~ What do you and your mommy do together?

Spend time.

~ How do you know your mommy loves you?

Because I'm good at school (I had a talk with her about unconditional love at this point and she added - and you give me hugs and kisses).

~ Where is your mommy's favorite place to go?

To the restaurant.

Some Randomness...

Whewww it has been a busy week. Pleasantly busy, I must say. The weather has been absolutely gorgeous. I have been able to log all of my miles this week outside! I have passed the 150 mile mark for my 500 miles in 2010. I do enjoy the runner's high when I am able to run.

Analese had her first dental visit yesterday. She was a fantastic patient. I think they were a little surprised at how cooperative she was since it was her first visit. She was ready to get "shiny princess teeth." Oh, and a toothbrush. She thinks it is really neat to get a non-battery powered toothbrush. Go figure.

I'm not sure I have mentioned on here, but Analese is actually READING! We are doing the Kindergarten level Hooked on Phonics, and she is making amazing progress with it. We are a little over halfway through the first of two levels. She particularly enjoys the mini-book activities at the end of the units. This morning she was working on a mini-book when I told her it was time to go to her make-up class at The Little gym. She actually started crying and said she wanted to finish her mini-book. I told her she could leave it on her desk and finish it when she got home.

She was making up a class that she missed while we were in Colorado. Just for the fun of it, we did the sports skills class today. She has been expressing such an interest in sports, and Lee and I are so totally "non sport" people. In all fairness, I did want to give her the opportunity to try it. There were three girls and about half a dozen boys in the class. They were working on baseball skills today. They had the soft tee-ball equipment. I asked Analese how she enjoyed tee-ball, and her response was, "Weeelllll, I really wanted to play REAL baseball." Meaning, she would have preferred it if the teacher would have tossed the ball to her and let her whack it with the bat. We have been playing "real" baseball in the backyard lately. She did seem to have a great time.

Here she is in her desk working on her mini-book before we left for Little gym.



Here she is all decked out for the sports skills class, ready to hang with the boys.



And Mariele - what's new with Mariele? Well, she just gets cuter and cuter. She loves to sit in Elmo's lap here.



She is becoming more and more verbal. She says mama, dada, Bo (the pink bunny), nana (depends on the context, if her hand is down my shirt it means she wants to nurse, sometimes nana means food), mac (mac n cheese - one of the only solid foods she really likes), no, hi, hello, hola (yes - she is bilingual), bye-bye, up, down, baa (for sheep). She sings the first part of "I Like the Flowers." She just sings, "I." She bob up and down to any music that she hears. If there is an explosion on the TV or a scene where football players are colliding into one another, she just laughs and laughs. She really does enjoy chaos. She imitates EVERYTHING that her sissy does. She likes to stand on the stool in the bathroom and get her teeth brushed. She takes her clothes to the dirty clothes basket after we undress her for a bath. She will bring me a diaper if I ask her to. She shakes or nods her head if asked a question. She can point to her belly, nose, ears, eyes, head, hair. She likes to brush her own hair. She is a climber. If she cannot reach something, she will find a step stool and pick it up and move it to the desired location. She loves to give hugs and kisses. One morning this week, Analese was crying about some random thing. I was holding Mariele and Analese had her arms wrapped around my waist. Mariele reached down and started stroking Analese's hair in an attempt to comfort her. This sweet bond that is developing just warms my heart and soul every time I am able to witness it.

The "end" of the blue bonnets

Following the last wintery blog that I posted, here are the very springy blue bonnet photos. Last year we were there on the first day of spring when the blue bonnets just happened to be at their peak. This year we were there a little past their peak. But I still took some beautiful photos of the girls in their matching yellow sundresses.









After the pictures, the girls enjoyed some playtime at the playground there.

Our last day in Colorado

On our last day in Colorado, we went up to Rocky Mountain National Park. It was Monday after Spring Break. We saw maybe five other cars in the entire park. It is the first time that we visited the park without paying! There was a sign instructing us to proceed into the park. No one was there to take our money. So much of the park was closed due to winter conditions. I had never seen it closed so far down before. We made it to 9600 feet before the road was closed. We saw lots of wildlife. Elk, coyotes, and mountain goats!



We enjoyed our Einstein Brothers bagels in the car, and Mariele got a driving lesson.




Then we got out at Sprague Lake. This has been one of our favorite little easy hikes in the park over the years. I wanted to pull out a before pic of the lake since it was snowed and iced over this time. I came across this old pic of me and Lee, then I realized that Sprague Lake is not the background for this pic. It is the Lake in Estes Park. But I decided to share this photo anyway. Don't we look so young and carefree and childless here?



I did find one of Sprague Lake, though. Here it is. Analese was 15 months old here, riding on Lee's back.



The lake was completely snowed and iced over. We perilously hiked the trail around the lake. There were some very slick spots. This was probably not a hike I would take my grandma on. It was beautiful and the snow was falling while we were there. It was a winter wonderland. It has now been a couple of years since we have seen true winter, so it was actually kind of neat to get our winter "fix."