White Christmas

We had such a fun week! A big snowstorm hit on Christams Eve and didn't stop until Saturday. We had so much celebrating Christmas and playing in the snow. Emma held her own little triathalon the weekend before Christmas- she went hardcore sledding down the driveway on Saturday, Ice skating on Sunday, and skiing on Monday. She had her first ski lesson and did pretty well. She is completely independent on the bunny hill, but when we would take the chairlift, the slope had a little too much incline (believe it or not, in Minnesota!) for her to snowplow very effectively so stopping became a bit of an issue. She loved the chairlift though and begged to graduate off the bunny slope. Her being in a lesson for 2 hours meant that I was able to ski, by myself, for the first time in a few years. So fun, even if I spent twice as much time on the chairlift as I did on the slope- we are in Minnesota, afterall. She was pretty wiped by lunchtime, but she met a little girl in the chalet and they talked it up over hot chocolate. They became quite competitive, and Emma wanted to show her up, so off we went back to the slopes. Unfortunately, this little girl had been skiing since 2 and was unnaturally good for her 4 years. Emma was very frustrated and would not let me help her. It did not end well. She slowly creeped over to the "magic carpet" which is a like a conveyor belt to get the kids up the bunny slope, and then fell on her belly on top of it, with her skis in the air. It took her up the hill like that, screaming, until I unclicked from skis, ran up the hill, and pulled her off. She was fine, of course, but in a puddle of tears. We called it a day. She has another lesson in 2 weeks, so hopefuly this incident will be forgotten.

Christmas was a blast. Having kids makes everything just so much more fun and magical. We trekked through the snow to Auntie Kris house for Christams Eve dinner and gift swap game. Then came home and left cookies for Santa. Christmas morning was spent at home, unwrapping and playing. The highlight was watching Emma play her new Wii dance game. Her favorite number is Cotton Eyed Joe- so






hilarious. The girl








obviously did not get her dance talent







from Mike or myself- she is pretty good. Then we spent the rest of the day at Papa and Nana's, again opening gifts and feasting on steak and lobster. Delish. A great week. Emma is off again this week and we have more snow fun planned up at the cabin- skiing, snow tubing, snowshoeing, and snowmobiling. More pics to come!

FIVE

Emma is 5 years old today! Holy cow, how is it possible that I am mother to a 5 year old??? It sounds SO old to me. She has been waiting for this day for a long time. We threw her a big party last weekend. My good friend Chris (mom to 2 boys) is starting a party planning buisness and asked if she could do Emma's party to help her get started- and she was very excited to do a girly party for a change. Of course I said YES! We did a ballet party. We had a real ballerina come and teach a ballet class, the girls made and decorated thier own tutus, we decorated ballet ornaments, made snowman ballerinas crafts, and of course cupcakes and ice cream. We held the party at my parent's house because they had the perfect "studio" in the basement- a workout room with floor to cieling mirrors that they cleaned out to make room for the ballerinas. It was an explosion of pink everywhere and so, so cute. The girls were in awe of Lauren the ballerina teacher and listened very well for over 45 minutes. It was so adoreable. Emma had a great time and will remember this one for a long time to come. Today for her actual bday we are going ice skating and then she ordered up her favorite dinner (Halibut steaks!) from papa to cook for her bday dinner. She is really growing up. Happy birthday my sweet girl.

We went sledding the other day at the park and the girls had a blast. I was amazed at how brave they both were, especially Abby shouting "Faster, Faster!" as we flew down the hill. The girls then played on the playground and pretended the slide was a luge. It was pretty funny- the landing looked a little rough to me, but the both did it over and over again, so I guess it didn't hurt! Then we went to a coffee shop and warmed up with hot cocoa. Next up, ice skating with daddy tomorrow and downhill skiing lesson on Monday! Emma is out of school for 2 weeks so we are staying busy in the snow!

Gratitude

This is my favorite time of year. There seems to be so much to celebrate at every turn- birthdays, halloween, Thanksgiving. It is a very social time of year for us, with lots of get togethers and nights out with friends. But staying home feels so good too, keeping cozy with good books and movies. Emma started a phase a while ago, asking for new things all the time. She would see something on TV or in a magazine and say, "oh, mom, I REALLY want that (insert obnioxous plastic toy here)." This got us started on a talk about gratitude. We did some volunteering at serve day for homeless families at church and really started talking about how fortunate we are and how others have much, much less than we do. We talked about what really makes you rich- love, family, and health. We cleaned out the playroom and loaded up Mike's truck with toys she chose to give to other kids that may not have as much ( I was really surprised at how much she wanted to give- I had to actually ask her to keep a few barbies that she does still play with all the time!) We also started a gratitude journal and evey night before bed, we write down something she is grateful for. Some of the responses have been really funny- they include:

I am thankful for:

my pretty hair because I can put lots of stuff in it,

the planet because we want to keep it healthy and kids should give the planet a helping hand,

Ice cream,

the leaves to rake and play in outside,

my nose when there are no booggers and I can breath at night to sleep (YES, me too!),

Mrs. Herring because she is taught me to say red in spanish- rojo.

my cindarella doll kit.

I think I will love looking back on this when she is older.

We had the great treat to meet Grandma Nona and Uncle Danny at mall of america for dinner when they had a layover in Minneapolis. The girls were so excited to see both of them, and it was way to short, but great to see them. I so wish we were lucky enough to have BOTH sets of grandparents close by, but again, I need to look back to gratitude and say thanks for having such great, loving family.

Emma's cough from her flu/cold virus has been lingering for 4 weeks. It really is only in the morning and occasionally at night, but it sounds terrible. I took her to the doc yesterday and she said she has bronchitis and she is now using a nebulizer for some breathing treatments. The doctor said she could hear her wheezing when she was breathing. I felt a little terrible for neglecting to take her in for so long- but it really didn't seem to be bothering her- it was just a cough, no other symptoms. So hopefully this will kick it. Both the girls are home all week for Thanksgiving so it is a good week to get healthy, and give thanks.

Abby is 2!!!

It has been a busy couple weeks. Everyone in the house except me was hit with the cold and flu virus. It was not fun. Mike did not leave the couch for 3 days, which he NEVER does. Emma and Abby both had fevers and headaches, bodyaches, and then a big cold to finish it off. They still are not quite 100% two weeks later, but slowly feeling better. I stocked up on movies and craft projects and we stayed at home all week. They were very glad to get back to school this week.

Halloween was a blast. Emma was a kitty cat, Abby was a ladybug, and I was a punk rocker, or a Moxie girl as Emma called me (some kind of doll???) We had a lot of fun trick or treating and live in the best neighborhood during Halloween. Every house goes all out with creepy music, decorated doorways, blow up creatures, even some parents got all scary and jumped out with candy (a little too scary for Abby.) All our neighboorhood friends load up the burleys and strollers and make some thermos of hot chocolate (with Bailieys for the adults :) and hit the streets. Emma stuck it out with all the big kids, running house to house, and told me it was the best day of her life. We then headed home with one tired kitty cat and handed out candy to all our customers, as emma called them. Fun night. We traded in our bucket of candy for some other prizes, keeping a few m and ms and other favorites.

Then on Sunday it was Abby's 2nd Birthday Party! I can't believe she is 2! Family and friends came over and I made a big bbq pulled pork lunch and Laura and I made her cake from scratch- it was yummy. She had fun playing outside, eating cake opening presents, and being loved up by all the family and friends.

She was very sad to see her guests leave, and watched them out the window.

Sisters

I can't believe it is almost Halloween already. Minnesota was hit with our first snowfall, just a light dusting, but we had the coldest beginning ever of October for Minnesota! We spent the past weekend at the cabin, changing out the summer toys for the winter toys. Mike and I put our waiters on at 8am and rode the wave runners over to the landing- brrrrrrr!!! The snowmobiles are out and ready to go. I am looking forward to a winter of skiing, sledding, snowshoeing, and snowmobiling with the girls. Winter is so long in Minnesota, you have to make the best of it!

The girls have really been playing together a lot lately. Abby's language is really coming along, with 2 and 3 word sentences now and new words everyday. And my goodness, can this girl eat. The other night she ate more pizza than I did! She is starting to like to play princess with Emma and I hear them giggling in the playroom now all the time. There is still a lot of fights and "MINE" going on, but there are also great streches of harmonious play. I am getting glimpses of them as friends and it is really nice. Emma is still enjoying gymnastics and her favorite is the beam and forward rolls. Abby will be starting a gymanstics class with me next week. They are also staying busy with school. Emma is starting to read and also loves doing her math workbook- in fact this what she wants for her birthday! Abby is a fearless, crazy girl- jumping off and climbing up things all the time. Always running everywhere. She loves playing mama and pushing her babies in her stroller. She does not like it when she doesn't get her way and when we put her in time out, she immediately starts batting her eyelashing and saying "sorry mama". I seem to have 2 girls who know how to turn on the charm.

Still Here

Whew...it has been a busy couple of months with lots of changes. It seemed like Labor Day hit and our lives started to get crazy. Emma started at school 3 days a week, Abby had her two classes, gymnastics, I was volunteering on two committees, helping out a Sunday school class at church, and trying desperately to find a new sitter to help out when I had to work 3 days a week. It was too much, something had to give. I was spending my time at work worrying about our (young!) sitter with the girls and by the time we paid her, I was making very little money. I was starting to feel really stressed and our lives just felt chaotic. So we made the decision for me to stop working for now. It immediately lessened the stress on all of us and made everything just run smoother. It also forced me to look within and do some work on myself to keep the stress from spiraling into the anxiety I suffered postpartum with Abby. I started doing yoga and meditation and though I have always been a runner and perfer my workouts much more fast paced, I have learned a lot about slowing down and it has been really nice.

Emma is loving school and has the same teacher as last year which has been nice. She is making new friends and is now learning Spanish as part of her curriculum and shares new words with me everyday. Abby is also loving her ECFE class with me along with our storytimes on Mondays. It is fun to have time just with Abby and I feel like I can now see her full personality coming out. Emma is at school 9-3 on Fridays and it has been a lot for her. She takes her regular preschool class in the morning and then kindergarten readiness in the afternoon. Friday nights have not been fun after picking her up- she cried over everything and is just overtired. This may be another thing that we cut from our schedules to just make our lives more peaceful- but she really loves it, so we have to just see how it goes.

We have made a couple trips to the orchard for apples and rasberries and a trip to the farm to feed the animals and enjoy the fall colors. Mike and I just got back from a trip to Chicago with NO KIDS for our anniversary. It was so much fun and wonderful to reconnect. We had a fancy dinner on the 95th floor of the Hancock building, did some shopping on Michigan Ave, took in the ferries wheel at Navy Pier, took a river cruise, and saw a Cubs game at Wrigley Field. It was so much fun. We forgot how easy it is to travel without kids and felt so free and giddy all weekend. We slept for 12 hours straight the first night- with NO ONE waking us up....it was luxiourious. Thanks to mom and dad who kept the kids spoiled and loved all weekend long.

So fall is moving on at much saner pace for us and we are stopping to enjoy the colors and tastes of the season. Here are some pics from the first day of school, the farm, chicago.