Quickly....

I'm in Atlanta right now! Darling Adam is holding down the fort with the girls for four days while I visit my team in Huntsville, Alabama.

How come it's always when I'm nowhere near a computer that I'm ready to write a post? (Probably because my mind is clearest when away and unencumbered to think about all of the other things...)

So since I doubt very much my fingers and thumbs can type out for very long on a phone before the autocorrect drives me batty...

I'll open conversation instead.

How do you say thank you for things that are ethereal other than by saying thank you? It feels a little awkward and cold, but I honestly don't know what else to do or say. I really don't feel like I would even have to say anything...

I'm asking because it's a common occurrence now with my recent FB posts on my CML and liver conditions and the responses I receive... Being told in person that a person is praying for me, thinking of me, or.... I either feel ridiculous and foolish with only saying thank you or I feel cold and heartless that I don't know what else to say.

Sounds like a silly conundrum but I'm not joking when I say that I'm not quite sure what to do and it bothers me.

This is the start of a larger egg of thought in my mind as well... And something that is hard to write about without worrying about hurting feelings or offending anyone. I think part of the reason I stopped blogging for a while was that I never quite knew how to express myself without worrying about having to cover my thoughts and words. I see so many blog writers who pour their hearts and lives out onto the internet and one off statement or word that probably meant nothing or was simply difficult to articulate get picked apart for what they say.... And I don't have the energy to deal with nitpickers.

So we'll see where this goes, I guess. I'm glad to be blogging (thank you, autocorrect, for changing that to clogging) again, but also don't want to hold my thoughts for fear of what might become of them.

Happy Monday!

Erin

Ps. Happy birthday to my brother-in-law, Brian!

A Little Bit of This and That

Julia lost her 4th tooth tonight!  She wiggled and wiggled that sucker until at about 9 PM, she came proudly out of her room and shows off her very bloody tooth and Kleenex.  She was a happy cat.  And the Tooth Fairy did NOT forget tonight.  WOOHOO!

(No picture, of J today, and I figured you didn’t want to see a nasty tooth.)

(By the way, Grandmas, don’t pay any attention to the kids if they tell you to brush your teeth more… for some reason the kids were intent on “Grandmas don’t have any teeth and why not?” even though their Grandmas both have teeth.  So what the…? What?  Kids.  We told them that if they brushed their teeth a lot, they would be Grandmas some day with teeth.  Who knows.)

(And Julia asked me today when Adam would be a Grandpa.  Kids.  They are crazy.  I told her when she or one of her sisters had a baby, then Adam would be a Grandpa.  Thankfully that appeased her.)

Raven found this FANTASTIC helmet today at Wal-Mart.  And, coincidentally, we have had quite the loopy week at work which has resulted in the phrase “Unicorns unite!” (long story).  I told Adam about this story (which involves lots of “talking with ones hands”), and he sent this to me while I was at work this morning.  TOO FUNNY.  Raven is now our work mascot.

We celebrated life today with a trip to a new brewery (St. Patrick’s south of town that did NOT disappoint) and dinner out in Littleton.  Anna, our little copy cat, was having a good ol’ time and followed Raven across the rocks on our way out of the brewery.  Why walk on a perfectly good sidewalk when you can follow your older sister through the rocks to get to the van?

My apologies – if you’re a blog follower but not a FB follower, you probably don’t see Anna around much – and you might be surprised by her size!  I’m pretty certain that she’ll blow me out of the water at her two year appointment… tall, blond, and a big ol’ noggin like her mama.  Better to hold all the smarts in.  Hee, hee!

Happy Sunday!

Erin

I Really Couldn’t Say

I really couldn’t say how long it’s been since I’ve written a blog post without looking at the blog, and for that I apologize.  However, my desire is to return to it… sometimes it becomes really easy to post one-liners on Facebook or text and friend and writing coherently… writing something with meaning… takes the back seat.

To start catching you up on our lives… in no particular order…

We sold our house in Arvada and while we are staying in Arvada, our goal is to downsize and eventually purchase a smaller and less expensive house. 

The why is only relevant to us; mainly, we took the Financial Peace University, learned a lot of things that we “knew” but didn’t put into action regularly, and determined that while we could easily afford our home, we didn’t NEED to stay in it when we could live in something smaller and save quite a bit of money over the long term. 

It took us about 9 months to come to an agreement on how we wanted to do it, but we put our house on the market on 19-February and sold it that very day – we had three offers!  It was pretty amazing.  Due to the quickness of the sale, we determined that instead of diving headlong into another home purchase, we would rent for a while, so last weekend we started the task of moving into an apartment.  We closed today... it felt great!  it's kind of crazy to say after 11 years that we are no longer home owners.

I’ll be sending out address change cards / emails / graphics soon… but it is a good place… a nice apartment… the girls seem to enjoy it… so, at the end of the day, I think it will be a good temporary home for us.

Good bye, house, and we hope you enjoy your new owners.  We'll enjoy the lack of yard and swimming pool this summer... :)

erin

Lost Tooth!

Julia lost her third tooth on January 1st while visiting family; her tooth had been loose for about a month but it simply took rough housing with her sisters to finally knock it out.

Thankfully after a few minutes of poking around, we found the tooth in the blankets, and mom stored it away so that when we got home, the Tooth Fairy could come and visit (because the Tooth Fairy didn’t know where we were… and the Tooth Fairy’s stash is in mom’s dresser).

Unfortunately the night we got home, the Tooth Fairy was so tired that she completely forgot about the Tooth Pillow in Julia’s bed, and JayJay wasn’t very happy when she woke up in the morning.  But, Mom and Julia wrote the Tooth Fairy a note and wouldn’t you know, while Mom was putting away laundry, the Tooth Fairy showed up!  Julia was SOOOO excited!

Not too many days later, Julia announced that BOTH of her top two teeth are loose… she is SOOOO excited to lose them!

Erin

Julia’s 6th Birthday Party

Julia celebrated her 6th birthday on November 24, 2013.  We had a party for her on November 23rd at Bella Danze Artz, her dance studio.  Miss Diane and Miss Kathryn put on a ballet dance and tea party for Julia, complete with a ballet dance taught by Miss Kathryn and tea and hot cocoa with sandwiches and cupcakes.  Friends from daycare and Kindy came to the party to celebrate with Julia.  This was also a Snow White party, by Julia’s request.  She had a great time!

Julia getting her tutu put on by Miss Di.

Raven having her tutu put on by Miss Di.

Julia by her cake and party table.

Julia’s Snow White cake.

Julia in her Princess crown.

Raven with her friend Drew from daycare.

Miss Kathryn teaching the girls a dance.

The girls having their tea and cakes.

A happy girl at her party!

Selecting a cupcake.

Sophia and hot cocoa!

Opening gifts.

Julia with her cake.

Getting ready to blow out her candles.

Julia and Miss Kathryn.

18 Months!!!

Guess who is 18 months old today!!??!!  Anna!

It is amazing to me how much Anna has changed in the last month… each month she changes more, but this last month has amazed me.

Still our super blondie… not so blue eyes anymore.  Finally long enough hair for mini pigtails.  Stats… we’ll know in a couple of weeks at her 18 month check up.

She talks… yes… mostly jabbers, but she talks, in baby sentences, and occasionally words pop out that we know.  Auntie Lis taught her how to say “please” when asking for things, one of her favorite words is, “baby”, and she’s added a load of others to her repertoire… owl, hi, bye, dada, ball, down, out, duck, owl, coat.  She tries hard to say “Minnie Mouse”.

She walks better every day and now only crawls “for fun”. 

She loves to wear her shoes around the house and recently moved into a size 6. 

She also loves her coat.  We used Raven’s coat from last year (3T), but she’s really wearing 2T for clothes… so big already!

She loves to read books, sing songs, and make a mess in her sister’s room.  (If you can’t find Anna, chances are that she’s digging in a toy bin in Julia and Raven’s room.)

Anna knows her family, and if you ask her, she will point to all of her family members, including Dante and Auntie Lis.  She has a new special bond with Dante, she has grown to love her Auntie, and generally has opened up more to people being in her space and she loves to play with her sisters (and “brother”).  She thinks that chasing and being chased is super fun.  She enjoyed her first dive into the leaves this fall too.

Suffice to say, our baby is a toddler… but she will always be my baby.  And when I ask her where Baby Anna is, she giggles, puts her hands over her mouth, and then pats herself.  Yep, that’s my girl.

Words

I neglected to write a post on Anna’s 17-month-birthdate, and sadly, I didn’t even think about it until the day after.  (Bad Mom!)

However, I thought today to post because Anna said another new word and I thought, wow, I haven’t blogged her new words recently!

New today: “Done” (“Duh”)

Other new ones: Juice, Book, Sock, Fish, and This.

(Note, she drops most of her consonants at the end, but it’s obvious when she points, etc., that she’s saying something specific.)

These are added to: Uh oh, Mama, Shoes, and Up

Quite the obstinate little lady, so don’t expect her to actually say a word if you ask her too.  *grin*

Our Bubby:

Guess who’s 16 months old?

Wow, so much has changed in the last month!

Anna is officially walking… she has slowly been working up to full-on walking the last couple of weeks, but today I found myself noticing the times she crawled as opposed to the times she walked… and that was very little.

Words are still few, though she does say: uh oh, mama, shuss (shoes), and uh (up) now.  Very cute!  And she’s a chatterer!  She chatters and jabbers and points and generally has learned how to get her point across when she really wants to.  Obviously being a toddler we’re going to have tantrums for quite some time, however, it’s been a nice break that she attempts to tell us what she wants as opposed to throwing one all. the. time.

She wants to do what her sisters do, eat what her sisters eat, sit where her sisters sit.  Even though she needs her own space, she very much wants to be one of them and isn’t really the “baby” anymore.  Anna and Raven fight over who sits on mom’s lap, and Anna isn’t shy to fight for her spot.

She loves to giggle and laugh.  She loves to be tickled.  Combined, her laughter is a force to be reckoned with.  So contagious!  This weekend we both ended up in a fit of giggles when I grabbed her foot, pretended to tickle it, and she acted as though she was being tickled to death – to funny!

Shoes – girl LOVES LOVES LOVES her shoes.  She tries hard to put them on by herself and will go and get them and bring them to you.  Mama’s girl!  Ha, I love that “shoes” is one of her first words.

Favorite books appear to be Waddle!, Twinkle Toes, and Baby Einstein’s First Words.  Really, she loves to sit with any book in her lap and act like she’s reading.  She’s still not a big fan of being read to, so usually I’ll read a book to the older girls and give her her own book to flip through; I think she’s listening to the story but thinks she has control over the book.

And teeth.  My girl’s got teeth.  I can’t say for sure how many are fully in, but as of a week ago, she was working on four new ones to bring her total up to 16.  My goodness!

Love you Bubby Anna Banana!

erin

Raven is 4!

Middle turns 4 today!  How is it that 4 seems older than 3?  Not a baby anymore, but a preschooler, learning her letters and numbers, learning to write.  She is growing up so fast!

Raven, there aren’t words to express how perfectly you fit into our family.  You are a perfect mix between your older sister and your younger sister.  There is spunk in you to be a great “little sister”, and yet the love you have for your baby sister pours from you and that makes you such a great “big sister”.  No one else could be you; perfectly in the middle, but definitely not lost in our crowd.

I thought I’d interview Raven for you, to give you a little flavor in her life:

Favorite color: PurpleandPink (they ARE one color)

Favorite friend: Avery (at daycare)

Favorite food: Sandwich (bread, cheese, and meat)

Favorite clothes to wear: Skirt and a shirt

Favorite song: Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

What do you want to be when you grow up: A ballerina

How old are you: 4

Favorite animal: Elephant

Raven still sleeps with her lovies every night – Sheepie and Elephant.  She also loves Pink and White Blanket.  (We don’t get too creative up in here, apparently.)

She started 4K at daycare this last week; we’ll see how she does this year and whether we (with her teacher) think she is ready for Kindergarten next year.  Amazing how much changes in a year!

We’re prepping for a Minnie Mouse birthday party, and our very first “friend sleepover” (Avery)!  Wish us luck!

Happy Birthday, my dear Raven!

Rules for Kindy

Julia is 1.5 weeks into Kindergarten, and on Day 5, Mom and Dad learned the class rules.

Work Hard

Be Nice

Be Safe

Lincoln Academy practices Core Knowledge Curriculum and these rules are tenants for Kindergarten.  Julia already has them down pat, and we are working on how they apply to home life, and not just school life.

Ways we work on that at home… we work hard on our homework – Mrs. G said she’d send it back home to be worked if it was obvious that it was rushed… we work hard on learning new words, helping parents, and performing tasks around the home.  We are nice to our sisters… which usually isn’t a problem for Julia, but is always something that can be improved on.  Moreover, we use nice language with our parents – please and thank you.  And, being safe – this is one that we’ll have to research a little bit… for example, there is a difference between tattling and ensuring that our family members are safe… and, perhaps we need to reinforce that more, as Julia immediately starts to tattle when one of the girls writes on herself or eats a crayon… but thought nothing about Raven and Anna going outside (IN THE FRONT YARD, NO LESS) by themselves yesterday morning while I was in the shower.  Eek!

erin