That’s right, Ava is FOUR! This week was flurry of activity, getting ready for her birthday party, which took place yesterday, so this will serve as a recap of the past week’s events. (No joke, I realize my birthday was just last weekend, but it feels like a year ago. ) It’s not that I’m sad that she’s four, I mean, she obviously needs to grow older, that means she’s healthy, but little things like, she can eat a whole vitamin now, instead of it being split in half, makes me mourn the fact that she’s not a little toddler any more. I look at Lily rolling everywhere–both sides now–and know that before long, we’ll be celebrating her 4th birthday too.

After posting last Sunday, I had to “read” 300+ pages for my first class of this semester. I got it done, and am eternally thankful for my 210B class that taught me how to read a history book without having to read every single word, page, etc. However, not having been in student mode for a while, I thought I was missing the point of the text, but wrote up my response anyway (did just fine on it, didn’t miss the point, just wasn’t as earth-shattering to me.) In addition to continuing with the birthday party preparations, I made bread. I received a book called Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, along with a pizza peel and a dough rising container for my birthday from my parents. My first attempt was tasty, although the finished product looks odd:

Now it looks like that because I used our new bread knife to cut the design, which only should have been 1/4 inch deep. My cuts were close to 3/4 of an inch. My knife is too good. I feel for my first loaf, it was fine, definitely a learning curve for me. And with the amount that I made, I had three loaves of dough ready in the fridge. Sweet.

On the school front, I just have to say, that overall, my 8th grade classes this year are awesome. I have little annoyances here and there, but honestly, couldn’t ask for a better group of kids, considering I am joining them 1/2 through the  year. I have a lot of really advanced students this year too, so grading is a pleasure. Okay, that’s kind of a lie, because of course I’d rather be doing any number of things than grading, but their work makes it less painful. I’m also on the RSP team this year, so I have some really low kids too, but that’s all they are, not behavior issues that were designated as special ed. That being said, going back to work made the whole party planning thing a lot more work, especially with this week’s schedule:

Monday

I had leadership at 3:10 and it lasted until about 4:30pm, which meant that after gathering my stuff in my classroom, I got home around 4:50, and had to leave for my 210A class at 5:15. The class was FULL and it felt like they put us in a closet, but I’m really glad I am in the class. I like the professor, I need the material to help me pass the master’s test, and this gets me one class closer to being done. Got home around 9:10, ate some dinner (took snacks with me, but needed more), ordered the remaining books I needed and finished painting the 4.

Tuesday

No meetings after school, which meant that I did grocery shopping and again, continued with the preparations. I was able to make some more artisan bread (forgot to take a picture, but man, it looked awe.some.) and calico beans (I love them.) Both were tasty and a good choice as it was a cool night with a bit of rain.

Wednesday

After my team meeting, I had a “Closing the Achievement Gap” (aka CTAG) meeting from 3:30-5pm. Ava and I couldn’t make the cool playdough cookies, so I quickly bought some cupcakes for her birthday between the two meetings. When I have late meetings like that, we (the girls and I) never get home before 6pm, which makes for a really long day. Ava doesn’t get that much time to play, Lily just wants to have cuddle time, and I’m ready for bed, but have lots to mark off my to do list.

Thursday

Ava’s Birthday! I woke her up singing “Happy Birthday” and Nate took the cupcakes with Ava when he dropped her off at school. The other teacher in the classroom gave him a little guilt trip, asking “are you coming for Ava’s party?!?” and then acting quite shocked when he said no, and even more shocked when he said I wouldn’t be coming either. I felt bad, but they eat birthday treats after rest time, and my school just gets out around that time for. No way can I make it there with all the traffic, not to mention my detention duty is every Thursday. I swung by Costco after work and before picking up Lily and was so excited that it only took me 15 min. TOTAL to get all the things on my list!…until I got to the exit and realized I had forgotten the chicken salad. But still, 25 min. at Costco was awesome, and after picking up Lily, and then Ava, we were home around 5pm. Nate was already home, and he entertained Lily while Ava and I made her cupcakes for our own celebration. She chose chicken nuggets, mashed potatoes and broccoli for her meal, and we celebrated with some more “Happy Birthday” and opening gifts.

As she was opening the first of her gifts she said, “I hope this is what I wanted!!!” Nate and I looked at each other and I asked, “and what do you really want?” and she said, “A Tianna Barbie!” Ahhh…not going to be there. But I think she enjoyed herself anyway. Here’s a little bit of the gift opening fun:

By the time we were done with the cupcakes and opening the gifts, it was time for Ava to go to bed. She was so good about it, understanding that she could open the gifts, but would have to wait to play with them until later. She woke up Friday and said “Can I play with my toys now PLLLEEEEASE!!?!!?”

Friday

I stopped at the Great Mall to pick up the bread for the tea sandwiches, and after picking up the girls, we read a little and then it was off to finish the last minute things in preparation for Ava birthday party. We cleaned, I finished the tissue paper decorations and got everything hung up:

The party favors took the longest, and I started pretty much my first week back to school. The “mini-jug” pattern looked easy, and it was, but it sure lived up to it’s name. After I made the first one, I debated trying to make the more involved tea cup, but knew I wouldn’t have time to sew them all, so I stuck with the mini-jug. The gift bags were folded to look like a tea bag.

Saturday: Tea Party Day

Yesterday was the start of Ava’s next round of ballet/tap classes, and music class. However, because I knew it would be overwhelming, we just went to ballet/tap and not music. She had fun seeing Miss Joanna again, and one the girls in her preschool class is also in Ava’s dance class. Then it was home to finish setting up the coffee table for tea, getting the food prepared, and then getting Ava dressed. She picked out the hat to wear and the gloves (which were my Grandma Lehnert’s, that she gave to me, and that my parent’s sent to me for the tea party), but took the hat off soon after the picture was taken.

The party started at 11:30 and I planned for the girl’s to have the opportunity to play dress up some, although I kind of forgot to share that with the mom’s (hee hee), but it all turned out great. )We invited two girl’s from school (one couldn’t make it, and the other I’m friends with her mom through school, book club, etc.) and the daughters of two of my coworkers, one that Ava knows because she was at daycare with Ava (now is only there with Lily) and the other is the same age as Ava, and I was hoping they could meet at some point.) The girl’s had fun, Ava even joined in for a costume change. After they chosen to wear or not wear an outfit, I took their picture for the little craft project–decorating foam tea pot picture frames. You’ll note that Ava used the World’s Greatest Mom sticker, which I had actually picked up to put away (along with all the other mom stickers), but she really wanted to use it.

The girls then took their finished frame out to the living room and used it as a way to mark where they were going to sit. I thought that was the cutest thing and loved that they came up with the idea. Martha would be proud. We moved the coffee table into the family room for lunch, and then served the girls tea (aka pink lemonade).

The girls chose peanut butter and jelly sandwiches while the adults opted for cucumber  or chicken salad sandwiches. The fruit and broccoli salads were tasty and so were the desserts. The pink wafers were a hit, until one little one decided to try chocolate, then of course everyone else had to as well.

After the girls finished eating, they played some while the adults ate. Then it was on to “Pin the Top to the Tea Pot.” I had Ava go first, and while she was patient about being blindfolded, she didn’t get the point of covering up her eyes and while trying to stick something where it goes. Hee hee.

Each girl got a chance to pin the top on, and each chose a necklace that they could bead together.

Then it was time for singing “Happy Birthday” and then opening the gifts!

She was super excited about the Barbies, the Belle figurine, princess shirts, and dress up items. She also really wanted to stop everything and do the Fancy Nancy sticker book. We opted to read her gift, Tea for Ruby, instead. (No more checking it out from the library!)

By that time, it was pretty close to 2:30, so the girls and their moms started to pack up their favors and frames and say their goodbyes. Ava had a lot of fun, and I thought it all went well. The lead up to the day was pretty tiring, but clean up was almost non-existent, and I’m keeping most of the decorations up for Valentine’s and Lily’s baptism next weekend. Ava spent the rest of the afternoon playing with her loot:

She said, “Momma, I want to have a tea party for my birthday next year too!” Which I think is a sign of a fun day for a four-year old!

Saturday night we traveled to south San José to celebrate a friend’s birthday and both girls did a great job with the waiting and it was great hanging out with friends.

Today is a pretty chill day, in fact, Ava and I are still in our pajamas. The weather is sunny at the moment–yesterday it was sunny, then cloudy, then torrential downpour at times, so the sun today is pretty nice. I need to work on some homework, Nate’s out on a bike ride, Lily’s napping, and Ava’s playing with her toys, so life is good.

This week is another fun-filled one, because family is coming into town Wednesday, Thursday and Friday nights for Lily’s baptism on Saturday at the 5pm mass. We’re looking forward to seeing everyone and sharing in this special event!

Lily was smiling, but when I saw this picture in the mix of others, knew it helped to describe visually how I’m feeling.

“Frantic” is another great descriptor for how I feel this week, and unfortunately, as I type this, it’s only Thursday morning (yeah, now it’s early Friday morning, and why aren’t I sleeping? Lily’s sleeping, the rest of my family is sleeping and Grace is wondering why I’m up. Love when my internal clock is out of whack.) I try my best to be as organized as possible to be prepared for each day, but sometimes, no amount of planning can save you. I wasn’t able to post last weekend, as I was still busy trying to finish Ava’s birthday favors, run the usual errands, with an early evening trip to Costco on Saturday night thrown in for fun. I know I have mentioned going to Costco quite often in the past few weeks, but Saturday night’s sojourn was to purchase a playhouse for Ava (and ultimately Lily). It’s something I’ve really wanted to get for Ava for some time now, but held off for a number of reasons, first of which is space in our backyard is at a premium. However, I really feel that it will fit, and I know it will be a motivator for me to finally get the wheels in motion to finish our backyard to our comfort, as I really want us to spend more time outside, and not just for in the pool. Every time the playhouse was set for sale at Costco, Ava would plead to be able to go into it, so Saturday night was a treat for her. Not so much for Nate. It was pretty much an accumulation of everything that can be bad about going to Costco-we had to park at the end of the parking lot, there was rain and because we took Nate’s truck, we had no umbrella (really need to store one in his truck too), no Baby Bjorn, and Nate was concerned about getting the playhouse into the truck and then ultimately unloaded at home. I felt confident in my abilities to help, but I ended up not being needed as a very kind man in the parking lot saw what Nate had planned and stopped loading his own vehicle up to offer help. It was unexpected and greatly appreciated.

The rest of the weekend was full of laundry, vacuuming and grading and lesson planning. I am only teaching one prep this year, so by the time sixth period rolls around, I am starting to get kind of bored. I’m finally feeling like I have caught up with returning back to work, so now I can start creating new activities and lessons. I just kind of forgot how long the planning, writing and creating of said activities takes. Mercy.

Monday I heard from the professor of the class I’m trying to take this semester, and she had good news–she is able to accept more than the 15 students for the class, and wondered if I was still interested in joining the class. I’m relieved that I got in, because by this time next year, I’ll be taking my final master’s class, and gearing up for the big Plan B exam, and within a few short months, have f.i.n.a.l.l.y. earned by masters in history. But then again, it was nice coming home on Mondays with no class and just when I think I know what’s in store for me in the week, I’m struck with the realization that I have a staff meeting after school on my first day of class day.

Wednesday was a crazy day too. Had a staff inservice all day, then had to supervise the green room for the talent show after school. Because I found out about it last minute, I had planned to bring the girls with me, but Nate rearranged meetings and had every intention of picking the girls up for me. However, I got a call around 3:30 from him saying that his truck wouldn’t start and he needed to call AAA. My coworker was super understanding, and I rushed to pick up both girls (only now I had no activities for Ava, snacks, diapers, etc. as I had unpacked everything when it was understood that Nate would pick them up) but it all turned out well. I got back to school fairly quickly, Ava was entertained by some of the students and the neat puppets in Shelley’s room, and Lily just enjoyed looking around at all the activity. I reached a new level of mommy-hood when I nursed while communicating (via walkie-talkie) with the stage manager and sending students in the greenroom out for their performance practice. Don’t think any of the students realized what was going on, but all I could think about was back when I was first trying to nurse with Ava, this would have NEVER happened. I’m only 16 (17?) kids away from being a full-fledged Michelle Duggar (as she was nursing her newest baby while reading to a group of elementary students. I’m just more extreme…well, in the nursing aspect. No way am I planning on nursing until I’m well into my 40s. Lord.

Poor Lily woke up with a terrible cough Wednesday (early) morning, but she seems to be holding her own and thankfully hasn’t had a fever. And she’s found her feet, which I love. Ava’s on the mend too, although her cough is still holding on at night. Poor girl had a red, stuffy nose for the majority of the weekend/week. Here’s her dressed like her Bitty Baby–I thought the chapped nose would stand out more. Poor girl. Luckily Aquaphor every night has healed her.

And one of the amazing thing about kids is even when they can hardly breath, are sneezing, coughing, etc., they still want to play. Me, all I want to do is sleep. And I mean she full on plays–has to set up castles, make the characters talk, etc. I tried to take a few pictures of her set ups from her eye level, because she totally gets involved with the pony/princess world, and these aren’t the elaborate worlds either. Only the ones I would let her set up before she had to clean up for dinner.

Not sure what the birthday plans are for my birthday this Saturday, and it’s still hard to believe that I will be 32. I know I say this often, but it just doesn’t seem possible. On Ava’s birthday front, the party favors are done, the tea pot for a game is almost finished, I have the grocery list for the week ready to go, so I am feeling more comfortable about that. I still have a significant amount of pages to read for my Monday night class, but oh well. It will get done. Even if I have to read so (freakishly) early in the morning.

Hope your weekend and coming weeks are a little less hectic/frantic/loco.

I’ve only worked ten days (officially) at school, but I was really looking forward to this lovely three day weekend. Slept in until 6:30 Saturday (woo who!) and really wanted to take a nap, but just wasn’t in the cards. I was a laundry beast though, which included cleaning all our bedding AND having the freshly laundered sheets back on our bed in a fairly impressive turn around time, along with vacuuming and dusting. I even dusted out the china cabinet, to make room for the tea set that came last week. Still need to wash everything in the set in preparation for Ava’s birthday party, and plan on doing that today. And this morning, I was able to sleep in until 8 am!! )With a 4:30 wake up call from Lily, but once she got some food in her tummy, she was good for another 3 1/2 hours.) I’m feeling much better today. It’s amazing what sleep will do for your sanity.

Preparations for Ava’s birthday are in full swing, and I’ll share the progress as things are completed. I thought a tea party theme would be fun, so asked Ava if she was interested in that, and she’s excited about it. Finished the invites this week and sent them out. Here’s the card:

Front

Back

Ava and I went to the Dollar Tree Saturday and I’m not sure why I haven’t gone there more often because they have some pretty cool things in terms of decorations. I originally went for the tissue paper, but then ended up picking out some flowers and felt cutouts to add to the decorations. Ava felt the place was a treasure trove and helped pick out the flowers.

Our next stop was the local Goodwill, where we were looking for more dress up clothes for the party. Thought it might be fun for the girls to dress up when they arrived and have tea in some “fancy” clothes. Ava has some dress up outfits, but figured it would be a good idea to have a couple more. We found three dresses that we liked that I felt fit the bill. Ava, however, really wanted a wedding dress. No joke, I heard it more than once. “Momma, I don’t have a wedding dress, I think that we should get one.” And there were two there on display. Not gonna lie, it was kind of sad to think of wedding dresses ending up at goodwill, but then again, you wear them once. Mine is still at my parents house, in it’s archival tissue paper, awaiting the day when I look at the box and say, that’s my dress. Yeah, not sure what we’ll do with it. The price tag on the one that came with a veil was $80, and I couldn’t justify that, so I talked her out of it. I thought the dresses were going to be close to $20, but they were on sale! Yes, Goodwill has sales, how did I miss this? One dress ended up being $1.60. Sweet! With that bargain shopping, we’re chipping away at my to do list, and my next project is to start the party favors, hopefully tomorrow.

One of the favors is felt food that came from a tea party bundle that I purchased a few months ago. I’m hoping that putting it together goes faster than my current project, which is six cinnamon rolls and six sugar cookies, along with a baking tray, spatula and sprinkles. I’m getting more used to working with felt with these types of projects, but I still feel like it’s slow going. I think my cinnamon rolls should really be larger to fit more snugly in the baking tray–I rolled them pretty tightly, but again, it’s trial and error and I’ll know for next time. I think they still look like rolls though, so it’s all good. Ava doesn’t notice and has enjoyed baking them the last couple of days. I cut them from the pattern two weekends ago, and then sewed and stuffed them last weekend. It was the turning of the felt tubes and stuffing that took forever, and now I’m stuck on the sugar cookies.

Lily’s continuing to be a sweet baby. Got some of the older baby toys out today to vacuum off and wash/wipe down. One was the jumperoo that was loaned to us by Thanh and Kim when Ava was a baby and then eventually given to us when their youngest outgrew it (yeah, he’s THREE. Just doesn’t seem possible). I honestly thought Lily was too small for this, but I’m delusional. She loved it. Loved.it. Thought it was the coolest thing in the world to be standing up–didn’t like the lights and noise that it made, but was totally into trying to stand and then being able to move with support.

She’s wearing an outfit from Grandpa and Grandma Woodhams and I love leggings–the little bows on the side are too cute, and her chubby legs kill me.

Ava scopes out any new baby accessory and immediately wants to put her dolls in it. I told her she couldn’t use it Saturday, as she’s back to having a cough/runny nose, and I wanted to avoid contaminating the newly cleaned items. I can’t tell if it’s her getting a cold or allergies again, and she has completely given up on even trying to take a nap during the day. I’m kind of thinking it’s allergies, because she’s sleeping soundly now and not coughing, but who knows. Gave her cough and cold medicine Friday night, but she still had some issues in the night and into Saturday morning, so later on we tried Zyrtec. She seems to be doing much better, way less coughing and sneezing, so maybe my cleaning stuff kicked her response into high gear. Poor girl, even with our windows closed we get a wicked amount of dust in a week’s time. I’m hoping the rain this weekend will help her.

Not too much more planned this weekend. For the last few weekends I’ve just wanted to veg and watch movies, and hope to do that today. I wonder if I always had a three day weekend if I’d then wish for a four day…please, is there really any wondering involved. For sure I would.

Well, we survived my first week back to work and the girls’ first week back to daycare. I’m using “survived” loosely, because it was touch-and-go there on Wednesday. I pretty much had a mental breakdown Wednesday night, where all I wanted to do was just go to bed. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, didn’t want to eat, didn’t want to do any of the number of things I had to do before going to bed, nothing. Just wanted to crawl into bed and shut everything out.

Part of it was exhaustion. I woke up Wednesday morning with a bad headache, that I thought would go away but didn’t. I ate a granola bar later in the day with the intent of taking some powerful medicine, but than forgot to actually take the medicine. When I remembered, I only had a couple of classes left in the day, and exhaustion had set in. Had a team meeting, then picked up the girls. I was still pretty stressed about Lily and the bottle, wondering if she was eating enough, if I was pumping enough, etc. And when I picked up Ava, she was upset that I hadn’t walked to school to get her and said, “next time you can drop off the car at home, and carry Lily with you to school to get me, okay?” I know she really wanted to walk (after not wanting to walk pretty much the whole time I was home, go figure), but have you ever tried to reason with an almost-four-year-old? Not happening. Besides being exhausted, I was sad that I wasn’t home anymore, that both girls were spending time with other people during the day, instead of me. I know that they will be fine, and that Ava’s having lots of fun, but it was something I had a hard time dealing with that night. In all honesty, this week wasn’t so bad. My students are really nice, and that transition has gone quite smoothly. I’m getting used to what all needs to be organized for Ava’s school and all the things I have to take to school everyday, as well as being ready for Lily’s needs for the next day. My hat is off to parents who work with more than two children. Mercy.

And I keep complaining about having to pump, but it’s really not going that badly. I think I was just scarred from my experience with Infant-Ava, where she would take f.o.r.e.v.e.r. to nurse and then I was told to pump after every feeding. Ugh. Just left me with hating the machine and the process. Oh well. It could be worse, because I could still be doing that after each time I nursed. I shudder to think about that being my life.

But today is Friday, and we made it. Lily is doing just fine, Ava’s enjoy school and things are going well in the classroom. We’ve had a couple of earthquakes the last few days, which made for some interesting times in the classroom. Ava did fine with it as well–I asked her if she felt it and she said, “well, no, but we did get under our tables.” Ava also got to enjoy her first snow today at school; they had a school fundraiser, with the objective being to bring snow to the school (not sure if it was a snow machine or what, Ava kept saying “a big truck’s coming with snow!!”) for the kids to play in. I was so excited for her today and when I picked her up tonight and asked her about it, she said “I didn’t really like it, it was too cold.” That’s my California girl. She’s had a long week too, because when I walked in to pick her up, she turned around and looked at me, and burst into tears. It took a while (Nate coming home in fact to get more of the story out of her), but her tears were because her teacher never ended up reading the story that she brought to share time. Ava was able to share the book, but she thought that Ms. Thelma would also read it to the class. Her reason for thinking this is because back in JULY when Ava attended a Discovery Day at this school (when we were first exploring the possibility of her attending) Ava witnessed her only other share time and the teacher just happened to read the story that the student brought–mostly because no one else brought something to share. So Ava, Miss Memory, thought that’s the way it would always be, and was quite upset that it didn’t happen, but only reacted when I showed up and she realized that her story wouldn’t be read. Lord it’s difficult to be a Mom.

I’m still trying to get into a class for this semester, but not sure it’s going to happen. I think I was waitlisted for my sanity.

Going to try and keep it lowkey this weekend. I think groceries and laundry will be the big plans, with maybe a stop at the library to pick up some books on hold. Other than that I just want to spend time with my girls.

Here’s a little of Lily blowing bubbles on Thursday morning before we left for daycare. Nate tells me she’s been doing this for a while, but I’m not sure where I’ve been.

I actually had a couple of ideas on what to title this entry…

“Heigh Ho, Heigh Ho, it’s off to work I go…”

or

“The End is Near” (although I honestly think I’ve used that one before, and it still comes across as uber ominous)

or

“Thanks for the Memories”

but just decided to stick with Happy New Year, because honestly, that’s what it’s going to be. Even though I want to weep and wail and gnash my teeth over going back to work, it’s not necessary. That’s not to say that there won’t be tears (or haven’t already been some) when I (even just think about having to) drop Lily off on Monday, but just like Ava’s turned out just fine, I know Lily will too. And I will keep telling myself that, over and over. I do like teaching, and really, I have been SUPER lucky to be home for as long as I have. I didn’t have to go back after 8 weeks, like many mommies. I’ve also gotten to see Lily roll over for the first time, her first smiles and first laughs and I know that if I’m not there at that exact moment when she starts to really talk with meaning, or take her first steps, that all will be well. I’ll still be there for when it counts. I’ve been able to hang out with Ava and see all her ballet/tap classes and have fun Mommy-Daughter dates and just plain be with my almost FOUR YEAR OLD. So really, I’m lucky. And I won’t complain. Or at least I’ll try not to. And that’s all I’m going to say about that.

Our Christmas decorations came down today and Nate’s attempting to make room in the garage for our tree. The tree might hang out (in a storage bag) in the family room for a while, as Nate plans on doing a total overhaul of our much neglected garage, with the end game being tons more storage. It’s always depressing to take down the decorations, because things look a little less sparkly, but it must be done. I try to wait until ephiany to take the tree down, but with going back to work for the first time in SIX MONTHS on Monday, I felt it was best to conquer it as early as possible.

Ava and I finally completed her Princess and the Frog sticker book from her advent calendar today. Poor girls been asking to work on it since December 24. When she first got it we had no idea who the characters were, and I knew we’d be taking her to see the movie. Now, after seeing the movie last Sunday, we’re pros. I found this shirt at miniboden.com for a drastically reduced price. I love applique shirts, but my time to do such things is diminishing and this was a steal with their awesome winter sale.

Today she’s been playing with her blocks which were exiled under the mini-tree in the living room. I needed the toy basket for a base, and she felt she wouldn’t use the blocks for while. (Two days later she felt that she MUST HAVE the blocks, but I talked her out of them.) Little Miss Lily decided that not only would she wake up around midnight last night and hang with the big dogs, but that she also doesn’t need to take a morning nap. Luckily she’s napping now, so I can work on this. Nate’s yelling at the Wii as he tries to be Indiana Jones (“you call him Dr. Jones, DOLL”) and it can get a little intense, I’ve heard Ava repeating “this is such a stupid game” which I guess I can be happy that it doesn’t include choice four letter-words. I’m hoping the next few days will continue to be low key, with some more Wii resort and movie watching.

My mom headed back to Michigan last night, and completed her travels this afternoon. I felt so bad that she had to spend the New Year in the airport, but she said she’d be fine. We got the call this afternoon that she arrived safely and that the red-eye wasn’t that bad. I’m thankful that she made it safely and was feeling good, because I was nauseous just thinking about traveling through the night. Poor Grandma was treated to Ava’s “don’t go Grandma! Please don’t go!” but both ladies have a February visit to look forward to. (Lily’s baptism is on February 13th, so family will be arriving for the baptismal fun! Lily is preparing for her baptism by spending quality time with the Bible that Grandpa and Grandma Woodhams sent her for Christmas. I’m not kidding, she loves that book. She talks to it and gets super excited whenever I show it to her.)

Ava had lots of Grandma time that included a trip to the library, many many books being read to her, princess play, and Grandma picked her up from preschool on Tuesday. I couldn’t figure out what was taking so long, but then I saw this:

Ava found lots of treasures on the way home, and lucky Grandma got to be the pack mule!

I’m really thankful that she was here for Bottle Bootcamp 2009. I left Monday morning at 7am and spent 6 hours in my classroom, waiting for word on Lily taking the bottle. Nate found that she likes it when she is laid on the couch and fed the bottle there–she does not want to be held by anyone when she’s getting the bottle. Silly Lily. Tuesday, Nate and I went out for lunch and watched the movie Avatar, and on Wednesday I was gone for number of hours getting my hair cut and colored. Both days she took the bottle, getting better about the fussing before finally accepting the bottle. Really appreciated being able to do those things (thank you Mom!) and Nate and my mom’s patience with the bottle.

I am still trying to get my next class toward my master’s squared away. I’m now #2 on the wait list, which for some reason I can sign up for, but when the actual class was open, I wasn’t. ARG! Oh well, if it’s meant to be, I’ll get in. Just want to keep plugging away, and get it over with!

On the craft front, things have really slowed down, (I really just want to sit around and watch all the seasons of Gilmore Girls that Josh and Liz gave me for Christmas. Nate has show how much he loves me by actually putting the DVD in for me, no matter how much the show annoys him. That’s love baby.) but I have projects in the works. I’m working on a necklace that I saw a number of weeks ago, but didn’t start actually painting it until a couple of days ago. Would you believe that it’s been too chilly in the garage for the spray paint to dry in a reasonable amount of time? I know, crazy. But one or two more flips and I should be good to go.

And in one of my favorite “Top 10″ lists that came out to wrap up the year, U Create has a Top 10 Tutorials for 2009. I really want a play room, so I can do this for shelves and when I saw the number one craft tutorial, I knew I had to make it. Who cares if I saw it yesterday and made it between starting the movie Up (which I really, really enjoyed. Those Pixar people are geniuses) and after the movie was over I finished it? Does that tell you how crazy easy it is to do? Here’s Lily in her ruffled onesie:

Nate told me it looks more like she has a ruffled back, but that’s because I used a 12 months onesie–Target was out of the 3-9 months the last time I checked, and I really wanted her to have some long sleeved ones, her little hands are like icicles in the morning. Nate just shakes his head over this new ruffle development, but I know my girl is stylin’.

Happy New Year to you and yours! I hope that 2010 treats all of us well!

We’ve had a very wonderful last few days here, and are looking forward to more exciting activities this week with Grandma!

Here’s some pictures from the festivities:

Our Christmas Eve photo (little blurry, but the only one where we are all looking at the camera):

Christmas morning:

First gift from Santa to Ava and Lily:

(wooden food for the kitchen and shopping cart that’s in the background, which technically was the first gift, but wasn’t wrapped)

Opening the felt playhouse:

Opening one of Grandpa and Grandma Woodhams’ gifts (they brought the princess fun to our house!)

(it’s a princess palace/tent)

Bitty Baby!

Putting her on:

Ava enjoying her umbrella (-ella, -ella, that was for you my love)

(another sidenote, I told her she could open it outside, but not inside. Nate asked why, and I honestly couldn’t give a legitimate reason. I’m happy to say no ill-will has befallen our household…as of yet…) The tissue paper that’s in the umbrella will be removed and she can add in whatever else she likes. The umbrella came with little craft paper and notions, so she can decorate pictures and slip them on the inside. I’m excited about that.

Nate, entertaining the wee one…and she stayed awake for the entire unwrapping extravaganza, which was mighty impressive.

And the aftermath:

Nate actually kept the wrapping paper pretty well contained, but this photo still makes my eyes hurt, in a good way. We had lots of fun lounging around, watching movies and snacking, and then all headed to the airport to pick up Grandma Lehnert. Lily took exception to having someone sit next to her on the car ride home, and CRIED THE ENTIRE WAY HOME. Oy. She’s gotten over that, and hopefully we won’t have a repeat of her antics. After arriving home from the airport, we put together a delicious Christmas dinner and enjoyed each others company before calling it a night. Yesterday Nate, Lily and I drove to a couple Best Buys to find a universal remote – six remotes was a little out of control. One of the gifts Nate purchased for me was a Blu-ray player, and we joke that that one gift turned into needing to buy a new house to store all the components. I didn’t think we really needed one, but oh lord, the picture is awesome. Again, so clear it makes my eyes hurt. Nate and I played a little Wii Resort and I look forward to rematches, as well as exploring the other games. So far each (archery, jet skiing, bicycling, etc.) has been really fun. Swordfighting is the one I probably laughed at the most; we don’t have finesse, but we each have a competitive drive to win, and have no remorse in trying to clobber each other. Santa and family were very good to us this year, and hope you all enjoyed yourselves as well.

Today we’re headed to the movie theater to see “The Princess and the Frog,” Ava’s first theater movie! Grandpa Lehnert started out the celebration with one of Ava’s gifts that he selected:

She wore it this morning (until it got too warm for her), but she’s loving it. Thanks Dad! It’s perfect!

I love Christmas Eve. I love the anticipation of Christmas morning, gearing up for the festivities and spending time with my family. I also love that (this year) we’re all set and ready to go. Okay, I have one gift left to wrap, and a shopping cart to put together, but other than that, it’s go time.

I’ve spent the day so far watching my big four month old roll over

(this was actually taken a couple of days ago, she’s been rolling onto her side, but just today has started taking the plunge to full-on rolling), baking cookies with Ava that turned out cute and tasty, and will be sure to get the seal of approval from Santa, (recipe found here)

and then rounding out the day with a little “Elf” before we head to mass and Ava’s Christmas pageant debut. Here’s one of my favorite parts of the movie, other than sharing my affinity for elf culture with Buddy:

Merry Christmas and may all your family fun be just that. Fun!

I seriously can’t make a decision quickly and decisively. Well, let me qualify that statement: it’s just with certain things, because other times it’s quickly decided and there we go.

In the (recent) past it was what should we do about daycare – should Ava go full time to preschool or three days to the home sitter? Should I stay home the extra five weeks before I had back to work, or just stay out the 12 weeks covered under FMLA?

This week it was, “should I take a master’s class (which I’ve already taken before, but because it’s taught by a different professor, I can take it again) or hold off like I had originally decided”…or so I had thought. Well, Friday I submitted the paperwork to be reinstated as a student and have signed up for the class. This will get me one class closer to being done, and because I’ve taken the class before, it helps me to ease into it. I will have a different book list, but it will just help me to better prepare for the final Plan B exam that I need to past to get my Masters. So just two more classes after this class, and then I’ll be done. I really liked the idea of not having a class this semester, but not so much that I would then have TWO MORE SCHOOL YEARS of classes. Ugh. So here we go again. Nate is extremely supportive about this, and it’s only one night a week, instead of the crazy two nights a week that I was doing while pregnant. And I have three different weeks this semester where I will be on break for middle school or college, so that makes things easier. I’ll also have about three weeks of just teaching to make the transition. So yea, I’m going back. It’s decided.

Part of this indecision was due to the c.r.a.z.y. week I had. Monday I spent a number of hours making gifts that I’m really quite proud of, but will post pictures of them after Christmas. Tuesday I was super productive, with laundry, dishes, crockpot dinner going, finished Ava and Lily’s felt playhouse, and put the finishing touches on Monday’s project. Lily was amazing in letting me get work done, because she was a sleeping machine in the morning/early afternoon and a happy baby until I stopped around 1:30/2.

Wednesday was a day of running the roads. Lily’s four month appointment was at 9 and she’s doing great. 16 lb. 4 oz. and she’s 25.5 inches. (Not sure on the percentiles because the doctor didn’t give me that information, but I’ll have it next time. Her pediatrician is on maternity leave.) She did wonderful with the shots, and because her tear duct is still plugged and weeping, the doctor prescribed antibacterial eye drops, with hopes that some of the redness in the corner would go away. Poor girl has been waking up with crusty eyes for over a month, and while it still weeps, she’s not quite so crusty. Hoping the next five does does the trick.

After the appointment I came home and picked up Ava, dropped off Lily (Nate worked from home, thankfully) and we went to Target, to the pharmacy to pick up the eye drops, to the library, to staples, to the grocery and then home for lunch. I quickly made some cheesy beer bread (which was DELICIOUS) and then took some fresh from the oven to school to meet with my sub, to see where I’ll pick up when I return in January. Then home to pick up everyone to go to Ava’s dance class, but had to turn around a block away because I forgot her shoes. Duh. Here’s some of her “Up on the Housetop” routine, she was cute!

After the recital, Lily and I hit the road to head to book club. She wasn’t thrilled about the noise, and coupled with the shots, we headed home early. And to be honest, I was pretty beat. Just sad because I really loved the book we read and had so much to share.

Thursday was more or less a day of rest, along with the should I, shouldn’t I of taking a class next semester. We did have a Holiday Potluck at Ava’s school and she got a chance to meet a helper Santa. She threw me for a loop though-when Santa asked her what she’d like for Christmas, she said “Tinkerbell” which was what the little girl before her asked for. Ah, Ava.

Friday we tackled the gingerbread house, and let me tell you, while kits definitely make things easier, it was still pretty time consuming. But we had fun. Ava was super patient and had amazing hand eye coordination with this project–some of the candies were pretty small. Ava was pretty excited about her gingerbread person; so much so that she wanted to eat it before Nate arrived home to see the fruits of our labor. Her drawings, art, etc. are really starting to take more shape. Little girl is growing up! Her gingerbread man is frolicking in the “lollipop garden” according to Ava.

Unfortunately, we didn’t get a nap in, so tonight when things didn’t go her way, we were treated to a major meltdown. Tomorrow is another day.

This weekend is shaping up to be action packed as well. We have a number of holiday parties happening Saturday night along with another pageant practice – that I will remember to take Ava too. I promise.

I am a tired Mommy this morning. I even woke up and thought, “good lord, my back hurts!” It was a busy weekend, but I think it was a fun one for Ava.

I’ll start with a recap of last week: pretty much the week consisted of finishing up the last of our Christmas shopping, wrapping gifts, and trying to finish up the gifts that I’m making. I still have two projects in the works that I really need to finish this week, and hopefully that will happen. Ava’s (and Lily’s when she’s older) felt playhouse is almost done. These are before pictures of the last two panels. I’ve actually gotten everything sewn on except for the panel that has the door. I’ve stayed up late a couple of nights to get all the sewing done, and that was not a brilliant idea. Had a tired headache a couple of days as a result, so won’t be doing that again. I think I should be able to finish it up totally tomorrow, pending Lily’s nap.
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On Saturday Ava and I attended her last Music Together class of this instrument collection–she only has two more left! Hard to believe that we’ve almost finished the entire collection. Prior to that, we went to the post office, because not-thinking-Mommy bought SQUARE holiday cards! Seriously? Yeah, it was written on the confirmation order form, but prior to that, didn’t see it. Oh well. I like them, but yeah, had to do extra postage, and because USPS doesn’t have 20 cent stamps, I had to add two 10 cent stamps (and in a couple of cases I used up the last of the holiday stamps from LAST YEAR because I didn’t end up sending out Christmas cards, and so some families will be receiving a card with five stamps on it. Classy.) My holiday cards look they have come from a different country. But they are out and on their way to people, and that’s what counts. After music class, we came home and ate a quick lunch, because Ava and I had tickets to the Nutcracker! The only thing I told her was that she was going to watch ballet, but she took that to mean we were going to dance class and she wondered if she would see the older girls dance. When we got in the car the Christmas channel was playing the Nutcracker Suite, which was AMAZING, for while I’ve heard a million versions of Jingle Bells, I haven’t once heard them play that. Pretty cool! We arrived at the Center for Performing Arts in good time (I mean, I only had to drive to San Jose, but I’ve never had to go to this place on my own), found cheap parking that brought us right out to the crosswalk that we needed. The entrance we chose brought us a door away from our row of seats too, so it was a stress-free arrival. Our seats were next to another mother and daughter, and the latter was passing time playing games on her mom’s iPhone. Ava of course wanted to do the same, so they spent the remaining 15 min. before show time comparing games. The set was amazing and the actual show was only an hour, as this was a special children’s matinee performance. I’ve never watched this ballet before, and I enjoyed myself greatly. I had intended for her advent calendar to include a Nutcracker ornament on the 12th, but never was able to find one that I liked, and as luck would have it, they were selling a number of cute ornaments there. Ava and I made our selections (ended up buying a finger mouse puppet as well) and we got in line to pay. After about 20 minutes of standing there, Ava and I were ready to scream. So many people, and we were traveling against the crowd who was exiting, and it was TOO WARM in our winter jackets and sweaters, poor Ava’s cheeks were rosey. I couldn’t figure out why she wasn’t listening to me, and then realized “I’M WARM!!!” so got her jacket and coat off, had her stand on the cooler side and we did much better. It didn’t help that both registers weren’t working properly, and that when people paid with credit card it took forever, but we made it. We took some pictures next to one of the trees and Nutcrackers that were decorating the theater.

Ava and I arrived home to a Lily that is still refusing to drink from the bottle. So Grandma, I think when you visit we might have to try Bottle Bootcamp. I’m not as stressed this time around, because I know that she’ll eventually drink from it, but lord my girl’s prefer me. But it’s hard to be upset with this chubby cuteness:

I really wanted to decorate cookies, but remember that it’s way more fun with more people, because for me, after the first few cookies, it starts to feel like a chore. So I invited some friends over and we had lunch and then started the decorating palooza. Maggie brought decorating pens, which I highly recommend for preschoolers, because Ava was able to work them all on her own. It was great seeing Renee and Katy and her almost-two-month old Lucas too! The frosting was a little more tricky, and while I was starting to clean up, she went a little crazy with the sprinkles.

Luckily, because of the pens, the cookie with a mountain o’ sprinkles on it didn’t actual keep all the sprinkles. Genius. Here’s the rest:

It was lots of fun but I sure was tired afterward, and so slept the sleep of the dead. In fact, after a quick check with Nate this morning, I guess that I was pushing either his chest or his face last night. I remember having a dream where I was saying something like “knock it off!” and pushing something, but yeah, in reality, it was my husband, innocently trying to sleep. Oops.

Lily was awake for some of the decorating festivities, but was mostly content to watch the decorating happening:

Earlier on in the week I had Nate take a picture of her first Christmas ornament being placed on the tree:

This week is my last official “work week” before our school’s winter break starts, and the beginning of the end of my leave. I’m trying not to moan about it too much, as I’ve been super lucky to be home for close to seven months. I was able to rest at the end of my pregnancy, as I was home on summer break, and I’ve been very lucky to take this first part of the school year off. I’m not taking a master’s course next semester (tried to see if I could do an independent study, but not going to fly, so I’m continuing my break from SJSU. Will start it again in the Fall 2010 semester.) so I will have a chance to adapt to being a mother of two and a teacher before the craziness starts again.

Ava has a mini-recital on Wednesday for her final tap/ballet class. I’ll definitely sign her up for this again, because she had lots of fun. Other than a trip or two to the post office to send off our final gifts, and finishing the aforementioned projects, I think we’re pretty much set. I still want to get the kids to the mall to see Santa, although Santa’s making a visit to Ava’s school on Thursday. Looking forward to that!

Wasn’t able to post this last night as planned, ended up having to call it a night. So the “todays” are really Sunday.

As I start to write this blog, it is now 11pm, and I’m tired, but there’s always so much more that I want to do! Remember when Will Smith found out that days are longer for the Men In Black (just humor me), like 36 hour days or something like that. Yeah, that sounded awesome to me. Especially now, when I’m frantically trying to get as much stuff done before work starts up again, and I won’t have time for fun stuff after school, because I’ll be too exhausted and fall asleep on the couch after the girls go to bed, which is around 7:45. Arg.

Anyway, I won’t think about that now. This weekend was our decorating-palooza, much to Ava’s excitement. Our tree was actually up last Saturday, but the decorations didn’t get out of the garage until Thursday night, and then I had to wait for the lights to come down so we could light Ava’s little tree (which was my old college dorm-room tree, which I’m very thankful we kept). Friday we made paper chains out of scrapbook paper. I had hopes that Ava could work the stapler, thereby taking more of a part in putting it together, but our stapler was too burly for her, but she was very helpful in organizing the strips of paper after I cut them. Her tree was decorated fully on Saturday, and our family room tree was completed today. (I hate how trees look so blah in pictures. Seriously, I’m loving our tree this year.) And I wanted to share pictures of our giagantor tree from last year too–missed out on a great blog topic there. I won’t post the picture of Nate in front of the tree I chose, but if looks were words, it would have to be censored. ) Last year:

As mentioned last week, we opted for an artificial tree this year. I know, kind of seems like blasphemy, but it was a very pleasant experience, and Nate didn’t have to chop off four feet, wrestle it inside, or freak out about Ava getting poison ivy/oak. I still feel a compulsion to check the water, but luckily, there’s no need. Here’s Ava’s tree and the family room tree decorated:

I hope to start wrapping gifts for friends, family, church, etc. tomorrow night. Takes me a while to get motivated to wrap gifts, and last year I waited either until Christmas eve, or the night before that to wrap the bulk of the gifts. Not my idea of fun. Hope to finish much earlier this year.

Ava’s had a lot of holiday activity this past week. We started the advent calendar, and because many of the items are larger than the advent calendar allows, she’s been treated to a scavenger hunt each morning. I tried my best to draw items for her to look for her advent surprise for the day:

She liked finding the book in the tree, thought that was pretty funny. Today was a Frosty the Snowman sticker, and the sweet girl waited until she was dressed before she stuck it on herself. One of the items from this week was a board book for Lily, and we talked about how next year, Ava will get to open one day, and then Lily the next. She wasn’t too excited about that at first, but then I explained how Lily will be older, and she’ll want to join in the fun too. She seemed a little better about it, especially after we determined that SHE gets to start out the calendar on day 1.

Ava also had pageant practice for the children’s Mass at church this week. Again, I’m so proud of her and how even though she’s one of the youngest in the program, she’s one of the best listeners and direction followers. The former Joseph (he decided he wasn’t ready for such an important role) was about to get a visit from Mrs. Woodhams and her teacher voice, as he and his brother wrestled in the aisle. I actually did tell his brother to stop trying to fit between the Easter candle and the baptismal font. When he acted like he was going to do it again, he was introduced to the teacher look, and thankfully I didn’t need to move to the never fail phase 3, “proximity.” This happened today with his mom there, so yeah, not a fun experience. But my little sheep was on the ball, going so far as to volunteer herself for the role of Mary. Another few years sweetie, then the role is yours!

Her holiday recital for school was this past Friday and again, she rocked it. I was feeling a little overwhelmed with the number of people crammed into the cafeteria, but she confidently walked out to the front of the stage and searched and searched for Nate and I. Once she found us, she was ready for the show. We were treated to the holiday favorite Jingle Bells and Feliz Navidad. The bummer of Jingle Bells is that with hearing it so much on the holiday channel that we listen to, she’s correcting herself in the words. I’m okay with “one mose sofen sleigh” over and over. Here’s a little bit of her “Jingle Bells”

Today I went a little batty with all of her questions re: decorating. Just so used to doing this kind of stuff on my own and I know I need to stay way more calm about the questions, but it’s so hard when you’re answering “what’s that” for the bazillionth time. She also wanted to put all the ornaments in the same spot on the tree and on top of each other, so I told her “not under the ribbon and not on top of another ornament.” Which I shouldn’t have said, because that then led to “is this an okay spot Mommy?” Ah Ava, you are a kind girl who wants to make me happy. I love you and I will try to be more patient. I feel that I am failing in that lately.

Had to take this picture of Lily this week because her chubby cuteness is killing me.

The soft skin, arm rolls and chubby cheeks are too much for me. Just want to smother her with kisses all the time. Her laughter and chatter woo me as well. We’re coming up on four months already. Feels like the time just is flying by now. And her new joy is trying to “stand.”

(yikes, she looks demonic, didn’t fix the red-eye on this picture!) She also rolled last night from her back to her front, which I think is huge. She’s not a fan of tummy time and has never tried to flip back onto her back during it, but she’s all about rolling onto her side. She certainly has the momentum to be able to roll completely over, and last night she used it. We continue to keep a lookout to see if she does it again.

And I finished Ava’s (and Lily’s LARGER hat) this past week. Guess neither girl is into being a model:

I really want to start on a new crochet project and I chained on 10 times separate times to start it, and I continued to the first round of it, but yeah, don’t think it was right so ripped it apart. Then chained again, then ripped again. Yeah, I need guidance.

I was successful in getting out my embroidery things and made the decorated dog for the sitter; we’re going to visit her this week so Lily can get to know her better before I go back to work. BOO. The wreath was something I saw here and she learned it from this site. I bought 4 packs of 6 plastic bulbs from Michael’s for $2.99 each (I couldn’t wait to try this until after the holidays, so I know it can be made for much cheaper), and added those to the package of bulbs from college that we (who am I kidding, I) don’t really use anymore. It turned out well, but as you can see from the dark shadow in the upper left hand corner, I’m holding it up because I don’t know where to put it in the house. I know, what’s up with that.

Anywho, that’s what’s been happening in our life the past week. Going to tackle some of the household chores now. BOO.