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Thursday, November 8, 2012

34 Things I am Looking Forward to

Today is my birthday.  Today I am officially 34.  As I begin a fresh year of life here's a list of 34 things I'm looking forward to this year, in no particular order:

* Creating our family Christmas card
* Watching Victoria learn more and more in first grade
* Getting more and more comfortable teaching first grade
* Creating Christmas Magic around our home
* Finishing the Baby's Room
* Teaching Christian to write his entire name independently
* Going to Mexico
* Relaxing on the Playa del Carmen beach - pregnant!
* Planning for Baby's arrival
* Baby's water (hopefully) birth
* Traveling to Colorado this summer with three kids
* Christmas Break
* The surprises of Christmas morning
* Being home for the summer with our three children
* Alone tine with Mark in Mexico
* Receiving our new family pictures
* Losing the 'baby' weight
*Holding our little infant for the first time
* Watching Victoria and Christian love on Baby over and over again
* Finding out the gender of Baby
* Finding out which grade I'll be teaching next year
* Celebrating Christian's 5th birthday
* Celebrating Victoria's 7th birthday
* Celebrating John and Tegan's wedding in February
* Seeing Victoria and Christian walk down the aisle at Johnny's wedding
* Taking pictures of Grace and our Baby together
* Having a beer again
* Christian's preschool graduation
* Christian beginning kindergarten
* Victoria's first grade graduation
* Victoria beginning second grade
* Baby's Baptism
* Eating at Mosquito Blue
* Lazy summer days with my three children


It was an absolutely perfectly perfect birthday.  Looking forward to the year ahead!!




Wednesday, November 7, 2012

First Day of School

The first day of school was over 40 school days ago.  
Victoria began first grade and the 
following day Christian started his final year of preschool.




As we had hoped, first grade is a whole new experience compared to kindergarten.



All because of this amazing, wonderful, caring lady right here!
I nominated her for Teacher of the Year a couple years ago.
She was my long term substitute when I had Christian.
She is a great friend.
But she's really truly one of the best teachers I know.
We're so lucky she is Victoria's teacher and pushes her to not only do her best but challenges each and every day in every subject.
We are so lucky!!!


Lil' Dude's first day.
He's made some new friends, learned some new songs and loves to retell the stories he learns at chapel time.  He's becoming more independent and confident in himself.




2012-2013 school year is off to a great start!!

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

20 Weeks


Mark was in charge of the chalkboard this month.
Looks like he should always be in charge of it!
He created it while I was sleeping and I love it!

I saw our Little Bean  Melon yesterday kicking like crazy.
It was head down, feet up and arching its back when the ultrasound tech would push on it.
I had to turn  my head when it put its feet over its head and grabbed its little toes. 
We still don't know what it is.  I love not knowing!

Sunday, November 4, 2012

20 Weeks or Half Way as They Say

Today I am twenty weeks pregnant.  Some might say I'm half way through this pregnancy that lasts forty weeks.  However, the first two weeks are prior to conception and then you don't even know you're pregnant for another month.  Therefore, you're six weeks or more when you just find out.  Plus the end of the pregnancy draaaaaaggggss on and on and on so I hate to call half way too early.  I'll consider it half way in another month.

Some fun facts about twenty weeks:

The baby is about 11 inches and 13 ounces and it can hear mom's heart beat and murmured sounds from the outside. The limbs can move and the mother is likely to feel the baby move, at this point.  The bones are getting stronger.  The internal organs are formed and beginning to perform their functions.  

My 20 week ultrasound is tomorrow.  Looking forward to seeing our little peanut!


The Beginning and End of Ballet

Victoria was in a ballet class this summer.  Ballet was ultimately the last choice.  Soccer was full.  T-ball was full.  Ballet had an opening.  We purchased several adorable little outfits, ballet slippers, tights and mom perfected a nice tight bun by the end of the six week run.  Unfortunately, parents weren't allowed to watch the practices.  So I sat on the floor and read for an hour and a half every Tuesday evening at the Maplewood Community Center.

Finally, on the last day they had a mini recital.

I thought she was really excited while getting ready for it, then she said, "Not to be rude or anything, but this is the last day I'll ever do ballet.  Seriously, the last day forever."  I was stunned.  "You don't like ballet?  You didn't like it?"  "Not really but I didn't want to hurt your feelings.  So this is it, ok?"

So here it is, the one and only time you're see Miss Ballerina.











And ballet is over before it ever really began.

It Doesn't Matter Much

The clocks were turned back last night.  That does NOT mean an extra hour of sleep for households with small children.  It just means we'll be the first customers at WalMart this morning and we'll kick off this dark Sunday very early!

* Turns out WalMart doesn't open until 7am.  So we ate donuts and muffins at Perkins while waiting for it to open.  It felt good to get so much done before the sun came up.