January

dang it.  Let’s get caught up.

Skiing—the girls are crazy little snow bunnies.  They’ve been out a handful of times now and are picking it up quickly.  We’ve had three skiing Saturdays so far.  Daddy takes one of them out in the morning for some one on one coaching.  Then I show up around lunchtime to feed them and trade kids.  Meanwhile E keeps me company and begs to go.  Unfortunately, she has to wait until next year (mostly for dad’s sanity).  However, last time, E got to spend the day cross country skiing with grandpa and loved it.  She got to have a one-on-one date with him and “ski like the big kids”. (not quite but she was still thrilled)  L and A also got to spend a day at ski school as part of the Epic Kids Ski program.  I took them to the resort at 9 am, got them fitted with gear and found their instructors (easier said than done but we got it figured out).  And then they spent the whole day skiing.  Their class had four students including them.  They skied through the morning, had lunch at the resort and I didn’t pick them up until 3.  Their instructor reported that they both did great.  A more easily distracted but had fun anyway and is working on smooth turns and using a turn to stop.  L responds well to coaching though and was even working on jumps!  My crazy kids.  And now they can’t get enough.

Road trip—we spent a long wonderful weekend with cousins.  My BIL needed to put a new roof on his house with a quickly approaching deadline from the insurance company.  So we left early Saturday morning and spent the drive reading, playing, snacking and watching movies.  The men got right to work and the girls immediately dove into playing with their cousins.  They spent the whole weekend playing with toys, watching movies, reading, dancing, building forts and teasing.  The weather was perfect to run loose in the backyard and we took short field trips out for playing at the park and shopping.  They spent each night in a big cousin bed on the floor watching a bedtime movie.  I really enjoyed the time lounging about.  I wasn’t particularly useful for roof construction (or anything else really) but I got to spend lots of time chatting with my SIL and relaxing.

        On Monday evening, the men had finished as much as they could in our three day weekend together so we packed up.  Instead of going home, we continued down the road to Las Vegas so Husband could take care of some meetings the next day.  We drove into Las Vegas to check out the nighttime strip but didn’t stay long since traffic was a nightmare.  So we settled into our hotel for the night.  The girls think that any hotel is a great adventure and eat it up like crazy.  They love the novelty (and the Disney channel) so we explored a bit before baths and bedtime.  The next morning we helped ourselves to the breakfast buffet and decided, much to their dismay, that it was too cold for swimming.  (We had been hopeful since it’s Vegas and much warmer than home, but the gray skies and impending rain scared us off).  So we drove into Vegas to drop Husband off at his meetings and then returned to our room for more lounging, cartoons and snacks.  We stayed until check out time and then did a little shopping.  We found a Disney store outlet and browsed for awhile and had lunch.  Then we drove up and down the strip a few times, trying to see as much as we could of the hotels and spectacular displays.  (I wasn’t brave enough to actually park and take them walking through any of them though.)  We did eventually park and make our way into the M&M store though and had such a blast!  The girls browsed the merchandise, picking out an outfit for the baby, a present to stash for Father’s Day and begged for souvenir M&Ms to eat.  We watched the 3D movie, which E loved and cheered and talked through nonstop, A watched completely enthralled and L actually shied away from, not liking the 3D effect.  After, we got to meet Red and take pictures with him.  We spent over an hour in the M&M store before we left to find Husband and begin our long drive home.

L’s dance—January was a busy month for L’s dance team.  With competition season quickly approaching, she has had extra rehearsals to attend and even a few performances at a local high school’s halftime show to get them used to performing.  Her dance team, the Starlights, is doing a military themed routine which she absolutely loves.  I tend to favor the ballet and jazz while this particular routine is more precision and hip hop.  But she loves the fun, funky energy of it and it has really challenged the girls.  It’s definitely a difficult routine and I’m glad they got to practice performing it.  After the half time performance, we went out to the local pizzeria with two friends on the team and their families.  I think that especially made her night and she had such a blast.  She’s also in a second competition routine, with the Starlights plus two other teams (different age groups), for “mini production”.  It’s danced to a song from Rio and the girls are dressed like colorful, tropical, unbelievably cute birds.  They also preformed both routines at the company showcase in January, which is done at the high school auditorium.  It doubles as a first performance experience for the girls and a “reveal” to all the parents and families that support the girls.  We got there earlier enough to have great seats and even little sisters loved watching the routines (E provided hilarious commentary about her favorites that we had to laughingly shush.)  Competition season was really hard on her last year and she struggled with feeling like she had no play time.  I worried she was over scheduled but having two neighborhood friends on the team this year has made a big difference.  She loves it and goes eagerly to practices, I’m so proud of my sweet little spunky dancer.

Swim date with cousins—One of the girls’ longtime favorite activities is going swimming.  The community pool is amazing with waterslides and a play area.  So we had a fantastic cousin weekend, starting with the dance showcase.  Grammy picked up Mimi, one of the cousins that L is especially close to, and joined us at the dance showcase.  Then we had a late dinner and dessert before crashing for the night.  In the morning, Husband took L and Mimi ice fishing (not much success but they had fun).  Then we were joined by my brother and his family with lots more cousins to play with.  We met them at the swimming pool where the kids eagerly dove in and made rounds of the slides and hot tubs and obstacle course.  Once everyone had their fill, we met back at our house for dinner.  The kids ate really well, especially for a soup bar and I was proud of them for trying new things (doesn’t always go so well at big family events) and we settled in for gourmet popcorn and a movie.  Unfortunately the power went out halfway through, which was met with plenty of drama and rather entertaining.  So even though our evening got cut short, it was such a great weekend.

A’s art—A is taking art again, well into another session and loving it.  She’s moved into an older class which I think has been a great way to challenge her and having tons of fun.  Her projects usually take 1-2 weeks and are always very bright and energetic. 

L’s piano—Asides from dance, L continues in piano lessons as well.  It makes her Monday schedule very busy and often exhausting but I’m proud of the way she keeps up.  Her favorite is jazz and she’s learned increasingly complicated pieces that really give her the chance to get into it.  My favorite is still the classical pieces, which she picks up easily.  She has applied for an upcoming music festival, despite the timing of dance performances and baby’s arrival.  March is going to be VERY busy but I think it will be a great experience to compete and be adjudicated.  In addition to the assignments from her class, she’s working on an additional song for an upcoming special occasion and is bursting with excitement about it.  She gave Grammy a preview and was a little concerned when it moved her to tears!  The official unveiling won’t been for a few more weeks but will be such a sweet and special occasion.

L’s swimming—L has also begun swimming lessons once a week as part of the school’s PE program.  I was more nervous than she was, since it involves being bussed over to the intermediate school and juggling swim gear and changing clothes, etc.  But of course everything is fine and I think she looks at it as playtime, more than PE class.  I imagine this is especially because she’s had swim lessons for the past four summers so my girls are already strong swimmers. 

Baby update—Baby is doing great.  We had a particularly rough weekend with frequent and increasingly intense contractions.  (Sundays are the hardest, especially because church is right during my usual “rest” time so I’m sitting upright in uncomfortable chairs instead of laying down, usually don’t drink enough water and because our building is obnoxiously hot by the third block.)  So during one particularly rough Sunday, I had a definite increase in contractions.  I assumed they were Braxton Hicks, like I’ve had so much with each pregnancy.  But after two days, I started spotting.  After a quick call to the doc looking for reassurance, he had me come in, get checked and concluded “things were starting to move along”. But since I was only 29 weeks, I’ve had to cut back on all my activities and be much more careful to avoid going into true labor.  So much to my dismay, no more exercising (I was hoping to teach another week or two at that point and then hopefully take classes without teaching for a few more weeks after that).  I still teach my water aerobics class but only because I can stand poolside and coach them without exerting myself at all.  I miss being at the gym, especially for the satisfaction of a good workout and for the socializing.  But I’m using the extra time to do some decluttering and organizing and cleaning at home.  I still have a particularly rough evening about once a week or so (with regular contractions) and my girls are really good about giving me time to lay down and bringing me water.  Fortunately, we haven’t had any more fire drills or trips to the hospital to stop labor.  I have to make it to March at the minimum, especially since our hospital doesn’t have a NICU.  So if I go into labor too early, we would most likely be transferred to another hospital.  More baby stuff later.

Library—one of the girls favorite activities is to go to the library.  (yep, big nerds.  I love it.)  I can actually bribe them to do extra chores with a promised trip to the library.  The library here has a fantastic reading wall with little nooks in it.  So they pick out books and curl up to read or they play on the computer.  We’ve also been more dedicated in our nightly reading lately.  The girls were given a copy of Little House in the Big Woods for Christmas and we started reading a chapter every night.  Once we finished, we checked the second book out of the library and our whole little family is thoroughly enjoying it.  Somewhere in my parents’ storage is a very old, yellow box set that my great grandma gave to my grandma who gave to me.  So I’ve held off buying and we just borrow for now until that precious treasure surfaces.

 Grandma day—Also in January was the one year anniversary of Grandma’s passing, followed shortly by Grandma’s birthday.  We had a special dinner and visited the cemetery.  L in particular still has occasional rough moments and we’ve really embraced the idea that Grandma is now our angel to watch over them.  I finished the “Grandma bears” with my sister's help, sweet little teddy bears made from Grandma’s pajamas, and sent them to each of Grandma’s siblings and gave them to our girls.  It was very healing for me to do this and I think has been a great comfort to L as well.  It’s hard, but we’re doing ok.