It's been about a month...

So I thought I'd update :)

IF - you are NOT in the mood for mommy bragging - no need to read any further ;) My girls are AMAZING!!!

Slow day today. Hubby's in Seattle, baby's napping, big girl is at pre-school. How'd I get so lucky?!?! Not quite sure what to do with all my free time - Laundry's caught up, dishes are done. I suppose I could go pick up toys but then the girls would just have to drag them all out again ;) I cleaned toilets last week - wouldn't want to get too crazy :)

SNOW SNOW SNOW

It is beautiful and so very pretty and I love it and the girls love it! Challenges to the snow: other people driving, Anna doesn't like to be cold, Ella doesn't like her feet wet. How do we play outside when we can't get wet and cold? Hmmmm...tricky - but Sam and I, we're crafty you know :) It all works out. For an idea of how deep it is - the snow reaches Einstein's belly.











This is the snow slide at the edge of our driveway - the girls love it! This giant pile of snow makes a wonderful slide :)
















ELLA

New casts yesterday. This set is "hot blue" as opposed to light blue - whatever. It makes her happy as the casts aren't! "Mom, I'm growing up to get big - like a grown-up." "Why honey?" "Because grown-ups don't wear casts." :( Poor baby! Also this, "Mom, my casts aren't fun anymore, I'm all done with them." Her PT in Seattle thinks I should give her ice cream as a reward for doing well getting cast. Hmmm - a food reward, not exactly the option we're going to go for - we've got enough troubles there, no need to create a new issue with the child. A book is what the dr. suggested. I told them, she doesn't need a reward. She's got super duper cool rock star casts that NO ONE else has. That's all the reward she needs! Although yesterday we did stop in Tukwila and see Enchanted. She is not allowed to put weight on her casts for at least six hours, preferably the entire first day so our activities are kind of limited to stroller stuff or sitting. Her second movie at the "fee-a-ter." How cute is this child?!?!?


Now she's had orange, pink and hot blue casts. Next week she's going to have light blue or green. She hasn't decided yet. We're keeping our fingers crossed that things work out well!!! We'll be back over on the 16th and the 30th. Hopefully the 30th is the last of the two week visits! The only problem really - besides the traveling with a carseat AND stroller - every week getting the casts OFF is harder and harder. From what I understand it is because her legs are getting less and less used to stimulation. So the little saw that cuts the casts off, the vibrations are incredibly irritating to her legs. Plus, her legs are getting quite pasty, well, pastier I guess, being as she is our child :)

What other Ella news? She's doing quite well reading. We're trying to drum into her that she doesn't have to know it in order to say it. It is okay to try it out and sound it out. The poor little perfectionist doesn't have a chance with us as her parents. Whatever I'm anal-retentive on - he's not and vice-versa. Her counting and reading are coming right along. She figured out the 'pattern' to count numbers higher than 100. One night before bed she was ticked because we wouldn't count for her so I guess that night she figured it out herself. The next day, "97, 98,99, 100, 101, 102, - Mom, is that the pattern?" Geez kid - don't strain yourself!

I just realized today that I am way late for the pre-school applications for next fall - UGH. Things would be so much easier if we were already moved back! All the applications are due this month and as we're not sure where we'll be living - I'm not spending the $50 a pop on the application fees for many different neighborhood schools.

ANNA
Where to start? This kid is so wonderful! She's just an amazing little person all around! She's almost 17 months :( :D and is more and more amazing every.single.day. She doesn't have as an extensive vocabulary as Ella did at this age - but she's also walking and running and doing stairs - trade-offs. Which isn't to say that she's not talking incredibly well!!!

Far from it, she's just entered the stage where she's learning at least two or three new words a day - very hard for me to keep track of anymore. She will pop out with a word we don't know she knows or that we don't know we've taught her. For example, this past week; angel, Frank (our fish), smile, pig - others but now she wants to "cu-ell, cu-ell" (cuddle, cuddle) and it is totally hard to concentrate!

With all the words she's saying - it is even more mind-boggling to realize she understands so much more! Such not a baby any more - which I am totally okay with and actually quite enjoy, but a little sad. She loves to run and 'jump' and kick! Kicking is especially fun when dad changes her diaper ;) He just doesn't think so - party pooper :D

She's just transferred down in the past couple of weeks to one nap a day. It definitely allows for more things to be accomplished during the day! And, she does adorable little things like go get her blanket when she's tired. Or she'll ask for milk or her 'pafier' - we know she's tired then. Goes right to sleep. No rocking, no crying - just cuddles into her blankets and babbles a bit and goes to sleep. Isn't she Great!!!

OH - I almost forgot. She's done with bottles! (I almost typed diapers - wishful thinking) It is great and pretty painless. She handled the transition better than we thought she would! We had a little setback when she was so sick and would only drink milk - from a bottle - for about three days. Then she got some steriods and other fun meds and was feeling better after a couple of days. She got what Ella had but it was actually worse and lasted for much longer. Poor little monkey. But - as soon as she was feeling better - bottles were gone again - no problem! Oh - and she's feeling her normal rarin' cantankerous self so we are good to go! :)

SAM and BRAN
Things are going pretty well. We are seeing each other a lot more now that Sam's not working a hundred million hours a week! :) Sam got a promotion at work so now he's in charge of a couple of guys which is kind of cool. A different kind of work and a new way of thinking but a great new opportunity, as we all know, he's not getting any younger and - Evidently - I don't know from personal experience - pretty much not a lot of Great programmers over the age of 40. So - he's got to learn a new skill set - dealing with people ;) "Programming is a young guy's game." Yep - because those crazy hours aren't worth it!

He had to go to the dr. this week - the urgent care clinic actually. His dr. office sent him there b/c they do x-rays. Yikes! Fortunately he just has two doses of antibiotics and a cough medicine (I think that's all) - they thought he might need a nebulizer or an inhaler or something. Phew! Good thing for Flex Spending!

I'm doing much better - thanks for asking. Having a harder time keeping the blood sugars under control - that is no good. So trying to do less and less with sugar - and I've decided I pretty much have to give up alcohol - bummer, more 5 pm martinis ;) On the plus side many less headaches and this horrible sickness that has plagued my entire family for the past month has missed me.

What else...I'm scrapping more. Making more time for it. This also means, that I've moved a ton of stuff upstairs to make it more convienent to work and spend time with Sam. My space is kind of removed and it makes it difficult to hold a conversation - even after the girls are in bed ;) I'm also doing a scrappy challenge with some of my friends. No buying any stuff!!! Yikes! At least, until you've done the equivalent of 20 pages. Oh, and I finally put all my pages into albums! Wahoo!!! Where all this ""Blah blah blah craft chat""" is going is that I'm getting some really good feedback on my work - from actual scrappers and people that are published. I'm loving what I'm doing, I'm working much more quickly and a bonus that a few other people like it.

CHRISTMAS
It was very nice and relaxing - the first time in a long time that we haven't had anywhere to go or do or be on Christmas Day. The only sad part about the day was that we didn't get to do our 'family' presents and stuff until after 1 or so. Sam's mom was here - always a nice time and the girls just adore her! But, she had to catch a plane and the girls slept in until 8 or 9 so after stockings and opening her presents to the girls she had to leave :( So when Sam finally got back from the airport and Anna finally woke up from her nap we could open presents. Poor Ella was going crazy waiting for Daddy and Anna because she knows about presents - Anna didn't really care, Ella, however, was so sad to have to wait. The rest of the day was quite leisurely and not having to cook - we had a great dinner! Brie and garlic and bread and I made it to the organic food store and we had a surf and turf with shrimp and crab. The girls LOVE seafood so we were all just stuffed stuffed stuffed! It was great - quick and easy and little tiny clean-up - my kind of Christmas dinner! :) Plus the girls won't eat mashed potatoes or stuffing and the idea of turkey again - not so appetizing...This was FUN!

NEW YEAR
First New Year in 5 years that I'm not pregnant or nursing! Wahoo! Oh but wait, can't really drink alcohol anymore, makes me kind of miserable - and no sitter and we didn't really want to be out and about on amateur night so we stayed in. We had more great food. Put the girls to bed and then woke Ella up around 11:45 to do Happy New Year with us and toast - so cute. She promptly then went right back to bed. Sam and I had a leisurely time - lots of food, Sam had lots of champagne, I had 1/2 a glass and immediately had a headache...This gettin' old stuff - blah!

I think that's pretty much all the catching up that needs caught up.

I'll post pictures later.