Story Time

We've always read to our girls, but until recently, Natalie didn't seem to have much interest in sitting still for any stories, which is very unlike Katie. She just didn't want to be bothered with it. All of a sudden, though, she has become insatiable when it comes to books! It started with our various Dora the Explorer books that feature little flaps to look under to find hidden items. Those were fun, but she will cast even her friend Dora aside for her 2 new very favorite books: Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? and Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear? Oh my goodness, she can not get enough of those books! It is so sweet to see her pick them up, walk over to the chair (or sofa), and pat the seat while yelling, "Book!" until you sit down to read to her. And she can listen to them over and over and over and not tire of the rhyme and the colorful pictures. We used to struggle through one story at bedtime. Now Natalie will listen to book after book until you finally have to draw the line and put her to bed, which makes her upset. I'm so glad she's learning to love stories, just like her big sister!

Go Ninja Turtles!

The spring soccer season started at the YMCA this weekend! This season, Katie was placed on the same team as our next-door neighbor Gavin. I had my doubts about this, but after our first game today, I think it'll be OK. Katie and Gavin were both into the game (not playing on the sidelines, which is what I'd feared), and Gavin's mom Cherie is the coach. That's actually the major benefit that I can see -- the coach is someone Katie already knows and trusts.

The first order of business was voting on a team name. Katie got outvoted (she wanted to be the Hawkeyes), and her team is the Ninja Turtles. (They are teal this season.) As "Team Mom", I was also tasked with helping distribute jerseys, running the snack sign-up, and distributing medical release forms to all parents. After a brief practice, we played a game against the green team.

Green may have won 1-0. I'm not entirely sure, because when not being "Team Mom", I was helping Colin chase Natalie around the sidelines. One thing I DO know is that Katie was fantastic! She was in the action, playing good defense and stopping the green team. She was always running the correct direction and directing her teammates if they started going the wrong way. She surprised some of the other parents with how fast she is. We were so proud of her for how well she did! Cherie was proud of her, too. She remembers Katie's shaky start to the previous season and was amazed at her confidence level only 6 months later.

Go Katie, and Go Ninja Turtles! It should be a fun season.

Backyard Fun

With the watering restrictions in our area, we rarely water anything, especially in our backyard. However, when we do, like we did Sunday, the girls can't wait to "help"!!!




(Natalie's very excited -- you may not be able to tell, but she is!)



The girls had to dry off and strip down out in the garage. Once they got changed into dry clothes, they were pretty tired and took a moment to relax and watch Go Diego Go while Colin and I cooked supper.

They look so peaceful at the end of a long, busy afternoon!

5 Years

Has it been that long already? Colin and I celebrated our 5th anniversary last week. Since the traditional 5th anniversary gift is wood, we discussed it and decided on matching nightstands. This is a big step considering that we don't have anything that matches in our bedroom! I secretly hoped Colin would make them for us. He's made some other nice things for our house, but he reminded me that his table saw bit the dust while recently making Katie's nightstand:

So, because he didn't have anything to easily cut wood with, we decided to buy them and went to one of the unfinished wood outlet stores in town yesterday. Not only did we find ones we liked, we were also able to buy the already-finished floor models that were stained in a color we liked. It took 2 trips to get them both home, but here they are:

Along with the new furniture, Colin proposed we rearrange our bedroom furniture, and I agreed to try it. Wow. It is like sleeping in a hotel in your own house in that you feel like something's just not quite the same as home. Hopefully I will get used to it. As you can see, we also need to rearrange the wall hangings since they're no longer over the intended pieces of furniture:

So, an exciting Saturday for us!

The Past Week or So...

Katie, Resident Engineer

I was commenting to Colin how I was having a hard time lining myself up to pull the car in the garage now that he cleaned so much and moved the things I used for visual cues. Katie sighed, shook her head, and said, "I have a great idea! Daddy, you need to paint 2 lines and then put a rectangle stone at the front of it. Then Mommy will know where to drive and when to stop!"

Who knew she paid so much attention in parking lots???

Natalie, Mealtime Distraction

Natalie is growing up and wants to do everything that Katie does. She's having a hard time at the dinner table these days. First, she complains about the booster seat as though she is much too old and mature to sit there. Second, she'll eat about half her food and then start playing with it, usually a signal that she's done. So when she asks to get down, we let her down. The only problem is, she really wants to stand (not sit) on your lap and eat all the food that's on YOUR plate, even though it's usually exactly the same as what's on hers, only not cut into tiny pieces. If she's sitting on my lap, she tries to get over to Katie's seat to sit with her and eat her food. Katie has long ago traded in the booster seat for a Kaboost (thanks, Elisa, for the tip!), and Natalie seems to want one, too. Well, we'd prefer that Natalie stay in the booster seat, with seat belt, for the time being with our hard tile floors. But wait, she's outsmarted us there, and has learned how to undo her own seat belt! It is hard to stay one step ahead of this girl as she explores the world around her and tests things out. Maybe we'll get another Kaboost and see where it goes.

Katie and Her Bible Stories

The Sunday school lesson last week discussed Jesus helping the blind to see. This brought an onslaught of questions from Katie. "Why were they blind? Why did they need Jesus to help them? Why didn't they just open their eyes? Couldn't their doctor fix them? Did they just need glasses? How did Jesus fix them?" And my favorite, "What if a scary tiger chased after them? It's not very safe to run away when you're blind... How will you know where you're going?"

Natalie Starts Sunday School

Although we love our church's cry room, Colin and I do enjoy getting to sit in the sanctuary as well to better participate in worship. I asked Ms. Cindy, who runs the Sunday school class for 1.5 to 2.5-yr-olds, if Natalie could start in her class although she's not 18 months old yet. After some discussion, and much convincing on my part that Natalie would be OK with a group since she goes to daycare every day, Ms. Cindy agreed to try it out and see how it went. Natalie went to Sunday school for the first time last week and she did great! Ms. Cindy complimented us on how well she handled the group setting and playing with other kids. Katie also loved having her sister nearby since they combine all the classes for music time. Hooray! Colin and I can sit in regular church again!

Chuck E. Cheese's

Oh yikes. Today Katie and I went to Chuck E. Cheese's for the first time ever. It was her friend Haley's birthday, and I immediately cringed when I saw the location on the invitation. I hear so many horror stories from other parents that I guess I just never wanted to go. Katie, on the other hand, was thrilled. Her friends talk about it -- how could she NOT be excited!?!?

I was willing to go for Katie's friend. It was a total madhouse. I'm sure many of you have been to Chuck E. Cheese's before and I'm interested to know if you've had a similar experience. Too many people, most of the children unsupervised and running like crazy, overpriced pizza, disgusting bathroom... They had about 6 parties going on simultaneously in the party room, so you couldn't even go in there to relax and get away from the game room madness. Also, those employees run a pretty tight ship, time-wise. I'm guessing it's because they had another round of parties later in the day, so after exactly 90 minutes, we were booted from the party room. Haley hadn't opened her gifts yet, so us parents helped tote them to an open booth on the opposite end of the building so that Haley could open them with her friends. After Haley opened her gifts, Katie mentioned that she was tired and would be ready to go home after one more ride. So we did that one ride, and of course, she changed her mind. Not ready to leave. I carried her kicking and screaming from the premises, strapped her in her car seat, and drove on home. By the time we reached the house, she was quiet, but still quite upset with me that we had to leave "Chucken Cheese" so early. Early!?!? We'd been there 2+ hours and I was worn out from trying to follow her around that place!

I'd probably go back for a friend's party, but we'll never host a party there or go there for any other reason. It was just too much for me!

Happy Pi Day

March 14 -- Pi Day!

In honor of the occasion, I wore my Pi shirt to work on Friday. It drew a lot of attention! It also cemented my position as department geek. :)

Do you have a favorite nerdy holiday??? Please share!!!

No!

Natalie has had the concept of "No!" down for a while now, shaking her head or pushing things away when she doesn't want them. Now that she's learning more and more words, "No!" is now in her vocabulary. It's a good thing for her to learn, but unfortunately, she pulls it out all the time now, trying to exert some independence.

However, my favorite is when she's trying to tell you off, and breaks out the "No no!" with the index finger wagging right in your face. It is so cute that it's hard not to laugh, but you have to try not to laugh because you don't want to encourage some of these behaviors. I contained my giggles the other night when she didn't want to go to bed and Colin was hauling her off to her room over his shoulder, with Natalie screaming, "No no!" and wagging her finger at whatever part of his face she could get at. Pretty funny. :)

Out on the Town

Saturday night, Colin and I went to see Spamalot. We'd gotten the tickets for Christmas and I have been counting down the days recently because I was so excited to go. It was fabulous! King Arthur was played by Richard Chamberlain, and I thought he was fantastic in the role. The entire show was really funny, with quick, witty dialogue. You really had to be paying attention to get some of the humor! Plus, some of the musical numbers were pretty funny. I think my favorite was "The Song That Goes Like This", a spoof on Andrew Lloyd Weber power ballads. Anyway, it was a great show, and we had a lot of fun.


To make it a real night out on the town, we also had dinner before the show at a re-opened location of an old local favorite steak house. Our dinner was delicious, and combined with the nice atmosphere and view of the sun setting over the river, it all made for a very lovely experience. Since it's almost our anniversary, we counted this as our anniversary night out.


Colin's parents babysat the girls while we were out (that was part of the deal when they gave us the tickets), and they said the girls did really well. I'm sure Katie kept them in line if they tried to deviate from the routine! She's good for that. :)

Construction Progress

Here are some recent photos from my storage tank construction project at work. They've finished priming the exterior and this week started painting it dark blue:

Prior to that, they finished the chemical-resistant coating on the interior. Here I am with my co-worker Dan, inspecting the interior coating this week:


(Yes, he really is over a foot taller than me!)

It won't be much longer until they finish the secondary containment, the truck loading area, and all the plumbing. I'll be excited to get this project finished!!!

A Sign of Maturity?

My regular readers probably know that we've struggled a lot with Katie and her habit of throwing wild, crazy tantrums. Things I've read through the many months (years) of this have let me know that she doesn't do it for attention; she's just an emotionally sensitive girl who sometimes has a hard time coping when things aren't going her way. That has helped me to better understand what she's going through, but still, it has at times been exhausting, frustrating, and maddening for Colin and I to help get her emotions back under control when she goes over the edge. When we had her pre-K3 assessment meeting back in January, this was really the only thing Katie's teacher mentioned that she needed working on, and we have all tried to find ways to help keep Katie from going into a big meltdown when she's upset.

Since that meeting, we've seen amazing improvement in Katie's behavior in just a few short weeks. I don't know if we're finally getting a handle on dealing with her emotions to prevent a tantrum, or if she's just finally growing and maturing enough where she can deal with things better on her own. At any rate, it has been a real blessing to see Katie close herself in her room for some quiet time when she's upset, emerging a few minutes later feeling fine and also proud of herself for doing her own time out. It's wonderful to see her work through her emotions and come out on the other side with a smile. As a side effect, Colin and I also stay more calm, and so does Natalie. Natalie hates to see her big sister upset and often starts crying, too. Talk about stress relief for the entire family!

Since Natalie's just getting to the age where she starts acting out when upset, it will be interesting to see if she goes through the tantrums that Katie did, or if she will observe how Katie is starting to deal with things now and mirror that behavior. I sure hope it's the latter!

We Did It!!!

Yesterday Katie and I ran in the stroller division of our largest local 5K. We had a fabulous time! The weather was clear and sunny, almost a little too warm for my taste at 80 considering there was no breeze... Here we are pre-race:

Yes, Katie's having a snack before we get going!

Have you ever pushed a stroller in a crowd of over 8,700 people? Well, let me tell you, it's not for the faint of heart! The race had an open start for runners, then a special start 20 minutes later for walkers and strollers of both the walking and running variety. I would recommend they change that and add an intermediate start considering all the other people I saw around me trying to run with their little ones! Colin laughed that the second start was almost anticlimactic the way the crowd barely lurched forward after the gun. It was extremely frustrating to me to be stuck in that crowd for the first mile. We were going terribly slow. Once we got to Bayshore, it's a much wider street, and people had started to thin out a bit considering it was almost at the end of the first mile. Then we went pretty well for most of the rest of the race, but by the time we were into the 3rd mile, we were catching up with the lollygaggers from the open start! That put us back in congestion going into the finish line:

But we made it! And although it definitely wasn't my fastest 5K time ever, I think we did OK at 31:37. Katie and I both had a lot of fun, and that's what counts. This is only the 2nd year they've had a stroller division for this race, and they only let you enter kids up to age 5, so I wanted to get Katie in there while I could. Next year I'd be OK with pushing Natalie considering she's a bit lighter. :)


Our good friends Joe and Amy were here for the weekend as well. Amy also ran the 5K and finished light years ahead of me considering she was in the open start. I did see Joe somewhere around the mile 1 marker, taking our picture! Here's a shot after we caught up with Amy after the race:




Joe ran the half marathon this morning, and I was thinking of him the entire time since it was cool and rainy out, a bit of a turn for the worse, weather-wise, after all the sun we had yesterday. I checked his results online and it looks like he did a great job!

I'll have to find a new race to sign up for. I love having a goal, something to prepare for. I wonder what's next on our local calendar...