Guess who's 2?

Our munchkin turned 2 a little over a week ago, so an update is in order about her.

Praise God first because she's healthy.  Still on the short side, wearing 18 month pants and onesies comfortably but her belly means she wears 24 months/2T shirts (which isn't the same size, I learned).  She's overall still a good eater but cheese, fruit, and ice cream are definitely her favorites.

What she likes-
Water!  She asks for baths all the time.  Every time we pass by a fountain she has to stop and put her hands in the water.  Then she touches the water to her forehead, like she's blessing herself before going into Mass.

Being outside.  We spend lots of time in the backyard and taking advantage of our Arboretum membership.  Lately she has been trying to look for bugs. She likes to ride on her new bicycle, can throw and kick a ball, and is doing better about drawing with the sidewalk chalk instead of eating it.

Climbing.  The kid has no fear at the playground, or at home.  She is loving gymnastics class and has become a very good jumper.

Babies.  Thanks to some friends who have had babies recently, she is getting lots of opportunities to hold them.  If we're out and she sees a stroller or bucket carseat, she has to go say hi to the baby.

Reading books.  Spot, Todd Parr's books, and the series that started with "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" are her current favorites.

Saying no.  Sometimes it's pleasant, other times it's very emphatic.

It's really neat to see her vocabulary expanding.  If you ask her what color something is, she'll almost always say it's blue, although she can say the names of the other colors.  She will identify two of something without being prompted and will say "ABC" as well.  She has her animals and the sounds they make down.

I am waiting until summer to tackle potty training, and as long as she doesn't try to climb out of her crib, we're keeping her in it (hope I didn't just jinx it).  She's definitely starting to assert her will but most of the time, distraction will keep us from a temper tantrum.  Everyone told us it would go by so fast and it really has.  Sometimes I look at her and am just amazed at how big she is.  We are grateful for every day we have with her.

A little ice never hurt anyone

Unless you've been living under a rock, or without power for the last 4 days, you heard that Dallas was victim to an ice storm.  I have thoroughly enjoyed being contained to my house and was fortunate that my hubby ended up being off work with me for all but a few hours Saturday afternoon.  Although he did have to ride home in the cold and rain Thursday night.  Check out his bike!

I spent most of Friday doing crafty projects to get ready for our Bible study Christmas party.  I found a link on Pinterest to this party mix.  Fortunately I bought all the ingredients last weekend, otherwise my friends would not have gotten anything nearly as yummy as a gift.

There was lots of laundry and cleaning done on Saturday, and the crockpot got plenty of use over the weekend.  My good friend's baby shower was scheduled for Sunday, and we made it happen!  I wasn't supposed it host it originally but it ended up that I did, and we had a fabulous turnout!  We did the traditional belly measuring game, advice for the new mom, and bingo while she opened gifts.  We even had a dear friend who couldn't fly in for the shower Facetime so she could still be part of the fun!

After those festivities we had our annual Edge Group Christmas party.  It amazes me how every year we always have new people.  We've got a couple members still in utero, one who was just born to LEBean, and our friend Bagels became a part of our community in the spring.  Some old friends have moved back to the metroplex after being overseas for 3 years, and it honestly doesn't even feel like they ever left.  The highlight of the evening for me was the munchkin and her toddler friends pushing each other around in the doll stroller.

Oh and one of our friends bought a donkey as the community gift.

Today has been a quieter day.  We all slept in, the munchkin sleeping the longest, and we ran a couple errands.  The roads were fine by the afternoon, but I'm grateful for the bonus day off with my little family.  Just another 9 days of work until Christmas break, two of which I'll be spending at a conference, and we're also celebrating our anniversary (twice!) and my brother-in-law's birthday, and going to a Christmas party.  Busy December!

Getting closer and closer to 2!

Little L is now 21 months old and she is all toddler!  We're learning that we need to make everything into a game, otherwise we have a very stubborn and strong munchkin to contend with.  But overall she is good natured and affectionate, but very active and curious.  We wouldn't have her any other way.

Finally putting away the 12 month pants, but she can already wear 24 months and 2T shirts, if we roll up the sleeves.  She recently had her 2nd hair cut, just a trim of her bangs, to keep the hair out of her eyes.  She is a good eater, especially if it involves fruit, cheese, or pasta.  She also is loving peanut butter and yogurt right now and her favorite treat is ice cream. (She calls it ice!)

It's tougher to get outside since it gets dark earlier but Scott still takes her to the playground on his days off and I try to take her on the weekends at least once.  She loves her gymnastics class and practices at home by climbing on everything and jumping in her crib.  We read lots of books, currently Todd Parr, Eric Carle, and Spot are her favorite, and she likes to push her stroller (sometimes empty) around the house.  We let her watch a little tv, the show Taratabong everyday.

Her talking is really taking off.  She's great with her animal noises and can recognize a couple colors too. She will say "bless you", "thank you" and "excuse me" at the right time and loves saying "Hi!" to people when we're out running errands.  She has a name for herself, it comes out sounding like "Sha sha".  She's starting talking to Grandpa and Grandma on the phone and with Skype, which always makes their day.

We're looking forward to her second Christmas in a couple weeks!

The Sprinkle

My Bible study (Edge group for those who know what that means) put on a "sprinkle" for one of our dear friends having her second, a boy, next month.  Once again, I let the people who are much more talented that me put everything together to make it beautiful and fun and I provide a clean house and nice platters to place all the food on!  The theme was alligators.

One of the girls came up with a cute game.  The mom-to-be loves See's Chocolate, so my friend created a gator out of the box.  She took pieces of candy out of the box and put them in baggies with questions about her pregnancy.  To get the chocolate back, she had to answer the question.  She had a few "Pregnancy Cards" she could play if there was a question she didn't want to answer.

It was a great afternoon celebrating The Bean and her little boy on the way!

It's been awhile...

A blog update has been stewing in my brain for awhile, but alas, the time to do it!  It's Saturday afternoon, pumpkin chocolate muffins are cooling, dishwasher is running, the Munchkin and hubby are both napping, and I'm listening to Husker football online.  I win.

The new job is great.  It's a lot of work and not enough time to do it all that I want but I make the most of it.  My co-workers are passionate, caring, and humble.  I'm so grateful.

Little L is now 19 months old and I think the terrible twos are starting a little early.  Not that she's terrible all the time, but she definitely has an opinion she will express at times and has developed some selective listening.  But she's also super affectionate with hugs and kisses, likes to help us, and is talking more.  She says mama, dada, whoa, ice, hi, bye bye, uh oh, and her favorite food, cheese.  She is very friendly and likes to wave and blow kisses.  She has also become an expert climber; as a result, we're now in mommy and me gymnastics on Saturday mornings.  She's the youngest one in her class and is still working on following the teacher's directions but we have fun together.  She loves looking at her books, especially The Very Hungry Caterpillar, riding in her swing in the front yard, and dancing.  Now that I'm at work all day, I cherish even more the time we spend together on the evenings and weekends, especially when the three of us are all at home.

My dad and his amazing lady came to visit us a couple weeks ago, and we made the most of the trip.  We went to Oktoberfest, participated in the Walk to End Alzheimer's in memory of my Grandma Jo, and went to the state fair.  Headed back up to Nebraska in a couple weeks for a wedding.  We're flying this time so say a prayer for us!

Hopefully a Halloween post will be written before Thanksgiving! :)

Update

So it's been an interesting few months for us...many people have been asking us about our job situations and I finally feel comfortable making the news public.

S has been working nearly full time at Performance  Bicycle since the spring.  He is currently in training as an Operations Manager.  Once he finishes the training process he will be full time with benefits.  He loves his job and is very good at it, both things we've been praying for him about for a long time.  He still commutes by bike and actually gets rewarded for it! The downside is that it doesn't pay enough for me to just work part time like I have been for the last two years.

That being said...I will be working in Dallas ISD as an Instructional Coach for math teachers at a campus about 10 miles from our house.  Getting a job offer this early in the summer was a huge blessing.  I will still have a teacher schedule, and while I have experience with teacher workshops and mentoring, this will be the first time I get to do it full time.  It's the kind of job I was praying to get, and I am so grateful.  I will continue to work at the Dallas Zoo occasionally and sell Silpada jewelry, because those are just too fun to pass up!

So the question most people will have is...what are we doing with the munchkin?  Fortunately we do not need full time care; between our two work schedules it'll probably be about 20 hours a week, but at this point, we're not sure what the hours would be exactly. We'd like someone to come to our home, so if you are interested or have someone you would recommend please let me know.  I know God has the perfect person already determined.

Thank you so much for your prayers and encouragement during this time of uncertainty.  God is good and always provides.

Q125

We made two trips to Nebraska in the last month.  The first was for a cousin's wedding, the second was to celebrate Newman Grove's 125th anniversary of its founding, quasquicentennial .  It worked out that the weekend fell on my birthday so I was able to celebrate with family in the place I always was when I was young, with homemade pie and ice cream cake.  The first night we were there they had a BBQ dinner in the park followed by fireworks.  L hadn't been around fireworks since she was pretty little so I wasn't sure how she'd react, but she loved them!  Having her sit in my lap and enjoy the fireworks was one of my favorite times that weekend.  (Her sitting still in my lap doesn't happen very often anymore!)  The next morning my dad and hubby participated in a 22 mile bike ride (in the rain!).  They didn't plan on coordinating, but they looked good together in Husker colors!

My aunt, brother, and cousin all participated in the fun run and got medals.  My husband got first place in the bike ride so our family represented well!
After Mass we went to the pancake breakfast and I got to meet my grandparents' second grade teacher.  She was 17 when she taught them!  I can't even imagine teaching at that age. Sunday afternoon was the parade.  There was a flyover, a lot of tractors, and plenty of candy thrown at us. My grandpa won first place for his antique tractor.

(This isn't it, I just thought it was funny and so appropriate!)

My hubby had never driven a legit tractor before, so Grandpa gave him a lesson.

It was refreshing to get out of the city and spend some time in a small town with family. I remember being in Newman Grove when I was 8 for the town's centennial so I was so glad we were able to come back and create more memories.  L was an excellent traveler as usual, falling asleep in the car more than once while reading her books.  She's turning into a bookworm like her mom and grandma!