When I Grow Up...

Amelia has some grandiose plans for when she grows up. I wish I have been writing all her plans down; she has been keeping us entertained.

"When I grow up, I am going to be a mom and chew gum."

"When I grow up, I'm going be a dad and drive a car." 

"When I grow up, I'm going to be a princess."

"When I grow up, I'm going to be HOCKEY MAN.  Papa, you and Nana can come to my games to watch me play."

"When I grow up, I'm going to be a hockey man, a baseball player, and a football player."

"When I grow to be a penguin, I'm going to eat fish."

In case you are wondering, Allison would like to be a teacher and then a doctor.

Siblings Day

April 10^th is Siblings Day….clearly I never got around to writing this post until now. I was good in that I had the video put together, just not the post.

A year ago the girls started a new daycare center. Because of their age difference, Allison and Amelia were placed in separate rooms. This would be the first time in 2.5 years that they wouldn’t be spending the day together. The rational side of me that composes 80% of my brain knew this was a good thing because the girls needed to spend some time apart and it would do them good. When the 20% emotional side kicked in, it broke my heart to think of them not seeing each other all day. After all, Allison and Amelia were the best of buddies and had always been together. In reality, they did just fine and saw each other throughout the day on the playground and at the end of the day when the daycare combined rooms.

Allison and Amelia continue to be each other’s frequent best friend and occasional foe. There are times that they drive us crazy with their fighting and then there are times they melt our hearts when the girls cuddle on the couch or show concern when one is sick or hurt. I can only hope as they grow older that they continue to be each other’s best friend and will always remember to care for one other.

When picking out a song for the video, I was trying to think of a new song I haven’t used before, but in the end I had to use “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” again. In my eyes, they are my Woody and Buzz.

I hope you enjoy the video I put together.

Easter Morning

Once again, we are very blessed to be able to celebrate the holidays together as a family. Easter morning started off bright and early when the girls woke up a little before 7 am. Allison was very excited to discover whether the Easter Bunny had come during the night. We headed downstairs to discover that eggs had indeed been hidden around the house. After finding the eggs (all but one which we luckily discovered later that afternoon), the girls were excited to sort through their Easter baskets.

We then headed to church for their early service, which allowed us to have some down time (and a nap for the kids) before Brian's family came over for a late lunch. By the end of the day, everyone was tired, but yet happy and stuffed with treats.



Easter Fun

Every year my cousin hosts an Easter party for all the kids. Allison was so excited for the party this year. She was ready to leave the house by 9 am, even though the party didn't start until 2 pm.  We tried to keep the girls distracted by running errands that morning, but Allison wanted nothing to do with that - all she wanted to do was to get in the car and head to the party.  Once we arrived at the party, the girls soon discovered the goodness of Peeps.

My cousin organized an egg hunt for the kids. Two of the eggs had a $5 bill in it.  Allison found one of the money eggs and was so proud of herself.  Even Mia was excited for her.  They had a blast finding the eggs and receiving a bunch of goodies.  After the egg hunt, they colored their Easter eggs.  

A moment of craftiness....A split moment

I'm rather bad about doing craft projects with the kids; however, I try not to feel too guilty about it since they do projects at daycare (and we pay enough for those projects).  A couple of weeks ago the girls' daycare was closed for staff training so I took the day off. I figured I should do something fun with them, so I decided to do a craft project. We had a ton of broken crayons so I thought that we could make new crayons out of them.  I sat down with the kids and explained exactly what we were doing. Allison and Amelia were very excited and amazed we were doing a craft project. Mia kept asking "why are we doing a craft project Mom? "  

The first step was to take the wrappers off the broken crayons. I figured this would be the easiest part since at one point in time, we had to take the crayons away from Amelia because she kept taking the papers off.  Thirty minutes later, the kids were off playing and I was still trying to take those darn wrappers off. When I finally got them all off, the girls came back to help me put the cut pieces of crayons into the muffin pans and patiently waited as they melted. They were very excited to show their Dad their new creations that night.

We also made homemade pretzels that afternoon or rather, homemade weapons made from dough, as they seemed to weigh about 20 lbs each. Next time, I need to use less dough and roll them out thinner. Oh well, like I said, I don't do too many craft projects.

Extra-Curricular Activities

This winter we registered the girls for a ballet class at the community center were we belong. It was a six week course. At the beginning of the classes both of the girls loved it; however, be the end Amelia started to get stubborn about going.  Of course by then, I had already signed them both up for another set of classes. I had figured it would get us through the end of winter and the cold, early spring (needless to say, that wasn’t needed with 80 degree days in March).  I asked Allison if she still wanted to go to class and she said "yes." I thought that once we started back up with classes again, Mia would get past her stubborn streak and things would get better. However, it only went downhill from there.

At the first class of the new sessions, Mia refused to go to class (as expected); however Allison started to whine and say she didn’t want to go either. After packing up and heading toward the stairs to leave the center, Allison realized I wasn’t kidding and ran into class. Amelia sat with me until about five minutes until the end of class and announced that she wanted to go in.  The next week Amelia wouldn’t go in the room at first but then decided towards the end of the class that she would. I told her that she had to sit on her mat and participate in the class. Instead, Ameila ran around the room and then spun around in circles about 30 times until she became so dizzy that she fell on the floor.  All she needed was a bucket on her head and I would have been Steve Martin's character in Parenthood. Then, at the end of the class, both girls refused to cooperate and leave with me without causing a scene.

On the third week, I had to work, so Brian brought Allison to class and Mia stayed home with Aunt Lynn. The local news station was coming to class that week to tape some footage, so Allison was adamant on attending class that week.  This week I talked Allison into skipping class to take advantage of this July weather in March in order to go to the zoo.

On a positive note, we also signed Allison up for swim class and she absolutely loves its. The teacher has even said that Allison is the best in the class (yep, I’m bragging - too bad they don't make bumper stickers announcing that "My child is the best student in swim class").

A Little Comparison

April 29, 2009

April 16, 2010

May 5, 2011

March 21, 2012