EJs Walk to the Park

I've lived in Colorado for over 20 years, and have never thought of it as a windy place. Until this year. The wind has been ridiculous! Anytime we have a warm day, it's ruined by the wind. A couple of days ago I went out on our porch mid-morning, and it was a gorgeous, sunny, 60 degrees. With no wind! I decided to put EJ in the stroller and go for a walk. Except when I opened my trunk I realized we had left the stroller in Brandon's car over the weekend. The park is pretty close, so I figured I could just carry Ellis over and let her walk a little bit. Well, she ended up walking the WHOLE way over there by herself. Like I said, it's not that far. If I was any good at estimating distance, I'd give an estimate, but I'm not, so I won't even try. But for little one year old legs, it's a pretty good hike! It took us quite awhile, but she had a great time exploring and picking things up - sticks, rocks, dead grass. She even got her first skinned knee and didn't shed a tear! She's pointing it out in one of the pictures.

Luckily we went before lunch time, because it was a very windy afternoon!

Hope's Law of Extremes

Hope is a child of extremes. There's really not a middle of the road for her. She's either really happy or really mad, raring to go or extremely tired, very gentle and kind, or, well . . . anyway. Well, this "law of extremes" applies in social situations too, in which Hope is either remarkably shy or tremendously outgoing. Usually, once she's comfortable with a situation, the shyness is completely gone and she let's her true colors shine through. She loves to be the center of attention, but it has to be on her own terms. The past few days have provided a couple of chances to have all eyes on her - and she loved it! On Friday she had a little play at school that she and her reading group put together. Today she went to her friend's "learn to be a model" birthday party and learned to strut her stuff on the catwalk! Here are a couple of short videos of her more extroverted side: (go down to the bottom and pause the music before you play the videos!)

This is just a tiny clip of Hope's play. She played the fisherman's BOSSY wife. Turned out to be a great role for her! Both her Grandmom and Nana came to the play and asked if the role was typecast!

Hope workin' the runway!

She just started an acting class last week, so this may only be the beginning!

Valentine's Day

I like to cook. I hate trying to decide what to cook, but I like to cook. As long as I have ample time to prepare and can do it without kids pulling at my legs because they need to be held, or need a cup of milk, or need me to play in the basement RIGHT THEN! That said, I'm not great at cooking. Good, but not great. Rarely am I too impressed with anything I make. Saturday, though, I impressed myself!! I made a steak and lobster Valentine's Day dinner for Brandon and I to enjoy all by ourselves! Since I'm not a big fan of red meat, I actually had lobster and lobster. It was delicious! I was even proud of my presentation, so I had to post pics:

We even had fondue . . .

And a little wine.

This week, back to chicken and burritos. And kids pulling at my legs.

What a week . . .

It's been kind of a crazy week around here. On top of our usual schedule of school, brownies, playdates, and piano:

-Girl Scout Cookies came in and needed to be delivered.

-EJs best friend had her 1st birthday party :).

-Hope was home from school with the stomach flu (after Brandon had it last week and EJ the week before).

-We had Hope's Valentine's Day party at school (thankfully she was feeling better by then)

Next week things should slow down a little bit and I should be able to get back to the gym Lord knows I need to after all of the Valentine treats.

Here are some pictures of her party. We planned a cakewalk and cookie decorating. The kiddos had a great time!

Hope with her cookies

Hope with her cakewalk "prize"

Ellis hanging with the big kids

On a side note, Hope actually slept until her alarm went off on Monday. At 6:35 she started yelling, "Mommy! Mommy"! When I went up to her room, she was under the covers, scared to death of loud "beep, beep". I guess we should have done a test run so she would have known what to expect! Oh well. She's okay with me "barging in" to wake her up now.

Alarm Clock

Hope has always been a good sleeper. She slept through the night from 12 days old, she still napped at age 5, and I can probably count on one hand the number of times she's been up in the middle of the night. But she has never ever been one to sleep in. It doesn't matter how late she's up the night before. In fact, it always seems that the later she stays up, the earlier she gets up in the morning. This is NOT FUN on the weekends, but works out great on school days. When she's up at 6:15, it makes it pretty easy to get to school by 7:45.

Well, lately (as in the past couple of weeks), she has been sleeping later (only on school days), and I've had to wake her up by about 6:40. I go in quietly and turn on her closet light, turn off her fan and sit on her bed, patting her gently. Yesterday she informed me that she's tired of me "barging into her room" in the morning and waking her up and that I should just let her get up on her own. So, we are now setting an alarm clock, for the child that has always been my alarm clock, so that she will not have to be so rudely awakened by her mother in the mornings.

Last night we went through an alarm clock tutorial - making sure it was set for 6:40 a.m. - not p.m. - learning the difference between snooze and off, and checking to make sure the "little dot" was by the numbers so she knew it was turned on. This morning was the big test . . . and she came trudging down the stairs at 6:15. "I just couldn't wait for it to go off, mom. I was too excited." Tonight she chose to set it for 6:35. Maybe she can force herself to stay in bed until then. . .