Alissa is 2!

It's so hard for me to write and believe that my baby is 2! Time flies so quickly. Unfortunately for her, no matter how old she is, she will be my baby!

Rod was off work for Alissa's birthday. We didn't have much planned, but it ended up being a busy day. To make the day special, we took Alissa to McDonalds for dinner. She likes to play in the playplace there and the kids had a blast. I made her a small plain cake and of course she opened presents. The birthday party is yet to come.

Snow, Snow and More Snow

It has been snowing so much here. School has been cancelled the last two days. Caleb didn't have school this week. Leah already had scheduled days off for Friday and Monday so it's almost like summer break except there is snow up to my knees on the ground! The kids have been going out some, but it's also been very cold. The kids spend about as much time getting ready as they do outside. Caleb's snow shovel is lost forever in the snow and the kids have been banned from using ours since they lost it in the snow and I somehow found the needle in the haystack. Rod keeps the sledding hill in good shape, but even the sledding hill has lost some of it's glory. I think we all may be ready for a little warmer weather.

Rod has spent a lot of time digging us out. I have done some of it too. The piles of snow are getting quite large, but the kids think they are fun.

I had to include this picture. With being stuck indoors so much the kids have gotten into about every toy we have. They have been doing a lot of dress up. Alissa usually chooses one of Leah's dresses and high heels, but this time she brought me Caleb's spiderman and said "on". It was too cute.

Only one question remains. Will I be able to keep my sanity until spring?

Two Peas in a Pod

Ever since Alissa has gotten old enough to interact with the other kids, her and Caleb have been growing closer and closer. Surprising to me, Caleb is the one that tolerates Alissa much better than Leah. He loves to pick on his little sister, but he also loves to play with her. Most of the time it's cute to watch them interact. Alissa now gives him hugs and kisses! However, one of the favorite things for Caleb to do with Alissa is to pick on her. This has been true for the last year. He likes to poke at her, follow really close, and anything else he can do to get her attention. In the last few months Alissa has decided to try this picking stuff herself. She has decided to jump on Caleb when he is sitting on the floor. She also likes to come over and hit him in the head with whatever toy or book she has in her hand. Unfortunately, her actions don't go over very well with Caleb. He usually ends up screaming and crying. Alissa hates it when he cries so she tries to come over and give him a hug. These hugs aren't usually received very well.

The worse part of this whole process beside the whining that occurs from who ever is getting picked on at the time, is that Alissa has decided to take it too far. She is all about getting Caleb's attention and she has decided that if nothing else works that biting does. The only person that she has ever bitten is Caleb and it's not been out of anger. She is so desperate to get Caleb's attention when he won't give it to her. Usually she resorts to this when he is playing with Leah. Unfortunately for Alissa the punishment for biting is very severe even if it is just biting for attention.

Caleb and Alissa love reading together. Many times Caleb will read to Alissa.




Alissa will play with tractors if it will get her brother to give her some much wanted attention.

Happy Kisses! Too Cute!



I don't know how well you can see Caleb's bite mark on his back which turned into a nice bruise!

I just realized that almost all of these pictures where taken with the kids in their pjs. Does this mean that they only play together in the morning or that my kids spend way too much time in the pjs?

Gymnastics

Leah and Alissa are both enjoying a gymnastic class at the YMCA. Leah's class is on Tuesday evenings and is 45 minutes long. They do a little bit of everything in the class. It's certianly not up scale training, but she gets a little taste of everything. The first day of class, she like the beam best. They didn't do the beam on this past Tuesday and they did the spring board instead. Leah loves gymnastics right now. I am not sure if we will stick with gymnastics after the 8 week program is finished or if we will go back to dance. I am leaving it up to her, but we will not do both even though that's what she wants right now.

















Alissa’s gymnastic class is a half hour and it’s a mommy and me class. The half hour flies by and Alissa really loves it. It’s good for both of us to get time, just the two of us. She spends most of the time running around and laughing. I spend most of my time chasing her. She has really been enjoying a tube that she crawls through and the mat that she does summersaults on. She loves just about any of the swashy mats and will just fall and crawl on them. It's very cute and these pictures don't do the experience justice.

Summer Busyness

It’s no wonder that the summer months fly by so quickly. I don’t think that I could pack anything more into a day than I have been lately. We’ve had dentist appointments and doctor appointments. We’ve had play dates and outings. Leah and Caleb have also been enjoying vacation bible school all week.

Last week, Leah, Caleb and I all had a dentist appointment. Rod was originally supposed to be a part of the outing, but I had to change his appointment because of the new job. The plan was to switch Alissa from one parent to the other so that she wouldn’t have to be a part of the appointment, but since it was just me and the kids, she had to go too. She was actually really good during the appointment and sat relatively quite in her stoller. Everyone did really well at the dentist. Leah unfortunately does have another cavity. Luckily this one is very small and can be filled at our regular dentist and he will not need to drill. The dentist explained that Leah has very deep groves in her molar teeth and she will likely always have problems with cavities in her baby teeth. Luckily, sealants will solve this problem for her permanent teeth. Leah was very unhappy to hear that the sugar bugs had eaten a hole in her tooth. I explained to her that mommy and daddy have both had cavities too and it made her feel better.

Alissa had her 15 month appointment on Tuesday of this week. She is doing great. She gained 2 lbs and grew 1 ½ inches since her 12 month appointment. They were really surprised about how much bigger she had gotten. I told Rod that I wasn’t, because when she was 12 months old she still felt like a baby and in the last couple of months she has turned into a big girl. Now she is a full fledged toddler! It’s sad to mommy.

This week we also went to Slate Run Park just south of Columbus. We went with Stephanie, Noah, Rachel and Nathaniel and some others from their church. I never even realized this park existed, but it was a very nice park and they had a living historical farm. At first this didn’t sound that interesting to me since I grew up on a farm and I wasn’t exactly sure what this all entailed. It ended up being a really neat place to visit and it was all free. We were able to tour the farm which had all typical the farm animals; cows, sheep, pigs, chickens, turkey, ducks, and horses. We went through the barns and pet the animals. They also had people dressed up in 18th century garb and they had men sheathing wheat with a horse operated machine. You were able to tour the old farmhouse, the smoke house, and the other outbuildings. The also had a huge garden and they let the kids clean beans that they were picking. There was the old water pump which the kids loved.

Leah loved all the animals and she really wanted to make friends with this chicken.

Leah petting one of the horses.

Alissa checking out the sheep.

Filling buckets at the water pump.

Caleb relaxing on the hammock beside the house.

All the kids love the swing hanging from the tree.

Heading home.

Alissa's Eyes

Today was Alissa's eye doctor appointment. I had to reschedule after I messed up the appointment in May by not knowing which side of town the office was located. Even though I rescheduled, I had planned on cancelling because I didn't want to drive to the west side of town for the appointment. Me and my forgetfulness; surprise, I didn't remember I had the appointment until I checked the answering machine on Sunday night telling me the appointment was Monday morning at 8:45 am. I decided to keep the appointment and take all the kids with me.

Everything went surprisingly well. All the kids were very well behaved and the appointment went surprisingly fast. For those of you who need some background information, at Alissa's one year check up the pediatrician thought that I should take her to see an eye doctor because she thought that one eye may not have been focusing correctly. According to the eye doctor, Alissa has what is known as pseudostrabismus. A big long word to say that she doesn't really have anything wrong with her eyes. I guess that Alissa can have the appearance that one eye is going cross and not focusing only because of her facial structure. He said it's because of the folds of skin around her eye and how her eyes are set. It's not very noticeable because I never thought that she looked cross eyed. I guess though, as her face matures that this illusion will also go away completely as well. We're just happy that there is nothing wrong with her beautiful eyes!

A cute girl and a bath tub picture too! (So they'll hate me later in life!)

On the farm

We went for a visit to my Dad's last weekend and this is the first time that we've been there since the weather has turned warmer and things are in bloom. It's also the first visit we've had there since the baby cows and baby kittens were born. All these things make the visit to the farm very exciting for the kids. Leah generally spends more time in the house than outside, but not this weekend. She spent a lot of her time in the barn. At first we couldn't find the kitten so she decided to visit the cows. She spent some time in the barnyard, but she like the cows in the barn best. She decided to name them all after the princesses and then she feed them hay. No one had the heart to tell her that those were the ones that were next in line to be taken off to the butcher shop, but Rod did tell her that she might want to pick different cows to make her pets. She didn't understand any of it though.

For Caleb, he’ll look at the cows for a few minutes, but he spends the whole weekend trying to get someone to take him to the tractors. This weekend, my dad took the tractor in the field to fix the fence and Caleb got to drive us back there. Leah, Rod and I rode the wagon (Alissa slept through the whole event and even missed the earlier event of moving the cows down the road to pasture). Caleb also got to drive the loader which he does by himself and makes him think he is big stuff. The kids spent most of the time we were there outside into everything and eventually even Alissa joined in the fun, riding bikes and visiting the cows.

Finally a few hours before it was time to go, I found the mother cat and decided to watch her because knew that I could find the kitten that way. Jean had told Leah about the kitten when they came down for her birthday party and Leah remembered and it was the first thing she wanted to do when we got there. I knew that she would be disappointed if we didn’t find it, plus I am a sucker for baby kittens too; daughter like mother. I did find the kitten. There was only one and it was tiny and white. Very cute. Leah was so excited to hold it and was ready to take it home. Jean told her that it was too little to leave it’s mother. Leah had a solution. She decided that her cat from home (which came from dad’s last year) would become the kitten’s mother. She didn’t get what she wanted, but she really enjoyed holding it and loving it while we were there.

Alissa is on the move

It is amazing who quickly Alissa is learning to walk. I can see a big improvement each and every day. She went from just taking 4 or 5 steps one day to walking across the room the next. She can now change directions and make turns when walking. She gets so proud of herself when she makes it to her destination especially when it's to Rod or I. She now trys walking pretty much everywhere instead of crawling. She doesn't always make it to her destination so then she crawls the rest of the way. She still hasn't figured out how to get up off the floor without pulling up on something. Rod and I have actually seen her do it once or twice, so we know that she can, but we figure that she just doesn't realize it yet.

She is growing up so fast. She is now officially a toddler. No more babies in our house. Of course, she will always be my baby whether she likes it or not. I think she really likes it right now since she is so spoiled!

Alissa is Walking (at least she is trying really hard)

Alissa is nearing 13 months old now and up until that last week she had little interest in walking. Rod and I have gotten her to take a couple steps between us, but she really didn’t even want to do that. She realized it made us happy so she would do it for a couple of times for our benefit. This last week, however, she has decided that walking would be pretty good. She now loves to walk between Rod and I. She is also trying to walk some on her own. She will pull up and then you can see her thinking about whether or not she should let go and try to walk to something nearby. She is trying it and falls most of the time before she gets there. Her max is about 5 steps. It’s cute because she gets really excited and her body ends up going faster than her legs and then she falls.

It’s all so bitter sweet watching her learn to walk. I am sad that my baby is growing up, but I am glad that she will be walking soon. It will be nice when she can walk around outside instead of crawling in the grass and dirt.

Happy Birthday Alissa!

Tomorrow is officially Alissa's first birthday! I can't believe that a year has gone by so quickly. What happened to my little baby?

April 10th 2008

We had Alissa's birthday party this weekend. Although Alissa was overwhelmed at first, everything turned out really nice. The day was warm enough to go outside some. Thank you to everyone that came and those of you who weren't here, here are some pictures so you don't feel left out.

The cake and her own personal cake to dive into.

Eating her birthday meal of lasagna and grapes

Is this mine?

I know what to do with this!

Yummy!

Present Time

That was a lot of work! I am getting tired.

It's been a wonderful year with Alissa and we looked forward to many more years. We know that she is going to be a handful and a girl full of determination.

What a mess.

We have been very busy trying to finish the kid's play room. We worked on it this weekend and I have been working like crazy this week too. I am hoping to paint soon. I have been trying to finish the new part of the ceiling. I have decided that doing that should be considered a form of torture. Who decided that a plain flat ceiling wasn't good enough? Why is it necessary to put a bunch of putty up there and brush a design on it? Someone apparently had way too much time on their hands when they decided that was a good idea. I figure that the people who do that for a living probably have a more efficient way. Since I only have a small area to do, I figure that I'll keep doing it they hard way. After finishing less than half of it yesterday, I was convinced that my shoulders, arms and neck may never recover from this. I hope to finish the rest of the ceiling today. I hope I can make it!

Today was crazy hair day at Leah's school. The teacher has been really talking it up and all the kids have been excited for weeks. Leah wanted pink hair. I didn't want to spray her hair, although when we got to school several girls did have their hair sprayed pink or purple. What I did was put pink yarn in her hair. I still thought it turned out pretty cute. She was excited about it.

I also put a ponytail right on top of her head and put a bunch of ponytail holders in it to make it stand up. I thought it was pretty crazy, but when she looked in the mirror she was less than happy. She ended up pushing it down. I took out the extra ponytail holders and it made her happier. Before she pushed it down, it reminded me of her "fountain" hair that she had when she was a toddler.

I have become a person that cannot function without my morning coffee. This morning with everything going on including getting Leah’s hair done in time for school, I didn’t have time to get my coffee down, so I took it to go. After Caleb and I got home, I had to carry some stuff in since I had stopped at the grocery store so I just threw my coffee cup in my purse. The travel mugs I have never leak so I often throw them in my purse so that I don’t have to carry it separate. Just a friendly reminder, that even the best travel mugs will leak if you don’t close the lid. Well, I didn’t realize that I had split a 1/2 mug of coffee into my purse until I lifted up my purse to find a very large puddle of coffee under it. Wow, what a mess. I really needed to clean out my purse, so now I have been forced to do that. The worse and best (depending on how I feel like looking at it) part was that my coupons took the worse of the spillage. They pretty much soaked up the coffee like a sponge. I didn’t want to throw away all my precious coupons, I save a lot using coupons and it’s great since most of the stores around here double them. To me, throwing them away would be like throwing away money. So, I separated them all out and I am hoping that they dry and are usable. We’ll see.

I laid them out on the table to dry. It was a good time to go through and throw away expired ones.

I ran out of room on the table so I had to lay some on the counter too.

On a completely different note, here are a few updates. We are now down to only one fish, John Deere. Rod noted that “nothing runs like a Deere” so that must explain why he’s the only one that’s made it through. He’s doing well, but he’s probably getting lonely so we’ll have to go fish shopping soon. The other morning Caleb woke up and said is John Deere dead yet, when I said no, he sounded almost disappointed. I think that he feels a little left out that his fish didn’t die yet. Something is not quite right about that.

Also, Alissa has added another word to her vocabulary. It’s “no”. I knew it would come, but this soon? She can say no, but she prefers to shake her head at us. Although we don’t necessarily want to encourage her telling us no, when she shakes her head it’s so darn cute that we can’t help but smile.

Alissa is better

Alissa is finally feeling better and life is getting back to normal. I am still not sure what Alissa had, but she didn’t have a UTI which is good. I am sure it was some kind of infection because of how miserable she was and the fact that no one else in our house got sick. We were really worried about her for several days even after we started the antibiotics. She I now back to eating and playing and actually last night she slept through the night. Before she got sick we had finally moved her out of the cradle in our room and put her in the crib in the bedroom with Leah. Leah was very excited about this.

Alissa's first night sleeping in the cradle.

Leah is very happy to have a roommate for now. She probably won't find this very exciting for long!

After Alissa got sick and was waking up several times throughout the night, we moved her back into the cradle in our room. Now that things are back to normal, we can move her back into Leah’s room. Alissa still isn’t sleeping through the night every night, but at least we are moving in the right direction. Alissa has definitely grown out of the cradle and now she is sitting up and pulling up in it. It’s not very safe for her in there anymore. Although I am trying to keep her a baby it isn’t exactly working. It’s hard to believe that I have to start planning for her first birthday. I have to keep reminding myself that she really is almost a year old. It really doesn’t seem possible.

We are so happy that she is feeling better! She is back to her old happy, chatty self!