Having Fun

My girls love their Grandparents.  I love that they are close to each one.  I especially love when I find pictures like these.

Audrey stole my scarf from me.  But I will have to say she looked quite lovely in it.  I told her it looks better on me.

She's cute...

But she is also a troublemaker!!!

Blurry, but you get the picture

She is talking up a storm now and basically can say anything and says it in sentences!!

Oh just for a comparision.  Here are two pictures of Celia around the same age.

Except for the hair and eyes, I do not see the resemblance but other people do.

Cousins

A picture of the cousins all together at christmas time!  Two of these little people will turn 6 and 10 in a few weeks!!

Tyler

We love our membership to a somewhat nearby Arboretum.  We typically go more during the spring and summer however we ventured out there a week or so ago.  It was supposed to be in the mid to upper 40s well while we were there I do not think it made it out of the 30s.  I under dressed Celia a bit and although we had a great time we were a bit chilly by the time we left.

I decided not to bring our BOB stroller with us for Audrey but I grabbed my Ergo carrier just in case and put in my book bag.  I was glad I brought it, Audrey fell asleep on the way there and when we got there was not interested in walking.  So I put her in there and she was ok.  The only problem was that she wanted to switch between going in the Ergo and walking so I had to keep taking her in and out.  I finally put it in the backpack and pretended I could not find it.  My typical plan anyhow is to wear them both out so that they take a great nap or quiet time.  So I needed her to walk!

The tree houses that we love were all closed for the winter but they had a chair display that was up for the most part (minus the hammocks and a few other things).  We liked walking through some of the trails and looking at a few troll houses.  It is a very kid oriented Arboretum and there are supposed to be miles of hiking trails that we have not explored as of yet.  One Wednesday I need to take Audrey out there for a walk.   I am not sure about pushing both of them in the BOB duallie on an unpaved trail, a great stroller, but a lot of weight to push!!

There is a bell attached to that string!

We have a long way to go

Me: That's yellow
Audrey: No orange
Me: Yellow
Audrey: Orange
Me: Yellow
Audrey taking my chin in her hands: Mommy its orange
Me, grabbing an orange one: Ok it's orange

Cecelia

So I thought I would update on this little one.

So current favorites:  playing with boxes (no kidding, sobbed when i put one of them out for recycling this morning), girly legos, crafting, games, religion (honestly), watching Arthur (still!! We more then 2 years into Arthur I think and I am okay with that)

Current dislikes:  Being cold, not really a current as a has always been true, except now she can verbalize her grand displeasure,  foods that offer the least bit of spice or herbs for that matter but give her a raw veggie and she will never complain, getting anything smaller then Audrey, getting her hair brushed or washed

What she is doing:  She can read and I am not just talking about "at" "sat" "fat", I mean like "swimming", "fish", " black".  She needs to practice reading more to increase her fluency but she can sound out most decodeable text.  The unfortunate part of this is that she does not seem to enjoy it at all.  Once she gets into it and settles down with me she often appears to enjoy it, but will never admit it.  She loves listening to stories, especially biblical stories.  She is a great little artist and loves to let me know about new things that she can draw.  Her handwriting is getting to the point where I have to ask her if a teacher wrote something for her and 100% of the time it was her writing!!

She seems to be enjoying the decreased time at school, which I am so surprised about!  She loves, loves, loves going to school however I think she likes the relaxed no rushed days off.

Talking to her teacher, she has told me that Celia is a little too social sometimes at circle time but she receives ques to "make a good choice" when she chooses who to sit next to and she does a good job.  So sometimes I ask her if she make a good choice with choosing who she sat with at circle time.  Her teacher has also shared that Celia she believes is a born leader.  I love how every year a teacher puts a spin on "bossy" instead of just saying bossy.  We have heard assertive, loves to be in charge, knows what she wants, likes to direct, etc.  So now she is a born leader but her current teacher is very detailed with why she is not bossy but a leader.  So this is her explanation and I should clarify that I would actually say that Celia's extreme bossiness that started at age 1 has decreased every year so I guess I would agree with her.  Keep in mind that at age 2 she said that her favorite person was Benny because he did what she told him to do.  Okay so Ms. Shelley says that Celia can see the solution to a problem before most other kids and so she knows how to plan it out and direct others to fix or solve it.  It is hard for her to understand that others do not see this immediately but she typically will stick with her friends and is getting to understand more and more.

Next year is kindergarten!!!  I wish I knew where she was going.  Argh.  We have no full day kindergarten in our district but we are trying to get her into a small quaker school and I am shedding lots of tears over the financial aide packet in which I often think I am done and then promptly discover I have missed some big.  Like I did Friday night so my new deadline is to have it done by tonight!

This is what happens when i leave her with the iPad

legos

Celia has been loving her legos. She wanted me to share her latest creation.

So...

Okay, so some people now that at one point, a few years ago I suppose, I was somewhat of an athlete.  I have a number of marathons under my belt and at one point was a nationally ranked racewalker (okay, details, details so I was only ranked for a few days when there was another race and someone easily beat my time but I always have to throw that out there).  And yes racewalking looks really, really, really odd but how many of you can say they have sprint a 10 min walking mile???  I was also a coach for a marathon team for about 8 years.

Any whooo

Guess what I am doing on May 12????  I signed up for this

I am only doing the 1/2 marathon and quite honestly I think 1/2s will be my limit for quite awhile or forever.  Honestly as I look back to how I felt after my full marathons I can't say I have a huge desire to try them again!  This time I will be trying to run/walk it.  I would love to racewalk it but time is likely not going to allow for that training.  We will see if my body cooperates.  

So Grandpa are you interested in cheering again????  I plan to have Celia as my cheerleader there.  Won't she be thrilled???  I mean after the first hour she will want to see more and more and more runners, right???

I do not know if my poor hubby is thrilled.  It is so great to be the spouse of a marathoner and stand outside for hours cheering them on.  I mean one of the ones I did ended in rain and he was so very excited about that!!!  I mean he got to walk through the awesome streets of Baltimore city to cheer me on.  Sarcasm is involved here folks.  To be quite honest, years ago, he was my best cheer leader.  My Mom was a very close second, she only gets a mark down for holding my cheer sign upside down at the Virginia Beach Half.

so ummm

So many things wrong with this picture

Snow

We were away when our area had a small snow storm.  I think there was about 2 inches on the ground.  When we returned from our trip, some snow still remained.  Celia wanted to go out and sled and build a snowman.  Umm  no can do.

So I promised her that after some quiet time she could go out in the snow.  I thought she would lose interest. Nope.

After quiet time, girl friend got on boots, mittens, and warm pants and went out on our deck to plan in the inch of snow.  15 minutes later she asked to come in because she took off her mittens and her hands were now cold.  I am told to buy her better mittens.  After an exhausting argument over the fact that if she had kept them on then her hands would have been okay and having a 5 year old come back with things that I have no answer for I finally agreed that they were awful mittens.  We did agree though that she will have to live with them this winter.  They are waterproof, great mittens if you keep them on your hands!!

Our Year

January:  So Audrey continues to be very high maintenance but she is cute so we accept it

We enjoy our one and only snow storm.  Okay Celia had fun, Audrey fell in the snow and ranted at me the rest of the day.  Celia had a great visit from Grandma Jean who read at her school in previous years.  Grandma Jean from what I am told retired this current school year after reading for many years to the kids at Celia's school.

February:  We are enjoying the lack of snow this winter and the warmer temperatures.

We have a blast at Longwood Gardens!!

 March:  Celia starts potty training Audrey, ha ha!!  Miss. Audrey is well on her way though at this point to using the potty full time, she just needed to wait a few months.

She loves to do anything that big sister does.

April:  My Aunt's and Cousin came to visit the girls.  We had a great time!!

We also took a trip to see my Mom and my sister was there too so it was a fun time with all of the cousins.  Oh and this is by far my favorite picture of Audrey!!

May:  We had fun at Tyler Arboretum's chair exhibit.  Okay, so most of us had fun!!

June

We finished out the school year and started a fun filled summer!!

Audrey officially potty trained (during the day) about 3 days after school ended

July!  We drove to Nashville to see my sister's family and to bring my niece Katie back.

We had a great time but it was a long trip with 3 kids!  They all did great and we had another fabulous week with Katie.  She is most certainly Celia's best bud.

August

Fun, Fun, Fun at the beach!!  We had another fabulous vacation in North Carolina

Sigh, I wish I was back there right now, oh but the warm weather would have to be there

We did discover that Audrey really, really, really does not like sand nor ocean, but loves the pool.

September:  Happy Birthday Celia!!!

We celebrated Celia's 5th birthday and she started her last year of preschool with the most amazing teacher that ever existed

October:  We had a great Halloween and enjoyed some unseasonably warm days.  Celia loved playing in the Fall leaves.  I ended my 11 years working full time with my school system and switched to work as a Preschool Special Ed Teacher.  Pete is doing okay too!!

November:

I am working part time now!!!  Yeah!!

We celebrated Thanksgiving with our family and enjoyed Celia's final Thanksgiving show at her school.

We celebrated Audrey's 2nd birthday and enjoyed her happier personality coming out!

We had a great December, especially our visits with all of our family.  

The girls dressed up very pretty in their Christmas dresses for church and we were so grateful that our neighbors could join us this year at church!

We had to say goodbye to the best Great Grandpa this month, Paw Paw.  He will be missed.

We are looking forward to a fantastic 2013!!!