Spring Break

I think we had the faster spring break on record. Tomorrow is Easter! Where did the week go.

Jenelle's spring break was full of play dates. On Monday she played with Zack. They collected more beedees at the park. They jumped on the trampoline and had a great time.

Tuesday Jenelle went with me to work. I took the kids to the park. Jenelle and Andrew climbed trees the whole time. Jenelle usually stays close to the ground when climbing trees because she is "afraid of heights". She must have been feeling brave because she went up a few branches. I spent my time at the park making sure Elyna didn't hurt herself.

Wednesday we spent another fun day at the park with friends. It was a little chilly that day.

Thursday we were back at Andrew's. The kids did an egg hunt. They played this game for about an hour. The hiding spots became very tricky and we ended up not finding all the eggs. I'm sure they will surface soon.

Thursday night Jenelle has a sleepover at Eme's. Curt and I had a date night. We saw the Valentine's day movie and went out to dinner.

Friday we saw The Tooth Fairy. Jenelle loved that movie. She put wings on one of her Webkinz and has been playing "tooth fairy" at home. Jenelle is counting down the weeks until summer vacation.

Spring is almost here. Or is it still winter?

Saturday was a beautiful day until the phone rang at 7:30am. The weekends are my time to catch up on my beauty sleep. I usually don't roll out of bed until 8:30 or 9:00am. Some of my friend's children will sleep in, but Jenelle is an early riser even on weekends. Luckily, I have an awesome husband who lets me sleep in. Anyway, back to the phone call. Chris got into an accident while heading up to go ski. Curt drove to Idaho Springs to pick them up. We had Zack over for a playdate so Chris could get her rental car and take care of other stuff.

The kids went outside to play on the trampoline, but quickly came back in complaining of bees. Are the bees out already? I don't know, but it was 60 degrees. I wanted those kids to play outside. So I took them across the street to the park. For years now Jenelle has loved that park. One of her favorite activities is to look for BB's there. Older kids in the neighborhood come to the park to shoot their BB guns. The BB's are these colorful little balls. Jenelle and Zack spent a good 45 minutes just walking around the park picking up the BB's. They shouted out every color they collected. "RED", "GREEN", "ORANGE". Occasionally someone would shout out "PINK" and then I'd hear a "NO FAIR". They had to have equal colors. They must have collected close to 100 BB's each. Jenelle keeps all her BB's in a jar in her room.

I was able to get them to play on the equipment eventually. It was just a gorgeous day. On Sunday it was cold and snowy. Today is cloudy and dreary. Ugh! I'm so ready for spring!

Jenelle's many friends

Growing up I had a zillion stuffed animals. I think I slept with 40 animals in my bed at night. (It's probably why I'm so allergic to dust today.) I treated my animals like they were real. I gave them baths. I made them talk. I cried when I lost one of them. Well, Jenelle seems to have that same attachment to her animal friends.

She has lots of WebKinz, a few Build-a-Bears and many other friends. She sleeps with them all in her bed. She rotates who she cuddles with each night. On occasion she has come into our room at night upset that she can't find one of her friends. So Curt or I will have to get up and locate the stuffed animal. They are usually found buried way underneath the covers.

She often arranges her friends. They have been arranged by two's, three's, seasons and talents. Sometimes I find them in odd ways. One was on a bucket. Apparently, the bucket is a bunk bed.

She bought a unicorn at the school garage sale yesterday. She introduced the unicorn to all the other stuffed animals. Some of the animals get quite mangy. They do get baths every so often in the washing machine.

Once we took the frog to Starbucks for story time. She forgot him there. Well she remembered him right at bedtime. Oh the tears! Luckily for her, my friend Angie was in the Starbucks area and picked him up for her. Maxie smelled like coffee. It's all very cute and I'm going to be a little sad when she outgrows this stage.

Happy New Year

It's been a long time since I've posted to the blog. I started working and my free time has been cut short. When I have free time, I'm running errands, cleaning or relaxing. It has been a big adjustment for me. I haven't worked in years and years. I thought I was organized before. I'm not. I feel like we're always on the run now. In the morning I'm rushing Jenelle out the door so I won't be late for work. When I get home, I'm rushing to get dinner going and then school stuff ready for the next day. I hope this is going to get easier with time. I've been neglecting the blog. Sorry.

I'm glad January is over. It's my least favorite month of the year. Jenelle got a keyboard for Christmas and she enjoys playing around with it. We started piano lessons in January. We are taking lessons from another 1st grade mom. We are taking lessons every other week so there isn't a lot of pressure to practice every day. I don't know anything about music. I never had lessons with any kind of instrument. I sit and watch during Jenelle's lessons. I'm learning all about notes: quarter notes, half notes, etc. It's a lot of fun. I hope Jenelle sticks with it.

We also started swim lessons. Jenelle will not be wearing floaties in the pool this summer. She is making a lot of progress. We decided to do private lessons because group lessons seemed to be a waste of time. I will say swim lessons in the middle of winter is a huge pain. We have to shower and blow dry after each time. Her skin is getting dry, too. She came up to me one day and said, "My butt hurts." I slathered her up with lotion which only made it more uncomfortable. Poor thing.

Astronaut Training

Jenelle is back in Occupational Therapy. We noticed that Jenelle hates any activities that involve the vestibular system (that is your inner ear). She did a lot of crying this summer when she should have been having fun.



Some activities include:
riding a bike
tubing down a river
swimming
summersaults
anything involving heights
kiddie rides at the amusement park

So we are doing a program called astronaut training. It involves A LOT of spinning. Jenelle sits on the office chair and I spin her. She can spin forever without getting dizzy. You're supposed to get dizzy. I get dizzy just watching her. Anyway, her vestibular system seems to be sleeping. We hope all this spinning will get it working normally. We are spinning every day of Christmas break! Let's hope all this work will make the summer a little less scary and a lot more fun.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas! We went to church on Christmas Eve. Jenelle sat with us for the first time and she got to hold her own candle during the candlelight part. She woke up Christmas morning very excited. Santa brought her too many things. She got a grown-up scooter: it has two wheels instead of three. She got a keyboard. She got new underwear and pants. She got a magic set and shrinky dinks. She got a new Wii game and some other little things. She also got a new bean bag chair for her room. We thought she could read on it, but so far the Webkinz have enjoyed it more than Jenelle.

On Christmas day Grandma-ma, Jim, Chris, her dad and Zack came over for dinner. We had the usual turkey dinner and all the fixings. The kids had a great time playing together. Grandma-ma polished off a bottle of chocolate-mint Bailey's Irish Creme. We'll be sure to get another bottle for next year. Curt polished off quite a bit of wine himself. Grandma-ma can handle her liquor better than Curt can.

We finished off the night by playing dominoes. Jenelle and I were a little sick this year for Christmas. We hope to be better by New Year's.

Super Powers

Jenelle goes to a great Christian school. They are teaching the kids that God has a flight plan for everyone and that He gives each kid special gifts. Jenelle has adopted her own interpretation of what a gift is. Caleb's special gift at school is being able to burp the alphabet. We've been discussing Jenelle's special gifts and she will tell you that she has a lot of them. One of her "gifts" is being able to spin for a LONG time without getting dizzy. I call it her "super power". I think my super power is being able to get out stains in the laundry. Curt's super power is being able to fix things. Hmmm... I don't think these are the gift that the school had in mind, but at least Jenelle is thinking that God has made her special.