6th Anniversary!

Living Life

These days, we have kept busy just living life.  Without anything crazy scheduled in the foreseeable future, we have been really enjoying the comfort of our day-to-day routine...

We have had some snow teasers this winter but nothing worth mentioning.  The last "storm" produced some flurries, which prompted Emmy to dress in her snow gear from years past (I've seen no need to invest in new stuff) and joyfully frolic in the yard.  To include Hannah in the fun, she would scrape up the icy flakes from the deck and feed them to her.

Hannah still very much wants to eat art tools rather than put them to paper, so we painted with colored vanilla pudding.  It went over big.

We had a breakfast conversation about eye color.  Emmy was delighted to learn that she has hazel eyes like Daddy. :)

In a search for Hannah activities, I came upon a Gymboree Activity Gym in Nashville.  We joined them for a family music class....

Our microwave finally died (the handle was kept in place with masking tape and the digital screen had already been replaced.) My Nick took it on himself to replace it a few weekends ago and did an AWESOME job!  Our helper, Emmy, was eager to join him on the stepping stool.

We played beauty parlor...

Nick and I joined forces to refinish an old book shelf that I found at an antique/thrift market and turn it into a Barbie house...It's not quite finished, but has already been in use since the moment the paint dried. :)

Still working on the furniture...

There has been lots and lots of play time...

Emmy's idea of fun: Putting Hannah's bottle just out of her reach. :-/

We painted eachother's nails...

Daddy & Emmy "getting married" :)

Playing soccer outside:

Sissy standing tall

The next generation of the tooth brush bandit.  The worst part is she was sick and spreading her funk:

Sweet Hannah, succumbs to her lethargy, she had a bug for a few days last week. :(

Daddy also succumbing to his fatigue. ;)

One Year Old Hannah

Hannah's 13 month stats:

Weight: 20.3 pounds (24th percentile)
Height: 30 inches (63rd percentile)
Head Circumference: 45.5 centimeters (52nd percentile)

Hannah has the sweetest, happiest little disposition, but behind her smiles is a tough, determined little person.  I experience dejavu constantly.  I witness my Hannah's tenacity as she plays throughout the day and I am reminded of the same budding ferocity Emmy expressed at the same age.  No shortage of personality in our home, and we wouldn't have it any other way. :)

Hannah is cruising, walking along furniture and will even walk holding one of our hands. She has taken a couple of steps on her own on just two occasions, but hasn't attempted it since.  She has figured out the stairs and can ascend pretty quickly, it's the descent that we haven't approached yet. The stair infatuation developed over night, which called for desperate child-proofing measures so that I could do more than guard the stairs during her wakeful periods.

She is a little chatterbox, saying "dada," "mama," "duck," "snack" (sounds like "ack"), "dat" (said when pointing to something), "Darla" (used for Molly and Darla, which sounds pretty similar to "dada") and "ball".  If we ask her where something is, she will point to it.  She waves when we say "hello" or "bye bye" and has started giving kisses, complete with giggles afterwards.  She claps on command or every time we say "yay!" She loves music, and gets down with a super cool bounce move.

She goes down for bed at 7:00 each night and has (luckily) slept without interruption until between 6-6:30 each morning.  She started consistently sleeping through the night just before her birthday when I switched from nursing to whole milk bottles.  I didn't even realize how sleep deprived I was until I got my first full night of sleep!  She naps twice a day, usually going down between 730 and 8 for about two hours in the morning and a second nap around 12:30 or 1:00 for a couple of hours as well.

She loves to play with whatever Emmy is playing with.  She is notorious for taking Emmy's sippy cups and drinking from them, even when hers is right next to her.  I'm pretty certain she just likes the rise she gets out of Emmy.  She loves my phone, swiping her fingers all over it which reliably opens all sorts of apps.  She find features on my phone that I never knew existed.  She holds it up to her ear to "call" Dada as often as she can throughout the day.  Taking it from her is the quickest way to tick Hannah off, which Emmy does in order to "help" me out (although I think it just makes her feel powerful.) :-P  She is on a ball hunt much of the time, when she find them she likes to clap them together, hand them off, or roll them so she can chase them again.  If only adults were this easily entertained.

Hannah is my little bug, and doesn't like to be far from me.  We've kind of been going through some separation anxiety recently, which caught the wonderful ladies in the nursery at church off-gaurd, because Hannah was known for her easy-going nature.  Luckily, she is easily distracted and can be lured away with most toys. When we're at home, she's usually crawling behind me wherever I go and climbing up my yoga-pant legs when I stop.  When we're out shopping, she prefers the Ergo carrier or my hip over the shopping cart.  I can't think of anyone else I'd rather have in my personal space most of the time, but I am grateful for the time to myself during her naps. :-P

Hannah has 7 teeth with an eighth on it's way up.  Her molars are working their way up, too, beneath some hugely swollen gums.  She's taking teething standing up, but will be grateful for a breather soon, I'm sure.

I'm really not sure how either of my children grow on the very little food they consume each day, but among Hannah's favorites are little smokies sausages, sweet potato fries, applesauce pouches, graham crackers, pear slices, bean and cheese quesadillas, hummus and carrots, and any and all bread products. Anything else gets fed to the dogs.

As for the cloth diapers...we still use them, some of the time.  For a long while, Hannah would get a gnarly diaper rash despite my regimented laundry routine.  It seemed she would be in cloth diapers until she got a rash and then disposables until it cleared up.  I got fed up with this routine and put the cloth diapers away for a couple months.  I "stripped" them over and over again and rethought my approach to cleaning them, and we have been lucky for the last couple of months, since I've been using a third of the originally recommended Rockin' Green detergent and, basically, run them three times with an extra rinse.  The High Efficiency washing machine uses very little water, so I'm pretty sure there was a bunch of detergent residue (despite my following the washing directions to the "T") which was irritating dear Hannah's tush.  Anyways, it's better now, although with the amount of time it takes to wash the diapers, I question whether or not I'm helping the environment at all...:-P  She still wears a disposable diaper to sleep because, frankly, she sleeps longer.

Here is a little video we caught while playing after bath time: (Love those girls! :)

Three Year Old Emmy

Height: 41 inches (off the charts, supposedly Emmy is as tall as the average 4 and a half year old. :-P)
Weight: 32 pounds (50-75th percentile)

Emmy is such a loving little girl with so much spirit.  She thrives in a "helper" role, and visibly stands taller when she has a task to tackle.

She has the ABC song down pat, and we're working on letter recognition.  She is a pro at spotting "E"s  and is practicing writing them; they look much like a ladder with one side and many rungs.  A solid start, especially because she's excited about it. :)  She can count to 20 and has all of the basic colors and shapes down.

She has become so much fun to chat with, and blows me away with her verbal capability.  Nick and I get a good chuckle out of her sense of time, though.  Anything in the past is "yesterday" and anything in the future is "tomorrow" and anything that she's going to do after she wakes up (from either night time or nap time) is "in the morning."

Some of the most unforgettable Emmy-isms (I have to kick myself for not writing more down as they come):

"I use the big scissors.  I didn't ask you.  I asked myself."

"Wait.  Stop the music. I don't want to forget to get a treat."

"I hope you have sweet dreams.  DON'T wake me up when I'm asleep, Hannah."

"Mama.  I'm a rockstar.  You're a cleaner.  That's the truth."

"What are you going to get for your best friend, Daddy, for Valentine's Day, Mama?  A dinosaur, maybe?"

"Aww, Mama, what happened?" (Pointing to the giant hole in the bottom of my sock.)
"Oh Emmy, Mommy has a hole in my sock, I need to throw it out."
"It's ok, Mama, you don't need to throw it out, there are no holes on the other sides."

Me, after finding Emmy pillaging through my overstuffed wallet, "Emmy please close Mommy's wallet at put it on the table."
Emmy: "Mommy, it won't close.  But that's ok, Daddy can do it.  Daddy's a rescuer."

She is into imaginary play big time.  As I predicted, based upon her hyper-activity in-utero during Taylor and Danny's wedding ceremony, she is absolutely, 100% wedding-obsessed.  I got her a Ken doll, just to add some variety to the commitment ceremonies between her female Barbies that were occurring multiple times each day.  If her Barbies aren't getting married, she is.  To Nick.  She asks him to marry her every chance she gets, and then insists that they dance.

She still loves to cook with me, her favorite dish being anything that involves chocolate chips.  I wait until the very last possible moment to add them to whichever recipe we might be working on, because she reliably jumps ship from our cooking project and hoards chocolate chips, stuffing them in her mouth as if she hasn't eaten in a week.

Her most requested activities at home are having tea parties and watching a movie with popcorn and Grandma's special hot cocoa.  Her favorite movies are Cinderella, Brave, and the classic, State Fair. :) She also loves to paint with water colors, play with play dough, read books, and play dress up.

Emmy goes to bed around 730 (at least that's when we tuck her in and the lights go out.)  She has three strikes until her bedroom door gets locked (until she falls asleep when we unlock it).  She has three post-it notes on her bedroom mirror, each with a number: 1, 2, or 3.  Each time we have to go into her room to tuck her in again, she loses a number.  Whichever is the highest number left by the time she's asleep (if any at all), is the number of m&ms she gets in the morning.  The negotiator that she is, has rationalized to herself that two m&ms are completely adequate, so her feathers are never ruffled after her first number is pulled.  She still takes an awesome nap (which I'm sure only adds to our bedtime battle,) but the tired mom in me is clinging onto that nap as long as I can!  She will go down between 1230 and 1 each day and will sleep for 2.5-3 hours.

Currently, her favorite foods are: pepperoni, soup, Pirates Booty, oranges, strawberries, quesadillas, oatmeal, scrambled eggs, waffles, almond milk, popcorn, and anything to feed her sweet tooth.

We have spent a great deal of time reading about approaches to parenting, in addition to attending a seminar run through our church and a Positive Parenting webinar.  We have learned some awesome tools for managing our strong-willed Emmy girl, and are excited to see her responding well to them.  Above all else, consistency has been key.  I think I would have gotten way more out of my child development classes in college had I been a parent, the way a child thinks is fascinating stuff (and maddening all at the same time! :-P)

I came upon an idea where you ask your child the same 20 questions each year on their birthday and see how their answers change over the years.  Truth be told, I attempted the questions three times before her answers were void of potty humor, this is what I ended up with:

1. How old are you?  "Uh. Old."
2. Who are your best friends?  "Dane Dane and Lauren."
3. What is your favorite thing to do? "Play games."
4. What is your favorite color? "Purple."
5. What is your favorite food? "Soup."
6. What do you like to do with your family? "Play games."
7. What is your favorite toy? She didn't answer this one...
8. What do you want to be when you grow up? "Princess."
9. What makes you happy? "My Barbies."
10. What makes you sad? "I don't know."
11. What is your favorite show to watch? "Dora, the Mermaid one."
12. What is your favorite book? "Stink Soup"
13. What do you love to learn about? "Dancing.  I love to dance."
14. What was the best part of your birthday?  "My Cinderella doll."
15. Where do you like to go? "To school."
16. Who are your teachers? "Ms. Ashley, Ms. Jill & Ms. Erin."
17. What is your favorite treat? "Chocolate."
18. What do you think about before you go to sleep? She didn't answer this one...
19. What is your favorite animal?  "Elephant."
20. Who is your favorite singer? "The ballet teacher." (?)
And then she was done..."Mommy, I want you to stop talking, please."

Getting to know St. Louis

Nick afforded me the opportunity to go to St. Louis Super Bowl Weekend, BY MYSELF, so that I could help the Sacksteders get settled into their new rental home.  I got on the road as soon as Nick arrived home from work for my maiden voyage to Missouri.  I arrived a little later than scheduled, hoarse from singing with my updated "Ali's Mix" CD, with a new mapquest app on my phone, after having enjoyed my scenic detour of the city; and I was ready to conquer some boxes!  It is incredible how productive one can feel when they are working sans offspring.

Their new hometown is beautiful and has a plethora of amenities (which will make trips to visit them feel even more like vacations!)  I am grateful to have left them in their new place that already felt just like their home, a mere 48 hours after picking up the key.  I am certain that we are going to make a whole mess of memories there, and that weekend added quite a few to my mental treasure trove already. :)

Sacksteder Stop-Over

There have been some major changes in the Sacksteder household, the biggest being their address.  Kris and JP have been working feverishly since November to sell their home in Indianapolis and then to relocate to St. Louis, Missouri, as JP is spearheading the new branch of his company.  As sad as they were to leave their home in Indiana, this move promises to provide them with a great deal more family time; something that everyone is craving.  The way the entire process unfolded is a true example of divine intervention, from the bidding war that took place in the eleventh hour that brought forth the offer that would meet their exact loan pay-off amount, or getting the last available rental home in St. Louis in the highest-rated school district and managing to negotiate a lower price...God's presence has been felt mightily.

The timeline between their move-out date and move-in date enabled us to enjoy some time with Kris and the kids!  We were so lucky to have almost a week of uninterrupted playtime!

Tea Time!

Too bad this is blurry, Jacob helped himself to my maple syrup while sitting on my boxes of chicken broth.

Jacob and Kris are attached at the hip (he LOVES his mama!)  

Someday soon little miss will be able to run with the big kids!

Silly picture :)

This boy makes my heart go pitter pat.

My Emmy attempting a forward roll.

Nick, Kris and I found this hilarious... This facial expression comes when she gets into character.

It's almost as if these two know they need to stick together.  They are good buddies. ;)

Taking over the "grocery store" at the local museum.

Somebody LOVED the shopping carts!

Sisters at heart :)

Jacob (16 months), Clairey (3.5), Hannah (1), Emmy (3), Andy (5)

There was a little drama between Jacob and Hannah as they both set their sights on the rocking horse.

Jacob tried to pull Hannah off.

Then he tried to climb on while she was riding.

Hannah rubbing it in.

Then he tried pushing her off again.  It was pretty funny.

A very efficient way of transporting Sissy at the museum.