Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Our Baby Girl

Well, I guess not really a "baby" anymore, our BIG girl is 6 months older (well almost, in 2 more weeks), Hannah will be 3 1/2 years old!! I really cannot believe how time flies! The day to day does not seem to go fast enough sometimes, when all we want is for the end of the day for Daddy to come home, but looking back it's amazing how long we have been blessed with our sweet girl! Lately, she's been moving past the terrible two's, which has been wonderful- we rarely experience tantrums anymore. With that being said we are experiencing a whole other side of our sweet girl, and the only way I can describe it is by saying she is starting to be, what I call, a typical kid! Hannah has always been really well behaved- she never stood on furniture, she wouldn't do things after we told her not to, she wouldn't really talk back, and over all she never really had a mischievous way about her... until now! I don't know what has gotten into this kid, but for some reason running on the couch has suddenly become a great idea to her! We will see her start to do something that we don't want her to, and she'll look straight at us and do it anyway! She gets this look of happiness on her face when she knows she's misbehaving, and I don't like it one bit!! Thankfully, it hasn't been for anything too serious, but it can still be aggrivating. I am also thankful, that she knows from right and wrong and will usually follow rules really well in public. In fact she gets so upset when other kids are not behaving in public, and she has become a taddle-tale. At the park, if kids are cutting the line for slide, she looks over at me like: "Do something, they just cut in line!!". Beside this new personality she has, she is still so funny! I swear, we crack up everyday from the silly things she says! Her favorite things to do include: playing at the park, digging in the sand, lately she's gotten into playing with her babies and wanting to dress them, she loves to play with water in a bowl in the sink still, she's been wanting to paint a lot lately, she could watch movies ALL day long if we let her (she totally took after me and the whole tv watching thing, I could sit on the couch forever if good tv was on!), she likes to just run around in the neighborhood, she loves being "mommy" which just means she bosses Nick and I around without getting in trouble for being rude, and she loves to "read" my books- obviously there are no pictures so I don't know what she is looking at, but she always has to take at least 2 of my books to bed with her to look at! She is getting pretty good at keeping herself occupied if I ask her to go play and she is really into pretending and talking out loud to herself! She also HAS to do everything herself: she washes herself, gets herself dressed everyday (which a big help to me in the morning), wants to choose her clothing each day, she puts salt and pepper on her food (which sometimes gets "spicy")...ect! Her favorite foods at the moment are: pancakes (which she could eat every morning, but I don't have time to make them before school), bunny fruit snacks, strawberries, bananas (still!), applesauce, mac n' cheese (she would eat this everyday too), "hamburgers" (a hamburger bun, with american cheese and turkey lunch meat), she also eats a piece of american cheese everyday while I cook dinner because she can see it in the drawer when I open the fridge (which I think is so gross, but she loves it), popsicles, and she loves our trips to frozen yogurt- she usually gets vanilla or strawberry if they have it and she tops it with marshmallows, chewies (mini gummy bears), and 1 more item that changes (m&m's, sprinkles, chocolate chips). Her schedule is pretty much the same, but she has been sleeping a little later than usual, waking up or having to be woken up for school, by 7:30. She thankfully still takes naps, we puther down by 1pm and she will sleep until 3-3:30 on good days, and then she goes down to bed by 8pm, but is up talking to herself for awhile after that. At 3 1/2 years old, Hannah is constantly keeping us entertained- sometimes it's positive and other times not so much, but we love her little scrunchy nose smile so much and her crazy loud laugh keeps us laughing! We are so proud to be the parents of such an intelligent, sweet hearted, funny little girl and we often wonder how we got so lucky!

Saturday, March 27, 2010

The Next Olympic Star?

Will Hannah follow my dream of becoming an Olympic gymnast?? That is still to be determined, but what can be seen is how much fun Hannah had at her first gymnastics class! I always knew that if I had a little girl I would put her in gymnastics, hoping she would totally love it. I always wanted to do gym as a kid but it was just too expensive, but now, (since I am obviously living through my child), I have the opportunity to watch Hannah enjoy it!! This might be a short lived thing, and that's ok, I just wanted to get her into an activity young, so she has the opportunity to see what she is into and what she isn't. When I asked her what she wanted to do, her first choice was soccer, which I looked into, and they don't have any leagues that aren't parent participation, until kids are 4. The next choice she made was gymnastics- which made me thrilled! She attended her free class at Tricks Gym this morning and after seeing how much she enjoyed it I think we will be signing her up and this will become a weekly thing... until she finds another activity she just has to do!

During the warm-up, she listened very well but was a little apprehensive with doing the hand motions to the songs and stuff, so she just sat quietly waiting for what she really wanted to do- the trampoline! They broke the class up into a few groups and they had the kids do circuits for about 10 minutes on each one. The first circuit, the teacher was having to help her and show her at each step. The second circuit, was the tampoline which she needed no help with. It was adorable how excited she was- when the teacher was explaining what they were to do, Hannah kept looking at friends next to her with the hugest smile on her face, it was like she was saying: "Can you believe we get to do this!!! I can't wait until my turn!". She hopped up to be the first one jumping and went to town! By the last circuit, she totally had the hang of it- except for the somersault down the triangle, she kept wanting to just lay flat on her tummy and not bend at the hips. I know she'll get it soon, but it was really cute to see her trying! She also kept looking over and Nick and I and would say: "Look, momy and daddy, I'm doing it!!" I think it's so important for her to be able to do something on her own, without our help, but have us their cheering her on! She looked so proud whenever she finished something!!
Somersaulting (with a little help) down the triangle pad.
She did awesome at the bar- the rolling pad underneath her helped her be able to swing back and forth really well!


Hahaha This was another thing she will need to work on- rolling down the triangle like a "hot dog", maybe it's because she doesn't eat hot dogs, but for some reason her rolls were all over the place! She could 've cared less though, she still had fun and by the end of class she was just scooting down this one on her tushy!
Another fave- a mini trampoline used to jump onto a taller square pad.

Then a slide down! Weeeeeeeee


Finally hop, hop, hop back to the begining of the circuit!

Next stop- picking out a cute, tiny leotard!!





Sunday, March 21, 2010

Our Backyard Oasis!

That's what we are calling it- our backyard oasis! hahaha We are so excited that the weather was finally nice long enough to dry up all the nasty clay-like dirt we had in our backyard so it could be replaced with beautiful grass!! I was hoping for it to be done before Easter, so the Easter bunny had a place to "hide" the eggs for Miss Hannah and I'm happy to say it is done with 2 weeks to spare! In the Spring and Summer months we practically live out back- playing during the day and drinking and BBQing at night with friends, so we are really looking forward to breaking in the new digs in the coming months.
Here is what 2800 square feet of perfect, green sod looks like when it gets delivered... on a Saturday morning at 6:40 am- sorry neighbors, hope you don't hate us too much for the lovely wake-up call from the big rig and lifts bringing our sod in!
Our backyard before....


Our backyard after!!

It's so perfect and lush!! In the next few months we are probably going to get a trampoline for Hannah... and of course for Nick and I- I always wanted one as a kid and now I can finally get one!!

Our next step in making our backyard perfect for entertaining was installing speakers! (If the neighbors didn't hate us for the sod delivery noise then they will now when we are playing music outside during our BBQ's!)

Of course what would a backyard be without proper lighting?? Nick hard at work putting up our new lights- I just hope they actually give enough light to see out there, with no street lights in the alleys at night, our backyard is pretty dark!

He totally loves that I document every little thing in our lives with pictures!! How am I supposed to blog and update the world if I don't snap a few photos??

Up next is our outdoor kitchen- we have ordered the BBQ and island and it should be done and delivered in about a week. Then our backyard should be done for good and ready for fun!!