I'm trying to keep up with life and failing miserably. There's so much I want to do and only so many hours in the day. Elsa is such a great baby and I love her to pieces, but her naps are rarely longer than 30 minutes and she demands a lot of time and attention. So when I do have a spare moment, usually I'm just trying to keep up with the house, a few projects I'm taking on, Sunday School- the list goes on.
Rowan is loving school and doing well. He gearing up for his Boosterthon fundraiser this week (Thank you again to all who have contributed! He raised the most money in his class!). I want to get him started in some kind of sport after school, so hopefully we can start doing that soon. We're still watching our neighbors' kids several times a week after school and we've been enjoying lots of play time with them. Nadia is still doing really well at preschool and it's been so good for her to get out of the house.
I don't know if I've ever mentioned this on the blog before, but we've been struggling to get Nadia to talk to people outside of our family. She's always been shy, but back in Illinois she had friends and would talk to them. With moving to SC, we've taken a while to adjust to the ward and make friends. In the meantime, Nadia really retreated into herself and wouldn't talk even to me if there were other people present. I did a coop preschool with some other moms and after a year, she still wouldn't talk to the moms or the kids. She'd nod her head and respond to what they were asking her to do, but mums the word otherwise. It's been difficult and heartbreaking when we go to playgroup and other kids would try to engage her. This year we're really working on her to come out of her shell. Preschool three times a week has been a great way to get working on this. I'm also signing her up for speech classes to help with her lisp and help her get more confidence talking. While it's cute to hear her say "whobody did this?" and "It's we're room", it's clear she still missing several sounds in her speech and has difficulty finding the right words to express herself at times. Having kids over after school has helped and she is talking great with Becca and Josh so that's been good. I've also started to ask more people over for playdates and she is leaps and bounds from where she was last year. But there is still room for improvement and I hope this year in preschool will help a great deal.
Steve is applying for jobs this week, so keep us in your prayers. We still have 2 years of funding here if we choose to stay longer. Ultimately I just want to end up wherever is best for our family. I look forward to putting down roots somewhere, but SC is continually getting better for us and I'm happy to stay longer.
Some pictures from today. Elsa was quite popular at church, especially with her super cute shoes. Thanks Krystal!
It's pretty clear that Elsa rules the roost and our hearts right now. Everyone has a hard time NOT kissing her all the time.
In other news, I had a yard sale with some friends in the ward yesterday. It was interesting to be on the other side of the transaction this time. It felt good to get rid of some things I've been holding on to and make some money in the process. I woke up at 4am because I remembered some other things I wanted to sell, so by the time the sale was done, I was ready for a nap! But it's definitely something I want to do again before we move. I'm hoping to downsize a lot more than I did with our last move.
