The trouble with waiting forever to update your blog is that you forget details of what has actually gone on for the past 2 months. So much is happening in our little family! Hopefully I can catch up with some of the latest and greatest.
Valentine's Day centered mostly around the kids and their parties. I can't remember the last time Steve and I actually went out on a date on V Day. Sad, but true. Nadia probably had the most fun this year. Rowan's school has implemented a "no treat" rule district wide. Essentially, sugar is the devil and so nothing can be celebrated. I'm curious if these measures actually have any effect on childhood obesity. Anyways, Nadia got plenty at a church and preschool party and was kind enough to share with Rowan.
Nadia and I saw these metallic silver leggings on clearance at Target. She loves them and I secretly do too although I'm pretty sure they are a "fashion don't." They get a free pass for Valentine's Day though.
Nadia had her first missionary moment and brought her preschool friend, Kaitlyn, to our church party. The crown accessory was at her insistence.
Kaitlyn is Nadia's best friend and I'm so grateful for their friendship. When we were struggling to get Nadia to talk at preschool, I had Nadia's teacher give me a list of girls from school she thought would be up for playdates at our home to help her build relationships in a place where she felt comfortable. Kaitlyn was not on that list, but Nadia kept telling me about her when I asked her who she wanted to play with at home. I got her info from the teacher and added her to the people to contact. Her mother was the only one who answered my plea for playdates- none of the names that the teacher gave me worked out. Nadia and Kaitlyn are two peas in a pod. We've had her over once a week for the past few months and it's been so special for me to see their friendship grow. When Nadia got a lot of candy from Kaitlyn at Valentine's, Nadia told me it was "because she loves me the bestest."
As an update, Nadia is now speaking in preschool!! She still needs her time to warm up, but will now use sentences in a quiet voice and will interact with the other children. I believe this is due to Nadia's friendship with Kaitlyn and also help that I have received from a friend in the ward who is studying to become a behavioral therapist. She has done mini-sessions with Nadia at her home, at church, and at her preschool and Nadia has blossomed with her help. I am so grateful for "Miss Kelly's" help and the progress we've seen this year.
After Christmas and birthdays settled down, in the interest of not having the new lego sets lost in the endless tub of lego that we have, we decided to sort them all back into their original sets. I had the idea and Steve carried it through, bless his heart. It took several days, but what else are you going to do when your wife is in bed with the flu waiting for the ceiling to fall in on her?
He looks like he's having fun, right? Well, we don't need any more legos...
Happy tenth anniversary to us. This holiday will just have to deal with being an afterthought in our week long fiesta of birthdays, Christmas etc. Thankfully mom was here so we could get out by ourselves for an evening by ourselves. We had what was one of the best meals of my life at Bonefish Grill and then we proceeded to go see Jack Reacher. I'm so grateful for Steven and for "us". He can make me laugh through any trouble in my life and I will never question where I stand in his priorities. He is an excellent father and just makes me happy. What more could you ask for?
No birthday girl here, but plenty of little stolen moments over the last month or so.
Oh computer games. You get us all in the end.
She loves all food. Hasn't rejected anything yet.
She will laugh till the cows come home, but that stops as soon as you pull out the camera. It's a shame, because she has the most darling giggle.
I'd forgotten that I've never had a baby in a house without stairs. I took this little girl to the museum the other day and Elsa went to town on the stairs. It's a good thing we're in a ranch. I don't miss baby gates. She does try to climb this stool all the time though.
Nana. Nadiekins. Love of my life. She turned 4 in December and is growing into a sweet, strong willed little girl. Nadia is so mysterious to me at times. We are still dealing with the selective mutism, but seeing progress even if it seems incremental at times. I have a friend in the ward who works with autistic children and is working on becoming a behavioral therapist. She took Nadia under her wing and started with small sessions at her home and then started helping her at church and preschool. The results were instantaneous and I wish I could just take her with us wherever we go. Nadia now speaks at school and church, not a lot, but enough that I feel encouraged and relieved. I'm glad she has another year to work on speaking before entering kindergarten.
Nadia is very much unlike her brother when it comes to learning how to speak. There are times when she will forget words she's known for years. For instance, one day she came to me telling me about these sticks with little circle things on them that her teacher likes. It took a long time before we realized she was taking about stick pretzels and was describing the salt on them. This happens pretty often. Just today she forgot the word feather and was substituting "leaf" for it. I don't know if this is typical for a 4 year old, but it doesn't seem like it. It can get really frustrating for her when she is trying to tell me something and I just don't know what she is referring to. Luckily she can describe things pretty well, but I still find it unusual.
We've been keeping steady with playdates and trying to stretch Nadia to come out of her shell. She's making such progress and I'm so proud of her. I'm so grateful that we have been able to get cracking on this early. If we end up staying here next year, there's a fantastic preschool run by the elementary school here that she would qualify for. I think it would be great for her. I've also heard good things about the preschool at BYU, so either way I'm hoping she will continue in her progress.
Nadia loves the color red, kitties, fruit, dessert (except rice pudding she tells me), her baby sister, and dancing. She is SO brave!! I took her to get her last 3 shots at her last doctor's appointment and she didn't even cry. Rowan would have been running for the hills. Anytime we are play fighting, Nadia is the one in front trying to protect her big brother or volunteering to fight the scary monster. As long as talking isn't involved, she is there, ready and able.
Sweet, precious girl. I love you so much!
In true holiday burnout fashion, we didn't wrap Nadia's presents. It's a good thing Elsa wasn't born around this time. She'd be lucky to get a granola bar with a lit match in it.
This was staged, but they love this chair. I first saw one at the family that I used to nanny for and Nadia saw it in Ikea a long time ago. It's been on our wish list for a while.
I need to get a better shot of the dollhouse and table that Steve made on here sometime. It has a secret room in its tower- very cool. Just like the girl in the picture. Love you girlie!
Nadiaism:
Nadia: What is that building there?
Me: It's a church.
Nadia: No, it's not a church. It's a school.
Me: No Nadia, I'm pretty sure that is a church.
Nadia: But it has a slide! Churches don't have fun stuff.
Me: ...
Someone turned 7! 7 years old! My baby will get baptized this year. Where did time go?
Rowan asked for a chocolate cake this year. As usual, I get overwhelmed with holidays and Christmas, so it was nothing fancy, but it was massively huge.
Rowan is growing before my eyes. He is beyond sweet to his baby sister and 85% so to Nadia. They are best friends and truly play together non-stop. Sometimes I forget what a blessing that is. Rowan loves Minecraft and video games, much to my chagrin. We plan to get him involved in some karate classes come March and see how he likes those. He does great in school and has good friends. Rowan's biggest difficulty in life is doing his chores. You just have to say "clean..." and he'll flop on the floor in a muscle-less mound, bemoaning his fate in life. We're working on it. Rowan also has a great memory and retains facts that he's learned years ago just like his father. It's humbling to occasionally be corrected by a little kid. He still loves to read, eat dessert, and be imaginative. He would eat 4 waffles for breakfast every day if I'd let him and hass been planning out his leprechaun trap for several months now. I love this boy!!
I did mention the love of all things Lego too, right? Lego, lego, lego.
January can be summed up in one word. Flu. Yuck. What a horrible month. Now we enter February and hopefully will stay healthy through it all. I go to Canada at the end of the month and I'm nervously anticipating traveling alone with Elsa on an airplane for the first time. Our flight will take 12 hours with, I think, 3 layovers. I'm going to go nuts trying to keep her from touching everything as the last thing I want is a sick baby in Canada. They have bad healthcare you know. ;) All kidding aside, I probably would have to pay out of pocket there. Bleh.
Is there anything cuter than a baby passport? I think not.
Look at her cute little bottom teeth. She is getting her top ones and they are killing me! She wakes up all night long. Definitely my worst teether and she doesn't really care for her binky. Good thing she's so darn cute.
We are supposed to hear from BYU at the end of the month whether Steve got the job or not. Mixed feelings all around. I'd like to get my "get out of jail" card (haven't been loving SC lately), but the problem with moving to a place you lived before is you already know what's wrong with it. Sometimes it's nice to move to a place and be ignorant of its downfalls. But I'm sure Provo is a different experience when you aren't single and grumpy at life. Maybe I'm just a grumpy person in general.
Elsa and I took these pictures with the self-timer. Steve doesn't spontaneously take pictures and I hardly have any with the kids and me together. Luckily Elsa likes blinking red lights. She also loves my computer, any electrical cord and the vacuum, which doesn't bode well for her teething ways. Technology might be the death of her one of these days.
I've started a weight loss program after feeling like the pregnancy weight was never going to go away. My friend did it last year, lost 30+ lbs and kept it off, so I saw that as promising. The last thing I wanted to do was get into a yo-yo diet. Since January I've lost 15 pounds and I'm super happy about that. It's a low carb, lean protein plan that's not super crazy and has been pretty manageable. The worst part is dinner, as I'm usually doing two different meals or at least tweaking the meal for me, but overall I feel good and plan to keep going. It's been difficult not to turn to food with all the stress and the grumpiness going on, but I want to not use food to deal with things that are out of my control.
Other than that, not much new is going on here. I'm looking forward to spring (aka the summer that doesn't give you heat stroke) and maybe making some more trips in the not too distant future. Stay tuned!
