Each week I would sit and watch this bitty little 3 and 4 year olds dancing, twirling, tapping and pirouetting their way across the dance studio floor. I’d watch them tumble, balance and flip on the gymnastics equipment and couldn’t help but smile. There truly isn’t anything cuter than a room full of little girls in tutus enjoying themselves so completely.

Show Day was their chance to show off for their moms, dads, siblings and grandparents all the skills they had learned. They did a little tap routine, a ballet routine and then showed off a few skills on the gym equipment. My heart swelled as the girls filed into the room looking adorable in their matching tutus and looking so proud of themselves. Having watched them practice and practice these routines every week it was so fun to watch it all come together. They did an amazing job.

Getting ready for the show to start.

First up, the tap routine.

Next up, the ballet routine.

And finally, the gymnastics routines. First tumbling, then balance beam.

She was very proud of herself, and deservedly so, she did an awesome job. As we were leaving she said “Mom, I want to do dance class again, I love it!”

Our Proud Dancer.

School isn’t yet out, the traditional “official” start to summer is still a week away, and yet it’s definitely already summer. This past weekend was hot. The kind of hot that calls for backyard pools to be blown up and filled with cold water from the garden hose. The kind of hot that calls for sitting under the shade of a tree and watching the big girl keeping cool by splashing for hours in the pool.

Late Saturday afternoon my Mum arrived in town for a visit. We spent the day leading up to her arrival playing in the backyard, keeping cool in the shade. Maya had so much fun playing in her pool. She spent hours and hours splashing away in it, she was a wrinkled prune by the time she was done.

Anna splashed her feet in the pool a few times but preferred playing in the shade of the big oak tree.

We are spending this week showing my Mum around St. Louis. We’ll be enjoying trips to the wineries, the zoo, the park and many of our other favorite little spots. With the exception of today and tomorrow it is going to be HOT so I’m guessing we’ll be finding ourselves splashing in the backyard pool again too.

On Mother’s Day morning I was laying in bed when I heard “Yay, it’s Mother’s Day….MOM” coming from Maya’s room. It was adorable. She was so excited because it meant she would finally get to give me her present.

I had been waiting for this moment and unwrapped her gift to see what she created for me. This is what I got.

I love it! It is a little flower in a flower pot and the stems of the flower are made up of Maya’s hand print. I know I said it already, but seriously, I love it. This will be kept for a very long time and when I’m old and gray and my baby isn’t to little anymore I’ll pull it out and remember how excited that 4 year old Maya was to give me this gift and I’ll marvel that her hand was ever that little.

Miss Anna Banana is 10 months old! That’s right, my baby, who it seems like was just born yesterday, is a mere 2 months away from her 1st birthday. Holy crap! I thought time went by fast with Maya, but seriously, Anna’s first year is going by at lightening speed.

Apparently, she decided that 9 months of getting her picture with her age displayed nicely in front of her was enough. I could not get her to leave the letters and numbers alone long enough to snap even one picture. She just laughed at me and shook her head “no” every time I told her to leave them alone. She is a stinker

Weight: approx. 18lbs

Height: approx. 28in

Just as with every month so much has changed, so many new things have been learned. This girl is a talker. I never would have guessed she would be a talker given how peaceful she was as a wee baby. But, boy can she chatter. She isn’t just babbling anymore either she is starting to connect sounds to objects and people, starting to copy sounds when you say words to her, and starting to accurately communicate in other ways as well. One of her favorite things to do is shake her head no, she does it because she knows we think it is cute. But, she also knows how to use in proper context as well. If I offer her more food at meal time she’ll shake her head no if she is all done and doesn’t want any more. Anna is one smart cookie Her new favorite game is the sharing game. She’ll pass a toy to you that she is playing with and say “Hee” (as in here) and when you pass it back to her she gets excited and says “Ta” (as in thank you). She will play this game endlessly and it is cute every single time she does it. She also likes to copy sounds so if she shows me something she is playing with, like a ball for example, I’ll say “Ball” to her and she’ll repeat the “ba” sound. She associates “mama” with me and “dada” with Lorne (although she still uses dadada and mamama as babble sound as well). She can say her own name, and I’m pretty sure she is doing it on purpose. And, the other day I swear she was trying to say peek-a-boo. She covered her face with a book, and as she brought it down she said “ee-ooo” and giggled.

Our super chill, relaxed little girl still isn’t crawling, although she can get around  a room on her own terms. She gets around by pushing herself backwards, pivoting on her tummy and rolling. She can always get what she wants, and if it is something she knows she isn’t supposed to touch she can get there pretty darn quick too Every day I swear she is going to start crawling as she spends at least half the time she is on the floor on her hands and knees, she just won’t move forward. She can even get up on her hands and feet. One of these days she is going to book it across the room all “What, I could totally do this all along I just didn’t want to.”

In the past month Anna has decided that she would much rather feed herself real food than eat purees. She still gets purees, mostly because I finally found a food that is high fiber and helps keep her regular so I give it to her every day to keep things moving along. Her favorite food is cheese, she powers through it when I put a few pieces in front of her and squeals for more. She also hasn’t met a fruit she doesn’t like.  And, she loves her some carbs. This morning I made french toast for the girls and she squealed with delight when I placed those little pieces of bread on her tray. She is still breastfeeding like a champ. She eats about every 2-3 hours during the day and then sleeps through the night. She seems to like waking up at about 5-5:30ish to eat and then goes back to sleep for another hour or two, which works for me. My plan is to continue nursing her into her 2nd year just as I did Maya. I nursed Maya until she was just shy of 20 months old and I’ll likely shot for something similar with Anna.

With each passing day, each passing month, I swear Anna becomes sweeter and sweeter. She is always full of smiles. She adores her big sister and the two of them play together so nicely. The other day at dinner they were really getting each other going, it was adorable. I can already see the mischief they are going to get into.

I love you to pieces sweet Anna. You are a joy each and every day. I love snuggling with you, giggling with you and watching you grow. Can’t wait to see what this next month has in store for you.

I remember making little crafts, cards and pictures for my own Mom for Mother’s Day at school. I remember being so excited to give her my little creations. It is truly awesome to now be the recipient of those lovingly made little creations.

I hope all you Moms out there have a very wonderful weekend celebrating being a Mom. Happy Mother’s Day. I’ll be spending my day with these two so I already know it will be wonderful.

Right inside the doors of Maya’s school there was a table filled with crayons and little paper flowers so that the kids could create a little something for their teachers. As we walked the halls, passed the doors of the other classrooms, we saw dozens of paper flowers taped to the doors. Each flower was brightly colored in the scribbles of 3 and 4 year olds and donned with the name of one of the students in the class. The little flowers a cheerful symbol of how loved each one of the teachers in Maya’s school is.

When I chose Maya’s preschool I knew it was highly rated and confident it would be a good match for Maya and our family.  I had no way of knowing just how amazing this school truly is. The teachers are all very highly educated and love, LOVE, their jobs and the school. They are passionate about children, learning and are creative too the core. The school is extremely well run, the administrators just as wonderful as the teacher themselves. The parents are friendly, involved and supportive. Walking the halls of the school every where you look there are children smiling and enjoying every bit of their day at school. The school is everything I could have dreamed of and more. Maya’s teachers are a big part of making that so.

I sent Maya to school today with strawberries and cream muffins for her teachers to say a big “Thanks”. Her teachers, especially Mrs. M, have been absolutely amazing. I couldn’t have asked for a better first teacher for Maya. Mrs. M is outgoing, fun, loving and creative. She brings out the best in Maya. Maya has grown in leaps and bounds this year. She has come out of her shell and isn’t held back by her shyness anymore. I have Mrs. M to thank for that.  I don’t know if Maya will remember Mrs. M years from now, but I will be sure to remind her of her truly wonderful first teacher.

Thank You, Mrs. M. Thank You.

Unfortunately, all this craziness has meant I haven’t found a lot of time in my day to update this little old blog. I’m going to return to writing posts at night after the kids go to bed so I can get back into a better, more frequent post, groove.

Anna has been busy too, growing and trying with all her might to figure out this crawling thing She can get up on all fours and rock but hasn’t figured out moving her hands and knees once she is up on them. Today she even got herself up on her hands and feet!! Perhaps she’ll just go straight from pushing herself backwards and rolling to get where she wants to go to walking. I really can’t believe how big my little baby is getting.

She enjoys our busy schedule, well at least the opportunity it presents to watch a bunch of 4 year olds running around. I’m guessing she could probably do without the constant nap interruptions, but she handles it well. She watches her sister partaking in all her little activities in style

A few weeks ago Maya’s class learned all about weather, specifically spring weather. And, since we live in prime thunderstorm/tornado territory that meant a little discussion on those types of weather activities. They have fire drills and tornado drills at her school from time to time. She knows what the tornado sirens going off means. Up until recently the sounds of the thunder crashing, the trees blowing in the strong winds and the distant sound of the tornado siren didn’t cause any unrest. A few times we’ve found ourselves in the basement as a precaution but it didn’t bother her. Until this past weekend that is.

This past weekend saw some strong storms in our area. There was a lot of property damage and sadly someone lost their life as a result of the storms. We were lucky as the bulk of the violent weather was to our north and we didn’t get much more than some loud thunder and heavy rains. For the first time since Maya learned about tornadoes and has had tornado drills at school we heard the sound of the tornado sirens. She was in the bathtub at the time covered from head to toe in shampoo and soap. As the sounds began to register with her she quickly went from playing calmly in the bathtub to having a full on little panic attack. She was breathing funny, crying and shaking. I spoke calmly to her and quickly rinsed her off. After checking the weather on my phone I decided we’d better head downstairs for a bit. So down the stairs I went carrying a fussy baby who just wanted to go to bed already and holding the hand of a little girl in a panic. Fun times.

By the time we got downstairs the sirens were no longer sounding and after checking the local radar on my laptop I decided we were fine to head back upstairs. Maya had luckily calmed down and the weather outside was much calmer, just a few faint rumbles of thunder and some rain remained. I settled Maya on the couch with her blankie and a movie while I put Anna to bed (Lorne was out of town enjoying a boys weekend). Later we spent some time talking about storms and tornadoes and why we head downstairs when we hear the sirens. She was much calmer and seemed to understand, mostly anyway, she did ask several times if a twister would cause our house to be pulled of the ground and blown all the way to Oz!

Turns out if a child learns just a little about violent stormy weather and that knowledge is coupled with what she learned from watching the Wizard of Oz it can turn her into quite the chaotic, panicky mess when the tornado sirens go off! Who knew :/

Off to the library we go to learn a little bit more about storms and to hopefully calm her nerves a bit.

We moved into this house, this very green house with stark black accents. I loved the house, the color, not so much.

Over the last 2 years we’ve made a lot of changes. First we replaced all the windows and the garage door. I was amazed that even just getting rid of the stark black color and the too green garage door made a huge difference. It was still mint green, and I still couldn’t wait until it was a different color, but it was at least some what better.

Late last year prep began for the final stage of the transformation. Painting bids were obtained and a company was chosen. The weather was too cold to have the work done right away so we waited until the spring, hopeful to be one of the first on the list. I was so excited when the crew arrived to power wash the house and get things ready for painting. And, then last week when the painting crew arrived I could hardly contain my excitement.

Yesterday the final touches were completed and now our house looks like this…

Operation Goodbye Mint Green was a huge, huge success. Our house looks AMAZING!!

I’m so happy with the way it turned out. I love driving down the street and seeing my “new” house. It truly looks amazing. Our neighbors keep stopping us to let us know how much they like it and to thank us for finally getting rid of the green! Turns out we weren’t the only ones anxious to see that color go

For nine months now I’ve been the parent of two and it is tough, it is a challenge. But, not in the ways I thought it would be hard. I figured the parenting aspect would be difficult. I figured finding time to spend with both children so they feel special and loved would be hard. I figured the logistics of getting out with two children would be tough. But, truly those things aren’t really that hard. I’ve been able to find time to spend with both kids independently, it isn’t always a lot of time but it has worked. Figuring out the logistics of getting out the door with two children instead of one  wasn’t that bad. After a couple of trips I had my system down. The thing I find most challenging is balancing the rest of my daily tasks with my parenting responsibilities.

Before Maya was born I worked full time. Household chores were done on the weekends, or on some rare occasions, after work. Once Maya was born I became a stay-at-home mom and worked out a good routine for the household chores of cleaning, laundry, cooking and running errands. After some trial and error I had a good routine going, the house ran smoothly and our weekends were free to do whatever because almost all the chores were done during the week. It never occurred to me how challenging developing a new routine would be once a second child was added to the mix.

I’ve been at this for nine months now and I can’t find my groove. I can’t find that perfect balance between doing what needs to be done around the house and spending enough quality time with both my girls. While Anna is napping Maya wants my undivided attention because she knows she can’t get it while Anna is awake. And, while Anna is awake I’m on baby duty, nursing her, playing with her, and making sure her now mobile self doesn’t get into any mischief, etc. It is such a challenge to fit into the schedule time to do things like vacuum, or clean bathrooms, or do laundry. I want to spend time with my girls, I don’t necessarily want to vacuum or scrub the toilets so you can imagine which gets dropped to the bottom of the to-do list over and over again.

I need to find a balance. I need to find a good routine that allows me to get to all the household stuff but still feel like I spent good, quality time with my girls at the end of the day. I hate busting my butt cleaning all day only to feel like I neglected my girls all day.  There has to be a routine out there that will work, I just haven’t found it yet.

But, truthfully, if, at the end of the day all I got to was hanging out with these two and my house looks like a disaster and my blog is neglected, I don’t really care, because at least I know I got to what is truly important.