2/5/2012 I'm feeling really accomplished today. Not only is the house clean, the laundry done, I have managed to get the kids (Ryan and Kaylee that is) in bed and asleep within five minutes after leaving their room. I got so sick and tired of our bedtime routine. It is always noisy and it's hard to settle the kids down, especially Kaylee. So yesterday I jumped online and did some research and decided to buy this cd Indigo Dreams: Relaxation and Stress Management Bedtime Stories for Children, Improve Sleep, Manage Stress and Anxiety (Indigo Dreams). I am expecting it on Tuesday. It tells four different stories and teaches kids breathing techniques, which calms them down. It got great customer reviews. Well, because of this CD I decided to get a head start and tuck the kids in, turn off the lights, crawl in bed with Kaylee, rub her tummy and make up a story of my own that I told at a very slow and restful pace. They were crazy about it. They didn't so much as utter a sound the whole story. Then I said goodnight, left the bedroom. They were asleep five minutes later. No, 'I have to go to the bathroom's', no 'I need a drink', no talking, no arguing, no 'I'm hungry', no staying awake for at least half an hour or longer. Just peaceful, stressfree bedtime. It is amazing what a difference it makes in my stress level. I hope the cd will work the same way. Tomorrow they already want another story made up with a princess and a prince.

I'm sure I can't take all the credit. The kids, and yes this time that does include Alyssa, have been playing outside like mad. Yesterday they went three times. Today Ryan and Kaylee were outside all afternoon. Alyssa still takes naps so she wasn't able to go that long. The weather is just so beautiful outside. It feels like it's spring. My favorite time of year, along with Fall.

Alyssa loves to play outside. When she sees Ryan and Kaylee get ready, she gets her shoes and coat and brings them to me. Of course I can't resist her beautiful little face and so we venture outside. It's been a lot of fun. Alyssa discovered snow and sand and shovels and leaves and so many things that she didn't get a chance to see yet. She likes to go for walks around the building and we all go with her. She still falls frequently and boy does she dislike having dirty hands. So much so that she won't even get up when she falls. She just waits and looks at me. If I don't show up in time she says "help".

The weather everywhere seems crazy. In Europe they have one of the coldest winters on history. In the Netherlands they are ice skating and sledding and making snowman. They can keep it as far as I'm concerned. Not missing it one bit. 

 

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 1/26/12 Florida is getting closer every step. We have now booked our tickets. Ryan, Kaylee, Alyssa and I are leaving Michigan on July 24th. I only just realized that it is our anniversary that we're leaving on. It makes me a little sad, because we won't see Dan for nearly a month and a half. I jokingly told him that after a month and a half of peace and quiet he won't want to come to Florida anymore. He'll just love the quiet life and stay in Michigan. Dan's move date is not firm. It can be as late as the end of September, but we're hoping for the beginning of September. He'll drive himself and Rogue to Florida. We're also getting moving van estimates and auto transport estimates, which makes the whole move seem more real and a lot closer. The kids and I have made a countdown calendar and the kids get to tear of a number every day.Temps in Florida are now 70 degrees (extended forecast close to the 80s). It isn't bad here at 34 degrees (it's warmer than it ought to be this time of year), but 70 degrees sounds about perfect to me.I'm pretty sure the only thing I'm going to miss from Michigan is my friends and the trees. One last thing we're doing before we leave is go to Niagra Falls. Been here 16 years and never made it to Canada. It's just a short weekend, but I'm really looking forward to it. 

 

 

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1/15/2012 We had a long weekend. Thursday night it started snowing and we had 3-5 inches and than another inch or two during the rest of the weekend. In any case it caused Ryan's school to be shut down for the day. I really didn't mind. I'm not a morning person as it is and having to get three kids ready so I can drop Ryan of at school is always a challenge for me. If I had known I was going to quit my job I would have signed him up for PM school instead of AM. That way I could have been more awake driving Ryan to school. But it's only for a few more months. Five actually, or less really, since school ends June 4th. Here are some updates on the kids.

 

Ryan:

He's had some trouble at school since Christmas. Just before Christmas vacation he stayed in green for a while. I think it was two or even three weeks in a row. Not sure. After Christmas it has been nothing but yellow and red. The other day he came home and he told me his teacher said that if he got to red one more time he was going to have to go to the principals office. It had been really hard for Dan and me to get Ryan to tell us exactly why he was getting into trouble. He would tell us: "I sat on a bear," or "I wrote the letter M wrong," or something like that. You know what he's saying has something to do with it, but we weren't sure what it was. So after Ryan came home telling me about the principle I contacted his teacher and told her that we were having a  hard time getting the exact story out of Ryan. Well, she told us and it wasn't pretty. He was running in the halls, yelling, sitting on a bear (Yes :)), sitting under his table. Just really crazy behavior. I was so angry with Ryan. I didn't show him, but Dan and I sat him down and told him in no uncertain terms that it was just unacceptable behavior and I also said we were disappointed because he knows better than to behave in such a manner. We told him to apologize to his teacher and that if he got into red again he would spend most of the afternoon in his bedroom playing by himself and to emphasize that we meant it that afternoon he spent two hours in his bedroom. Next day he stayed in green, apologized to the teacher and just was mr perfect. Of course next day was a snow day. He's been really great otherwise. We decided to let him compete for his yellow belt since he really wanted to and he got it, barely. He got some of the form a little messed up. So this year he's back in the same class. He's the teacher's helper pretty much. It makes Ryan very proud. Now that we have tightened the rules considerably I see my Ryan back again. It's amazing how kids can get when you give them a little leeway. We are playing all the boardgames we got for Christmas and read books again and today we played outside in the snow. It has been a really great time. In a sense I'm glad Christmas is over with.

 

Kaylee:

She has also been in a mood and a half since Christmas. Now that we're back into schedule it seems to help a lot. Kaylee loves to play boardgames. Sometimes she and Ryan are playing boardgames together. It's too cute to hear them. Ryan and Kaylee are both boardgame happy. We played over twelve games the other day. Yeah, we have a lot of them. It's fun. Next week I will also start bringing her to the library again and start doing our preschool activities. She really amazes me how fast she learns things. She is very close in development with Ryan. It helps that Ryan loves to show her how to do the things he just learned. So she can read some of his popcorn words and she knows how to spell. Although she loves boardgames, I still think her favorite is reading and also doing puzzles. She is into telling stories now or in narrating things that just happened or even while we were in the white house (the kids refer to our house as teh white house). 

 

Alyssa:

Alyssa never seizes to amaze me. She is so smart and so good. At this point she really understands important things. If before bed she is still hungry she uses her sign and her bastardized version of the word hungry or eat. Or she'll ask for her bo' (bottle). When you ask her if she wants to go take a nap or go to sleep at night and the answer is yes, she'll walk to her bedroom so you can lift her into her bed. No crying involved no whining, or difficulty, like I had with one of my other daughters. :). She still goes to bed a little after six and wakes up at about eight. She still takes two naps a day as well. She is just perfect. Well, until she walks around and opens every cupboard in the kitchen or up ends the dog water bowl for the umpteenth time, because I forgot to put it on the counter. Sigh... She is a little darling though. Today she verbally asked for more food instead of signing. She is actually also starting to understand things like "in", "out", "up", "down", "on", "off". It's one of my favorite times in seeing children grow up because they go for a few weeks at the same pace and then it's almost like you can see the lightbulb light up and they have all these things they have achieved. It's fun. Alyssa eats everything along with us. She's not afraid to tell us what she wants and when we don't get it, she goes and finds it herself (food mostly). So we really need to keep an eye on her now. She just went for her 15 month well visit. She is high up there in the percentiles. Still not surprised about that. She is 32inches and weighs 26.5 pounds. She got her last shots until she's four years old. Woohoo. We just upgraded her to a booster, because I she really didn't fit in her carseat anymore. It was getting really frustrating to strap her in and Alyssa was starting to object as well. Her favorite thing to do is dance. Any music she hears she'll start dancing to.

 

Dan and Lisa:

We're doing good. Actually we're starting to get impatient about moving. We are all of a sudden starting to do a lot of things for the preparation of moving to Florida and we can almost taste it. Yet we still have six months 1 week and two days to go, but who's counting right :D? There are some things in the apartment we are getting frustrated with. My main point is the kitchen and not having a washer and dryer. Having to go to the laundromat to do laundry is a pain in the tuchus and there just isn't enough counterspace. In all reality if we knew we were staying here longterm we could make it work (except for the laundry part), but we would have to get rid of some stuff. Stuff we don't want to get rid of now because we're afraid we have use for it in the new house. The rest of the apartment is really great. There is very little disturbance from neighbors. We've had some weird stuff happening with noise, but it is an apartment, but for the most part it's a great place. Today we played in the snow in our "back yard". We made a snow man in the woods. Okay, he looks kind of pathetic, but what the hay. I'm taking a pic tomorrow just in case it starts warming up again and the thing disappears. Just quick checked the forecast and yes tomorrow it's 38 and I saw warmer temps at the end of the month. No weather is as crazy as Michigan's. So far though it's been a wonderful farewell winter from Michigan. This morning the plows ran through the parkinglot and someone cleared the walkway and from our lovely dining room Dan said: "There honey, I'm all done shoveling." I can now remember why I used to love the snow so much. It was when I lived in an apartment and snow was mostly fun, not work :). All in all things are going really well for us and we just feel so blessed that we can do this venture, that I'm not working and can keep the kids home. It's just something we have worked for so long and now to finally see it all coming together is just hard to believe sometimes. Moving doesn't even seem all that daunting this time, because we'll have professionals hauling the stuff out and putting it back in. All I have to do is pack and unpack. Unpacking is the fun part. 

 

 

1/7/2012 My first 2012 post. We had a lot of fun with Dan's parents and grandmother here. Dan's grandmother didn't feel too well unfortunately and by the end of their visit Dan's mom caught what she had. Unfortunately on their way out they drove on the first and so far only bad snowday and they took a long time to get where they needed to go. It's been a balmy 40 degrees for the most part.

So with Dan's parents having visited we are all set up to enroll them in school in Florida thanks to the help of Dan's mom. It would be super hard if we had to do it ourselves. It is only 6 and a 1/2 months before the kids and myself fly to Florida to start school. It seems like a long time, but I'm sure it'll go by fast. We are talking more and more to the kids about school and once we know which school they will go to I will start showing them pictures and stuff. They are starting to ask about their own bedrooms because they are keeping each other awake or waking each other up. All that means is that Kaylee keeps Ryan awake at night and Ryan wakes Kaylee up in the morning. Always complete opposites. The kids really love their Christmas gifts. Especially Kaylee seems to need some time to warm up to her gifts. She played with everything but her own presents the whole time, but now she is starting to play with her own stuff. Alyssa is also crazy about her new toys. Ryan is in love with his DS and we really needed to set some boundaries. He would play everyday all day if it was up to him.

It's been hard to get them back into their schedule, but very necessary. They have been overstimulated and super tired. Surprise right?

New Years was fun. We got them up at close to midnight, watched the ball drop and did some poppers and stars.