Signs of Spring

Signs of spring....

Take your child to work day with Uncle Joe.

Spring soccer.  So much better than indoor (winter) soccer.

 And of course spring means lots and lots of time spent at the ball fields.

Baseball games with family.  Dad game in for a Saturday morning game.

Joe joined us for another.  He and Hannah became best buds.

I love this time of warm weather before spring allergies kick in.

hitting the nail on the head

This has been popping up in my facebook feed today, since roughly 50% of my friends are teachers or work in a related field.  It pretty much sums up all of the conflicting feelings I have swirling around my brain about teaching in public schools in this day and age, especially in a Title 1 School*.  Give it a read if you have time. 

* School with a high percentage of low income students.

Hannah Sixteen Month Update

I figured it was time to do a Hannah update. She is growing up more and more everyday. She is definitely a toddler and not a baby anymore.  She is such a sweet, happy and smart little girl with a really sharp sense of humor and a mop full of curly hair.

Eating
Hannah continues to amaze us with her hearty appetite and her universal love of every food she is offered.  Her recent favorite foods include arroz con pollo, Halo mandarin oranges, and blueberry mini muffins.   Although she is easy going in terms of what she eats, she is very particular in how she eats it.  She doesn't like to feel pressured to eat and she does NOT want to be fed anymore.  She would much rather struggle through spooning herself some yogurt than let me or Ryan feed her.  Like, she becomes enraged if we try to feed her. She also really want to drink out of an open cup, but we haven't been encouraging that.  

Sleeping
Hannah has been doing pretty well with sleep, although she has had a few rough nights with some new teeth coming in.  She will usually sleep until 8:30 or 9 and she is terribly grumpy if she has to be woken up before she is ready.  It takes her a good 20 minutes until she is pleasant.  Her naps are still all over the place.  Sometimes she takes a morning nap, sometimes not, she often takes an afternoon nap but sometimes she drifts off around 4:30 or later which is the worst!!!

Words/Communication
Hannah lets you know she wants to eat by pointing to her high chair.  She will even take your hand and walk you to it.   She babbles constantly and more and more real words seem to be mixed into the gibberish. She says: no, daddy, mum, I dunno, Eesa (Lisa), kay (okay), whee! and cheep cheep (when she sees a picture of baby chicks).  She will consistently wave hello and goodbye and will also independently wave to strangers if she wants their attention.  The only sign she will do independently is "all done" but we are working on "more" and "please".  She will shake her head no and say "uh-uh" or "no" but she doesn't use a word for yes.  She just holds out her hands and makes frantic begging sounds or points to what she wants.  When she wants a diaper change she will lay flat on the ground and put her legs up in the air.  That makes me excited, like maybe she will potty train early.  If she wants to go outside she will bring you her shoes.

Although her expressive language is still rather limited, her receptive language grows by leaps and bounds every day.  Ryan bought her a little brush and he told her to go get it thinking it was in our bedroom with us.  It turns out, it was downstairs, but she found my hairbrush and brought it over to Ryan instead.  She will point to all of her family members when asked

Likes

• Isaac.  She wants to be as close to him as possible at all times.  

Good thing he is usually pretty patient.

                                                

• Sesame Street.  She watches it with rapt attention and dances to all of the songs.  
• Binkies.  She will never give it up. 

• Having her feet tickled.  
• "Singing" and dancing or when other sing and dance.  
• Her toy kitchens, her Elmo doll that sings about being a little bit country and a little bit rock and roll, and her shopping cart.
• Cheering, clapping and jumping up and down at sporting events.  It is SO cute.
• Giving kisses, sometimes aggressively, with a loud "MWAH!"
• When Ryan talks to her in silly voices.  She CRACKS up.

Dislikes

• Having dirty hands.  She comes to us over and over during Isaac's baseball games to have us brush dirt and grass off her hands.  We loves to use handiwipes to clean them off.

• Sitting still, especially at sporting events.  She wants to storm the field at Isaac's soccer games.  She want to climb up on things and immediately get back down.  She also drops out the bottom of her stroller if she is not strapped in. 
• Swings.  Our neighborhood has a small playground with a few infant swings and she HATES them.  She will scream bloody murder the whole time.  
• Open doors.  She always has to close them.  No matter what.
• Bathing.  I thought we had conquered her fear but suddenly she is terrified of it again. 

Milestones

• She has gotten really good at going up and down stairs.  She can go upstairs holding a railing totally upright, like a regular little person.  For a while she was going feet first and on her stomach to go downstairs but now she sits on her bottom and scoots down.  
• At least two more teeth have come in.
• Wears 18 month clothes, some size 4 shoes and some size 5 shoes.  She wears size 4 diapers.
• Taking off her pants and attempting to take off her diapers.

Toddlers at Sporting Events

The weather this weekend was beautiful.  Hannah busted out shorts for the first time this year. 

I dread the day I take away the binkie or the bottle...

 I was grateful for nice weather because we were outside coming and going all weekend long.  Friday night we went to a Reading Phillies game (local minor league baseball team).  We have a partial season ticket package and this was the home opener.  Going to the games is one of Isaac's very favorite things to do.  He always brings along his mitt in hopes of catching a foul ball.

We weren't too sure how Hannah would do.  As usual I was extremely pessimistic and Ryan was overly optimistic.  Hannah did okay for the first little bit, when I could sit her in the empty seat next to me.  She loves clapping and cheering along with the crowd (it's ridiculously cute).  She loved flirting with the people sitting behind us.  She liked eating hot dogs and licorice (although she did fling her hot dog bun randomly into the crowd).  But she has too much energy to sit for too long and when I had to move her to my lap she wasn't having it.  She spent the next few innings as a blur running around the concourse.  Ryan traded off with me about halfway through, but we may have to rethink taking her to future games.

The hard part about having kids so far apart is activities are either for Hannah or Isaac.  The Reading Phillies may just be for Isaac this year.  We also had Isaac's baseball game at crack of dawn Saturday morning, Isaac had a birthday party after that, Allison's jazz concert/spaghetti dinner Saturday night and Isaac's soccer game Sunday afternoon.  Isaac scored three goals in the game, so I would say he has his mojo back after a few lackluster games in the winter league.

I managed to do a little bit of spring cleaning including cleaning out my oven for the first time ever since I bought my townhouse (I know, gross).  I followed this tutorial at Clean Mama.  It looks a lot better, but I ran out of steam with the scrubbing. I might have to do a follow up session. We also dropped some things over to our friends the Roundy's who were having a huge yardsale.  Apparently we made $14 dollars.  I'll take it! Saturday night we tried to watch a movie, but, as usual, I fell asleep about 30 minutes into it. 

FRIDAY!

ONE
I am so tired this week.  State performance testing has really taken it out of me.  Despite the fact that I am doing no teaching really, I am only proctoring tests.  I have fallen asleep before nine every night this week.  Sleeping in tomorrow isn't looking too promising either.  Isaac has a baseball game at 8 am with a report time of 7:30--- earlier than a school day!


TWO

 

 How cute are my kids?  Wherever Isaac is Hannah wants to be right next to him-- like as close as physically possible.  Good thing he is almost always patient and willing to let her tag along.  

THREE

 Ryan and I ended up going to the movies to see Insurgent, which is the movie based on the second book of the Divergent series.  Ryan has read all of the books and I have read none, so I was pretty lost on some of the nuances on the movie.  However, our movie tickets came with a free ebook download of Divergent, the first book in the series.  Ryan loaded it up on my phone and I have been enjoying reading it here and there when I have a minute.  I usually am against the idea of an e-book but it has been very convenient.  I am already 100 pages in just from picking it up my phone when I was waiting for someone and it feels more productive than endlessly flipping through facebook.  I am still working my way through Mercy by Jodi Piccoult in paperback too.


FOUR
 

I bought some inserts for the first time ever.  It had the 95 cent Little Debbie Coupon which makes the Cosmic Brownies free at grocery stores that double.  Purchasing inserts makes me really start to feel like one of those cRaZy couponers you see on TV but I have gotten ten free boxes now for the price of one.  Not a bad deal in my opinion.


FIVE
We are off to the Reading Phillies tonight, our local minor league baseball team.  Ryan purchased a partial season ticket package and this is the home opener.  I am not exactly looking forward to it, but Isaac sure is!


TGIF!!!!

I can't live without...

 

Linking up with Lauren and Lindsay for their week of things you couldn't live without.  I couldn't live without Google Calendar.   

 

Becoming better at organizing has been a lifelong struggle for me.  It seems like between Isaac's baseball, basketball, school events and of course soccer (somehow even though it is the off season we still have two practices a week and a weekend game...), Ryan and I working opposite schedules, appointments, and family events, staying on top of the calendar can be a challenge.  Honestly, I don't know how families with lots of kids with lots of activities stay on top of things.  

I like google calendar because:

1. It sinks with my phone, and email and also Ryan's phone and email.  We can add events to a family calendar that Ryan and I both have access to.

2. It emails me a daily agenda of everything on the calendar for the day.

3. If I fill in the location field, it will check with local traffic and automatically notify me when it is time to leave based on road conditions.

4. You can color code events to make important things stand out (I want to get better about that.  Usually  I just use the default blue).

5. I can add events to my calendar using Google's voice search on my phone.  

6. It is easy to add reoccuring events, so I don't need to type things over and over.  

 If you don't use Google Calendar, I highly recommend it!

Poor baby...

Hannah went to the allergist today and had a ton of allergy testing to figure out why she has been covered in a rash from head to toe for over a month now.  The good news is she is not allergic to molds, dogs, cats, horses, dust mites, cockroaches, feathers, wheat, soy, milk, eggs or peanuts.  I'm so glad, because I would have felt horrible if I was feeding her something or exposing her to something that was making her so sick.  The bad news is her rash is probably a combination of eczema and some sort of fungal infection and now we have to try to get her in to a dermatologist.  She has two more creams we have to try on her body.  I really hope she gets some relief.

Easter Recap

We are coming off a great Easter weekend.  Saturday the weather was warming up.  It was windy but we were determined to do something outdoors.  We left Hannah with my mom and my dad joined us for some mini-golf.  Of course he killed us.  

Serious mini-golfing right here.

It was pretty windy and chilly but we still had a great time.  It was nice for me and Ryan to give our undivided attention to Isaac. 

Meanwhile, Hannah found some time to relax. 

My parents were willing to watch the kids, so Ryan and I snuck off for dinner and a movie.  Hannah slept all night in the pack and play for the first time EVER!  

Easter morning was lots of fun.  Ryan and I cooked a big breakfast for everyone.  The kids dyed eggs.

 My dad convinced me to go on a motorcycle ride with him.  I was pretty nervous, but it was actually very pretty to go for a ride on such a nice day around the scenic farmland.

My mom had planned a bunch of fun Easter activities.  We had to throw eggs into hula hoops.

We did egg on a spoon races.

She had an egg hunt for Isaac and a separate one for Hannah.  Hannah did a great job putting the eggs in her basket once Ryan got her started.

And of course, there was plenty of time for pick up games of basketball and sessions of catch with grandpa.

Spring break has flown by and tomorrow is back to school.  It has been such a nice few days I will be so sad to see it end.

April Showers

The weather has finally warmed up a bit. Yesterday Hannah and I walked over to the little playground in our neighborhood.  She did NOT like the swing, but she did like running around in the wood chips.

At the beginning of March I made a few goals for the month (blog post can be found here).  I am going to do the same for April.

1. Date with Ryan-- no kids allowed!   This one didn't happen, although we are probably going on a date this Saturday.  

2. Finish Mercy and start another book.   Still haven't finished Mercy. :(  Usually I can't put Jodi Piccoult books down.  This one is just okay but it hasn't grabbed interest like some of her other work. I do need to make more time to read it.

3.  Get my clearances in order for work (they need to be updated to stay at my current job and definitely need to be updated if I am going to get serious about applying elsewhere).  This is done!  And I got them all back with no issues and they are scanned in to the computer.

4. Get one more letter of recommendation together.  I have two that I have collected but I need one more. This is also done.  My former co-teacher from my autistic support days wrote me the nicest letter.

5. Figure our renewing our family membership at the Y.      This done too!

April's Goals

1. Do at least 3 classes at the YMCA.  (I already did one this morning to get a jump on this!)

2. Cook a turkey

3. Finish Mercy and start another book.

4. Start making solid plans for our trip to Florida. 

Happy April!