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!

You win some, you lose some

And suddenly another week and weekend had flown by.

While last week our street looked like this:

this week the snow melted and we were finally able to have an outdoor baseball practice.

Aside from all of the usual activities we have been consumed with trying to get to the bottom of some health troubles with Hannah.  She has been covered with a rash for almost three weeks now.  It started on her face, spread to her neck and then her whole body.

Some days it got better, but then it would get worse again.  We took her to the doctor, on what happened to be one of her "better" days, and she declared it to be eczema and prescribed a steroid cream.  As a long time sufferer of eczema, that didn't feel right to me (Hannah's rash is all over her entire body, comes and goes, and is red and pin pointy).  We decided to get a second opinion with the nurse practitioner.  She thought that some of the patches on her back/chest were eczema but referred us to an allergist because the rash on her neck and face are not.  Also, that day Hannah had a low grade fever randomly and then last night she threw up all over the living room, which I am not sure if either of those things are related to the rash or not.  I look forward to getting in the allergists take on it so we can start avoiding whatever is causing this reaction.  Any thoughts or advice are appreciated.  This is uncharted territory for us.

Saturday was a bit of a rough day for me.  It started off with an appointment to get Isaac's teeth sealed.

Our dentist had recommended doing it about a year ago but my insurance doesn't cover it.  I found a free program through a local community college and signed Isaac up only to find out that he has some decay so they couldn't do any of the sealings.  "You should have gotten this done a year ago to prevent this" the dentist told me. Looks like more dental work is in his future... Grrr.....

Then I took Hannah to the township Easter Egg hunt (and accidentally styled her hair so she looked like the Easter bunny...)

It was freezing out and a little too close to nap time and Hannah wanted nothing to do with the eggs.  She would cry for me to hold her, then cry for me to put her down, and then cry to be picked up again.  When it was time to gather eggs she refused to pick any up.  When I tried to put some in her basket she screamed, took them out and threw them.  So much for the perfect photos I had envisioned of her smiling and gathering up eggs.  I ended up feeling like I was 0/2 on the parenting front before 10:30.  We both went home, climbed into my bed and took a nap.

Fortunately today was much better. We have been trying to focus on more meaningful family time. Ever on our quest to find something that is fun for Allison at age 12 and also fun for Hannah at age 1, we took all of the kid's to the YMCA. One of my March goals was to get on top of renewing our family membership and while there is still a tiny kink to work out it looks like we are set for another year.  (Thank for the fabulous Christmas present mom and dad!)

 We stayed until the lifeguard threw us out.  We could have easily stayed another hour, everyone was having so much fun.

Gabby finally got the coveted green band, meaning she can swim anywhere in the pool without supervision and in the summer she can do the waterslides.

 She had taken the test a few times last year but always got hung up on the treading water part.  This afternoon she went straight to the lifeguard and confidently stated ,"I'm ready to take the swim test."  She rocked it and afterwards declared several times that today was "The best day of her life!"

It was a great way to end the day, and probably a great way to end this blog.  Bring on Monday!




Linking up with Molly

First day of spring?

Things here have been busy but good. So busy that it has taken me all week to even write this post.  It has been hanging around as a draft for five days now.

We were able to spend some time with Ryan's kids over the weekend.  We took the whole gang to the bowling alley (the same one Ryan and I had part of our wedding reception at).  

It has been quite while since I was bowling and it was a fun way to spend some time all together.  

Hannah continues to the light of our lives, even though she is rather exhausting.  

Her mission now seems to be to destroy everything in her path. Unrolling toilet paper rolls - check!  Squeezing barbeque sauce into the rug - check!  Tearing apart books - checkity check!

New milestones: She is getting the hang of using a spoon.  She does NOT want to be fed anymore at all.  She wants to do it herself.  She wants to follow Isaac around and do whatever he does.  She will stick out her tongue if you ask her where it is.  She love lotion and will cry and beg for you to put it on her hands if she notices the bottle is out on the dresser.  She stands underneath the cabinet where I keep Oreos and cries and points until she gets one.  She also has finally gotten over her intense fear of the bathtub, which is great timing, with her new found insistence on feeding herself.  

It was quite an ordeal but I used my ABA background knowledge to build up her tolerance and reinforce closer and closer approximations of an independent bath.  I had to start off with just me in the bathtub playing with toys and trying to make things look as fun as I could.  Ryan even came in and gave me praise for being in the tub and made a big fuss over me.  The next step was putting Hannah on my legs in the tub.  At first she would panic if I even sat her directly on the bottom of the tub.  We have now been able to build up to me not having to get into the tub at all, but I must sit directly next to the tub.  I cannot even go over to the sink or she will panic.  She will play happily in the tub now and will allow us to bathe her and wash her hair.  I am grateful for this, because she needs to be bathed at least once a day now and before it was a two person job with one of us desperately trying to clutch her wet wiggly body in the shower while she screamed and writhed and the other one trying to wash her from head to toe as quickly as possible.  It was a traumatic experience for all involved.  

She still isn't too interested in talking besides "Mum!" "No!" and "kay".  Sometimes she will say certain words so clearly but then she will never say them again.  The more you try to prompt her to say words the more she stares at you in stony silence.  She also sings to herself in baby gibberish, and it is adorable. 

Isaac is going through a clumsy phase which I am thinking may be related to a growth spurt.  At least once a day I hear some kind of loud crash followed by a howl of pain.  Baseball batting practice has started while we wait for the fields to dry out, winter soccer just ended and spring soccer training has already began.  In other words, I spend every single night in the car driving him to sports.  I know some people think it is too much, but he really is a talented athlete and he needs the outlet of regular activity.  He goes stir crazy being cooped up in the house.  As much as it is a hassle, it is good for all of us if he has an outlet for all of his energy.

Things continue to go well for Ryan at his job.  He is doing well, he is making decent money and he seems to be respected.  He has daily terrifying run ins with dogs, but that is pretty much the only complaint he can come up with.  Now that he is settled in I have really been focusing on my own potential job search.  I have all of my letters of reference in order and I have paid for all of my clearances.  I just have to go get my fingerprinting done.   I feel really stuck and unappreciated at my current job and I am really ready to make a change.   This morning I was fumbling with the lock on my classroom door and overheard three of my coworkers around the corner complaining about me and about how they think I am not doing my job adequately. What a slap in the face.  One of them is someone I considered a friend and ally at work and someone whom I have had numerous conversations about the difficulties of my assignment this year.  None of them have kids.  All of them arrive very early in the morning and stay late at night.  None of them knows what it is like to try to balance work and be a mom to young kids.  I was out of sight so I stood and listened to them for about five minutes and was pretty much on the verge of tears all day as a result.  It's good though, to spur me on, out of my complacent comfort zone and hopefully onto better things.  I don't want to work somewhere where I am not respected or valued, so it is time to find somewhere where I can be.

Today, the first day of spring was a huge snow storm.  We had an early dismissal from school and Ryan was able to stay home from work.  What a treat having him home and getting to eat dinner all together as a family, instead of on the run, like we usually do during the week.  It was funny reversal of roles as he had grown somewhat irritable and exhausted by a full day of Hannah's antics and I found myself with a lot more patience than usual to deal with her, since I came home to a spotless house and didn't have to cook dinner.  Sometimes I think it is good to switch things up, just to help you appreciate what your partner does.

Well anyways, I guess I better hit publish on this blog.  Happy Friday!