Oliver said his second word yesterday, and it was (drum roll, please) MAMA! It was about 5:45am, and I had just finished giving him his first bottle of the day. He snuggled up against my chest and said that word I had been longing to hear. All day long I kept wanting to hear it again, but he waited until this morning to say it again. That word from a little one just melts my heart! Paul had said that Oliver said "Mama" on Friday, but I didn't believe him because Paul has also said that Oliver has said things like "I love you" and "spoon". Yeah, right. Never let it be said that he underestimates his kids! He's a bit distressed though because he hasn't heard Oliver say Dada today - just Mama all day long. I'm not objecting, ha ha!
Last Tuesday I walked through a Boscov's department store to buy a new bathing suit bottom. Mine had been a skirt that originally went to about mid-thigh. This summer it was literally below my knees. Modesty is one thing, and looking totally frumpy is another! It hung below the bottom of my bathing suit coverup! Not good. My new (shorts rather than skirt style) bottoms look sooo much better. That brief walk to the swimsuit section left me with an extremely strong longing to go shopping by myself to buy some new clothes. Aside from maternity clothes, I haven't bought myself much new clothing over the past six years. Yesterday I realized that we were exactly 6 weeks away from our family photo shoot, and I thought I'd like a new outfit for that. I then decided to get really serious about hitting my weight loss goal. I'm going to try to lose 12 pounds in the next 6 weeks. I'm about 8 pounds away from what I weighed before Oliver, but I'd need to lose an additional 8 to get down to what I was before Nadia. Hopefully the idea of buying some new clothes will be adequate motivation. I'm going to try to reduce my caloric intake and increase my excerise. One of the things I'm going to try for excercise is the couch to 5K program.
Paul hasn't heard yet from Bloomsburg as to whether they have picked to interview him on campus or not, but he will be interviewing at Indiana State University on July 10th and also at Kutztown University (date to be determined). All three of these are for FT one-year temporary positions. Although Indiana would put us much farther away from our parents for one year, we would be much closer to my sister who lives in Chicago as well as an aunt, uncle, and seven of my cousins (plus their spouses and children) whom I haven't seen in almost 10 years. We won't need to move if Bloomsburg offers him a job. I can't believe it's July and we still don't know where we will be living NEXT month. Oi vey. Patience is a virtue, right?
Sunday, June 30, 2013
Saturday, June 29, 2013
5th birthday interview
On Thursday I recorded Nadia's 5th birthday interview. Here are links to her third birthday and fourth birthday interviews. Some things have stayed the same - her favorite color is still pink, favorite restaurant is still Friendly's, and her favorite animal is still an elephant. Others have changed. Some I don't think are 100% accurate. For example, I am certain her favorite thing to wear is one particular green dress whereas she said a pink shirt that she was wearing that day for maybe the second time this year. I generally do a terrible job of remembering to take videos of the kids, but at least I am making it a tradition to do a birthday interview each year!
Friday, June 28, 2013
Thursday, June 27, 2013
Thankful Thursday
1. Paul had two phone interviews this week; both were for FT one year temporary positions. Yesterday's was with a local university, and today's was with Indiana State University. I also have submitted four more applications to schools in New York, Colorado, Tennessee, and Arizona, which brings the total to 85. He's interviewed with twelve colleges thus far.2. Nadia has brought so much joy to our lives the past five years. I am also thankful to Paul's parents, Al, Millie, Shawn, Gram, and my parents for helping make her birthday celebration very special!
3. Yesterday we enjoyed story time at our local library again. I am thankful for the new librarian! Ian did an excellent job. He was one of the four best behaved children there!
4. We're really enjoying our swimming pool although we didn't make it there yesterday due to Nadia's 3 hour nap
5. Our air conditioner stopped working on Sunday. It was really hot in the house on Monday because we hadn't opened the windows on Sunday night. It was more tolerable in the house the past couple of days because we kept the windows open at night, but it still was rather hot as it's been in the 90's outside the past several days. I was afraid the repair would be very expensive, but it only cost $165 to have it fixed yesterday. The house feels much more comfortable again!6. From 1:30-2:30 yesterday all three kids were napping. What a blessing! I used that time to bake two batches of brownies for the snack for the kids at the musical rehearsal last night as well as a pan of lasagna and a pan of stuffed shells for our dinners this week. I was also thankful the repair man was here and got the a/c running before I turned on the oven.
7. The last several days Oliver woke up a little before 6am. This is an improvement, although this morning he woke up earlier than that.
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Nadia's Birthday Celebrations!
It feels like we've celebrated her birthday for four days, but really just yesterday and today were specifically planned for Miss Nadia. We went to DelGrosso's on Saturday because Word Girl was there not because it was almost her birthday, and every year our church's annual Family Fun Festival always takes place on a Sunday afternoon right around her birthday. On Sunday afternoon Nadia wore the "Birthday Girl" shirt that Gabby and Alexis gave her last month. Oliver stayed home with Paul. The kids enjoyed the air ball t-ball and the big bounce thing. It was the first time Ian enjoyed something like that. Nadia has enjoyed it for several years. They both improved greatly in their batting skills. I was asked to participate in the Bible trivia game, but I couldn't do that while watching Nadia and Ian. 
Nadia had planned her birthday menu several weeks ago. Nadia, Ian, Oliver, and I enjoyed chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast and grilled cheese sandwiches and brownies for lunch. Nadia opened most of the presents before breakfast. Her favorite gifts that morning were the princess costumes and Little Mermaid 2 dvd that we gave her. After breakfast the kids watched the movie, and then Nadia did some watercolor painting (a gift from us) and some scratch off princess papers (from my parents). Ian did one of the puzzles my mom had gotten Nadia. We also started to play a game of Trouble (another gift), and the kids had fun playing with the Blokus tiles (another gift) although they didn't actually play the game yet. Paul's mom and Shawn showed up around 2:30, and we headed to the pool a few minutes later. We arrived at 2:50, but we weren't able to get in until 4:30 because it was thundering and no one can get in the pool until 30 minutes after the last thunder. If it hadn't been her birthday, we would have just gone home, but we stuck it out and stayed at the pool until 7:00pm. Paul's dad and Paul showed up a little after 5pm with pizza. We ate the pizza on a picnic table with princess plates, cups, and napkins. Nadia opened her presents from Grandma and Pop Pop before we left, and right before bed she had her birthday dessert (chocolate peanut butter ice cream). It was the first time in her life she had some chocolate at all three meals!
Today we left the house around 9am and drove to Lancaster. We met Paul's parents, my parents, and Paul's grandmother at Friendly's for a birthday lunch and her birthday cake (compliments of Aunt Millie) and then we headed to Sight and Sound to see Noah. Nadia opened presents today from Gram and Aunt Millie and Uncle Al. We arrived home around 7pm in part because we made two quick stops on the way home. One of the stops was at a department store so I could buy myself a new bottom for my bathing suit as mine was in truly pitiful shape. Since Paul was with us, I took advantage of being able to go into a dressing room and try something on. If it hadn't been such a long day, I would have loved to do some more clothes shopping. I think that Nadia had a wonderful birthday, and I am glad we don't have anything special planned for the next few days as I am pooped. The special things on the schedule thus far for next month are MUCH closer to home (such as fireworks on the 4th of July). As I said a few days ago, I took too many pictures the past two days to include them all in this post. More to come later this week! I still can't believe my little girl is FIVE years old. My oh my. |
Oliver enjoyed Nadia's birthday lunch! |
Monday, June 24, 2013
Our 5 Year Old!
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| June 24, 2008 |
*Is obsessed with the color pink and anything to do with a princess. We gave her three more princess costumes today!
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| December 25, 2008 |
*Over the past year she hasn't taken many naps, although she's had about one a week lately. She usually plays with princesses while listening to books on CD (she's currently listening to The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis) or plays her Leapster game in her room while her brothers nap. Her most favorite Leapster games are Learn to Draw and Pet Pals. She's in bed from 8pm to 7am most days, although if she takes a nap it takes her more than an hour to fall asleep. She MUST have her dragon pillow in order to sleep. The last couple of months we got her to downsize to sleeping with only ONE doll or stuffed animal. She used to have a bed full of them. Lately she's either been sleeping with Zoe (Sesame Street character) that was one of her birthday presents last year or a Barbie doll she's named Allie (after a girl in her gymnastics class).
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| July 6, 2009 |
*Loves to play games and do puzzles. She can do up to 100 piece puzzles by herself, and she has done up to 300 piece puzzles with help. Her favorite games include Candyland, Memory, and hide and seek.
*She shows no fear at amusement parks. She rides everything she's tall enough to ride!
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| December 24, 2009 |
*Can write all of the letters of the alphabet (uppercase and lowercase) as well as the numerals 0-9. She prefers to write in uppercase. Her coloring and drawing skills greatly improved over the last year. She enjoys drawing stick figures now. She's pretty good at sounding words out to guess how to spell them.
*Loves to have books read to her. Some of her current favorites include Bernenstain Bear books, Little Critter books, Froggy books, Pinkalicious books, fairy tales, Little House books, Amelia Bedelia books, Seven Silly Eaters (by Mary Hoberman), Mama and Me (by Beverly Lewis), Thank you, Mr. Falker (by Patrician Poloacco), Fritz and the Beautiful Horses (by Jan Brett) and Henry's Freedom Box. She loves it when a book is based on a true story. She can sound words out and read about 15 BOB books.
*Some of her favorite songs are from the Annie musical, from Mary Poppins, and from the Little Mermaid. I gave her the Annie cd earlier this month, and Grandma and Pop Pop gave her a Mary Poppins cd today. Aunt Yvonne gave her a Disney CD today that incldues a nice selection of 25 different songs. She's enjoying going to The Ultimate Question musical rehearsals on Wednesday nights. They will have two performances in August.
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| June 2010 |
*The past six months I've been reading chapter books to Nadia and Ian. Her most favorites were the books about Ramona. She also enjoyed Pippi Longstocking, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, and Little House in the Big Woods. We're in the middle of the Boxcar Children right now.
*Loves to be tickled, hugged, and kissed.
*Would wear a dress every single day, if I let her. Her favorite dress (for every day wear not counting the ones she wears to church) is green. I won't let her wear it more than twice a week. At night she prefers to sleep in a princess nightgown, and her favorite swimsuit has princesses on it also. She also loves jewelry, purses, and shoes. She does NOT like to have anything in her hair or to have her hair brushed. I've found that if I have her brush her hair a little before I finish it off, there is less crying involved.
*Misses Cubbies. Of all the things she does outside the house (gymanstics, ballet/tap, storytime at the library, Sunday School, Cubbies, musical, soccer, and Wee Worship), AWANA is definitely her favorite. She's so excited that she'll be in Sparks in three months! She's going to be taking swimming lessons next month and participating in a fairy tale drama camp the end of July.
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| December 24, 2010 |
*Loves to drink skim milk or apple juice. Her favorite foods include pizza, spaghetti, garlic bread, bagels, English muffins, crackers, pretzels, chips, yogurt, ham and cheese hot pockets, grilled cheese sandwiches, various kinds of cold cereal, chicken nuggets, cheese burgers, french fries, hot dogs, pancakes, applesauce, bananas, peaches, grapes, cherries, fish sticks, macaroni and cheese, cranberry sauce, brownies, chocolate chip cookies, oatmeal raisin cookies, fruit snacks, chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, chocolate frosted donuts, chocolate covered pretzel rods, and almost every kind of ice cream. She will eat vegetables as long as I also give her raisins to eat with the veggies.
*Walks beside me when we go to the playground so her brothers can ride in the stroller
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| August 2011 |
*Easily learns her Bible verses. She also recently recited the first 5 books of both the OT and NT to Sarah (her Sunday School teacher). I've started having her memorize the references.
*Loves to jump off the diving board at the swimming pool! She's also getting much better at swimming (without arm floats) in the section of the pool that's only 2 feet deep.
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| December 2011 |
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| June 24, 2012 |
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| December 2012 |
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| June 24, 2013 |
Sunday, June 23, 2013
DelGrosso's Amusement Park!
The year isn't quite half over, and the kids have already been to five theme parks! They had been to Sea World and Knoebels before, but it was the first time they had ever been to Sesame Place, Magic Kingdom, and DelGrosso's. Paul's parents arrived at our house at 9:00 yesterday, and about 30 minutes later we were out the door and headed in our minivan to DelGrosso's. Knoebels is a little less than an hour from our house. DelGrosso's is near Penn State and is about 90 minutes from our house. Like Knoebels there is free parking and it doesn't cost anything to walk into the amusement park. You can buy individual ride tickets or a wristband. I had selected June 22 as the day to go because Word Girl was going to be there, and the kids have been into Word Girl lately. Nadia likes to pretend she's Word Girl, and Ian likes to take on the part of her sidekick, a monkey named Captain Huggy Face. 
It was a VERY hot day (high was around 95 degrees), which was great for the waterpark, but when we were on the dry rides, we were sweating quite a bit. It's smaller than Knoebels, but the kids had fun. I bought wristbands for Paul, Nadia, and Ian. I would have gotten one for myself also, but Ian wasn't tall enough to go on any of the water slides. I kept him in the dry ride area while Paul took Nadia on the water slides. He did enjoy the pool area! Nadia was tall enough to do three of the water slides. 
They rode all of the kiddie rides multiple times. Ian's three top favorites were: the flying fish, kiddie rollercoaster, and the Dumbo ride. The park was open for nine hours yesterday. We were there for seven hours. I am sure the kids could have kept going for two more hours, but the adults were hot and tired. I was very appreciative of our central air conditioning last night after being in the heat all day. Pop Pop got one thirty minute break from the heat when he held Oliver in the air conditioned Infant Care Center for one of Oliver's naps. 
I rode a couple of the bigger rides with Nadia (that Ian couldn't ride yet), and I would have done more with her but my stomach was protesting. This is one instance when I wish I had given birth in my 20's instead of my late 30's and early 40's because my stomach used to be able to handle all the rides. Paul did the adult sized bumper cars with Nadia. We had a very nice day, but I'd say Knoebels is still our favorite amusement park. I'm sure before the summer is over we'll be back at Knoebels! As is always the case with amusement parks, I have too many pictures to share in just one post. I'll share more later this week!
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