A Little Fun for Everyone

This past week, Dan went to sailors training in the Gulf of Mexico with Erin's Uncle Jeff.  This trip began to take formation after Dan made a comment about always wanting to sail the world.  Erin decided that his dream needed to start to form into a reality.  What better way to start off he journey than with a very experienced sailor?  A big thank you to all the individuals who helped to make this trip a reality!  When Dan returned, he was filled to the brim with new ideas and thoughts about future adventures. 

While Dan was away, Mommy and the girls had a chance to spend some quality time together.  Although tantrums did erupt from time to time, the girls played well together and tried their best to help Mommy with daily chores.  Because it was so cold, we spent a lot of time indoors.  We visited Tropics Indoor Playground on Sunday as well as our weekly music class.  On Monday we went swimming at the Maplewood Community Center and on Tuesday we visited the library to get some new books.  By Wednesday, temperatures were increasing and we were able to go outside without Mommy giving her warnings about fingers falling off due to mittens being discarded.  Wednesday night was filled with lots of made up games and stories.  Mommy made an indoor snowball counting/throwing activity out of cotton balls and we did a color hunt where we collected objects of certain colors.  We also had some time for fort building and puzzles.  Both girls watched our root vegetables and blue Epsom salt crystals daily for any new observations.  Thus far, only the radishes have germinated.  We think the onions are going to come up next followed by the carrots.  These two science experiments prove to be great conversation topics each night at dinner.

 This fort got so big it filled the entire living room

 Indoor playgrounds are definitely an electrifying experience

On Thursday the girls attended their weekly tumbling class.  Somehow the girls were both in the same age range this session and they ended up in class together.  It is interesting for Mommy to see how the differently the girls play and perform when they are in the same room.  Emma inspires Ani to try new things and Ani helps Emma to remember to pick up after herself and take time for things like properly putting on boots.  Before attending her first tumbling class, Emma remarked "Tumbling is my joy in life."  Mommy thinks she melted the heart of the gymnastics instructor with her comment.  Emma is currently working towards her goal of doing a handstand and a cartwheel.  Ani is working on her goal of hanging from the uneven bars.  While the girls tumble, Daddy has plans to take up his own new learning by joining a guitar group.  He will be practicing for many weeks and then perform some songs with the group.  Emma, Ani and Mommy will be excited to hear the tunes his group performs.  After tumbling, the girls put their cooking skills to work as they made blueberry muffins in a mug.  The microwave did a decent job cooking these creations quickly. 

Friday wrapped up the week with Mommy presenting at the Friday Montessori coffee get-together.  Grandma Kathy and Great Aunt Joan took Emma and Ani swimming while Mommy lead her middle school group of girls through their self-esteem building course.  Daddy attended the coffee get together and then worked from home during the day.  Thank goodness we made it through the week!  Now we can start all over again with yoga, church and ECFE classes on Saturday.

Had Ourselves a Merry Little Christmas

The week long Christmas break started with a visit from Santa Claus and making chili for a good friend.  Although the girls were hesitant when it came to sitting on Santa's lap, they did love looking for him out in the yard and tried to spy Santa's reindeer.  Later on in the week Emma and Ani received a picture in the mail from Santa that thanked them for the little Christmas cake that they gave him.  Over the weekend, we visited the Macy's display where the girls saw the animatronic version of Santa's Workshop.  We also delivered homemade caramel yogurt dip and pumpkin peanut butter dip to neighbors.  The girls had a blast over at our new neighbor's house.  They were able to try an Indian sweet treat and play with balloons left over from Prince's birthday party.

 What could be better than chomping on cucumbers?

During the week, the girls reenacted the Nativity scene many times.  Ani loved letting the three kings ride around in style on her pink scooter.  As the week progressed, more and more Nativity characters were found riding the trendy scooter.  Besides the Nativity, we loved reading stories by the Christmas tree and pretending to be elves working in Santa's workshop.  The day before Christmas Eve, the girls decided to make some bath salts to give the relatives at Christmas.  Our first attempt ended up a bit too fizzy, but we plan to try the project again soon to see if we can get better results.

 Grandma Walczynski's tree is always a fascination for the girls

 Grandpa, Emma and Ani playing with a train set from Great Aunt Marchie that is 60 years old

On Christmas Eve, we spent the evening with the Walczynski and Hill Family.  Church was beautifully decorated and very crowded.  Lots of Mommy's friends from her faith formation group were back at church with their children.  Ani and Emma did a great job bringing up food to the alter for families in need.  After church we headed to Grandma and Grandpa Walczynski's house for Christmas dinner and opening presents.  Everyone loved the idea of the birthday cake for Jesus that Grandma did this year.  As for presents, the favorites were My Little Ponies, a baby doll and a Sophia music player.

 

The Happy Birthday Jesus Cake

 You can never have enough hats, mittens and baby dolls

When Emma and Ani awoke the next morning, they found that Santa had left them a trampoline and a juicer for making smoothies.  Daddy spent all morning putting together the trampoline (each spring had to be individually pulled to the correct position).  As Daddy worked on the contraption, the girls happily played with their new toys.  We spent a bit of time sledding out at the park and played board games, read stories and danced around for most of the day.

 Not too much snow on Christmas day

The following morning, Grandma Jan and Grandpa Bruce arrived.  The girls were thrilled to have them visiting for the weekend.  Emma and Ani loved the color changing ponies that Grandma Jan found and the face paint from Grandpa Bruce.  We visited the sledding hill once again, painted our faces multiple times, painted pictures, read lots of stories, played new board games, visited the Children's museum and went to church at the Cathedral of St. Paul.

We are all so thankful to have such wonderful relatives and friends with whom we spent the holidays.  Our Christmas was filled with so much love!

Programs and Recitals

The holiday season brought with it a close to many of the activities that Emma and Ani normally participate in.  Swimming lessons, tumbling class and dance class all finished up by the last weeks in December.  Emma was the star in her dance group recital.  Somehow she managed to move up on stage so that she was dancing next to the teacher while the rest of the group remained further back.  She definitely is not afraid to be in the spotlight and show what she knows how to do.  At the Montessori Christmas program, Ani's group sang "Rudolph the Read Nose Reindeer" and "We Wish You a Merry Christmas."  All of the toddlers looked stunned as the audience took pictures and sang their songs with them.  Unfortunately we didn't get a great photo of the group.  Emma's group sang many songs.  Two of Emma's favorites were "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas" and "Happy Birthday Montessori."

 Waiting to go backstage

 Ever so slowly it is becoming the Emma and Miss Meg show

 Just a bit tired after the performance

Thanksgiving and Dan's Birthday

We visited the Maas family for Thanksgiving and had a wonderful vacation.  On Thanksgiving, Uncle Mike and Emma made an organic chocolate cake for Daddy with cream cheese frosting.  Grandpa and Grandma took the girls to a unique Lego store where they could make their own lego sets from a variety of characters.  Each girl was able to pick out two of their favorite characters and then they got to share a princess Lego set.  We attempted to take the girls ice skating however the weather was not cooperative for the unveiling of the ice.  We did get to listen to some nice holiday music with bells and a choir instead.  On Saturday we went to the Wisconsin Children's Museum and had a blast.  Mommy's favorites were the hamster wheel and the water tornado.  Emma said that she really liked shadow room and the diner where she made pretend pie.  Ani seemed to like the water tornado, paint area and spaceship.  Daddy even got Mommy and Emma to have a dance party in the elevator when we rode between floors.  So many cool things to explore!  We will have to go back there when the weather is warm to try out the outdoor play areas.  Both girls slept the majority of the way home and we were all exhausted after two hours of unpacking and cleaning.  Time to get back on schedule!

Happy Birthday Daddy!  Thanks for reading Strawberry Shortcake and the Fake Cake Surprise for the 100th time over the weekend.

Trick or Dog

We tried trick or treating this year, but the girls preferred searching for dogs and asking if we could go home to eat cucumbers.  We did manage to find a few houses with small dogs that the girls could pet, and we munched on cucumbers while listening to Halloween music once we got home. 

Emma also enjoyed being the trick-or-treater lookout.  She stationed herself at the front door with a pile of Legos and stared out the window.  The post was abandoned many a time when a good sing-along song came on the computer. 

Although Emma liked the trick-or-treaters, Ani's favorite Halloween activity appeared to be cleaning out the pumpkins.  Ani developed a clever method that would allow her to clean out pumpkins indefinitely.  As soon as she would take out all the guts and seeds, she would stuff them all back in.  For over an hour, we heard, "Take them out, put them in!"

A Scribe or Pirate Life for Us?

Yesterday Emma wrote her first word all by herself.  After successfully writing "mom", she practiced it over and over again.  She also accidentally made a "Q" which caused us to begin to learn the letters for the word queen.  In addition to queen, Emma knows how to write a capital letter "E" and is working on her lower case "a."  Very soon she will be able to write her own name.  Mommy thinks in a few short months Emma would be considered for scribe training.  Too bad we don't live in Egyptian times and that they refused to train girls.

Besides her writing skills, Emma has really taken off in her singing abilities.  She has created her own first song titled, "Three Little Apples"

Three little apples hanging on a tree
along came daddy with a Paddy for me
(there is something else in here I can't remember)
He plucked that apple right off the tree
and away he went, as happy as can be
Doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo

As for Ani, the little kiddo can't get enough of words that people use.  In the past few weeks, she has become a little parrot.  Mommy has heard her stringing together full sentences with four or five words.  Perhaps she will find her calling with a bunch of pirates.  Besides sentences, she can now recite the full alphabet, sing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" as well as say other nursery rhymes in their entirety.  Mommy has even caught her singing the song that Emma made up all by herself.

Analise also loves to draw.  She holds her pincer grasp correctly and loves to make circles.  As she makes them, she shouts circle, circle, circle with ever increasing volume.  Mommy is currently training her in the art of triangles by using syllables as we make each side.

Maybe we won't make it as scribes or pirates, but we definitely have some artists in the family.

Whistling Well Orchard

Last weekend we visited the apple orchard as a family.  The girls got to see chickens and goats, jump off of hay bails and munch on delicious apples.  We came close to taking a family photo with all of us smiling.  Before leaving, both girls threw a coin into the pretend well to make a wish.

It is now a week later and Emma can't stop talking about wishes.  She wants to make sure her wishes come true.  If you really listen closely in the car or at times when Emma thinks she is by herself, you will hear her whispering wishes.