A Visit with Ellie

Our niece Ellie and Susan and Jen came to visit us this weekend! It was a busy, loud weekend with two kids in the house and lots of adults but I think everyone had a great time!

Michael had tons of fun playing with his cousin. He really wanted to be right by her the whole time, which Ellie sometimes interpreted as being pesky so that was a hard lesson for Michael to learn. He loves older kids so much and gets so excited to be around them!

Friday night we did make your own pizzas downstairs and watched Inception. Half the people fell asleep and the other half thought it was mind blowing so I would suggest you check it out. And surprise, surprise...I actually stayed awake for the whole movie! That feat is quite possibly the first time I've stayed away for any TV viewing this whole pregnancy.



Saturday morning we ventured out of the house for a morning at the Science Center of Iowa. We spent about 90 minutes browsing the exhibits and then we ate a picnic lunch and watched and IMAX movie about deep sea adventures. Michael had a great time and behaved awesome. His favorite part was the Star Theater which is a planetarium. He liked sitting on the floor and watching all the activity on the screen above him! I think Ellie's favorite activity was touching not one- but two snakes throughout the day. Yuck!

We came home and did some playing and then headed out to our favorite local mexican joint for some dinner. I had a delicious taco salad (yes, I strayed from my usual nachos which I can't get enough of this pregnancy) and it was nice to go out to eat somewhere that was fast and loud!

After dinner and bedtime for the kiddos, we watched Sherlock Holmes with Robert Downey, Jr. Unfortunately, this movie I did not stay awake for. Staying awake for two nights in a row is a lot to ask!

The next morning we had a great breakfast of individual egg casseroles (faster oven time...I feel like my regular recipe takes an hour or more to bake in the oven) and more play time!

I can't believe how much of a hit this pirate ship was all weekend:

Scampy loved watching Ellie and really wanted to play with her!

After a quick lunch date at McDonalds, we said goodbye to our guests! Thanks for the fun weekend, cousin Ellie!

Suriving the Snow

Michael and I had a whole day off to ourselves on Wednesday and we were snowed in. It was super freezing out (-20 windchills), drifting snow, and I didn't want to risk getting stuck in the driveway again so we stayed in all day. It was a long haul. Usually we try and get out in the morning on my days home to break up the day a little bit so not getting out made the day seem long.



I also realized I have very little up sleeve in terms of fun, short activities I could help Michael do. I did some research and found a blog about "tot school" which was full of fun and education activities for little kids to do. I'll have to get on that!

We did play in our "sensory tub" filled with beans for about an hour which was fun. We also did "finger painting sensory activity" with whipped cream but Michael just ended up eating it all and then we ended up with this:




We did watch the documentary "Babies", which is currently on Netflix streaming right now. I had gotten a few recommendations from friends about it and wow...it was so good! Scott didn't really get it, but Michael and I watched it in two little sections (it is about 60 minutes long) and he sat still and watched it the whole time in my lap.



This baby was my favorite. He had an older brother and a kitty who he liked to play with. I recommend it for anyone looking for some snowy day fun!

Here are some snowy day photos for you:

Snow afternoon

Michael and I are home early today because of an early out due to snow! We are hunkered down and ready to stay inside for a while. I have a feeling this storm is going to get a lot worse before it gets better!

The roads home from school were not great. Lots of blowing snow and drifting in the roads. We had a huge drift in our driveway that I thought I could gun through with my Prius. And...that was a no-go. I was totally stuck in a drift up to my waist. Luckily, I got Michael inside and down for a nap and got myself dug out. Afterwards, I enjoyed a sandwich and a nice nap! Shoveling is hard work!

Michael has just started saying, "uh-oh!" and makes this face:



Too cute.

We've been having lots of fun reading our library books, but they are due tomorrow! I hope we can get out of the house to make a quick run to get some more.

I love being home with my blue-eyed guy! Hopefully we can stay nice and cozy tonight and survive this winter storm!

This feels GOOD.

Today I have the afternoon off, which will be the first of my Mondays off for the rest of the year! It feels so good to be home and playing with Michael and getting things DONE like laundry, grocery shopping, and meal prepping. You know, all those important things!

I've really enjoyed subbing and the extra income, but now I am ready to slow down a bit. I figure if I'm not getting paid much, I might as well enjoy the perks of having free time. Right?? We had a busy week last week with me going into school every day, plus Scott's parents stayed two nights, my dad visited for two mornings, and my mom and sister were here (and babysat!) on Friday night. It was great to see everyone! This week we are getting ready to host Scott's sister and her family and I think we are going to have a really fun weekend.

Here's a little picture of my snack monkey!

Updates

Wow, it has been a busy week! Where did the time go? Here are some quickie updates for you all:

• Today is my last day of (scheduled) subbing, except for Monday when I am helping another friend, but I'm not counting that.
  
• Scott moved into his new office this week and he's been super busy with late nights getting everything in the right place. It is a really beautiful office, I will have to stop by now that it is all finished and take some photos to share!
• Michael has started saying "Oh!" and "Uh-oh!" very excitedly and pointing with his finger. He loves to look out the window and point at all the things outside. I'm not sure really what he is looking at, but it sure seems exciting. He is really babbling and saying a lot of things that sound like words.
• We are going to a post- holiday party tonight and my mom and sister are watching Michael! I'm really excited!
  

Have a great Friday!

Swimming!!

I finally remembered to take my camera with me to swimming time. I really like the photos I took, mostly because Michael looks like such a big boy. He looks especially big compared to the little roly poly infants in the class! Seeing those little babies makes me really excited to be getting a new baby at house too. I wanted to take some pictures of the little chubby babies, but I figured that would probably be weird. You'll just have to trust me- they were cute.

Michael went down the big slide all by himself! I helped him up the stairs the first time, but then he didn't even need me at all.

I realized as I looked back on these photos that it looks like Scott and Michael are the only people in the pool. There are actually quite a few people in his class (10, maybe?) and the instructor is super awesome. I cropped the other people out because I sure as heck would not want a photo of me in my bathing suit appearing somewhere in blog land! Eek! :o)

Next week is our last class and then we are hopefully signing up for the 2nd class which runs in February.

Toy Organization

This morning we are skipping our dance class and decided to have a low key morning at home. I've been working Friday afternoons and while I like getting out of the house, it is too hard to try and do something in the morning and then try and get ready to go again to school and childcare.

I have been really overwhelmed lately with the amount of TOYS that are all over my house!!! I'm sure many of you have this same feeling, and I'm sure I will be dealing with it forever.

I weeded out the upstairs toys and books and took two big clothes baskets of them downstairs. I just kept one basket of books, one basket for library books, and then two baskets of toys that we store in the bottom of a bookshelf. Here is what we were left with upstairs:



I just feel so much better about the state of my house if there are not a million toys in the main living area and I can actually pick them up and put them away.

In the basement we keep our toys in a little area behind the big sofa. I bought this shelf on sale at Target after Christmas for $40. I actually have one in a different color buried deep in our storage room so hopefully someday I can utilize that as well.

It felt good to get all the toys sorted a little bit and put away. Before they were just all sort of piled up behind the couch and you couldn't even walk around.

I also had these white storage things from my college dorm room/apartment and I'm glad I could use them again. They don't really match but I'm just glad I can get the toys off the floor. Michael really loves taking the bins out and dumping the toys so I guess he's getting some entertainment out of the deal!

I found this great bucket at Target in the $1 section and I wish I would have bought more. So cute!

I sorted out all of the little people stuff and put them in one bin. We have so much! Yikes.

I like that the cubby holes are big enough to keep some of his little people sets.

It felt good to get most of the toys in one place. We had some baskets of toys in the TV area part of the basement and I moved them all back to the main area. In the process of sorting through all the toys I also weeded out 3 big plastic bins of baby toys that I can put away for the new baby. Things like links and soft toys that go on carseats. I had a TON of things like that and I think it helped to get them out of the mix.

After all the work, it's time to play!

I know the toy organization won't last forever, but for right now it is saving my sanity!

Have a great Friday!