Another Trophy!

Hannah's second session of gymnastics ended last week with "show what you know" and the ribbon ceremony. We've noticed a lot of improvement in her the past few months and she's now tumbling around the house all the time, which shows interest and explains some of her improvment (more practicing).

The night started with her coach coming over to me to tell me that they were ready to move Hannah up and along to the next step. She said that meant two days a week @ 1-1/2 hrs each day and the classes were our Monday night and Saturday morning. Oh, and another $50 a month. As much as I was delighted that she felt Hannah was ready, I had to tell her that our family just isn't ready for that level of seriousness at this time. Hannah JUST turned 5 and we have all the time in the world to be super busy. I'm just not ready to spend 3 hours a week at the gym for a 5 year old (and with a one year old). I feel a little selfish with my spare time and weekends, but we're always just so busy trying to fit in what we don't do during the week into the weekends and evenings that I just can't see going this route just yet. I was a bit disappointed because she said if we didn't choose to move up, we'd have to switch to Saturdays to stay in this type of class, which I don't want to do either. She was going to maybe allow Hannah to stay on Monday nights depending on enrollment, but if not, she would have to move to a 50-minute rec class which is offered both Wednesday and Thursday evenings, so that's what we may end up doing. We'll re-evalulate in the summer I guess. I know Hannah likes it and has fun and is definitely getting better, but I'm also not convinced she LOVES it and therefore, I'm just not ready to be serious about it.

So anyway, about the night and the pictures.

Some exercises that are helping her get quite a tight little tummy! (maybe I need to work on this move!)

She's one of the only girls in her class that will actually do a handstand on the beam alone. She definitley feels more comfortable and does better on this double beam, but none of the other girls will actually kick up into a handstand, and Hannah does it pretty well!

Back walkovers off the mat have definitely improved (probably due to the extra practice in the living room off the ottoman!)

Lots of handstands against our living room wall have helped perfect this move! Need to work on pointed toes!

And bars is where she's really made improvements from her assessments. Last time, she got just a blue ribbon on bars (the bottom level). She has been working hard and now can attempt her cast-straddle on which we were trying to take a picture of here. She can do it probably 50% of the time. She has a hard time remembering to hold on to the bar!

So there's the "Show What You Know" portion..........and then we moved on to the ribbon ceremony.

She was so very excited (which I happily captured her expression) when she achieved level black on everything and got her Black Trophy this time!!!!! She was so proud of herself and I was of her too! She has been working hard so it was exciting!

And afterward with her treasured new trophy

And as for other happenings around our place, Nicholas loves the vaccuum which of course tickles me pink! He loves to help me sweep the kitchen floor and also chase around the regular vaccuum! Love seeing my kids like to clean (I know, I'm weird)!!!!

And his fine motor skills are really improving which is cool. He loves to play with his shape sorter and can get a few of the shapes in all by himself as with the coins in the piggy bank here.

We went to visit Great Grandma yesterday for a bit. She had a birthday gift for Nicholas and then we stayed for a while which was nice.

Our dishwasher took a dump on us, so we got to buy a new one - love spending money on stuff like that and continuing to put money into this house when we so badly want to keep working the plan to move up! We're working hard to make that happen, so I'll just keep thinking positively about it and it WILL happen!!!

Tony and I are going to start getting into shape again and eating better. I figured I'd blog about it to help make it more of a commitment! So you're in too my dear (since I know you're reading this)......no more junk food and get to the rec center!

Ok, I'm off to work on our taxes.........hopefully that's not going to ruin my day!!!

Nicholas' Pictures

Here area Nicholas' Official On-Year-Old Pictures!

What a big boy!

Happy Birthday Nicholas!

Today was Nicholas' first birthday! So crazy it's been a year! It went so fast, much faster than Hannah's first year seemed to go. Perhaps it had to do with sleepless nights or that he was a bigger baby or an early walker. I don't know, but it was a terrific year getting to know this little guy and I'm so very glad he's part of our family!

As you know from my last post, we celebrated Nicholas' birthday a couple weeks ago at the joint party. But today was our family's private celebration. We woke up singing Happy Birthday to the happy little boy (who woke up with a VERY stinky diaper today!!!) I took the kids to daycare and headed to work. I watched the clock this morning and smiled fondly around 10:20 remember when Nicholas arrived a year ago!

I picked the kids up early to take them for their well-child doctor visits today. Tony met us up there. They're both doing terrific and I was proud of Hannah who didn't cry as she got her last shot for a few years!!!

Nicholas weighed in at 23.5 pounds today and measured 30-3/4 inches long. He's at 75 percentile for weight and 90th for height. He grew almost 2 pounds and 2-1/4 inches from his 9 month visit - again, more up than out!!!

At 12 months, Nicholas is now running, but still falls down alot. I asked the doctor if we should worry about all the head bumps he gets (he said no). He is on 100% table food and now drinking whole milk from a cup. We only give him a bottle at bedtime, which is purely part of the routine. He still hasn't cut any new teeth, but his gums look super swollen, so I'm guessing they're coming. He is wearing 18 month clothes and a size 4 shoe.

He's starting to say real words - hi, dad, mama, hannah, cracker (his favorite word). He knows what a duck says and also a cow! He waves bye bye and signs more and will raise his hands up when you say "touchdown"!

He likes to suck his binky, enjoys splashing in the bathtub, plays rough and likes to dance to music. He's funny.....and knows he's funny and likes to do silly things. He can throw a serious fit, like a throw yourself on the ground, scream and kick and act like a fool fit! And he can be so sweet and cuddly too, like he grabs my arm to hug on it as I change him in the mornings. He likes to give kisses - the open mouth ones! Sleeping at night is better, but he still wakes several times fussing, but usually falls back to sleep quickly.

He's awesome!!!!

Here are a few pictures from tonight.

One of those "full-on fits"

Happy after dinner with a spaghetti face!

drinking from a cup

talking to Grandma on the phone

Happy Birthday Cupcake

After that birthday cupcake

Opening a couple gifts

Playing with his new shape sorter

Just being cute!

This is how he plays peek-a-boo, hiding behind the chair and peeks out to look and laugh at you!

And some high-flying fun with daddy!

Happy Birthday Buddy! We love you!

THE Party

Saturday was Hannah and Nicholas' birthday party. It was fun!

We went to Freaky Family Fun, an indoor miniature golf place. We invited the Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles and Cousins, Godparents and a few friends.

I think the kids all had a nice time. We ate pizza and salad first, then the kids golfed.

After golf, they got to take turns on the roller coaster simulator - that was a huge hit!

Then we sang Happy Birthday - Hannah first

Then Nicholas.

He wasn't very into the whole party, being naptime and all. I was so shocked he didn't make a huge mess with his cake and devour it all. He really wasn't so happy about it and would rather be held.

Then we opened gifts. So many nice things from all our family and friends!

Thank you all for celebrating this special time with us! We love you all

Happy 5th Birthday Hannah!

Happy 1st Birthday Nicholas!

We love you to the moon and stars and all the way back!!!

And lastly, here are Hannah's 5 year old pictures

Back to the Bedroom

So way back when, I started redoing our bedroom. That project was put on hold to do Hannah's new big girl room since we were going to need her room for the new baby....geez, that was a long time ago since Nicholas is almost a year old already!

So I picked up where I left off in June of 2009 this past month. A few weekends ago, I was bored, so I decided to finish ripping off the border that was in our room. It was amazing that one and a half walls took me 5 hours...that was some serious wallpaper paste! I worked on patching the holes and ripping out the woodwork on Martin Luther King Day when I was off work.

I took a couple vacation days yesterday and today to get some more work done. I feel like it's finally coming together! I got the ceiling painted yesterday and then the walls and woodwork done today. I also changed out all the outlets to white outlets and covers. I'm at a place that it feels like a new room enough to finally put on the new bedding that's been sitting on top of our amoire for a year and a half! It looks really nice and the room is very warm, maybe a little dark, but I think I'm going to like it!

I've still got to redo the closet - that will be the next step of this project. I'll probably take a couple days off again in the next week or two to do that. I also need to order new blinds, buy and paint the new woodwork and door and order new closet doors. Then we'll get new carpet and it'll be finished.

So at least for the time that we're going to be in this house (until we can build our new one that we so badly want to do soon!), we'll have a nice newly updated bedroom!