New Wheels

A few weeks back Sycely got her very first set of wheels-a super sparkly, girly, Princess tricycle. Since then we've been waiting for a good evening to let her try it out. With all the sunshine this week, we finally had a chance to let her check it out and take it for a spin. She was pretty excited to come out the front door and see it waiting for her. She, of course, had to gather up some princesses and a few other things to take for ride in the basket. Her legs are just a teeny bit short still for pedaling on her own and we've got a little work to do with steering straight, but she had a blast trying it out. And we've still got ALL summer to perfect her riding skills!

We all scream for ice cream

We took advantage of Baskin Robbins' 31 cent ice cream night last night and had quite the yummy, and entertaining family date. Who says you can't get ice cream for the whole family for $1.55?! Sycely had never had an ice cream cone before, so we figured this was a good opportunity to introduce her to what she's been missing. She dug right in, literally!

She licked for a while but soon decided to give the spoon a go for a while, scooping the ice cream out of her cone. She was so excited to have "chocolate ice cream in a comb!"

When all the ice cream was gone she wasn't quite sure what to do with the cone, but with a little demonstration she got right to work devouring the cone just like she did the ice cream. There's no doubt from the status of her face that she enjoyed every last bit!

Fairbanks

Last week we took our annual trip up to Fairbanks for State FFA Convention. We drove up on Wednesday. Eight and a half hours after leaving Anchorage we arrived at Chena Hot Springs. Somehow (much to the surprise of her parents) Sycely managed to keep herself awake for the WHOLE journey, which meant an extra two hours or so of entertaining that we didn't expect since we figured she'd nap on the way. She did remarkably well considering we literally spent the whole day in the car. I got this fabulous car seat tray that allowed her to play with her princesses and farm animals, color and do stickers. We also brought along a cookie sheet and magnets, playdough, pipe cleaners and of course movies and other surprises to keep her busy. Once we got to Chena and got checked in we went for a swim in the hot spring pool.

Thursday we spent outside at Chena, for the most part while Lem was in a meeting. Sycely had fun collecting pine cones. After lunch we packed up and headed back into Fairbanks. Sycely was able to get a nap in on the hour long drive, thankfully. We grabbed some dinner and got Sycely to bed. She actually slept extremely well at night and at nap the whole trip and I'm SOOOO grateful for that!

Friday and Saturday were pretty full with convention activties. We did get a chance to take the visiting National Officer to Santa Claus House in North Pole. We took our traditional photo of Sycely in Santa's chair. My, oh my, how these little ones grow! It's truly amazing.

We had a yummy family breakfast on Sunday and loaded up in the car to head back home. The drive home took us less time, since we didn't have the extra hour to Chena. Sycely slept about 25 minutes before frost heaves interrupted her nap. Between snacks, potty breaks, toys and movies we all managed to survive the drive home. Man was it great to get all of us back into our own beds Sunday night! I think we're full up on the Fairbanks drive for another year or so-at least!

The new Big Sister Room

The Big Sister Room overhaul/remodel is finally completed! Though it was quite a lengthy, detailed, baby-step process, we somehow sustained the stamina to see it through to the end. It's a whole new Princessy world in what used to be our "office" (AKA Storage Room B). Sycely's new room features new carpet, paint, and trim, a new window, new light fixture, new outlets and switch covers, new closet unit, new dresser, storage cabinet, shelving, bedside unit, bookcase, and of course the ultimate in Big Sister furnishings, a special made princess canopy bed with sheer curtains. Of course there's plenty of Princess details included throughout the room including artwork, wallie stickers on the furniture, bedding, clock, lamp and hamper, among other things.

The Big Sister Room project sure did turn out to be a true "family affair" so to speak. My Dad and Kate got Sycely's bed frame ordered and Lem's parents picked it up in Homer. Lem and his Dad fashioned and assembled the canopy structure and his mom sewed the valance and curtain panels for us. We're so blessed to have such generous family so close by to help us make such magical things happen for our little princess. Sycely told her Daddy her "new Big Sister bed is magical and spark-el-y."

We did the big reveal last night. Sycely's been quite aware and involved in the whole prepping process, but didn't know about all the "Princessing" that was going to take place. That part we kept a surprise until the very end. Her and Daddy went to get the curtains from Nanny and Mommy put all the Princessy touches in her room while they were gone. She saw it all put together and ready for her when she opened the door for the first time last night. Bedtime routine and getting to sleep went remarkable well for such an exciting evening (probably thanks to the fact that she didn't take a nap yesterday-maybe a blessing in disguise?!) And, Sycely made it all night without falling out of her new bed, which was a comfort to Mommy since it's so high up off the floor (though I did go in once and dig her out of her covers since she likes to sleep like a mole burrowed about half way down toward the foot of the bed!)

So far this morning, Sycely's bed back in bed several times, reading books to and snuggling with her stuffed animal friend and babies. Something tells me she feels right at home and quite content in her Big Sister surroundings. There has been some confusion with the cat, Charlie, as usual as to who this new bed is intended for. It's no surprise considering we experienced the same situation with the Bassinet and the crib. He did give us a demonstration of his circus quality skills last night, leaping from the mattress to the top of the canopy cross bar and balancing, walking his way across for a few feet. I hope that's the last demonstration of that kind!

Hope you're finding life as full of joy and excitement as we are!

Happy Easter!

We had a pretty, mellow, but fun Easter weekend around here. Sycely dyed eggs, using every single one of the 12 colors that came in the box, at least two colors on every egg. She was able to be a lot gentler with dropping the eggs in the colors this year-the eggs actually survived the dying process!


She did her egg hunting before church on Sunday morning. She was pretty fun to watch running around with her basket collecting all the little treasures she was finding. She got pretty attached to her basket and of course, despite our encouragement otherwise, just HAD to bring the blasted thing to church with her! She was quite content to carry it around like an accessory-her special Easter purse, so to speak.





After church we had our afternoon nap and Sycely opened the treats in her basket. We spent the evening with Lem's family having a yummy Easter dinner. It was pretty low key and low stress for us and lots of fun for Sycely, so pretty much the perfect balance for our little family. Hope you all had a blessed Easter weekend!

Making Muffins

This weekend, Sycely told me, "Need to make some muffins, Mommy." So we busted out her apron and miniature wooden spoon and the mixing bowls and got busy. She made the whole batch all by herself (I cracked the eggs and had to give the stirring a turn or two) and was SOOO proud to get them out of the oven and share them with Daddy.

Friday, January 18, 2008

2007- A blessing from Heaven, 2008- So far it's great!

Wow! It’s only been six weeks since our last update, and boy do we have a lot to share! I suppose we should attempt to tackle this chronologically…
Our biggest (and first) news is that we will be adding another little blessing to our family at the end of July. We shared the news with our families at Thanksgiving. Under the ruse of making a Thanksgiving video for Aunti Eris, we recorded the traditional, “I’m thankful for…” activity. We went around the table, everyone sharing until we got to me…at which point Lem’s dad left the table to refill wine glasses! Fortunately Sycely helped me stall by sharing all that she was thankful for. Then the news was out! I shared that I was thankful that God was blessing us with another baby. It was a pretty memorable moment and it’s all on videotape! We shared our news with my Dad and Kate a little differently. We got Sycely a shirt that says, “World’s Greatest Sister.” We put it on her and let them figure it out from there. It was a pretty fun and exciting Thanksgiving weekend around here. Sycely and Baby-Brother-Sister, as she calls baby will be almost exactly 3 years apart, give a take a week or so. We’ve started gathering and ordering things to begin work on Sycely’s new big girl Princess room. Painting and carpet should happen shortly. She’ll make the big move to her new room this spring, hopefully giving us plenty of time to repaint/redecorate her old room for baby if need be. We should know after our ultrasound at the end of February whether we’ll be painting one bedroom or two.

December was a busy month, as it seems to be for everyone. Our Special Olympics season started up so with that, group lessons, my private students and the Christmas Show, skating kept me pretty busy right up until Christmas. I also attended the Governor’s Summit on Early Learning which was an amazing experience. What an awesome opportunity to work with business, community and legislative leaders to advocate for support for Alaska’s young children. Other than the political influence, I had a whole lunch to talk with our pastor who was also attending as part of our faith-based group, about the impact of what was being presented was going to have on our church being a source for leadership and support for healthy families and young children. From our discussion came a whole sermon on “front loading” our resources and investing in young children and their families and a whole new focus for our family and children’s ministry for 2008. There are big plans for me to be an instrumental part of all of that in a variety of roles and I’m so excited to be in a church family that feels our children and families should be such a priority! I can’t wait to see what God has in store!

Between making holiday treats, wrapping presents, visiting with friends, and family, potty training and Christmas light looking, the holidays pretty much took over from there for a couple weeks. We had a wonderful Christmas, doing our annual family Christmas here at the house, the heading over to do Christmas with Lem’s family the rest of the day/night. Sycely was of course, such a delight to enjoy through the whole season. This year we had some of our close friends from church join us. Mike, Julie and their daughter, Scarlett, who is Sycely’s age came over for our meal and games, etc. They even had their very own table for Christmas dinner. Julie is due to have her second baby 3 days after me! It’s going to be a very busy summer of babies at our church. There are about 8 of us all due in about a 10 week span! But it’s lots of fun to have pregnancy buddies! The day we headed down to Homer we had our first appointment with our midwife, Judi. She came by the house and we got to hear Baby’s heartbeat nice and strong. Even Sycely was excited to hear that sweet little sound. We spent a few days down in Homer having Christmas/New Year’s down there. My dad got to have lots of time off, so that was a nice. We had a relaxing couple of days and we enjoyed one of the world's biggest and yummiest pizzas.

Since the holidays ended it’s been pretty much back to the usual for us around here. Lem headed back to work and a new semester. I just finished teaching my high school Child Development class this week and am getting ready for our annual Early Childhood Conference coming up in two weeks. Last week I got word that our school got approved for re-accreditation and the classroom I was responsible for received a score of 99/100. Lem started playing for our church hockey team, and so far is having a real blast. His games are late Friday and Saturday nights, so he doesn’t really miss much awake time away from the family. I’m so tired and sick these days that I’m asleep by the time most of his games start! So far this pregnancy has been pretty much the same as things were with Sycely. Except that instead of being super sick until the afternoon, I’m super sick all day and all night! Again I’ve hit the 12 week mark with little change or relief; that too is the same as last time. Nonetheless, I’m working out every day still and teaching skating 4 afternoons a week right now which at least TRIES to distract me a little from being sick. Sycely and I are getting back into our routine with the start of the new year, having play dates with friends, and various outings and adventures. She’s ever the artist and ever the princess so much of our day involves our familiar friends Cinderella, Snow White, Belle and Sleeping Beauty and a variety of art media including her current favorite “Michael Paint” (big bottles of tempura we got at Michael’s)

Hope the new year is finding all of you happy and healthy!