Double Trouble!

Oh what a fun stage the two of these little darlings are!  So full of energy and discovering new things each and every day.  More often than not, the best of friends.  However, when little brother is in one of his "little brother" moods- oh, he knows how to push his big sister's buttons.  

Leinna is closer to 4 years old than 3 years old now.  Hard to believe she could start pre-school next year.  She continues to love her books, doing projects and singing songs.  Her imagination is growing and she's really into giving everyone a pretend name and making up stories of what we are doing.   Often she is Princess Milly, brother is Bot, I'm Geo and Papa is the UmiCar (all characters from TV show Team Umizoomi) and we go on some crazy adventures.  Her most recent, we had to rescue a cow that was swimming in the ocean! 

Lukkas turned 22 months old this past week.  He is all boy and all almost 2 year old!  We had some challenging days with Leinna, but she was such an early speaker, that we could communicate to find out what was wrong.  Lukkas- well, we are experiencing the "trying" (not terrible) 2's!  He's speaking more and more each day, but when he's frustrated or mad, it sure is a lot easier to scream, stomp his feet and throw himself to the ground.  So often Papa and I have to just walk away because we can't help but just laugh.   When he's happy, which is most of the time, he is either playing with his cows or driving a truck around.  Just recently, he's started to teach Papa about his trucks and all the different jobs they can do ~ 

Ah, yes... fun, fun, fun times in our little family.  Not that I'm counting down until the end of the school year, but I'm really looking forward to this summer and hanging out with my family!

Tummy Bug Strikes!

Here I was hoping I was going to make a whole month of school without having to take a day off due to sick kiddos.  Oh, well - I'm very thankful that I have a job that provides for sick leave.  Mister came down with flu like symptoms on Wednesday afternoon - go figure - he's the only one who received the flu vaccination (hmmm....) Anyways- spent the day with him on Thursday.   Then Thursday evening, Leinners tummy was pretty upset.  So, Papa stayed home on Friday with kiddos.

By the time I got home from work - you wouldn't even know the kids were not feeling well.  Full of energy and playing hard (plus one tired Papa!!)  We are very thankful the Tummy Bug was quick moving.   Still going to take it easy this weekend and not over do it - but good luck telling the kids that.  

Yep - feeling much better! 

We were treated to a beautiful sunrise this past week.  This is looking straight out the back of our house facing the edge of the mountain. 

The sky moved from brillant orange and red to

to deep purple and blue with the clouds still a hint of pink in them.

It was breath taking! Simply beautiful!

The weather here feels more like spring with warm temperatures in the 40's and rain!  

Hoping our winter isn't quite over yet. 

We hope you all are doing well and staying healthy!

Imaginary Play

I love watching young children play.  I love how spontaneous they are and how creative they can be.  Watching young children play inspires me to find my own ways to play.  I'll be honest and say that I'm really missing taking pictures of Mother Nature - particularly the sunsets over Orca Bay in Cordova.  Photography has turned into a hobby of mine and I'm finding the desire to go and explore where Mother Nature is hidden in the "big city' increasing each day - especially since we are gaining sunlight and it's still light out when we get home from work.

Hurray for the return on sunshine.  Okay- so it's not super bright after school, but it's bright enough to suit the kids up and play outside for about 30 minutes before dinner.  We have a perfect little mound of snow where we shovel the drive way and it makes the best slide for the kids.  So much fun to watch them enjoy being outdoors.  We live in a pretty low traffic area, so we even used the sled and let the kids slide down the driveway into the street.  One of us stood in the road to watch for traffic and the other gave the kids a little push down the driveway.  Oh - it was so much fun and awesome to be able to play outside. 

Leinna learned all about the letter "M" this week and gave us a little puppet show with her mouse she made.  The stories this girl comes up with - what an imagination.  

 

What fun to add some dress up clothes to our imaginary play.  Papa wasn't too sure about Princess Dress up clothes for a Christmas gift, but I think now that he's seen how much fun Leinna has in them, he's warming up to the idea.  I think when Leinna was all dressed up and then went a grabbed the basketball and slam dunked it - he was okay with dress up time :O)  No - Leinna does not have make-up on - her cheeks were just naturally rosy at the time - Leif thought I put make-up on.  

Let's not forget our Mister- he's busy with imaginary play too...

He's all about making airplane sounds and flying his planes.  If he doesn't have a plane in his hand, anything and everything gets pushed along the floor and car sounds are loudly coming out of his mouth.  So interesting how boys and girls play differently.  Can you see the wet collar?  Lukkas is cutting 5 teeth!!  Poor kid - all 4 eye teeth at one time and then his 2nd incisor on the top finally came in.  Now he's been really chewing on his fingers towards the back of his mouth - can he really be getting his 2nd molars?  I just feel for the kid - but he's a trooper.  I guess since he only had the top 2 and bottom 2 teeth for the longest time, his mouth is playing catch-up.

 

Looking forward to a 3 day weekend as we have Monday off in observance of Martin Luther King Jr. I'm all done with school work already too - so it's going to be a fun filled weekend of quality time with family and friends.  

Christmas isn't over yet!

That's right- Christmas isn't over yet!  We've continued to receive cards and letters from friends and family.  So fun to read updates and see how everyone is doing.  Leinna also received a box in the mail this week.  She was so stinking excited to see her name on the box.  I saw who it was from and was very touched.  I'll explain in a few minutes.  Inside the box, was a 3-D Doc McStuffins puzzle. Once the puzzle pieces were on the table - Leinna was so excited and then complete focus.  I've never seen her so focused on the task at hand.  Not once did she ask for help or get frustrated. 

Within 10 minutes, she had completed the puzzle!

I was touched by who sent this gift as it was from my long time friend and Leinna's God-Mother, Mikayla.  A couple of years ago, I wrote about prayer requests for a little girl named Lily and her battle with cancer.  I am happy to say that Lily is still cancer free and  her mom is my dear friend Mikayla.  Lily's family now contains two brothers - one of is just a week younger than our own Little Mister and the 2nd whom was born on Dec 12th!  So, to see that this very busy mom took the time to find a special gift for her God-Daughter filled my heart with love. 

So, Christmas isn't over yet, but our vacation is.  We headed back to work on Monday and surprisingly, things went well.  The kids were excited to go back to their "school" (aka: daycare) and it felt good to get back into a routine.  

I love Leinna's drawing - as excited as we all were to get back to school, we were all so tired at the end of each day.  I think we all were in bed and asleep before 9:30pm. 

We hope the new year is starting off well for you all!

Welcome 2014!

Happy New Year!

2013 was certainly a year of change.  I'm not a big fan of change - I like my routines and being able to predict what to expect during the day.   One change I was hoping for in 2013, was the sale of our house in Cordova. Fortunately for our renters, the house did not sell this fall, so we'll try again in the spring.   I'm trusting in His timing and trying hard not to worry too much about it.  Moving on...

We wrapped up 2013 with a visit from Leif's parents who live in Fairbanks.  Leif's dad is not very good at keeping secrets and any other Christmas if Leif asked him what he was getting, his dad would just tell him.  Well, this year was a change!  Leif's dad kept it a secret for almost 2 months.  The fun part was, I knew what the gift was and I knew that there was no way Leif was going to guess what it was.   So, the most anticipated gift of 2013....

The Farming Game

Leif played this game as a child and the edition we have is from 1975.  We had assumed that the game was no longer made and we cherished the one we had.  Much to Leif's surprise, his dad found a new edition of the Farming Game.  Think "Monopoly" for farmers!  It's a pretty fun game!!

The remainder of our trip was spent watching college football bowl games and enjoying the company of Grandma Cynde and Pope.   We did make it out to a family friend's house for dinner- and look I managed to snap a generation photo!

Leif's family also enjoys bowling - so we made a family outing for bowling on New Year's Eve.  

Lukkas did great! I was surprised that he understood that he had to wait his turn.  We set it up so the adults bowled on one lane and the kids had the other lane. This way they didn't have to wait quite so long. 

By the end of the first game - Leinna had it all figured out and could do everything independently.  She loved when she'd knock the pins down and would say, "Oh man" or "Bummer" when she would miss the pins.  During the 2nd game, she got 2 strikes and bowled an 83!   We sure had a great time and Leinna has been asking every day when we can go back.  I hope it will be something we can do regularly. 

Leinna's been enjoying her dress-up clothes (yes Mrs. DillyDally- I was able to order some princess dress-up clothes- but the pink one is rarely worn :o) !! 

However, even the little princess she is - she enjoys every minute of being outdoors and is not afraid to play hard.

Yep- first "snow-rash" of the season.  We met up with some friends who also moved from Cordova to Anchorage this past summer and had a great time sledding with the kids.  We had several close calls - as any true sledding adventure should.  The last run of the day - we tipped over and hit a patch of rough snow - giving a bit of "snow-rash" to our princess' face.   She's a tough one though and barely shed a tear. 

I have to say, that Christmas break of 2013 has been one of the best breaks that I can remember.  I truly feel like I accomplished the projects around the house that I wanted to, but also feel rested.  Not so sure, I'm ready to go back to work - too much fun hanging out with the kiddos all day.  But- Monday, we'll had back to work for 2nd semester.  Hard to believe we have 18 weeks of school and we'll be looking forward to summer break already! (but who's counting right?!?) 

Happy New Year!