30th Birthday: Day 3- IKEA and Rainforest Cafe

So Lovebird fell in love with the comfy hotel beds.
This day was set aside for some major shopping and all major shopping needs to involve IKEA. We found these great wardrobes for when we redo our master bathroom. After IKEA and our 50 cent fat-free frozen yogurt cones we headed to Woodfield to do a little more shopping. B.W. bought a Lego set that he has been looking at for some time. I think that helped make up for his time spent at American Girl. We then headed to one of our favorite places to eat.
Rainforest Cafe! So Prince Charming and I have become addicted to a few dishes here not to mention the awesome desserts. The actual "rain forest" atmosphere can be quite loud and distracting at times but our addictions always let us overlook that. The meal was ended with the traditional volcano. Lovebird slept through our entire meal so it proves my point of her needing NOISE to nap good.



After our shopping we let the kids swim for a little bit and then it was back to the room for baths and then a movie. Cuddlebug got to watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on the iPad since the movie didn't interest her. It was a fun and exhausting day.

30th Birthday: Day 2- American Girl

So for Curly Bears birthday she bought a Lanie doll with her birthday money and then we told her we would take her to the American Girl store. Well..... pregnancy, summer craziness, our Florida trip, and then the "Vacation Flu" of 2010 kept us from ever going. So we decided to stop by on our way to the hotel while we were in the city for my birthday.
So do I really need to tell you that she was excited. This picture says it all.
She finally made it.
I was so glad they had a display of her Lanie doll. And yes, her and Lanie are matching for this trip.
This is one of my favorite pictures from the trip. B.W. was such a great sport and a great big brother. He tried to share in Curly Bears excitement and walked around with her and pointed out some of the cool things that were there. I know he would have much rather been at the Lego store.
She made her decision for her purchase and was so excited. We will be going back at some point, maybe her next birthday, for a "Just Girls" trip. To be quite honest, I can't wait to go back and have more time to look around and eat at their cafe. That store is pretty amazing! Someday if we ever go to New York with daddy for business we'll check that one out too. Curly Bears favorite thing to tell people about her daddy's job is that the office is right around the corner from the American Girl store.

30th Birthday: Day 2- Aquarium

The next day we headed into the Windy City and went to the aquarium. B.W. was in his element here and liked sharing all he knew about every sea creature we saw.
The oceanarium was a favorite.
So when we went to the Tulsa zoo a few years ago the kids fell in love with watching the penguins and it was no different this time. I think they could watch these little guys for hours and never get bored with it.
Lovebird was all ready to see the aquatic show.
The dolphins were the favorite.
Watching all those animals jump and do their tricks is exhausting!
It was a great time and we can't wait to go back! We bought a membership so I see many Chi-town visits in our future.
Grandma and grandpa got to join us which added even more fun.

30th Birthday: Day 1-Gifts and Skating

So Prince Charming planned quite the birthday weekend for me. It started by opening gifts in the morning.

My wonderful husband bought me a wonderful camera. Here is a picture of both.
That night we headed to the same roller rink where I had my 6th birthday party. Oh and if you are wondering what I looked like then.........
...........just take a look at the cake. Yes, that is a picture of me when I was 6. This is what happens when your husband along with your children go to order your birthday cake. You end up with an embarrassing picture adorning a Strawberry shortcake cake. It was delicious!

So our kids had never been to a skating rink so it was so nice to have the whole place to ourselves.
Now I think there were better pictures of B.W. skating but this one cracks me up!
Curly Bear did get the hang of it quickly and wasn't a permanent wall fixture.
Cuddlebug absolutely loved skating and was very comfortable skating off on her own.
So when I was 6 I got to ride in this big skate and somehow my husband convinced the owner to overlook the age 10 limit. My kids thought this was absolutely hilarious!
It was a great night with family and friends. The only thing that was drastically different from my 6th birthday to my 30th was how sore I was once I got home. The next morning I woke up feeling great though and all set for the next day of birthday fun!

Everyone Has a Job

So in our house everyone has to pitch in. After our Canada unit study we decided to make Nanaimo bars. Cuddlebug got the job of smashing the graham crackers. This literally kept her occupied for 30 minutes!

Bounce, Bounce, Bounce

B.W. is quite good at calming our little Lovebird down. This exercise ball is probably the best $15 ever spent.

Super Bowl Fun

So we normally don't watch the Super Bowl and if we do it's only for the commercials. The only team we follow is Green Bay because if we don't my dad will not speak to us. Yes, my family is the REAL kind of packer fans. Not the kind of fans that only watch and wear green and yellow when the team is looking good but the kind who are die hards to the end. When I was little I used to get my dad and my grandpa going when I would say I liked the Lions merely for the fact they had pretty blue uniforms. So because Green Bay made it to the Super Bowl we would most definitely be watching. Despite the adults in the house not feeling well we still had a great time.

The kids were all decked out in their Packer gear. Cheeseheads included.

Is this not the cutest cheerleader ever? We were elated the Packers won and of course it was in usual Green Bay fashion of a nail biter to the end. They can't do it any other way. Those true Packer fans know exactly what I'm talking about. I almost let the kids have Monday off of school because the Packers winning the Super Bowl is equivalent to a National holiday in my family!

Goals: January Update

So it's been one month since I laid out my old/new goals and to keep accountable I'm reporting on my progress. I am overall happy with how I did in the month of January. I didn't focus on all ten this month so some I was more successful at than others.

1. Make teaching my kids first priority.....everyday. We did excellent at getting ALL of our schoolwork done this month. We are in a good schedule now of morning school and afternoon school. We passed the 100 day mark which is always a great feeling!!!
2. Focus on having fun. Some of the fun things we did this month were making a volcano, making a 3D drawing, and doing some fun chemistry experiments. When Prince Charming was away on business we also had late movie nights, banana splits, and s'mores. We have had to postpone a museum trip with friends a few times because of weather but I'm hoping to accomplish this in the near future.
3. Bible Study. I did fairly well with this one but there is no excuse why I can't be doing the study like I want every day. I will definitely work harder towards this goal in February.
4. Reading. I read one book in January!!!! Now granted I finished at 11:58pm on January 31 but I did it. It kind of felt like cramming for a test. I read "A Sane Woman's Guide to Raising a Large Family". It was a great book and I took away a few new ideas. Now I technically don't consider our family an all out large family.....yet. But I do like reading books written by homeschooling moms with multiple children for the mere fact that they have many different age levels. This is where the challenge comes in for me. If I had all my kids working on the same curriculum things would be easy! But juggling two elementary students, one active toddler, and nursing a baby in the middle of it all.....that's my challenge.
5. Craft Day. I did not accomplish this goal.
6. Hospitality. We did have some friends from co-op come over for a sledding date. This months weather was so awful that I didn't want to make people get out of their houses! I did do a fairly good job at keeping the house at that "1 hour" rule though.
7. Exercise. O.K. but needs improvement. I think I exercised about twice a week and my goal is four times.
8. Start new ministry. Still more to come on this later.
9. Date nights. We went out once this month. Again, the weather kind of kept us in.
10. Blogging. While my January blogging was light I feel like I caught up quickly and actually am on top of things. That's a HUGE improvement!

So all in all I considered it a pretty successful month as far as goals are concerned.

I am out of here!

So Prince Charming had to go out of town for a few days for business. It was weird to not have him here during the day but the time seemed to fly by thankfully. There were library trips, movies watched, popcorn by bowlfuls consumed, and always a special treat before bed. I always find that if I focus on fun things to do at home it always makes the time that daddy is away easier. Considering this was the first time in seven months he has had to travel I can't complain much. When we were getting ready to go pick him up at the airport Cuddlebug came down with her bag packed. She had packed it herself and was all ready to go and see Mickey Mouse again because according to her he is missing her dearly. Yeah, I'm pretty sure this one will live in Florida at some point in her life as an adult.

Tradition

Curly Bear and I had a chance to head out just the two of us and see Fiddler on the Roof with my parents and sisters for my moms birthday. It was a fabulous show and even though it didn't end until 11pm Curly Bear was on the edge of her seat the entire time. Fiddler is one of our families favorites and we can probably sing every song in the show. At one point I had to touch Curly Bear on the shoulder and tell her to quit dancing. She didn't even realize she was doing it! While we were there I remembered the two of us going to see My Little Pony Live right before Cuddlebug was born. It made me sad to think how much bigger my Curly Bear is in just that three year period. Everyone had a fabulous time and thankfully Lovebird behaved herself and took a bottle for daddy.

2 months

Lovebird is two months old and I don't want to believe it. She has gone from fussy most of the time to very content in what seems like overnight. Don't get me wrong, she still has her fussy moments but who doesn't? She weighed in at 11lbs 2oz at her check. Which is hilarious to me because she just now is starting to outgrow her newborn clothes and the 0-3 month attire is finally not humongous on her. I'm not quite sure where she is hiding that 11lbs! She has started pushing herself up during tummy time. That is when she isn't protesting tummy time. She is also the girl of a million expressions just like her older sister.

She can go from the frowny face........(This one is especially for you Liz. I know how much you love the frowny face.)

.......to the content face........

.......to the all out smile in a matter of seconds.

B.W. almost always brings a smile though with his silly faces. She adores her brother so.

Sledding with Friends

The R-Crew came over to do a little sledding. The dads and the big kids headed to Wilson Park and then came back to let the little ones join in on our hills.
Cuddlebug was excited to try out the new Mickey sled that daddy had found for her.
There were many laughs.
And as usual Cuddlebug was the last one out and the first one in. She is more of a sunshine girl if you haven't already picked up on that.

Snowed In

One Saturday we awoke to a ton of snow and no plows in sight. Well there actually was a plow in sight but it was stuck in front of our house. It did finally manage to get out but then we didn't see another plow for a day or two. They did send a front end loader up which the kids thought was pretty cool.
Cuddlebug is actually starting to like playing in the snow.
We even bundled up the baby to get her out for a few quick pictures.

"Daddy says he wants me to climb in there!"

"I'll try it."

Of course it didn't take Curly Bear long before she dived right in to daddy's igloo.

It's a perfect fit!