Sunday Fun-day

  After church yesterday we decided to take advantage of the beautiful sunny fall weather and head to a park on the Puget Sound to enjoy the day.  We had planned to go to Dash Point State Park where Doug could fly a kite and we could enjoy a bigger beach area, but when we got there the gates were closed and signs were up stating there was an emergency park closure.  Hmmm, that was too bad… but we didn’t let that stop us! We just drove a bit further north to Seahurst park where we could still be by the Puget Sound.   Unfortunately the beach wasn’t wide enough for kite flying, but we still enjoyed ourselves.  First on the agenda was a snack lunch of cheese, crackers, salami, cheese spread, chips, salsa, and apples.  After a cheese taste test and other fun with our food we got to play at the playground for a little while.  Brittaney showed us how to use the funny looking bars to slide down so then Amina and I had to try too.  Yes I’m nearly 7 months pregnant and sliding down the bars at the playground… go figure. :) Next we ventured down to the shore to walk on driftwood logs, find rocks and shells, and let Bruin run chasing sticks.  Amina even took 2 sticks and played ‘drums’ on the driftwood while singing a special song for Mama, Daddy, and Brittaney.  She’s so cute.  She loved walking along the logs and was quite vocal about where each of us should sit on them.   Amina asked why the logs were on the beach and why they were so slippery so I explained they were driftwood that had been in the ocean and then washed ashore.  Naturally she wanted to throw sticks into the ocean then to let them wash ashore.   The only problem with that was that she couldn’t throw them far enough, so I had to do it, and Bruin saw me throw a stick in.  No more dry dog!  Whoops!  It was a bit chilly for a swim and afterwards he was shivering, but hey, he’s a dog and that’s what dogs do… chase sticks wherever they end up.  Though the sticks were a bit hard for Amina to throw in the water she had no trouble with the rocks! I was afraid she’d end up in the water as she kept stepping closer and closer to the water’s edge to pick up her rocks and throw them in, but she only got her feet wet once.  She stayed down by the edge of the water throwing in rocks for a good half hour before she decided to come sit on the driftwood and look for shells.  We stayed almost long enough to watch the sunset.  But as soon as the sun went behind the low clouds it started to get really chilly so we decided to head on out! It was a fun spontaneous fall afternoon together.  I love my family! 

   

Preschool

I decided to sign Amina up for a co-op preschool this year.  Since it is a co-op both of us get to go.  There are about 12 kids in her class – all 2 year olds.  On alternating weeks half of the parents help out in the classroom while the other half are involved in a parent education discussion group.  We’ve only been twice so far, as we missed the first day of class while we were on vacation with my parents in Myrtle Beach.  But it is really fun so far!  Amina loves going to school and does such a great job following the routine and playing with others – most of the time anyway ;) I love that they do fun messy things that I wouldn’t usually get around to doing at home – like playing in shaving cream on a table, painting, using lots of glue to do projects, etc.  I’m so glad I get to be in class with her half the time too – I love seeing what all is going on.  And there are 2 other moms with young babies and 2 of us that are pregnant and due this winter.  So I know I won’t be the only one carrying a baby around the classroom for a while.   The pictures are from the first day we went to school.  Fun fun!

The toddler bed saga…

So this week we decided to move Amina into her toddler bed… finally.  I’ve been putting it off as long as possible as I really enjoyed ‘my’ time during her naps and in the mornings while she typically played and sung happily in her bed even after she woke up.  On Saturday she woke up and Doug put the bed in her room so it would be ready for nap time that day.  She was so excited to sleep in her new bed that she asked to go to bed all morning.  We only made it until about 11:30 before she just had to go lay down in her bed.  After about 10 minutes she realized she hadn’t eaten lunch and was crying that she was hungry, so I got her up and fed her lunch before putting her back down for her nap.  She stayed in bed really well for that nap – I’m sure it was the novelty of the new bed.  At night that first night she woke up and cried in her bed for about 30 minutes so I went in and sang to her and calmed her down for another half hour or so.  Since then the nights had been great – she goes right down and stays in bed all night.  She just gets up earlier than we’re used to and comes into our room with us.  Doug has decided to rename her our little alarm clock.  ;)  But naps have been a struggle after the first couple of days.  Our dear sweet Amina is realizing she has more independence now and is pushing it.  I tried putting up a baby gate in front of her door so that she would at least have to stay in her room.  But the first time I tried that she just climbed right over it.  The next time I tried to put it up a little higher so she couldn’t climb over it, but then she just pushed it over.  (When I asked her about it she said “I pushed it with my belly” all proudly).  On Wednesday this week I had to put her back in bed 15 times and she still wouldn’t stay, despite the fact she was getting a spanking each time – which i really hate to do.  I ended up putting her back in her crib after that because i was just so done.   And of course she was asleep within 10 minutes of being in her crib.  Doug was able to work from home on Thursday and was able to be the nap police for me that afternoon and she got by with only 5 times out of bed.  Today I wasn’t  looking forward to how nap time would go, but we talked a lot about how she needed to stay in her bed and get her rest.  I gave her a magnetic drawing board to play with in bed while she was falling asleep.  I was listening to her on the baby monitor and she was ‘spanking’ her baby doll and telling her she needed to stay in bed.  LOL! She actually stayed there for about 20 minutes before coming out of her room this time.  Then she had a stinky diaper and wanted me to change her.  So I did, and then I put her back to bed and told her she needed to stay there to sleep.  Much to my surprise she was quiet within 10 minutes and has been sleeping for almost an hour now.  Wow! I really hope this is a breakthrough and that it really only took a week of excessive patience.  Though tomorrow we have a birthing class and will be gone all day, so she will not have a normal routine.  I hope that doesn’t throw her off!  Now to get used to getting up earlier so I can shower before “Our Little Alarm Clock” comes into our room. 

Great News!

In case you haven’t heard yet, Doug and I are expecting Baby #2!  The next little one is expected to arrive right around Christmas!  My due date is either 12/25 or 12/28.  We are so thrilled!  We have been waiting for this for what seems like a long time – though I know others who have had to wait much much longer, and now we have finally been blessed with a sibling on the way for our darling little girl.  I always thought I’d want my kids really close.  Our plan was to have them about 18 months apart.  But God’s plan was different.  The waiting was really difficult at times, but now I think the timing will be perfect for us.  I get to spend this summer with just Amina, going out and exploring and enjoying my delightful girl.  And she will be a few months shy of 3 when the new baby arrives.  That is a much more independent age.  And I know that siblings that are 3 years apart can be just as close of friends as ones that are a little closer in age.  Now we just have to get busy on the potty training so we can hopefully have a few months being diaper free in our house! :)  We will likely be finding out the baby’s gender in early August.  This pregnancy has been flying by! I can’t believe I’m nearly 17 weeks already!  When we ask Amina if she thinks she’s having a baby brother or a baby sister, she always says baby sister.  We will just have to wait and see! 

Summertime

Hi! If I still have any readers out there… I decided to finally come back! :) Yes this is the theme of my blog – here for a while, gone for a while, here again.  I just can’t seem to keep up with it for long periods of time.  But a few entries to remember the life of today is better than none! 

So summertime has finally hit the Seattle area.  We had a long chilly, rainy June.  But as soon as 4th of July passed the sun graced us with its presence and temperature in the 90s.  Which meant that we broke out our swimsuits and have been enjoying the water!  This week has been milder – in the 70s mostly, but that hasn’t kept us out of the wet stuff!  Amina definitely takes after her mama… she LOVES to swim.  The Volz’s came home one day with a kiddie pool so we filled it up (not too high) and let the little ones play.  Amina had so much fun playing with Nathaniel and Bethany in there!  They spent half the time just laughing!  Every day she walks over to the pool and if we aren’t swimming at the time I have to drag her away from it so she doesn’t fall in trying to touch the water.  She loves to wear her ‘fwim fuit’ and go ‘fwimming’.  We also have a friend with a deeper backyard pool that we can actually swim in.  So one day we enjoyed an afternoon over there.  Amina was given a hand-me-down swim suit with flotation devices built in, so I put her in that, put water wings on her, and got in the water with her.  At first she was clinging to me, but then she remembered that she’s 2 and that she has to do everything by herself.  So she wanted to try swimming by herself.  I let her try (standing within arms reach) and she was able to keep her head above water and float for several seconds on her own.  She even go to the point where she wanted to climb on and off of a floatie all by herself over and over again.  Now the tricky part will be to teach her to swim without all the floatation devices!  That day I had to drag her away from the pool at 3:00 (her nap time was 1:00) and she fell asleep on the 5 minute car ride home!  We sure do love this weather! 

And the videos of Amina, and Amina with her cousins…

Easter fun

Wow has it really been almost a month since I’ve posted?  Oh my it is hard to get back into the habit once you get out of it.  But I want to blog more!  :) We had a great Easter celebrating at Ben and Maralee’s house with a full houseful of family and friends.  Amina loved finding Easter eggs.   It was a bit windy and chilly, but at least it wasn’t pouring down rain this year!  Every time Amina picked one up she’d try to open it and say “what’s in there?” (with the emphasis on there) – it was so cute :)  Needless to say she didn’t find quite as many as the other kids who were running around  filling up their baskets without stopping, but that’s okay, she didn’t need that much candy anyway!  And she found enough hard boiled eggs so we got to have some yummy breakfasts the week after.  Though once she learned to  tap the egg on the counter (or the floor, the wall, the piano… anything near by) to crack it so she could peel it she tried to peel several eggs that afternoon.  She ate 2 whole eggs and was still wanting the peel them!  They ended up in the fridge pretty quickly ;)

We also enjoyed coloring eggs at home the day before.  Amina likes to do things all by herself so it can be challenging to let her do messy things as I know she’ll be resistant to having any help… but in the end it’s worth it!  She only broke a few eggs by dropping them into the cups of dye.  And after trying to take a bite of one right out of the dye she learned that vinegar egg dye really doesn’t taste good!  Ah the joys of being a toddler :)

 

And Thanks you to Grandma and Grandpa Rolley for the Easter gift of dresses, a stuffed rabbit and a cute necklace.  Amina loved her gift :) 

I’m back…

Sorry to be gone for so long… well this isn’t that long compared to how long I’d been gone from my other blog… but anyway… we were busy getting ready for Amina’s birthday, then my parents were visiting from Virginia, and then Amina and I got the stomach flu.  But now things are getting back to normal.  Amina’s birthday was so much fun! I’ll have to do another post just about that day!  But I wanted to put up something quick first.  Right now I have corned beef cooking on the stove and I was cutting up cabbage to add to it in a few minutes.  Amina wanted to help cut the cabbage so I sent her to get her wooden cutting fruit that she got for her birthday.  She’s currently diligently working away at cutting up her bread, carrot, pepper, cucumber, watermelon, and app le.  (All wooden of course). She’s getting really good at it!  The first time she tried this was last week when Grandma Margaret was with us and I was making soup for dinner.  So of course today when I got her all set up she asked if Grandma was going to help her.  :)  Sorry Amina Grandma would love to help you but she is across the country now!  We had a really fun time having Grandma and Papa here with us for the week.  We were sad to see them go!  But we are also looking forward to having Uncle Scott, Aunt Brenda, and cousins David, Sarah, Matthew, Nathaniel, and Bethany coming to stay with us for 4 months.  Amina’s Uncle Scott is arriving in the country today but will be heading down to see his family for a while.  We are still waiting to see when the rest of the family will be able to leave Africa but we are hopeful that it will be in the next couple of weeks.   Then we will have a houseful!  We are very much looking forward to spending time with our family who is usually across the world from us and I’m especially excited for Amina and Bethany to get to spend lots of time playing and getting to know each other.  Bethany is the cousin closest in age to Amina – she’s 14 months older than Amina.  I know we will have lots of fun together while their family is here! 

Belated Valentine’s

Doug and I went out this afternoon for a fun evening away while Amina got to play at Auntie Kerrianne and Uncle Tim’s house.  Doug did some online research and found the best place in Seattle to go for savory crepes and we were looking forward to a yummy French crepe dinner.  When we got there the place was closed – apparently there were only open until 4:00 on Saturdays.  This has happened to us before when we’ve driven into Seattle to go somewhere specific to find it closed… those silly city hours!  But it was all for the best tonight I think!  We remembered that cousin Ben had told us about this great Italian place down the street from his apartment that he’d been to a few weeks ago and we decided to try that place instead.  So off to Pasta Freska we went.  As we were out in the town a little early we had to wait for it to open so we walked along lake Union and looked at the yachts, deciding which one we’d choose if we had to pick one to live on ;)  After 20-30 minutes we went back and the restaurant had opened.  I’ve never been anywhere like it! There are no menus – when you arrive the waitress asks you if there is anything you are allergic to or are unwilling to try.  Then they just start brining you food!  Doug requested no seafood so he got a few things that were different than me and I think he missed out!   We started with an appetizer of a squash with tomatoes, spinach, and cheese on top.  Then we had some garlic cheese bread, followed by Caesar salad and delicious spaghetti Bolognese.  After that I had some type of chicken rolled up, filled with spinach and cheese, and covered in a delicious warm sweet vinaigrette sauce while Doug had a manicotti filled with chicken and cheese.   Next was mussels for me and lamb for Doug, a small piece of steak, and yummy fish for me and spinach ravioli for Doug.  And finally we had the most decadent dessert sampler including the best tiramisu I’ve ever tasted, very rich chocolate cake, and a spumoni type  gelato.  Wow this meal was amazing!   Definitely not your typical Italian.  And it was perfect for Doug and I as we take forever to decide what to order for dinner!  We didn’t even have to pick a wine… we just chose red and they brought us a delicious bottle of some kind I’d never heard of.   I loved getting lots of small items so we could have a little of everything.  We’ll have to try the crepe place another time, but as I said before I was not too sad that it was closed this time!  After our 2 1/2 hour dinner we got to go to a game store and play a game of Carcassonne the Castle.  Then we made a quick stop by the TeaCup where we bought some new loose leaf tea which we are now enjoying by our fireplace.  Sounds like a pretty perfect 2 week late Valentine’s date, right?  :)   And Amina had so much fun with Tim and Kerrianne too – they took her out for dinner and fed her noodles, rice, chicken and soup… her favorites ;) Apparently she was asking to go back to auntie’s house the whole way home (as they brought her home to put her to bed for us).  I’m sure she’ll be asking to go back to Auntie’s house all week!

Lake Sammamish

What a fun day Amina and I had in Issaquah today.  It was so sunny and warm and spring-like.  We got to go to a toy store to look for some birthday gifts – yes it’s great to be able to shop for birthday gifts with the birthday girl, as this will probably be the last year we can do that!  Then we went for a picnic lunch at the park.  It was so wonderful to be able to eat by the lake in the warm sunshine and enjoy some time with my little girl.  Amina loved seeing all the ducks and seagulls.  When we were done eating I let her throw some bread to the duckies and she thought it was the neatest thing in the world! Later in the night we were telling Doug about our day and Amina used her longest sentence yet to actually answer the question ‘what did we get to do at the park’.  She said something like ‘Amina throw piece food to duckie’  I got to go for a nice walk, and then Amina got to play on the playground.  There was no one else at the playground when we got there, so after playing with Amina for a little while and making sure she knew how to climb up and go down the slide on her own I actually got to sit down and read a page of a book while she played!  That has never happened before :)  But then another little one showed up with her parents so I had to put the book down and make sure Amina was playing nice ;) She does really good, but she wants to do everything the other little girl was doing.  The other girl was just almost 1 so her parents were helping her slide and swing, etc.  And of course Amina wanted to do every thing the baby was doing even if she didn’t like it before.  She was cute though.  She got to swing on the tire swing – which was a fist.  She said “Amina swing old kid swing” as I’d told her that swing was for older kids, but then decided she could try it.   And another first – she jumped down off of a step to the ground.  She’s been jumping getting both feet off the ground since 17 months but had never before jumped down from a step.  The warm sun was a nice treat for a February day today!

Amina walk self

We have been loving having sunshine here this week, with relatively mild temperatures.  So of course I’ve had to go outside and enjoy the nice February weather as much as possible!  We’ve been for a walk every day this week (Bruin must think he’s died and gone to doggy heaven).  Amina usually rides in the stroller so that we can walk at a faster pace.  Well this morning I had to do an online training for keeping up my speech pathology certification, so I didn’t get to pay a lot of attention to Amina during that time.  Afterwards I decided she’d love some attention so we went for a short walk around the block, leaving Bruin at home so that Amina could walk the whole time.  She loved picking up leaves, picking dandelions, listening to wind chimes, holding and tearing apart a mushroom, etc.  But most of all she loved that she could walk by herself for part of the time.  She didn’t want to hold her mama’s hand the whole time so she said “Amina walk self”.  As we were just in our neighborhood and there were no cars around I thought this was an okay enough time to let her try.  She did really good staying near Mama, but was hesitant to hold my hand again when I asked her to.   I guess we will be working on the ‘obeying’ lesson for a long time anyway ;) After our walk we got to play in the backyard for a little while and enjoy that delightful sunshine and throw the rope for Bruin a little bit.  He still misses our big backyard where he could really run, but he’s surviving ;)

Birthday Party Fun!

Last weekend we went to Devin’s 1st Birthday Party! Devin is Bill and Shawna’s son and they live on 10 acres with lamas, chickens, cats, and dogs.  So for the big day we got to go out to the ‘farm’ and see the animals.  Amina enjoyed the lamas at first, but when one got a little pushy when we were trying to pet it, Amina decided she’d rather watch the lamas from outside the barn.

This was the culprit who didn’t want to be petted… well he was eating at the time ;)
Amina pointing to another lama outside the barn. 
The chickens were much more fun for Amina to chase around… and she even enjoyed touching one… a little more than Mama wanted her to! 

Happy Birthday Devin! Amina’s been talking about Devin’s birthday all week!  Now she can’t wait for her own party!  Whenever I ask her what she wants for her birthday she says something that sounds like ‘bush’.  I don’t know… I really don’t think she wants a bush for her birthday… but maybe I’m wrong!  We really need to get busy planning for her special day – it’s only 3 weeks away now!

A few more pictures of the fun time:

 

Auntie Hannah

Yesterday Amina and I had the pleasure of going to “Auntie Hannah’s” house for lunch in Seattle.  We usually meet somewhere in the middle of where we live but this time we drove all the way to Hannah’s house, so it was a fun treat for Amina.  She talked about going to Auntie Hannah’s all day.  And as a bonus treat the sun was shining and we were able to go for a walk around Greenlake afterwards.  We saw seagulls, ducks, lots of people, dogs, trees, the lake…. and enjoyed some time outside ;)   

 

Bouncy Place

On Tuesday Amina and I met up with our playgroup friends at the Bouncy Place in Kent.  It was so much fun! They had a room full of inflatable toys and we went for the drop in toddler time session, so there weren’t any big kids to have to watch out for.  Amina loved jumping and bouncing on the toys.  And of course she wanted to climb up and slide down the big slides, but she couldn’t quite climb up all by herself so I ended up carrying her up – boy that was quite the work out!  My friend Stacie said she’d have a great memory of us '”inching our way up the Mt. Everest of blow up slides” for some time.  ;) Amina was worn out after about a half hour but we stayed the full hour and she kept playing… just not jumping quite as much after that first little bit.  And she even said “Mama carry you” a few times!  That never happens – it’s usually “Amina walk” when we’re out and about.  We had such a great time doing this I’m sure we’ll be back!  The only bummer is that I left my camera in the car, so I wasn’t able to get pictures.  My friend took a few pictures so I will post those once she gets them to me!  Afterwards we went out to lunch at Panera.  Amina sat nicely the whole time! I guess wearing the kids out first was a great idea!   We had a huge table as there were 7 moms with 7 toddlers and 2 babies – we used up all the highchairs in the place!  At least we were there for an early lunch so we were able to find enough seats.   What a fun time!  Amina is really noticing and talking about her friends a lot now.  We like to look at pictures and she will name everyone in the pictures.  And after playing with friends she talks about them for days afterwards.   Amina also loves to give her friends big smothering hugs! They don’t always appreciate it, but it’s usually pretty cute :)

My climber

This weekend while I was doing some laundry, and Amina was helping of course, I was busy sorting clothes from the washer and I looked over and could only see Amina’s toes sticking out of the dryer.  Of course I had to run and get my camera while I was saying ‘No Amina, we don’t climb in the dryer’ ;) She is getting so big and little-girl like these days.  My baby is almost 2 and I can’t believe it! I’m having a hard time accepting that she’s growing up so much.  But I’m trying to enjoy each stage and not dwell on what she’ isn’t’ (e.g., a baby) anymore, but on who she is and what  delight she is each day.  Hopefully the Lord will bless us with more children so we can experience the baby stage again with our next ones… we are trying to wait and trust in God’s timing on that one… though we are more than ready for our family to grow (or so we think!).  But for now I am enjoying my not so little toddler and all the fun ways she is growing and learning and experiencing life.   She is talking so much more these days too.  The other day before her nap, Amina said “Mama sing Jesus song?” because we’ve been singing Jesus loves me before he naps lately.  She’s also starting to recognize emotions and will say “Amina sad” followed by a few little whimpers and sticking her bottom lip out.  She usually isn’t actually sad when she does that, but she’s letting us know she understands emotions more now.  I told her one time that Bruin was sad because we were leaving the house and he had to go in his room instead of coming with us and she talked about Bruin being sad all day.   It’s just amazing to me how much she understands and is starting to be able to express herself.  It also makes me realize just how delayed some of the kids I used to work with actually were!  We are so blessed to have a delightful little girl who loves life and loves to learn and experience new things. 

The finished toy closet/storage space

Saturday Doug finished up the storage space under the stairs by putting in the chalkboard and finishing off the space.  It looks great!  I had to laugh though because what I though would take a couple hours at the most took all day for him to complete!  I guess I didn’t realize how many steps were left!  But it looks awesome and I am so glad my husband is a perfectionist when it comes to projects, even if it does take a little longer ;)