My Mother's Day

Mother's Day is such a special day, especially now that Ariana's old enough to make me pretty gifts, drawings and cards. I love getting her handmade goodies! This year in preschool they made ceramic handprints. These aren't like the usual handprint that's sunken into the clay but raised up. There is also a sweet poem on the back that had me tearing up and I could barely read it out loud.

My Mother's Day consisted of sleeping in (a little) while she and Daddy made these awesome homemade cinnamon rolls. I got to spend time leisurely waking up and enjoyed reading a few chapters of my book before Daddy reminded her of the present from preschool and I heard her getting it out of the hiding place in her room. 

She dashed in with a "Happy Mother's Day!" and snuggled on the bed with me while I opened my cards and the handmade gift. The rest of the day consisted of me indulging in too many cinnamon rolls and relaxing with my family. It was pretty awesome! 

Of course, living in Germany presents challenges when trying to order items online (even if you order them weeks in advance) and my custom rings from Olive Bungalow got here a day late. But, they were beautiful! A hand crafted customized peridot ring (my birthstone as the mom) and a citrine ring (Ariana's birthstone) as the smaller one. When our little boy is born, I'll get his birthstone made into a stackable ring too. Richard and Ariana did such a great job picking pretty ones! And it was a great surprise too!

I also got a pretty pot of flowers for the window in our room with my favorite color butterfly as decoration. Ariana got a matching flower for her room too, it's pretty sweet!

It's a....(gender reveal)

Me at 22 weeks.

 A sweet little BOY!!!!

BABY news!!!!

So I've been a little absent from the blog lately and I have good reason. 

We're VERY excited to announce that we're expecting baby #2 in September!!! Ariana is over the moon with excitement that she's going to be a big sister.

I'm officially 13 weeks and 1 day today and although I'm still feeling tired I'm feeling a little more like my normal self. Sleeping is already starting to become uncomfortable and let me tell you fatigue and insomnia isn't a fun mix.

Here's my first belly shot at 12 weeks. Not much to show yet but we're getting there.

How far along? 13 weeks

Baby is the size of a peach! How cute!

Craving? first it was Red Hots (the candy) and then it was salt and vinegar chips, peach cobbler, milk, milk, milk, and while we were in England I adored sticky toffee pudding, oh yum!

Aversions? anything fried, seafood, the smell of cooking butter

Symptoms? dry heaving, gagging, some nausea, congestion, fatigue, insomnia, moodiness, growing pains, back pain, nipple pain and more...

Daddy's thoughts on the pregnancy so far? He's thrilled of course and he's been so helpful since I've been too tired to do much. He encourages napping for me which is great and I try to take advantage of it if he's home. He teared up at our first ultrasound when we heard the heartbeat for the first time. (172 bpm)

Ariana's thoughts on the pregnancy so far? She's been asking for a brother or sister for over a year now I'd say so she's super excited. She talks to "my baby" all the time and she's been requesting Daddy do things "since Mommy has a baby in her belly" which has been sweet. She wants a sister but she's coming around to the fact that it might be a brother and she told me she loves the baby and will love it "even if it's a boy".

Savings for Santa

I know that it's only September. And Christmas is still a few months away. But that's not how the mind of a 2 1/2 year old works. 

Ariana has a piggy bank in her room. Since in October (11 months ago) anytime she finds some change, she takes it and puts it in her piggy. Every time she adds to it, she loves to shake it and hear how much she has in there.

Now, don't go robbing us ::giggle:: because I'm about to reveal how much cash is in Ariana's room.

As of today, she's saved $37.89 + 5.45 Euro!

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I asked her what she was saving her money for.

This is that conversation.

Me: Wow, you have a lot of money. What are you saving it for?

 

Ariana: (very matter of factly) Santa

Me: Oh really, Santa? You're going to give Santa your money?

Ariana: No, it's for presents.

Me: You're going to buy presents with it? That's a good idea. What kind of presents are you going to buy?

Ariana: TOYS!!

Me: What kind of toys?

Ariana: (without missing a beat) A robot.       I think Santa would like that.

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Kids and their imaginations.

You can't beat them!

Tips for Traveling with a Toddler.

We've arrived in Florida. I would be saying "sunny Florida" but actually it's been cloudy and rainy the whole time I've been here so far. We arrived mid-day on Wednesday and we're still trying to adjust to the 6 hour time difference but it's a little better today.

I'm wrote this post a few days before we actually fly from Germany to Florida. We've traveled with Ariana before but long trips always make me more nervous. A 10 hour flight is a lot to ask of a busy body toddler. I'm not usually one to tell people what to do but in case you are curious, here are some tips and tricks that work for me and my little one for long trips.

In her bag:

+ Books (We thrifted a few new ones last week especially for this trip so they'll be brand new. Cost $1)

+ Coloring book and crayons. (We had a travel size coloring book and small notebook we've been 

                         saving. Plus a small box of crayons and possible color wonder markers and paper will 

                         be going too)

+ Mini magnet doodle board (for drawing guessing games and so we don't use all our paper)

+ Movie (and headphones. I'm taking my laptop she can watch it on. It's a 10 hour flight, I'm gonna  

                           need an hour or 2 of not having to entertain her.)

+ Small toys (little ponies and dinosaurs are our go to travel/restaurant toys lots of imagination there!

                           Also fast food kids meals toys are great, preferably ones they haven't played with yet)

+ Small container or pencil box (this can be held on their lap for their small toys so they can stand them 

                           up and play without them flying/falling off.)

+ View master (old school! yep thrifted, cost $2 with about 50 slides! Hopefully we will have a window 

                          seat and she'll have lots of entertainment here!)

+ Stuffed toy (a buddy/pillow)

+ Lollipops (for taking off and landing for helping them swallow and keeping their ears popped)

Not pictured:

extra clothes - you never know when they might have an accident

wipes and alcohol rub - cause kids and airplanes can all be gross at times

juice and snack - nothing with too much sugar

TIPS -- Thinking outside the box

-- a great tip I love is having a few toys and goodies that are new for the trip and wrapping them up in tissue paper. Let the kids unwrap them one by one and every hour, half hour, etc they get a new present. That worked great with her on our last long flight.

-- after you've read and re-read the books, find other uses for them like "I spy" : Can you find something red? Where is the kitty? How many cars are on this page? This also works great with adult magazines and travel magazines they have for free on flights. Magazines can be used for kids to circle letters they know: Can you find all the "t"'s on this page?

-- Hold off. Keep them entertained by the people coming on the plane, the flight attendant's little show of the exits and safety stuff, watching the bags being loaded, other airplanes, and taking off  for as long as possible before you break out the toys and books. You don't want to be half through your bag before you've even left the ground!

-- Potty breaks often! Little kids can't sit still too long, we know that. So make potty breaks often just so they can stretch their legs a little.

-- Small puzzles and compact games are great for kids. Be sure to check the dollar section at Target or the dollar store for small goodies for the trip. Unfortunately for me, we don't have either so I'm working with things I already have at home or could find.

-- If you kids like to sing (and you're not on an airplane) don't forget the kids music! Sing along songs are great for travel!

-- Learn sign language. Print out a sheet of photos of sign language for each letter. Have the kids see if they can make all the letters. This is a great one for older kids because they can spell to each other without parents hearing them! :)

-- I spy game. Make up a game for the kids to play on the airplane. I spy a cloud. I spy a river. I spy a pool. I spy someone sleeping haha! Either make a check list, photo list or ask kids as you find each object if they can spy what you spy! I took one of her books and scanned pages into the computer. Then I cropped images (a flower, hat, bird) from each page and created a I spy game she could find the picture on each page of the book. We didn't get around to it on the way there, but we'll definately use it on the way back!

UPDATE: Ariana was amazing awesome on our flight. She didn't have any meltdowns and even the guy beside us (who I'm sure was thinking "oh great" when we sat down talked about how great she was and what a great traveler she seemed to be. The first hour we stayed busy by watching the activities outside the window, taking off, watching the stewardesses, watching the clouds and watching the safety video they showed. The viewmaster was a hit, like I knew it would be and we did a lot of coloring. I actually had found her a mini puzzle but we never needed it. We read books, colored, watched an airplane movie, ate lunch, read some books, watched a cartoon, took potty/walk around breaks, and played with her little ponies. Before we knew it we only had 1 hour left and I was starting to breathe a sigh of relief! Once we landed, customs was a breeze and we collected our luggage and there were lots of hugs from Grammy and Aunt Sarah! We're hoping we can go to the beach today in the afternoon if the sun decided to peek out.

I hope these tips help some of you out in your summer vacations. Happy travels!!

xo's

Cat

Ariana's Alphabet--D (a new feature!)

Life with a 2 year old is crazy, fun, exciting, hilarious and maddening all at the same time. The other day she brought me some alphabet soup for lunch, using her fridge letter magnets! Oh the creative things that girl comes up with on her own!

If we were still stationed in Omaha I would already have her enrolled in the private church preschool that was literally 2 blocks down from our house. We would walk there in the mornings and I would pick her up before lunch, or whatever our little routine would be. Sadly it's not the case. There is no preschool on base, and the only other option is put her in a in home daycare or send her to a German preschool. Well, I can't imagine sending her off into a foreign school. None of the kids or teachers would speak English all day, can you even imagine how alone she would feel? Nope, not happening.

So the best option I could come up with is to provide her with more directed learning activities. Give her more of a focused teaching environment. Play with more of a learning twist. We've always done lots of fun activities together but this gave me, and her, more structure and makes me be able to focus more on spending time teaching without being overwhelmed.

Here's my goal, a letter a week. That would give us 26 weeks of activities. Something that involves that letter each day. This week I choose letter D because I saw our neighbors had new baby ducks. I basically jumped right in! I've decided to call it Ariana's Alphabet and once a week I'll probably share what letter and fun things we did that week.

D is for ducks. Not only did we played with her bath ducks, but we colored duck pictures, read duck books, and went to see the baby ducks in our village.

D is for Dora and Diego. We watched them on TV and colored pictures of them.

D is for Dinosaurs. We played outside with little plastic dinosaurs I found in the party favor section.

D is for Dress up. We danced around the living room to some Beatles and also played Dress up.

D is for Daddy and Dentist. We also read a book called my Daddy is an Airman, and also made Daddy ring the Doorbell (Ding-Dong) when he came home from work, and talked about the Dentist! Daddy actually did go to the Dentist this week!

Our week of D things went well and she quickly picked up on the letter and sound and started pointing the letter out to me in random places! A preschool teacher I know, used to tell me that it doesn't do the kids any good to just be able to recite the alphabet song. They need to know the letters, the sounds, etc. So, this is my plan! Jumping around the alphabet each week!

I'm preparing for next week! I even have a fun craft for us to do! Some of the letters are obviously more difficult than others, I mean X? Come on! That may be a short week. Should be fun though and I already feel more creative in thinking of different activities we can do each week instead of the same thing over and over!

xo's

Cat