Hints of Spring

What has happened to me!? I used to faithfully write every week and now I seem to be stuck in this slump of every other week at best. What is the deal! These posts are a lot easier to do when I don't have so much I feel like I should make up on... So in order to make this a lot less of an overwhelming task this will just highlight some of the perks from the last few weeks!

Starting with two weeks ago:

The week was relatively normal. We did our normal routine things up until Friday! Friday was a fantastic day But we'll get back to that later. The weather here has been hinting at Spring off and on for a while. Miss Alayna spent a good portion of the warmer days being a bit miserable due to some apparent seasonal allergies. Poor kid her nose ran her, eyes were puffy and they watered all day long! Then to top it off she was a little drool machine because she was having such a hard time breathing! Monday was when it was the worst and I take responsibility for that one. We went to a play date with the Reedy's and spent 90% of the day outside walking to the store and playing at the park! I got some wonderful lessons on how to better play imagination games with Eliza. I was most excited about that because I have been really struggling with how to better encourage and participate in her imagination games, so many thanks to Megyn for her help!

Now to Friday. Friday Eliza had playgroup and my siblings did not have school that day so they had planned a trip the the Denver Natural History Museum which was then changed to the Denver Zoo thanks to the incredible weather. I had them drop off some eggs for me and made the spur of the moment decision to go get Eliza an hour early from playgroup and we went to the Zoo too! It was soo much fun for all of us. The Zoo is under a lot of construction currently so it wasn't as big as it usually is and the weather was perfect! Not too hot not cold and it was during the week so we felt like we owned the place as we walked around enjoying the animals while they were so active! We were also treated to the carousal and the train both of which Eliza Loved! I'll have to retrieve pictures from Grandma Waite at some point because I didn't remember my own camera.



This week has been good as well. Monday was Presidents Day and I am an incredible procrastinator when it comes to homework. So I took advantage of my siblings being home for the day and went to Loveland so that I could get my homework done without the additional responsibility of the kids. The girls sure had a blast playing with Grandpa Waite the whole day! He is a wonderful man and they're so lucky to have someone that's so much fun to play with.

Tuesday was my activity that was cancelled a few weeks ago due to weather. Eliza went and played at the Reedy's house and I went to the church to set up and then work out. That was the first of many workouts to come... but boy did it ever hurt! I'm really out of shape but I am loving every bit of being able to work out with these other wonderful women in my ward at church! Alayna even got involved and did some jumping jacks with us it was very cute! She then promptly fell asleep in her chair when we got home and made it so I couldn't go pick up Eliza so Grandma Merritt rescued me and brought her home for me!

Wednesday I took the girls swimming at the Chilson center with all their new features. Eliza was crushed to see that the little kiddy slide was broken and closed but had a lot of fun anyway!

Thursday was another day of working out for me and the girls got to play with some other kids both of them participated a little with us during our workout it was very fun to watch them function at their own levels! They had nap-time at Grandma Merritt's house and I came home and finished as much homework as possible!

Friday was more homework. Did I mention that I am so burned out with school. I'm ready to be done and I want to be able to go back to playing and planning things for my family that does not involve scheduling in homework time as well.

Saturday was a fantastic family day! We went to Loveland in hopes of picking up a desk from Arc that I wanted but it was already sold so oh well. Ben also went to a gun store that they have over there as well and I think he has found his new favorite store. Poor guy had to force himself to leave because the girls and I were in the car waiting. We had the missionary's over for dinner that night and enjoyed the time we shared with them. I then stayed up until about midnight finishing my assignments that were due that night.

Sunday, today was a big day for little Miss Eliza! She had her very first scripture in primary. (for those who are not LDS it means she read a verse of scripture, with mom's help, in front of all the other kids). It was a very proud mommy moment for me, she is such a big girl I can't believe how fast the last 3 years have gone. Alayna also went to nursery for almost the entire time and did very well!


It's been a great couple of weeks and I look forward to this next week going smoothly as well!

Bumps and Bruises

Eliza and Hailey on the Trampoline before they went back to Texas last week!

Check out that awesome hair!

Alayna tried the tramp... she cried. Although it may have had more to do with the fact that I took her out of the swing to try the tramp! Parks are going to be a must as soon as it's a little dryer!

Alayna's impressive battle wound from the wall!

The weather this week has been interesting to say the least! Monday through Thursday were cold and wet... I'm mean really really cold! I thought it was colder than last week when they canceled school for the cold.

Normally I don't put lots of random personal thoughts on here but this week I can't really seem to get past them. So you will just have to indulge me:

Monday was my last day of classes for Accounting II and Financial Statements (with the devil teacher). I thankfully was able to accomplish both of those final assignments in a reasonable amount of time thanks to all the wonderful help from Grandma Merritt. I honestly cannot wait to be done with school... I'm ready to not feel so dependent on the other people around me when it comes to taking care of my girls and getting things like homework done as well. I really hate having to ask for so much help but I also know that I wouldn't be able to pull it off if it weren't for their wonderful support! So for future reference, don't have babies before you decide you want to finish a degree and if you do then make sure you live close to family that is as amazing as mine is!

I also had the wonderful satisfaction that day of being able to write a very nasty (but fair) review of my rotten heartless professor. Which I happily admit gave me great satisfaction and made me feel much better about the class it also allowed me to finally move on and not care one bit about her or my grade anymore (I passed with a B+)

Tuesday was odd. I am usually a very very motivated person in the single week that I have off from classes before the next round starts again but this Tuesday was totally different. I didn't want to do anything! Maybe it was because I knew the house was a mess and the weather outside was horrible! None-the-less, I got up got the girls going and we went and set up the church building for the Relief Society meeting for that night. After two trips to the Merritt's house for keys to the church and two trips to the store, all on really nasty roads, I got the phone call saying that we were postponing the meeting for two weeks because of weather. HAHA! All that work for nothing... hahaha! At least I hadn't started baking yet!

The rest of that day was spent snuggling Eliza on the couch watching a movie while Alayna had a nap. I don't remember the last time I just snuggled up with Eliza and did nothing. When Alayna woke up we watched another movie and did absolutely nothing productive at all that day aside from the morning of useless productivity.

Wednesday was a very very peaceful day in Loveland with Grandma Waite. We did a trip to Fort Collins to their indoor playground and I had a chance to see an old friend from high school for a little while which was wonderful. After that was just lots and lots of running back and forth to the high school and everywhere else that Alan, Heather, and Heidi needed to be. I was reminded how much busyer life gets the older your kids get. They may become very independent but they also have a LOT more things outside the house they do!! My mom is currently the worlds best taxi driver until the new car thing gets figured out and they get their van back from the boys in CO Springs.

Side note: I love talking to my mom! She is my best friend in the whole world and I honestly cannot imagine aspiring to be a better mom than her. I hope that one day I can accomplish what she did as a parent and that my kids will turn out as amazing and wonderful as all of hers have. I would give anything to know what I needed to do in order to know how to show love to my kids the way that she does it so perfectly. So thanks Mom for a fantastic day of talking and fun for me and my kids!

Thursday was spent cleaning house... kinda. I picked up a little here and there and worked on laundry a little. I went into the doctors office that morning and got myself established as a patient and did paperwork for the girls as well. I was very pleased with our new doctor and he even had some great advice as to why my knees hurt on a regular basis. Apparently my knee caps slide side to side when I walk thus irritating the cartilage and causing pain. So turns out I just need to strengthen the muscles above and below in order to fix the problem! After that was a Target run and naps for the girls. That evening Eliza and Alayna were running around the kitchen like crazy people (per the usual) but this time Eliza decided to take Alayna out with a nice little shove. That shove resulted in Alayna putting her forehead into the corner of the wall and earning the bruise pictured above! Poor kid was just 1-2 layers of skin short of needing stitches or glue to close her back up!

Friday was a good day. First off Happy Birthday Eric (my little brother)! I hope it was a fun one! Eliza had a birthday party/ playgroup event that morning so Alayna and I went to visit Abby at work and fix my 'man-brows' and painfully long bangs. Then we made an attempt at going to the new Toys-R-Us but turns out that it isn't open yet. So we picked up Eliza and then had the afternoon to spend together doing other activities... We even got to make our own bouncy balls thanks to the cool kit I found at Big Lots.

Saturday, Ben went into work that morning for a few hours but we had most of the day to spend together as a family. It was wonderful to be together getting things done and just being able to have another adult in the house to keep me company and to keep me sane! The weather by Saturday was back up into the 50's so we took the girls on a short walk. They took advantage of all the water and puddles from the snow melt and had a blast getting totally soaked!

Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa Merritt who watched the girls that night as well so that Ben and I could go out for a nice quiet dinner and then out to the Stake Valentines dance. It was themed around everyone's love stories of how they met and such it was lots of fun seeing old pictures of people and seeing how much they have changed or haven't changed at all! The evening was a lot of fun and it was wonderful to come back to sleeping kids that went easily into their own beds and slept for the rest of the night!

Sunday, church was good today. Nothing really too exciting just a normal Sunday. Great meetings and we all got to enjoy a nap in the afternoon! Hopefully the next week will be just as good!