Enjoying the winter – a little

Well, our winter started bitterly cold this December so we have barely even been outside.  I’m thinking I have early signs of arthritis because my knee has been hurting a lot lately, but Ehren laughs at that.  This week it warmed up some, to 10-20 F (-12 C to -16 C) which actually felt warm in comparison to the couple weeks before.  I dragged all 3 kids out there at least for a little while when Ehren was at work.  Kason didn’t know what to think of being so bundled up and was ok when the sled was moving but when we stopped he was frustrated that he couldn’t move at all.  Kade loved sledding down our tiny hill by the garage so Ehren took him yesterday to the big hill of TRF where all the kids from the town go sledding.  It is pretty big and Kade loves running up and down on it in the summertime with other kids.  He was sledding there for about an hour and he didn’t want to leave even in that cold.  I wish I could take the kids there during the day, but I’d have to find someone to watch Kason.  Maybe next year he’ll be sledding too.  Anika seems to be scared of everything, including walking in the deeper snow or going too fast on the sled so it is a bit harder with her.  Aaah, you gotta love all their ages and stages.  This next week Kade doesn’t have school but the weather forecast doesn’t look that great again – very cold.  At least we have a lot of things to occupy the kids inside like play dough, paint supplies, riding toys in the basement, etc.  We’re very thankful for that basement where kids can burn off some energy.  And where mommy and daddy can work out – if they ever get to it.

Merry Christmas

Our Christmas was very nice and it is starting to be a lot of fun for us to watch our kids get excited about Christmas.  Christmas was always nice, but it is so much better to watch our kids and do things for them to remember.  This year Ehren and I had our own Christmas Eve at home, probably the first for us.  We went to church at 5pm where Ehren had to run sound and afterwards quick home, finish making dinner and then we could start.  Kade kept asking the whole time when we can get to the presents already and once he knew it had to wait until after dinner and reading the story from the Bible he kept asking when we can already do that.  I made a simple meal of a potato salad, fried fish and buns.  The potato salad was really good so I was excited about that.  I made Ehren his favorite dessert – chocolate mousse pie and we enjoyed that afterwards.  Then it was time to read the Jesus’ story together and open the presents.  Kade was excited about that the most.  Anika was a little tired and she just wanted everyone else’s presents.  And Kason was just all over the place, climbing through the packages and checking out all the wrapping paper.  We stayed away from cars this year which I think was a bit disappointing to Kade because he still gets mostly excited about cars.  But how many cars can we have in our house?  In the morning we went over to Ehren’s parents and had a brunch with them which was great and a lot easier than doing it in the evening with 5 little kids.  There were more presents from the grandparents and Ingrid so the kids were excited.  Kade got a beautiful wooden easel fro painting, but he started to cry when he saw it because he was expecting cars, once again.  I think he would have been more excited about a hotwheel car for 97 cents, but that’s kids.  I am very glad he got the easel because we need to encourage drawing and writing with him.  He never just wants to do it on his own, I have to give him a little push, or sometimes a bribe to do it.  I think part of the problem is that Kade doesn’t think he can draw anything good enough and then he doesn’t want to try, like with some other things.  Anika on the other hand loves drawing and painting, even though she’s only doing scribbles.  Ehren’s parents and Ingrid with her girls came over to our house that evening for a little while and we had a little video conference with Seth’s and Kjell’s family and it was fun to see them and their kids.  So that was a brief summary of our Christmas this year, hope all your Christmases were blessed and peaceful.

getting ready for Christmas

This is a little summary from the past week or two.  Christmas came way too fast this year and seems like our Christmas preparations were really rushed.  It probably has to do with having a third child this year, but seems like it was a lot more chaotic this year.  Ehren and I  have been able to enjoy a few hours at night of quietness and a really clean house, that’s if we weren’t sick with a cold or flu.  Pictures of the kids dressed up are the favorites from our Christmas photo sessions.  I think I did enough torturing there for a whole year.

our little princess

I feel like I’ve neglected posts about our little Ani so I have to talk about her a little bit.  She has been changing so much the last few months and is absorbing everything around her.  She is starting to talk a lot more and tries to repeat a lof of words, which sometimes upsets Kade because he doesn’t want her to repeat what he says.

We have been going through some doctors and people to get opinions on Ani’s development ever since her 2 year check-up but I am starting to get a lot less concerned with her.  At first we thought she may be behind in her speech and some motor skills so we scheduled an appointment with a developmental specialist down in the cities.  That appointment is still set for January 5th and we’re planning on going to that although I don’t think it’s really necessary.  Recently I got in touch with developmental specialists in our school district who come and evaluate any child from birth to school age to see if they’re on track.  From what they’ve seen at our house and from my answers to questions about Ani they think she is doing great, exactly where she should be for her age.  They haven’t done the whole evaluation but I’ll just wait until the cities appointment to see if we want to do that.  One thing no one can tell me is why Anika still has a little soft spot on her head which should be closed by now so I want to find out about that and see if it can be dangerous.  We also went to a few chiropractor appointments where they were adjusting her head, but it is very hard to see if it’s helping or not.  It is a long story, but she was born with a little bump on her head (which was supposed to be nothing, just some trapped blood ) and had problems sucking which is something chiropractors look at and could have helped her with, if I knew about it then.  I guess her head still has some signs of where the bump was, which is not evident until you really feel her whole head so that is why we were going to the chiropractor.  He says it can have an effect on her coordination and some other things.

Anyway, it is so fun to have this little girl in our family because she is a true girl.  She loves taking care of babies and is a little mother already.  She is a little bit of a mommy’s girl and when I’m home she doesn’t let Ehren hold her too much.  She especially loves the evenings when Kade and Kason are in bed and she is just hanging out with mom and dad.  She gets all giggly and snuggles with us.  No crabby girl there no matter how late she stays up.  If she doesn’t get her afternoon nap she can get pretty crabby but not if she’s staying up late.  Her two year tantrums started as soon as she turned 2, but it is getting better or else I just know how to handle her better.  The main reason to her tantrums is Kade who knows exactly how to push her buttons and what to say to make her mad.  I think almost all the rest of the instances for tantrums are about the food she can’t have at that moment.  This little girl is so light when you pick her up, but she can eat all day long.  She is fine if I’m away from the kitchen but when I’m in the kitchen she’s right there trying to see what she could get.  She also eats any veggies which is great so I’ve started to just give her carrots, cucumbers or peppers if she wants something and they actually make her happy.  She also knows she’s not supposed to have any of our snacks in the evening but she’ll sit there and just look at us with her puppy dog eyes until I give in and give her one.  Lately she’s been discovering the wonderful baby snacks and keeps stealing Kason’s food from his tray.  Not the baby food of course, just the puffs, cereal and stuff.

Otherwise, Anika is very social and loves going to places.  Her favorite is our ECFE mom’s group which is once a week and we get to do crafts, play and stuff.  She especially loves the circle time where they do a little dance at first, sing songs and read a story.  So I think she’ll love school.  Her favorite thing right now are probably books and she keeps asking to read almost all day, which I’m really happy about.  She carries her books around the house and if Kason tries to take them from her or just touches them she can get very upset.  So I got some new books to add to our collection for Christmas.

Santa Claus Day

We’ve had our traditional Slovak Santa Claus Day yesterday, meaning Santa came last night and left treats in our boots.  It was fun to watch Kade get excited about it, he couldn’t wait to clean his boots last night.  Anika gets excited about anything Kade is excited about so she had fun too although she probably didn’t have a clue until she woke up and saw all the treats in her boots.  Kade is getting a little bit of a mixed message about Santa because he’s watched some tv shows where he comes at Christmas so how come he’s coming for Santa Claus Day?  We had a little talk about our house and that Angels bring the gifts at Christmas time to us and he likes that idea.  A funny thing was that I forgot to put a couple of things into his boot this morning so I just dug it out this morning and gave it to him saying Santa forgot.  He was almost onto me though because the night before I bought clementines and here they got clementines in their boots so he questioned that right away.  I just said Santa and I were putting things in there together which raised more questions like “did you talk to him?”  and “what did he look like?”  “I wanted to see Santa at our house…”  Maybe Ehren will have to put a Santa costume on one of these years like my dad did, but I think we all knew it was dad after a little while.  It was a busy weekend though because Ehren was helping with the sound for the children’s Christmas musical which was tonight.  Kade sang 3 songs at the beginning and quite enjoyed it so that’s what the pictures are of.