afternoon with ethan

This  Christmas Lynds and I were brainstorming about what we could give eachother's children as gifts. We talked about how we wanted to give them something other than "stuff" that just ends up cluttering the living room. Lyndsay had a great idea. She said that as the kids got older it would be fun to gift them with "quality time" spent with aunties and uncles.

The girls were a little bit too young to understand how cool quality time with family really is, but I did include that as part of Ethan's gift. (Partly because Ethan would rather spend time with Uncle now and I get a little bit jealous as he used to be aunties little buddy). Anyway, we gave him some chapter books and an afternoon of reading with Auntie.

As I have not been working the past couple of weeks and it has been rainy rainy, I figured this was a good week for Ethan to cash in on his gift. So on Monday he came over while the girls were taking their afternoon naps and we played and played. We read and played legos (which I am not very good at). Then When annika woke up we played some more, did a craft, and then watched a little George. It was so fun to have Ethan around for the afternoon...he is such a sweet little boy, and pretty funny too. He told me I should "shoot uncle an email and let him know that we played with his old legos."

 All our guys lined up ready to race!

 oh my! look at all those legos!

 Ethan making Audrey laugh.

 Doing our craft. Ethan is great to have around with Annika. She just thinks he is the greatest and he entertains her. I think he has a lot more patience for her than for his little sister.

The finished products. A pirate for Ethan.

And a monkey for Annika of course! 

daddy come home!

On February 8th I reached my one year employment mark at DMC and thus was able to finally take part of  my FMLA and be "off work" to be home with my babies. The use of the "bunny ears" (e-that's for you) is to recognize that as a mommy "work" is a full time thing whether you do it in the house or outside of it. I have experienced life as a working mom and a stay at home mom, and each of them has its challenges, but I have to say that I have thoroughly enjoyed my time home these past two weeks bonding with my new baby and my big girl. 

It worked out perfectly for me to be off for these couple of weeks as E is off on a big business trip. Having Eric gone has made me realize just how spoiled I am having him work from home the majority of the time. E is a very hands-on daddy and I am so very blessed to have him as my partner in raising our children. 

Daddy gets home tomorrow and we are very excited! We are surviving, but on this our 4th day without daddy (on one of the rainiest weeks of the year i might add)  I have to admit that we have watched far too much George, spent way too much time browsing blogs, and have eaten an ungodly amount of pretzel m&ms. We are ready for you to come home E. 

And I am ready to see my girls at work too...and that feels good. 

our little audrey leigh...

is a thumb-sucker. 

and i think it is adorable. i practically force the pacifier on my babies from day one, but this little one has decided that her chubby little thumb tastes better...as long as you can break the habit by the time you go to school little one. Although...who am i to speak? i still bite my fingernails...bad, i know! 

this one is for her daddy. we miss you e. be safe in the d.f. we love you! 

thirty!

I thought it was only appropriate to write something on this the eve of my 30 birthday. Thirty is kind of a big deal. Its one of those birthdays you tend to think of as so far off until its right there in front of you. Some days I feel like so much has happened in my 20s that I've just gotta be older than 30, and other days I can't believe that I'm kissing my 20s goodbye tonight.

The other day E and I went out for dinner and the hostess (a darling 87-year-old young lady) was asking us how old our children were. We told her 2 and 4 months and she commented about how close they are in age. Without thinking I said, "well we had to get moving, we started later...I had my first when I was 29." In my mind that was absolutely correct. E just looked at me with a weird expression and said, "babe you are 29 now and you have a 2-year-old." Kid you not I had to think about that for a second to realize that he was right. Its just hard to believe that I have gotten married, finished nursing school, had two children, moved and started my career all since I turned 26. Needless to say, the 20s were a bit hectic.

I am excited about this decade. The 20s were tough for me trying to figure out who I was, what I wanted to do...I'm not too sad to leave that behind. Women in their 30s have always seemed so much more confident than I ever felt in my 20s (or maybe they just become better actors;)). Either way I am excited to join the club.

So here's to 30. May you be all that I've built you up to be!

And here are some pictures for those of you who don't really care what I write, but just want to see pictures of the little cuties:

I spent my last day as a 20-something sleeping in (thank you eric), going for a long run (again thank you e), reading lots of books with my girls, rocking with sweet audrey during annika's nap time, having my favorite "single girl" dinner (artichoke and a glass of wine--e doesn't like artichokes so I have to have them when he is gone), and getting ready for our trip to TAHOE! We leave tomorrow morning and I am so excited! Thank you aunt caron and uncle frank for the trip and thank you to mama Jung for watching the girls! Girls I will miss you terribly but am so excited to spend some time on the slopes with your daddy!

fun with the lehmans!

A couple of weeks ago Tate, Eric and Avery stopped by to see us before they headed down the coast with Eric's parents. It was SO great to see them and catch up. We miss you guys so much! 

As soon as we got out of our cars at the lookout point in the Marin Headlands after driving up the twisty road through the green hills in the misty SF weather Tate said something like "oh just give me my running shoes and I'm in heaven." Oh I love that girl. She is indeed my kindred spirit. Its so nice to be with friends who just get you...who know what you are thinking before you say it. We shared many L&D stories and laughed for hours over the joys of working night shift, the trials of the first year as a new nurse and the challenges involved with juggling parenting, working and marriage...our poor Erics have their hands full with us. 

Annika loved the city...she loved walking up and down the hills. I see many mommy/daughter trips in our future sweet girl!

Avery Joy is such a sweet girl. She is happy most of the time. I hadn't seen her since she was tiny so it was so fun to be able to see her little personality this time. 

We didn't get a picture of the whole group together...the daddies were the ones behind the cameras most of the day. Check out how big Audrey looks by Avery. Yes, they are about the same size...actually I think avery's tummy is even smaller than Audrey's. Avery is about 10 months and Audrey is 3 and a half...we grow them big

Annika was tuckered out after our busy day in the city. George and baby go everywhere with us. 

reading

Annika just cracks me up with her language. She does have quite a few words, but she mainly just jabbers all day long. All the syntax is there, just not the words. We just laugh because we know that in her head she is making perfect sense...pretty soon we will know exactly what she is saying. I just wanted to make sure we have this part of her language development recorded because it is absolutely precious. 

Annika is finally letting me read to her again. For quite a while she just wanted to read to herself, which actually worked out quite well for me because we would just sit together on the couch...aj with her books, and me with mine. I do love reading to kids though. I have such fond memories of reading with my mom and sister in the evenings. Me on one side with my green apple, my sister on the other with her red one, mom in the middle reading Laura Ingalls Wilder...good memories.