"School" Reports

Twice a year the daycare we send the girls to does Parent/Teacher conferences.  They are usually not incredibly insightful but I leave thinking my kids are all in all pretty normal.  This week we had the conferences, only due to a busy schedule I opted to do it over the phone - which basically had me laughing at work, and was a really nice reprieve from my normal day.  This time, the teachers made me feel like they truly knew each of the girls...and because I was so entertained, I am going to share their assessment here.

ISLA:

• Very independent
• High level of interest in structured activities - is one of the first to engage herself in the teacher-led activities
• Has advanced gross motor skills - girl can climb anything so this wasn't a surprise
• Strong imitation skills, both verbal and physical (clapping or gestures), which i guess is good when you're learning to speak
• She's socially appropriate - this one had me laughing.  basically they were saying she's not aggressive unless someone makes her really mad
• Which led to her development feedback that she needs to work on verbal skills for when she's angry, like most 18 month old kids, and she needs to learn how to share and take turns better

SAWYER:

• Also independent
• Very imaginative, loves to play pretend, and is very content playing on her own
• Very intelligent - always the first to know answers on flashcards like upper/lower case letters and numbers and shouts them out in class, but seems to get bored really quickly as she doesn't like to show her smarts on individual basis.  She pretends she doesn't know the answer when asked one on one, or is just too bored to engage - this made me laugh as she does this to us when I try to teach her writing or reading.  If you don't catch her at the right time, there's no use.
• Bossy - again, this had me laughing as we refer to Sawyer as our "CEO" sometimes.  Her teacher said she has a lot of friends and is always directing and organizing things for them to do, but sometimes is very bossy and just generally likes to control situations.  She said her friends don't really push back at all, and so they're trying to get them to not always just follow what Sawyer says and be more independent themselves.  What's funny is I see this at home - Sawyer is so commanding and sometimes just convincing you really don't think to tell her no, or argue with her.  Her teacher and I agreed - it can be both good and bad...I wonder if our little girl will be quite a good leader some day.

I think the teachers really hit on each of the personalities quite well and like I said, some of these quirks really had me giggling at work.  Now I'm actually looking forward to the fall meetings.

A Really Sad Face

I'm told that there was such a thing as a "Mark Face".  In other words, when Mark was growing up he used to make a funny face his parents then dubbed the Mark face.  It would appear our little Isla may have inherited a bit of that.  While I'll wait to hear from Terry and Kathy on whether it looks similar, there is no doubt that Isla rocks a face when she's mad or sad.

Our girl has developed some serious opinions, and like most toddlers doesn't like to be told no and certainly doesn't like when something is not going her way.  At any time she's experiencing these feelings, she breaks out this face. 

It's not the best capture of it because it's very spontaneous, and we never seem to be quick enough with the camera.  Here it is a few seconds later, when the tears follow.  Pitiful right?  This often has an adverse reaction in that it makes Mark and I laugh.

And just because I had a few extra photos on my phone, here is Sawyer enjoying her cherry cone - we finally found the perfect baby cone size that she can eat before it melts all over her.

Sawyer was so funny last night, and I don't want to forget.  This weekend the movie Step Brothers was on, with Will Ferrell and John C Reilly.  Funny movie and Sawyer totally got into it.  So last night when we got home from school she asked to watch the "Bad Brothers" as she calls the movie, and a hilarious conversation ensued because Mark accidentally deleted it.  Sawyer just didn't understand why he couldn't find it and record it again, but finally settled on watching last week's Glee episode again.  She requested to watch her favorite Lady Gaga song, which she calls the "Babay Babay song", which is really "Edge of Glory".  Anyway, we had to fast forward through the episode and stop at each song, which she then tried to sing along to.  Aside from Gaga, she's quite adept at Taylor Swift's "Mean" song.  I'm so impressed with her memory skills.

Isla enjoying her cookie at the ice cream parlor.  Our girl isn't too keen on trying new things so it's tough to get her to try ice cream.  I have to trick her to get her to try it and then she realizes she likes it.

 Isla has now changed her mind and likes swings. 

 Sawyer never stopped liking them...

One Crazy Busy Week & Relaxingly Busy Weekend

So..the last 8 days have been busy, to say the least.  I have been part of a leadership program at work and after working on a project for the last five months it was all coming to an end this past week.  I was again going to be away for five nights leaving Mark to take care of parenting solo, in addition to his own day job.  This meant a good amount of preparation last weekend to get food and meals planned, laundry washed and put away, and my own clothes picked out and packed.  I left Sunday night to go about 45 minutes west of our house at our company training site, and all the groups were already preparing for our final presentations...From there it didn't stop with my days typically going from 8am till midnight or 1am.  On some nights I was working on my presentation with the group, on others trying to keep up with my own day job.  Presentations were Wednesday, and so things lightened up a bit with some planned celebrations, and a speaking event at local high schools, but needless to say I was wiped when I got home on Friday afternoon.  Good news is presentation went well, and Mark did amazing while I was gone.  He'll have to get on and blog on his own if he feels like filling you in, but my understanding is they got out of the house a bit - for slurpees or potbellys, but otherwise kept to our regular week routine of playing, baths, and bed.  Unfortunately Isla didn't give him too much rest and woke up most days by 6am which likely made getting himself ready a chore.  Lucky for us she loves brushing her teeth, so you can usually give her a toothbrush and she'll be entertained for awhile.

I definitely missed all of them while gone.  I decided to go get the girls early from daycare to try and make up for some lost time, and gave Mark a free pass to take the night off.  He took advantage and went to happy hour with some friends from work.

Sawyer and Isla both gave me a great welcome at their school with nice long hugs.  We hurried on our way though because I had the playground and ice cream planned for their future.  We headed home to ditch the car and get out into the nice warm weather for a walk into town because ice cream was first.  Sawyer continues to rock her unique taste in ice creams - cherry and pistachio seem to be her favorites.  Isla on the other hand is probably the only person who goes into an ice cream parlor and finds the cookie.  She pulled me over to the counter and kept saying "cook cook", which is what she says for cookie.  We went to the playground after, and ended up dragging Isla out of there kicking, screaming, and crying.  No joke - she cried the entire walk home and any time I put her down she tried to run back to the playground, so I had to carry her the whole way.  We made it home and due to the heat decided the logical next step was some sprinkler time.  Isla was not having it, but was more than happy to just eat her dinner on the deck steps...

Sawyer wasn't shy, and soaked herself to cool down.  She went naked and ended up just eating dinner in the nude on the deck that night. 

We woke up Saturday and did one of our favorite things - go to the farmers market!  I probably overspent, treating us to some flowers, some fresh squeezed lemonade for the walk, and then all the other goodies we tend to get, but who cares - it's all good for us!  It was quite warm early in the morning and so we were back and cleaning out our little baby pool quite early.  It's been hanging in the garage and needed quite the scrubbing - at one point I questioned why I didn't throw away and buy new, but then gave myself a pat on the back for "working" for it.  Luckily I had my helper to fill it up once I finished the cleaning...

At which point Isla took over the brush to turn her attention towards the deck.  I have a picture of myself doing the same at about this age...

Sawyer and I took a quick break to hit up some grocery shopping, while simultaneously letting the pool water get warmer.  We came home and spent the rest of the day outside...seriously - Sawyer was outside from 11am - 4:30pm.  When we got bored of the pool, we played in the sprinkler...

Isla was even outside for about 3+ hours.  Here she is rocking her new bathing suit which is my attempt to protect her super fair skin.

Sawyer running and jumping into the pool...this is mid land...

When we weren't playing with the water, we did bubbles.

We even had to break out the bubble maker and regular bubble wand so they could both get in on the action

However, we always returned to the water.  This picture just makes me laugh because Sawyer jumped into this 4 ft wide pool every which way imaginable - up and down, running start...she had a blast.  Can't wait to introduce her to the pool we joined next weekend because it will blow her mind that we get to play there all summer.

They also helped me to pick up clippings from the bushes and helped wash the car.  I can't say it's sparkling clean as I found it quite hard to wash the car with them but it's fine - Sawyer enjoyed her job.  I had to take a break mid-way through because Isla climbed up onto Sawyer's bike and wanted to take a spin.  Sunday was much of the same - we all slept in which was glorious, and then went for a walk in town.  We went to the "piggy bank" as Sawyer calls our bank, went to the toy store, and finished up at the ice cream parlor for the exact same thing we got on Friday.  Of course we headed home for time in the pool and sprinker, but because it was slightly warmer today spent a bit more time inside.  They took some time to watch a movie together and stay cool...

Was such a great relaxing weekend that it was really the perfect end to a busy week.  Plus the weather was so nice that I'm full on excited for the summertime.  One problem - I'm supposed to run 10 miles next week and I haven't run more than 5 miles at a time to train - oops!  Got some work to do this week.

Fixed It

Figured out how to fix my computer issue and I now have more pictures that I want to share than I would have hoped.  These are the pictures I wanted to share from last week....

Our wall of play-doh fun:

 A little overbearing, but Isla is dealing with it:

 The mask:

 Dad wearing it:

Our budding artist (Sawyer)'s painting:

 Isla enjoying it equally as much:

 Isla's no fail meals are bananas and cereal these days...Cereal is the messiest so she's basically naked under that bib:

 Girls reading together before bed:

And one final of our little monkey:

Lots more to fill everyone in on as we're coming off a crazy busy week and really amazing weekend...so more to come tomorrow.

Technical Difficulties

So I'm having trouble getting pictures from the camera to my computer today...thinking that my company disabled the port I use which is going to be annoying - home computer Mac here we come?  That would be an unfortunate result I know.

So anyway, bummer because I think there's some good ones on there.  It's actually how I tend to remember what we did the previous week.  The weeks themselves tend to fly by pretty quickly with work and daycare and dinner and baths and such.  So I'll focus on what I do remember - the weekend.

On Friday, Mark and I both found ourselves downtown.  I had an all-office meeting in the afternoon for my company, and Mark was going to be attending a charity dinner on Friday evening with some colleagues after work.  Totally enjoyed my meeting - we had the mayor come speak, some motivational speakers who were really good I thought, a charity partner of ours, and a marketing person spoke on our recently rolled out campaign.  All in all, very good.  One problem - it ran late, and I didn't get on the train till almost 5:30, which means I didn't get to daycare till a bit after 6.  I hate when that happens - I hate when the girls are there for super long periods of time.  I know it's unavoidable, and their days are typically not that long, but I feel guilty regardless.

So anyway, because I picked them up late, and was hungry myself I decided we'd stop at our little boutique grocery store to pick up some pre-made fixins for dinner.  I was thinking sushi for myself and figured I could find something that would work for them.  This store has little mini carts with flags on them that say "shopper in training", and since we weren't getting much and this store is not big I designated Sawyer our cart girl.  She was loving the responsibility and honestly looked so cute pushing her cart around the store.  We got many laughs and smiles because she was talking away through the store.  Next time, when I don't have Isla in my arms, I will take her picture.  We bought more than I intended because she loved putting stuff in her cart, including more swedish fish and frog cookies.  Isla needed her cookie opened immediately and was happy as a clam.

Honestly, this girl has next to no fat on her body so I have trouble saying no to her any time she wants to eat, and this cookie was no exception.  She's also become a ridiculous fan of marshmallows.  Weird right?  She knows which cupboard we keep them in, and will walk you over to it and just point and whine until you give in to her.  She's also now a huge fan of cereal with milk.  It's a ridiculously messy affair - she is allowed no clothes on because the milk gets everywhere, but for a girl who eats very little she tucked into two full bowls the other day.

On Saturday, we had a pretty chill day at home - cleaning, doing "projects" as Sawyer likes to call crafts.  We let them do some finger/brush painting, play with play-doh, etc.  Isla is a bit strange in that she doesn't like to get her hands dirty so she last all of 1 minute finger painting before she required a bath.  It was just long enough to get herself dirty.

Both girls got baths and naps because we had some evening plans - we were going to see the Elmo Show!  Though Isla and I weren't supposed to attend, our friend's daughter got sick and so we ended up using the tickets.  I'm so glad we did.  I really was skeptical because Isla just isn't super enjoyable in confined spaces right now, but both loved this show.  From the minute the lights went down they were mesmerized, and waved and clapped, and were just so excited to sing the songs and see all the Sesame Street characters.  We even stayed strong and didn't succomb to all the crazy toys and balloons they sell at those things.  Sawyer started to beg for the Elmo balloons that popped out at intermission, but she was quickly diverted into looking/counting the number that were accidentally let go and floated up to the ceiling.  Haha - suckers...those lasted all of 30 seconds.

Here's Sawyer when she heard Big Bird tell her the show was about to get started...

And a look at the stage...

On Sunday, we were all a little tired.  We had tickets to the Cubs game, but ended up cancelling because of a big rain storm blew in.  Turned out to be a blessing because the whole family needed some sleep.  All four of us took naps at some point throughout the day - Isla tipping the scales at 4 hours.   It was rainy for most of the day but we did decide to venture out for dinner to shed off some of that couped up feeling.  Mark chose a new restaurant that opened by us.  It was really nice, and probably not the kind of place we should have taken Sawyer and Isla.  Isla just doesn't like to sit, so she was crawling around and Sawyer was playing with some dolls but singing in her not so soft voice.  I am pretty sure Mark and I didn't say one interesting sentence to the other the entire meal, but focused mainly on sshhh'ing our kids.  Alas, we did get out of there relatively quick only to listen to Sawyer complain on the way home that she didn't get to go poop at the restaurant but needed to.  I'm not sure that she really had to as I had taken her to the bathroom not even 15 minutes earlier but it made us laugh on the way home.

It wasn't quite bed time so on our way home we hit up one of the playgrounds.  Due to the rain there was no one there.  We had the run of the place...as you can see...

Isla didn't want to leave, but the prospect of us leaving without her finally got her moving in the right direction....