Lenten Promises

This year we all gave up different things.  Chris gave up fast food/eating out, I gave up Starbucks, and the girls are by association giving those things up too.  Gianna is going to try to be more cheerful and helpful about picking up her toys or other chores when asked.  I found this cool "lenten map" from catholic icing along with the stations of the cross from one of the posts from that blog. From those 2 things I made a little lenten folder for each of them. We are planning to go to Stations of the Cross as much as possible and they can bring their folders with them to point to each station.

Of course I turned this all educational and had her match numbers to the station.  She loves to glue.

Coloring her lenten map.  Love the tongue sticking out!

Proud of her map!

Barbies

Thats pretty much all we did this weekend- play with Barbies.  Uncle Tim gave the girls the whole princess babrbie set- for Christmas.  So adding the 9 princesses to our 2 we have a grand total of 11 barbies.  That means 11 pairs of tiny shoes and 11 tiny crowns that are constantly coming off and need to be put back on.  Its all good fun though.  Yeah.  Definitely a Barbie weekend.  Sorry Chris!

Lovely Weekend

We got to see family, go to a birthday party, and I went to a consignment sale.  I had Monday off so I took half the day to drop off my resume at some schools around town.  Then I was home for nap and to take the girls to the park.  Spring Break is in 3 weeks!  I think I can I think I can...

Showing off their new dresses!

Ice Skating

So after Chris got off work on Saturday, we took the girls ice skating. 

This is what G did most of the time.

It was quite the workout for our backs.  Still sore!

Thinking about getting them into lessons next season- G was on her own pretty quick!

Getting Ready for Valentine's Day

Chris had to work Saturday morning, so we got ready for Valentine's Day.

First, we wrote down all the names on our valentine's bags.

Then we pulled these out of the fridge (we made them the night before)

 

And carefully counted out 10 yummy cookies for each friend.

Then we painted with Valentine's colors and used sponge hearts.  Fun!

10 Years!

10 years ago this week, Chris asked me if we could "make it official."  He sent me flowers!

This weekend we went ice skating and had a bottle of chianti, much like our first "date" back in Rome.

Phone Girls

Bulletin Boards

Last year I made a bulletin board for the teacher I was subbing for, so I did it again this year!  I had all my students write a poem to the baby, and then one of my parents created this board. 

Pretty sweet, right?

Crazy Sock Day

Gianna was super excited to wear my toe socks and flip flops.

Elia was not excited at all.  (I had also just done her hair and she wasn't happy about that either.)

Solar System Artwork

Ah, my favorite, the soar system.  Groundhog is in there too.

Elia made the night/day circle thing and the hanger with the stars.

Interesting Doctor Appointment



Chris playing doctor- see the stethescope around his neck?

 Chris had a half day so he took the girls to see the doctor.  The original reason was for Elia who has had a little rash on her tummy for the past few weeks.  The doctor gave her some topical cream so we should be good to go.  Both girls were weighed, and Elia has finally surpassed her sister in weight!
The doctor brought up the fact that Elia has grown so big and tall so fast while Gianna hasn't.  He suggested, just to rule it out, that Gianna get tested for Celiac's disease.  I am very skeptical that she has it becasue she doesn't really have any of the symptoms I've googled.  But we'll see- I'm going to make the appointment for my spring break.  I'm not too worried but you just never know!

Mommy Elia Time

Saturday, Chris took Gianna to Austin to go see UD play rugby, so Elia and I had some MUCH needed mommy- daughter alone time.  We ran errands, went to the park, and best of all, she got to bring her grocery cart to the store and help go shopping.  She even helped put everything up on the conveyor belt.







Starbucks donut- lucky girl!



After nap, she helped make mini pizzas for game night at John and Sam's!





Real Life Sudoku

Some people wonder what teachers do once the bell has rung and the kids are gone.  Its not just lesson planning and grading (although that too, takes a long time).  Its looking at your students and assessing their individual needs and changing your classroom and your actual teaching to accomodate them.  This is a rotation schedule I created so that while they are doing different math ativities on their own, I can pull small groups to reteach math concepts that students don't understand or push studnets who already get it to go the next step.

This took me 15 precious  minutes to do after school on Friday- and its still not perfect.

I have to savor this moment, however fleeting it may be.

Yesterday was rough.  After I picked the girls up from daycare we had to go to the grocery store.  Since I only needed 2 things, I told the girls we were just going to walk through the store and that we didn't need a cart.  For some reason, this set Elia off and she started fussing and whining very loudly that we needed a cart, and I threatened time out to her.  She continued to fuss, so I put her in time out, in the store.  As soon as I put her in time out, she started one of those awful toddler tantrums that you hope your child will never have in public.  It was awful- she threw herself on the floor, kicking and screaming.  So I just picked her up and took her straight to the car and straight home.  After she was settled down she was fine, but I was not about to go back into that store.
At dinner, I literally had to force feed her pizza becasue she didn't want to eat.  Seriously, who in their life has ever force fed a child pizza?  So that was a battle tha I barely won.  Then, I took the girls to the library for the evening storytime at our library.  It is such a great program- they do songs and lots of books and even a craft.  We look forward to it every week since we used to go during the week when I was home with them.  I warned Elia with threats of time out, going home, etc. to be a good girl while we were there.  Which she was, until it was time to go.  I was checking out books and I asked her to sit on the floor and look at her books while I checked out.  She started screaming the floor is too dirty mama!  And you know that even a speaking voice at the library is heard all over, and she was screaming so it was even worse.  I pleaded with Gianna to help her sister read her book quietly.  Elia quieted down immediately and so I finished checking out in peace.  When I finished I found them like this:

  

All of my anger and exhaustion melted away at that minute.  How sweet is that?  Fleeting though- we had another battle this very moring about washing her hands.  I think this might be the terrible twos!