Growing Independence

My kids are so lucky to have an amazing amount of cousins to play with.  We have a big family that in the last few years seems to have grown excessively.  This weekend they got to spend time with quite a few of those cousins. 

We spent the last two days at Andy's grandparents ranch where for the first time Emily was extremely independent.  She and her favorite person for the weekend, Garrett, ran everywhere together without needing Andy or I to go with her.  Although it was nice to not be needed, I found that I might not be ready for that independence regardless if she is.  I was constantly afraid of her wandering too close to the horses (which she is afraid of) or going to close to the river (which is gated).  It is all unwarranted fears and I know it is my own issues of letting her go.  How did you deal with your kids becoming independent?

Our Easter Holiday

This was a great holiday for us. We had so much fun with our family this weekend. We got to see both sides all in one weekend, which doesn't happen too often.  We had egg hunts with both sets of cousins and Emily really got it this year. It was so funny to watch Emily running around picking up eggs. Most kids would yell "I found one", Emily though kept yelling the color of each egg, "Purple!" she would yell as she found a purple egg in the grass. She did a pretty good job competing with the older cousins too. She is enjoying the candy, toy and books she got in her baskets.  Will had fun also, he found a couple eggs too and played with them for hours. 

Although a great weekend, we had some difficulty with sleeping. Traveling with a 9 month old is not fun. Sometimes I wonder, why do we spend so much time and money in buying and dragging around a pack and play when the kid hates it. He ended up spending most of the night in the bed with us, but since he is not used to that, he would wake up and cry every time we would move. It turned out to be a long and difficult night and we got only a couple hours of sleep. 

On the way home from Easter we had our first fast food in 40 days since we gave it up for lent.  We had to stop at a McDonald's on the way home to get something to eat.  I knew when we gave it up that when we came back to fast food it would be different.  Really, it was terrible tasting.  I can't imagine why I would choose to eat that anymore.  So I think I am saying so long to fast food forever! 

Teaching Easter

We are celebrating Easter this weekend in sunny southern California. Emily is starting to love this holiday because it's all about candy and chocolate. With so much fun and excitement I am hoping we can still teach her the real reason for this great holiday. It is becoming obvious to me though that it can be difficult to teach a 2 year old about how Jesus died and we are celebrating His death, or rather the reason for His death. Hopefully tomorrow at church she will have a little lesson, but it might be better learned next year.

Wow, that was a big weekend

As a mostly stay at home mom, I go through times where I feel guily about leaving home to go to work.  What makes it not so terrible is Andy being home when I am gone.  We have a great system that keeps our kids out of day care.  This last two days I spent working while Andy played Mr. Mom.  Sometimes, I am embarrassed to admit, he does a better job staying at home than I do. This was one of those times.  My house is clean, laundry is done, dinner is made and the kids are happy.  While I was at work though I had a major break through in the job dilemma.  I walked straight into my bosses office today and asked for a raise.  Whoa, now I'm getting bold, so not like me.  Well, she didn't even think about it before she said YES!  So now I am getting a raise and I don't feel like I need to run out and find another job that will pay my true worth.  It really is no small raise either. Today was a good day.

Welcome Spring!

This has been a crazy weekend for us here so I have had very little time to write much.  My poor family is still pretty sick  We went from one bug to another and are still struggling to get healthy.  That has not seemed to slow us down much though.  Saturday we had a day full of celebrating the future Mohr baby, first with a baby shower and then a boys poker night.  Andy and Jessica should be well set up for little baby Titus to come.  We are looking forward to another baby around!  Our circle of friends just keeps expanding!  I was so glad everyone loved our diaper cakes.  They turned out great and Erin did such a great job (as always) throwing a party.

On Friday we had Kelly and her friend Tarolyn came into town for the weekend.  Emily loved having her Auntie Telly Tat around.  Then Saturday brought Jim, Max and Ruby in for a visit.  We had so much fun having the cousins around.  Emily and Ruby spent a lot of time in the playhouse pretending.  Max was stuck to the x-box most of the time and wrestled a lot with Andy.  I always love having my brother around.  Ruby decided we should live across the street from them. We had a great time out in the backyard all weekend as the first day of spring came!  We played some croquette games on the lawn and had some barbecue.  Hopefully spring will bring us some healthy kids and great weather.  I am looking forward to getting out to run more with the weather improving.

Five on Friday

1. This week was full of doctors visits, fevers and medicine. Our poor sweeb babies have had a rough week. Emily had an ear infection and turned out to be allergic to her antibiotic. We are still struggling with the hives. Will has bronchiolitis and possibly a problem with asthma. He has been getting his breathing treatments and it has been helping a lot.

2. We had a great night with the Monges this week. We were all pretty stressed this week with sick kids so some time relaxing with friends was much needed.

3. Andy is, thankfully, only a few days away from his captains test. He has been studying so hard to prep for this, it will be nice to have him back again. Hopefully he does a great job.

4. We are visiting in Orange County today. We spent the evening at my parents with the whole family. It was so great to see everyone. Tomorrow we are going to our niece Maggie's baptism. She is 2 weeks older than Will. Andy gets the honor of being Godfather.

5. Emily is having her first sleepover tonight in the other room with her cousin Elyse. They are having fun talking and giggling. I hope they fall asleep sometime tonight.

That is the sum up of this week. I hope next week I will have more exciting things to talk about. I hope to get some runs in next week. We only have 7 weeks for our march of dimes walk and we are going to run the five miles. I am really starting to crave getting out and running.

-Posted fromy iPhone

Location:Montevideo Ave,Placentia,United States

Five on Friday

1.  What a week.  It has been awesome to be off with Andy all week long.  But since the kids are sick, we weren't able to do something fun like we usually would.  He did however make a trip down to Long Beach to send Kelly off to Denmark!  What a fun trip she will have.  We were lucky to catch her on Skype this morning.

2.  We signed up for the March of Dimes walk this week and are planning on running the 5 miles.  It is April 17, 2010 in Bakersfield at Liberty Park.  We are excited to be apart of the walk this year.  Last year I was there but could not walk because I was still pregnant with Will. 

3.  So far this week we have run a total on 6 miles.  We were so happy to get back out to running.  Sometime during the marathon we became runners and truelly enjoy our time out running.  I think the attitude change in us also improved our running also.  We are so happy to be teaching our kids by example that an active life is great. 

4. We got to have a great dinner with the Boyer family last night.  It was so nice to be able to spend time with them.  Their new baby will come in about 8 weeks and I cant wait to have another little girl around to shop for.

5.  Today we had Payton over for a little bit, we finger painted and palyed with books and toys.  He is such a sweet and quiet little boy.  Andy's dad is here for a visit also.  Emily is always so happy to have people here playing with her.