A trip down memory lane

Another story....

Once upon a time, I was a senior in high school who was too busy traveling to volleyball tournaments every weekend to go shopping for a prom dress. At one of those volleyball tournaments (perhaps Elmira?) we had a couple of games off between matches, so my mom and sue decided to head over to the local mall to kill some time. They asked if I needed anything, and I said yes, a prom dress. And not just a prom dress, and orange prom dress. To the shock and awe of everyone around, they went and bought one. And it was awesome. I very clearly remember being so excited to see it and then heading to the bathroom to try it on with teammates, over my volleyball gear :o)

That prom dress moved from Trumansburg to Rochester to Madison to Fitchburg to Fitchburg.

And now, it's being passed on to goodwill so someone else can make fantastic memories with it. Also donated in the same trip: my vocal jazz dress from highschool, 2 bridesmaid dresses and the suit I wore when I interviewed my senior year of college.  Buddha would be proud - I feel lighter already ;o)

Charlotte tells max a story

Once upon a time, there was a baa...

And baa learned how to fly...

off to a land where sheep lovies and puppies play all day.

The end :o)

Birthday Party

Me and the girls went to our first birthday part this weekend. It was at a fantastic little place nearby that is part drop in daycare, part Melissa and Doug retail. And there were balloons.

Balloons are good. So are new toys and friends.

But costumes definitely take the cake :o)

9 Months!

Holy smokes m is already nine months! I have to say, nothing like having an infant to help the winter fly by. At 9 months m is:
* Still getting breast milk at home and at school (go me!), though the freezer is pretty much empty so we'll probably have to start buying formula pretty soon to get us to the one year mark.
* A happy giant, but not so much a gentle one. From daycare today: "Keeps pulling other children over."
* Starting to pull up on things, and do plank holds (crazy)
* Starting to not be as willing to sit still with lemur :o)

Fort!

Caroline came up this weekend. She, as usual, had the best games to play :o)

Big girl

Lots and lots of milestones flying by this winter. M is now:
* Happily chewing with her two bottom teeth and FOUR top teeth
*Covering distance around rooms by scooting on her bottom, and developing an affinity for cords (bummer)
* SO close to crawling
* Starting to pull up as well. From daycare: Working on pulling herself up to a stand on the ledge.. she can do it from her knees!
* Getting close to needing a hair cut :o)

Sister Love

So we're starting to get beyond the "AHHH THERE ARE TWO OF THEM!" stage, and moving closer and closer to the "Awww, look at the two of them" stage. From one of m's teachers at school:
We sat on the ramp and watched rabbit and raccoon come down for lunch.   Loved the wagon ride.   I told Charlotte we had to go and she said "But I love Michaela so much".   

It's been really fun to watch the two of them learn to play together. And it's not just c thinking that m is neat - today after school we sat on the floor and played rolling catch and m just about lost her mind she thought it was so much fun.

One of the really cool parts about from my perspective is that they have fun together even though they're SO different personality wise. Case and point - tonight at dinner. C had left over Chinese food and ate it neatly with chop sticks:

 And then there was the left over spaghetti.

Someone doesn't mind messes one little bit, especially if it involves food :o) Added bonus, while shoving her face tonight m sneezed. I'll leave the rest up to your imagination.

Mighty Max

So I've been thinking about doing a max post for a while, but when I sat down I was still unprepared for just how many pictures of him I had on my phone. He's pretty fantastic. We're lucky to have found such a good friend for the girls. You still know someone who doesn't like pit bulls? You send them my way. We'll change their mind :o)

Skating

My friend Jason has a daughter a couple of years older than c. He also played hockey for a bunch of years, so he equipped that daughter when she was c's age with the cutest pair of hockey skates that the world has ever seen. Violet's now outgrown the skates, so we got them and on Saturday we packed them up and headed to the skating pond that's part of the park across the street.

We lucked out that it was just about thirty, so while cold it was still reasonable to be outside. We got there, put on our skates, and headed out. Surprising to no one, c was a natural.

By the end of the 20 minutes we spent out there c was both moving and getting back up from falling totally on her own. 2034 Olympic team here we come!

Visitors!

Nana and Saba came to visit this weekend! It was a fantastic visit. Much time around the house, much playing and much fun. However, it was probably my least successful borrowing of a super nice camera. May I present.... my normally super photogenic children:

Funny face and a lazy eye. Pretty sure neither of those were the camera's fault :o)

New Friends

I think I've told many of you about our new online "daily sheets" that we get with m. Her classroom moved their paper records of eating, sleeping, etc into a google doc, which is especially awesome since I can see it during the day. A co-worker of mine also has a child in bear cub - and we found out together that our kids are becoming fast friends...

From: Meg Bohse
Sent: Friday, January 30, 2015 3:06 PM
To: Sarah Provan
Subject: RE: Kiddos

Ours too!

It was cute this morning, she was the sunniest little girl when we brought him in.  They baby chatted a whole lot.

From: Sarah Provan
Sent: Friday, January 30, 2015 2:57 PM
To: Meg Bohse
Subject: Kiddos
Importance: Low

Looks like our kids are buddies! I just checked out Michaela’s daily sheet and saw this:

Really likes Gabe! She always smiles and starts to talk with him as soon as she sees him!

Makes me smile J

Sarah Provan

ELearning @ Epic

sprovan@epic.com

608.271.9000

Thank you Grammy

For the dress, the curls, and the cow lick :o)

Future Engineer

C has been a huge fan of building and stacking things since she started playing with toys. I wasn't surprised when she started talking about a light table that they had at school, and that she liked to build on it. I was surprised just how tall she was able to get stuff to stack.

And how cool it looks once stacked. She's building with flat pieces that have magnets in the edges - impressive for just over three. Better start saving for engineering school...

Speaking of being mobile....

Here's a video of her not quite getting there yet :o) It's super long. And likely very boring to anyone but me. Be warned...