Our Big Girl

Addie has been doing great on her potty training since we have been in WI. She has been wearing big girl undies and doing really well (we have had a couple of accidents, but much better than before). It is like she woke up on morning and decided this was it! We are SO happy the end of pull-ups is almost here.

She has called Payton "Pay-Pee" forever! We have always loved that pet name she made for her big sister. Payton refuses to let anyone but Addie call her that. Over the last 3 weeks or so Pay-Pee has made an exit and she is officially Payton. And Addie really pronounces that "t" when she says it. SO cute, but sad too.... Pay-Pee is gone for good.

Today we are on our way to check out a pre-school/child care center for Addison. I am REALLY hoping we like it! Payton will be in full day kindergarten in the fall so we will not need anything for her. Wow, it will be strange to have them in 2 different places!

Just what I needed...

So we have just moved to WI and of course I worry over everything. Especially the girls. Earlier today Payton was sad about her friends back in MN. So off we went to my sister Nicole's (it literally took us 3 minutes to walk there from our apartment) and they were off in the yard playing. When we got home this was our conversation...
Payton: "Mumma? Do you know what I want to be?"
Me: "No, Payton. What do you want to be?" she is always talking about what she is going to do when she is a "grown up"
Payton: "I want to be me! And that is what I am!"

Love that girl.... She finished it by giving me "the biggest kiss you have ever had!"

Addison Turns 3!

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January 2010

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Moving Updates...

Well, Brian has officially been at his new job for about a month now. He likes it and is busy at work, which is always a good combination! We sold our house here in Owatonna! We close at the beginning of April. It seemed to surprise everyone how fast it went, and we didn't have to take a hit to sell it. So we are SO happy about that!

After a lot of thinking and looking at houses in the Appleton area we have decided to build a house. We have met with a couple of builders and after talking with one in particular we really liked, we were able to walk through a house they had finished that was the floor plan we wanted. We loved it and have decided that we can deal with renting for a few months to get the house that we want. We will be moving into a rental in a couple of weeks and can make all the decisions about the house once I am in in WI. The builder is making it all VERY easy for us, and it is exciting to think we could be in this house a very long time! We are excited to see it all come together.

The girls are doing okay with all the change. We have more sassing and crying than usual, but we hope that once we are all together again we can get back into our old routines. Packing up the house has become strange for the girls especially... I have had one or both of them in my bed at night because they have been waking up more at night. Brian has been coming home on the weekends (and they sleep great then of course!). I personally can't wait to get there and have Brian help out with the day to day parenting again!

Wake up Call...

Payton woke me around 3:30am telling me she had a nightmare... As she crawled up into bed with me to calm down she said "Daddy is coming home today! Is he home yet?" Uh... it is the middle of the night kiddo! This morning she asked if Daddy would wrestle with her tomorrow like he promised. Guess I better inform him of his plans for the day!

Gotta love kids!

With our, hopefully soon, upcoming move we have been preparing the girls by talking about everything that is going to be happening in the upcoming months. We have been talking about buying a new house that they can pick their rooms and paint colors, how we will be close to their aunties and grandparents.... Payton was VERY concerned at first. She said "I love my room and my bed, and my toys!" We have FINALLY convinced her that we are packing up everything in the house and she will not have to leave her things behind. She basically thought we were going to pack a suitcase and move in with my sister and her family! Poor thing...

Addie on the other hand, is just excited that "Grammy is coming to our house!" They are SO different:)

On the Move

Well, a lot of you know this, but the Stewards are moving to Appleton, Wisconsin! Brian can post about his new job opportunity... basically out of the blue Brian got a call from a company in Wisconsin that he has been looking at for YEARS. They had a new job opening they thought he would be good for. A week later he had a job offer and we decided to take it. We will be MINUTES from both my sisters and their families!! And only a few hours (3 1/2 instead of 8) from our parents. We are really excited, but it is bittersweet for me especially. I have some really good friends here that I will be sad to leave behind... But it will be awesome for our girls to grow up with their cousins! The next few months are going to be crazy with Brian commuting back to MN on weekends. I will stay here with the girls and work. My mom graciously offered to come stay with me as long as it takes to sell our house here. Say a prayer that it won't take too long!

December 2009

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Santa Lists

So of course the girls are super excited for Santa to come this year, as always! Addison is really into it this year, except she is VERY afraid of Santa. So I am trying not to talk too much about the fact that he comes when she is sleeping:) Payton has always had a detailed (and long) santa list. This year it is a bit different.

Addison's Wish List:
ANYTHING she sees on a TV commercial. Thanks Nick Jr.

Payton's Wish List:
Ice Skates (the most important gift until our neighbor brought her a brand new pair to borrow)
Hoola Hoop (this is the only thing she has asked for since the skates.... thanks to our Wii Fit!)

We will have to see if they have been naughty or nice!

Oh, Addie!

I was at our board meeting last night for Wee Pals and one of our other members told me an interesting story about what happened when he picked up his son Harrison yesterday...

Harrison (and Addison!) both are big about waving goodbye to everyone when they leave daycare. Addison gives all the teachers hugs. Yesterday when Harrison and Addison (they are in the same class) were saying goodbye to each to each other Addison walked right up to him and planted a smooch right on his lips! I asked Gary "what did Harrison do?" and his reply was "He probably kissed her right back!"

What a week!

Last week Patyon, Addison and I got the stomach flu... Yuck! We had a house full of guests for Payton's birthday party (which we had to cancel), but fortunately no one else got sick. Brian dodged that bullet by being out of town. Thank goodness for that! Sunday Brian went to the vikings/lions game in the cities, and I tried to rest and recover at home after all our company left. It really took a lot out of me! By Tuesday I was back to normal and so were the girls.... They have been just bickering back and forth. Payton (our emotional/dramatic kid) has been very whiny and sassy. Wednesday she spent quite a bit of time in her room. Addison is usually pretty laid back, but she has been just whiny and clingy other than when she is yelling or fighting with Payton.

Today we went for Payton's recheck after being put on her inhaler. She is now going to be on Flovent once a day, probably just through the winter and then we will see how she does. We will still use the Albuterol as she needs it, which should be just when she is sick. Her cough has really improved, but it isn't completely gone so her doctor thinks this is the way to get her lungs healthy again. And because she is diagnosed with asthma now she was able to get her H1N1 vaccine today in the office and because Addison is only 2 she was eligible too. So it was a good and bad day. I truly felt like we had won the lottery when her doctor recommended the vaccine and then told me they still had doses available! Lets hope with the upcoming holidays that the big illnesses with stay away from our house...

Payton is Five!

Payton turned 5 this week... I was totally feeling nostalgic. I was thinking back to my pregnancy, delivery and those first couple of years. We have been preparing her for the time when we are going to take away her blanket (she has a blue fleece blanket, she calls it blue goo, that she has slept with and dragged around for years. And she always sucks her thumb when she has it). We are hoping the thumb sucking stops when the blanket is gone. Payton decided several months ago that she was going to give up blue goo and stop sucking when she turned 5. So on Tuesday it was her birthday and I took it and hid it when she left for school. We gave her a leapster2 for her birthday, and that has actually helped. She just loves that thing and it has been a good distraction when she asks for her blanket. We did give her the blanket when she got into bed, after she gave up her leapster, and we told her we were going to take it away from her once she was asleep. She was okay with that. She slept all night fine, and other than a few times a day when I need to distract her away from wanting her blanket she has done awesome. It has actually gone a lot better than we expected. She still wants it to fall asleep, but we are only 3 days in so that is good by me.

Today we went to her 5 year well child check... she is 39 pounds and 42 inches tall, both 5oth percentile. She has had a cough for about a month now. It gets worse when she is outside or at gymnastics... her pediatrician thinks it may be asthma. So we are now armed with inhalers we are doing 3-4 times a day for the next 2 weeks. If her cough is still there she will probably have to go on medication. She is a little young for the spirometry asthma testing, so we will do that in a couple years and hope that we can help her along the winters with inhalers. We will see. I just hope the cough gets better. It is almost like she doesn't know she is doing it. It is sorta like a spasm cough. I really hope this works. I think everyone thinks we are contagious with all the H1N1 around!

Minnesota Girls!

So apparently our daughters are true Minnesotans. While at our friends over the weekend Payton refused to play Duck Duck Goose... why? Because "it is Duck Duck Grey Duck"! We ended up playing both versions to make all the kids happy! Too funny!

Busy Month Just Got Busier!

The clinic where Tina works just started a flu clinic to help treat patients with the flu.  Nurses will be available from 8AM to 8PM, 7 days a week to asses patients and give IV fluids if necessary.  So Tina will be working a bit more for the next couple of weeks.  The initial idea is to have it run for 2 weeks but I'm sure there will be a constant assesment to determine when best to end it since it is costing quite a bit to keep it staffed. Tina's had both flu vaccinations so she should be alright.  I just hope the kids are ok with me putting them to bed each night.

Busy month!

This fall we find ourselves busier than ever! We have been enjoying the fall weather (it was 60 degrees and sunny this weeked!). We were at the pumpkin patch over the weekend. Brian's parents were in town and the girls whooped it up in the corn maze, leaves, slides, mini golf.... And today Payton's pre-school class is going to that same pumpkin patch. And the best part is that it is usually closed during the week, but they are opening just for Wee Pals. How cool! And since it rained yesterday she has her rubber boots and and extra set of clothes to go with her.

We took a trip to Milwaukee to visit Brian's grandmother. Addison just LOVED her! She sat on her lap and talked to her the entire visit! Payton was being her shy self though. But we did have a nice visit.

Brian is doing an even bigger "set" this year in our front yard for Halloween. We already had our pumpkins, hay bales, and corn shocks delivered. Now he has a black tree with lights, pumpkin yard stakes that light up, orange lights, fog machine, strobe light, and a ghost that with move back and forth on a 25 foot cable. Can you tell we love Halloween?! We will try to get some photos when he is done!

So far we have dodged major illness this fall. Addie did wake up Saturday night vomiting and had a fever, but it left by morning. Payton has had a dry cough for 3 weeks now! Fortunately she isn't coughing at night anymore. Mostly in the morning. No fevers for her yet... I got my H1N1 vaccine (the mist) on Monday and have had a cough and runny nose ever since. Lovely... Our county only has the vaccine for health care workers who work with pediatrics, OB, and immunocompromised patients. so I was on the short list at work and got one. Can't say I am pleased with the side effects of the mist though. But what can you do! Both girls got the annual flu vaccine last week. Payton cried and cried. Addison didn't fight us and could have cared less. My girls are so different. Makes life quite fun:)

This weekend we are off to our godson Jonah's 3rd birthday party! I LOVE that we live closer (and that Amy and Mark moved to MN) so we can make these things!

Closet Organization

I spent a few hours sunday (ok, quite a few hours) re-doing our closet. 
It started out like this:

and turned out like this:

Well, maybe it started and ended somewhere in between.
Anyway, it is much improved.  We looked at several options but decided on the ClosetMaid wire solution.  It was easily customizable to our needs and way cheaper than some of the other designs.  My parents used something similar in their closet and it recently pulled out of the wall and fell down!  So, I had a couple of restless nights dreaming that our closet was coming down.  But I have it secured to a few studs so we should be alright. 

Awwwww...

We were just eating lunch and I heard Payton say "Oh, baby did you fall asleep?" I look over at the counter (our girls eat most meals sitting at the island in our kitchen) and Addison is fast asleep sitting on her stool! She was gripping her fork all she was good for, I had to pry her little hand off it and get her to bed! Guess we played outside enough today to exhaust her!

Weekend away, now back to reality!

Well, I was in Wisconsin last weekend throwing my sister Valerie her baby shower (she is due with her first baby in December, a girl). And Brian decided to stay home with both sweeties. This is the first time he has had them alone for this long, and from what he said they were great. Addison slept good (although since I am home again she wakes up calling for me, we have been struggling with this lately), Payton was busy all Saturday with her friends birthday party and a play date, and Brian did get Payton to Sunday school too.

The shower went really well. Valerie had a good turn out and got a lot of really nice things. It is so weird for me to see our crib up at her house. Her nursery looks really cute though! I was able to see some childhood friends and catch up in person (instead of FB!), as well as spend time with my sisters and mom. It was a really nice weekend!

We are back to reality now... Payton's class has a color chart for their behavior during the day. Green if they are doing good, yellow if they need to be redirected, red if the redirecting doesn't work and they are still not listening/acting appropriately, and black if there is an incident that requires them to be removed from class and go spend time in the office calming down. They can go back and forth between the colors during the day. Uh... Payton has been black twice this week!!! AND, Addison's teacher told us on Tuesday that she was saying "NO!" to everything and hitting her friends. ARGH! And to top it off my work week has been horrible, we have been just crazy with crazies! Why do I work with the public?? Oh yeah, because I really do love my job... Please let next week be better!

Moonlight Golf

So our daycare/pre-school have been planning this moonlight golf event for months. We went last night, and it was a total blast! It was a 4 person scramble at a par 3 course. Thank goodness it was only par 3! It is tough to golf in the pitch black. We all "glowed up" with glow bracelets and necklaces, and of course the glow golf balls. At first I thought we were getting the necklaces and bracelets for fun, but let me tell you you can't see a thing out there at 10pm so thank goodness we had them. We paired up with our friends Nicole and Kyle. And strangely enough we didn't do half bad! The best part of the night... Brian taking off his glowing attire and sneaking up on other golfers and scaring the pants off them! ha ha... I am still giggling about our friend Sonja's scream! Nice work Brian!