So 2013 happened...

And I apparently didn't write a blog post the entire year.  Oh well.  Life is busy.

I went back through and read some of my old posts today, and I realized I'd forgotten some of the memories I'd written about my girls.  Which is what prompted me here, to write more.  I'm making no promises about posting after today, mainly because I'm tired of feeling guilty about not posting.  And really, a mother has enough guilt without heaping more on top that can be avoided.  But I am hoping to put a little more up there.

So what's new?

Annabella is 5 now, and she'll start kindergarten in the fall.  Choosing a kindergarten here is nothing like what it was for me or Jas growing up.  Then, we went to the kindergarten that was closest, case closed.  Maybe some parents would pony up some coin to send their kids to the private Catholic school if it was close enough to where they lived, but besides that, it was whatever was closest.  Bells, on the other hand, has a default base school (which is not the closest elementary school to us), a couple other calendar option schools (traditional vs year-round), a list of 10 or so magnet school options, not to mention the charter school options on top of that.  And those are just the public options.

In my brain, when I try to reason logically, I can tell myself that choosing a kindergarten for her is not this life-defining choice.  It's just kindergarten, and she can change schools later if she doesn't like it.  Plus, most of our options are really very good options.  I know this in my brain.  Or at least I try to.  But that doesn't stop the panic I feel whenever I start thinking about it again.

Warning, the following paragraph is probably mind-numbingly boring.  But here's the deal with the school stuff:
Kindergarten is your best shot of getting into some of these non-default schools, as they are application based and space-limited.  So switching from default to magnet/charter later on might prove challenging.  But the magnets/charters are farther away from us.  You have to provide transportation to and from the charters, whereas the magnets will bus.  I think the transportation issue is enough to kill the option of charter schools for our family, as both Jason and I work about 25 minutes from home.  A lot of families car pool to ease the burden, and if pushed, we could probably make that work.  But I haven't heard much about the charters, and have no real reason to believe they would be better for us.  Which leaves us with magnets and the default option.  The magnets are all quite a bit farther away from us than the default options, but I'm not certain that equals longer on the bus due to express busing options.  Most of the magnets are in not so great locations, ie poorer neighborhoods with higher crime rates and such.  And while the bus ride might not be longer, a magnet location would be much more difficult for Jason or I to get to, which would make doctor appointments/field trips/parental involvement that much harder.  We went to a magnet school fair, and a couple of the schools really did make good impressions on us, but nothing stood out so much to make us think, oh yes, we need to send Bells there.  So really, we're probably going to end up sending Bells to the default year-round school, which is also the closest to our house.  It's a great school, and I've heard great things about it from a couple moms in my neighborhood (although, virtually every family I've asked sends their kids to different schools, so I could probably say the same about any of the other options.)  And I think it's probably the best choice for our family as a whole.  I just wish I had more confidence that it was the best choice for Bells personally.

Besides the nightmare that is choosing a kindergarten in Wake County, we've been traveling a bunch for the holidays.  We went up to Ohio to visit family for the week surrounding Christmas, came home for about 10 hours, and took off to Myrtle Beach to spend a few days with Mom and Dad for New Years.  Soon we're heading up to Virginia for a couple days to meet our newest niece and celebrate another niece's 3rd birthday.  I think after we finish this next round of traveling, we're going to stay put for awhile.  All of this travel is fun but exhausting.

Annabella and Genevieve are awesome.  They've really played well with each other for a long time now, but recently it's gotten even better.  They play all sorts of imagination games.  They take turns being Mommy/Daddy/teacher/student/Captain Hook/Jake (of the Neverland Pirates)/etc.  They've been building trains out of their MagnaTiles, and using their princess dolls as passengers.  They are both learning more and more about letters/words/numbers.  They both ask a million questions a day, especially Bella.  They still fight like cats and dogs sometimes, but you've got to expect that.

Jas and I are doing well too.  He's been playing an online video game thing with his friends at night for awhile, and seems to really like that.  I go through phases of what interests me, and right now I'm into (don't laugh, it's awesome) Legos and other models.  I don't know how long this phase will last, but I'm really digging it right now.  (Sometimes I'm into painting, sometimes I'm super into photography, sometimes I read for hours and hours a week, sometimes I watch more TV/movies.  A few months of something and I seem to just switch gears.)

So once again I've been busy at work...which means blog updates are few and far between.  I love being busy at work, but I do regret not posting more.  So once again, sorry for the lack of updates.

So what's happened since I last updated?  

Well, my baby turned 2!  How did that happen?  Genevieve is embracing her 2 year old self.  She says she is a big girl, but she still likes to be my baby.  She wants to do everything, and I do mean everything, herself.  She is stubborn and determined and funny and smart and beautiful and I love her to pieces, even when she makes me want to pull my hair out. 

What about my other baby?  Well, she turned 4.  And there is nothing baby-like about her anymore.  Annabella is all long legs and sharp angles.  She remembers everything and loves to play games.  She's still my sweet snuggle bunny.  She has a best friend at school that she loves to see and loves to talk about and misses when she's away.  She's really growing up.

I think Jason posted about their annual check ups.  The craziness was that my tiny little Bella is no longer so tiny.  She's jumped from hovering around the 10th percentile for height up to between the 40th and 50th.  Besides the crazy growth spurt, both girls are healthy and doing great.

There's a ton more, but it's time for me to go be Mommy again. 

Cake Pictures

Jason promised cake pictures.

Quick Update from Annual Checkup

We had our annual checkups for the girls yesterday.  Annabella had 4 shots and handled them very well.  She's been growing like a weed too.  They measured her at the 40th percentile for height and 20th for weight.  Genevieve only had to get one shot, and she's at the 50th percentile for weight and 20th for height. 

The nurse was questioning Bella about the color of things.  Bella, who is still pretty shy around people she doesn't know, wasn't answering at all, or even really acknowledging the questions.  Genevieve on the other hand was yelling out "blue", "yellow", "purple", etc.  I think the nurse probably assumed that if our 2 yr old knew the answers, the 4 yr old probably did too.

Expect a post in the coming days with pictures from their birthday parties.

A few pictures, as promised

Belly Button

Gotta love that crooked smile.

No, I won't look at you Mom.  Quit trying to take my picture already.

About to laugh.

Quick Updates

Jason and I are toying with the idea of moving closer to work.  The commute for each of us is somewhere around 25 or 30 minutes when there's no traffic, but in traffic, it can take a long time.  Throw in a couple screaming kids and the commute can feel like a lifetime.  But we like our house, and we have a lot of good memories there.  So to move, we either need to find something that's just about perfect or is a super good deal.  To that end, we put a super low-ball offer in on a house.  (We offered 83% of the asking price...)  We haven't been outright rejected yet; so who knows, it might come through.

We took Annabella and Genevieve to see the movie Brave in the theater.  It's the first in-theater experience for either of them, and they did really well.  There were a few minutes here and there with talking, but no screaming (besides a couple minutes during the previews where Genevieve wasn't so sure about going into a dark, scary room).  They both ate a ton of popcorn, and seemed to have a really good time.  I think Bella was a little scared at the end though, because she faked having to go potty.  We struggle to get her to sit on the potty normally; so saying she had to go when she didn't is quite out of the ordinary.  I asked her if the movie was scary, and she said yes.  But she wanted to go back and see the rest.  I think she needed a little break is all.

I think I hurt Annabella's feelings this week.  It might be the first time that happened, and I felt absolutely terrible.  Jason was running out to get bagels for work for his birthday.  He woke me up before he left to see if I wanted something.  I assumed that he would know and remember that Annabella loved having a bagel the time I took her after her dentist appointment (notice that Jason wasn't there; so why would he really remember this?), and that he would think to get the girls some too (plus I was half asleep during our conversation, so it was all a  little foggy).  So while he was out, I told them that Daddy was out bringing bagels back for us.  So when he got home, Bella was super excited.  Jason had a panicked look on his face and said that I hadn't told him to get them anything; so he hadn't.  I told him to give the girls mine, but it was too late.  I could see her slump and she looked absolutely miserable.  She was over it after we picked her up from preschool that day; so I really hope we didn't scar her for life.

I think we have new pictures, but they're still on the camera.  I will try to get some up soon.  It's work time for me now though.

Crickets

Did you know that it is nearly the end of June?  That can't be right.  When I look back at my blog, I see the last post was in February.  So it cannot possibly be June already.  I could make all sorts of lame excuses about time flying by and such, but really, I think I just got bored of blogging.  Sorry folks.

So what has happened in the last 4 months?  Hmm.  Well, Annabella started speech therapy to help with some of her word pronunciation.  She's been going for a couple months now, and I'm definitely noticing improvement.  Not only that, but I think she likes talking more now.  She initiates more conversations and will talk about her friends at school.  She's also virtually stopped the wordless wailing she used to do, and will now usually tell us what's wrong.  Now that she's speaking more, we're getting more and more of the funny child logic.  A couple nights ago she was playing with the syringe we use to give her ibuprofen, and she called it boo boo sauce.

Genevieve has started morphing from my sweet little baby into an independent toddler.  She wants to do everything herself, and will throw pretty epic tantrums when she doesn't get her way.  Sadly for her, she is our second child, and her tantrums don't really phase us.  She loves loves loves to tattle on Bella.  Last night Bella drew on the television with a crayon.  We asked them who did it, and Genevieve said "Bella draw, Bella draw" over and over again.  She also loves to tickle us.  It's hilarious; so we laugh, which makes her think it's working so she does it more, and then we have to fake laughing.  It really is cute though.

My house is almost never clean now.  Every time we put in the effort to clean it (which really is pretty frequent), hurricanes Annabella and Genevieve come along and I wonder why we bother.  They love to dump the toys out of their cubby boxes and then sit in them to make trains.  It's a good thing they're so adorable.  (Refer to exhibit 1, below.) 

Jason and I are doing well.  We celebrated our 5 year wedding anniversary by staying at a fancy hotel and getting a fancy meal.  It was my first night away from Genevieve, which was hard, but definitely nice.  The girls made welcome home signs for us and hung them on the door (with help of course) for when we got home.  So sweet.  Jason and I will also celebrate our 10 year dating anniversary this Friday.  I can't believe it's been that long.  

I'm sure there's more, but I gotta gets back to work.  Here's hoping I manage to update again before 4 more months pass.