friday photos. lots of em.

mardi gras party at our neighbors last friday. lots of people, kids, food, drink, crafts, commotion. it was awesome. the girls had a blast, avery found the baby in the king cake and was king of mardi gras!, i parked myself by the buffalo dip that i love and its safe to say after how sick i was, i won't be craving it any time soon.

avery was scrambling to get her crown and mask on before she went down in the basement with the other kids because "i want to look cute". well!

we celebrated valentine's day late. i felt so guilty on valentine's night when avery was near tears b/c she was sad it was over. the girls had school the next day (where they gave and received valentines from their classmates) and we made these delicious pretzels that night. i should clarify and say that avery gave up after a couple and nola stuck with it til the end :)

so good.

nola sporting a headband mema sent the girls for valentine's day. my little girl is growing up...

avery was playing a game. she had her back to me and i was supposed to say (over and over and over) "don't turn around! don't look at me!", then she'd turn around and i'd take a picture. she's really into telling us all what to say and do lately! she was trying to growl, but giggled in the process when i took the picture :)

the playdate with jane. by looking, you wouldn't know nola is a whole 2 years younger than jane ;)

snack time in front of shaun the sheep.

it's friday! zane starts vacation! i have a sore throat! nola hit avery no less than 7 times this morning and laughed after each time out! we have a double date set for tonight! it's sunny out! i want spring! and a nap.

olivia.

olivia newton john, no?

today we had a first! the first time a friend came over and stayed here for a playdate with out the friend's mom! our neighbor dropped her daughter off so she could take her youngest to the dr to get a button removed from the nose. eek. avery, nola and jane had a BLAST playing ballerina, stickers, eating snacks, watching shaun the sheep and hitting each other with balloons. (more pictures to come). after jane left, zane and i were making dinner and i heard avery call: "mama, come here and say 'why is the princess sad?'" she was staring out the window, telling me she missed her friend :(

she got over it quickly though and after dinner, during a break from their dance-a-thon, took this picture of nola and zane :)

i may just hand over my camera to her after all. this might be my favorite picture of these two ever. thanks, avery!

more lysol please

unfortunately, this is a pretty accurate depiction of this weekend. actually, take me out of that chair and put me in bed, immobile for 24 hours and that's more like it. i'm hopefully the last to be hit with this bug and things might start getting back to normal around here soon. there's a good chance i wont be making it to my classes tomorrow night, maybe i can take the time to blog about the good things that happened on friday before all the very, very bad.

hope everyone reading is healthy. this illness has prompted me to become a little ocd about hand washing.

ps, avery took this picture. along with 111 others today. when i finally took my camera off her hands and handed her the pink toddler one she got for her 3rd birthday, she looked so insulted. i said "you like my camera better than yours?" and she answered, "huh, YES, mom!"

spotty.

dancing on the lawn in february. with no snow. anywhere.

i went down to the basement to feed the dogs and my heart did a little flip-flop when i saw what zane was working on :) pads on the bottoms of the girls dress up shoes so they don't break a leg. *love*

yep, just a 60 degree february afternoon, playing outside with vests on. VESTS.

we're gearing up for valentines day. love the reds and pinks and hearts and candy :)

had a meeting tonight for school and was THRILLED to hear some good news. for my practicum next year i have to do an elementary school and a secondary school, which they've always insisted be a public high school. the director has just decided to allow students to do their secondary school practicum in a middle school. for which i have multiple connections. (and high schools scare me :)) before hearing any of this, i was thinking today in the shower (i LOVE being able to take showers in the middle of the day either when the girls are napping OR when they're playing together upstairs. it's a whole new world) that middle school would be a great age to work with in the library and then immediately got frustrated that we can visit middle schools for our pre-practicum observations but not for our 100 hour field study. funny how things work out sometimes...

nola is in the habit of yelling things to us after we put her down at night. there was a phase when something hurt, either her toe or leg or neck. and we'd just have to tell her to roll over and sleep and she'd feel better. now it's either "mama, i like you!" or (tonight's newest addition) "mama, me love you so much world!" :)

avery is a number fool. the other night with zane helping on the 10's, she counted to 77. she's been counting to 12 in spanish for a few weeks now, but just the other day she counted backwards from 10. in spanish. she's also learning how to add numbers together, using her fingers on both hands, but somehow zane told me she counted 10+3 the other day to get 13. definitely got zanes portion of number smarts :)

right before zane just fell asleep he said "we have too much on our plates. there's too much going on. we need to slow down." unfortunately, there is a lot going on but it's not the kind of stuff we can help. work meetings, mtel test, trainings for work, observation hours, preschool tours, etc etc. so, bear with me if posting gets even more spotty!

hello new week :)

if this doesn't show what a sweatheart nola is, i don't know what will...

exhibit A.

exhibit B.

:) we find these little tokens of love all over the house and it warms my heart.

the other morning, zane was playing basketball like usual. the girls and i snuggled on the couch watching the lion king-so not usual. but wonderful.

while there's a ton going on around here, there really isn't much going on. we had high hopes for a relaxing weekend with no plans. instead, we had a pretty crappy weekend-we were all a bit cranky, everything i touched i either dropped or broke, i literally couldn't count or read (which was kind of funny and kind of infuriating), zane worked most of saturday to put all of our cds into an enormous book-taking up far less space, we found mouse "stuff" in our kitchen drawer and had to throw out all our ziploc bags (including the freshly packed blueberry pancakes zane had just made) as well as take everything out from the cabinets to see where the mouse was getting in, we searched for copper mesh pads to plug the holes, only to find them at the five and dime store around the corner. our "nothing to do" weekend ended up being filled with errands (to bjs, to russos, to target and to babies r us) and it ended with nola crying incessantly one night because of "goblins".

whew! i can't believe how glad i was to see the beginning of the week, just so there was hope of a break in our bad streak. i've gotten the ball rolling to set up some of my pre-practicum observations, we finally heard back from the daycare that the girls might start in april (holy cow is child care expensive!), and slowly the house is falling into a disastrous state that no one seems to have the time to remedy.

when i knocked all the blueberries all over the kitchen floor this morning, i thought i was going to lose it, but things aren't all bad. avery wrote a few words today all on her own (mary, pen and bird--MRE, PEN, BRD) and nola counts to 13 all by herself. avery's wearing a plaid christmas dress with striped valentines tights today and it's the most beautiful outfit ever because she picked it out all by herself and got ready alone and was so proud. nola was yelling something after me the other night when she went to bed and when i went up to check on her (and count her for being loud), it turns out she was yelling "mama, i like you!" :)

yay friday!

my head is in about 8 million different places right now. which is the best way to describe this whole week.

the highlights (with some lowpoints mixed in)

*classes started! and with the excitement of one class comes the bi-annual "but i don't WANT to be a teacher" mind game that i like to play. i realize that a school librarian isn't a traditional "teacher", but with every course that's centered around the school part of the school library, i want to run for public libraries. which i may do some day, but i think the best plan is to stick with my program and do my practicum next year and see where that gets me.

*benton library and the small childrens hour they have on tuesdays. went again this week and met our neighbors there. the girls had fun skating on wax paper and making cloth-clothed dolls for the bulletin board. i was able to find a plethora of books for my children's information source class, yay.

*a lunch date with those same neighbors after the library. it was so nice out, the girls all played in the muddy backyard, with no jackets on!

*a ridiculously warm day in january (near 60), so we took the girls to the park and i ran the track. i've decided that i don't care how much i run, how often i run, how fast i run, etc. for this winter, i'm just going to get out there when i can and enjoy the freedom of not having a schedule for it. this spring and summer though? i'm re-dedicating myself. in a lot of ways, i can't wait.

*random stomach bug for avery one night. she ended up sleeping on her elmo couch on the floor next to our bed. every time she moved, i shot up in bed, ready to get the bowl ready for her if she needed it. she never did need it after we all settled down, but the threat was enough for me to get about 3 hours of sleep.

*recent netflix picks: still bill (a bio on bill withers), lonesome dove (i'm a baby about the parts with snakes, otherwise i love it), wild china (which i might have mentioned before-amazing).

*it's friday and i'm finally sitting down to do the homework that i planned on getting done on tuesday. BUT! i finally got in touch with 2 librarians for my pre-practicum observations, only one more to go.

*i think we've figured out what we're doing for childcare on mondays. we still haven't heard back from one of the preschools we saw, and since nola can't start anywhere until march 16th (when she's 2 years 9 months) it just makes the most sense for zane to take some half days until we can get them both in. the good news is that for this semester, there seem to be some holidays that fall on mondays, plus our spring break and zane's school vacations. i have to say, i'm THRILLED (and also a little shocked) that this is the last semester i'm going to have to worry about my class schedule. hopefully next year with the practicum, i'll be able to create my own schedule and not have to shuffle things/people around :) am i really that close to being done?!

insert clever title.

elmer's glue (half empty/full) + acrylic paint = SO MUCH FUN!

chatting about life while eating snow :)

zane and i were downstairs this morning picking up (which, by the way, was amazing! girls playing, quiet, getting stuff done. heaven.) and the girls called us to see what they were doing. putting the dress-up clothes in nola's room was a great move!

the frames dried and the girls wanted to show off their creations. the faces in the frames were all their idea ;)

looking at this post, i love that i have so many pictures of them together. this summer we have plans to put them in one room with bunk beds. zane's brilliant idea? use the crib mattresses (that they still use) and make a bunk bed that fits toddlers. yes, there are some that we could buy, but they're few and far between, and more expensive than we'd like.

this is something that i LOVE the looks of, but it's for twin sized mattresses and i'm not sure if it would still work as a smaller version. (found at www.myfavoriteeverything.com).

i need to go and make the potato soup i forgot we're supposed to have for dinner. but! highlights of the weekend (in no particular order): snow"storm"-about 3 inches, but enough to make things cozy and send the girls to get fresh air and activity, watching "soundtrack for a revolution" on netflix instant play last night-cried through the whole thing, homemade buffalo chicken sandwiches today, white russians, skyping with pittypat and mema yesterday evening, coming to terms with the start of the semester, playdate in the snow with neighbors, visiting a VERY flexible daycare/pre-school but still haven't made a decision.

here's to the start of a busy and great week :)

spring cleaning in the snow!

we got snow! finally some snow! (our snow in october didn't count since it wasn't winter ;)) avery crawled into bed with me a little after 6 this morning and whispered "mom! do you know what i saw outside?! i saw a lot of snow outside!" if zane and i hadn't been up "late" watching a movie and seen it starting to snow last night i wouldn't have believed her. i thought we would maybe get a dusting, but nope. we got snow.

i knew the girls wouldn't rest easy until i took them out to play in it (and i also knew it was supposed to be near 40 today and it would all melt fast), so we bundled up after breakfast and played in the backyard. just seeing how excited they were over an inch or two, i am truly looking forward to a big snowstorm where they have tons and tons of snow to roll around in :)

(and, by the way, avery looks like she's 9. i'm pretty sure she went through a growth spurt in the last week or so, because her shirts are too short and her "long" pants finally fit :))

we followed our snow adventure with some hot chocolate, diego and a trip to benton for story hour with some neighbors. awesome morning.

now the girls are resting, and i made the mistake of logging into my simmons class sites to see if anything was posted for my classes next week. didn't find much, but did come across a syllabus for my "management of school library media centers" class. 47 pages. FORTY-SEVEN.

and now i'm going to clean and purge like a bat out of hell because i honestly don't see me having the time to give a hoot about the house in a couple weeks.

ps, if one of those big snowstorms could come on a monday, i'd be really thankful.

dear diary.

there are times when i feel like this blog has become more of my journal/diary of events and there isn't much substance to it. but, in reality, right now, simply having a place to put all these random pictures and the meanings behind them and our days is enough. i know in a year when i'm wondering what we did last january, i'll be glad i kept this monotonous record ;)

we've been without a table for a while now. zane was putting a coat of laquer (or something...) on top to keep it a bit more safe. it was slowly getting more and more dings and scratches, from cleo's nails, the girls banging their silverware down, and who knows what else.

i can say even though it was slightly inconvenient, we made the most of it and enjoyed our picnics on the floor. the last one was a homemade mexican meal, complete with queso and pacifico. yum.

the other morning, avery came running up to me and said "i made you a heart, mama! take a picture!" :) that's my girl.

the other day the girls got up from their "naps" (ie, avery is quiet for a little then starts to slowly bang around, "whisper" things, make tea-parties for her kitties, and every once in a while sneak to the stairs to see if i'll catch her out of her room. nola, on the other hand, usually passes out once head hits pillow), nola's hair was a rats nest. i could have combed it out, but that would have been painful for both of us, so i piled it as much as i could on top of her head. avery saw it and immediately wanted her hair "in a circle like nolas." they were suddenly transformed into the teenagers i see in my dreams sometimes :)

i had a dentist appointment yesterday morning. it was a cleaning and i went and i didn't cry. if you know me, you know this is HUGE. i did, however, take ativan beforehand (almost 2mg.) now, for anyone else, 2mg of ativan would probably have them snoring and stumbling. i told my hygenist that i could tell i was a bit less nervous, but that my heart was still racing and i wasn't stress-free. she was amazing (she's phobic too and understands completely) and anytime i felt myself tensing up and clenching my mp3 player, i was able to relax myself and let her do her job. i'm clear until july!

i came home to zane and the girls, felt a little disoriented and sleepy, fell asleep on the couch while they were eating lunch and went upstairs to take a 2 hour nap. (hmmm, maybe i should have cleanings every 3 months? ;)) the rest of the day i just felt groggy and a bit down, but luckily a good nights sleep and today i feel 100% and finally excited about having made it through one of my biggest anxiety-situations :) (this is somewhat of a note to myself: ask dr. for something different next time that either kicks in faster and doesn't last at long? i feel like it made my body tired more than it calmed my mind? if anyone has suggestions, i'm open :))

today we've been cleaning and playing in the basement:) add a few layers and we have a whole new playroom.

we put a lot of our messier crafts (glitter, some play-doh, paints, etc) downstairs so we don't have to worry as much about where things end up. this morning the girls decorated some frames to go in their rooms. they got to use glue with pom-poms, glitter, feathers, googly eyes, etc. they had a blast and it was so nice to be able to step back and let them create without the stress of the mess they were making.

we also put their sandbox down there a few months ago when we cleaned off our deck for the winter. they LOVE being able to play with it even though it's cold out. they play a game where it's dusty and the dust makes them sneeze. it's adorable to hear them pretend sneeze and then giggle :) i want to just chew them up when they make up games together that are really only funny to them...

we just have to be careful to put the lid on the sandbox when we're done. cleo things it's her own personal (huge! and wonderful!) litter box if we don't ;)

if you can keep up. or are interested in organizing :)

so we went from this:

and this:

and after a little of this:

we now have this:

and more importantly, this:

my heart feels happy with everything tucked away neatly and labeled accordingly. there wasn't really anything wrong with the cabinet full of dvds (and that first picture was when the dvds were somewhat neat looking), but it took up so much darn space!

again, with the help of pinterest, i found a great solution: dvd sleeves, the ones that fit 2 dvds in them at a time plus the cover. a lot of our dvds only have one disc to them, so we just put 2 different movies with their covers facing out. all of the dvds that took up almost the whole cabinet now fit in 3 small baskets/boxes, (i already had them and they were holding other things that weren't necessary) labeled and ready to be put to use.

:) happiness.

ps, if anyone wants used dvd cases, let me know before thursday when they're going out in the recycling :)

snapshots

i felt terrible yesterday. body aches. chills. headache. no fever. no sore throat. still not sure what that was all about. i don't feel 100% today, but i do feel better. i had grand plans of making glitter with the girls (we tried one recipe and it didn't exactly turn out well), put all the clean laundry away and go grocery shopping for the few things we were missing. needless to say, nothing was accomplished. unless you count laying on the couch, with avery curled on my legs, poking me randomly and asking if it felt good (i won't lie, it did feel good).

but i was able to upload a bunch of pictures from my phone! small miracles.

the girls BEG me to put up their tent every now and then :)

my friend mary brought over late christmas presents for the girls. a bucket full of craft things. *love*

nice boring, white lunch. when i looked down, i saw a face and made it a little more exaggerated. the girls didn't like it as much as i thought they would :)

oh, nola. while they were breaking out the crafts from their buckets, she started licking the glitter and then sticking it to her face :) creativity, right?

letting go. slowly.

i worked in preschool for a number of years. i saw the moms and dads leaving their little ones with tears in their eyes, slowly shuffling towards the door, blowing just one more kiss and pausing outside the window to make sure their child wasn't screaming and running after them.

i never ridiculed the parents for this. i knew it must be hard to leave your kid. but i knew that myself and the other teachers were capable and caring and would keep the class safe and happy to the best of our ability.

then avery went to playgroup. i thought i understood it so much more. "oh, so that's what it's like to leave a little piece of your heart in someone else's hands for a few hours." as much as i loved my break, it was weird to think of avery doing stuff without me there. but i knew her teacher and had known her for as long as i can remember knowing anything. it became easier and easier at drop off (with the exception of the months where avery screamed for me when i left). this year has been amazing with avery and nola at playgroup. they love it. they have friends. they get excited when i tell them it's a school day. they sing the songs they've learned. it's just part of our lives now and it's good.

so. as i've mentioned a million times lately, i start school in a couple weeks and because a class that i have to take before my practicum next year is only offered on mondays at 1pm, we were clueless about what we were going to do with the girls on mondays.

after calling around and doing a little research, we finally spoke to a preschool/daycare in our area. it happens to be the same preschool that i went to. we went on monday to take a "tour" and figure out our options for childcare.

i had no idea there was another level of difficulty with leaving your child! this time, i may know the facility, but i don't know who i'm leaving my child(ren) with! yes, most of the teachers have been there for 15+ years. yes, we were able to talk with a current member/parent and she seemed really pleased with her sons' care. i have no reservations about the quality or whether the girls will like it there. but NOW i get it.

so, probably in february, avery will start going there 3 afternoons a week. and nola? well, she's not 2.9 yet and since there are no openings in the daycare part, she has to wait until april. which really doesn't solve our issue of childcare on mondays. but we'll figure that part out. zane can take some half days. my parents are around until march sometime when they fly south ;) and we have some other backups we can call on if needed.

the nice thing is that we'll probably use this same place for the girls next year, and since we'll already have a foot in the door, we should be almost guaranteed a spot. but what about the next year? will kindergarten be even harder? my baby in a BIG school with a big kid playground. and big bathrooms. where has the time gone?

simple living.

the walsh household is going through major renovations. subtle, but major.

it's funny that it sort of coincided with the new year, because i don't think zane and i were consciously trying to start fresh when everyone else is attempting the same thing. i think it has more to do with last semester and how tough it was to keep things together on all fronts--school, kids, house, time for zane and i to connect and time for zane and i to each have down time.

we're in major simplify mode. it feels a little different than the other times we've tried to oragnize or re-purpose or declutter. instead of "getting the house in order" (we've been using the phrase-now as a joke-for 3 1/2 years now), we're recognizing the importance of keeping things we use and like and getting rid of anything that doesn't fit in our life right now.

i know, sounds simple. but it's been a challenge. we still come across something (a plate, a book, a piece of clothing) and we get caught up in the "but we got that when we were_____" or "but we might want to hang on to that when the girls are teenagers!". the reality is that if it's important, we're probably already using it or have a home for it. if not, we seriously evaluate it's worth and it's value to our family.

i don't know why i'm going on about this. i guess it feels like a big step for us, and already, just by having less "stuff" around, i feel a little lighter and free. this way, in a few weeks when i'm in the thick of project and pre-practicum and running the girls from school to daycare (more on that in the next post) there will be less to pick up, less to clean, less to worry about being in the right place.

it feels so good.

(i have to thank pinterest for part of this :) i feel an obligation, after seeing an organized and clean space, to put some of my jealousy into use. and so i either get zane on board and have him make something (more later) or go to town purging old pictures that have been sitting in a box that i have double of.)

second round of pull-ups, here we come!

new phase around here!

one preschooler fully potty trained (with the exception of night...by the way, when does that happen?!)

one toddler getting the hang of potty training. all by her own doing, i might add.

are we seriously going to be leaving diapers behind in the near future?

and why, in the smallest of tiniest of ways, am i a teeeeeeny bit sad about that?!

seriously though. the girls are growing up. zane and i say it to each other daily, sometimes hourly. you can see it in the games they play, the way they fight, then make up, the conversations they have to us, to each other, to themselves, the fact that naps are few and far between sometimes for the older (moment of silence...), the confidence of the little one and her lessening reliance on avery...

proud to watch them growing, and humbled to watch them growing into caring and respectful young ladies :)

(ps, can you be classified as a "lady" if you wear a pullup on your head like a hat?)

woah.

it's been waaaay too long. i had all these grand plans for our christmas break with zane home. we were going to paint the sunroom. go on a date. i was going to use a free gym pass for a day. we were going to go to the childrens museum. zane was going to varnish our dining room table. none of those things happened. unless you count our date as going out to celebrate our friend james' birthday (i kind of count it since we were out past 7pm, but we weren't alone so that kind of doesn't count. but who's counting?)

anyway, we did have one heck of a vacation, and by vacation i mean "go go go go go go, sleep a bit, go go go a bit more, and on the last 2 days do everything that you can think of to cram into your time off!" it was awesome and exhausting and i plan to blog about all our happenings, but for now, some highlights in the last few days.

we rang in the new year. with chinese food, slippers, some dice, and the morettis who left at 11:15 :) it's a tradition that we get together (they usually come to us) and whine about feeling old and tired and not liking to play games but we do anyway. i think we outlasted some other years, so that was a plus!

i hosted a little playdate here yesterday. it was the best one in a loooong time. the kids are getting old enough to know good and bad behavior and for the most part, everyone brought awesome behavior!

nola's using the potty!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! this one is HUGE, because it happened so suddenly and without our prompting. avery carried the little potty upstairs from the basement last week and ever since, nola's gone to the bathroom whenever avery does. SO PROUD. this morning she was in a pullup at school, stayed dry the entire time and came home to run to the bathroom! i'm still a bit in shock, it's awesome. when they're ready, they're ready i guess :) i'm glad we didn't push her and let her be her own guide.

this is a drawing avery did on one of her christmas presents. this is a sketch of a smiling house. with legs. i was afraid to ask what the circles on the belly were, but it turns out they're bones. and the circles on the legs are knees, of course :) i love her drawings.

on new years day, we took the girls to the park and i went running on the track. it was in the 40s and i was sweating in capris, a tank top and long sleeved t-shirt. 2 days later it plummeted into the 20's for highs, but should be back to the 40's by the weekend. it coincides nicely with my return to running :)

in the upcoming weeks i'm planning on soaking up as much downtime as i can muster. i'm actually dreading my classes starting at the end of the month, but it's fun to think that i'm passing the halfway point and next year will just be practicum and (hopefully, if i can get 2 classes in this summer) no class. i have a paper (front and back) with a list of things to do while i have the time (ie organize and purge pictures on my laptop to clear some space, copy all random recipes onto cards, etc) so i can truly focus when i'm back in school. hopefully i can fit blogging in there too :)