Scents

Austin must have my scent from partaking my breast milk only. Part of Victoria's obsession of holding my hair is my scent. She loves to hold my hair to her nose and breathe it in while she sucks her thumb. Recently, she's only been holding my hair at night when I tuck her in bed because she gets her "fix" from sucking her thumb while lying real close to Austin and breathing in his scent. I'm enjoying the break from my hair, though she still doesn't want me to wear it up!

She's not even as close in this pic, but I thought it was cute with him looking at her!

This is when she was 2.
This is when she was 3.

With Victoria in school during nap time, and me not having had to drive to school last week, I had free time that I haven't had in a very long time! I caught up on house work and yard work, started making quilts for the bunk beds, and even mowed the lawn (which isn't a quick process in our big yard)! But I've also been worried about Victoria in school. At the beginning of the week I actually had a nightmare about her behavior in school. After the scissor incident last week and seeing how hyper she was in her class at church, I dreamed she was a really disobedient student, which was disturbing to me. On Monday, I actually called the mother who drove last week to voice my concerns over Victoria's behavior in the car. I let her know she could punish her if Victoria needed a firm hand.

Monday after school Victoria was way hyper, but the rest of the week she was an angel in the car and good in school as well, at least I assume she was since I didn't hear otherwise. Then I realized that my nightmare was nothing more than just being extra worried, as any mom is over any new stage in her children's lives. New mothers worry about their babies gaining enough weight and their belly buttons looking normal (these are worries I've been reminded of by a friend who is a new mother), mothers with kids in school worry about their children misbehaving, and mothers with teenagers worry about things I don't even want to think about yet!

Victoria does have a lot of energy and can be disobedient around her parents, but she does well with other people and she likes to play the role of different characters. I know she will play the "role" of a student well.

Here's just a cute picture of Austin.

First Day of School

Last Tuesday was Victoria's first day of school. She's going to a charter school this year so she can be in a program called "Fantastic Fives". Since the deadline for school here in Michigan is December 1, they offer this program here as a pre-kindergarten for kids who have birthdays in the fall or winter and may not be ready for kindergarten. Not to say that Victoria isn't ready for kindergarten, we just wanted her to be a little more mature before going to kindergarten since they do require kids to be reading by the end of kinder, rather than first grade like it used to be, and we didn't want to have her be discouraged if she didn't catch on right away.

After seeing her classroom and reading what her teacher has planned for them, she basically is in kindergarten! They meet every day for a half day, they sit at desks, they will have homework, and have already started reading sight words! Of course it is not as fast pace as the kinder classes are now, so she will get to go to kinder next year and really be prepared for it.

Two things with a charter school that are different for us are 1) she gets to wear a uniform (unfortunately, it's not pink, but she has done a good job wearing it so far) and 2) the charter school is 30 minutes away, but luckily we are in a carpool with 2 other kids, so it works out well and the kids have fun driving down together.

Victoria likes going to her new school, even though she was tired by the end of the week, which was proven by the fact that she deliberately disobeyed her teacher on Thursday by not putting away her scissors when asked to, and actually took them out on purpose, while giving the teacher a defiant look! (according to Victoria's friend.) She was pretty mad when her teacher took the scissors away, but I'm glad it happened so she can learn from it. Fantastic 5s is serious stuff!

Abuelo was here this week as well, and we enjoyed having him here!

Mackinac Trip

We just returned from a lovely family vacation to Mackinac City and the Upper Peninsula for our last hoorah before Jason starts school on Tuesday. Some of the things we did were: going to the indoor water park, though we didn't actually go in it since the loud splashing and huge buckets of water scared Victoria and Karissa, swimming in our hotel's indoor pool instead (which was the perfect temperature!), playing in the sand at Lake Huron, playing at the park, eating yummy food and desserts, hiking Tahquemenon Falls, visiting Soo Locks, visiting a lighthouse, and miniature golfing. We stayed up way too late each night, but at least the kids slept in somewhat, even Austin!

The best parts about the trip were: having fun with the family, walking around the town to our activities in perfect 70 degree sunny weather, seeing 4 of the Great Lakes, and paying a very good price for our hotel!

I suggest you come to Michigan, not just to see us, but to visit this little dream vacation area. We had a lake front hotel that inlcuded a full free breakfast, and huge jacuzzi tub, a balcony (not facing the water though), and access to a free indoor water park for $69 a night! It was the Hamilton Inn, but all the hotels in the area had good prices like that. Now, if you wanted to stay on the island, you'd pay more, but we felt we were living life pretty good at our hotel, so come and try it out!

Funny moment:
When we first got to the smooth lake, we unpacked the sand toys and started playing at the water's edge. Suddenly, the ferry boat that takes people to and from the island came whizzing up to the loading area, about 40 yards away from us, and turned around to back into the dock. It caused all these 2-3 ft. waves, which, when you're two, seem pretty big when you're at the water's edge! I was helping Karissa wash off her hands in the water, so luckily I was able to lift her out of the way quickly, but when I turned, I saw all the sand toys, and Austin's carseat (with him in it!), in the midst of all the water and floating away! Actually, as I looked, Austin wasn't floating away, but I thought he would! So we quickly gathered all the sand toys and Karissa stayed far from the water for a long time!

Austin Update:
On our trip, he had his 3 month birthday. He has started rolling over more, is quick to smile and laugh, and he weighs 14.5 lbs! That's 2.5 lbs. more than Victoria at that age!

Thumper

This morning at 4:30 I woke up to a constant "thumping" noise. As I lay there trying to figure out what it was, I realized that it was Austin lifting his legs up and thumping them down. I could hear his diaper crinkle as he lifted his legs up. It went like this: lift up and "thump", lift up and "thump", lift up and "thump". He was wide awake, but at least he didn't wake up the whole house and he did go right back to sleep after I nursed him.

Austin still loves his baths, to be outside, music, and rocking out on his bouncer seat. He has also gotten into the habit of sucking on his hand. He loves his baths so much that he will laugh as I take his clothes off, in anticipation of the event. He kicked for ten minutes straight, splashing me with the 1/2 inch of water there was, during a recent bath. His eyes were as big as quarters and his mouth was in an "oooh" shape as he flapped his arms and kicked like crazy. Maybe he'll be a swimmer like the rest of his mom's side!

Lost and Found

On Tuesday we enjoyed going to the temple for our Stake Temple day. The kids were at the church across from the temple, with me and other kids and moms the first two hours, and with the next shift of moms the second two hours. Victoria and Karissa had a ball, Austin didn't know the difference, he was just glad to have me back to nurse him on time, and Jason and I got to go through a session together! Since we were near the only Baja Fresh in the area that we know of, we decided to eat dinner there to finish off the day (it's one of my favorite places to eat!) When we returned, we didn't see Yoda (our cat). We assumed he must have been out when we left, but we didn't worry about it. We thought he'd be home soon , or in the middle of the night, as he sometimes does when he's out on the town. When he wasn't home the next morning, we got a little worried.

Yoda is a different cat. He doesn't even jump over baby gates, let alone a fence without something to jump off of to give him a boost! He's never gone more than 12 hours. He likes to come home to rest and eat, though I prefer it that way so he doesn't get into too much trouble. He is a big cat, 13 lbs., and has his claws.

The last time we "lost" him was in Delaware. He was gone 3 days and it turned out he was "stuck" in our next-door-neighbors' garage! (He actually wasn't "stuck", just too freaked out to leave the garage when it was open.) So this time, Wednesday morning, the kids and I went to all the neighbors in our cul-de-sac and asked them to open their garages in case he was "stuck" in one of them. We had no luck, but there were two left we were going to do later when the owners returned. One of them was Victoria's friend Bethany's house. When they came back we played in their backyard for about an hour. When we left they opened their garage for us, though we didn't see or hear Yoda. The next morning I was worried sick. I thought maybe someone who didn't know him called someone to pick him up. I gave his information to the police station and found directions to the local humane society. While I was getting ready in my bathroom with my window open, I heard a weird screeching sound, a dog bark, and a scream. Minutes later Bethany's mom called me and told me Yoda was in her yard attacking her dog! When I went over there, Yoda was in the corner of their yard, (our yard was right on the other side, he could have eaten our grass through the fence!) molting and hissing at the dog. I was scared to pick him up, he was so freaked out. I helped get the dog back into their house and when Yoda calmed down a bit, I picked him up and took him home.

So he was next door, probably in their garage at first since we didn't see him in the yard when we were there Wednesday, and couldn't get home because he could not jump over the fence! We think he's a little wimpy, but we love him anyhow. The next time he goes missing, I'll not sweat about it. He'll just be stuck in someone's garage or yard again!

Correction

My husband called me on my spelling blunder of "stalker". That's what I get when I'm in a hurry!