Couldn't think of a good title for this post, so I just used the date...
Two weeks ago, I decided to take a stay-cation from work. A couple vacation ideas for the spring didn't really pan out, and suddenly I found myself bumping up against my PTO ceiling (200 hours!) at work. Well, I never wanted to be one of those people who don't use their vacation days. So I took a week off. It was great. I really have not had many opportunities to be alone with Willow for 8-9 hours at a time (it's true, but sort of sad too). It was challenging, but also very fun. The weather wasn't great, but we did some exploring in the woods behind out house, played a lot, and went to storytime, the treehouse and KidFit at BHK (a first for us). Good times! In the meantime, I finally had the time to plan a real vacation - we're going to NYC over Memorial Day weeked to visit cousin Jen. We're super excited!
Here are a few photos of winter's last stand in our yard. These are from a few weeks ago now - Mid March.
I love this one of Scout, enjoying one of the last snow patches in our yard. That dog has always loved snow.
Here are a couple of Willow. I had to include the one that shows off her Elmo undies.
Speaking of undies, I will admit on this blog that Willow isn't potty-trained yet. I never thought I'd be saying that at age 3. We started training her so early, I totally thought we'd have it by now. My excuse is the chronic runny poo, though not sure if I can really use that or not. See, if Willow is bare-bum, she will always go on the potty, poop or pee. By herself with no prompting. So it's not like she can't hold in the poop. But if you put a diaper or undies on her, for some reason she feels that cloth on her bum and thinks it's OK to just go. Even if you ask her if she has to go, or try to just put her on the potty, she resists heartily with kicking and screaming. It's not socially acceptable for a kid to leave the house with no pants on, so she still goes in her diaper anytime we are not at home. If anyone has any tips, please let me know. I am so sick of potty training!
Here's a family member who doesn't make the blog very often. When we got Daria from the pound, her little bio said "Daria loves to watch the birds outside the window". She still does. If you look closely you can see there's a little pinesiskin in the feeder.
The weekend after my staycation, Grandma Jean and Aunt Jill came for a visit. Here is a cute photo of the two of them having a tea party with Willow.
Last weekend Seth, Beth and our friends Scott and Sharon came over for sushi. Scott and Sharon also have two kids, and Sharon brought some eggs and stuff for the girls to decorate them. They have chickens so these eggs were super fresh. They're also brown, which made the coloring a little difficult, but they still turned out awesome. These crack me up.
I didn't get a decent photo of the girls with their eggs, so here is the best one I got that night (which is still not that good). Towards the end of the night we put the kids in front of a video to prolong the fun (for the adults). Here are Garrison (2), Aspen (4) and Willow.
Willow played with her eggs some more the next morning.
Also last weekend, we had a lot of outside fun. We went for a hike on the Chassell ski trails. We brought the baby carrier, but ended up not using it - we let Willow walk the whole time, and we went at her pace. So we only ended up going about a mile, but it was pretty cool to just let her lead the way. She had a blast.
A beetle that Willow befriended.
Later that day, my mom watched Willow and Josh and I went biking! It was so great to get out there again. I am very out of shape though, whew!
We're still on the dairy-free diet here...we just stopped the probiotics to see if just going dairy free alone would make any difference. It's all about experimentation, I guess. On the plus side, we brought Willow in for a check-up and she was up to 24 pounds. She's tiny, but is following a curve so we try not to worry. Her doctor's new theory is that Willow's gut flora got all screwed up from all the antibiotics that she was given when she was in the NICU. It actually seems like a pretty plausible theory. I'm currently reading a book about a diet the doctor recommended that helps heal the gut flora. Not sure yet if we'll actually go through with it or not.
Happy Easter / Happy Spring to everyone!
