Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! First a bit of catch up, as it's been some time since I posted. We've managed to stay quite busy recently. A couple of weekends ago we ventured to Pennsylvania to visit Don's cousin and her family. They live about two hours from here. On the way there we took a brief detour to an outlet store to get Miss Milan her first pair of big girl tennis shoes. Now that she is walking she needed some outdoor shoes. Given that she has XW feet like her brother, the Stride Rite brand loyalty continues. Thankfully there are many Stride Rite outlets in the area so we are paying less than half of what we paid in Omaha for the kids' shoes.
The kids had a great time playing with their cousins. Mzee, Modi and Jenna get along great and Milan had a good time too. Jenna loves to eat lemons, and so Mzee wanted to try too. He actually liked it, as seen in the picture below. It was great to get together with family, the food was great and a good time was had by all. I'm sure there will be many more trips to PA in our future!

The next day was Super Bowl Sunday and as the weather was good, we went to our neighborhood playground, which is really a wonderful place! Milan had to get used to her new tennis shoes. It was as if she was learning to walk all over again. The kids had a great time. The picture below is of this great "airplane" the kids can ride on. It moves back and forth along a beam while Mom or Dad turns a big crank to make it "fly". This was a big hit and gave Mom a work line. The playground also has a zip line type thing the kids can hang on and slide from one platform to another. Mzee was begging to try it and when I finally lifted him up he let go in no more than two seconds. When I asked him why he let go, he responded in his matter-of-fact way, "Well, Mom, I'm just not that strong."

trying out my new shoes

After the playground that day we headed home for the Super Bowl. We had our own little Super Bowl party. Of course, Mzee and Don were rooting for the New York Giants, "the home team." They were both very happy when the Giants one. Mzee has a new "Giants Superbowl Champions" t-shirt that he was very proud to wear to school!

This past weekend Mzee and I were busy in the kitchen. He helps me make Grandma's Waffles every Sunday morning and this weekend we also made valentine sugar cookies. He loves to help me in the kitchen and Milan is starting to enjoy it too. She sat at the table with a bowl and some measuring spoons having a great time while we rolled out the cookies. We thought it would be fun to give her a little flour to mix. Milan thought it would be fun to eat the flour though. Whoops! We all had a great time baking the cookies!

Mzee loves putting on this hat and his Diego backpack and going on adventures around the house!

This week we've been busy with Valentine's Day preparations. Mzee and I worked hard to make out Valentine's for a few friends and family and his class at school. He also took cookies for each of his class mates. Tonight he brought home quite a variety of valentines and candy. His class made cupcakes at school today and had a great time on Valentine's Day. Mzee also got a great package from Grandpa in the mail today. A new side dump semi truck, just like the trailers Grandpa's company makes. Mzee was so excited to get a package and loves his new semi truck. He called Grandpa and Grandma tonight to tell them Happy Valentine's Day and thank Grandpa for sending the semi.

Mzee has told us several times recently that, "My teacher thinks I'm too much." I can only imagine the types of things he says at school that cause his teacher to say this. He is always coming up with something interesting to say. I had a brief conversation with his teacher this morning and she said he has really adjusted well to his class. He participates in their "meetings" each morning and ALWAYS has something to contribute during them.

Milan is learning new words all the time, she now likes to say "Knock Knock". Mzee is really into knock knock jokes lately and Milan has picked up on this so often says knock knock to start a joke. Milan has also become quite possessive, so we are working on sharing. She brought her first craft project home from daycare this week, a heart craft that was adorable!

I've been in orientation all week at work and participated in a great Collaborative Negotiation training class the last two days. It was a great class and I really learned a lot! Other than that we are all well here, I hope you are all well where you are!

A Quick Update

This week Milan started back to daycare two days a week. We were a bit worried about her transition, but she has done very well. She's been out of daycare for nearly two months and is very attached to Don. However, the daycare provider said she only cried off and on for the first 20 minutes or so the first day and then was fine the rest of the day. When Don picked her up she was "reading" a book by herself!
The daycare provider said she is doing great, eats well (which we knew), but she seems quite concerned that she won't eat vegetables. Milan has always been a good eater but specific about what she will eat. So, we'll see.
Milan has been starting to use her own spoon and Don and I realized that she will eat things on the spoon that she won't eat by using her fingers, so this could be the solution for the vegetable issue for the time being. At least until the novelty of the spoon wears off.
Mzee had a great week at at school. He got a great report from his lead teacher today. He got to watch a movie about healthy fruits and vegetables today and they also talked about the groundhog! Last night he was talking about his "new best friend" - one of the boys in his class.
Don has been busy this week working through all the paperwork, scheduling of inspections of the cars, etc. required to insure and license our cars here. It's definitely not an easy process, and will take us some time to get everything sorted. New York seems to require a LOT of documentation with respect to licensing a car and securing insurance. The good news is that it seems licensing a car is much cheaper here than in Nebraska!
Happy Groundhog's Day!