First Day in the Parks of 2013

SPRING HAS FINALLY ARRIVED! We have had the longest winter ever here in the Midwest and it was really starting to wear on us all. We had gorgeous 75 degree weather this weekend so we happily soaked it in for hours on Saturday at the Lake Harriet park in Minneapolis and on Sunday at our local park here in Ramsey.

The weatherman is calling for snow, yes SNOW, again later this week. I am giving Minnesota a few more months to redeem herself or else we're moving south!

Getting dirty like a real kid should!

Total cheeseball

Couldn't tell whether I liked this one in color or black and white better :)

Great Grandparents

We spent this past Saturday bopping around Uptown and south Minneapolis. We stopped by St. Sabrina's for a consultation to have Eva's ears pierced, which she ended up not being interested in at all, we had lunch at 5 Guys, we grabbed a coffee from Starbucks, we went to Lake Harriet and we made our way over to Bloomington to visit my Grandma and Grandpa.

For those of you who don't know, my Grandma has Alzheimer's. It's progressed slowly over the years and she was moved to a home last year. She has good days and bad days, but my Grandpa is there by her side every single day. Ever seen the movie The Notebook? Yea, that's them. Still just as devoted and in love as when they were married over 60 years ago.  Saturday was a good day; Grandma was in wonderful spirits, she seemed to remember both me and my mom for the majority of the visit and, while I don't think she knew who Eva was, she loved talking to her. They even compared their pretty painted nails- such divas :-)

"Grandmothers are just antique little girls." ~author unknown

Snow Day!!

No really, it was a snow day today. All of the area schools are closed.

I would be saying "snow day!" with excitement... if it wasn't more than half way through APRIL!!! The forecast calls for sunny and 40 degrees tomorrow so this stuff better melt ASAP, but not too fast as we don't want flooding.

Inside my car as I left work yesterday- first time in my life the snow's been so heavy my wipers wouldn't even move)

Belongs on a postcard it's so pretty huh??

Please note my car at the bottom of the driveway... it was not there for convenience, it was STUCK!

It's safe to drive when the stop lights are caked in snow so you can't see what color they are, right?

This is after Jason's snow blowing- that much more fell!

Now I really hate you Tina!!!

Eva's 5th Birthday

As some of you may remember, I used an awesome photographer to capture Eva's birthday party last year.  This year I figured I could handle it on my own. I have the camera and lens, can't be that hard, right? Wrong. What I failed to realize is the time involved. It's not that I couldn't take the shots I wanted, but more than I didn't... because I was too busy talking and running the party and having fun.

Lesson learned. I'll be sure to hire her again for next year's party!

The party was circus themed. It was actually adorable with balloons and candy and red and white stripped everything... not that you can tell from my pitiful few photos but I was proud of the set up. Most importantly, Eva had a blast (and really, that's a million times more important than me taking cool photos).

Party favors

Baba and her cotton candy (oh and her NEW HAIR!)

Uncle Noah rocked the cotton candy machine for us!

Happy faces

This was actually the day after Eva's party at her best friend Sadie's birthday party (yup, they are 3 days apart in age)

Another Wordle

I like to make these randomly to see what "hot topics" we have here at Day in the Parks. No real surprises: Eva, swimming, hearing, school and pretty... sounds about right to me! :-)

Click on the wordle to enlarge

Sprinter

I have no idea what's going on with the weather in Minnesota these days. We have officially coined a new season- "sprinter"- not really spring, not really winter. It's getting a bit ridiculous if you ask me. It's the middle of April and we have a severe winter storm warning for today...

We better have warm weather into November this year to make up for cutting into our outdoor enjoyment time!

P.S. Tina, if you're reading this, I'd just like to say, "I hate you"... and I mean that in the most loving and jealous way possible :o)

Eva Goes to Kindergarten

I feel like I was just helping Eva learn how to walk... and yet, there we were, registering her for Kindergarten last night!  The new school is huge... we're talking over a thousand kids in grades K-5th huge, but somehow it didn’t seem to overwhelm her. Maybe it was because the normal throngs of children weren’t present and it was just kindergartners getting acclimated to things… maybe it was because just as Eva was about to protest leaving me and going with the other kids she saw her bestie Sadie… maybe it was because, like she’s said time and again, she really is just that excited for “big girl” school.  Whatever the reason, the night went wonderfully and I got an awesome vibe from the teachers and administrators.

I may or may not have posted on here about my initial experience with this school from last year. When I called the front office and asked if we could come for a tour I was told, in so many words, that no I absolutely could not and that if I had any doubt about how exceptional the school was all I needed to do was look at their state standardized tests scores. It put a very sour taste in my mouth as I do not think a standardized test is the best way to tell if my child will thrive in a certain learning environment. I wanted to see the actual kindergarten rooms and talk to the teachers and see how Eva would react. We were able to do all of those things last night and it was great… but if I ever find out which office lady was so smug on the phone all those months ago I still might give her what for!

In addition to getting a feel for the school, the main point of the evening was to let parents know where their kids should be academically before the first day of school.  Eva has all but a few of the skills down so we bought some upper and lower case alphabet magnets and will be buying a few of the books they suggested are best for learning letters and sounds, since that's really the last area where she needs some work.  Now that her hearing is fixed I'm hopeful she'll get through her letters and be ready to go on day one :-)

She starts kindergarten in exactly 20 weeks from today! Wow wow and wow...  



The BFFs (Eva's words, not mine lol)



Too... much... excitement... can't... stay... awake.......... 

Eva's Surgery

Surgery is over and, while the first half of Wednesday was no fun at all, Eva is recovering wonderfully. 

She was pretty inconsolable once we got to the hospital and never let go of Jason's neck. When asked which parent she wanted to take her back to the operating room she quickly picked daddy and I surprised myself by not getting that tiny stab of jealously in the pit of my stomach that often accompanies her daddy's girl tendencies.  Jason is such a doting, hands-on dad that I can’t help but love how much she loves him.  Plus, I really didn’t want to have to hold her down while they sedated her, which Jason did end up having to do.

The surgery went well, she had some extra puss build up that they weren’t expecting and the doctor said she had some of the most enlarged adenoids he’d ever seen, but other than that things went according to plan. Oh and the “foreign body” logged in her ear? A damn press on earring! See below for a photo of it.

Coming out of anesthesia was pretty rough, she wailed for almost a good hour but once we got the all clear to head home she fell asleep in the car right away. By about 7:00pm Wednesday night she was up and working on new hula hoop tricks! It amazes me how resilient kids are.

We also noticed that her hearing and speech are better already. She’s said a good 4-5 words in the past few days that I’ve never heard her say before plus she sat down with Jason to work on her alphabet sounds and did much better than she was a few days ago.

We go back for a check-up in a few weeks; I’ll keep everyone posted on how her follow up hearing test goes! Thanks for all the well wishes. Means a lot to know how loved that little rug rat is :o)

  

Heading back

The crying begins

Checking out Annabelle's surgery wristband

I couldn't help but laugh at this one; Eva inadvertently flipping me off but she was pissed at the time. Priceless!

Trying to relax

The nurses were so wonderful, they even put on Pandora's Disney station

Mommy got a little bit of love before they took her away

Leaving with daddy for the operating room

The culprit! This bad boy was in her ear for God knows how long...

Jello makes everything better

So does putting a ball on your head

Dance party with Jax the demon kitty

Letters with daddy

And then this! Freaking 7 inches of snow on Thursday. In the middle of April! Good thing we got to stay home.

Foss Swim School = Da Bomb!

In the midst of all the hearing and ear problems Eva is having, I am happy to report some good news: she is kicking butt at swimming!  We took lessons at our gym for a short time last year but then the teacher we liked left and our day and time slot was dropped and swimming just went to the wayside. I finally bit the bullet and paid for a twice a week intensive swim camp at Foss Swim School and I am blown away by the results. Three weeks into classes and Eva is now swimming independently for 10 feet, flipping over onto her back and floating unassisted, and then flipping back over and swimming the rest of the way to the platform. This all coming from a kid who has always loved the water but has pretty much been a spaz up until this point.  

Also, because every mom likes to be able to brag, I have to share that she already tested out of her current level. Every child learns at their own pace (e.g. Eva is not the greatest gymnast lol) but to put it in comparison, there is a 7 year old boy in her class that has taken this same level 3 times and he didn't test out while Eva, who started the 5-7 year old class when she was still 4, did. I think she may have her Daddy's fishy genes in her!

Excuse the photos, they are not pretty but you get the idea :-)

back float

Cheeeeese!