Katharine Lange: February 2017

Wednesday, February 22, 2017

Arwyn Week 87: My Valentine's Sweethearts - 2/16/2017

Arwyn continues to impress us daily with her verbal explosion. She likes to "kai-yer" or color, after meals she needs "a tow-el," and whenever it's time to head outside, she starts yelling about a "dja-djee". This one stumped me for a bit because it sounded a lot like Daddy, but she was very insistent about it when we would be leaving and got frustrated when I brushed it off as saying "Daddy." Finally I figured it out: jacket! Josh and Leia have been watching He-Man and She-Ra, and Arwyn kind of likes it too, and loves to yell out "She-a, She-a!" After being in a great sleeping grove for what seems like a few months now (I didn't want to document it for fear of jinxing it), Arwyn has had a bunch of bad nights of sleep this week. The other day she woke up at 4:15 am and would not go back to sleep, would not let me put her down, and would not stop fussing. I was so exhausted and sick that I had to spend my morning off catching up on sleep, so she totally ruined my whole day! We had a really fun family ski day at Northstar this week, and Arwyn did great on the first run, happy to let go of me for short stents. Unfortunately the whole process of getting there and getting passes took quite awhile, so by the time we started skiing it was pretty late in the morning, and having not napped, she was quite tired right from the start. Plus the run was really long, so I think her little legs got tired. The second run she wasn't too happy, and screamed whenever I let go. The the third run she was tantruming so hard that couldn't hold her up or let her go, and I finally had to carry her down kicking and screaming the whole way. Oh well, lessoned learned, 1-2 runs max down Homerun for Arwyn. Josh and I keep our wedding frog (used for Princess and the Frog Pictures) by our bed, and for sometime now Arwyn has been mildly creeped out by it, but also somewhat infatuated at the same time. We always try to get funny video, and I think have increased her fears in the process, but then Leia totally tortured her with it, and now she's totally freaked out by it. I decided I better get her reacquainted with him so that she wouldn't be permanently scarred, and we had a great session. She's such a little actress like Leia: one minute she's all lovey with the thing, the next minute she's putting on a frightened "act." It's really hard to tell if she's acting or really scared, but either way, it makes us laugh so much! Despite the skiing tantrums at Northstar on Monday, Arwyn was totally recharged and psyched to ski at Alpine by Thursday. Of course it was another bad weather day, but yet again, it didn't slow her down one bit. She still wanted one more run after we thought she was probably too cold and tired. Chasing after Daddy down the hill is just too much fun!

Leia had the biggest heart this week, and it wasn't just because of Valentine's Day. I got a pretty bad head cold this week, and one morning Leia ran upstairs to find me sick in bed without much of a voice. She was very concerned for me and wanted to help. Amazingly, she noticed the bag of Essential Oil On Guard sickness drops that she got for Christmas but didn't like, and said, "Mommy, you need medicine. Do you want some of my special medicine drops?" I realized that she was exactly right about prescribing that particular remedy, and when I agreed to take it, she brought the bag over to me and proceeded to instruct me on how to take it: "Now put that ball in your mouth and just suck on it. Make sure you don't bite it!" So crazy, she literally only tried the stuff one time 2 months ago and spit it out immediately and hasn't looked at the bag since! Then she dragged the stool from my closet over to the sink in the bathroom, managed to pop the tricky lid off my water cup, filled it, got the top back on, brought it over to me in bed, and made me drink lots of water so I would get my voice back. Seriously, this kid is only 3 and half but already to step up and care for me when necessary! Such a sweetheart, I totally melted! She kept checking in on me the rest of the morning to see if I was feeling better and if all her help had cured me. That's the sweet Leia, then there's the turd Leia. Might have been later the same day or possibly the next, but Leia decided to test me when I asked her to sit back down at the table to eat her treat. She looked at me and then willfully ignored me, as well as my next few warnings. She was not too happy when I took that treat away from her. She begged and bargained to earn it back, but the "deals" she was trying to make really weren't good enough, so I held strong. It was back to our old saying, "You'll make a better decision next time." But Leia loves to make a deal, and they are getting particularly entertaining to hear about. This time she wanted to pick up a few random things off the floor, which clearly wasn't enough, so then she dug really deep in her deal wheel bag: "Mommy, give it back to me and I'll share all my clothes with you!" "If you give me back those graham crackers, I'll give you a special choice: pinch your butt, tell Daddy, or give them back to me and we can have a special dance party. And I'll even share my clothes with Arwyn." It was simply amazing, I could hardly hold a straight face. Plus, the entire time she's negotiating, she was also walking around trying to find more items to stack on her chair to reach my unreachable spot. Parenting can be so fun!

Shoveling our flat roof before the huge overhang falls off and kills someone!

Glad we only have this one small section of flat roof!

Power is out at our house, so....Over the river and through the woods to Grandmother's house we go!

Chilly morning stroll in her wedding hat to check if the power came on yet...nope.

Little person on a big berm!

Poppy likes to get adventurous.

Yep, it's way high up there!

Over 30 hours without power, so I had to move everything into our new outdoor double-wide fridge.

Lots of space but the temperature control is not too precise.

Testing out the new paint easel.

Arwyn, I love your painting!

Peek-a-boo, I see you under there!

Works out perfectly, each girl gets a side.

The proud artist next to her work.

Taking another look with a critical eye.

Yep, now we're really getting messy!

Yes Arwyn, your hand turns purple when you put it on your wet paint.

Damn, almost too tall and crafty for my best "out of reach" spot!

Password = Leia

Prepping for Family Ski Day from Katharine Transue on Vimeo.

Getting ready for our first family ski day at Northstar tomorrow. The girls found and put on their boots all by themselves, then came the marching!

New bedtime trick, just give her the headlamp and let her do her thing...whatever it takes to speed up the routine and keep her in bed!

The monitor fairy had to remind her to turn the headlamp off, but I guess she still wanted to sleep in it!

Rolling through Northstar Village in comfort and style!

First time in a Gondola!

She's got her Northstar Bling, and she's ready to fly!

So excited to check out the new terrain at Daddy's mountain.

Password = Leia

Leia Learning About Turning from Coach Daddy from Katharine Transue on Vimeo.

Fun Family Ski Day at "Daddy's Mountain," with Leia working on her turns and snowplow.

Password = Arwyn (below)

Arwyn Skis The Home Run from Katharine Transue on Vimeo.

Arwyn loved chasing down the ski hill after her sister over at Northstar.

Love these guys!

"Uh, excuse me Mom, but I think you have something I need!"

Post-skiing ice cream treat!

Arwyn's wall of "Mine"!

She loves her strawberry ice cream, and it turns out she likes raspberry too!

Daddy's little girl!

Decorating valentines for her classmates.

Arwyn never found a pen that didn't look better on her face than the paper!

Arwyn and I just love this ridiculous hat!

There's just nothing quite like cuddling with your baby!

All ready for Valentine's Day in her new duds!

This is Leia's very special, hand picked, Valentine's Party outfit...supposedly it's different then her regular clothes?

Nothing says love like a big hunk of meat...Happy Valentine's Day to my big hunk of meat!

Hearts and airplanes or surf and turf...either way you want to look at it, it was an amazing meal!

Three stooges?

I'm on vacation this week, so the delicious date nights just keep on coming!

Password = Arwyn

Arwyn Masters Balance, Weather, and Walking on Skis! from Katharine Transue on Vimeo.

The nasty weather didn't slow Arwyn down one bit...working on her walking, her speed, her balance, and keeping her skis under her feet.

We get exciting about eating gourmet meals, but Arwyn prefers delicious snowballs!

High fives all around to celebrate another successful day of storm skiing with my storm troopers!

Dipping your magic wand in your water is definitely the best way to drink...assuming you don't get electrocuted!

First day up the big chairlift with the Summiteers...Leia and Coach Julie.

I tried to hide in the trees and video, but Julie threw me under the bus. But it's ok, Leia loves her class, and is happy to have me join them.

Password = Leia

Leia Makes Big Turns on the Big Chair! from Katharine Transue on Vimeo.

Another bad weather day of Summiteers, but Leia persevered. Had her first day skiing down the big chairlift called Meadow, controlling her speed on the steeper part and making nice big turns across the hill!

Tomorrow's school outfit is all laid out and ready to go (even down to the socks hiding under the shoes)!

Ahi and sake...the happy food dances keep on coming!

Monday, February 20, 2017

Arwyn Week 86: My Little Storm Troopers Conquer the Slopes - 2/9/2017

Arwyn's love of books really took off starting at the beginning of November, but now she's even starting to read them by herself! The other day she had pulled out the "Bandaid Book" that both girls absolutely love, and was literally reading to herself. She would turn the page to the next injury, say "ouch" out loud (like the words on the page say), and then lean over to kiss the owie and put the bandage on it. Too cute! (Thanks again for that book Aunt J!) Arwyn is really into doing anything and everything that Leia does; it has to be the same! The other day she was sitting in a chair, but when Leia came up and sat next to her on the floor, Arwyn got off the chair and moved onto the floor right next to Leia. If Leia wants some special food, Arwyn wants the same thing. And when we were next door playing with Echo but I tried to make Arwyn come home with me to make lunches while Leia got to stay, oh man was Arwyn pissed! She's so cute when someone is in her way and she wants to get past. She says "Beep beep!" and tries to push you over. It's hilarious. After watching the video of her friend last week, she now tries to take over my phone anytime she notices me browsing FaceBook, and starts chanting "Jewya Jewya." She wants more videos of Julia all the time! Her new favorite activity while "helping me" at the kitchen counter is to completely rearrange the silverware drawer. Luckily she mostly steers clear of the knives, and I have to put it all back to normal afterwards, but it's actually a great activity to keep her occupied while I work! We had another week of bad weather for our ski school ski day. It was pouring rain and she was completely soaked, but when I asked if she wanted to ski more or be all done, she said "more"! I couldn't totally understand, so I decided to clarify, asking if she wanted to take another run and she said a very emphatic "Yeah!" Josh had the day off and was able to join us for skiing that day, and Arwyn really liked chasing after Daddy and skiing into his arms. She took a 3 hour nap that day, which she has been doing on ski days because she gets so exhausted, so that has been really nice for us. Unfortunately, she woke up pretty cranky that day despite the long nap, so clearly she even more exhausted than usual. Arwyn has started making the funniest faces, like all different emotional expressions (surprise, shock, disgust, etc.); she seems to be following in her sister and father's thespian footsteps! She's also been doing so much loud babbling, as well as making these really funny fake sounding laughs that crack us up. She's also been hiding her bottles all over the house. One minute she has it, the next minute it's not in sight and you spend an hour hunting only to find in inside some random bag or backpack. There is still one bottle that has been missing for over a month now, which will surely be so disgusting if we ever find it!

Leia had another long weekend of playing well with Echo. I was so impressed how well she was sharing with her day after day, even lending some of her favorite princess clothes for dress up. Then all of a sudden, no more! All of a sudden she wouldn't share anything and had a huge meltdown tantrum. Luckily she managed to recover well, apologized to Echo, and they still managed to have a good time playing for the rest of the day. Leia got a new ballet dancing book from Grandma, which has all sorts of classical ballet music on a CD that she's been dancing to like crazy. I'm still so impressed by her ballet improvisation moves! I like to listen to NPR on the radio in the car, but usually when the kids are in the car I can't actually listen because they are talking or screaming so we just change to music. Recently, however, I've managed to keep the volume loud enough on NPR to actually listen even when the kids are with me, and apparently Leia's been listening too because she picks up on things they say and asks me about them. "Mommy, they just said stupid on the radio!" One time she asked me, "What does duty mean?" Initially my mind jumped to poop/dog duty, etc because of Leia's potty talking she picks up at school, but then I realized they had just been talking about an "off-duty fire fighter" on the radio. It was cool that she picked up on that and was able to ask me about it, and I'm thinking she too focused on the word "duty" because of potty talk but realized that wasn't how the word was being used at all. Grandma was so generous to get Leia a few new ballet leotards because she was always upset that I wouldn't let her wear the one she had if it was dirty with pee. It was a really great idea, but of course this was Leia we were talking about so we should have known it wouldn't work. She now has 3 great leotards to choose from, but likes the new pink one the best, so she's still throwing tantrums when it's dirty! Plus, the girl has a closet full of great clothes, but likes to wear the same thing every day, and she's down to only 1 skirt that she currently likes, so that's another tantrum if that one gets dirty too! Oh the life of a 3 year old! As I mentioned earlier, it was pouring rain at ski school this week, and barely a handful of kids actually showed up for the class, so Leia had a private lesson. Shockingly, she had so much fun all day, despite the horrible weather! Her clothes kept her dry, and she had a spare pair of mittens, and they took a fair amount of breaks, so she stayed surprisingly comfortable. I even went out to get her early when it looked like she might be done, but she said no, she wanted to ski more after another little break. It was great because she made progress on her turning skills, and she even skied through her first set of gates! She and this other little girl were the last ones standing at the end of a long wet morning! When we picked her up she said she "had so much fun!" She also said she still had so much energy because she had eaten all of her snack, but later, after also waking up from a 3 hour nap, she admitted "I'm exhausted!"

Tea party in Daddy's Snow Palace on Daddy Day!

Arwyn loves to be a big girl now and carry her own lunch bag!

Don't know what it is about Saturdays that makes me want to bang my head against a brick wall over and over and over...couldn't be these two cuties could it??

This adorable vest has been in her closet for a year. Today it was finally deemed worthy to be worn as an accessory to her favorite skirt and leotard!

Best part about haircuts is getting the braid at the end!

Seriously, it's like she's a rockstar in training or something!

Arwyn is loving playing with all the big girls!

There are two humans somewhere in this bed...it's like a game of Where's Waldo!

Giggling wrestle party!

Password = Arwyn

Arwyn's Twister Jumps from Katharine Transue on Vimeo.

Arwyn trains for the ski slopes with her huge twister jumps!

Arwyn's favorite item of furniture...she's very adept at moving it all over the house as needed, and it serves as a great table when she's done climbing on it.