L&A Years 4&2 Week 17: Fall Fun - 10/19/2017

Leia asked me this week about implementing the calendar idea for tracking our Mommy Time like I had previously suggested.  Now she knows that I will make up each missed session, so she's not getting so upset when we miss one.  I have her mark each day in the calendar with an "L" so she can see that we're on track and she's getting all her makeups.  She really loves marking that calendar by herself.  I am definitely noticing a big difference in both kids behavior after only 2 weeks of just adding Mommy Time, which is so rewarding!  We went to a little art show at the Rec Center to see my friend Dan's photography on display, and both kids had a great time.  It's cool to watch Leia because she really likes looking at the art work on the wall and picking out her favorite.  I was really impressed with Leia's social skills this week when she got Echo to play with her AND have fun together even after Echo made it clear that she didn't want us to be there when we stopped by one day.  We went on an adventure down to Taylor Creek in South Shore to watch the salmon spawning.  Leia had a blast on the little adventure trail walk, but her favorite part was picking wildflowers and making little arrangements at our picnic lunch afterwards.  I've been pretty set in my decision to keep the girls sleeping in separate rooms because they are one somewhat different sleep schedules and I want both of them to get really good rest.  Leia, on the other hand, wants desperately to sleep in a bed with her little sister.  She put up such a fuss about it one day this week that I had to compromise and agree to sleep with her myself!  Maybe we'll think about sharing rooms when Arwyn turns 3 and starts sleeping in a big girl bed, but for now, sleep is way to precious in my book!

Arwyn finally took a few naps longer than 40 minutes this weekend and didn't wake up super pissed.  Hallelujah!  She's still getting really tired though lately, but it's cool because she actually tells us that she's tired before she gets to the tantrum stage, "Mommy, I tired."  Unfortunately, I wasn't able to put her right to bed the first time because she hadn't eaten dinner yet.  The second time was odd because we were on a long car ride and she had only just woken up a couple hours prior.  Again we weren't able to put her to sleep (too much action in the car for her to fall asleep), so then she got into her super cranky "can't make a decision mode" right when we arrived at our fish watching adventure.  It was quite a task to get her calmed down and help her catch her second wind.  I used our never fails Yeti scare tactic, which both worked and backfired because then she spent the rest of the time fixated on finding and saying hi to a Yeti!  Arwyn had another awesome "Hi Honey, I'm home. I missed you. I made you monies!" session on Sunday evening.  Watching her act that little scenario out never fails to make you smile!

Leia pointing out her favorite piece of art in this section of the art show.

Both girls also enjoyed this one.

Leia liked the town scene on the right, but I preferred the one on the left.

Time to pull out the costume box and play dress up!

Here we have a Yeti Navy Captain with fairy wings!

So fun to see yourself being silly!

Dr. Leia taking patient Arwyn's temperature with her "digital thermometer."

Daddy taught them the simple pleasure of graham crackers dipped in milk.

Leia even makes sure to hold it in the milk for a count of 3.

We are finally smiling, on the path, and moving in a forward direction looking for Yetis!

It was pretty crazy to see all the fish.  They were literally packed in the creek like sardines in a can!

Not sure if Arwyn or Leia really knew what they were looking at or not.

Fun family picnic at the Fallen Leaf Lake Campground.

It must be Poppy's lucky day...nice back rubs from both granddaughters while enjoying his favorite drink!

Then Arwyn decided to share the wealth, rubbing both me and Poppy at the same time.

Special treat from Nana...Astronaut Ice Cream!

Even Leia liked the Astronaut Ice Cream!

Practicing her flying skills for when she transforms into Super Girl on Halloween!

Love this little cutie glittering in the sunlight and tall grass.

Leia and Emmett made some beautiful bouquets with all the wildflowers they collected.

Very happy with the treasures she was collecting and the little game she was playing with herself.

3's company or 3's a crowd?  Either way, they're all cute.

Still fun to jump in the fall leaves even if no one rakes them into piles.

Beautiful multimedia art by Leia that she gave to Arwyn to hang in her room!

Nice cutting job with scissors by Leia!

A little hard to see, but I love this one by Leia because it's one of her first pictures of a "scene."  Ground, people, blue sky, and a sun!

Leia's first time drawing hearts!

This one isn't too exciting, but it shows how much better she's getting at coloring in the lines.

Masterpiece by Arwyn!

This one really makes me happy because Leia finally drew some real (or closer to real) "E's"!  Plus she got the dot on the "i" right.

Decorating a pumpkin.

This one is a scare crow.  Leia's teacher told me she's very good at the "teacher modeled" art projects, and this one very clearly demonstrates that she is!

L&A Years 4&2 Week 16: Arwyn Calls Us From Bed - 10/12/2017

Arwyn's big milestone for the week was that it was the first time that she called out to me to get her out of bed when she was ready in the morning, as opposed to just crying.  "Mommy, come get me out!"  Pretty cool.  I also was finally able to do some more regular Arwyn/Mommy Special Time sessions with her this week.  The first time I pulled out the puzzles that she had never really done before and asked her if she wanted to do them.  She totally loved it!  She was so proud of herself every time got a piece in correctly.  Now that's her activity of choice for every single Mommy Time session.  Nana was finally back from her vacation, so when we told Arwyn that Nana was taking her to music class, she was so excited.  She kept saying she was going to have "Special Nana Time."  Clearly Special Time is a big deal in our house these days!  Arwyn still hasn't kicked that moody tantrum phase, which is disappointing.  When she gets fired up, she just doesn't know up from down, she sends you back and forth and nothing makes her happy!

Leia is also really loving our Special Mommy/Leia Time.  I've been very consistent with her, doing it every day.  We tend to do it first thing in the morning before Arwyn wakes up because it's easier, but now Leia just expects it then and gets super pissed if I try to tell her we can't do it right then.  She's also not liking the idea of missing any sessions, even though I reassured her we'd be making it up on a different day.  She totally lost it one day when Arwyn came up too early and interrupted our special time before the timer went off.  Even though I can already tell this is a good thing, it's definitely taking some hard work and a lot of trial and error to implement it in a way that's going to work for us!  I've totally had it with the constant state of disaster that is our house, so I finally took a day off and tried to cleanse and organize Leia's room.  Josh and I both agreed that the thought of trying to clean her room was overwhelming even for us, so clearly impossible for her.  We got rid of lot of junk, organized a lot of stuff, and made her room look great again.  She was so happy to come home and see her room all cleaned up, that she instantly set right to work finishing the few things that I hadn't completed.  She was very excited to organize all her little treasures (I didn't throw it all away!).  And now that she had a clean room, she did a great job the rest of the weekend putting stuff away right after we were finished playing with it because she actually knew where stuff belonged.  Hopefully she'll keep up the good work in the long run, now that it's more manageable, but we'll see.  Leia was so excited that Nana and Poppy were back home.  She wanted to go see them the second she got out of school, but they were already asleep (east coast time), so she had to settle for the next day.  I think we've been to their house every single day that they've been home now!  I guess the kids really missed them!  Leia always wants to get lovey and sit right next to Arwyn first thing in the morning even though Arwyn needs her space and wants nothing to do with Leia for the first 30 minutes of the day.  Not understanding why Arwyn is ok with it later in the day but not in the morning, Leia always pushes the issue and it's pretty much a daily fiasco.  One day this week I finally convinced Leia that the fastest way to Arwyn's heart was to just leave her alone.  She tried it out, it worked perfectly, and before she knew it Arwyn was begging for her attention.  It only lasted for one day, unfortunately, so I guess I'll have to keep trying to remind Leia to play it cool.  It's so funny to watch the two of them deal (or not deal) with their mood swings.  Usually they love playing together and get along so well, so it's so confusing for both of them when the other one suddenly wants a little space, even though they both do it to each other at some point in the day.  But they are so close, I know eventually they'll learn how to read and deal with each other's moods.

These two cuties love snuggling in bed.

Birthday dinner for Josh...he was very proud of his very fancy and professional quality grill marks!

Our two little french chefs helping with breakfast!

Big thanks to Auntie M for these authentic aprons straight from her tip to France!

"Grande" smiles from the Petite Chef!

She really looks up to her big sister!

So fun to play in a clean room.  And Leia's clothing choice has been so chic lately!

Fun to run in the leaves! And Arwyn's clothing choices have have become very interesting lately...today she chose to wear her swimming pool wrap as a sweater vest!

Daddy was very excited to share his new toy with the girls...but let's be clear, it's Daddy's toy!

They love their movie snuggle time with Daddy.

The fall garden...Josh worked very hard and just added many new plants...not to mention his constant war with the moles!

Josh was so excited that his drive actually landed on the green on a par 4!! (Squaw Creek Hole #2)

Twice in one game!  Another par 4 where his drive landed on the green! (Squaw Creek Hole #12)

L&A Years 4&2 Week 15: My Little Artists - 10/5/2017

Leia and Arwyn continue to test us and make being a good parent so challenging!  We've had too many weeks in a row of problems that we don't feel like we are handling well, so we finally signed up for another parenting class.  After the first lesson, I was pretty happy with the course content and knew we'd be getting some good solutions, but there is a lot to cover, and we aren't very far along yet.  Leia keeps spitting at us, and you can see the look in her eyes, "Yep, I just spit.  So what are you going to do about it?"  We've only had 2 sessions of our class, so I just don't know what to do!  Finally I swept the dust out of my brain, saw a parallel with some of the new stuff we are learning about attention, and remembered our old tricks.  They are trying to get our attention in a negative way, so "Active Ignore" should be the best solution.  It really worked, Leia really hasn't spit since trying it out.  We also implemented another new trick from our first class, called Mind, Body, and Soul Time (aka 10 minutes per day of Special Leia/Mommy one on one time), and just like the teacher promised, we are seeing immediate results.  Leia is already much more cooperative and less whiny/needy.  She has decided that she likes to play Barbies for our special time.  Of course, it's still a learning process for me.  The first day she was really upset that it was so short when the time went off after 10 minutes, but she quickly learned that I will be consistent and she's going to get to do this again and again every day, so it's ok that it has to end.  She does need a little warning that it's about to end, so I have to give her an extra minute at the end.  Then we ran into another problem because there just wasn't enough time in the morning to do it on the school days, and she was very upset.  I kept trying to tell her that we would have a make-up session on the weekend, but that didn't appease her, so we compromised and had a 3 minute session.  Clearly we have to work out the details and come up with some mutually agreeable solutions in order to make this work in the long run.  We went to our friend Liz's house warming party this weekend.  It only took Leia a little while to warm up and make some new friends, and next thing we knew she was running all around playing with everyone and was totally independent.  The best news of the week happened on Sunday.  The stars totally aligned, and Leia actually slept until 7:15 am!!  I was one happy Mommy with my extra sleep!

Arwyn is following in her sister's footsteps with the whole spitting thing.  I got her to stop and apologize once, but then she went at it again, continuing to test me over and over to see what I would do.  Once I figured out how to use the "Active Ignore Technique" on her as well, she stopped right away; it wasn't any fun seeing me and Leia turn our backs on her!  She's still having so many cranky episodes and taking short naps.  I drove her around in the car for 40 minutes after a short nap one day before she stopped screaming, and the only reason she did finally stop was because the song "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean" started playing.  It really seemed to calm her down so I kept it on repeat, and she even started to sing along.  Unfortunately she did not fall back asleep like I had hoped.  Arwyn also found some friends to play with at Liz's party, and was being surprisingly independent.  But of course, all of a sudden we look over to see her scaling the banister on the second floor stairs!  She's our little climber that one!  I'm having a harder time implementing quality Mind, Body, and Soul time with Arwyn.  With our schedules it's a little harder to find a time to be alone with her (when she's not tired, cranky, and screaming, that is).  I did have one good cuddle reading session with her though.  As far as official milestones go, I don't think I ever properly acknowledged that Arwyn finally started saying her own name a few weeks ago.  It probably started around the beginning of September, shortly before she started her little "I not Honey, I Arwyn!" routine.  It was pretty cool to all of a sudden hear her say her own name!

Leia really enjoyed looking at the Butterfly Display at the Truckee Rec Center.

This pretty blue butterfly was one of her favorites.

Unbenounced to me, Leia had Josh take pictures of all her favorites, and asked me to come see them and do the same.  We got lots of pretty butterfly pictures!

Cool wing patterns on this one.

Butterfly or Mystery Creature?

Arwyn loves going to singing class.  Last time was with Josh, this time with me.

Doing the Dragonfly Dance around the room!

"Mom, take a picture of me on this leaf!"

She likes to make up all sorts of crazy poses!

Arwyn was in heaven with the crazy bubble machine at Liz's party!

Cool trap door ladder up to the loft!

Not so cool once I realized that the kids just wanted to go up and down over and over, and I was stuck there supervising!

Leia (age 4) and her new friend Kelsey (age 6)...two years difference and they are the same height...wow!

Of course we would turn around to find our little climber Arwyn scaling the high banister!

Cool textures!

Pillow party in Liz's princess bed!

Password = Leia

Leia's First Solo Monkey Bar Slide from Katharine Transue on Vimeo.

This was Leia's first time hanging all by herself and swinging with enough momentum to get the handles to slide across all by herself!

Password = Arwyn (below)

Oh Arwyn Honey, I'm Home 10.1.17 from Katharine Transue on Vimeo.

Arwyn has started calling us all "Honey!"  And hearing her say it cracks us up every time.  This day of acting like a working mom who's out making monies for Daddy was particularly funny, honeys included!

Password = Leia (below)

Leia Jumps Right Into a Swim! from Katharine Transue on Vimeo.

Big progress for Miss Leia to be able to jump into the pool and go right into a swimming stroke without having to be caught!  Of course, she's not actually looking through her goggles, so she gets lost, but it's all about the intent right now!

Daddy, Leia, and Monkey.

Daddy's little princess.

Lucky Dad, getting some Leia kisses!

Getting ready to eat Josh's birthday dinner, the after his birthday:

Josh: Why don't we just eat on the couch and watch a movie?

Katharine: No, we should sit together and have a nice little celebration.  I even lit the candles! 

(House is trashed, table is trashed, electric candles are push button...but I guess that's a birthday when you have toddlers!)

Finally got the proofs from Leia and Arwyn's school pictures back on September 14th.

Slightly fake smile for Miss Leia, but she's still so beautiful.

I think I like this one the best of the solo ones.

Could these two get any cuter!?!

My little Arwyn with a picture perfect smile...I could just eat her up!

Looks like she's a little unsure about holding this pumpkin.

So adorable, and even cooperating with the hands on knee pose!

Sister Love!

I finally got caught up with photographing all the artwork, and man, these girls really created some great pictures this last month!

Leia's "Rainbow."  Note the multimedia use of sandpaper on this one.

Out of the public service careers listed on this page, Leia chose Fire Fighter...that could work...

Leia is so good at using different colors on the different parts of the picture.  I love her interpretation of this Medusa type figure.

Another Leia original.  I love how she created a shape with her fingerprints, and I can see she's getting really good at outlining those letters!

Possibly my favorite...Leia's rendition of Princess Poppy from the movie Trolls.  It is such a good representation of the real thing!

The real Princess Poppy for those who aren't familiar.

Arwyn doesn't draw as much as Leia yet, but I can tell she's every bit as talented!

Leia's new skill is drawing flowers, especially Sunflowers.  She drew this one especially for me to hang in my room.

I really like it when she tells me what the picture is.  This one is called "Rainbow Sky."

Arwyn's water color painting from our camping trip.

Leia's water color painting from our camping trip.

Star Wars glitter glue art by Arwyn.

Star Wars art by Leia with a special multi-media "L".

Leia is going to be Wonder Woman for Halloween, so she came home one day with this painting of "Wonder Woman's Boot!"

Leia working on representing her numbers with fingerprints.

Mirror art.

"Daddy in the Sunshine"

Arwyn's cute little hand.

Arwyn's figuring out the glue thing...love the fall leaves!

Leia said this one is "Mommy with Long Hair"...ha!

Leia loves to collect pretty leaves in the fall!