an update, of sorts

I just put Gwennie down for her nap and Evalyn is working on putting her Baby Shreddie down for her nap. She has instructed me to be very quiet, so I am taking advantage of the time to steal away with my coffee and sit at the computer for a few minutes to myself. As Gwen gets busier and busier, these quiet moments to myself are becoming fewer and farther between. Life is different with two (gulp) toddlers.

Things have been wonderful around here lately. On the weekend, we celebrated Gwen’s first birthday a few weeks early with our friends and family. What a wonderful time we had. After a very very poor weather forecast looming over us for days, I moved the party indoors. Thankfully, though, the rain stopped just an hour before the party and we were able to hang outside after all. I’ll get my butt in gear and get a recap post up this week. Promise.

Yesterday, we had Evalyn’s end of year preschool party. What a blast! It’s amazing to think of how much my girl has grown and changed over the course of 9 short months. She’s certainly going to miss preschool over the summer!

Thankfully, we have lots of fun summer stuff to look forward to. Many trips to the zoo, with our season pass, vacations, beach, swimming pools, park visits – and the list goes on!

I’m amazed more and more lately at how much the baby learns and takes in, just from watching and experiencing life with a big sister by her side. I have talked to Katie about this so many times – the guilt I sometimes feel about the fact that I don’t sit down and teach her little things the way I did with Eva. But the truth is? I’m pretty sure she won’t suffer for it. The time between 10-12 months always amazes me at how much they learn and develop and explode in terms of what they do/know/understand. Just yesterday, Evalyn and I were playing restaurant in Daddy’s trailer – her very favourite game – and I was holding Gwen. I place my order with “The Lady” and she goes into the trailer to cook it and brings it back to me to pay. At one point, she handed me a handful of screws (yea, what can I say, she’s a carpenter’s daughter) which was my lemonade, pizza and croutons. I looked over and Gwen had a toy in her hand and was holding it to her mouth pretending to eat it. Not just putting in her mouth the way an 11 month puts everything in sight in her mouth, but actually smacking her lips and pretending to eat it. I was like whoa, dude. She knows what we’re playing. She is learning something after all!

We’ve had such a wet, rainy few weeks that I am so thankul to see some sunshine this week. We’ve been spending so much time outside – I’m pretty sure I spend about 87% of my time pushing the girls around in their little toy cars. Favourite toys ever!

Speaking of toys, when we moved to the house I got really lazy with toy rotating – which is something I was really good at doing in the apartment. The truth is, at the apartment I had no choice unless I wanted toys covering every inch of space. There just wasn’t room. So I had 3 bins of toys that I rotated every few weeks. When we moved here, there was more space so that rotation just stopped happening. Finally, yesterday, I got my act together and put everything back together and put a bunch away, and brought up a few toys out of the playroom and basement that the girls haven’t seen in a while. And let me tell you – they are playing this morning like they’ve never seen these toys. Less is more, for sure.

Well, looks like Baby Shreddie is down for her nap, so my time is up. Happy Tuesday. Just thought I’d stop in for a little hello!