Swimming!

Emma started swim lessons back in September. When she first started, she was VERY reluctant to put her face in the water at all. She was okay doing some things, as long as her face didn't get wet. We got her some goggles, and then holy cow. She just took off! She's just about to finish her second session of lessons and is signed up for her third session. She LOVES her teacher, Miss Kamille. 

She has really struggled with jumping in on her own. She was okay jumping in if someone was catching her. But in the last week or so she something just clicked. Here she is jumping towards Miss Kamille.

She also was super excited to figure out how to swim all by herself, like a big kid. She wants to swim like her friend Savannah (who is 2 or 3 years older than her) who was on swim team last summer. This video was from one of the first times they started using their arms, which then also made her focus less on her kicking, but you can see that she no longer is afraid to get her face in the water :)

We're alive!

I keep putting "blog" on my to-do list. I've been wanting to update more, but things keep getting crazy! Does life ever calm down? I'm starting to think it won't....

1. After I was all recovered from my surgery, Chris found out he needed surgery on his sinuses. His was a much simpler procedure, it only took about 25 minutes, and he was able to work again the next day. However, it's taken a little longer for the internal healing to be complete. He's had several follow-ups with his doctor and tried several other medicines to help heal him. I think he's mostly done with that now. But yikes, sinus surgery can be a little nasty.

2. We went to Michigan for 10 days to visit Chris's family. His little brother and his wife also came (it was a surprise to their dad and little sister) and we all had a blast together. We ate a ton of good food, played a ton of games and just had a great time! Coming home and getting back into a routine was hard.

3. Emma and I LOVE going to the gym again. Because of the company Chris works for, we got a free upgrade to the "citywide" YMCA pass, so instead of access to just one gym we can go to any of them! It's a sweet upgrade, as some have indoor pools, some have splash pads, some have different types of classes, and some have racquetball courts (Chris likes that, although so far he hasn't used them). We mostly go to the new one, but sometimes we go to a different one.

4. At the gym I discovered I love the Les Mills Bodyflow class, a combination of yoga, tai-chi and pilates. It's my favorite, and I try to go 3 times a week. I even found an instructor that I really like. I feel like it's really strengthening my back and improving my balance. Plus, who can turn down that 5-10 minutes of meditation at the end of each class???

5. Emma is starting swimming lessons tomorrow. She is so excited, but is also a little bit nervous. I hope she doesn't throw major fits when her face gets wet, but that's what swim lessons are for... someone else to teach her. Hopefully she listens well!

6. I've been put in charge of our Primary Program this year. This morning I finally got my "final copy" sent off to the bishopric for approval. Hopefully I hear back from them soon so I can start sending out everyones parts. Our program is Oct 22, so it's coming up WAY fast. I've spent a toooon of time working on writing, rewriting, and rewriting again for this program; it will be nice to have this off my plate!

7. I really need to stop watching shows from the Food Network. We've watched a few different cooking shows lately (Pioneer Woman, Great Food Truck Race, British Baking Show (I think that's the name) ) and we just keep adding to our list of recipes we want to try. Mini pecan pies? YES PLEASE! We're making those this weekend, I'm super stoked.

8. It's almost cooling down enough that we can play outside more. Emma will be so excited to not melt completely when we play outside! I will too.

9. I became an aunt again this month! My brother Bryan and his wife, Kristi had the cutest baby this month! I want to meet and hold him so bad, but they live far away. I love that technology is available so we can watch him grow from far!

I'm going to try to blog more regularly, and maybe even be able to include some photos. I just realized I STILL haven't blogged all about our cruise, and that was almost an entire year ago. Whoops! Don't know how that got skipped.

the last few months

Why do I always let so many months go between blogging? When I finally do sit down to write a post I love it, it's just remembering to do it in the first place that seems to be hard for me.

So... since April when I last blogged:

1. Emma finished her first year of "preschool/playschool" and has learned a lot. She sings/screams a song about the days of the week and months of the year. She can count to 30 (although she throws a few extra 19s around as she counts, and sometimes 13 gets skipped completely). She learned how to ride a scooter and has much better control over her steering when she rides her tricycle.

2. Chris has been struggling with insomnia and other sleep issues for the last few months/years (but especially the last few months). We're waiting for results from his recent sleep study to see if he has sleep apnea or some other problem.

3. I finally decided it was time to talk to my doctor more seriously about some issues I've been having with my back/shoulders/neck and we concluded that surgery was in my future. It looked like insurance was going to make me do a TON before they'd approve surgery, but I saw a surgeon anyway and they submitted all my information to the insurance company. The next day my surgery was approved and scheduled, so on June 1st I had surgery. It's been 5 weeks now and I'm slowly getting back to normal. Next week most of my restrictions go away and I am SO excited. It's been really hard not being able to lift anything that weighed more than 5-10 lbs and not being able to help Emma get into her car seat. So far it seems like my issues are getting better, but I am excited to be able to go get a massage soon that should be able to help.

4. Because I had surgery and couldn't do a whole lot Emma and I started what she calls "Emma and Mommy School". I was debating doing another co-op preschool in the fall, but we decided that doing something on our own at home was going to fit Emma's needs and our family schedule better. So we are doing our own things at home to help her learn. She's been asking to read lots and lots of books, so we've been working our way through all the books we own (I couldn't go to the library for a while because books are heavy and I just can't lift very many... for one more week) but just put a HUGE stack of books on hold at the library. Can't wait to go get them soon. We've been working on recognizing the lowercase letters and Emma has been working on some pre-writing skills. Her scissor usage has improved dramatically and so has her attention span! During our "Emma Mommy School" we also plan on a bunch of active activities- park days, swimming (I just got the ok to swim again!), bike riding, and scooter riding.

5. Also while we've been chillin inside our house Emma has a new favorite activity that she calls "little beads." I purchased a few sets of Perler beads (they're tiny beads that you put on a little pegboard and then you iron them and the beads fuse together) and we've been making all sorts of things- a ton of fish, dogs, cats, squares, circles, octopus, dolphins, whales... the list goes on and on.

6. With my back doing better my surgeon recommended getting back to the gym (we cancelled our YMCA membership a while ago because I was in pain) and doing some weight lifting to help strengthen my back. I'm actually really excited to get back to the gym and so is Emma. We're going to check out a new YMCA that just opened by our house this weekend and are excited to sign up soon! One more week until I can start doing small exercises again!

7. Emma discovered Dora the Explorer and I HATE it. Dora is obnoxious.

8. Yesterday I cooked what was probably the most real meal I've cooked since surgery.  It was super nice having my mom here for the first week after surgery, taking care of Emma and doing all the cooking. Then it was super nice that we had a bunch of leftovers after she left, and that we got 6 meals brought in by members of our ward, plus we had some meals in the freezer that I made before surgery. But now we're out of most of those... and it is time to eat real, homemade meals again! We are so grateful for everyone who has helped us the last 5 weeks. We had plenty of meals, someone mowed our lawn, and a lot of friends took turns having Emma over for play dates so I could rest.

9. Grocery pickup services are amazing. I am so happy that we have two stores near us with curbside pickup. It is so nice to just spend 10 minutes adding everything to my cart online and then just have to pull up to the curbside pickup spots and they bring me my groceries. I think that will be something I continue doing even after all my restrictions are gone. I think I saved a ton of money NOT taking Emma into the stores... and I ate a lot less donuts 😆😆

10. I couldn't leave the list at 9, that was just such an odd number to end on, so here is a pointless number 10.

Howdy!

Oh, hello blog friends! It's been a while.

1. I learned how to play the organ! I was actually kind of decent at it too!

2. Our neighborhood got switched to a new ward last month after our neighboring ward needed to be split.

3. Chris is still the Assistant Ward Clerk over finances.

4. I am back in the Primary Presidency now, but this time I'm the 1st Counselor.

5. It's really hard getting a new primary fully functional after losing most of its teachers. We've only got 65 kids, plus 17 in nursery, but we've got our hands full with these 65!

6. I had the flu last week. It was awful.

7. Emma got a scooter and is learning how to ride it.

8. Emma also has learned in the last few weeks how to climb a big ladder at our neighborhood park. She's pretty short for her age and has been trying to figure the ladder out but her legs were just too short. She's grown a bunch recently and tried it and can do it! She was so excited and so proud!

9.  I can't think of anything else quick to say.  I've got a preschool lesson to plan for tomorrow and a sharing time lesson to plan as soon as I get preschool figured out! Plus it's Monday, which means it's laundry day... so I've got piles of laundry taking over my main walkway in my house.

Stuffs.

I swear we're still alive! It's been a wild couple of months, and soon I hope to have the time to document it properly with a ton of posts!

Since August when I blogged last (about Emma's birthday which was in May...) we've been so busy, but also so not busy, it's hard to explain.

1. I started Allergy Shots back in May, so I now spend one morning a week (it really only takes an hour from the time we leave our house til we're done) going to the allergy doctor to get my weekly shot. I feel like that has taken over our Monday mornings.

2. In September Emma started a little preschool group with two of her friends, we call it Play School, since the point was more learning to play together with some learning thrown in. We have a letter of the Day and start with circle time where we talk about that letter and the days of the week, etc and read a book. Then they typically do some sort of project/craft and then they go play until lunch time. We've been on a field trip or two and had so much fun! This next week play school is at our house and we are talking about the letter M.

3. Emma was Elsa for Halloween. She was SO excited to go run around our neighborhood and knock on doors and say Trick or Treat. In our neighborhood it is really common to sit out on your porch/driveway to hand out candy instead of making kids knock on the door. It was fun to watch her run up to all the houses on our street. She JUST finished her Halloween candy last week. We really made her stretch it out!

4. In November we went on the trip of a lifetime! We went on our Disney Cruise! This will get a bajillion posts of its own, at least a post for each day, and a probably a few more just of photos. We had the most amazing time, and it was so nice to just be together the 3 of us, and to have VERY limited technology with us! We didn't buy an internet plan, so we just used our phones to take pictures and know the time. Our cabin had a tv that showed disney junior shows in the mornings (probably all day really, but we weren't in our cabin enough to find out) so Emma would watch that while we would get ready, but that was it! Oh man, I'll save the rest of my thoughts until I have time to really blog about it. While we were onboard we booked another cruise... our countdown was originally something like 531 days, I was excited to see it get below 500 a while back. We probably won't tell Emma about that trip until it's just about time to go, but earlier this week she did ask if we could go back to Mickey's Ship again.

5. Christmas was fantastic! We stayed home and did our own thing, and it was LOVELY! Whole posts about Christmas and Christmas adventures later!

6. I got released from being the Primary Secretary and got called as the Ward Organist. Totally didn't know how to play the Organ. Next Sunday will be the first week I will actually play it. And it's going to be super intense!

and... now Emma is awake. So hopefully soon I'll come back and give lots more details!