OK I just though of some things reading through other family blogs which I seldom do since Zach is so demanding. I actually put him down at 6PM he was so tired it’s 1:30 now and I have only heard 1 peep from him, so I was able to do a few things.
Anyways. Lately I have been spending an awful lot of time with Sierra. Besides noticing that she’s so cute and knows just exactly how to get everything she wants, without me realizing she pulled the wool over my eyes once again. We have been having fun together.
One of her favorite things to do now is go to the cafe in Target store and have an icee or hot chocolate depending on the weather. We chill there for a while while she counts the barstools and climbs across them and walks and walk and walks with me while we shop. She has found a Fort out “Secret Hiding place” in the Baby pack-n-play/high chair sections of about 3 stores now. One day I took her while the car was in the shop – (which we seem to be doing A LOT more of lately) We walked so much and I’m sure she didn’t realize it but she said her stomach hurt. I think she actually got cramps – stitches in her sides because once we got to the car and sat for a minute her stomach wasn’t hurting her so much.
We have also ventured out to the local with Bread crumbs to feed the Ducks – which seemed to be full and now the geese and seagulls were all that were left to feed. So we fed them one chilly crisp morning with Zach Strapped in a Snugli. Made a trip to the post office nearby and do a lot more couponing lately. The day before we made about 10 PB and J sandwiched and used our circle sandwich cutter to cut the crusts. Then we saved them for the birds and froze the sandwiches for Hailey’s lunches.
We’ve ventured to the mall today trying to get a bunch of steps in for this weeks Big Loser Challenge. And we had a BLAST! It’s rare that I can say I had a great time with my kids. But today was one of them. I wasn’t stressed about time/money/or whining while in the mall we went to Payless and she looked at shoes with me and told me which ones my feet looked fat in and which ones made me look like a cowgirl. Then we went to a Market Research place to see if the had anything we could make$$ on. They had a Aussie sniff test that paid $10.00 so we got Zach to sleep and went to do the test. She drew pictures on my palm cell phone while I sniffed coffee beans and shampoo. She sniffed a few too. Sniffing the coffee beans for me was actually quite disgusting – Sierra was reminded of the smell of Dunkin Doughnuts. Anyways we took the $10 and got Pretzels and ate them under a tablet hat had an umbrella over it. The we strolled to the play area and she ran around for a while. Then we both ran around for a while. And I told her we needed to keep stepping so my numbers would go up. She kept checking my pedometer and told me the numbers on it. She got the #2 and #5 confused because they are exact opposites. Anyways we headed to the pet store looked at all the animals, walked out and we played. We swerved in and out of the plants, trash cans and benches I chased her with the stroller holding Sleeping Zach and we laughed and played. We had a bunch of people looking at us. Then all of the sudden I realized in this group of people watching me play with Sierra was a Sister from Church – It was her and her most of her family visiting from England. And for some reason instead of feeling embarrassed I felt like I had done a good thing. I felt like I was there for a reason. Maybe it was to be an example to one of her family members of how fun motherhood can be. Whatever it was I know I was supposed to be there at that time and be happy. She was – After all – my Visiting teacher. Strange. Very Strange.
Some other things we have done Since Sierra has school off for a little while is practice getting ready for Kindergarten. Nathan brought home a Kindergarten basics book that we have been working on and I have yet to go through any of the flash cards – he got about 6 sets. We still have months before it starts but we want to be prepared.
She and Hailey earn Stickers for their Sticker chart all the time and when the sticker area is filled the get a treasure from our basket overflowing with goodies. Sierra loves and thrives on this kind of motivation.
She started watching the old Shirley Temple movie “Heidi” in the car a few days ago to. She gets so “into” it. I remember watching that movie as a kid – my memory is terrible when it comes to my child hood. We just got the girls the movie because I liked it as a kid. So far it’s teaching her to be grateful for what she has. Like, Heidi had a bed made from straw and she was still happy.
She’s been dancing up a storm and her sister has been known to “Cut a Rug” I videotaped them tonight.
It’s 11:00 and I heard a couple more peeps from Zach. I better head to bed and get a few minutes before he wakes up.
