Early Risers

I am a morning person.  I can't help it.  Even on days when I have no reason to get up and no children in my house I am up by 7:00am.  I am not, however, ready to socialize right when I get up and certainly not before 6:00am.  It's like a magical time for me at which point I become capable of communicating.  Talk to me before that and I might bite your head off.  God blessed me with two early risers.  Julia is like her momma.  She might get up early, but she's not really ready to start her day yet.  She just wants to snuggle.  Amelia, my little social butterfly, knows no time at which she is not happily chatting away.  Now my girls go to bed at 8:00pm every night.  So 6:00am is an appropriate wake up time for them at this age (4).  Unfortunately, my little darlings had a hard time figuring this out.  They wanted to get up at 5:00 or 5:30am no matter what time we put them to bed.  We tried using a baby gate to keep them in their room until 6:00, but they just knocked it over and then it scared them and they started bawling.  Then we found my very favorite product ever.

The Teach Me Time Talking Alarm Clock and Nightlight.  This clock is amazing!  You can set it to turn yellow at bedtime then green when it's time to wake up.  It didn't take long for the girls to catch on to this.  In addition, this clock has several other cool features.  You can make it read just digital or just analog or both.  You can push a button and it will tell you what time it is.  There are games in which it will ask you what time the clock says and then you push a button and it tells you the answer.  It even has an alarm for when the kids get bigger and getting up early isn't so much fun anymore.  This clock retails for about $40.  We got ours online from Barnes and Noble, but there are several other online sources as well.

A Season of Change

I can't believe I haven't posted since August.  Obviously a lot has happened since then.

I finally achieved my master's degree in Physician Assistant Studies.  Now I'm studying for my national certification exam and looking for a job.

Julia has been loving her class this year.  She has show-and-tell every Friday in which she brings something that begins with a selected letter of the alphabet.  They are counting down 100 days of school and on day 100 they will have a pajama party.  They have already had an 80's dance party.  Her teacher was really impressed with her when she gave an impromptu performance of the "Fresh Prince of Bel Air" theme song.  I'm teaching my girls all the best things from the 80's and 90's.

Amelia's class seems to be in a constant state of transition.  They have had three lead teachers and at least two afternoon teachers since August.  All that change has been hard on the kiddos.  Fortunately, her newest lead teacher is excellent.  She has years of experience and is no-nonsense.  Just what a class full of little girls needs to quelch some of the drama.  Her Christmas party was tons of fun with decorating sugar cones like Christmas trees, tossing bean bags through a wreath, and balancing Hershey Kisses on spoons across the room and then placing them in a stocking.

We sold our first house and are now living with my parents while we build our dream house.  We signed the build contract two months ago and already had all of our interior and exterior selections made.  So far they have managed to uproot the two trees in the backyard, but one of the stumps is still lying there.  I was hoping the framing would be complete by the time the cold weather hit, but it seems that there are a lot of houses in progress with our building company.  We were hoping to be in the new house by March, but it looks like it will be more like April or May.  Praise the Lord my parents have built before and are reasonably understanding about the whole situation.

This is our lot before the trees came down