Miss Anika II

So, Anika finally officially joined our family yesterday! She was born at 2.41 pm and she is beautiful, healthy and as perfect as a newborn can be :).
They induced my sister on April 14th but for some reason she wouldn't progress at all, so she had a c-section on the 15th.
Today is Jan's birthday but he is still sick, so we'll see if we can still go out like I was planning on, he went to work today so that's a good sign. I'll bring him over some chicken soup for lunch later, I don't think he has eaten at all since yesterday morning. I'm not even sure if he did eat yesterday morning.
I hope we'll be able to book our flights to Baltimore soon, we'll be trying to fly space A from Baltimore airport but I really want to book the flight to Baltimore asap so we can make plans for our Germany visit :)

ABC's and 123's :)

I just thought about how easy it was for Leeann to learn her numbers, letters, shapes and colors. Tyler is doing pretty good with number recognition and I know it's not because of anything I taught them, at least not knowingly. There is just so much great preschool stuff out there that makes learning really fun. I'm a big fan of the preschool prep series: http://www.preschoolprepco.com/h/i/index.php that's how Tyler learned his numbers, they also have DVDs for learning letters, colors, shapes and sight words. It really drives the parents crazy but my kids love it :).
Leeann learned her letters with the leapfrog "Letter Factory" DVD: http://www.amazon.com/LeapFrog-Factory-Roy-Allen-Smith/dp/B001TKUXUC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1271205303&sr=8-1 Even I like to watch this one, it has a really cute story kids can relate to.
Oh, and then we have all kinds of Usborne books and flashcards: http://usborne.com/
OK, I just thought I'd share, I always appreciate other Moms sharing that kind of information with me :).
The weather is beautiful again and I think I'll take the kids for a walk now!

back home and the earthquake

So we made it back home to Arizona safely. The drive back from Mountain Home to Surprise was a lot easier since Jan was with us. I'm not gonna do another 15 h drive with the kids by myself if I don't really have to. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be but it was sure exhausting.
I enjoyed the time with my sister although the baby obviously changed her mind as soon as we got there and decided to stay in a little longer. I'm glad to be back home now, I missed my friends and my routine, I'm a creature of habit I guess :). I wish I could have been there for Anika's birth but I'm perfectly content as long as I know my sister doesn't have to do it by herself, her hubby is gonna be with her.
Our church had the big Easter Party at the Goodyear Park today, it was a lot of fun like every year. I love celebrating Easter for what it is: Our Savior's victory over death.
Jan and I had another date night last night, we went to The Cheesecake Factory for cheesecake and cocktails to celebrate my birthday. No, actually I was the only one having cocktails, Jan was the designated driver, haha.
Oh, and we had an earthquake today, just a very light one here but it was 7.2 in Baja, California. I didn't realize it was an earthquake, I was at the grocery store with Leeann and I thought I had balance issues and I felt a little sick. When I came home Jan told me that he actually saw the walls of our house move. We turned on the news and found out that it was a lot worse in California and Mexico but it seems like nothing really happened besides a few tourists getting stuck in an elevator at a Disneyland hotel for a few hours, at least that was the only thing they reported in the news.
Anyway, here I am back home, watching Dirty Jobs with hubby :)