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 :)

Miss Anika

I'm in Mountain Home, Idaho with my sister right now.
Her Baby is due on April 17th but for a little while it seemed like she was planning on coming out early so I packed my kids in the car and headed towards Idaho. Well actually I first headed towards Las Vegas, we spent the night there in a hotel and then the next day I drove the remaining 10 hours to Mountain Home.
The drive wasn't as stressful as I thought it would be, the kids did pretty good. Mainly because we had the little DVD player with us in the car so they were entertained most of the time. Thank Heaven for portable DVD players :)
Anika (my sister's baby) seems to take her time now and I'm almost sure that she won't come the next few days, that means I probably won't be there when she's born :(.
We really have to head back, we just have too much going on at home we can't be gone for more than two weeks.
I'm gonna pick up Jan from the airport here on Wednesday, I'm so glad he's gonna drive back with us. Like I said, the drive is not that bad but you're going through the Mojave Desert for hours and hours without seeing a single house, car, animal or human being, it's beautiful but you get very tired after a few miles of nothing. It's gonna be a lot easier on the way back when Jan is with me and we can take turns and I have someone to chat with.
Tomorrow is my birthday and for some reason I am really excited. We're thinking about going to Boise and eat at the Cheescake Factory tomorrow unless Ute goes into labor of course, that would be absolutely fine with me too :)
I'm soo excited to have a new baby in the family soon and this time I'm not the one who has to go through labor, hehe. As soon as Miss Anika decides to come out I'll let you know and post some pictures!
There is one more thing: I made some washable nursing pads for my sister, they are such an easy and fast sewing project, really inexpensive and they work at least as good as the expensive ones you can buy at the store! Here's the link: http://www.passionatehomemaking.com/2009/04/homemade-nursing-pads.html

I finally...

... have a few minutes while the kids watch Strawberry Shortcake.
Things are crazy right now. I know, I say all the time that things are crazy, but for some reason they really are most of the time :).
Jan has a lot of work and he started taking classes again, we hope he'll be able to finish his Bachelor's Degree this year. But that means right now that he doesn't have a lot of free time.

It is only a few weeks now until Ute's baby is due. I'm very excited, it's gonna be great to have another baby in the family! Ute asked me to sew her a changing pad and I did, Leeann helped me pick out the prints for the fabrics. I used one layer of fleece, quilt batting and a layer of regular cotton (quilting) fabric.

We're still making plans to go to Germany this summer and I am sooo excited! My mom has only one more round of chemo to go next week! I hope things will calm down a little here and I'll have more time to write next time...
Here some pics of the changing pad I made for Ute's baby:

Tyler's new backpack :)

I finally had my sewing machine repaired :)
The first little project I did was a little backpack for TyTy.
He loves backpacks but until now he had to carry around Leeann's and they are usually pink or purple :S.
Anyway, we went to Joann's and Tyler picked out the cars fabric.

It's a really easy project, it took me about an hour and I was talking to hubby and watching TV while I did it, without distraction I guess it'll take no longer than 20-30 min.
Tyler really likes it and uses it to take his little toy tools everywhere, we also use it for church or playdates to put a change of clothes or snacks in it.
Excuse the bad quality of the photos, I took them with my phone since my camera disappeared mysteriously (I have an idea who made it disappear)...

Here's the link for the tutorial I got the idea and instructions from:

http://mamaurchin.com/pats-tuts-and-how-tos/how-to-sew-a-string-backpack/

Valentine's Day :)

Wow, it's been over a week since I last posted something! I've just been extremely busy, mostly in a good way. The weekend was great! We had a CCV neighborhood BBQ at the park Saturday afternoon, then we had our night out Saturday too. It was great, we went to The Cheesecake Factory for the first time. The food was just delicious, and the cheesecake...yum! It's not cheap though, we paid about 70 $ in the end, it's for special occasions only :)
Then Sunday, Valentines Day, was beautiful too. Our church had the official grand opening party (we just moved into a new building) with a BBQ and bouncy castle, it was fun! We had A LOT of hot dogs this weekend, I think I'm done with those for a while.
Our church had childcare for Valentines Day from 4 to 8, so Jan and I went out again. I have to tell our children's pastor what a great idea that was, I think it was the first time since we have kids that we actually got to go out on Valentine's Day. We went to Ground Control first and had coffee and appetizers which were great, real Italian, like the food I remember eating as a kid when I was on vacation in south Italy, not easy to get that kind of food here! After Ground Control we went to the West Gate Area and I had a waaaay to expensive Martini that wasn't good at all. Anyway, Jan and I had a lot of time to talk and I think we both enjoyed it a lot.
Talking about Jan, he just got home so I have to go. Both kids are napping btw, I can't believe it!