Trip Back in Time

Today the girls and I took a trip to the Chicago History Museum. We have had a membership for the past two or three years but we don't go often enough.
We had a blast! They had a cool new exhibit about magic that we all really enjoyed. They even had an area where the kids could dress up as magicians. Maggie was not too sure about it, but Lucy looked really cute in her cape and top hat.
Maggie loved "driving" an old steam engine and Lucy liked riding on the old "el" car.
They both liked sitting in the hot dog bun too.
When I was little, my family used to go to the History Museum all the time. One of the things that I love most about living in the city I lived in as a little girl is recreating my childhood memories with my own kids. I remember coming to the museum and seeing the dioramas and the Lincoln bed (there was no giant hot dog when I was little). I hope that when the girls grow up, they remember these outings we take and even take their own kids to the museums and around the city.

Side note: We wish that my husband could have come with us but he was busy at clinical for school. (Less than twelve weeks until he graduates!)

Milestones

Lucy was born four weeks early. I was in total denial throughout most of my labor because it was only July and she wasn't due until August.
Now, I know that in the grand scheme of things, four weeks isn't much. In fact, she barely qualifies as a preemie (a 6 1/2 pound preemie). But, she was preterm so along with our pediatrician we have been basing her developmental milestones off of her due date rather than her actual birthday.
At her one year checkup last month, she was babbling but had no specific sounds meaning specific words. So, the pediatrician suggested we give her another month.
Today we went in for a follow up appointment and she is still not making sounds with meaning. So, now we have a referral for a hearing screen and a speech therapy eval.
I'm sure everything is going to be fine and I would much rather give her help while she's young than try to catch up when she's older. But it sucks hearing that your perfect baby toddler is not perfect to everyone else and needs a little extra help.
But, she is very social, loves to interact with other people and WILL NOT SIT DOWN EVER AGAIN OMG! She needs to stand and walk all the time!
And she really is pretty perfect.

Just funny

These girls of mine are so funny.
Lucy has decided in the last week that she is going to learn how to walk. She was never too interested before, but this girl is determined. She is starting to pull herself up on furniture and she grunts as she stands up. When she gets nervous, her palms get sweaty. She sweats up a storm walking, but she is getting really good at it!
Maggie is starting to say some really funny things too. The other day, she woke me up by coming in our room and telling me "I'm ready for action". Today when I was talking to my sister in law, Maggie asked if she could play with my hair. I said yes, so she stood behind me and starting playing with my hair. All of a sudden, she announced "I think I need a chair". Then she went and got her little chair out of her playroom, sat on it, and proceeded to play with my hair some more.
And to top it all off, tonight at dinner, Maggie put a pea up her nose. She was sitting in her highchair (on the floor, don't ask) talking about peas while I was making dinner. Then all of a sudden, she tells me "Mommy, I need some help getting this pea out of my nose." It was really funny. Luckily I was able to push it out from the outside. Of course when it came out, she wanted to eat it.

25 Things About Me

I've been writing a lot about the girls, my family, crafting and decorating. I haven't written too much about myself though. So, here are twenty-five things about me.

1. I have two younger brothers. When I was little, I really wanted a little sister. Now, I have two sisters-in-law.

2. If I won a million dollars, I would pay off my student loans, and buy a bigger house.

3. If I had a lot of money, I would be one of those crazy people who redecorates their houses every year. This is fed by my pinterest addiction.

4. My first bachelor's degree is in advertising. My second is in nursing. I am so happy that I went back to school.

5. If I could, I would live on diet coke, baked lays and goldfish crackers.

6. When I was pregnant with Maggie, I craved nachos and squirt. When I was pregnant with Lucy, it was chocolate milk and brown sugar pop tarts.

7. I was born with one kidney.

8. I have always wanted four kids, two girls and two boys. If my next baby is a girl, I am not sure if we will try for number four.

9. My house is 95 years old. We are probably only the 3rd owners. (the people who lived here before us lived here for 67 years)

10. I am obsessed with Ikea. We remodeled our kitchen with Ikea this spring and I can't wait to go back.

11. I have to limit myself to one trip to Target a week or I will be broke in no time.

12. Planning and cooking dinner is the most frustrating part of my day. I wish I could hire a personal chef.

13. I love old houses. I would love to buy an old Victorian someday.

14. I am allergic to dogs. This makes my husband really sad.

15. My fifth wedding anniversary is coming up in about six weeks.

16. I have lived in two large cities and one small town, but I have never lived in a suburb (and I don't plan to). I am a city girl.

17. I feel like a magician when I get both girls to take a good nap together in the same room.

18. I hate to cook but I love to bake.

19. I don't like to run but when I was running regularly I was in the best shape of my life. Then I got pregnant.

20. One of my biggest fears is that I will die young and the girls won't remember me.

21. I always wanted to move to Boston.

22. I worked as a nanny for three years. It was one of my favorite jobs.

23. I became much less judgemental at other people's weddings once I had my own.

24. I have twenty-six first cousins.

25. We went to Italy on our honeymoon. Best decision ever.

Promises

About a year after my husband and I started dating, I decided to go back to school to become a nurse. The first semester that I was back in school, my husband went back to get his EMT certification. It took me four and a half years to finish my nursing degree. At first, I worked full time while going to school, but in the last few years, I could only work part time because of my school schedule.
We got married halfway through nursing school and luckily my husband had a good job and was able to make enough money to support us. We made a deal that as soon as I was finished with school, he could go back to school to pursue his paramedic degree and I would be the one to work full time.
It was a great plan. But then, during my last semester of nursing school I caught baby fever. I was convinced (for various reasons) that I would never be able to get pregnant so I insisted we try as much as possible. The week before I graduated, I found out I was pregnant with Maggie.
My husband was still busy working at his job and there were no definite plans for him to go to school. When I was five months pregnant, he lost his job. I told him that he either needed to start school or get a new job, pronto! That spring semester when Maggie was just a few weeks old, he started school again.
We've been plodding along with him finishing an associate's degree while I worked full time. Then this past January, he was accepted into a very rigorous paramedic school program.
So, I have been working two jobs since January so that he can focus on his schoolwork. We are constantly juggling childcare. Of course, things would be easier if we didn't have the childcare dilemma, but our lives would be so much emptier.
Sixteen weeks from yesterday is his graduation. When he finishes school, he will be able to start working and I can quit my second job (or scale back my hours considerably because this job might pay for the girls' tuition at private school).
It is taking a lot of sacrifice on all of our parts, but I am confident that the end results will be worth it.

Going to the Zoo

Last week I had a much needed day off so the girls and I went to the zoo. We haven't been for a while and it was fun to see how much fun they had. Of course, there were tons of people there because school hasn't started again yet. I think it will be even more fun to go back in a few weeks when the older kids are back in school. We had a nice little picnic lunch and saw a lot of the animals. Maggie really liked the monkeys and the rhino. Lucy liked the snakes and turtles in the reptile house. I love to see the chimps but they were off display when we were there. We also missed out on the giraffes becuase it was hot and getting close to naptime. They had so much fun and when we came home they both napped for over two hours. When I worked as a nanny I was so good at getting the kids out of the house and going to different museums and zoos. I really need to work and making this a more regular thing to do with the girls. There are so many cool museums and zoos in our city and we should take full advantage, especially since we can get free admission passes to most museums from the library. Next week we will aim for another field trip. I can't wait.

Crayon Wreath

My mom is an elementary school principal. She had kind of a rough school year last year, so I wanted to give her something to start this new year off on a better note. I saw these crayon wreaths on Pinterest and decided it would be a cute decoration for her office door. The ones that I saw online were made using two wooden embroidery hoops of differing sizes. When I went to JoAnn's, however, they were totally out of all of the wooden hoops so I improvised. I started with a 12 inch round styrofoam wreath.

I bought two rolls of wide satin ribbon to cover the wreath. The colors for my mom's school are maroon and gray so I chose maroon ribbon. I pinned the ribbon to start with a straight pin and then wrapped it around the wreath overlapping just enough to cover all the white styrofoam.

When I was finished, I pinned the end in place with another straight pin.

When it was finished, it looked like a pretty satin wreath. I bought three boxes of 24 count Crayola crayons to glue to the wreath. I had seen some people use a 64 count box of crayons, but the 24 crayon boxes were 75 cents a piece at Target. I had a hard time laying the crayons out ahead of time because the wreath was rounded so I just spaced them out evenly in the beginning and hoped for the best.

Some of the wreaths that I had seen had the crayons laid out in a rainbow spectrum pattern but I liked the randomness better. I did try to alternate warm and cool colors and avoided putting two of the same color next to each other. I used my glue gun to attach the crayons to the wreath. I was careful to turn the label out so the Crayola part was visible. (Not necessarily because of my love for Crayola, but more so that they would look the same). I think it turned out pretty cute. I just folded some left over ribbon into a loop and pinned it to the back for a hanger.