Ballerina

For Anja's birthday, she received dance lessons from Nana and Boppa. After a week and a half of torture waiting, Anja was super excited for her first lesson tonight. The dance studio is right down the street from us (less than a 3 minute drive), but since it was just me with the kids, I made sure to plan an early enough departure in case one or both of them became, well, slow. Luckily, they were just fine and so we ended up getting there very early. Since Ian was tired, I pointed out the dance studio to Anja and explained I was going to just drive around for a minute to see if Ian would go to sleep. She quickly commented, "You can drive around in a circle, but only in a circle, ok? It's my first day of dance school and I need to meet my new teacher and can't be late. And you have to watch Dora dance. So just go in a circle, ok?"

Needless to say, I just turned around and we headed in to meet her teacher.

Anja is in a class of 6 or 7 three year old girls. Before class started, her teacher, Miss Gwen, informed us of the logistics and sent us to the windows to watch. Anja cried a bit once she realized I was gone, but then, with a little encouragement, got right back into the mix and had no more issues.

The 30 minute class passed quickly and she was active the entire time and was incredibly sad to leave and wants to go back tomorrow. She'll have to wait a week, but I wish she could go back tomorrow, too. She was so tuckered that she went to sleep without any issues. Once I got her out of her leotard, that is!

*I'd suggest muting your computer for the video. You can't hear anything but the other parents talking about totally unrelated topics.

Nex Juner

All summer, Anja has been asking when she gets to go to "nex juner." For the life of us, we couldn't figure out what she was saying. We knew she meant preschool, but had no idea where the phrase came from. We thought maybe it was "next June", but she doesn't know about months and school didn't start then anyway. Maybe it was a German word that she couldn't pronounce? We had just given up on figuring it out and just started calling it "nex juner," too.

Well, nex juner started today with an orientation. Anja and Dan went and met her teachers, saw the room, met the other kids and parents, got to see her special bag she'll use every week for taking home her projects and the hook with an elephant and her name on it for hanging the bag. Despite being shy and nervous at the beginning, by the time it was over, Anja was bummed to leave. She wanted to stay at nex juner longer and play at the rice table. She is very excited to return to nex juner next week.

Hopefully by then we can kick her of the habit of calling it that.

Or at the very least, convince her it's not a good idea to call it that at her preschool.

We figured out what she has been saying.

"Nick Junior. It's preschool on TV."

We're awesome parents.

Double Negatives

In honor of Anja's birthday, Ian decided to sprout his second tooth. That meant lots of drool, snot, and coughing. In other words, he fit right in with his big sister and daddy.

When Anja is sick, she gets cranky. Suddenly her favorite phrase becomes "I don't want nothing!" But since she is already cranky, correcting her grammar is less than effective.

Yesterday, she started completing about her ear hurting. Based on that and Ian pulling on his ears, we decided to go in to the late night pediatrician.

We got an appointment for both of them at 8:15 about 25 minutes away from our house. After a quick check, we breathed a sigh of relief when both were negative for ear infections. On a gut feeling, I had them check Anja for strep.

Turns out, in this case two negatives do equal a positive.

Anja has strep but shows no symptoms. Ian is fine, luckily, because based on the amount of time and effort that went into getting Anja a shot of penicillin, I wouldn't want to have to repeat that any time soon.

Happy 3rd Birthday, Anja!

Dear Birthday Girl,
You have made the past 3 years an absolute blessing! You are hysterical, unbelievably smart, independent, caring and sweet and I am thankful every day for you! I am always amazed at what you can do and look forward to seeing your personality develop even more. We love you whole bunches!
Love,
Mommy, Daddy, and Ian

New development

Meet Ian: New fan of some hippy teething tablets we still had from when Anja was a baby.

That's right. The teething started so quickly today that we were caught unprepared. Luckily, Ian appears to have a high threshold for pain. His first tooth was already through before he needed the hippy tablets!

Random Ramblings

OK, cell phone purge and catch up time...(Funny that it took me until the night after my first day back at work to find time to do this.)

*Dan, his dad, and our neighbor Kevin beat all odds and put together a new massive playset in one day for the kids after our new fence was installed. Ian was clearly beside himself with excitement.

*Then we had a surprise visit from one of our German friends, Michael, and his mom, Eve. They were on a cross country trip and discovered the Twins were playing the Red Sox, so they altered their route and came for the game and the visit. While they were in town, we took them to the Dakota County Fair for a very cultural experience. Anja absolutely loved the fair (well, the rides anyway - the giant slide and Ferris wheel were her favorites) and playing with Michael and Eve. The only wet spot on their visit? When Anja attempted to use the urinal in a biffy again. This time she mistook Dan's foot and sandal for the urinal. But at least this time she had the right, well, you know.

*Token hysterical picture of Ian when he first discovered his feet.
*Anja had her first trip to the dentist. This was the before picture.
There were no after pictures. It didn't go well.

*And, of course, what summer would be complete without several trips to the zoo with our friends Lyla and Rowan? (Can you tell which one is Ian?)

*My sister needed to take 2 of her kids to an event for the day about a week ago, but needed someone to watch her youngest kiddos. So in a stroke of genius, we decided that I would watch Gabby (4), Liam (3), Anja (2) and Ian (5 months). It started off all innocent...

...but it actually went really well. I do, however, have a new and profound appreciation for any moms or daycare providers who watch 4+ kids. I don't know how you do it. I got lucky because Ian fell asleep for a large portion of it. Thank god for my Moby wrap!

*Ah, my bathing beauties. Anja still is scared of baths, but will take a shower. Odd. And she still loves to be wrapped up as a "burrito baby" after every shower.

Ian, on the other hand, looks like he's had a few burritos.
*Token picture of my goofy family. Love 'em.

*Since Dan had never been to the Children's Museum and Anja loved the one in Chicago so much, we took her there a week ago. She had a great time, especially in the water area.

*Anja had a several weeks when she was boycotting naps. I settled for "rest time" in her room. But on some rare occasions, she actually fell asleep. Including a few days ago when she was watching a show and asked me, "Mommy? You turn that off, please?" and immediately fell asleep for an hour and a half on the couch with her special kitty. (swoon)

*For one last hurrah, I took the kiddos to a new park with their friends Lyla and Rowan and their dad. Although you can't tell from the second picture, the swinging twins was one of the highlights for all 4 kiddos. And got lots of funny looks from the other people there.

*This past weekend, we made a quick visit to Wisconsin for a family wedding. Anja had a blast since she is currently obsessed with weddings.

Ian enjoyed himself, too. Especially trying to keep up with his older cousin (10 weeks his senior).

*Is it a bird, is it a plane? Can't tell? Just ask Anja to go outside with her ever-so-fashionable Mickey undies, sock mittens, and 'noculars and she'll figure it out for ya!

*And finally, today was my first day back at work which means the kids were in daycare for the first time together. Anja hadn't been since the beginning of June. But both did well and no crying issues for anyone in the family! And after we picked them up, Ian decided today was a good day to enter the world of sitting unassisted for a longer period of time. A few days ago it was only for 10 seconds or so, but tonight he managed to go for a few minutes while playing. Go little man! He was probably just trying to get a new trick to show off for Uncle Mike who arrived in town this morning for a visit.

Chicago

A little over a week ago, we made the journey to Chicago to visit Auntie Kimmie and Uncle Mark. We took off Thursday afternoon and made it in 7 hours. Not bad for having an infant and a potty training toddler! They both slept in the car. For the first 45 minutes. That was it.

Friday was spent lounging around in the morning, meeting Mark for lunch, and then the local Children's Museum and outlet shopping in the afternoon. Anja decided that it was Auntie Kimmie time and couldn't have cared less that we were there. It was fun to watch the two of them play with the bubbles and everything.








Saturday, the four of us and Kim headed to downtown Chicago. We had spent our money shopping the day before, so we just went to look at the sites. We discovered the best spot for a view on the cheap. The women's bathroom in the restaurant in the Hancock building! Check this out!




From there, we went to Navy Pier. Namely because Uncle Mark had planted the seed in Anja's mind that the big Ferris wheel was THE thing to do and she could not live life without going on it immediately. All day, she was asking us when she could go on the Ferris wheel. So Anja, Ian, Kim and I went up while Dan waited with the strollers. Except for one millisecond at the very top, Anja loved it and still talks about it.




After the Ferris wheel, we headed to Gino's for some Chicago style pizza where Mark joined us. While we were waiting, we checked out some of the graffiti and found a good one.


And Sunday after breakfast, despite many protests, we hit the road back to MN.