Frozen/Gymnastics party...Check!

Last Sunday was Alex's Frozen themed/gymnastics party! I'd say that it was a great success. We had 15 kids there plus parents (our friends). All the kids had fun tumbling/doing obstacle courses and we had all sorts of snacks and OF COURSE a Frozen cake/ice cream.

I am no longer **that** bitter at Amazon for price gouging the heck out of my wallet for paper Frozen products. The kid got her Frozen party. And she was stoked. So who cares if I paid 12 bucks for 8 paper plates? Who cares if I paid 10 bucks for an Olaf balloon??? OK-but just to state-that balloon was/is HUGE and still flying proudly in our family room.

Mid-Winter "BLAHS" and the House of Sickness...

I have a bad case of the mid-winter crankies! Ugh! I'm SO done with snow and cold and clouds and gray and slush and boots and bulky coats and not being able to take my four year old outside to **try** and enjoy winter because it's too damn cold! Seriously. Just done.

January and February in the North East just. Sucks. March aint great either, but at least I can see a light at the end of the tunnel. And sometimes, we get those quirky warm March days-like 50 degrees or so. It's like heaven. But January and February are definitely my least favorite months. They last forever. At least we spent part of January in blazing hot and sunny Australia. So January was broken up a bit. And of course, Alex's birthday is in January...so we do a lot of fun stuff for a few days. But otherwise, these two months just suck the motivation right out of me.

And we are also the house of sickness right now as well. Alex has had a long, lingering cold and Hayden...Hayden has tested positive for the common cold, RSV and also has an ear infection. The trifecta. So she is on Amoxycilin and breathing treatments three times/day. You can imagine how much she loves that, poor kid. It's pretty much a torture session for her three times a day. You can probably hear her scream from down the street. We go back in a week and I'm hoping she's all clear and we can stop the treatments.

Alex has her "friend" birthday party this coming weekend! We are doing it at the center where she takes gymnastics. She is sooooooo excited. She is obsessed (I mean crazy obsessed) with the movie Frozen (like every other girl 8 and under). She watches clips of it all the time on YouTube and has become a YouTube addict! Seriously. It's probably not healthy, her fascination with Frozen, lol. I'm just going to ride with it for awhile. It'll run its course. BUT-she really wants a Frozen themed party. And so does every other kid in a 100 mile radius. The stuff is impossible to find!!! I've become this rabid mom who scours the internet, has gone to about 12 stores, checks Target weekly, stalks Amazon, froths at the mouth over the exorbitant supply/demand prices on Amazon...and ultimately, pays those prices to give my kid her Frozen party!  Twelve bucks for 8 Frozen paper plates. Plates kids and adults are going to throw away. OMG. I did. I bought them. I've paid way too too too much for paper party supplies and balloons.

You only turn four once, right????? The things you're willing to do for your kid. No one can understand until they have a princess obsessed little girl who sings the songs over and over again and makes you play Frozen 51413 times a day.

Little miss Hayden has been quite the little diva lately, lol. She has been sick, so she gets a pass! But even before that, her little personality is definitely coming out and she's not quite as laid back as she led us to believe when she was reallllyyyy little!

She loves attention, is very dramatic, into EVERYTHING (garbage cans, dog bowls, cabinets, sister's toys, etc etc etc) goes everywhere (under beds, under my desk, in the shower) and likes to move furniture (no joke). She is extremely active and DOES NOT like to sleep and naps very lightly. Like, one little sound and she bolts awake. Has us walking on pins and needles. She is so fun though! She is such a little ham, is totally into people and other kids and smiles at everything. But man-girlie has a temper!

So that's about it for now....it's baby nation around here...which brings up very mixed feelings for me...but I'll save that for another post...

Below are some pictures of Alex's early family birthday party in Australia...still need to put all the Aussie pics onto my computer

 Alex with her cousin, Will

 Party outfit!

 Our Aussie family

The girls with their aunties

Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year...We Left and Now We're back!

Wow. I have not been on Blogger in TWO months! Two months? It couldn't have been that long, right??? Well...apparently it's so. I've been a lazy, crappy, slacker blogger. But seriously, two months???!!

SOOO...in that time, we've had quite a few holidays and also quite a few firsts for our little Hayden!

She's had her first Thanksgiving (where she ate mashed potato and sweet potatoes...the real stuff too, not baby food), her first Christmas, first New Year's and her first trip to see her daddy's family in Australia. And of course, Alex's first holidays as a big sister-a role she still actually relishes!

It's been a really good few months, it really has been. And nice to remember those now that we are in the middle of a cold, bleak, gray winter!

So our trip to Australia was awesome! And...HOT! I'm talking, hot. Like....temperatures around 100-102 and with a heat index of 108-110. And my in-laws don't have air conditioning because of their "sea breeze" being on top of a mountain. Well, I'm not really too sure where that sea breeze was...it seemed to be missing 70% of the time. It was only really hot like that for about a week-and-a-half, the rest of the time it was high 80's, low 90's, which wasn't too bad at all.

But we really had a lot of fun and crammed a lot of stuff in one month. We took a mini-vacation to Mooloolaba when we first arrived, we went to the beach a ton, to Under Water World, to the Australia Zoo (i.e. Steve Irwin's zoo), we went to a nearby resort (near the in-law's house) and used their facilities, we swam, laid in the spa on the really hot days (they keep it cool), went shopping, to the parks, etc etc etc. Alex has such a wonderful time, especially because her cousin, Will, is 2 1/2 and more able to play and more fun to hang out with. Hayden had a tough time with the heat while we were there because she was also teething-which means that she had a few really miserable days...poor kid...but she was a trooper! The girls loved the attention they got from their Nana and Deda and aunts. I know that Alex, especially, misses the family over there. We are hoping that they will take a trip out here in our summer.

Christmas/New Year's in Australia was weird. Great. Fun. But just weird. For 30 or so years, I have enjoyed cold, snowy holidays...so hot and steamy ones were just hard to wrap my mind around. To me, it didn't really feel like Christmas (although it was fun), but I'm SO happy that hubby could have the holidays with his family. And the kids-they were thoroughly spoiled and loved it!

Btw-the kids were both great on the plane rides! Alex was all about her I-Pad and movies/games...Hayden mostly slept and ate. So apparently 6 months and 3, almost 4, are the "easy" ages...it will be tricky next time we go and Hayden is a bit older and mobile.

Hayden is crawling now too! She started while we were there, which is nice because Dan's parents miss so many milestones. I'm glad they got to witness this one. Anyway, here are pics because I just can't type all about it without boring you and me! Ok...scratch that...here are some pics of our first "Christmas" before leaving for Oz. This one was with my parents and sister. Australia pics have to wait-they are on hubby's computer ;)

Our Aussie Christmas...20 Days!

You read it right! We are heading to Australia for Christmas this year! How pumped am I?

VERY!

It will be cold here at home...but hot hot hot in Australia. Because it's summer over there. And Australia in the summer is HOT.

I will get to see green again...and birds...and sun...and flowers...and go to the beach...and swim...

So yeah. I'm just a little bit stoked.

And I'm happy for Dan because this is his first Christmas with his family since leaving Australia 10 1/2 years ago. My maternity leave has actually made this possible. Usually I only have 1-2 weeks off at Christmas, which if you are going to pay for ridiculously expensive airfare, does not really make it worth it for a week or two. Especially given the length of the flights. So we will be doing a month. A month of-hopefully-sun. Although it is their rainy season. But we'll just gloss right over that. Oh...and we'll also have to gloss over the fact that all the really big, size of your head spiders come out in the summer. And I am absolutely stupidly terrified of spiders. Yeah. So there's that. The family better be spraying is all I have to say.

We leave the second week of December so we will be doing a pseudo Christmas with my family the week before. This means I really need to crank up the shopping. It also means Alex is super happy because she gets two Christmases. Lol...three year olds.

It WILL be very strange to celebrate Christmas in a warm, tropical environment though, when for 33 years, my Christmases have been snowy or at least in the 30's. But whatever...I'll go with it! Not really too much of a hardship.

AND...we are also taking an awesome vacation in Mooloolaba on the Sunshine Coast. Look it up...it looks freaking sweet! Swim-up bar here I come!

We have Hayden's passport, which is adorable. This will obviously be her first trip. This is Alex's fourth trip and Dan and I have been back countless times. I'm actually, actually thinking that this might be our *easiest* trip in regard to actually getting there, even with two kids. I know...I'm nuts. I hope I'm not setting myself up for disappointment. But I think it could be good. Knock on wood. I'll tell ya why in another post.

Anyway...I just wanna say...woohoo!

Fun is....

Fun is different these days.

Yes, Dan and I went to the Macklemore concert last week-which was ah-mae-zing. Yes....we went without kids (duh) for some adult fun. And it was great. Awesome. And very needed. Because adult fun is still needed. Alone time with your spouse is still needed.

But there are few things that compare to seeing your kid's face light up because her mind has completely been blown by seeing the "real life" Jake and the real life Sofia and the real life Cinderella and Doc.

Oh. My. God. You should have seen my child. I thought she was going to lose it. I thought she might just combust into a cloud of confetti. Seriously. She was THAT excited. And that's a hard thing to beat-seeing your child so overwhelmed. I mean, the kid was on the edge of her seat with a look of concentration on her face for a good 90 minutes. She was yelling "Go Izzy" and "Go away Captain Hook" as loud as her little lungs would let her. It was just priceless, seeing her that way.

Oh yes...and we went the full nine yards. We dressed up as Sofia for the show, we went with my good friend and her two little girls...who also dressed up like Sofia. We bought three cotton candies (for 36 bucks!!! What what???), a stuffed Izzy toy, a snow cone in a Jake cup and a Sofia light-up twirly thing. We spent a small fortune. But damn it...it was worth it just for the experience alone.

However, note to others who are going to go the any Disney Live! production...bring your own snacks and drinks unless you want to leave having consumed 12 dollar cotton candy, along with a 12 dollar snow cone. Forget popcorn...that will run you at least 15. Those Disney bastards...

But anyway...it was awesome!

 Random one of Hayden

 Ready to see Sofia!

 It's impossible to get a good picture of two three year olds and one six year old...

Hyped up on junk food!

Concerts...10 years later.

The last concert that Dan and I went to was either a Dave Matthews' Band concert or the Fall's Festival (big music fest in Australia). I don't really remember which was last. But they were roughly nine or ten years ago. Man, concerts were different back then. Done differently. By us.

Both concerts involved copious amounts of alcohol. With DMB, we met with a whole group of friends and tailgated for, I don't know, seven or eight hours? We drank and ate and hung out in the parking lot...nothing to do, nowhere to be. With the Falls' Fest, we slept in a van and camped and tailgated for pretty much a whole weekend. Concerts back then, they were not A single event, they were a whole day-or a whole weekend.

Fast forward ten years later. Ha. Different story. Not bad. Just completely different. There was no pre-gaming or tailgating. There was no alcohol involved at all for this concert. Which, ten years ago...would be like what the h%ll??? Oh, and we had actual seats for this concert. No standing in the pit. No getting crashed into when "Crash" or "Crush" came on. No...we had actual seats. And we actually SAT in them, at least for the pre-show performances. And 90 minutes before the performance...what were we doing? Not partying...we were eating Asian noodles and tofu, trying to shovel some food into the three year old's mouth, feeding the bub a MumMum, wiping down kitchen counters and stepping on princess Barbie shoes. So yeah. Concerts now do NOT equal whole day events. More like-lets try to fit this in wherever we can!

Anyway, we went to see Macklemore the other night. It was a fan-freaking-tastic concert. Seriously. He was amazing in person. And he was very engaged with the audience, which was awesome. It really was a stellar performance. I'm so glad that we went, that we got tickets...even if everyone around us was about ten years younger and probably in college. Seriously, I've never seen so many skinny jeans, Uggs, and midriff tops in my life. Are midriffs even in now? Because they shouldn't be. I don't care how awesome your body is. Just....no.

And since when are leggings passable as pants? I mean...wear them under a dress..ok. Wear them under a long tunic...ok. But dammit, people. They are NOT pants, nor should they be thought of as pant substitutes.

So Dan and I enjoyed our concert, completely sober, drinking coke (needed the caffeine, because two kids tend to suck you dry) and eating Skittles. We bemoaned the uncomfortable seats and rubbed our backs. We checked our phones frequently to make sure the kids were ok at home. We laughed at the stupid drunk woman a few seats down from us who's dancing was akin to a seizure. And we had a great time. Different this time around. Just different. But not less fun. And the best part: I can actually remember the concert this time. Do I sometimes wish to go back to my early twenties? Actually. No. I like thinking about those times. I like wishing for a day or two here or there, a day where I can be totally self-focused and self-involved. But to go back? Heck no. No desire. Things are good. Different...but good...great. And I don't have a nasty hangover to contend with either.

Cleaning Out and Decisions

I can already tell you that this post will probably be a hodge-podge of thoughts and feelings. Probably not organized at all. That's just kind of the mood I'm in.

So where to begin. Well, I guess first I can say that I have been packing up all the baby clothes that Hayden has grown out of. Doing it, of course, is bitter sweet because I'm fully aware that none of MY babies will most likely be wearing those clothes again. When I was packing up Alex's clothes, it was bittersweet *then* because I wasn't sure if I'd be able to have another baby to put in those clothes. So yeah. Same feeling...different situation.

Some stuff I gave to Good Will, but most of it is packed away in little tubs. I keep telling my friends who aren't done yet that they MUST have a girl next so the clothes can be used again. Because really...if there is one thing I splurge on, it's my kids' clothes. They have some sweet duds. Buying them is a guilty pleasure in which I in indulge way too much. But what the heck...I waited several years to be able to buy teeny tiny clothes...I figure I'm due, lol. I did send the tiny itty bitty stuff (nb and 0-3 months) to my friend from graduate school who is expecting a girl next month. I'm glad they'll be used again. I also sent all of our nb and 0-3 month sleepers and gowns to the NICU, as Hayden was there for 4 days and they were beyond awesome.

Anyway. I'm torn between wanting to hang onto this stuff "just in case" and wanting to clean house and get rid of clutter and to simplify. It's a weird feeling. But it's probably due to my indecision over having more kids. I'm about 95% sure that we are done. I'm even contemplating getting an IUD, because certainly right now, I just want to enjoy the two I have. So maybe a five year IUD, but I'm definitely not ready to do something permanent like a tubal or having Dan get the big V.

It's more difficult than I thought to move past the "trying" phase in my life. With all of Alex's milestones, it was bittersweet because I was never sure I would be able to have another. This time, it's bittersweet because Hayden is likely to be my last. I want to savor everything, but I'm excited for the next steps too. I always used to say that I couldn't wait to put infertility behind me...to have my two kids and forget about my fertility status, to never have to again worry and wonder and fear. To be at a point in time where my fertility was inconsequential to my life. And I should be there, but I don't necessarily feel like I am there. I'm confused as to whether I even want a third child. Some times I think so. And some times I don't.

And I'm still jealous of the people who have babies and it "just happens". I wonder when that will go away? Surely I won't feel that way when I am 45? I wonder if part of me wants a third to see if I can "do it on my own"? And that's not a reason to have a third child. 

So I guess we are at the point where I'm considering the IUD for 5 years. If, during that five years, we decide to try again, I can have it removed. But in five years, I will be 38. If, at the end of the five years, I'm not preggo and we decided not to be-we are done. Hubs will get the snip snip. But there's this: I don't think I want to go through fertility treatments again. I think I *am* done with that part of my life. So if a baby were to happen, it would have to be on our own. Which is unlikely anyway. But who knows? I may wake up in two years and be ready and rearing to go with another IVF cycle. I don't know. It's all up in the air. And I'm a planner, so for me this is just weird. I guess I just have to plan to not know what we are doing for a little bit. I know, that in time, things will be made clearer to us. And I think our actual wants will become more evident as life marches on.

I just didn't expect it to be so difficult to get past the "trying" phase of our life. It took up so much of our lives. Now there's this strange vacuum, in a good way though. It just feels weird. Like I have so much more energy to invest in other things, and NOT in worrying about treatments and if my body will work this month. It's hard to get used to....but pretty nice too. Just. Different.

 My little blue eyes...first time in the Jumperoo

 Alex's Cinderella pumpkin...she was stoked!!!

 Hayden's hands and feet!

Ta Da!