Blast Ball

We signed Aria up for the Parks and Rec department's Blast Ball, which is an introduction to t-ball.  It is for 3 and 4 year olds and we were supposed to start April 12.  Wintry weather pushed it back two weeks, but our very patient 3-year-old and her dad finally got to go to their first practice!  It was a bit chaotic with about 30 or 40 3 and 4 year olds and their parents out on a field, but Aria literally had a blast! 

They learned the proper way to throw...

When you throw it, you must run to retrieve it (great job burning energy parks and rec!)

If you throw, you must also learn to catch

And Aria's favorite part of the night??  Running to the squeaky base!  Yes, it did make a honking/squeaking sound when jumped on.

Looking forward to 5 more weeks of Aria's first introduction to Daddy's favorite sport!

Pedaling

She's finally got the hang of pedaling the tricycle!  I feel like it aged her at least 2 years.  :)

My Girl is a Singer

This weekend we had a family gathering at Justin's grandma's house.  She owns a keyboard, speakers, and microphones.  She also plays the piano by ear, never reading any music.  Needless to say, when the music started playing, Aria was all about it!  Of course I find it rather adorable to hear her sing, but I was also proud that she was brave enough to sing in the microphone in front of people.  A lot of times when you make requests she shies away, but not this time.  I could have listened to her all night!  :)

 

Wizard of Oz

Some great friends of ours recently won tickets to our community theater's production of The Wizard of Oz and invited us to go along.  I had never been to the local theater and was super excited to go.  The show was fantastic!  It was cast so well.  Each character seemed to really fit their part and do a wonderful job portraying the character.  My favorite part was probably when Dorothy got to Munchkinland and the munchkins were adorable kids who sang and danced so well.  My nostalgic moment of the night was when Dorothy sang Somewhere Over the Rainbow.  I hadn't really thought about what I would be seeing before we went to the show, but as soon as she started singing the song, my waterworks began.  I have a very vivid memory of sitting at the piano with my grandma when I was a very little girl while she played and sang Somewhere Over the Rainbow.  It reminded me that when Aria was a little baby I started singing that song to her because of that memory with my grandma, whom she is named after.  I haven't sang it or played it for Aria in a long time and I should probably do that again. 

Anyway, the show was very well done and I would highly recommend it to everyone!  Thank you so much to our friends for inviting us!  It was a wonderful first experience at the theater for me and I hope to go again.

Wickiup Hill

Last week for play group we met at Wickiup Hill to explore their new exhibit, Oliver and Ava's River Raft Adventure Exhibit.  Apparently I am making a habit of not bringing/forgetting my camera because I forgot it.  Oops.  It was my first trip to Wickiup Hill.  Justin took Aria to an event there last fall on a day I was extremely sick and laying in bed.  But it was mostly new to Aria, as well, because of the new, awesome exhibit!

Basically, if you have not been, you should go!  There are three rooms in the exhibit, along with an eagle's nest upstairs.  One room is like a campsite with furs to feel, vegetables to grow, and a fire to cook on.  Another room has a muskrat lodge with a secret passageway to a fort and a large frog to climb on.  The last room, which holds a water table was temporarily closed when we were there, but I'm sure it is awesome, too.  Aria and I also lounged on some eagle egg bean bags to read a book in the eagle's nest.  It is a great place for kids to explore and play!  There are also trails outside, birds to watch, and a dock to walk out on in the water.  We took a little stroll along the dock before we left and I am excited to go back when all the vegetation has grown and explore again.

It was a great outing and as always, fun to do with friends!  I am so thankful for our group of friends to go on new adventures with all around town!

The Cutting of the Hair

Aria got her first hair cut today.  It was rather impromptu, which resulted in no pictures to record the event.  What kind of mom am I? 

It started yesterday when I called to make an appointment to get my hair cut.  I learned my preferred lady had moved to a Cost Cutters and I couldn't make an actual appointment.  So today after swimming lessons, I decided to stop in.  She trimmed my hair while Aria entertained herself with her Leap Pad.  Towards the end of my cut, she asked if I had trimmed Aria's hair at all.  I have trimmed her hair a few times to attempt to even it out, but I hadn't done so for a long time.  I had been thinking Aria had some scraggly pieces and maybe it was time to get her a trim.  So, I asked Aria, "Do you want to get your hair cut, too?"  She gave an enthusiastic "yeah" and up in the chair she went.  She thought she was pretty big stuff sitting in the chair and looking in the mirror.  She did a great job holding still and it was all over in less than 5 minutes.  I didn't even bring my phone in with me, so I had no opportunity for a picture.  Oh well. 

As soon as we left, Aria wanted to tell Justin she got a hair cut.  I knew he was in a meeting, so we couldn't call him.  When we got home we called grandma to thank her for a new magazine and to tell her about the hair cut.  And at supper, Aria declared her highlight of the day was getting her hair cut.  I never knew it would be so fun for her.  She has seen me get my hair cut a few times and she has seen me cut Justin's hair, so it may have been a right of passage into big girl hood for her. 

I really wish I had a picture.  Oh well, at least the date is now noted in her virtual life scrapbook! 

Learning to Write

So far Aria hasn't been very into coloring or writing.  She will do it for a short time and seems to enjoy it, but it just doesn't hold her attention very long.  However, she has become quite the pro at writing the letter A.  Sometimes it is upside down or sideways and they are usually very big, but she definitely knows how to write A.  It is a good thing A makes up half of her name!  We are still working on writing the letters in a line in the correct order, but that will come.  Here is an example of writing her name all by herself!  It is kind of sideways on the right. 

Jesus in the Clouds

This post is long overdue, but oh well.  One of the last activities we did with our Resurrection Eggs this year, was Jesus ascending to Heaven in the clouds.  There were cotton balls in her egg and as we were reading the story, an idea popped into my head.  We should make a picture of Jesus in the clouds.  Aria thought it was a great idea, mostly because it involved glue.  We had to use a glue stick and Elmer's.  I asked her what paper we should use and she suggested blue like the sky.  Then she said, "Maybe you could cut out a yellow circle for the sun."  I thought that was good thinking.  So, we put our popsicle stick Jesus in the sky and added some clouds.  Aria really enjoyed covering Jesus with the clouds.  She wanted to make sure every inch of him was covered.  It was a fun, last minute activity for both of us!

LLLLLLLLLL

For her entire speaking life, Aria has pronounced the "L" sound as a "W" sound.  It is pretty adorable.  However, the worrisome mom in me started fretting about her needing speech therapy or something.  So, I tried to teach her how to say the "L" sound.  My effort to teach her involved having her stick her tongue completely out of her mouth to say it.  It was rather humorous for awhile, seeing her with her tongue out trying to say "L".  But now she is getting the hang of it.  So much so that she over corrects sometimes. 

Where "yellow" was once ye-yo, it is now lell-low.

In a music class song we sing "farewell" and it has become fare-lell.

She also over emphasizes the "L" most of the time when she says it, like today when she asked, "what are we having for lllllllllllunch.

It is equally as adorable to watch her try to figure out which words have "L" and which ones are really a "W" and I have realized how foolish I was to worry about her ability to say the "L" sound.  Every time she says an "L" word I think about how she is growing up.  I'm not sad about her growing up, too much, but it is an interesting emotion when I think about how she used to do or say something. 

Aria is very interested in "how did I say _________ when I was a baby?"  She gets a kick out of words that were really different than how she says them now.  It is just weird for me because I feel like it was decades ago that she was just learning how to talk and yet I wonder how she has grown up so fast.  I'm sure it will only compound as the years go by. 

This being a mom thing, it just keeps getting more awesome!

The Fruit of the Spirit

Our church has monthly "FX" nights, which stands for Family Experience.  I don't really know much about what it is like, other than what I hear from Aria. 

1.  There is a monkey named Steve with Pastor Seth
2.  They sing "We...are...the...redeemed!  We are the ones who are free!" And there are important dance moves not to mess up.
3.  She gets to go up on stage to sing.
4.  A lot of times she sees her friends there.

Justin takes Aria to FX night while I am volunteering with the middle school youth.  I think it is mostly geared towards elementary aged children, but Aria still has fun.  They have a character trait to focus on each month and some sort of activity we can do to practice that trait.  There is also always a memory verse to go with the lesson and if you memorize it, you get to put your name in a drawing for a prize the next month.  We've never done well with the memory verses.  I haven't figured out how to help a three-year-old memorize a verse.  Until last month.

In March, the character trait was self control.  The memory verse was....well, I'll just let Aria tell you...

This is quite possibly my favorite thing yet!  It was really easy to do Galatians 5:22 with Aria because there is a song from Seeds Family Worship for that verse.  Aria was all excited to hear about self control in a song, so she caught on quickly.  She has definitely learned the verse and the reference.  Sometimes she sings it and sometimes she just says it.  She did slip a little in the video, but usually she says all the "fruits" exactly right and in order.  She is quite proud of herself.  I am so excited to help her learn more verses now!

Easter Tradition

Last year we started this tradition of making Resurrection Rolls for breakfast on Easter morning.  If you didn't click the link, the short version is this:

Roll a marshmallow (Jesus' body) in melted butter.
Roll buttered marshmallow in cinnamon and sugar (burial spices).
Wrap up marshmallow inside crescent roll (linen burial cloth).
Bake in oven (tomb) for about 12 minutes.

When you take them out of the oven, the marshmallow has melted, leaving an empty space inside the crescent roll.  It is a great visual to show the burial cloth and tomb could not contain Jesus.  And, they are tasty. 

Aria liked it last year and got the message just a little bit.  This year she could practically make the whole thing herself and totally got the correlation to Jesus in the tomb.  I love seeing the growth a year produces!

Hy Vee Wins Again

I sure love Hy Vee!  I don't love that stuff is more expensive there, but a lot of the time it is worth it.  First of all, for a little side note, they have the Fuel Saver card.  What an awesome concept!  I don't wrack up a ton of savings like the more than $2 you can save each week because I only buy what we will eat/use.  But I do find some good deals and haven't paid full price for gas in a while.  My only suggestion is to promote more healthy items for their Fuel Saver list.

Yesterday Aria and I had an interesting experience at Hy Vee.  When I first walked into the store, they had a display of Coke products on sale at 2 24 packs for $12.  That is just about the cheapest I usually find Coke products and I refuse to buy pop unless it is on sale.  Justin and my mom both like Diet Coke, so I decided to buy it.  I checked carefully to make sure you didn't need a coupon or that the sale had other restrictions.  There was nothing listed.  We went about our shopping and eventually paid for the groceries.  In the check out lane, the pop rang up as $7.99 each.  I didn't ask the cashier because I have experienced where sale items discount at the end of the receipt.  But when I got my receipt, it remained $7.99 each.  So, I just pushed my mammoth race car cart over to Customer Service.  When I got in line behind an older gentleman getting some scratch tickets, I didn't figure it would take long to ask about the pop.  Yes, it was only $4, but I wouldn't have bought it if it wasn't on sale. 

Well, apparently scratch tickets take a long time and the lady working the counter was really flustered.  And, a long line started to back up.  There were multiple people with cans to return and a few others all of a sudden in line.  They called for back up. 

The flustered lady looked at my receipt and didn't really know what to do.  She gave it to the next lady who showed up, who immediately responded in a snotty tone, "It's with coupon."  I tried to remain polite and said that the sign did not indicate "with coupon."  She stormed off towards the display and proceeded to rip down all the signs on it because, indeed, they did not say "with coupon."  She comes back, still has my receipt and doesn't say anything to me.  She disappears.  I began to wonder what to do next.  At least I wanted my receipt back. 

Another guy came and she gave the receipt to him.  He asked who was the person with the question about pop.  I let him know it was me and he said he would be right back.  By this time we had been standing there for at least 10 minutes.  I was feeling slightly foolish about making a deal out of $4, but I just kept thinking of how I wouldn't have bought the pop if it wasn't on sale.  About 5 more minutes went by and I began to think how disappointed I was because Hy Vee is usually so customer oriented. 

Finally, the guy comes back and I can see he has a $10 and some other bills in his hand.  I wonder if they are going to make me go purchase the pop again or something.  Then he says, "we decided to just take care of the pop for you today because of  all the confusion and your long wait."  I was a tad speechless!  I mumbled something about it not being necessary and thank you and I wouldn't have bought it if it weren't on sale.  He said he was the same way and completely understood.  Then we left the store with 48 free cans of Diet Coke!

I guess Hy Vee is customer oriented after all.

Backfire

Last fall we had a parenting series in our ABF where I learned, what I thought, was a fabulous discipline technique.  One guest speaker mom suggested using lemon juice/vinegar as a punishment for saying yucky things with your mouth.  I really like the concept of "you said something yucky with your mouth, so now you must have something yucky in your mouth as a punishment."  Around that time we had a problem with Aria spitting when she didn't like an instruction we gave her.  After hearing about that technique, I applied it the next time Aria spit.  I grabbed lime juice because it was the first thing I saw that I thought Aria wouldn't like.  It worked like a charm.  I think I only had to do the lime juice punishment twice to cure her spitting habit. 

Recently, Aria has developed another sassy behavior.  When she doesn't like an instruction we give, she deliberately does not obey and says, "huh" in a not very nice tone.  I decided it was time for the lime juice correction. 

Today Aria made the noise after I asked her to stop whining and ask nicely for whatever it was she wanted.  So I got out the lime juice and gave her a spoonful.  She promptly spit it out so I gave her another one.  She was trying so hard not to swallow it, yet hated having it in her mouth, and didn't want to spit it out.  The result?  She barfed.  It was so gross. 

I immediately switched to caring and concerned parent mode because it really freaked her out.  Aria hasn't thrown up much in her life that she can remember.  The only episodes we had was right around her one year birthday when we were trying to switch to regular milk.  Anyway, I got her all cleaned up and cleaned up the floor and then talked to her again about using her mouth to say nice things.

For the rest of the evening I've been evaluating whether or not the lime juice is a good discipline tool.  It certainly is effective and I like the idea of the punishment relating so closely to the poor behavior, but I don't know if I'll be dealing with vomit every time I do it.  Aria does gag easily.  One time, as an infant, she was crying so hard in the MOPS nursery she threw up on a volunteer.  Tonight I think she was trying so hard not to swallow it, it made her gag and throw up.  However, it could totally cure her sassy "huh" noise since she had such a bad experience with the lime juice this time.  Or I might have to find another yucky liquid to try. 

Parenting.  Always learning.  Always growing.

Easter Pictures

I looked back at last year's Easter pictures and I noticed two things...

1. (The obvious) It was a lot warmer leading up to Easter last year.  We had plants in full bloom--crazy!!

2. I didn't take any pictures of Aria by herself in her dress this year.  Oops.

Oh and Aria's hair grew a lot!

2012 Easter

2013 Easter

Here is the closest thing to Aria by herself in her dress.  Exactly what you would have your three-year-old do in her pretty new Easter dress, right?

The other day she told me, "Mom, it's a great day to play baseball!"  Her dad loved that one.  And, she is so excited for her upcoming Blast Ball (similar to t-ball) season, she asks about it every day.  You can see where priorities are around here. 
Sports > Dresses
I love it!

Quote of the Day

While reading a story where the character put his dancing pants on...

"Aria, do you have any dancing pants?"

"No, but I think I have some dancing undies."

:)