Here Kitty, Kitty

A conversation from earlier this month, sitting at our dining room table

Miss A:  Mommy, I think I'm allergic to some kitties.

Me:  What does allergic mean?

Miss A:  My nose gets all stuffed up.

Me:  Which kitties do you think you're allergic to.

Miss A:  That one.

Little J: Meow.  Meow.

I've mentioned before that Little J seems to think she's part kitty.  She frequently meows to let me know she's awake after nap time, in response to being told no, or any other time she deems appropriate to crawl around meowing.  It's pretty cute (most of the time).

When Miss A first started talking to me, I was actually a little concerned that she really thought she was allergic to kitties.  We had just spent some time at my dad's house for Christmas, where there are many kitties.  I was quite relieved to find out the problem was just her little sister.

Twosday Seven: Random Thoughts

 Ways I Treated Myself Today

1. Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Peppermint Crunch.  Katie posted a picture of this on Instagram last week, and I immediately knew I needed it.  I finally picked some up today, and, wow.  It is amazing!
2. Essie Warm and Toasty Turtleneck nail polish.  I recently discovered that Amazon has great prices for nail polish, and often free shipping.  So a treat the day I ordered it, and a treat today when it arrived. 

Comfort Foods I Can't Get Enough Of

1. Mac and Cheese.  The girls and I have been home a lot for lunchtime recently, and we've eaten more Kraft Mac and Cheese than I care to admit.  But it's so good, and easy.  Especially good because we've been sick and it's been so cold lately.
2. Bread sticks.  I would really like bread sticks with nacho cheese like I used to eat for lunch daily, but plain bread sticks have been a tasty afternoon snack as of late.

 Most Common Times for Little J to Pretend to be a Kitty

1. When she wakes up from nap.  For some reason she will meow to let me know she's awake and ready to get up.
2. Any time we tell her no.  For some reason she turns in to a kitty, crawling and meowing, if we tell her no.  2 year olds are strange creatures.

Miss A's Current Favorite Songs

1. Wagon Wheel by Darius Rucker.  This has been a favorite since Miss A spent time with my parents this summer.  Now she likes to change the words to "rock me Daddy" because I think she likes to mess with me.
2. Anything from the Frozen soundtrack.  Especially Let It Go and For the First Time in Forever.  Seriously, these are on a near non-stop rotation at our house.  Good thing it's a good soundtrack!

Productive Ways I Spent My Monday Off

1. An elliptical workout.  After taking a week off due to sickness, I finally got a good workout in.  It was very much needed.
2. Cleaned my room.  Our bedroom is the entire second story to our house, and frequently ends up as a dumping ground.  So I spent nap time doing some major cleaning and organizing.  I got all of our paperwork organized, two bags ready to donate and (most) surfaces clear.  

Things I'm Looking Forward to this Week

1. Joint Book Club on Wednesday night.  Twice a year the neighborhood book clubs meet together.  It's always fun to see the neighborhood ladies, especially in the winter when we're all usually hiding inside.  Plus our book is Tina Fey's Bossypants, which I read over the summer and enjoyed.
2. Date night Friday night with another couple.  We're heading to Uptown (where we used to live back in our younger days) to meet up with another couple for drinks and dinner.  We haven't seen them in way too long, so I'm looking forward to the night out.  Plus, I have parent-teacher conferences this week, so it's extra nice to have something to look forward to.

An Intentional 2014

I spent a lot of time last week thinking of resolutions I wanted to make for 2014.  I came up with a few ideas, but many came back to the 33 before 33 list I made on my birthday in October, so making a bunch of new resolutions seemed a little unnecessary.

Our 2014 jar.  I have plans to write notes about fun happenings throughout the year to look back on next Jan 1.

Something I did decide to do was to pick a word for the year.  I brainstormed a bunch of words, and decided on intentional as my word for the year.

E and I have big plans for the coming months and years, but they will take some work to get there.  So as I start this new year I want to be more intentional about the things that I do.

More intentional with my time.
More intentional with my money.
More intentional with my actions.
More intentional with our space.

I think (hope) it's common for things to fall off track during the holiday season.  There's so much going on that normal routines fall off.  I think pizza was a major food group for December.

For the new year, I'm going to get back to meal planning.  Back to healthier eating (though we're not cutting out pizza any time soon).  I'm going to plan fun things to do as a family, with the girls and just with E.  I'm going to go shopping with a plan, and try my best to avoid being sucked in by the wonders of Target.  I'm going to try to find a place for everything in our house, and make sure things get put back in that place.

Does anyone else have any big goals for 2014?  A word for 2014?  I'd love to hear about it!

Surviving the Polar Vortex

I'm not a winter person.  At. All.  I don't like snow.  I don't like cold.  I really don't like below zero temperatures.  

So this winter has not been great for me, especially this past week.  Below zero temperatures meant we spent the past week stuck inside.  The girls and I spent a little time shoveling on Saturday morning, but since then we've been inside.  We've had a lot of time together in our house.  

School was cancelled Monday and Tuesday due to the cold weather, so we ended up with an unexpected 4 day weekend.  Here's some of what we did to keep busy.

>>Dishes.  Little J finds this to be a super fun job.  I'm thankful for the company, though to be honest she's not the most effective helper quite yet.  (Also thankful E was able to get our sink working again with no problems after some pipes froze.  Not having a working kitchen sink on Monday was very frustrating.)

>>Singing and dancing to the Frozen soundtrack.  Or playing Frozen.  Or telling stories about Frozen.  It's an understatement to say Miss A enjoyed Frozen (a special Mommy-daughter date).  She insists on being called Elsa (funny to me because she actually has two little friends named Elsa), and I must be called Anna.  I'm no longer Mommy, I'm her sister.

>>Painting.  Both girls love painting, and both girls got new watercolors for Christmas.  Miss A got 2 sets, one including pink paint (an exciting addition!).

I love the intense look on her face when she's painting.

>>Painting the snow.  An extension of our painting activity was to paint the snow.  I saw this posted somewhere a few weeks ago, and thought it looked fun.  I shoveled some snow into a tub and let the girls paint.  Miss A had a lot of fun painting the snow, and was able to make pictures in the snow.  Little J had a lot of fun flinging snow around the dining room and quickly lost her painting privileges.

>>Laundry.  Not very exciting, but I was way behind.  Our dryer ran straight from 9am to 8pm.  I used the dining room table as my folding space, so we had some creative indoor picnic spots.  The girls thought it was funny.  

>>Lots of snuggling.  With many, many blankets.  Watching a few too many cartoons.  But that's what days off are for, right?

Wordless Wednesday: Family Photos

I have to add in a few words here about our family photos.  We were back in Wisconsin in October, and were able to set up a time to do photos with Melanie of Creative Wishes.  All the photos are taken in the prairie that my dad and stepmom planted in their backyard.  It was a great spot for photos!