So tired...

Dear Avery,

Please stop waking up a six (or earlier) every morning! And then not taking a nap! You are exhausted and grouchy every day, and that is making me exhausted and grouchy. I am tired of you fighting with Bailey all day. You need more sleep. I do too. We are both used to getting up at seven thirty- and you would still take a nap. Our days have become incredibly long. How on earth do I fill an additional three hours where you should be sleeping? I am started to dread them. I've tried putting you to bed later, but you still get up just as early. Only you are even more miserable. Sometimes it's not even light when you get, so I don't know what is getting you up so early. Now it's a really bad habit and I don't know how to break it. Please please please stop getting us both up to early!

Dear Pager,

Stop going off every five minutes all night long. Do you really need to be paging about a discharge in the middle of the night? Really? Who sends patients home at two in the morning? And how about all those needless updates? And aspirin requests. Are you serious? Isn't there an open note for that? Sometimes I think you call just out of spite. Just because you are awake, you have to wake up the doctor on call. But come on. He's even more exhausted than me. He falls asleep every time he sits down. Between working ninety hours a week, being on call twice a week, studying for tests and preparing for presentations, he is not getting near enough sleep. He slept a mere seven hours in two nights. Yes, he did not get even a full nights sleep in two combined nights! Please only go off if it's absolutely necessary.

Our entire house needs more sleep...

Pajama Ballerinas

Bailey and Avery have turned into some serious ballerinas. Even Avery has ballet shoes. And they always have to have an audience. Always. One day I was playing the piano for them while they danced around the room. Bailey got very upset because Avery wouldn't sit down and watch her dance. I am trying to teach her that sometimes you just dance because you like to, and it makes you happy. We are not there yet. I do love to watch them dance though. I'm sure I'm going to miss their impromptu dance sessions when they are teenagers. And I'm beginning to think they will be teenagers before I know it.

Mike is thirty... one!

Mike is really getting old now! Last month, he turned thirty one. Mike thinks it's worse than turning thirty. (: Luckily for him, he had the night off so we headed to his favorite mexican restaurant. Unluckily for him, they had closed down. It's really too bad. We weren't entirely surprised, every time we went there they were almost empty. I guess Syracuse is just to far away from Mexico.

However, he did get what he always wanted: an ice cream cake:

I went ahead and skipped the whole 31 candle thing and did a cluster of three candles, then a one by itself. It just keeps getting trickier to keep up with his candles.

We had a nice little family birthday party. He got t-shirts he really needed, BBQ tools and the 7th Harry Potter movie. He wouldn't tell me what he wanted, so that's what we came up. (Bailey wanted to get him socks.)

His birthday also marked the end of the first month of the horrible horrible second year. Yeah. He survived. And so did we. I admit, our yard is looking worse and worse, but it's just not on my top things to get done list, and Mike works Mon-Sat, Sat night, and then sleeps on Sunday. We are counting down the days until the year is over...

April NYC half marathon

This last winter, I trained for a half marathon with my friends, Summer and Rebecca. Yes, we ran in the snowy freezing winter of Syracuse. I ran outside pretty much no matter what the weather was. After months of running, we ran the NYC half marathon. We had a great time driving out there with another friend, Jamie. I am glad that I did not do the driving. It's true what they say about NYC drivers!

The night before, we made the mistake of eating NYC pizza. It was delicious, but we definitely paid for it during the race. The pizza place itself was a crazy experience. You went down the line, picking out what kind of pizza you wanted and then they gave it to you. Then, you were supposed to go down to the end and pay. However, there was no line. It was just a bunch of people shoving their way forward to pay for their food in who-ever-can-shove-everyone-else-out-of-the-way order. It took me a while to figure that out- so I stood there for a while.

I am sorry to say that the four of us ate almost all of that!!

The night before the race was less than restful. Let's just say one of us couldn't get comfortable and kept the rest of us up. It was like a real sleep over. (:

The day arrived cold, and we had to wait a while before the race. Needless to say, conditions were not exactly great. Between the pizza, the lack of sleep, and the cold pre-wait, I was not feeling up to par. However, I was determined to finish in my goal time. I almost did- I was 45 sec. over. And I was beat by a guy in our ward who had trained for three weeks, and have never ran that far before. Oh well.

I had a great time. It was really fun to get away with just the girls for a weekend. The ride home, however, was painful. First of all, we had to check out of our hotel before the race, so our post race clean up involved a bathroom and baby wipes. Then, after pushing myself so hard, I was soooooo sick. I made everyone stop about a million times from NYC to Syracuse.

Maybe next year I'll actually go for the marathon! Anyone want to run it with me? Anyone?

Family Photos

Last month my friend Summer took our family pictures. She did a FANTASTIC job. I loved them all, and couldn't decide which ones to post, so I made a slideshow.

Bailey is five!!

This past June, my baby turned five! It's hard to believe that so much time has flown by. Luckily for Bailey, her birthday landed on a day when Mike was home.

After lunch, we opened her presents, and had unicorn cake. Unfortunately, our camera died mid birthday celebration:

Our friends gave us a great idea- band-aids for birthday presents! In our house, if there is a box of band-aids, every fall, every ouchie means a huge tantrum because I won't give a band-aid for an injury without blood. So, both Bailey and Avery got band-aids for Bailey's birthday and they can do whatever they want with them.

Bailey got soccer stuff too- she started playing soccer right after, but I'll have to do a separate post about that.

Bailey had a great birthday, and had a serious stack of presents- thanks grandmas and grandpas! Unfortunately for Avery, it did not go so well. Poor Avery was very jealous, and despite getting band-aids from us and a new pair of sandals from Grandma Cindy, she spent a lot of the party bawling, poor thing. It's hard to be two.

We were able to surprise Bailey- she had wanted a bike, but obviously, there were no bicycle shaped presents wrapped. After she finished opening her gifts, and thought she was done, we pulled down her new bike. She loved it, and of course had to go out and give it a spin immediately.

Here are the things I want to remember about my five year Bailey:

• She is a great help around the house and with her sister- she even cleans her room and vacuums
• She is getting really good and cartwheels and flips
• She loves playing outside- her favorite things to do right now are riding her bike, roller skating, jumping on the trampoline and swimming
• Avery is her best friend-they will play together for hours
• She loves listening to music and books on tape
• She loves learning to play the piano
• I am always amazed by how excited she is about life- she wants to try everything and gets excited about every day.
• One word to describe her: sunshine

I love you Bailey!

Ballet Recital

Throughout this last year, Bailey did ballet at a dance studio in Cicero. She loved it. She would come home from dance and show us all the things she learned, and even taught Avery some of the ballet terms.

She had a great time- except when she thought about the ballet recital at the end of the year. Whenever it came up, she was terrified. She told me she didn't want to do it, that she wasn't going to. When I asked her why, she said she was afraid of falling of the stage, and was scared to dance in front of so many people. (Her second fear kind of surprised me. She won't dance at home without an audience. Really. "Mom, why aren't you watching me dance?" was something I heard all day long. "Mom, I can't dance! Nobody is watching me! It's not fair!" I watched her, I just couldn't do it for hours on end like she requested.)

The long dreaded day of recital arrived, and she sat next to be practically shaking. She got to watch the other dancers first, but was curled up in the ball in her seat. When it was finally her turn, we walked back stage, and said good bye and went back, nervous myself. In one of the earlier dances, one of the little girls just stood on the stage and cried. I was afraid that was going to be Bailey for sure.

But, as you can see in the video, she surprised us all, even herself. She loved performing and did a great job. After it was done and I went to get her, she was gushing about how fun it was. She even said she wanted to do another recital that very day. I'm just glad she had a great time!

Oh, and in case you were wondering, Avery wore her little green ballet dress up there too!

Finally! A New Post: Graduation

Yes, it's been a really long time since I blogged. I have lots of excuses, but mostly it's because I hate my computer. I guess I should be grateful I have one, but it's way too slow!!

So, back to June. This last year Bailey and I did joy school. We both had a lot of fun. I am really glad that I got to be Bailey's teacher before I send her off the all day Kindergarten this September. This was our second year doing a co-op style preschool, and I have to say, joy school was pretty nice. It had all the lessons planned for you, complete with pictures, songs, snacks, everything. Mike will tell you I stayed up late many nights coloring, but still, it was pretty easy as far as teaching preschool goes. Here are some pictures of our preschool grad:

Avery insisted on wearing her dress up dance costume to the graduation. That little girl wore the outfit for about a month straight.

Here is a little snipet of them singing. It was adorable. At their first party back in October, they were supposed to sing, but mostly just stood there looking shy. And now they are singing! They have all grown up a lot this last year, and I can't believe that in a little more than a month I'll be putting Bailey on a bus, and sending Avery to joy school. Where does all the time go?