Holiday Season and Toddler Travels

Oh the weather outside is frightful...because it's been so darn hot. I hope that you all had a very blessed Thanksgiving and Christmas this year. Our holidays are never the norm because we are a clergy family. That being said, we are creating our own traditions and putting our own style on the holidays.

One day, I was sitting at the computer looking at Groupon deals, as I so often do and I saw a deal for the indoor water park and resort. I clicked on it and realized that this amazing deal was only for one specific night, Thanksgiving. I told Nate, and he says, "Book it!" The past several years that we have been in McAllen, we have been blessed to be invited to be a part of our friends' Thanksgiving celebrations. This year we decided to lay low and take Zoe out to South Padre Island to splash around in the water. We took her to the Schlitterbahn water park and stayed overnight in their resort. It was only $69! You can't ever get a night on the island for that price, let alone three passes to the indoor water park included. We had a great time. It was a nice little one night getaway for our little family.

Minnie Mouse in the House - Toddler Halloween

Happy All Saints Day! Halloween is over. Enjoy eating your kids' candy and watching football. St. Paul had their annual (except for last year, but we won't mention that) Fall Festival.

Now, in true mom of a toddler and my husband was out of town all week mode, I had Zoe's costume ordered months ago and started and finished Nate's and mine today. Now, to be fair, most of Nate's and my costumes were things that we already owned. I needed to however find a Minnie Mouse Skirt. I did the thing that we all do when we all do in an emergency, I went to the internet. I searched Pinterest tirelessly. I read tutorials but everything seemed too hard or too short. I was going to wear leggings but the skirt still needed to cover my behind. So, I turned to "Everything for Dummies" also known as YouTube. This is where I found the perfect tutorial. You can find it here. I decided to sew it instead of glue it, like the girl did in the video. I do better when I don't have to wait for things to dry. I also needed to wear it about two hours later. I dusted off my sewing machine and it turned out great. Don't get too excited, it was two straight lines of stitching. I do feel pretty good that I made a skirt in less than 20 minutes.

Toddler Life: Cheese and Elmo

Toddlerhood is crazy. Zoe was a great baby. She slept through the night most of her younger months, she was quiet in public and smiled at everyone she saw. She was the picture perfect baby. Toddlerhood I imagine is difficult for most. Zoe is a crazy toddler. She is amazingly adorable, but crazy. It probably comes from her being so outgoing. She wants to know what is going on in every place at every moment. However I am doing my best to savor every moment of her toddler time because it is still so cute and wonderful.

Sometimes it amazes me what things Zoe enjoys and doesn't enjoy. She LOVES cheese. She is obsessed with cheese, She will stand at the fridge and say, "cheese, cheese, cheese, " like she will die if she doesn't get some. She loves mac and cheese, grilled cheese, Annie's cheddar bunnies, string cheese, cheese slices, quesadillas, and more. If I ever ran out Annie's Cheddar Bunnies, it would be bad. Those bunnies keep the peace. I could hear it now, "bubbies, bubbies." It would be so so sad. Nate and I both love cheese, so this is no surprise that she loves cheese. She however isn't big on meat. That is not normal for us. We love meat. However, I recently discovered that she will eat almost any meat with some ranch dressing or ketchup. Yay!

Zoe is 18 Months!!

Zoe is 18 Months. I can't believe it. I can't believe how she is turning into a kid and not just a baby. She still has her moments where she acts like a baby, but with all of the words she is saying and all of things she understands. She is quickly becoming a big girl. She has added the word "no" to her vocabulary. She doesn't just say "no", she says, "no" with this little head shake. It is very cute which makes it that much harder to get her to do something she doesn't want to do. Zoe gets cuter by the minute and we couldn't be happier to be the ones watching it all happen.

Mommy Went Back To Work

Many of you know that I have been staying at home with Zoe for 17 months. It has been the best 17 months of my life. Although, it probably has been longer because I loved pregnancy, too. Anyway, I was filling in at St. Paul in the office one day and Nate came in and told me that they needed a librarian. School started in a week, so they didn't have a ton of time to figure this out. I decided to think about maybe taking on the position.

This was a painstaking decision. I LOVE being a stay-at-home mom. I have never been happier. I love my freedom. I love that if Zoe and I want to stay in pajamas all morning, we can. I was worried that she would notice that mommy wasn't around as much. I was worrying that I was putting work before her. I was worried that we would lose something. I wasn't sure what that something was, but I was scared. All of these things that I knew probably weren't a problem. Those darn mommy hormones. They are so fierce. They get you so worked up over almost nothing. I was just THINKING about offering to do it. I wasn't offered the job yet and I certainly had not made up my mind. Those hormones will hit you when you least expect it. I saw a Quaker Oats YouTube video about a girl and her dad the other day and started crying. What the heck? I mean I am emotional, but I don't even eat oatmeal.

So I thought about it and talked to Nate about it until his ears fell off. I agreed to work 12 hours a week, which translates to three half days. Nate stays home and hangs out with Zoe on Fridays, but she attends our friend Lety's in-home daycare the other 8 hours a week.  Lety has a very small group and Zoe was around her all the time anyway because she is a good family friend. I wasn't ready to send her to big day care at St. Paul just yet.  In fact, started to fill out all of the paperwork and I was getting chest pains and shortness of breath. I need more time. I know that when it comes time for preschool, I am going to need an oxygen tank and anti-anxiety pills for the registration process.

I have been doing the Library gig for two weeks now. So far, I am liking it a lot. I get to help out our school by working 12 hours a week and still feel like a stay-at-home mom. I don't feel like I have lost all of my precious time with my little girl. We still spend so much time playing and running errands.