Wednesday, March 25, 2015

There's a new kid in town

Or at least there will be a new kid in town. Coming October 2015, the fourth installment of the Merkel family. Merklet #4 is due October 10th, just one day before Tom's birthday. The girls have already suggested that we name it Ariel or Stasa or Lexi. All solid suggestions.

Soooooooooooo let's get caught up again, shall we?

You know that Time Lapse setting for videos on the iPhone? Yeah? Well, that's what I feel our life has been like since the last time I posted. Work for both of us was busy through the fall and winter and is just now easing up. Added to that has been Tom going back to school, which doesn't add a whole lot to my plate, but it certainly does to his.

Let's go month by month...

November & December
As usual Thanksgiving and Christmas were spent at home with family. Stasa even had a Thanksgiving meal at school and lots of fun things counting down to Christmas, including special Christmas readers and visits from Santa and his elves. I'm sure I've said it before, but I really do love her school and can't wait until all of the kids are there. Stasa also sang in a Christmas pageant with her class and the whole school. The kids were all so adorable and the kindergartners sang and signed Silent Night in their Sunday best. 

January
The new year brought more snow and cold weather AND Stasa's sixth birthday. Every day I look at my Timehop app and am amazed at how quickly all of the years have flown by. We gave Stas a choice for birthday parties and she decided that she wanted to invite her whole class. Thinking that only a percentage of the 24 kids would show up we booked a party at our local bounce house for 15 or so. Well, we wound up increasing that number to 22! when nearly everyone RSVPed yes. Stasa couldn't have been more thrilled to have everyone there to celebrate with her and was a gracious host when it was time to leave, handing each of her classmates a helium balloon as a favor. That many guests means many many thank yous to write, which for a kindergartner is quite a task. She took about a week to finish them all since I insisted that she write them with a short personal note. It was actually great handwriting practice for her, too.

February
Between school and all of the events we've had with that we've also had some Girl Scout meetings, though we wound up missing both our February meeting and a February event due to snow and school closings. To say I'm excited for spring to come is an understatement. I'm so over the cold and snow and ick. February was mostly consumed with my work and preparing for a huge firm event. I spent so many hours working that month I can't even recall anything else that we did other than the usual daily routines. 

March
That brings us to this month. My birthday month that I now share with Alexia, who just turned FOUR. My birthday was pretty low key - we wound up getting a ton of snow that day and both school and daycare was closed, so I spent the day playing outside with the kids and then later that night Tom trekked out to get me Taco Bell (per my request). Lexi only had one request for her birthday: that we spend it at Chuck E Cheese with just our family. So last night we did just that. Stasa spent the day at home sick - her first all year (knock on wood) - and she and I took breaks to decorate the house and bake the cake. Tom took off a little early from work to get the smalls from daycare so we could hit up Chuck E Cheese on the early side. If I ever do lose my mind and actually plan a Chuck E Cheese birthday party I'm tempted to host it on a weekday evening. The place was practically empty. We grabbed a table, bought some tokens, for which I had a great coupon, and let the kids loose. Stas eventually got tired and rested at our table for a bit, but Lexi and Tommy couldn't be stopped. I was actually surprised by how many games Tommy was able to play. We combined all of their tickets and ordered dinner. While we waited for dinner we let Lexi pick prizes for everyone. Of course you have to have like 2000+ tickets to get anything of value and we only had about 260, so she wound up choosing candy and a few plastic bracelets. They also had a deal for walk in birthdays, so I got her a birthday crown, guitar balloon, and medallion. Once we finished dinner there we packed it up and headed home for cake and a lively game of Hungry Hungry Hippos. I forgot how much fun that game is. Tommy's favorite part was taking the balls out of everyone's goal and putting them in his own. And so now the kids are counting down to Easter and Tommy's birthday and then we'll all count down to summer and warm days spent at the pool and camping.