Ten on Tuesday

1. This weekend we had Korenak Family Christmas in SEMO. Zane got an easel for painting and drawing, which he is thoroughly enjoying. The whole painting process with Zane stresses me out, but he loves it. We also got an ice creamer maker to make homemade ice cream this summer. It is electric so we don't have to crank it the whole time, so we should be all set. Zane thinks we should make ice cream all the time. He doesn't quite get that it takes a long time to make homemade ice cream, but I know he will love it.

Here are the Korenak Grandkids. They were quite the lively crew this weekend. Things get a little crazy with  five kids under ten, but it's great fun!

 Here is our little family, Merry Christmas!

2. Here is my beautiful little niece Adeline. I love her dearly and she is growing up to be quite the young lady. This is Miss Adeline with her new American Girl doll, whose name escapes me, Kasey maybe. Uncle Zach and I got her these matching outfits, aren't they a sassy pair. She is also a new daisy girl scout this year. Uncle Zach and I gave her some sales tips for her cookie sales. I'm sure she will be tops sales daisy! Thursday is her sixth birthday, so happy early birthday to Miss Adeline Claire.

3. This past Thursday Zane had a play date at the Science Center with my dear friend Amy. She is briefly back from her travels for the holidays and heads out again on Friday. Zane had a great time and really loved Amy's little sisters, even though I am not sure they really knew what he was doing, hugging them all the time. Many thanks to Allie who came with us and was a life saver, hauling Zane around for me all day. Happy travels in Denver Amy, we will miss you!!

Here is Amy, here sisters, and Zane after building the arch.

Amy and Zane trying to find pirate treasure.

4. Today temperatures reached upwards of 50 degrees so Zane and I headed to the back yard for some much needed outdoors time. He played in his sand for the first time in months, we took a "choo choo ride", and spent a lot of time playing fire fighter, a new outdoor activity. He put out tons of fires and had a great time! Oh how I miss warm weather.

Apple snack time outside, our favorite!

 All Aboard! 

 Fireman Sam, to the rescue!!!!!

5. Zane now randomly goes poops on the potty from time to time. There is no rhyme or reason to when he decides to do this, but he generally asks to do it and then enjoys candy afterwards. He never pees on the potty and has no idea when his diaper is wet. I really have no hopes of potty training success anytime soon, but we will take any fewer poopy diapers possible.

6. As you all know Zane thoroughly enjoys his iPad time. As of late I had been noticing that his iPad time was pretty much consisting of him watching cartoons. So I researched some new apps that I thought might be a little bit more educational, but still entertaining to him.  Zane's new favorite app is Earth School, which takes you from the big bang to dinosaurs. He now knows what a meteorite looks like, can recognize Saturn, and goes through this whole cycle numerous times. His other favorites include Farm School which mainly is identifying farm animals, which you can't go wrong with. And Bugs and Bunnies that is all about the environment. He recycles, composts, collects fireflies, and frees random animals, who are in jail, by matching things. It all sounds random, but I feel better about iPad time now.

7. I guess I should do a pregnancy update. Here it is... I am 32 weeks pregnant, I am getting larger, the number of clothes that fit are decreasing, and we are approaching the fine line where the adorable baby movements tip over from adorable to painful. Rowan is a my little night owl. We spend lots of quality time awake at night, to prepare us for our future together, I guess. Time continues to fly by and it seems our to do list isn't getting any shorter. This weekend we have a lot of lofty goals of things to try to accomplish, wish us luck.

8. One of our lofty goals is taking down the Christmas decorations. Zane is going to be devastated. There are still some Christmas decorations up around the neighborhood, which leads to conversations in the car about how not only is it not Halloween yet, it is no long Christmas time either. The poor boy is now thoroughly confused. The best we could come up with is that it is Winter Time, but nothing fun happens during Winter Time. Hmmm.... I guess Valentines day is going to have to be a bigger deal this year.

9.  Work is going to be crazy between now and when this baby is born. I have to get all my re-certifications and random classes done before leaving so nothing lapses while I am gone. This means that I am basically going to be working four days a week from here on out. Not all of those days will be 12 hr days, but at least three of them will be, I'm exhausted just thinking about it. On the one day off I have each week I will be going to doctor appointments. All I want to do is play with Zane, but I have no time. Oh did I mention Zach is going to be gone for a week, two different times, between now and the end of February... TERRIFIED.

10. Lastly, check out Zane's new "tiger ears" as he calls them. They are tiger headphones that we got to go with the DVD player Grandma Blakley got us for Christmas. We had hoped that they would arrive prior to our trip to SEMO, but they were waiting on our porch when we got home, instead. We have no road trips in our near future so Zane is now using them to listen to his music on the iPad. He was entertained by these for a long time today and they are oh so cute!