Another Swimming Class Completed

Once again, Amaya has successfully completed another Community Education Water Readiness Class. Her class consisted of 3-5 year olds, and she was by far one of the youngest. She did an amazing job and is getting more and more confident in the water.

She's picking up a lot more skills and I think it helped being in the water with bigger kids to serve as role models.

Amaya is pretty excited about getting another ribbon!

A close up of her ribbon.

Date Night

After church last night, Steve and I dropped Amaya off at her Grandma and Grandpa Horning's house so that Steve and I could spend some quiet time together. Trying to carve out time for just the two of us is a little challenging especially on a tight budget, but has become a high priority for us this year.

We headed over to Starbucks since we had a couple of gift cards. In hindsight, I should have ordered a little differently since my highly caffeinated grande coffee kept me up until the wee morning hours. Then, we headed out to the mall to walk and window-shop. I refrained from going into any kids clothing stores despite the great sale at Gymborree! We finished up the night at Barnes and Noble browsing through the books and magazines. It was a quiet, relaxing, and FREE night and we both had fun reconnecting after a busy week. We're hoping to make this a weekly event and even better, Amaya gets to have the time of her life with her grandparents!

North Park Gospel Choir Concert

Last night, we had the opportunity to attend the North Park University Gospel Choir and Jazz Ensemble at my parent's church. I was in the Gospel Choir while I attended school at NPU, so I was very excited to see how it had changed and grown. I was a little disappointed that my old choir director wasn't there, but I shouldn't have been surprised since it's been nearly 11 years!

Amaya enjoyed the Jazz Ensemble and "rocked out" quite a bit! Most likely, she's got the music gene in her blood! We were impressed by the enthusiasm of all of those involved and the skill level of those young college students. During the concert, I felt like I was back in the soprano section those 11 years ago worshiping and praising God. Being a part of the Gospel Choir was one of my favorite things about North Park and I was so blessed by the concert last night!

Catching Up

Hmmm... over a month and a half... how does one even catch up? In all honesty, I've procrastinated and put off our blog for two reasons: 1) I haven't had time and 2) the time that I do have, I want to spend with Steve and Amaya. Unfortunately though, I still want to keep up with all of our family activities and Amaya's accomplishments so that our memories are recorded somewhere and this tends to be the easiest place. I plan on posting most of our pictures between Amaya's birthday and now, but I'll probably back-date them so that they are all in order, but in the meantime... here's the Cliff Notes version of the past month and a half...

*Steve continues to plug away at his internship and is still finding it very rewarding.
*Steve has applied for graduation from his master's program on May 21st! (I can't even begin to tell you how proud I am of Steve!)
*Steve has an interview scheduled this month for entrance into a DOCTORATE program at St. Mary's University.
*Steve's health continues to remain stable and surgery is tentatively scheduled soon after graduation.

*Amaya finished another round of swimming lessons through Community Education and we saw a huge improvement with her skills.
*Amaya started an 8 week Introduction to Dance class also through Community Education. She LOVES to dance and LOVES her ballet shoes! When asked, she can show you how to do "first position."
*Amaya continues to thrive in preschool and from her conferences with her teacher this week, she has increased her confidence level and is participating more in class!
*Amaya is registered for preschool next year, the only differences will be a new teacher and she'll go 2 days a week.
*Amaya is once again cavity free and did an AMAZING job at the dentist this week!
*Amaya can successfully crack eggs without any egg shells in the cookie dough batter.
*Amaya is my "sous chef" in the kitchen - I've lost track of how many batches of cookies we've made and frosted.
*Amaya is learning to rhyme words and is just now beginning to write letters. "A" and "H" are the first letters she's learned.

*I continue to enjoy my job in Allergy. Although, it's been a difficult transition from being the "expert" in Dermatology to the "novice" in Allergy.
*I've picked up 4 extra shifts every month since December and while I am thankful for the additional income, I'll be glad to get back to my regular "part-time" schedule soon.
*I started a "Read through the Bible in a Year" program and have managed to keep up.
*I've volunteered in Amaya's preschool class which was an absolute treat to interact with her friends and classmates.
*I've been asked by several co-workers to begin a blog focusing on "Living on Less" and while it's exciting to think about and would help so many others in this economy, I'm not sure that I have the time, the effort, or the resources to give 100% to this project.
*I still in a constant struggle to find "balance" between being a working mom and wife, but I'm enjoying every "hat" I wear.

Happy Valentine's Day!

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

I love Valentine's Day - especially when I get flowers delivered at work from a certain special husband of mine! For Valentine's Day, my parents offered to watch Amaya while Steve and I had a date night. We went to a new Italian restaurant in town and it was scrumptious! We enjoyed it so much that it's now one of our favorite restaurants. For an appetizer, we had Risotto Fritters with smoked mozzarella and a creamy tomato artichoke sauce. I also had the most amazing Caesar salad ever! Steve had the Veal Marsala with cream sauce and mushrooms served over garlic fettucine. There were so many options and I had a hard time narrowing it down, but finally decided on the Chicken Milanese - a panko crusted chicken breast served with a lemon and white wine butter sauce served over garlic fettucine. For dessert, we ordered the Pazzo AmoreTorte - a flourless chocolate torte with espresso whipped cream and raspberry puree and a cup of coffee. AMAZING! Afterwards, we went to see the movie, "No Strings Attached" starring Ashton Kutcher. When we picked up Amaya, she didn't really even seem to miss us because she had just as much fun!

At Amaya's preschool, each student was encouraged to share Valentine's cards. Here she is with all her loot!

We gave Amaya this Tinkerbell card...

...a few books...

... and CANDY CORN!

I gave Steve a gift card to Subway (his favorite fast food place) and a box of NERDS.

Hope everyone had a special day sharing it with the one you love!

Great Grandma's 92nd Birthday

It's not every day you're invited to celebrate someone's 92nd birthday. But yesterday, we celebrated Amaya's Great Grandma Struckmann's 92 years of life! Doesn't she look great?

Steve's mom made this cake - It tasted just as good as it looks!

Great Grandma, Grandma Horning, and Amaya

Four generations!

Happy Birthday Great Grandma! We are blessed to have you in our lives!

Happy 3rd Birthday Amaya!

There's a three year old in our house! Didn't we just bring her home from the hospital? Didn't just celebrate her first tooth, first words, first steps? And now we're celebrating her 3rd birthday! According to Amaya, "everything fun happens when you're three." She enjoys taking Community Education classes and she's had to wait until she's three to take the Intro to Dance class (which we've enrolled her in and starts in the first week of February.) And, she's decided that now that she's three, she doesn't want to use her little potty anymore and wants to use the "grown-up" one. Can't wait to see what this year holds for this little princess!

Since her "Big Party" with her grandparents, aunt and uncle, cousins, and friends wasn't until Saturday the 22nd, we had a small party just the three of us on Thursday. We took her out for pizza at Godfather's. Yummy!

Played a few arcade games...

... and WON!

Can you tell this little girl looks up to her Daddy?

We headed back home in the bitter cold to open presents and have cupcakes. Amaya opened a few from us, one from her aunt and uncle in Colorado and one from my co-workers.

Amaya and my co-worker Pauline share a common interest....

... they both LOVE CHEETOS!

She got quite a few books from both her aunt and uncle and from Steve and me. She LOVES, LOVES, LOVES books - especially when they are Fancy Nancy!!

After presents, we had cupcakes. Amaya picked out which ones she wanted at Wal-Mart. No surprise here that she picked out Dora.

Happy Birthday, Amaya!

Delicioso!

Frosting Sugar Cookies

One of my favorite memories growing up, was decorating sugar cookies with my mom. We ate a lot of frosting, made a big mess, and had a lot of fun!

Amaya has several aprons, but for this special day, she wanted to wear the one that Cooper's Grandma gave her - thank you Grandma Susie!

She's working pretty hard and doing a great job!

Steve helped too because I had made a pretty big batch. His cookies were definitely the most creative!

Snitching a little frosting....

... and a little more...

A little sampling of our finished cookies.

"Mom! We made a big mess!"

Blizzards of December 2010

December of 2010 broke several records with the most snowfall ever. I think we got nearly 40 inches of snow throughout the entire month. This picture was taken during the first storm with several more to follow.

Amaya got new snowpants and an early Christmas gift - a sled! What a great time to put them into use! Steve got Amaya ready in her snow gear while I was hoping she didn't have to go to the bathroom! :-)

Steve pulled her along and she had an awesome time going through the snowdrifts.

Making snow-angels!

Amaya wanted to help shovel, so she's using one of Steve's that he keeps in his car. She actually was quite a big helper, until she started taking snow from the piles and putting it on the clean driveway!

After an hour or so, Amaya was ready to go inside for... HOT CHOCOLATE! (with lots of marshmallows - or marshmellums as Amaya calls them.)

Delicious!

Decorating the Tree

Since 2002 (when I bought my townhouse), I've always gotten a Premium Frasier Fir tree at Whiting's Nursery. After marrying Steve, we've continued the tradition because the staff at Whiting's make it so easy to pick out and load up a tree and they've got a beautiful selection of quality trees.

We typically will put our tree up in the corner of the living room near the window, but Steve wanted a BIG tree - nearly 9 feet tall! So, we tried out the tree in front of the bay window and I think we'll put it here every year. I didn't go nearly as crazy with the lights this year, only because a few of our strands weren't working anymore and it was a near blizzard out and I didn't want us trekking outside to Wal-Mart to pick out more. I think it only has about 800 lights on it this year, but it was still beautiful!

Amaya was pretty excited to help decorate the tree and a lot more helpful than last year.

Even Steve got a new ornament this year and helped decorate a little.

Amaya enjoyed decorating so much for Christmas, that we decided to get her very own pre-lit tree for her room. She really wanted a pink tree, but the couple of places we checked were all sold out. She was just as happy though with this little tree.

While I was growing up, my Mom bought me a new ornament each year so that when I had my own tree, I'd have a good collection of ornaments. It was such a great idea, that we decided to continue that tradition with Amaya too! Her very first ornament was the one on the left with her picture in it. We gave her Abby last year and this year we gave her a Dora ornament. Mom bought her the cookie sheet ornament and it accurately reflects our 2010 Christmas season - lots of cookie making and decorating!

Amaya was so proud to decorate her own tree and did a fabulous job! (And I refrained from moving any of the ornaments to "even things out.") Throughout the weeks leading up to Christmas, I would notice our big Christmas tree looking a little bare of ornaments near the bottom. Sure enough, Amaya was sneaking ornaments off our family tree to put on hers!

Amaya - Christmas 2010 - and her tree all decorated.

The picture is a little dark, but here is our completed tree! Probably one of my favorite trees so far!

We just got the tree and decorations down today. We've typically taken it down the weekend after New Year's, but because my sister and her family were still in town, we waited until this weekend. It's a little sad putting away all the decorations, but it's good to get our house back to normal.