I had my last work shift this past Saturday at A GYM TALE. I will really miss all my little preschoolers who have come so far in just a few months of school. We had our annual holiday concert last week, and they performed a good 15 minutes of songs and music that we'd been working on throughout the year. Getting 3 year olds to sit still and sing and focus for that amount of time is challenging. But after lots of practice, both our morning and afternoon classes put on a great show! I really enjoy where I work, and the staff, and will certainly miss them as I officially start my mat leave this week.
I have 5 weeks to go until little Baby Girl is due to arrive, and the pregnancy continues to be pretty smooth. I've had the odd cramping and back pain, and am obviously getting more tired being on my feet, but things are all looking good all around. Dave is off on holidays for a few weeks, and tonight we set up her nursery, finally! We still need to paint the walls, but all the furniture is in along with some splashes of pink among clothes and some girly decor. It made me really excited! I will post some pictures once the paint is on and pictures up.
Jesse is doing well these days, and is quite the little man. He is a total weirdo by times, and has these frantic random periods where he gets wired and runs around the house squealing and making strange faces and then will do bizarre things like throwing himself onto his stomach to bolt across the room in an army crawl, or just freeze and close his eyes and growl. It's pretty entertaining. He's also a pretty loving little kid. Always has hugs and kisses for me and does he ever LOVE his daddy and dog. The other night when I was tucking him in after he'd fallen asleep, he was whispering their names in his sleep over and over "Daddy...PurPur...Daddy... PurPur...Daddy." It almost made me cry. His little world is just so small. The boys do lots of wrestling and get out doing errands when they have time together, and when Dave has to leave for work, Jesse will rush to the door and ask for, "Daddy?!?" repeatedly for a good 5 minutes.
His vocabulary is really expanding and he can properly say quite a few words, many of the simple ones like up and down and cheese, but also some more challenging things like lights, clocks, snow, and Yes-Jesus. What confused me, is the random names he has come up with and consistently sticks to for some things. Orange is "gobgaw" Upstairs is "DooDoo" and Cheerios are "Veeeees." So random. He's also hit a definite toddler stage and wants to do lots of things on his own. He does NOT like using kiddy plastic spoons, but prefers my grown up fork. He wants to put on his own hat and mittens, even though it can take forever. He likes blowing his own nose and brushing his own teeth, and diaper changes can cause melt downs some days. The other day, as I was folding laundry, he pulled all my clean underwear out of the drawer and proceeded to blow his nose into all of them. Gross. Then bolted with one of my bras into the bathroom and threw it into the toilet where he tried to flush it. Oh curiosity.
The other newer development, is that Jesse might have inherited my love for organization. He spent one hour the other day pulling all the nutrigrain bars out of the box, lining them up, then putting them back in. Repeat 40 times. He also will do that with this pencil box we have with pencils. Takes as many out as he can fit into his hands, then puts them all back in neatly. The other night, he had some fruit cut up on his plate, and what he didn't want he lined up in a neat little row on the table. The pantry has been a great place for him to explore and organize... I just need to move all the flours up higher...
Dave has definitely had a better semester than his first year, and I'm so happy he has a few weeks off! We've been out most nights all week with Holiday parties and catching up with friends. Last night we just sat around the table eating and playing games, and it was truly magical. Most nights he is tied up with school work, and so it's been like a dream.
We aren't heading back East for the Holidays due to time and money constraints, being rather pregnant and you just never know what the weather will do. We'll really miss seeing our families, but are hoping to see them shortly after baby 2 is born. With that, we're making the most of our first Christmas as little Vance family. Dave's had his traditions, and I've had mine, and we're combining them for this year, as well as making some of our own. I'm very excited about Christmas Eve. We're gonna hit up the early candlelight service at the Met(our church) tomorrow night, then come home for a huge feast of lasagna and caesar salad. Growing up, we never had a big or specific meal on Christmas Eve, but my best friends family did. And that's what good ol' Barb always served up, apparently. Anyways, I'm not a huge turkey and potato person, so decided to make something that I adore! Selfish? Maybe a little, but gluten free lasagna is a rare event around here, so I think Kate and Dave are looking forward to it.
Katie and I are all ready to tag team Christmas dinner again, and we have a big day of prep work for it starting tomorrow, so I should head to bed and get some R and R.
Merry Christmas to all of you. I hope you have a fantastic day/week/year... my goal is to post again before the new year
Much Love, The Vances
