Well, our little girl is now 4 years old.  I’ve had a few people ask me if she’s going to preschool, or 4K.  Shane and I talked about it, and are of the opinion that we’d rather send her to a Waldorf or possibly a Montessori school rather than standard public school.  When we knew we were moving to the Hudson area, I immediately started looking to see what would be available in our new area.

Unfortunately the nearest Waldorf schools where in St. Paul, Minneapolis, and other cities across the river from Hudson.  Then I looked at the Montessori schools, there is one in River Falls, but it’s a private school (as are the ones in Minnesota) rather than charter schools.  What’s the difference?  Well the private schools are quite expensive and charter schools are actually public schools and paid for by taxes which mean they don’t require extra tuition costs.

Shane and I talked about the tuition costs for the Montessori school in River Falls, and while it probably isn’t out of line, it is more than we felt we could afford.  It also meant that we’d have to drive her to her school every day, a bit more than we wanted to take on.  Instead we decided that for this year, we are going to find activities for Allyssa and I’ll work on teaching or homeschooling her this year.  We’re also looking to homeschooling groups and such in the area as addition places Allyssa can make friends.

So last night we were looking over the Woodbury Parks and Rec booklet, and decided to sign Allyssa up for their Wish Upon a Ballet and Fascinating Fitness programs.  ”Wish Upon a Ballet is a dance program for children that incorporates popular children’s stores as well as ballet stores to create a dance class that is more than ballet steps.  Using musical instruments, parachutes and scarves we will create a complete fairy tale experience while we skip, leap, jump and spin.  Children will learn an appreciation of dance and music while developing strength and flexibility.”  The class is 45 minutes in length.

The booklet also talks about Fascinating Fitness and says, “This class will be packed with high energy warm ups, games and fitness routines.  We will not only get our bodies moving but learn about healthy eating and exercise.  there is no doubt that being healthy starts when you are young.  Help your children be fascinated about fitness today so that they can be fascinated about fitness for life!”  This class is 30 minutes in length.

Part of the reason we decided to go with both of these is that they are one after the other in the same location which is only a couple of miles from home.  There is a 15 minute break between the two so plenty of time for Allyssa to have some water and a quick healthy snack if she wishes.  But not so long as need us to find other things to do between them.

Another part of our activities has been going to Storytime at Hudson Library every Thursday.  This has worked fairly well.  We drive in with Shane in the morning, spend time at the library as well as other places in Hudson, and then do our grocery shopping before coming home.

It has been ages since I last posted to this blog.  According to my looking through the past posts it appears like my past post was on May 24th.  If you have read anything of this blog since, you can see that much has happened since then.  I won’t bore anyone with the repeating of what you know has happened.  Instead I will attempt to do an update on some of the things that haven’t been posted. Please do not think this is a complete list of other things that have occurred but it is some of them.

Currently when we’re out and about, Allyssa has two favorite games.  They are both where you each take turns either counting or going through the alphabet.  She now get bored counting somewhere in the mid to late thirties, but typically we will only count up to twenty and then switch sides. We will also switch sides when doing the alphabet and she knows them both very well.  We are working with some flash cards,  the only word she always recognizes right now is “ice cream” but she will go though the letters and the pictures of all the other flash cards easily.

Allyssa has unfortunately started trying to be a picky eater.  Perhaps that’s the wrong way to put it, it would be more accurate to say that she often decides that she doesn’t want to eat when it’s meal time.  She’ll say she’s not hungry then, but just after we leave the table she’ll want some sort of treat be it M&Ms or cookies, or whatever.

Eating isn’t the only thing that Allyssa can be stubborn about.  She’s also that way about potty-training.  Yes, we are currently working on potty training, but progress seems to be very slow.  We have even purchased big girl panties for her but even that doesn’t seem to be incentive enough to try to remember to use the potty rather than go when- and wherever.  When we are home she is on the potty for 15-30 minutes every hour, but she still seems to be able to go when she’s not on the potty.  Sometimes I think she misses, because she is still sitting in the high chair because she hasn’t finished eating yet.  But as much as I want her potty trained, she has to eat more than 2 or 3 bites of food for a meal.  (Yes supper tonight was a bad night for her and eating.  The sad part of that is what we had for supper was tacos and refried beans which normally she really likes.  But not tonight apparently.)

Well those are my thoughts for the moment, I’ll try to post more again later.  Promise not to hold your breath though.

Yeah, I know, heart attack time right? Since moving back to Holmen I have been so busy trying to find a job that I just have not been able to do much of anything else. Then last month I got involved in writing some plugins for the WordPress software which has taken up quite a bit of time. One of those plugins I wrote was for sharing recipes, called Recipe Share, on WordPress blogs. For fun, I added that plugin to this site so I can share some of my recipes – there is one up already.

Allyssa is getting bigger and is really smart too! She knows the entire alphabet and can count to ten, though some days she needs a little coaxing to get through them all. She is also at that stage where she wants to be “naked”, well, except for a diaper, and refuses to wear clothes. She also refuses to sit on the potty so potty training is progressing very slowly, or not at all right now.

Her favorite movie right now is Cars. Well actually, it is Mater and the Ghostlight which is a bonus on the Cars DVD. I think I have seen that over 100 times already. It is kind of annoying too, because every time Mater breaks his headlight she has to scream out “he broke his light!” Oh well, she’s still the most wonderful part of my life right now.

The job market in the area is crap, and although there have been a couple of options, none of them have panned out. So, Laura and I have decided to use my knowledge to build a business. We are working now on a Business Plan and actually have about a half dozen customers already, so it just might work out. The trick will be to actually keep working towards that, and not playing games on Facebook (hint hint Laura).

Shoot, gotta get back to work now. In case you don’t hear from us in the next couple of months, just remember that it is NORMAL to for us to not update the blog, so things must be normal.

Growing up in a house with two geeks for parents, it comes as no surprise that that Allyssa is going to be one as well. When I walked out of the bedroom/office for lunch today, this is what I saw, and I just had to snap a picture of it. She is just sooooo cute!

So, what was she doing? Filling up the screen with the letters a and z, and of course screwing up the windows so Laura had to move them back where she liked. Yes, this is Laura’s computer, because my brand new Dell has a bad hard drive. You can read more about that and my fun with Dell Tech support on my GrandSlambert blog.

So, while we are on the subject of Allyssa, perhaps an update is in order. As you know she is 2 years and 2 months old now. She is still on the petite side but that it is OK, she is cute. She is also very smart and can recognize most numbers and quite a few letters. Her speech is still a little hard to understand, but she can say a lot of words now. Of course, I love it when she says “I love you”, even if only mommy and daddy understand what she is saying.

Yes, she is two, and believe me she is really going through the terrible twos something fierce. She is very demanding and wants to watch Thomas the Tank Engine all day long. When she does not get to, she throws a screaming fit that you would not believe. We are still trying to figure out how to deal with that, but we know that it is a phase, and we will get through it.

Usually offering to take her to the pool stops the tantrum, but we cannot always do that. She really enjoys going to the pool and has become quite the water baby. Though the pool we have here is not the best, it is large enough that we can enjoy it, and if we go during the day when most people are at work we have it all to ourselves. Unfortunately, during the day it is in direct sun, so we try to go later in the afternoon when the pool is in the shade.

I think we might be spoiled living where we are. Wood burning fireplace, private fenced in back yard, pool and walking distance to just about everything we need. I would have been a fool to leave, and I am so glad we are staying. I just wish we had more room here but it works for now. OK, back to school for me. I just started my second block of classes and have a lot of work to do.

We had an early start today.  Shane had plans, but he hadn’t double checked the dates.  Apparently the computer he’s using had Monday listed as the start of the week rather than Sunday and that threw off his calendar.  So we had some change of plans needless to say.

Since we had an early start to the day and no plans, we ended up deciding to check out Union Station.  Being the train buffs we are we had decided to see the KC Rail Experience.  We are not sure if we missed something of the show or not, but there didn’t seem to be much to the display.  It was informative, but Allyssa doesn’t like standing in one area long enough to listen to the narration, and certainly doesn’t want to stand there while you read a display.  Which is probably why it seemed a bit small to me.

There had been a slight mix up with our tickets and we were able to get into Science City as well.  There was certainly a lot there for children to do, learn and see. It was more for children older than Allyssa but we still found lots to do, and she had a great time.

With the ticket mix up, we were also able to see a show in the planetarium.  I liked what I saw of the show, but by then I was so tired from the early rising and walking all over Science City that I ended up dozing off and missing part of the show.

We enjoyed the day so much, we are talking about purchasing a membership to KC Union Station.  If we go more than 2 times as a family the membership will pay for itself.  Another reason to consider it, is that they have a Half Pint Program which is aimed towards children 3-6.  While Allyssa would be a bit young for that at the moment, she is a very smart girl and won’t always be too young.  Besides the Half Pint program is 1/2 price for members.

Someone once told me that Allyssa should have her own place to keep her things to help her build her independence. So we decided to give her the bottom two shelves on the book shelf in the living room to keep her toys. Of course, they don’t usually stay there and she hasn’t yet learned to put things away, well, except for herself.

The other day we saw her trying to crawl up onto the toy shelf for some reason. We didn’t get a picture then and we wished we had. Then today she did it again. For no reason, she clears off the bottom shelf then climbs in. I love my daughter and I love playing with toys, but even I think this is going too far! At least she is starting to put things on the shelf – maybe we should teach her that toys go on the shelf, and the baby belongs in daddies arms where he can love and protect her forever.

No, I am not looking at a new job already, this post is about Allyssa. While visiting with Grandma today Allyssa found a new toy that she doesn’t quite understand. For those of you that can’t make it out, it’s a toy level that actually works – we’ve used it to hang pictures! It is such a joy to watch Allyssa learn by exploring, building her brain to be as smart as mommy and daddy – or maybe smarter.

I wouldn’t say my daughter is a genius, though wouldn’t that be cool, but she’s walking already which we haven’t decided if that is good or bad. I know, lot’s of babies walk at 9 months, but if you are a parent then you know the joy of seeing your child take her first steps. The glow in her face as she realizes she is no longer a rug-rat, but a toddler. Of course she doesn’t know what those words mean, but at least she can get around. And so the journey begins…