My Brain Hurts

Went to bed last night at about 1am.
Woke up at 6:40am.
Showered, went to work.
Did my lesson plan.
Was evaluated by my principal.
Did of few of my regular sessions, plus speech and language testing on 4 kids.
Had a meeting from 4-6pm, which I probably didn't need to be at.
Got home at 6:30pm.
Ate a crappy dinner: a bowl of Grape Nuts and a hot dog (sick, I know).
Played with my family for about 20 minutes.
Gave Sydney a tub and put her to bed.
Immediately went to play volleyball at 8pm.
Played with my team, then was asked to play with another team.
Had an awesome time playing (got TONS of good sets!) until 10pm.

Came home and started blogging in attempt to put off doing the following:
Lesson plan for tomorrow (gotta look good for the follow-up principal evaluation).
Shower.
Pack my lunch and Sydney's diaper bag.
Mentally prepare for an 8am faculty meeting.

Only 1 more week until spring break. I can't wait!! I need to re-coop in a major way.

St. Patrick's Day

We have had such beautiful weather this week! St. Patrick's Day was no exception. Sydney and I spent all morning outside, then Spencer got to come home early because it was "Professional's Day" at school.

We had an old, crumbly loaf of bread in our freezer, so we headed to Shaker Lakes to feed the geese. Sydney has gotten really good at saying "birdie" and "tweet tweet," so I thought she'd enjoy it. At first there were only 4 or 5 geese that came over to us, but within 10 minutes another 20 swam over to get in on the grub.

Apparently Sydney didn't think the bread was as gross as we did...

When our bread was gone, we went over to the swings on the nearby playground. Sydney was NOT a fan, even when I was holding her on my lap and swinging. Bummer.

Sydney making her escape.

That evening we got to grill outside. It was soooo yummy, we are looking forward to summer full of grilling!

Not a very festive St. Patty's Day meal, but we snuck in some green.

We finished off the evening with some chocolate peanut butter cup ice cream cones from Mitchell's. I shared mine with Sydney, and every lick was quickly followed by "uh, uh, uh" to tell me she was ready for more.

Mmmmmm.

It was a good day.

Happy Birthday to Me!

I turned 27 on Friday, which is totally weird to me. Sometimes I still don't feel like an adult even though I have a husband, a baby, and a bona fide job. Will that ever happen?

Although Ohio usually has crappy weather on March 12, I have a few memories of riding my bike outside in the sunny weather on my birthday when I was a kid (and wearing my new birthday outfit complete with fluorescent orange spandex shorts). This birthday added to those memories- 66 degrees with sunny skies! I also only had to work a 1/2 day, which was a nice treat.
I made myself my usual carrot cake the night before, then decorated it when I got home from work on Friday. Pretty sure this looks exactly the same as last year's cake but with different colors, but hey, polka dots are fast and easy :)

As always, Spencer was a ham when he sang a solo of "Happy Birthday." He actually recorded the video of it, but I've sworn to not leak the footage.

Sydney helped me blow out the candles.

That night the Barnum's kindly put Sydney to bed at their house while Spencer and I went out to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. We wanted to go see a movie too, but there wasn't really anything out that was worth paying the big bucks to see. So we picked up Sydney, came home, watched Modern Family online, then fell asleep on the couch (note: I woke up alone on the couch the next morning in my regular clothes, contacts in, etc. That was like the 3rd time I fell asleep on the couch last week).

On a totally unrelated note, for the past month or so, Sydney has started crossing her legs like this when she's on her changing table. It kind of cracks me up, so I had Spencer take a picture of her doing it. Such a cutie pie.

Should've Taken a Picture

Every other Tuesday morning, I have a faculty meeting at 8 am, so I try to leave my house around 7:15 am to make sure I have plenty of time to get to work. Sometimes I have to wake Sydney up to get her ready when I leave that early, and I really hate doing that. Since Spencer's ride doesn't come until around 7:30, I asked him if he would get Sydney up and take her down to the babysitter (it's my neighbor Becky; she lives just down the street). He said yes. He started getting her ready just as I was headed out the door.

Fast forward to this afternoon when I get home and head over to Becky's to pick up Sydney. I had to laugh when I saw her:

• Her hair was wild and crazy (nothing unusual, plus she'd just gotten up from her afternoon nap).
  
• She was wearing brown legging pants that have pink flowers on them (they're on the borderline of being floods).
  
• Her pink shirt was WAY too small (it's supposed to be long-sleeved, but looked more like 3/4 sleeve; didn't even cover her belly, so her onesie was totally exposed).
  
• She was wearing white, pink, and blue Minnie Mouse socks.

To top it all off, she didn't have a jacket. Not a big deal when I was taking her home since it was almost 50 degrees out, but it was like 36 degrees when Spencer dropped her off this morning! I said to Becky, "This is what happens when your husband's in charge of getting the baby ready." She looked like a poor child. I regret not taking a picture, but I changed her diaper and most of her outfit shortly after we got home. Guess I need to clean out her drawers and take out the stuff that doesn't fit anymore!

Car Show & Dancing

This week was Spencer's spring break, but we couldn't really do anything super fun because I still had to work, and on my day's off, Spencer did a pedo externship at Metro. However, on Tuesday, Spencer and Sydney came to work with me because I volunteered him to come talk to a teacher's class about oral hygiene. When they came to pick me up at the end of the day, we got a quick bite to eat and headed to the Cleveland Auto Show since we were just a hop, skip, and a jump away.

Spencer's dream car. (But not really.) I just thought Sydney looked extra cute in this picture.

My dream car. Really. (But not really.)

Spencer requested that I write that his actual dream car was the Audi S6. Guess I didn't have the camera handy when we were in the Audi section; I was basically chasing Sydney around the I-X Center while he checked out cars. She has become quite the little runner!

She's also become quite the little dancer. Check out her sweet moves in this video. Hope it makes you laugh as hard as we do every time we watch it!

Winter Olympics

In honor of the 2010 Winter Olympics, and because we've gotten loads of snow recently, Spencer and I decided it would be fun to do a "Winter Olympics" themed FHE with our friends, the Hermans. Lorelei and I serve in the Stake YW presidency together, and Spencer and I think their family is the coolest.

After a dinner of yummy chocolate chip pancakes (courtesy of Joe), we suited up in our winter gear and headed outside for the events.

Event #1: Snow angel making contest

Event #2: Snow ball making contest- who made the most round snowball closest to 6" X 6" in 30 seconds.

Event #3: Snowball toss- who threw their snowball closest to a predetermined target.

Event #4: Snow dive- who covered the most distance and was the most horizontal to the ground after jumping at a line in the snow. This one was my favorite.

Cole's running start.

Lorelei's dive.

Joe's landing.

Event #5: Hot chocolate making contest- who made the best tasting cup of hot chocolate using any of the following ingredients: cocoa, water, milk, vanilla, cinnamon, sugar.

Spencer judging the hot chocolate contest.

Lorelei and I anxiously anticipating the results.

Following the events, we had a very memorable medal ceremony. Spencer hummed the Olympic theme while I awarded a gold medal to the winner of each event.

Lorelei won the snow angel contest. It was a big win for her as it was the first snow angel she ever made.

Spencer won the snowball making contest.

Cole won the gold medal for both the snowball toss and the snow dive.

And Joe (who took this picture himself), won the hot chocolate making contest.

The champions. I stripped Cole of one of his medals so I would look as cool as everyone else in the group victory photo.

Afterward, Lorelei taught a lesson while we enjoyed homemade ice cream sandwiches.

I think that was Sydney's favorite part.

Dodgeball

Last Friday was a snow day for me, so I got to stay home with Sydney! We got do a little play date with friends in the early afternoon, then that night we went on campus to see Spencer play in a dodgeball tournament with his other 3rd year friends.

They thought they were shoo-in's to win their first game because the opposing team had a few girls on it, but they lost. There was a LOT of cheating going on since the refs weren't being very strict about calling people out when they got hit.

Trent, Brad, Brent, Chuck, Spencer, Matt, Aaron.

It was double elimination, and they won their next game, then lost the third one.

The kids and mom's hid from flying balls in this conveniently caged-off area. We also had fun heckling the cheaters while our husbands played.