growing up – i can’t ignore it or stop it from happening

thursday night all comfy & cozy in her crib (& all her dolls)

this weekend, emilia moved from a crib to a big girl bed.  and by big girl bed, i mean we took the front side of her crib off so it looks like a day bed.

i knew this day was rapidly approaching.  i’ve been putting it off for as long as humanly possible.

she’s been climbing out of her crib since september or october.  i can’t even remember it’s been happening so long.  definitely before she turned 3.

we’re in the throws of potty training and aside from being night trained, sister is golden.

if she can tell me at night or in the morning that she has to go potty and climb out of bed herself then it’s time to make the switch.  no matter how hard i don’t want to believe it.

we’ve been talking about it, with her, for awhile so when dan decided to do it yesterday morning emilia was giddy with excitement.  i may not have been as excited as her but i didn’t let her know it.  afterall, having a big girl bed just like her brother is a huge deal – she’s in the big time now!

emilia helped me remove all her dolls and blankets and other toys that have found their way in and once the side was off she giggled in delight & brought all her dolls back in one by one.

this picture, above, is about half of what made it into emilia’s bed.  it’s a surprise there is any room for her!

looking skeptical for nap

naptime rolled around & since i didn’t know how she’d take to her new bed, i laid on the floor next to her.  this proved to be silly as all emilia wanted to do what talk to me & have us play with her dolls.  after a few minutes, we did a quick run down of naptime rules (no getting out of bed), gave her a kiss, walked out & closed the door behind me.  i didn’t hear a peep for the next 2 hours.

my only other hurdle was going to be bedtime.  ben & emilia share a room.  ben & emilia are chatty at night.  i foresee a lot of late night slumber parties & chats and bed hopping.  a sibling thing, i suppose.  after a quick run down of rules & no getting out of bed {this will all subside in the next few days, we just need to make sure she knows} the lights were out & the day was over.

i went to check on emilia i went to bed & this is what i found.  she was as comfy as could be with her little feet hanging off.  being the mom that i am, i couldn’t let her stay that way.  i straightened her out & put her covers & towels {your kid doesn’t sleep with beach towels as blankets?!?!  oh.}.  i may have also moved a doll or two to make sure my girl had room for herself!  i can guarantee there will be influx emilia sleeping pictures because i think it’s just so damn funny to see her feet hanging over.

i’d be lying if i said i didn’t have thoughts of a rough night ahead.  i was wrong.  i did not hear a peep out of emilia until 6:30 this morning {way earlier than normal}.  we made it through the night without any issue.  naptime and bedtime today were with out issue as well.

i am pretty sure we are going to have a lot more early mornings now that sister has her big girl bed.  she’s an early riser & as but now that she has complete freedom we are in for a whole new ballgame.  i’m not a morning person so a few things are going to need to happen – i am going to need to start going to bed earlier {hahahahahahaha}, my coffee consumption will likely increase and/or i’m going to have to become a morning person {ugh}.

for now i’m just going to watch & listen to emilia’s excitement about her new bed & i am going to internally mourn as my baby grows up.  seriously how did 3 1/2 years fly by so quickly?!?  and we won’t even go into ben inching closer & closer to 6 everyday.

smile friday // is it really friday?

4 day weeks always throw me through a loop.  tuesday’s always feel like monday’s & friday’s seem like a thursday.  but not this week.  nope.  this week i woke up on thursday and thought it was friday.  i laid in bed for a good 10 minutes before i realized it was thursday.

we will be keeping with 4 day weeks around here for another few weeks.  ben doesn’t have school next friday or the friday after that.  i think that puts around mid-march and then he has one full week & then a full week off for spring break!  being at school is low in the priority list for march, i suppose.

this weekend we have nothing planning.  nothing.  and it’s glorious.  there are a few household things that need to be done {re: cleaning} and finishing up our taxes.  otherwise we’re just going to fly by the seat of our pants.

here’s a few shots of our week:

clockwise from left to right: 

1.  i love when ben & emilia sit together, play together & just generally be together.  their age difference is so perfect at almost 2 1/2 years.

2.  we woke up to some snow this morning & the kids couldn’t wait to trapse through it.  emilia had her fill this morning while ben trudged through after school.

3.  the lockers at our park district are the perfect size for emilia to hide in.

4.  a look down our street this morning.  this picture does not effectively capture the beauty of the fallen snow.  the whole town looked angelic.  the snow perfectly covered each & every branch.  a blanket of white with each turn.

all shots taken with instagram.  if you’re on there, you can find me @jen_schoeph.  

aside from not knowing my days, it’s been a great week.

tonight, i plan on finishing up meal planning for next week, catching up on a show or two and thumbing through the latest west elm catalogue that arrived this afternoon.

what are your plans?

have a great weekend!  smile!!  it’s friday!!!

{wordless{ish} wednesday} national margarita day

whether you knew or not {i did not until i saw watching hoda & kathie lee} but today is national margarita day.  and we just went out saturday night for margaritas & chips and salsa and guacamole…perfectly timed. 

whether you like yours frozen or on the rocks with salt {i’ll take the latter}…cheers!

i can jump higher than you

i love jumping photos.  they’re an instant pick me up.  and if done with more than one person it can turn into a challenge of “i can jump higher than you.”  especially  kids.

while we were down on our disney vacation i attempted an impromptu jumping photo session with the kids.  they loved it.  getting them to jump together proved harder than i thought.  doing a countdown seemed to work best but didn’t mean they jumped on-time, together.  there was a lot of “watch me!  i can jump as high as the sky!”  there was lots of laughter and i think ben & emilia thought it was a game not me trying to photograph them.

for their ages, the attempt & shots turned out great.  this is something that i am going to continue to do.  i am defintely going to make it apart of all of our vacations in the future AND it’s a good way for the kids to get their wiggles out.

i have a little budding photographer on my hands.  emilia took this picture tonight.

the best part?  i did not find it until after she went to bed.  in the evenings, i like to go through the pictures that i (i guess i need to start saying we) took during throughout the day.  the last few days, i have found a few surprise shots.  tonight’s shots consisted of minnie and some other dolls.  the other night i found shots of our living room and stopped to think if i actually took them.  after a second look, i saw little toes in the frame.  a few nights before that, i found pictures she took of me & her doll while we were at starbucks all while i sat thinking she was just playing a game.

ben & emilia are no strangers to my camera(s) so maybe it’s only natural that one of them would pick up the interest.  but…on the other hand it is fun to play around & check everything out on the phone & the camera is one of the easiest to use & understand.  time will tell…

until then…didn’t she take a great picture?

smile friday // rundown

this week?  it’s been mind blowing.  so much good & so much bad.  thankfully the bad is starting to work it’s way out.

here’s a run down of our week:

- ben read to me!  see here.  he hasn’t stopped.  he’s been reading books left & right all week.

- emilia came down with a cold.  a cold that turned into an early morning because of an ear ache that turned into a visit to the doctor to find out she has a double ear infection.  we are now on day 3 of antibiotics but she just can’t seem to shake it.  her ears are better, thankfully but she has not been 100% herself.  aside from dance class yesterday & a little lady date to starbucks, we’ve been housebound.

- with emilia sick this week she was in bed earlier than normal.  it gave ben & i a chance to be together just us.  these moments are few & far between lately.  we cuddled up & turned on some phineas & ferb.  it was a great way to end a long day.  he lucked out too by getting to stay up past his bedtime on a school night! a rarity around here.

- ben celebrated valentine’s day at school and came home with just as much candy as he did on halloween!  when did valentine’s day become the new halloween?  seriously!

- speaking of ben & school…there is a bullying problem going on in his class.  this infuriates & saddens me.  a classmate & friend of ben’s has been subject to the bully.  the issue has been taken to the teacher as well as our principal.  our school & district has a task force against bullying so this issue should not be taken lightly.  i found out late last night that more kids in the class have been taken down by this bully.  he is literally taking them down one by one.  dan & i have talked, endlessly, to benjamin regarding this boy & the issue.  i have grilled into him that he needs to tell a teacher & us if something happens to him and that he should not engage in this behavior, not to retaliate if something happens to him {because clearly he will be the one who gets caught & in trouble} and to not hang around this classmate.  i am saddened that at the ages of 5 & 6 years old this is something that we are worrying about & talking about.  they are 5 & 6, they should all be friends!

- a friend of mine sent me this link.  it is from a blog called views from the couch.  please, please, please read it.  it hits the nail on the head.  {you can also follow queen of the couch here}  we were talking about the issue at ben’s school & i had said that if anyone did this ben or emilia i would punch them in the face.  obviously, i am not alone.

- i have not gotten a full night’s sleep since we’ve been back from our disney vacation.  sunday will be two weeks.  either one or both kids are waking up.  typically it’s for silly reason – thirsty & an empty water bottle, a fallen blanket, or just showing up on the side of the bed & crawling in with me and then deciding after 30 minutes of flipping & flopping to go back to their own bed {i don’t sleep much during the flipping & flopping}.  i’m exhausted.  my coffee consumption has increased.

- if you follow me on instagram or twitter then you saw that emilia and i went on a lady date yesterday morning after her dance class.  it was one of the best 30 minutes i’ve had in awhile.  it was so relaxing.  who would have thought taking a 3 year old to a coffee house could be relaxing?!?  emilia sipped her apple juice, colored & played games on my phone.  i sat worked on some crossword puzzles, listened to her & day dreamed out the window.  it. was. glorious.

- we’re headed to bingo night at ben’s school tonight.  i’m looking forward to it {i love old people activities – bingo, crossword puzzles, etc.  you name it, i like it}

- i would love to say we’re going to have a relaxing weekend.  we’re not.  birthday parties on saturday and a family function on sunday.  i’m hoping that tonight or tomorrow night, dan and i can sit, relax, drink some wine, watch a movie & catch up on shows.  also?  for me?  sleep.  i’d like sleep.  a lot of it.  and uninterrupted sleep at night.  it’s not too much to ask, is it?

happy weekend!  smile!!  it’s friday!!!

february photo a day: catching up {part deux}

here’s are my last 10 days of the feb photo a day challenge.

day 6 // dinner

day 7 // button

day 8 // sun

day 9 // front door

day 10 // self portrait

day 11 // makes me happy

day 12 // inside my closet

day 13 // blue

day 14 // heart

day 15 // phone

i’ve been having a lot of fun doing this challenge.  some days i have been puzzled while other days have been a walk in the park.

here is a post with the first 5

seeing mickey

we may have woken up in the wee hours of the morning but that didn’t stop us from heading to chef mickey’s for our first night’s dinner.

it’s a tradition.  we head to chef mickey’s for our first dinner or first breakfast.

it’s seems only appropriate, no?  we’re in the land of mickey mouse and mickey & his friends are icons.

seeing mickey, minnie, pluto, donald & goofy kicks our trip off & puts smiles on our tired, travel-worn faces.

some light reading

he reads!  he. reads.

i am so proud.

last night, ben & i sat down to read before bed.  we would read together.  he would read the words he knew, i’d help him sound out new words, or i would read where he couldn’t.

but last night was different.

last night he read to me.

and not one book, but two.

i stopped benjamin mid-book for us, mostly for me, to process that he was reading.  he was reading to me.  he’s 5 1/2 and amazes me.  seeing everything that he has worked so hard for and so much for during the school year {and it’s not even over} makes my heart skip a beat.  the smile on his face and seeing my excitement for him is one that i will not forget.

our sunday night ended on such a high note that it carried over this morning.  the first thing ben asked me when he woke up was if i was still proud of him.  obviously, yes!  he worked that high all morning.  he picked out his clothes for the day, got everything ready for school & moved a little quicker than normal {we are typically slow movers in the morning}.

he felt good.

when a girl meets her girl

emilia loves the movie tangled.  from the moment she saw it last march, she was hooked.  emilia dressed up as tangled for halloween.  even before halloween happened, we got our money worth from the dress.  during the {warm} fall months, it was not uncommon to see emilia in her rapunzel dress when picking up ben after school or really anywhere.

it should come as no surprise that the one princess emilia wanted to meet on our disney trip was rapunzel.

as we were told, rapunzel is the current most popular princess at disney world & can only be found at the magic kingdom.  she commands quite the crowd.  the wait time to see/meet her, for those willing to wait, can be 2-3 hours.  wouldn’t it be funny if i were kidding?  i’m not.

in order to avoid a long wait time as well as per the urging of cast members, we made sure to accurately plan our visit to see her.  we planned our visit to her for thursday morning.   the park opened at 9:00 am & we made sure to be there as close to 9:00 as possible.  as we started our walk down main street, ben decided he did not want to see rapunzel.  he went off with my mom to see pluto & then hit up a few rides.

dan, emilia & i got into line at 9:20 am.  we figured we’d be apart of the first group.  {side note: approximately 90 people at a time are taken into the rapunzel area.  in between groups, she gets a short break.  i would imagine it is to take the hair off}.  we waited over an hour and that was considered to be a short wait time!  we were in the 10:35 am group.

emilia patiently waited the entire time.  i’ll give her props were it’s due.  she had a goal and willingly & patiently waited.  the only complaints came at the very end.  our last ten minutes in line was when ben & my mom found their way back over to us.  you would have thought it was the longest 10 minutes of his life.  he would have loved the hour we waited.

emilia may have been in shock when we finally got to see rapunzel.  she was so happy.  they matched in their beautiful dresses.  we had one of the dolls with us and, of course, an autograph book.  ben was also very happy to meet her.  must be something about a beautiful princess…

emilia would have stayed with rapunzel all day.  her day was complete.  dan & i were thrilled because our favorite princess got to see her favorite princess.  seeing her excitement was the bees knees.

disney advice: if your princess loves rapunzel, get there early.  bring snacks.  have one parent stay in line while the other walks around with the kids.  and chat up your {waiting} neighbors.