Swimming

Visiting Phoenix in May is a great time. 

It's not too hot, but warm enough for swimming. 

At least for my family from Pullman, where we've broken 60 degrees twice this spring.

Maia quickly learned to love jumping off the side of the pool into a waiting pair of arms.

In the pool or not, this is how we usually are. Staring at Maia waiting to see what she's going to do next. Or listening to her adorable, non-stop chatter.

This was Ruby's first time in the pool and she loved it!

And of course, bubbles are always a crowd pleaser.

Updates

The last 6 days have been absolutely chaotic.

Friday:

Aleks finds out he has a job offer from Wichita State University and he accepts.

Saturday:

We call the realtor and arrange for her to come by on Monday.

Sunday:

Mother's Day! We had a nice day and an early dinner with some friends.

There happened to be a purple drum set and pink drumsticks at their house.

Maia made herself right at home.

Monday:

The realtor came over and told us what we needed to do to get the house ready before we put it on the market.

On Wednesday. In 2 days.

I immediately went into super focus mode and packed about 20 boxes, Aleks took apart furniture, and we moved it all to the garage.

Ruby turned 8 months on Monday as well.

She loves the bath. As soon as she hears the water she starts squealing and waving her arms in excitement. She mostly loves to splash.

She's still sitting up like a champ.

Ruby is starting to think about crawling, you can tell that she's interested in things across the room. I'll bet she figures out how to get there pretty soon. Ruby loves her sister and spends lots of time watching her in fascination. I get glimpses every now and then of how much fun they are going to have playing together and (fingers crossed) how much easier things will be for me.

Tuesday:

I paint the railing on the front steps and the front door. I painted the railing white and the door green. It actually looked pretty good. Thankfully Pullman finally broke 60 degrees, so the weather was perfect for outside painting and Maia could be occupied with her water table.

I also do touch-up paint on various holes in the walls throughout the house. (I think is probably one of my least enjoyable house projects)

Wednesday (today):

Aleks had to go to Seattle to do a presentation/discussion of his music.

The girls and I put finishing touches on the house. By this, I mean that Maia took out everything that I put away and Ruby cried every time I set her down, so I ended up doing everything with one hand while carrying her.

The realtor came over, took pictures and put a sign in front of our house. I feel like it's the beginning of the end. Tomorrow, the realtors in the area will tour new homes on the market, so we'll need to be out of the house all morning.

Oh, and when I opened the front door this morning (remember, the one I painted green?), I discovered that the paint had bubbled. So now I have a pretty, forest green door with bubbles all over it. Thankfully our realtor didn't scold me too badly, but now I'm going to have to strip off the paint and figure out how to do it again so it doesn't bubble. Maybe prime it? I guess I'm going to make some new friends at ACE Hardware.

The house went on the market around noon today. At 3:00 I got a phone call from another realtor wanting to show our house this evening. I'm encouraged that we've already had someone look at it! Maybe things will move quickly...

Friday we leave for Phoenix to visit my family. I'm really excited to see them. I'm also very excited to get away from all this house stuff.

I'll leave you with my gorgeous girls. We hope you've had a great week!

Phoenix Children's Museum

Today we went to the Phoenix Children's Museum.

It was awesome.

There was this amazing tree fort thingy in the middle of the entire museum. You could look at it from all three floors of the building. As soon as Maia saw it she said "ooooh, amazing." Followed by lots of high pitched shrieking and maniacal laughing.

There were so many cool exhibits and things to do.

Of course Aleks found all the musical exhibits and treated the other museum patrons to his compositions. I don't know if everyone else liked it as much as Maia did.

There should be some kind of index that children's attractions are required to post.

1 indicates that your child will be asking you to go home.

10 indicates that you will have to use all methods of bribery and perhaps some force to get your child to vacate the premises.

Phoenix Children's Museum= 11+

I had to carry Maia out, promise her ice cream, and still the workers at the museum asked if she was ok. She was scream/crying so loudly they thought she had hurt herself.

Needless to say, both my bunnies were pretty tired by nap time.

Trip to the Phoenix Zoo

We've been soaking up as much sun as possible while we are here visiting family. On Monday we decided to go to the zoo!

(Wichita has a zoo, I'm already planning on buying a membership)

There were lots of beautiful animals to look at.

This horse's name is Jack.

Maia loved to look at him and talk about him, but didn't really want to touch him.

But my favorite animals are named Maia and Ruby!

Ruby got her first taste of a snow cone and just loved it.

We found a part of the zoo that had a water feature.

I think that this was Maia's favorite part of the zoo visit.

Ruby liked the water too...

But Maia like it so much that she ended the day naked!

We love the zoo!

P.S. Thanks to Cydney Kyhn (check out her blog here) and Kim Grover (look at her blog here) for helping me to make my blog more hip with photo editing ideas. You girls are the best!

WSU

The Middle.

Not just a sitcom on ABC.

It is where the Sternfeld-Dunn family will be moving this summer.

Today Aleks was offered and accepted a tenure track position teaching music theory/composition at Wichita State University in Wichita, KS.

We are very excited and a bit overwhelmed.

Mostly, I'm just tired thinking of all that has to happen in a short time.

There will be lots more to come in the next few months...

Ruby is 7 months old

Ruby is 7 months old!

Time is flying by more quickly than I can even grasp.

She's doing great.

Ruby is sleeping through the night

(well, waking up once between 4-5 to eat and then usually sleeps until 6:30 or so),

rolling over (this is her favorite mode of transportation right now),

sitting up on her own ( a little wobbly, so we still surround her with cushions),

and talking up a storm.

She also "crawls" on her back. Several times this week I've gone to get her out of bed and she's backed herself into the corner of her crib by thrusting her butt in the air and pushing backwards with her feet.

Ruby loves her big sister Maia. Anytime Maia is around, Ruby watches her like a hawk and squeals with glee when Maia talks to her. Maia thinks Ruby is pretty cool too and is becoming quite good at sharing her toys.

It's been a crazy time for all of us. I'm currently in a production of Into the Woods with a local theater company here in town. We opened this past Thursday and run through next weekend. We've sold out all our shows and have added an extra show this Wednesday!

I'm playing Jack's Mother and it's been a lot of fun, though challenging. I don't usually get cast in character roles, so it's been quite different to act in a way that is more animated and over the top.

It's been nice not being "pretty" for a role!

Wednesday I cut my thumb pretty badly on a can lid and had to go to the doctor. Thankfully, I was able to have them "tape" my thumb together instead of getting stitches. Aleks also left on Wednesday for a few days in Florida (more on that in a few weeks).

Thursday I woke up with a migraine and spent the morning with my head over the toilet vomiting from the pain. Thankfully, our babysitter was there and I was able to push a few of my lessons back so that I could sleep a little bit. I am so thankful that we have babysitters we trust and that our kids love. Into the Woods opened that night and thankfully the pain had left by then (after 3 doses of Excedrin throughout the day). I am so grateful for good medicine, however, it does affect the vocal cords and I wasn't in the best voice for opening night.

Friday was my birthday and Aleks got home that afternoon. That night the cast made me a card, sang to me, and had cupcakes. It was so sweet, especially since I've just met most of them. On Saturday we had 2 shows and Aleks was so great hanging out with the girls all day.

So, now I have a bit of down time until Wednesday, when the madness begins again. So far 30 has been very busy! I'm glad though. At the end of this month, I will be singing a solo with the Idaho Washington Chorale in Bach's Cantata no. 4. Once again, I'm so amazed and happily surprised that I've had so many opportunities to sing and perform this year.

Two Years Old!

Maia Lee is two years old today.

She is so much more than I ever expected.

I remember being in the hospital and making the decision to have a c-section. After being induced twice (2 different trips to the hospital, both times the pitocin was increased to the highest it could go, I couldn't feel any contractions and hadn't dilated at all) and having it fail twice, I was so relieved to finally meet my little girl.

And then the second night we were in the hospital, the nurse brought a screaming baby to my room, said "she wasn't doing this in the nursery", and promptly left. After trying everything, I finally put Maia skin to skin and she calmed down. The crying must have lasted about a half hour, but after only 48 hours into parenthood, it felt like an eternity to me. It was intense.

And you know what? Maia is still intense. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

Her last day of being one, right before bed.

And here she is this morning with her new bicycle.

I think she was more excited about the balloons.

So, Happy Birthday to Maia.

My talkative,

singing,

dancing,

stunningly beautiful,

outgoing,

silly,

sweet,

emotional,

perfect little girl.

I love you.