January

January has been a busy month in the Lippman House. I know I've said it before, but I don't like it when life gets so busy that I slack off on updating the blog. We have a lot of activities going on, and our weekends have been busy...but here's what's been happening:

Lexi:
Lexi is such a wonderful little girl, and honestly such a great big sister to her brother. She has been involved in quite a few activities lately, and I am so pleased to see how well she is doing in all of them. She has begun taking dance lessons at the same school I danced at as a kid. Her teacher is Miss Kelli (my dance teacher's daughter), and I'm pretty sure it's her favorite time of the week. She has so much fun with Miss Kelli that I decided to take an adult tap class. It's just for fun, though quite a bit more difficult than I realized it would be.
Lexi is also taking swim lessons at the YMCA. We tried switching to an independent swim class, but she did not like the teacher, and I was worried it would make her hate swimming lessons. So the only choice was to switch back to Mommy and Me classes. It's fine for now. She is swimming very well with the bubbles. She can easily swim back and forth the length of the pool and goes very quickly. She seems to improve by leaps and bounds every week, and we're all thrilled.
She is also taking a yoga class at preschool. It's perfect for her because of all the stretching and she really enjoys it. She loves coming home and showing me all of the poses she can do.
She is doing so well in preschool. She has lots of friends and also really enjoys learning. We both love looking at her artwork when she comes home (though there is a ridiculous amount - at least five pieces each day!!). She is also beginning to read and write and doing so well with it! She can read a few of her early reader books all by herself, and loves sounding out words. This morning she wrote a note all by herself that read, "LEXI. POPPY PROM (which should have been "from") LEXI. Later she added "GIGI".

Zach:
Zachary is turning into a little boy. He is beginning to interact with us quite a bit, and is getting better at letting us know what he wants. He loves to sing "Row, Row, Row your boat" (he sings "rowrowrow") and "Old MacDonald" (he sings "eieiooo"). He's stingy with the "mama's", but will occasionally call me if he's really sad. He does say "bye bye Dada" now to the phone, but still prefers to say "hi", which he still says in that southern drawl. Of course his favorite word remains "catch" and it's the only warning you'll get before he throws anything and everything at you. He's quite good at playing catch, and if he actually has a ball I'll toss it back and forth with him for awhile. He loves it, and has a great throw, and impressive catch. He can also sign and say "all done" and signs "more".
Zach could walk anywhere, but still prefers to make it a big deal when he does. He'll stand there with a HUGE smile on his face and wait until you're ready to catch him. Then he'll take these little steps, one at a time, and come crashing into your arms. If we keep backing away from him, he keeps walking, but doesn't yet seem to understand that he can do this without us holding our arms out in front of him. He'll get it soon enough. Walking must be boring to a boy who will climb anything and everything. We've had to baby-proof every inch of our home because this boy is on stools, tables, chairs...nothing gets in his way. I keep thinking that he'll learn his lesson once he falls, but he doesn't seem to fall...so with a cautious eye we let him climb anything that's vaguely safe and hope for the best.

Here are some pictures of the kids from the past few weeks. As you can see, they play so nicely together and there is just nothing better than listening to them laugh together. The last two pictures are from yesterday. I took Lexi to Princesses on Ice with my friend Andrea and her daughter (Lexi's friend) Elizabeth. It was a fantastic show and a wonderful day with the girls. Andrea and I both admitted to each other that we got a bit teary a few times during the show...sitting in that arena with probably over a thousand little girls dressed in princess dresses, and in awe of what they were seeing - it was magical indeed.

Daredevil

Today I passed Zachary as I was walking out of the computer room and he was crawling in. Lexi was asking me for help at the refrigerator - the "l" from her leapfrog game was missing and she needed it to spell a word. I stood there with her for about 20 seconds trying to help her find it. Unsuccessful I turned to walk away and found Zachary on the counter. On.top.of.the.counter. I think we are going to have to start doing dry runs to the ER, and make sure 911 is on speed dial.

A New Decade

The 00's or 2000's or whatever they are going to be called eventually were an amazing decade for Ahren and me. It's hard to believe that so much has changed in our lives in just ten short years. Ahren and I met in 1999 at our friend Heather's graduation party in Haverhill. He was dating a friend of Heather's and mine, but before I knew that I noticed him walk up the driveway and thought, "Who's that cute guy?" Eventually his current girlfriend moved to Africa and the rest is history. I knew after dating him for four months that I wanted to marry him...but I never imagined all the things that would happen in the next ten years.
Below are some pictures of just a few of the major life changes we went through in the past decade. We started the decade off on the right foot by dating and eventually getting engaged in Prince Edward Island in 2002. Not long after our engagement came our first nephew, Benjamin Patrick. We were an Auntie and Uncle!! After our wonderful wedding in August of 2003 we decided to start our own family and got pregnant in 2004. Benjamin made us God Parents before we became real parents to Alexandra Lyn in August of 2005. Shortly thereafter Cassie Mary came along and made us Auntie and Uncle and God Parents again! With all these kids coming (luckily, most of them were Amy and Scott's!) we decided it was a good time to buy a house, and were thrilled to buy our little bungalow in North Andover in 2007. As we entered our thirties, and became Auntie and Uncle and God Parents a third time, we decided it was time to make Lexi a big sister, and welcomed Zachary Thomas into our family in 2008, not before adding a room onto the little bungalow that was no longer big enough! We've enjoyed the past year being our little, completed, family of four. However all around us our family continues to grow. We were thrilled to have Jen join the family in September, and are enjoying the fact that our wonderful family - our lives most precious gifts - continue to expand and flourish.
We are so lucky to be able to look back on such a prosperous decade. It's exciting to look forward to the next ten years and imagine what we'll be writing about in January of 2020. Until then, we'll continue to enjoy each day, and each gift we are given.

Christmas 2009

So here I sit, completely exhausted yet toasty in my new fluffy socks and warm fleece, eating way too much leftover cheese ball and reminiscing about maybe the best Christmas we've had yet. It started early for the kids - 9am on Christmas Eve Morn when Fadia threw her annual Kids Christmas Party and Parade (the kids are the parade). It was from 9-11am which gave Ahren and me just enough time to get showered and dressed and back over there to pick them up. From there we went right over to Gigi and Poppy's house where Auntie Amy, Uncle Scott, and most importantly, the COUSINS had just arrived. It was at that moment that the craze began, and it did not slow down until we put the kids to bed on Christmas Day at 9pm.
Christmas Eve with my family was wonderful as always. We spent the day preparing for the party and eating...a lot...in very frequent intervals. But since we all tend to get grumpy when we get hungry, I like to think of it as a necessity rather than gluttonous. We were very smart this year, and had the entire family dressed for 5:15 mass by 4pm. This way, we were able to get all of the family photos done before the children got too tired, and before the craze of the party began. Mass was wonderful as always. We go to the Children's Mass now so that the kids can enjoy the live nativity and singing, and they even have ballet dancers now. It's quite a show.
By the time we got home we had only a few minutes to spare before the party began. And what a party it was!! We estimate that we had about 60 of our closest friends and family attend - some who haven't made it in years! It was an amazing celebration made even more fun by the fact that we had about 13 young children who were completely enchanted by our visit from Santa. While I always feel like I don't actually get to talk to anyone on Christmas Eve, I did have a chance to have a few WONDERFUL conversations this year, and I now have it on pretty good authority that 2010 is going to be a spectacular year...more on that to come later. Much to our dismay, the children did not go to bed well before the party ended, but rather were the last ones we saw off at the end of the night! Ahren brought Zach and Lexi home at 11:30, while I stayed behind to clean up and ensure that Christmas Magic would be alive and well in the morning.
After going to bed around 1am, Christmas morning came all too early with the 6:25 wake up call from the cousins alerting us to the fact that Santa had come and was not at all stingy with the gifts! It took us awhile to rile the Lippman troops, but we were able to get their engines going once they saw all the presents that had been left for them! The next few hours were a flurry of wrapping paper, and new toys and squeals from happy children. Lexi was thrilled to get her Ariel doll "with all the dresses and tail" that she had been asking for for months (Santa is such a good guy) and Zach thought it was pretty fantastic they we gave him a whole sock full of toys that he was allowed to pull out. Of course, he was far more interested in tissue paper than any of the presents he received, but that's pretty typical for my kids.
After some breakfast, showers and naps for the kids (or just a short rest in Lexi's case), we were on to round three. As always, Mama made a wonderful feast for us, and Great Gram, Uncle Jay, and Uncle Jack and Aunt DJ joined us for the continued celebration. It was a lively and fun filled dinner and dessert, and by the time we got to our third round of presents we had a hard time keeping some folks awake (the kids, of course, were still going strong)! After another wonderful afternoon, we cleaned up, packed up and took our very sleepy children home to bed. Both Lexi and Zach were asleep before their heads even hit their pillows.
This morning at 8am, Lexi tip toed into my room, came to the side of my bed and said, "Mama, I just have to ask you one quick question and then I'm going back to snuggle in my bed." "Okay," I said, "what is your question?" She replied, "Do giants live in this area of the world?" "No...giants don't live anywhere in the world" I said. "Okay" she replied, and went back into her room, climbed back into bed, and went to sleep. :)
Lexi will be enjoying her cousins' extended visit for the rest of the weekend, and then the best gift of all is that Ahren took next week off from work. So we are thrilled to be getting some time together as a family when we can relax and enjoy all of our new toys.
Merry Christmas, everyone! And Happy New Year! I hope you all had as wonderful a Christmas celebration as we did.

Christmas, Here We Come!

It's hard to believe that Christmas could be 4 days away. It seems like just yesterday that we were bundling little baby Zachary into his baby snowsuit for his first Christmas and I was wondering whether I would survive my first year of being a mommy of two. Well, the good news is that I have survived (assuming all goes will in the next week and a half!). Not only have I survived, but it's been a wonderful year. Lexi has grown and matured so much over the last year and she just continues to be a joy. She is such a great big sister to her little brother that when it's just me and Zachary at home alone I don't know what to do without her! Zachary is becoming more and more of a little person himself. It's so exciting when babies start to have opinions about things, and you see them get excited when you are offering them something they want. Zachary is a little ham, and loves nothing more than to laugh, joke, and play with his family.

Ahren continues to do great at State Street, and we're hoping that all of the promotions he is receiving will eventually result in a pay increase as well! I am so proud of Ahren's work ethic, and it's clear that his employers appreciate it as well. I feel very secure knowing that Ahren is so well respected in his career. He works tirelessly day in and day out, but always has enough energy to play and laugh with the kids, and help me in the evenings. He is such an amazing husband and father - we are SO lucky for that.

While the economy has prevented us from doing some things that we would have liked to do this year, it certainly hasn't made us forget how lucky we are to have our friends and family. It's definitely true that it takes a village to raise a child - and an even bigger village to raise two, and I am so lucky to have a fantastic village made up of family and friends old and new.

We are so looking forward to Christmas this year. It's true that Christmas is so much more exciting when you can watch your own children enjoy it. There's lots more Christmas fun to be had, and then we will look forward to a wonderful 2010!

Kid Quotes

Funny quotes from my kids over the last week or so...

Lexi:

"Mama, how can Santa see us if we can't see him?" - This was one of those moments where Ahren and I looked at each other with panic and quickly said something about the elves watching on Santa's behalf!

Lexi was sick last week and I was trying to get her to drink something. I offered a few options that she turned down. Finally I said, "Hmm..let's see...what's your favorite thing in the whole world...?" She replied, "You, hugging me."

Zach:

I was feeding Zach a few weeks ago and he was very far away. As I stood up to move his chair I said, "Zachy, why are you so far away from me?" I SWEAR he said, "Actually, I'm not that far."

Last night at dinner Zach was pointing in Ahren's direction and saying "at, at" I thought he was pointing to the cat, and couldn't figure out why he was pointing so insistantly. Ahren said, "I think he's trying to say "catch"" (they both sound very similar) to which I replied that I was pretty sure it was "cat" because I could see that Charlie was standing near where he was pointing. Just as the words left my mouth Zach looked directly at me and very slowly and carefully said, "BALL". Sure enough, there was a ball there that I couldn't see, and that was what he wanted!

Zach Stats - 1 Year

Zachary had his one year doctor's visit today. He is perfectly healthy, and Dr. Martin has no concerns about his health or development...it's just such a nice change. :) He had to have one vaccine today, and also a blood test, so he was quite offended with being pinched so many times, but recovered from the insult quickly.

Here are his one year stats:
Weight - 20lbs, 9ozs - 20th percentile
Height - 30.5 inches - 75th percentile
Head - 47.3 cm - 75th percentile

He's tall and lean just like his sister! Obviously my children get their height from their Daddy!!

So, this morning Lexi was playing with Zachary in his little rocking chair. She was "hiding" drum sticks in his pant legs and telling me there was going to be a big surprise when I picked him up. After a few minutes she said to me, "Mama, are you determined to find out what the surprise is in Zachary's pants?" Determined...yea, what four year old uses that word?? Obviously a four year old preparing for her law degree...she had the following conversation with her Daddy a couple of weeks ago.
Lexi: "Daddy, are you going to take me to swimming lessons tomorrow?"
Daddy: "Sure, we can talk about that."
Lexi: "Well, Mama told me that either she would bring me, or you would bring me and I picked you, so....what's there to talk about?"
She had you there, Daddy! ...oh boy are we in trouble when she is a teenager!