Virts Family: March 2010

Little Prayer

Mondays are always a chaotic day for Abbie but I enjoy our time together very much. We head to German class then time for a drive-thru before heading to dance class. Tonight we were sitting in the drive-thru at Wendy's and out of the blue here is the conversation that Abbie had with me.

"Mom I just said a little prayer."

"Really, what did you say?"

"I just thanked God for a wonderful mom, wonderful dad, baby sister. Oh, and my puppy."

I stopped and prayed then too...."Thank you God for blessing me with such an amazing daughter."

Family Day on March 21

The end of March brought a need to get outside for our "family day." Jeremy thought he might try his hand at woodworking and make some sea kayaks. We'll see..he has an awfully lot of other hobbies and jobs currently on his plate. This child's kayak was given to him during this horse trading of guns and kayak making materials...now all we need is one for everybody else!

A little game of Velcro ball

Spring photos

March 15th, 2010 was Abbie's 2nd Pre-K school photography session. She picked out her outfit, pink of course, and she unhappily agreed to let me curl her hair.

Check out those eyebrows! She is definitely a Faber...those eyebrows are just like Opa's!

State BB

The remainder of Abbie's weekend we spent at the State BB tournament. Abbie has gotten to know many of the kids and players since she spends a lot of time in the training room with me. Abbie seems to read people well and is drawn to the teenagers who are nice to her and aren't afraid to play or hang out with a 4 year old. I am really lucky that many of the kids fall into that category and are REALLY good to Abbie. The weekend ended with a bang as the girls team finished 2nd and the boys clenched the state championship for the 2nd year in a row!

Congratulations boys! What a fun team to work with this year. This team was full of great kids with great goals and morals. Definitely my favorite team in the last 11 years of the training room!!

Abbie with her boyfriend, Payton.

Abbie with her favorite girls' BB player, Kate.

Abbie with the managers and trainers. Lacey, Stefanie, and Leslie went to Chuck E. Cheese with her and gave her all their tickets so she could "buy" many wonderful treasures.

Abbie's Weekend

Abbie is such a terrific big sister. She is so loving, caring, and giving to Rylee all while taking some real abuse from her baby sister. Rylee wants something that Abbie has so she'll start to scream and often Abbie will just give it to her to stop the crying. If Abbie won't give it to her then she will head butt Abbie or now she is starting to bite her to get her way. Meanwhile, Abbie never responds with a push or a shove and often not even a tattle to mom or dad. The opportunity to reward Abbie for her positive behavior arose when the Boys BB team qualified for the state tournament in March. Rylee wouldn't be able to sit through multiple games but I knew that Abbie would be able to not only sit through the games but enjoy it at the same time. Grandma Nate agreed to watch Rylee for the weekend so it could be "Abbie's Weekend." I traveled down to Billings with the team on Wednesday and Jeremy and Abbie joined me on Friday. Jeremy and I decided that when we weren't watching BB then we were going to make the weekend about Abbie.

Jeremy and Abbie arrived at lunch time on Friday so we took Abbie to Chuck E. Cheese. There was hardly anyone there so we ate pizza and were able to play lots of games. Abbie had a great time and loves to pick out prizes at the end for all of her tickets. We watched BB the rest of Friday and Abbie picked Applebees after the games Friday night. Saturday we did some swimming at the hotel and Abbie picked Chuck E. Cheese for lunch again. This time we took the managers and trainers with us and so they played games with Abbie and so she had TONS of tickets to pick prizes! What could be better than having more tickets than stuff you want in the case. The rest of the weekend was BB and swimming in the pool. It was such a fun weekend with Abbie and a great time to let her be the center of attention.

1st Haircut

March 9th was another first in Rylee's life. Her first haircut.

Looking at the picture you may have thought I did the haircut myself. The straight across bang job is definitely something I could have done myself but instead I paid money for it! Oh well! Rylee definitely doesn't hold still so I had to hold her while she got her haircut so there are no pictures of the actual haircut just the after. Pretty soon that hair will be long enough for ponies on the top of her head.

Mean Mommy--Transition to Bottle

It is amazing to me how different 2 children with the same genetics can be. It is also amazing how differently I can parent 2 children. When Abbie turned one (literally the day after her birthday) I took the bottle away and had her on sippy cups only. The transition was smooth because she had already been drinking out of a sippy cup and so she didn't miss her bottle at all. There was no crying, no screaming, and she would go right to sleep after some milk from her sippy cup. I also took Rylee's bottle away at her 1 year birthday and you would have thought I had taken away birthdays for the rest of her life. There was so much screaming, crying, and sippy cups flying through the air at bedtime when I gave her milk in a sippy cup that I gave in and gave the bottle back. I told myself that this wasn't a big deal and in a few weeks I would try again...for real this time. Well, weeks become months and finally I told myself that March was going to be the month, so March 1st I took the bottle away..for good. There was lots of screaming and crying still but I held strong and told myself that this was for her own good. It would be awkward for her to go to kindergarten still drinking from a bottle.

She didn't drink milk at bedtime at all. Instead she threw the cup at me and just cried, screamed really. I held strong and put her in her crib then to just go to bed. After several minutes of listening to her scream I finally opened the door to see this.....we don't need a bottle to sleep, we need a teddy bear!

Viewing Dance Lesson

Abbie's dance class only allows a few viewing lessons per year. Other than that Abbie is whisked in promptly at 6 pm with the door shut behind. Occasionally the music is heard drifting under the door, but what is happening on the other side of the door is up to your imagination. Abbie is fairly secretive too about class so she doesn't show much either. So when the opportunity to watch class comes up I love to be able to make it. March 1, 2010 was the opportunity to view a preview of the April recital. Abbie loves tap and says she wants to continue next year.