Spring is almost here!

I think we are all ready for spring! Netsanet is getting jittery about being cooped up in the house. We've been making good use of the play room at the coffee shop near our house, and Ken takes her to run around the grocery store every day. She is an active girl, though, and it will be good to be able to go outside in the evenings!

Netsanet is still growing tall, and it's hard to find pants that are both long enough and skinny enough. She's only gained a pound in the last year, but she's put on a few inches. She's now about 39" tall and 32 pounds. Still well within all normal ranges, but she is a tall, lean girl! She runs everywhere and loves to be active. We've tried a couple of classes (dance and yoga) and she's going to take a dance camp this summer for a week in the mornings.

She also loves to draw and do her various creations. Her latest statement is "I am going to be an artist!" It's fun to see her vocabulary grow, and hear her expressing her opinions and needs. And boy, does she express them! She has some strong opinions on what she wants to wear, do, music to listen to, etc. She is finally getting to the point of wearing something besides dresses, which is the only thing she would wear for the last year. She definitely likes the sparkly stuff, and she's very into her accessories. It will be fun to see how her preferences change as she grows. I always wonder about how she will be as a teen and an adult.

Over the last few months, we've done a few things but mostly it seems like life has flown by since the fall. At Christmas, we took a christmas train with my side of the family, which was cold but fun. I look forward to doing it next year, when the girls can probably skip the nap time and have fun playing in the snow at Mt. Rainier. Netsanet's preschool also had a field trip downtown to do all the christmas things, and I went along. It was really cute seeing all the little 3-year olds have such a good time.

Other than that, we've been saving our pennies and planning to build the small cabin. It's been a snowy winter in that area of Washington, so we're planning to start around May 1st. A friend has offered to build it for us for no charge, so we are going to pay for materials and then they can use it for weekends when we're not there. It's still such a generous offer on his part! It's going to be great to be able to go for a weekend, and I really hope Netsanet will enjoy it. We have a heat source, and I'm going to see if we can afford a small solar power set up and a composting toilet. Ahhh, luxuries ;-)

Speaking of toilets, Netsanet is completely done with diapers. A few months ago we finally got past the night time diapers, and she's had very few accidents. Which is great, because my least favorite sentence to wake up to is "Mama, my pants are wet and I peed the bed." I'm not a morning person and that's even less fun to wake up to. She has been really good with it, though, and she will get up at night to use the potty now. The only problem is that she's decided if she's up, she wants some company...so she comes in and wakes us up. One more thing to work on! It seems like there's always something. I'm all for telling her, "No. Go back to bed," but Ken feels bad if she cries, and wants to cuddle her and soothe her back to sleep. So, our resolution the last few nights is I wear ear plugs and he's exhausted all day. Poor guy, but she's not going to stop waking us up if she gets what she wants (company). At some point he will be tired enough to be firm with her too ;-)

It's hard to believe how quickly our little girl is growing up. Next year we will have to register her for kindergarten. With the recent school district changes, we are now stuck with our neighborhood school or the option school for the area. Our neighborhood school is pretty bad on a variety of levels from everything I've heard and read. It seems like maybe it's changing, so we'll see. Our plan so far is to try for the option school, and then if we don't make the lottery we will put her in kindergarten in the neighborhood school and probably plan to move to another neighborhood that year. It doesn't excite me, but we'll just do what we have to. In any case, I think Netsanet will thrive in school and I want her to be in the place where she will be nurtured and encouraged to learn!

Well, here's to sunny days ahead!