Gymnastics Superstar
Victoria started going to gymnastics in the fall. She has loved every minute of it and tries to practice at home. We have caught her flipping over the handles on the treadmill. Even though we get to watch her every week while she is at class, the gym held a special performance. Victoria was so excited that mom, dad, ellie and rhys would all be there to watch her routine. They started out with a floor routine. Victoria did a somersault, cartwheel and a handstand that she turned into a flip. She is still working to perfect her cartwheel but she really looked great out there. They also did a uneven bar routine and a balance bar routine. I was so impressed with Victoria’s bar routine. I didn’t realize how good she had gotten until she did a jump and landed back on the balance beam. After all the kids were done, they each received a medal. It was so cute. Victoria was so proud of her accomplishments. We were quite proud as well. I am so happy that she is having a great time at gymnastics and has an activity that she can do outside of school. The instructors said that they are going to start working with Victoria to perfect her cartwheel and work on harder routines in the other areas. Go Victoria!!!
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Elizabeth Grace Maentz ~ 3 years old
I am a little late writing this but I still wanted to post something about Ellie’s birthday. Elizabeth turned 3 years old on January 24th. She was so excited that it was finally her birthday. Our family calendar is a picture calendar and the month of the kids birthday has just pictures of the birthday kid. So, when we turned the calendar to January, Ellie saw pictures from her birthday last year and she started singing happy birthday to herself. Needless to say when the day finally rolled around she was pretty excited. It is hard to believe that this amazing little gift came into our lives three years ago. Ellie has been a blessing since her birth. On her birthday, ellie proudly wore around her pink tutu, birthday girl sash and princess crown. Ellie will tell you that she is three years old and try to hold up three fingers but that is kind of tricky so it looks more like 5. We celebrated Ellie’s birthday with her godparents and their kids….just a small party. Everything was pink as requested by Ellie. In November when i worked the bookfair at Victoria’s school, ellie found a book entitled pinkalicious written by sisters named Victoria and Elizabeth. The story is about a little girl who turns pink after eating too many pink cupcakes. ellie thought this was fantastic. She decided right then that she wanted a pink birthday party with pink cupcakes. Thanks to my wonderful friend, Carrie, we made that happen. She had a pink cake with a flower drawn on it and then 10 pink cupcakes surrounding the cake. It was definitely very pinkalicious!!!! Although our family lives far away and were not able to be hear for Ellie’s party, they sent gifts and called. Ellie was so excited to talk to Papa, Grandma Mary and her aunties. She knew it was her special day and I am so happy that she enjoyed it!
My Ellie ~ 
1. Ellie is so much fun. She sings, laughs, and dances. Her sense of rhythm is unbelievable. You put a song on and immediately she is dancing right in time to that song. She can be heard all throughout the house singing. Even though she has a tantrum here and there, she is typically a very happy little kid. She loves to laugh and make other people laugh especially her brother.
2. She is an amazing sister. She loves Rhys so much that sometimes she hugs him just a little too tight. She is always worried about Victoria and Rhys and wants to make sure we know where everyone is. Just recently she did the sweetest thing…gave money to Victoria to help pay for the dinner that Victoria had promised to pay for.
4. She is quite the little runner. Typically if Ellie wants to go somewhere she runs there. The cutest sight is sitting in choir on Wednesday nights. Ellie comes running down the church aisle to say good-bye to me. She runs so fast the choir members get nervous she is going to fall. She doesn’t, though.
5. She is a very sensitive little girl. She loves to hug and cuddle especially in the morning. She loves to be right where everyone is. It is very rare for her to be off playing by herself unless of course she is getting into micheif (usually involving make-up)
Ellie is a little sweetheart. I am so truly blessed to have such a beautiful daughter!!!
No Money for the Windy City
This weekend Marion went with the church youth group to their annual winter retreat about 2 hours away. She took Rhys with her and I got to spend some good time with the girls. On Friday night, Victoria wanted to treat Ellie and I to dinner at a place in town called The Windy City, that specializes in Chicago cuisine – Italian Beef, Chicago Hot Dogs, etc.. This is something she has been talking about ever since she got some money for Christmas because she knows that I like that kind of food and thought it would be special to go to dinner there. Victoria is tremedously gracious, and when Marion first told me that this is what she wanted to do with part of her Christmas money, I was very touched.
So the date was set. Victoria had been talking about going all day long, and now that it was dinner time and we were in route to go to the Windy City. We first ran a few errands and then quick went home to get her money out of her big bucket. You see, a few weeks ago, each of the kids got a big plastic bucket to put all of their money in. We got this idea from financial motivational speaker and counsler, Dave Ramsey, as a way to get kids excited about saving money – the clear plastic bucket helps them visualize what saving money looks like (and what spending money looks like too). Victoria got out of the car and quick ran up to her room to get the money out of her bucket. The only problem we found was that when she got there, no money was to be found. She was confused. What had happened to her money?
I finally reached the conculsion that her money must have been used for another gift that she wanted – an electric massager. You see this was another gift that Victoria really wanted, and Marion bought it on Amazon a few days ago and must have went to get the money out of Victoria’s bucket to pay for it. Needless to say this put Dad into a unique situation. She had been only talking about taking us to the Windy City for dinner all day, but now there was no money in the bucket. A lot of stuff rushed through my mind at that moment, and then I finally thought this could stand to be a valuable teaching moment, although it was extremely painful. I told her that we could not go out for dinner because you need money to do that, and there was not any left in the bucket. Ouch. That is a hard message for anybody to hear, let alone a 5 year old. I thought more then once that maybe I was being a little to harsh.
The reality set it. Victoria was devestated, and let me know by showing extreme emotion. Crying, Yelling, Plassing the blame on others..”I didn’t want mom to buy that massager, why did she do that and take my money?!?!” I told her that the massager was something she said she wanted and there was no reason to yell at mom about that. She was very upset, and then in the midst of her emotion, my five year old came up with a brillant idea – “Dad you can pay for the dinner with your money.” All of a sudden Dad became the bailout plan. I thought to myself…”Why not, it worked for the banks?” I then delivered the hard message that I did not have the money to pay to eat out and so we would have to stay home and make dinner. More emotion. More crying. More yelling.
Not feeling so great, I went to get Ellie, who had been waiting in the car for us to come back with the money. I said that we we had a change of plans and that we would be eating dinner at the house. Ellie asked why, and I said that Victoria did not have any money in her bucket. Ellie then did one of the sweetest things I have ever seen. She said “I have money in my bucket. I will give Victoria some of my money out of my bucket.” You see Ellie’s bucket is looking pretty good after just celebrating a birthday. Ellie quickly jumped out of the car, ran up to her room, grabbed her bucket, took the money out and handed it to Victoria.
Victoria all of a sudden stopped crying and was very thankful to her sister giving her a big hug. I told Victoria that was a very special thing Ellie did and Ellie had a huge smile on her face – “Can we go get a hotdog?”, she asked. Victoria then said she was going to work hard to fill up her bucket so that she could give some money back to Ellie. We are in the process of starting a “allowence” system with Victoria, where she gets paid for doing her chores so I am hopeful it won’t take long for her to make good on her promise.
Well they are only five and three, but they both taught me a lot. I hope this small lesson about money will stay with Victoria. She now tells me – “If there is not money in the bucket, then you can’t do stuff.” It is not always easy being a Dad and sometimes I second guess if I am doing the right thing especially when it is not the popular thing. This time it was worth it. We had a great dinner and evening together, and this moment made my weekend so I had to share it.
Uncategorized | Comments (3)The Right Decision
Last week I started student teaching. I was so excited to finally be at this point in my schooling, however now that I am a week into this adventure, I am really questioning my decision. I am still excited about teaching and although there have been some challenging moments in the classroom, I believe that this is the right career path for me. The problem is that I have truly enjoyed staying home with the kids. I quit working at Kimberly-Clark two years ago. I can’t believe that it has been that long already. The expression “time flies when you are having fun” is so true. The kids and I have had such fun at home. Of course it hasn’t been all roses. There were definitely moments of sassiness that resulted in time outs but overall it has been a great time. It has been especially hard to leave Rhys. I am so thankful that I was able to stay home with hime for 6 months compared to 3 months with the girls. It was still so hard to leave him at daycare. Gabe and I love Carrol and are could not be happier with her home daycare. She loves the kids like her own. Ellie loves to go to “school” and play with her friends. Rhys on the other hand has had a more difficult time adjusting. He is not eating well at Carrol’s and not sleeping well. It just breaks my heart. I know this is only the first week and with time he will adjust but it doesn’t lessen the emotions. I am also finding it difficult to balance everything again. I come home and want to spend time with the kids but there is laundry, dishes, lesson plans, etc to do. Not to mention the fact that I am tired and would just like to put on my pj’s and climb into bed. I also feel like I had to give up some of my extra-curriculars. I really miss those things. I have seen both worlds and I am wondering if maybe being a stay at home mom was really where my heart was. My life is so different from where I thought I would be. I was the person who didn’t really want kids and I was very career oriented. All that changed when I had Victoria. I am glad that I will have my teaching credentials in my back pocket but I do wonder if I have made the right decision. I guess that is why there is a constant debate about working parents versus stay at home parents and what is best for the family. I know this. I am looking forward to June 5th when I get to be home with the kids again (plus it will be summer) 
To all those working moms out there:
If you have any good advice or even encouragement, I am all ears!
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