Saturday, April 20, 2013

Happy Spring!

It's been a fun few months since the last post. Natali passed Beginner I gymnastics and is in Beginner II, and is getting ready for the ice show next weekend (Pineapple Princess is her group's song). Kjirsten is writing her name fairly consistently, and loves to tell jokes (even if we don't quite get them most of the time). She's also become quite the theologian lately ("Jesus is a baby. Jesus is God. God is a baby!")

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

FW: My girly girl and my tomboy


Natali is quite the girly girl. She loves pink, lace, purple, princesses, mermaids. I have no idea where she got it from – I'm not so much into all the girly stuff (although I don't mind dressing up on occasion, and I'm not allergic to pink, but I don't do makeup/get into shoes/etc). She's doing skating and gymnastics right now, and told me when skating is done she wants dance. Yikes. When she turns 14, she's on her own with the makeup and beauty stuff! 

Kjirsten – quite the opposite. While she enjoys some of the same things as Natali, she plays differently. She's always been more physical. Natali likes gymnastics because she gets to dress up in a leotard and look like Dora. Kjirsten likes going (she's just a spectator) because she can pretend to run and jump on the side while we're watching. 

Thank goodness they both like Legos!


Thursday, January 17, 2013

Happy New Year!


2012 has been an exciting year for us, and we hope for you as well.

The girls sing in choirs in church, and it's such a joy to watch little kids sing their hearts out. Nate and I are involved in church music in a variety of ways, and we also were chosen to be godparents for a friend's daughter this year.

Natali started rec sports; she did soccer and t-ball in the summer and started skating in the winter. Kjirsten started preschool this year, and is excited to go to both the German Kinderstube and King of Kings preschool. Both girls have very cheerful personalities and it's a joy to watch them grow.

Bekah's class load shifted slightly this year, with the addition of German 3 and AP Calc. She is also finishing up work on her MAT. Nate's new projects for this year at work were the launch of a one-to-one Chromebook program, and an overhaul of the computer lab.

Drop us a line anytime and let us know how things are going for you - rjjorgen@gmail.com is the best address to use.


Wednesday, September 19, 2012

School!

School has started – and it's a busy one! I'm on the board of ed at our church's school, and Natali started skating lessons. She's picking things up fairly quickly – she was promoted a group last week (from the "I can't move on my own" group to the "shuffles and sometimes glides" group). Kjirsten is very slowly adding new foods to her "acceptable food list" - the most recent entries include scrambled eggs and pizza.

Nate's been busy at school getting Chromebooks in the hands of the middle school students there – which finally happened today, and were promptly put to use. I get to teach Geometry and AP Calc this year, which is fun, along with AP Stats and the German classes.

And, just in the nick of time, I finished my "summer project" - getting photo albums up to date (Kjirsten didn't even have one). I made it to May, which I'm going to consider a success – 2.5 years of photos sorted, printed, and stuck in albums. 

In August we went to the State Fair and some family events around town, and we welcomed the arrival of our new niece (Nate's brother's second child).

Saturday, August 11, 2012

Just a few things I love about being a mom...

- Picking the ends off of green beans while the girls run around the kitchen and living room, stopping every few laps to grab another green bean off the counter to eat
- The way the girls say "I love you"
- The dozens of different ways I look in the stick figure drawings my girls make
- Seeing my children's energy and enthusiasm for just about everything

Monday, June 25, 2012

Big news!

Kjirsten is going to bed in her big-girl panties now! If only we could trust her to poop on the potty, she'd be fully potty-trained, but we've still got a little work to do…

Thursday, June 21, 2012

Summer news

The school year ended well for all of us. We're homeschooling Natali next year, and she informed me as we were sitting at one of her preschool's end-of-year picnic, "It's summer! So we can start homeschooling this afternoon!" Needless to say, since we do not want to finish kindergarten by Christmas, we aren't actually starting yet. Instead we're just doing a lot of fun activities that are nearby that open up her world. We've seen a Japanese kimono dancing group and a Hmong storytelling group. She's also in a soccer/t-ball parks & rec group, which she seems to enjoy so far.

Kjirsten is so close to being potty-trained. The Dora underwear we got her last week seem to be a good incentive. She should have been potty-trained a while ago, but she's been so stubborn she would stay dry for a few days, then not care for the next few days. She is becoming much more verbal as well, which is exciting to see and hear. Now if only she would become less picky when it came to food!

I've been watching our nephew the past few weeks. It's been great for our girls to get a chance to play with their cousin, and he's really seemed to have fun here! I also get to watch my god-daughter in the afternoons, which is fun for me, and fun for Kjirsten to get to play sort of the "big sister" role (the girls go to my god-daughter's mother's place in the mornings a few days a week, so they know each other well).