Success!!!!

After 3 weeks of potty training, we have finally had some real success!!!

Owen we a full 24 hours with no accidents! He slept overnight and woke up dry, spent 3 hours at church and used the potty there, went out to lunch and stayed dry, slept through a nap dry, and then wore undies the rest of the day with no accidents!!!! Way to go big boy!!!!

Growing Crystals

We finally got around to starting our growing crystal experiment!

Goggle girls :)

About a week later

One of the main reasons that I chose the crystal growing kit is because it came with 3 different crystals so this will keep us busy for a while!!!

Progress Reports!!!

This week the girls came home with their progress reports from school - and it was good news all around!

Savannah got all 3's and E's which is the best you can do in Kindergarten

Kate got 3 A's and 2 B's which is awesome considering it takes me longer to check her homework than it does for her to complete it most days :)

So we all got ice cream!!! Keep up the great work girls!

It's a pirate's life for me!

There is apparently a spin off of Peter Pan with a pirate and Captain Hook that plays on the Disney Channel and the boys in Owen's Sunday School class must all watch because after church on Sundays he comes home quoting the show....and when we came into a Long John Silver's pirate hat I just couldn't help myself!!! He had me in stitches that day!!!!

 



The Last of the Furniture....finally!

It has been like a two week process from purchasing to finishing all the new furniture. After I finished with the white dresser for the girls, all I had left to do was stain and varnish Owen's dresser. But as I was thinking about his bookshelf (that was Savannah's) I decided to paint it as well.

I was hoping one coat would do the trick, but I ended up having to paint it twice :(



After I stained it but before I varnished it

Owen actually did help me paint the finish on! Between the stain and the finish, I painted the dresser 5 times!

He loves posing lately

I think I am finally happy with his room! It's still pretty loud with the yellow, but since Mike is interviewing with companies out of state, it just doesn't seem practical to repaint the entire room.

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

We are a little late but we had a computer meltdown here recently. In the same week our home lap top and my work lap top both crashed leaving us with only Mike's work computer and Mike's work iPad. So I have to blog when I get a free moment...

We had a tough morning so I didn't get the pic until after school!

For dinner, I had little candy hearts for their plates

And just as a bonus I got the girls the crystal growing kits they have been asking for. I really love how much they are into science experiments!

Owen didn't have his Valentine's Party at school until Friday

Mike and I really didn't do anything for Valentine's this year since we just got a ton of new furniture and we need a new computer but it was overall a really nice day for our family :)

Tree Girl and Potty Training Update

Savannah (much to my horror) has been in a real climbing mood lately! And the other day she convinced Mike to help her into the tree I have been refusing to let her climb.

And Owen is perpetually without pants....



I am not sure why he wanted his jacket but being without pants makes our frequent potty trips more managable




Vroom....vroom




He loves to sit on the potty and play Daddy's iPad...here he got a treat for telling me he had to go!

 Overalll I would say we're doing great for only two weeks in. He still goes a lot in his pull ups and I have been peed on several times now but we are making it to the potty a lot and he's a lot more aware and has actually started saying, "I need to go potty."

More furniture!

So this week my goal was to finish assembling all the new furniture....it is a lot easier said than done.....especially when my son kept insisting that my screwdrivers were actually violins!!

There were a few tears involved but we finally got it done :)

this is the girls new dresser

And with Mike's help we got the rest of the living room stuff done:

TV stand

coffee table

This weekend I hope to stain Owen's dresser and then I can finally be done with the furniture!!!

And the first broken window belongs to......



Did you guess Savannah?



When we got our new couch I simply had the movers put the old one on the porch until we could get rid of it and Savannah deemed it an appropriate climbing toy. And one afternoon she was spinning around on her belly on top of the couch and slammed her foot into the window pane....and boom! The entire window fell out. Thankfully it didn't shatter until it hit the ground so she wasn't cut but I cut my feet in three places cleaning it up!!!! Good times!!!

New Furniture!

Probably the most exciting thing we have done in a long time is we went furniture shopping last weekend!! And Wednesday this week stuff finally began arriving!!

The couch came fully assembled but everything else came in boxes...

we went with leather again because of the easy spill clean up!

new side tables...not too bad to assemble

a dresser we bought for Owen...not as easy to assemble

Owen wanted so badly to help me!

And he did entertain me quite a bit



All done!!! Oh wait, now I just have to stain it!!!

We also bought a new coffee table and a new entertainment stand for the living room and a dresser for the girls!! More pics to come as I assemble them! 

February Follow Up

Now that we're a week into February I can honestly say that our focusing is going pretty well...

I made stuffed shells for dinner this week!!!! They were a lot of work but they were yummy and we got two meals out of them :)

Owen is sitting on his potty finishing his breakfast! He's isn't real pleased with me here (it was an early school morning) but we are doing great with potty training!

So far we are doing well with all of our goals...even reading each night. I bought two new books and I am really finding the time relaxing. If only I could keep from falling asleep a few pages in!!

The Many Faces of Owen

This child is really expressive!

February Focus

I attempted to start some new organizational strategies in January that would hopefully help me be more efficient and I did implement some of them fully but others I just didn't really get started so I decided that February is going to be my month to focus!!!

Here are my goals:

1. Monthly Menu - I did this in January and it worked out pretty well. I preplanned an entire month's menu, shopped for everything that would keep all at once, and prepped as much as I could to make dinner less stressful for us. I made fewer trips to the grocery, spent less money not having to buy quick and easy foods, and added several new dinners to our normal routine!

2. Cut out unhealthy foods - Recently we've noticed that Kate's afternoon blood sugars have been getting high due to snacking in between lunch and dinner, usually on cookies or ice cream or other sugary foods. It's a struggle because I hate to restrict Savannah and Owen from snacks just because of Kate's diabetes but I hate for Kate to feel punished because of her health. So Mike and I decided that starting Feb 1 we would go on a sort of "family diet". No more junk food for any of us. If Kate can't eat it, none of us can....that includes cookies, sweets, ice cream, and (gasp) soda!!!! Yes, we are giving up sodas!!!

3. Stick to our monthly budget - Now that I am not teaching and we aren't sure how long it will be before Mike gets new job, it is more important than ever that we stick to our monthly budget and save as much as we can for emergencies and possible moving expenses. This should be by far the easiest goal as we have lived on a relatively strict budget for several years now :)

4. Focused time and attention on my children daily - This sounds ridiculous seeing as how I am a stay at home mom but really sometimes we as a family get so busy and frantic that I feel like I don't get one on one time with each of my kids each day. So my goal is three fold...1. Have a focused conversation with each child daily. 2. Make eye contact with each child daily 3. Touch each of my children daily.

5. Spend time reading most evenings - Since Owen came I have seriously lacked alone time/down time/relaxation. And in all the hustle bustle of life and kids, I find that I have absolutely nothing to discuss other than kids. I am totally boring!!! So now that Owen is on a pretty consistent schedule as far as bed time goes, Mike and I are committing to turning off the TV at a certain hour and spending some quiet time reading each evening.

6. Start potty training Owen - So after debating it back and forth I am jumping in! Bring on the pull ups!


So that is a lot of goals, but I feel like they are pretty doable. They will hopefully make us happier, healthier, and better prepared!! I will let you know how it goes....and how many days I cry because I want a coke!!! :)