Calvin's first outing in underwear

I know...I felt very brave doing this. Considering we've only been seriously potty training him for about a week. He's gone on short car rides to pick up Violet from preschool before wearing undies but I don't count a 10 minute trip out of the house to be worth much. Anyway...some friends of ours invited us over for dinner tonight and we were out of the house for three hours - and he used the bathroom four times with no accidents - I am soooo proud of him!

Solomon lost his first tooth

Our doggie is teething...this is a good thing! Once all his adult teeth come in he'll become less chewy. Dave found a white tooth in his water bowl this morning.
He also weighs 70 pounds. That is an enormous weight gain - he was only 35 lbs when we got him 2 months ago.

Lost interest in toys lately

I am enjoying Calvin being older now. He is a better playmate for Violet! They seem to have lost interest in the majority of their toys (with the exception of their train set) and love to imagine games. They pretend to be puppies, pretend to be baby/mommy, etc...and are using their minds to make up games to play together. When they are actively engaged in an imaginary role game, its great, they play SO well together! But if they're at odds and one or the other is making the other mad, its like world war three, with plenty of screaming. Violet is constantly bossing Calvin around which drives us all nuts. If they are both melting down it is usually a case of them being very hungry.

Feeding their trains

Violet and Calvin's favorite thing to do lately is play with their train set. I was sitting on the floor playing with them the other day, and I noticed Calvin picked up a train, lifted up his shirt, and lift it up to his chest....and told me he was feeding his train. Violet did the same thing...and soon they found it funny to "breastfeed" their trains. So silly, that one made me laugh. They copy everything I do!

Vanessa - 4 months

She'll be 4 months in a couple days, but I might as well update when I'm thinking about it and have a few minutes. I'll find out how much she weighs when I go to the pediatrician with her next week, but I know she's heavier, she makes my back ache if I hold her for awhile walking around the house, she never used to do that to me! I am guessing 13-14 pounds. She is very smiley, giggles every day (especially when I startle her or throw/catch her in the air), and is starting to get grabby and chewy. She loves to be held, and gets fussy if left alone for awhile. She often sits up in her high chair in the kitchen and plays with soft toys I give to her. She reaches out in front of her to grab things and is very interactive.
She also seems to have given up the pacifier. If I try give it to her she refuses it and isn't soothed by it anymore. That may change, I'm going to try keep giving it to her, its certainly a nice thing to have for awhile.

Good job Calvin!

I know there are ups and downs to potty training, but today is a major up. Calvin is showing major progress in using the potty by himself - at least TELLING me he has to go before he goes. I wondered how long it would take him to do it since the last 5 or 6 days have been ME trained to know how long he can hold it (and I've been taking him at least every 30-60 minutes). He has woken up dry from his naps the last couple days (not night time though), and this morning (even though he woke up with a dirty diaper), he went pee before breakfast, then three times at the chapel (right when we got there because he wanted to know where the toilets were) before and after Sunday School, woke up dry after his nap, went poo and pee in the toilet, and is staying dry. I hope he keeps this up. I first had him sit down while peeing so in case he has to go poop he can do that too. He gets rewarded by m&ms every time he goes so there is a big motivation for him, he LOVES getting his prizes! I even took out the changing table and all his cloth diapers out of his room so he knows he doesn't wear them anymore.

Violet and her words

Violet is really starting to put the puzzle pieces together in her mind with letters and words. She has known her phonics for a long time thanks to the Letter Factory video (she got hooked on that when she was 2!), and has recently started writing words. She took out a paper and pen yesterday and wrote out all the words she could think of. She wrote:

- mops
- hat
- top
- pop
- sit
- pen
- bat
and two attempts at longer words:
- pentl (she sounded out "pencil")
- cove (she tried writing "coffee")

She proudly showed us the paper each time she came up with a new word to write. Last week she watched the second Letter Factory video called "Talking Words Factory" and as she watched the video, she sat on the table writing down all the words the machine (Word Whammer!) was creating in it - there might have been 25 different words she wrote down. When we read books, she follows along with her fingers and points to the words as I read them and if I ask her to find a certain word she will figure out where the word is on the page (most of the time). I asked her to find "finger" in one of the recent books and she found it.

This morning she said "Mom, are you sad that you only have three letters in your name? You have three, see? M, O, M. I have six. V, I, O, L, E, T."

It is so fun seeing a kid start understanding all this. :)

Calvin - a good start so far with potty training

It took me awhile to realize that life was just not going to slow down to "have time" to potty train Calvin...and I just had to dive right in. He is now wearing underwear when we are in the house and pull ups if we go out of the house. There have been a few times in the last week that he's wanted to use the potty and trying to put a diaper on a kid standing up is NOT easy, nor does it give him the "underwear" message that he's OUT of diapers. He doesn't exactly tell me he has to go, I have just been making him go almost every hour during the day. He (usually) happily goes to the potty and pees, he knows he gets a few cheerios for a treat if he goes pee, and if he poos he gets chocolate chips.
I went to MOPS this morning he was in the child care. I had the babysitters take him twice and he stayed dry all morning, and went pee in the toilet for the child care workers each time they took him ~ I guess its just a matter of him learning that there are toilets everywhere we go, not just at home.
He has yet to consistently TELL me he has to go and then go on his own (he did once last night after small group), I bet that will take awhile. I feel like all the interaction I get with him is in the bathroom lately asking him to get on the toilet and pee - but that's alright.
#2 seems to be a different story though - he always wakes up in the morning and has already done his duty.

Last night was better

Vanessa slept last night from 10pm-4 am, I fed her once, and she slept again til 7 am, that is much better!

Vanessa at night, ugh

She really needs to start sleeping better at night. She is awake at least four times. I usually bring her to bed with me, nurse her, and she falls back asleep for a couple hours, and is awake again, so the process is repeated -- its been like this for a few weeks now and I'm left feeling like a zombie in the morning. Last night I ended up putting her in the crib, shutting my closet door, turning the fan on louder, and putting in ear plugs so I could get a few hours of uninterrupted sleep. She screamed herself back to sleep, I think...I did end up sleeping a little because I remember having a very vivid dream between the hours of 4 and 6 am. Violet woke me up at 7:30 telling me that Calvin was screaming for me so I pulled myself out of bed to go get him. My eyelids were throbbing something fierce...I really hate that feeling. I don't know what to do to get her sleeping better! She was swaddled super duper tight. She won't sleep on her tummy either, she lifts her head up every time and starts fussing.

Silly Calvin

and his 2 yr old logic. He saw a man outside jogging on the sidewalk through the window today while he was playing with his train. He said "Mom, dat man wunning. Is he get a panking?"

Violet's sayings

While drinking milk during lunch this afternoon: "Wow, those cows make some good milk. I'm impressed." Earlier while driving in the car: "Did Jesus make all these roads and all these cars for all the people? That's a LOT of work! Did Jesus get all sweaty while working to make all these for us?"

Awww Calvin

He said something so cute on Sunday morning. I'll say...its RARE form for me to be all "dolled up". I decided to wear a skirt as part of my outfit and leave my hair down on Sunday morning, and when I was done getting ready and walked downstairs to get breakfast ready for the family, Calvin took one look at me and said "Mom! You look like a princess!" It sounded more like "Mom! You wook wike a pin-cess!" but it was really adorable. :D Another thing he said the other day was "the sky is so beau-ful!" He also can't say words that start with the letter S. He says "weeky" for "squeaky" and "wippers" for "slippers". He and Violet love to pretend one of them is a dog, the other is the master...so whoever is the dog crawls on the floor and pants, the master pretends to tell them what to do...sit, lay down, go in their cage (they use a laundry basket), or play with a toy. Calvin was the master recently and was telling his puppy (Violet) to go get a toy, so he started yelling "Get your weeky toy! Weeky weeky weeky!" Just hearing that made me laugh.

Labor Day weekend 2010 - pictures (J&C and family)

Denise and Jeff Winters with us: Carrie, Josh, Denise, Jeff: Calvin, Renee, Violet, Austin: Wesley: Carrie and Vanessa: myself and Carrie: Violet and Austin: flying the kite, I don't know why this pic didn't rotate: me and Vanessa: Calvin: Dave and Josh dueling the playground equipment: Solomon is getting bigger! He's 4 months in this pic: Vanessa loving being outside: Renee, Wesley, Austin, Vanessa, Violet and Calvin: The whole gang:

Labor Day 2010 - Josh and Carrie visiting

Dave and I hosted Josh and Carrie and their family this past weekend. Carrie and I had talked about them coming to visit a few times over the summer and we threw out some dates that might work. She called me a couple weeks ago and said "If it works for us to Labor Day weekend then let's do it." We had the weekend open so it was planned. The night they arrived (around 10 pm on Friday night), Dave and I got the house prepared for their visit. They preferred to set up their whole family in the basement, so Dave and I moved the queen size mattress to the basement floor for J&C to sleep on. THAT was a feat! We switched out the square table for a round one that we borrowed from the chapel for the main eating table, blew up two twin air mattresses for Austin (age 5) and Renee (3), and set up a pack and play crib for Wesley (9 months) and put it under the stairs in the storage closet. I didn't tell Violet they were coming until Thursday of last week, because she had a week full of new things: First week of preschool started Monday, and continued Wed and Thurs, and a play date scheduled on Tues at a friend's house. She was very excited when I told her, and knew that her cousins would be at her house when she woke up on Saturday morning. When J&C arrived, V&C were in bed, and their family quickly moved to the basement to get their kids settled into their beds. We talked for a little while and went to bed "early" around 11:00 pm. Everybody was tired. Saturday morning all the kids were awake before the adults - we got ourselves out of bed cuz they were all hungry. They were all happily playing with the train toys downstairs. Dave had gotten a call the night before from his cousin Jeff who informed us he and his wife Denise would be stopping by on their way through town and 8 am. They were going to St. Louis for someone's wedding. So Jeff and Denise joined us for breakfast. I scrambled 18 eggs, cooked a pound of bacon, and served the zucchini bread Carrie brought. It was polished off quickly. We had plans to go swimming in the neighbor's pool. The Patterson family on the north end of Briarwood Drive let us come swim for a couple hours. I had asked them the week before if it would work out to swim after he graciously let all the kids in the neighborhood swim in the pool after the annual Briarwood block party that they host. I took Vanessa with me and made a separate trip to Bethany Bible Chapel to practice my flute music with the rest of those who were practicing for the music on Sunday. I played through my song a few times and made some changes with the piano and all in all, it took about 20 minutes. I went to the neighbor's pool to meet the rest of the family. It was a tad bit chilly but we went ahead with it so we could get out of the house and enjoy the sunshine. The kids had a lot of fun - Carrie and Dave got in with them, Josh and I sat out and held the babies. Violet swam on her own with the life jacket, Austin was tall enough to walk around the shallow end, Calvin wore his life jacket but just sat around the steps and got his feet wet, and Renee wore her floaty swim suit and I think just stayed near the steps. Josh showed Dave some brotherly love by pushing him in the water. :D Everyone swam for about an hour and a half, and then those in the water got pretty cold and we decided to go back home for lunch. We had a sandwich buffet with three different kind of meat, broccoli salad and chips. We all worked to get the kids down for a nap, and Josh and Dave took off for a coffee shop to get some 1-1 relaxing time together. Carrie and I stayed in the kitchen and made chocolate chip cookies and talked. The rest of the day was pretty random. The kids woke up rested and ran around and played. After supper (BBQ chicken made by Dave on the grill, mac and cheese and green beans), we all took a walk and went to "the little playground" and let them run around outside. Bed time couldn't come soon enough! J&C and Dave and I played a couple rounds of Yahtzee then called it a night. We were ALL tired! Sunday morning was a feat - a big effort made to get everyone up early enough, fed (cold cereal for all), and in the vans by 8:45, but we did it. Remembrance meeting went pretty well, all the kids seemed pretty entertained by the activity books and crayons we brought. Austin and Renee were happy to go to Violet's Sunday School class. Josh joined Dave in his classroom (he teaches 4th grade) so Carrie and I got to sit together child-free for the teaching meeting after the music. My flute song went well and was over quick. Our plan was to go out to eat for lunch on Sunday - we ended up at Toad's on Main St. We were hoping that either My Verona or the Soho Sushi and Deli place would be open but they were both closed on Sundays. Toads turned out great, we had a big table by ourselves, and everyone enjoyed their food. Once we all got home and got the kids down the naps, Carrie and I took off for the mall to get some coffee, pedicures and shop for a little bit. Vanessa joined us, since I knew I'd have to feed her at some point when we were out. She fell asleep right as we started our pedis so that was perfect timing. We scrapped our supper plans (grilling burgers) because everyone was so full from our huge lunch and chose to pack the strollers with snacky items, and we all walked over to "the big park" (Southdale Elementary). Austin, Violet and Renee rode trikes, and Calvin, Wesley and Vanessa got pushed in strollers. I brought along Violet's butterfly kite and it turned out to be the perfect day for flying a kite. There is a huge open field there and Dave had the kite flying WAY high in the air - Violet was grinning from ear to ear while holding the handle on the kite. She has been begging me to fly a kite all summer but none of the days she thought of it were anywhere near windy, so it was perfect she got to do it. The kids ended up swarming the stroller and snacking on whatever they could get their hands on - many granola bars got eaten, many bags of chips got devoured, and lots of apple juice was consumed. Not the healthiest of dinners, but oh well. It was relaxing and easy...they can eat broccoli tomorrow. :) We took a more direct path home from the park since it was starting to get cold. The kids were all so dirty, so it was bath time that night. We hurried to get them all bathed and in bed, and by 9:10 pm, the house was quiet. Whew!! Wow....I am really starting to appreciate MY parents so much more now going through the same things they did when we were little! We popped some popcorn and played the New York Cartoon Caption game for a couple hours...and went to bed. Monday morning I got to sleep in til 8:30...although I was awake a couple times dealing with Vanessa in the middle of the night. I made some oatmeal for the kids, Dave made fried eggs and toast for the adults. Carrie did a couple loads of laundry before packing up, I took the older 4 kids to the swing set in the neighbor's yard and occupied them while they got packed up. We took a few family pictures in the house and on the front porch...and then Dave grilled burgers for lunch (it was our dinner plan Sunday night that was scrapped) and finished up leftover broccoli salad and mac and cheese. They had their van packed and ready to go by 2:30 pm - and after many rounds of hugging, they took off. Our kids went to take naps immediately, and they slept hard. Calvin slept from 2:30-5, Violet slept 2:30-6! Vanessa and I fell asleep on the couch too, and I got up at 5 when Calvin woke up. It was so nice to get a nap - I was exhasuted. Even though it seems like a huge effort to get together, it is always worth it. The kids had a GREAT time with their cousins and they all got along pretty well for the most part. We got to catch up with Josh and Carrie and had some time to relax in the evening time.

Tell About Your Day - Violet

This is Dave, reporting in. Violet and I have a thing where I lay next to her after she goes to bed and we 'tell each other about our day.' "The silly version." After I got done telling about my day, Violet launched into her particularly silly account. She said: "I woke up in the morning and I was a kite. I was flying up in the sky and an old girl was holding the string. She was 59 and she was about to die. *in a high pitched voice she says* 'You're going to die on Monday.' Then there was this bird that flew by and his name was Peekis. And then a string was flying in the sky and it wasn't attached to a kite and it got caught on Peekis' foot. The Peekis was flying like a kite. And he said 'woooohooo!! I'm flying! This is fun!' And a boy was holding his string and he was 9 and he wasn't about to die. And then the old lady said, 'What's going on? I have a talking kite.'" And I forget the rest, but I had to share this little snipet from the imagination of a child. I laughed heartily. I love sharing these times with my little girl. Dave

Vanessa - 3 month pictures

I got some tips from a friend of mine who does photography - she told me to prop up the babe in natural light, no flash, on top of a table (I used the coffee table dad made), on top of a boppy pillow covered with a white sheet as the whole backdrop...so I tried it. Dave was behind me getting her to smile, I think they turned out pretty cute. The first one is my favorite.

Quiet moment

Just wanted to write and say that ALL my kids are sleeping at the SAME time right now, even the dog is snoring away. What a quiet house! I wish I could lay down for a nap, but I'm preparing small group treats for tonight and doing 4 loads of laundry!

Fun day for Violet yesterday

Violet's friend Vada had a birthday celebration (she turned 4) yesterday, and Violet and her friend Ivy got to go play at Vada's house most of the day. Kris (Vada's mom) picked Violet up at 9:30 in the morning and brought her back at 4 pm. She had a BLAST! I could tell because she was beaming when Kris picked her up and beaming when she got home. She immediately asked me when she got home if all her friends could stay at our house and eat supper, so when I said no she got pretty upset. Although she didn't get a nap and was extremely crabby the rest of the day, it was probably worth skipping the nap for. She told me she really, really wants to get glasses because her other two friends have them. I heard they played with all sorts of things, changed into many changes of dress up clothes, painted, and drew pictures. I am so glad she has some great friends to play with. Kris said they all got along really well. She didn't protest a bit when we put her to bed at 7:30 pm.