Playing with cousins!

Well now we embark on our fun-filled week with Luxie and Meadow! To add to the fun my sister-in-law-in-law (not type-o!) and her two chilins Josh and Brooklyn came out for a visit on Sunday. It is really fun to see them because they haven't been here for a couple years. My father-in-law has one of those blow-up bouncing things and brought it out for the kids. The only problem is is that it completly freakes out my kids! Give them a tall slide or a climbing wall no problem, something that makes noise-no way!! Everytime he has gotten it out Abby has refused to get in and ran crying from the room (it also doesnt help that her Papa grabed her and try to throw her in it!). So the cousins Josh, Brooklyn, Garrett, Luxie and Meadow and even Lacey all jumped in it. And I am proud to say that after much talking Abby got in and while I wouldnt say she loved it, she did have a good time! Also I must say how proud I am of Luxie, the last time she stayed with us whenever there where a lot of people or a lot of stuff going on she would just lay down and go to sleep. This time she was right in the thick of things and having a total blast!

Today was absolutly beautiful so we were able to spend some time outside. We got out the bikes and had to diffuse a coupe arguments of who got to ride what and when. The funniest thing was watching the girls play hide-and-seek. There arent many places to hide in our wide open back yard but they managed and had a lot of fun!

While the bigger girls were running around and Dylan was trying to stay away from all the girls, the little girls discovered the sand box.

While Meadow got in trouble for doing this with the sand......

Lacey got in trouble for eating it!

Milestones

Well a couple milestones to note. Dylan is potty trained! woohoo!! He has been for a little while. I told him one morning that now he was a big boy and big boys go in the potty. He looked at me and said "No, I not a big boy, I wear a diaper" I was like ummmm don't think so!! So the first day we went through every pair of undies that he had and the next day not one accident! He had been totally awesome! We have even graduated to going to the store and church in "big boy undies". It is so nice to have only one in diapers!

I don't know if others had trouble trying to get it to click in a little boys head, but I tried a bunch of different things to get him to go potty and he just wasn't getting it until I tried what worked for my little brother. Making water. I asked Dylan if he could make water, and the light bub went off and his face it up and he said "yeah I can make water!" So that is out code for when he has to go potty. Pretty exciting!!

Abby had a blast at her recital! Bill represented the grandparents by himself since Jenny was at home lounging after having knee surgery on Wednesday. They wanted the parents to come at intermission to pick up the little kids so I waited like I was supposed to but I wish I hadn't because the routine she loved as well as the rest of the ballet and lyrical routines that she would have liked were in the first part so she missed them! We got her a little bouquet of flowers, she thought she was pretty cool carrying her flowers and wearing her dress! I asked her if she liked being up there on the stage in front of all the people and she replied with a big smile "It was so much fun and I wasn't scared at all!" We took her back in to watch some of the second part and she was clapping and hootin and hollering for the other girls, she was really getting into it!

Lacey, my sweet Lacey has popped the biggest attitude lately, and I coudn't figure out if it was because she had teeth coming in or what until I remembered that she was 19 months old. For those of you who don't understand that expanation , the terrible twos do not start at 2 they start at around 18 months. No one tells you that. I think is because they don't want to scare people who are thinking of having kids!!! So now we have this sassy little thing walking around my house! The sad thing is is that she is just so dang cute it is hard to not laugh at her! Especially when she makes one of her faces! But I need to get that under control because laughing doesn't help when I am trying to curb her behaviour!!

Recital Rehearsal

Abby first dance recital rehearsal was tonight and let me just say that I hope the show runs better!! After the Christmas recital fiasco I was a little hesitant about leaving her with her group and the ladies in charge....and I was right! It has been a great place for Abby's first dance experience but I am glad we are moving her to a different studio! When we got there I got her changed in to her dress and they started separating them in to lines. The recital is both friday and saturday nights and they have two tiny tot combo classes so one performs each night. Abby is supposed to be on sat.. So they were lining the girls up and I asked them which line was which and which one they put her in so that she would be in the group she was supposed to be in. I left and went to the auditorium but should have because she ended up in the wrong group!! When they came out on stage I just figured that they had the fri. girls in front and the sat. girls in back, but turns out they had her in the wrong group! Not the end of the world but just annoying! I went back to get her when they were done and on of the other moms came over to me and asked me if Abby was performing on sat. cuz she was in the fri. group. I was like "what?" She was like "you need to go ask because she has to be on sat because my girls (she had twins) follow her, they don't know it as well". So longer story short-she is on sat. and we did get the right tickets!! So here is the video I got of her. The video isn't the best because right when the music started the girl in front of Abby side stepped right in front of her!! ARRGGGHHH!!! The first little clip is blurry but she looks so cute. the second clip I fixed the focus! So there you go! One way cute thing was after she was done I took her back to watch some of the other dances. We watched a couple when the older girls who go up on point came out. Their dance started and they were moving all around and doing the arm stuff and then all of a sudden the all popped up on point and Abby gasped and said "oh , they are beautiful! Aren't they beautiful mom?! This is my favorite dance, I love this one they are just beautiful!" It was the sweetest thing! I think we have a budding ballerina!

Battle Bedroom

Don't let this sweet face fool you!! Underneath that cute exterior lies a crazy stubborn little monster!! Well finally monday morning Abby got her room clean! Although her room has not been clean since the episode where she told me "little people need to sleep" (see below), I haven't been actively been trying to get her to do mostly because I didn't want to deal with her completely outrageous stubbornness that is Abigail. So I dug in and prepared for a fight! And I wasn't disappointed! It took 4 days! She ended up being stripped of just about every privilege a 5 year old has and bribed with numerous things. We tried stickers, buttons for her jar, candy, soda, toys, and money. We took away the computer, tv/movies and outside time. NOTHING WORKED!!! She is so stubborn! What kid wont do something for money or candy!! She spent alot of time crying on her floor saying "I am so tired! I don't want to clean!"

So finally on monday (day 4) I told her "Ok Abby, I don't want to hear anymore crying, You are a big girl and you need to pick up your toys, there isn't that much to do so you need to just do it real fast!" Well that was met with more tears. I have even tried reading to her while she clean. We have taken her toys and put them in trash bags and taken them away, she thanked us for cleaning her room for her and didn't ask for any of the toys for 2 weeks! She even offered to pay Bryan $5 to clean her room for her!!! HELLO???!!! She is 5!! And she is offering to PAY her dad to clean her room for her!! She is just way to much!!! Well she finally got it done and she was very proud of herself! It wasn't how I would have liked it done-everything was all jumbled together, nothing separated-but it was done and I had to tell her she did a good job! With a smile. So that is what I did and she was very excited! I just don't get why she has to do everything the hard way!! So if anyone had any other suggestions I would gladly welcome them!!!

Lacey and the Doc. Office

Lacey had her last check-up with the pediatric cardiologist for her heart murmur. We had to do the whole shebang-the chest x-ray, the EKG and an ultrasound. Everything went really fast and we were only at the hospital for 1 and 1/2 hours if you can believe that! It was really funny when they called us back for the x-ray, Lacey was all smiles and jabbering with the lady and then when she was done she was trying to get Lacey to smile at her and Lacey just gave her this mean glare!!! She makes the best faces! After the EKG the nurse gave Lacey a little gown to wear while we waited to see the doctor and do the ultrasound. I had to update her registration info so she was walking around the office with the nurse acting like she owned the place. She went into all the rooms and was jabbering with all the ladies in the office. Luckily we were the only ones in the office right then so she wasnt bugging anyone!

Adventures Outside

After naptime we went outside to play since it was absolutly beautiful! Right before we walk outside Abby tells me that Dylan opened his window in his room and was throwing stuff out the window! Dylan pipes up with "I can't reach it mom its to far away". So we go outside and sure enough there is a pile of stuff that Dylan had cpushed the screen out and chucked stuff out his window!! I mean come on!!! (pay no attention to the door to the basement! we are getting rid of that nasty wood thing and getting something new!)

Lacey discovered how to climb up the slide today by herself!! She climbs up, turns around and then slides down all by herself! She was very proud of herself! O.k. I have a video but I am having a little difficulty with getting it uploaded but hopefully I can get it soon because it is really cute!

The Sleeping Styles of Lacey!

I have been saving up these pics for awhile! I love to go check on Lacey when she is taking a nap. You never know just how you will find her!

Happy B-day Dylan!

I am a day late in getting this up but thankfully Dylan can't read yet and he never checks the blog!! My little boy is 3!! He woke up and came in to tell me good morning so I gave him a hug and told him happy birthday and he said "it's my birthday?!". He is such a sweet little boy. He trys to be as helpful as it is possible for a 3 year old to be! And he says some of the funniest things! His current favs are Hercules, Handy Manny, Lightning McQueen, Mickey Mouse, and Curious George. He eats just about anything he lays eyes on and it makes me wonder how we will be able to afford to feed him when he is a teenager!! He also is loud. And I mean loud. Seriously, LOUD. I take comfort in knowing that it isn't a learned behavior, he was born loud and the nurses will back me up on that! In the hospital they took him for his hearing screening and on of the nurses came in and started to ask where he was and she cut off mid-sentance, kinda cocked her head and said "oh here he comes". Kinda sad that they can pick out a certain baby's cry when they are only there for 2 days!! Oh well, it has to come in handy sometime in his life right?!! We love you Dylan!! Happy Birthday!!

Abby's fight to go to sleep

I cleaned the kids rooms yesterday by myself because I didn't want to hear all the crying and arguments that usually go along with it. So Abby has a few things on the floor that she has played with today and I asked her if she could pick them up real fast before she went to bed. And oh my gosh you would have thought I had asked her to clean the whole house!! She has been crying for 20 minutes! She keeps asking to go to bed (it is 6:50 right now) and I told her that she could go to bed after she cleaned. She is back in her room and I can hear her talking to herself. It is really funny! I feel bad because she is so upset but this is what she is saying "I hate cleaning, I hate it every time, there are too many books, it is too much mess, I can't do this mess, I am so tired, I need to go to sleep, My body, my eyes, my arms, my legs are so tired, I am so super duper duper duper duper tired and I need to sleep, that is what little people do, I am little I want to go to sleep, please I will pick it up in the morning, I am so tired, I totally hate cleaning this mess, I really really want to sleep, I didn't take a nap today and my body needs to sleep" Seriously word for word!! It is now 7:25 and I can hear her starting to pick some stuff up. Geeez louisa stop the drama!!!!

The Shed

We took the kids out for breakfast this morning. Not something we ever do so it was a treat for us all. We went to the Iowa Machine Shed. It is a very popular local resturant (obviously since it has Iowa in the name!!!) The whole thing is decked out in farming decor. There are bails of hay outside and there is a guy that waits outside to give rides around the parking lot in a tracktor. Dylan is way into tracktors so we thought he would be all over it. Ummmm......Not So Much!!

I felt bad for him, but it was just so funny! He did eventually calm down and was telling me that "I like this, this is fun Mom".

The girls didn't have a problem with it and enjoyed the whole ride. After we got everyone in the car Dylan, who sits by Lacey, turned and asked her "did you like that Lacey?" It was so cute!

After breakfast we did some shopping. While we were driving Dylan was telling us the story of the 3 little pigs. This the 3 little pigs (shortened version) as told by Dylan.

A Sister's Help

Abby, thankfully, is usually pretty helpful. Sometimes we get the "you ask me to do to much, I can't do everything!" comments. Yesturday we were brushing teeth and she decided that Lacey needed a little help! Lacey was patient enough for her to do it. She just laughed and laughed and thought it was a fun game. I like how Abby has a grip on her head to keep her mouth open!!

Outside Finally!!!

Today we were actually able to go outside!! Unfortunatly for my kids I am not the best mom when it comes to playing outside. I love to watch them outside but I would prefer to watch them from the safety of my house! I am totally scared that I will get stung by a bee and I will have to use my epi-pen, and then who would I call to come help me go to the hospital and who would watch the kids. Always a million questions! So they usually have to wait and go outside with Bryan! We were outside for about 45 mins before a huge huge bee came buzzing around and I had to bribe the kids with ice cream to get them inside fast!!

Shots and Corn!

Dylan loves corn. Unfortnatly he loves to eat it out of the serving bowl!

It doesn't matter how much we put on his plate he won't eat it!! So he waits. When everyone has gotten how much they want he quietly grabs the bowl and chows down!!

Abby got her kindergarten shots today. I was really affraid to take her because Lacey had to get some too and she heard me when I made the appointment and started crying!! It gave me a flashback to when my little brother had to get his shots and he took off running down the hall and had to have a couple people hold him down!! Luckily Abby did awesome! She was really worried about getting the shots so we told her if she was really brave and did good than we could go get some ice cream. She was really brave and got 4 shots. She hardly cried at all and when they were putting on the band-aids she said "am I all done?" She is very proud of her band-aids

And this is Lacey after her shots.

She also did way awesome but it totally wore her out!

Happy Bithday Abby!

Well now I have a 5 year old. That doesn't even seem possible! She is really excited to go to kindergarten. She got a little taste of it at Kindergarten Round-Up and now I am fielding "when do I get to go to kindergarten school?" questions almost everyday! Lately she is really into Disney Princess stuff. She loves books. My Mom took her to a bookstore and let her pick out a book for her birthday and she was pretty much in heaven! She has gotten into word finds and she is really good at them! She is good at helping when we ask her to and only occasionally get the "I don't want to I have to do everything" comments! She toatlly cracks me up with the things she says. She came home from kidergarten roundup and told me that she did some puzzles. She is loves puzzles and can do them pretty quickly. I asked her if they were easy ones and she said " yes, but the car one was tricky". Sometimes when she talks she sounds lot older! Especially when she is talking to my mom on the phone. It is really funny. So that is a little about Abby. Happy Birthday Abby! We love you!

Fun in Ohio

Well this is a little late but we have been busy!! Abby is now 5! And she is excited! We took a trip out to Ohio and let her celebrate the Grandma and Grandpa. Since I am not really "allowed" to drive out to Ohio by myself (Bryan and my Dad are a little over protective!) A friend told me I should just go because what can my dad do about once I show up! My instant responce was "I can't do that! I would be in so much trouble!" Now tell me whats wrong with that!! I am almost 30 and I am worried about getting in trouble by my dad because I drove somewhere by myself!! So anyway to make everyone happy I roped my friend Jenn and her daughter Katelynn into coming with me! Now if you know my family, you will understand that I was alittle nervous about this. My brother Jeff is very comfortable in the spotligt and has a tendency (and well the whole rest of my family) to run away with something funny and run and run! We also talk in movie quotes and then laugh about what was said. So I did alot of prep work on the ride out to prepare Jenn for what was coming! And let me tell you Jeff didn't dissappoint! He was in rare form that weekend! We had a total blast and laughed ALOT! We had some friends over for a little party. My mom made a cake, and we had fingernail polish and little flower stickers for the girls to put on and wands for them to make and decorate. She had a totaly blast! (More pics coming)

During the party my Dad and brother took Dylan to the Air Force Museum (pics coming soon), they had a great time there and Dylan got some good one on one time with Grandpa and Uncle Jeff. After that we went to The Green. It is a totally fun outdoor mall with a water fountain thing that the kids can play in. Abby and Dylan dug up some courage and went to play in the water and Katelynn was really hesistant but eventually reached her hand out to touch some of the water shooting out of the ground! Dylan kept running over and talking to a lady sitting on a blanket and telling her he was having fun! I didn't want him to bother her but he is really fast and would be talking to her before I could stop him! We had so much fun and I was glad to get out there so I have to send out a huge huge thank you to Jenn and her alter-ego Heather (created by you guessed it...Jeff)! Hopefully we didn't scare her too bad and she will still be my friend!!

A Cleaning Game

So we have been having some clean-your-room-and-keep-it-clean problems at our house. The main problem is that well....little people who like to play don't want to clean up! I have tried just about everything to try to help the process. I have tried bribing, that didn't work. We have button jars where whenever Abby and Dylan help out or do what they are asked without whining they earn buttons and when thier jars are full they can go on a one on one date or something fun. So I have offered buttons, that didn't work. Usually this is the conversation with Abby:

Me:Abby I need you to come pick your room real fast.

A:(already starting to cry)I hate cleaning my room. It takes to long!

Me: There isnt that much to do, you can do it real fast and then you will be done!

A: I can't! The mess is too big and I am too little!

It goes on and on. It drives me crazy! All the time she spends crying about it she could be done!! So my mom gave me this idea she found in a magazine. You write out all the jobs they need to do to clean the room and then they pick them out of a jar and kindof turn it into a game. So I thought it was worth a try!

So I had some wooden shapes that I wrote her jobs on and she was really into it!

She thought it was a great game and after she had gone through all of them she came out and announced that her room was clean. So I went to look and apparently I need to be alittle more specific!!! There was stuff everywhere on the floor! I asked her why she hadn't picked up all her strawberry shortcake dolls and she said there wasn't one that said to pick it up. I guess the "pick up all the doll stuff" was a little to broad!!!

Happy Easter

Well a very happy Easter to everyone! We hope you enjoy the newness and wonder of this awesome Easter season!

Twilight and Visiting Teaching

My sister-in-law just sent this to me and I thought it was way to good to keep to myself, so hoprfully she doesn't mind me sharing it! Thanks Becca! So all you Twilighters enjoy!

The Sound of Music

o.k. I totally love the Sound of Music, with the minor exception of the "Climb Every Mountain" song. My family has always sung all the songs when eer we watched it. And luckily my good friend Jen feels the same way about the movie! When we were roomies we watched at least once a week, if not more and were pretty much sound of music nerds!! She even got us tickets to Sound of Music Sing A Long. It was totally hysterical! People came all dress-up and everything! Totally awesome! We even had a private joke about Lisel saying "wee" , I am sure you can figure that one out! Anyway I got a call from my mom to check out this video on youtube. My brother Jeff lives half his life on youtube just finding silly things, and honestly he finds great stuff! So for all of you who love The Sound of Music this is for you!

Dont forget to pause the music at the bottom!

Lots of Music

Music plays a big part at our house. We have it on all the time. I am totally addicted to musicals, so we watch those alot and the kids love to sing and dance around when the songs come on! I justify letting myself watch them during the day by telling myself that I am giving the kids alittle culture!! Bryan doesn't really appreciate that particular genre so it is my responsibility to expose them to it right?!! Any Abby and Dylan like to go to sleep with music on. Usually the cd player in Abby's room is up on the dresser so the cds stay nice but since I have been painting it has been on her bed and she has been able to switch the cds and play whatever she wants to. Her favs include the soundtracks to Mulan, Little Mermaid, Lion King, Pocahontas, and Tinker Bell. The one she is currently addicted to is Sharing Time by InsideOut.

If you don't know who they are they are an a cappella group who are completely fantastic! She wakes up in the middle of the night to turn the music back on, it is pretty funny when it is all quiet and then all of a sudden you her "The Itsy Bitsy Spider"! Dylan is currently addicted to Disney's Hercules.

Seriously he is addicted! He watches it almost everyday and asks for it on the days he doesn't. He listens to the soundtrack at night! The other day he came up to me while it was on and said "mom, Bercules is a super Hero, he goes the distance"! It caught me off guard that had picked that out of the movie, I was like holy cow, he is really paying attention to what is said in the movie!

Lacey loves the TinkerBell movie soundtrack.

While she obviously doesn't sing with it whenever she she hears the chimes that start with the first song she smiles really big and starts dancing all around! It is really very cute!