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!!