Monday, April 27, 2009

A Quick Catch Up.


I need to tell myself that..."quick, catch up with your life!" I am a too many irons in the fire kind of gal anyway. Having said that, I also think that at this point in my life I also know when I have reached the limit (when it is not fun anymore). We are holding steady and busy in the "still fun" side.

And now for the catch up.
10. Stella has been potty training. You might wonder why I didn't just wait until summer, but I find that it is too hard to get them: to stop playing, inside, and to the bathroom. I do the "you will wear pants and socks and sit as little as possible" method. She LOVES her Disney princess underwear so much that she wants to wear them if we are home and she usually insists on wearing them over her diaper, too. Since I am working Tues and Thurs right now it gets tricky in mid week, but Fri- Mon is all potty training if home and awake. We started on the 17th and started at about 50% success rate. Plenty of accidents. But today we are 100%- no wet pants. AND- she is now insisting on going on the big potty. So we have even put the little potty away. So we'll see. I am not pushing her. It just takes them being uncomfortable in wet bottoms. Yes, she has been easier than Nicholas, but once he was ready it took him just four days.

9. So I am desperately trying to find a good, no make that, amazing cinnamon bread recipe for the bread machine. My parents got us a bread machine for Christmas and since then I make all of our bread. I will attempt my third cinnamon bread recipe tonight- all of them claim to be the most unbelievable bread you have ever tasted. I am still searching. Open for inputs here!

8. Earth Day was last week. Yeah. I had plans to start our garden and replant some herbs I bought. It was too hot that day. So the kids and I put the herb starters in one big flower pot, ate some homemade popsicles, and then later I resized Nicholas' favorite T-shirt (which he has outgrown but insists on wearing still) with a Goodwill special in a proper size 5.

7. Speaking of Goodwill...their clothes are NOT cheap! $1.99 for a kids t-shirt that is all crappy and stained! What the! So I am feeling even better about my recent purchase from Gymboree.com, using my lot of Gymbucks that we earned outlet shopping in FL. My personal "rule" with Gymbucks is to use them so I get everything 50% off. So if I have 50 gymbucks, I pick out only $100 worth of clothes, getting everything 50% off.
Stella's outfit cost me about $7 and Nick's, about $12 not including those socks!

6. Soccer is still going on. I see lots of improvement in the kids. Less chaos, I suppose. Nicholas is doing a great job at not elbowing and pushing other kids and teammates.

5. After Saturday's soccer "game" we went down to Norman, OK to this Touch-a-Truck event. It was a complete spur of them moment decision to go. And so worth it. It was actually a MOMS Club fundraiser (I'm not in MOMS club here btw) at the county fairgrounds for the children's section of the Norman Library. Anyway, every kind of vehicle was parked in the field and open for the kids to crawl through them and honk horns and flash lights! It was very cool! I was overwhelmed at all the different types of vehicles. We visited the cement mixer,

the UPS trucks, (Nicholas calls the delivery van a "bankrobber car". In fact, he told Shawn that we got the new Gymboree clothes from the bank today. hee hee)

police cars,


this drilling thing,


and even a helicopter. What an awesome fundraising idea (it was only 3hrs long, too)!!

4. I am trying another garden. Rented a cultivator on Friday and dug up a very tiny plot in our backyard. Currently it looks like this:

But one day, I hope it will be full of sugar snap peas, tomatoes, lettuce, and squash. I am enthused about it now, but when it is 90 or 100 out...hmmm we'll see.

3. I just completed sewing some maternity clothes, for me, of course. Brown pants and a flowered top. Ahhh, pants that FIT.


2. We all are SO missing FL. This might be why:










1. Today we waited for our storm (tornado) shelter to be installed. But now we are rescheduled for Friday. It's already been a month and a half, what's another four days. We are getting the flat kind in the garage floor. This will be peace for my mind.

Monday, April 13, 2009

Taxes are finally done!

Usually it takes me about 3 hours to do our taxes. Well, this year it took me every spare minute for five days. I finally efiled them on Friday night. Whew. It wasn't a pretty year for us. I didn't realize how many tax-related events we had in 2008. Boy, did I learn a lot.

Saturday night, was also a big night for us, well, for Shawn. He completed his RCIA classes (required to take to become Catholic) and he had is First Communion and Confirmation at our church. He had been going through the classes since Sept. The time really flew.

Of course, yesterday was Easter. We enjoyed a huge dinner over at Dhana and Mike's house. The food was soooo good. We ate on real china, too. Fancy.

Today we will be taking it easy- just a couple errands to run. I need to get a children's vitamin (I prefer a gummy one- yes they are for me) with iron. I cannot and do not take prenatal vitamins- I can't swallow them and then I just give up on them after a while. My midwife said to take the Flintstone's complete-so I have. But when I had my glucose screening last week, they found out I have low iron. I am not surprised- I have been craving crunching on ice for a few weeks now which apparently is a sign of low iron. I had that with Stella. As for the glucose test, I did pass. Although my midwife was pretty sure that I wouldn't after I told her what I ate for breakfast! (And it was actually low!)

Work and soccer practice tomorrow. I hope to post more on Wednesday- you know, when I am home and have *nothing* to do : )