Saturday night we went to the Gladiator’s game with my family. It was my parents, Papa and Peggy, Uncle Hawk and Lissa, Becca, Tommy, and his nephew Jake. We had a great time. I spent most of the time talking or having my kids climb on me so I didn’t really see much of the game.
It was a much needed family night!
Guess what we have been practicing around here?
Back at Sam’s two year check up the doctor asked if I was going to start potty training. I said “NO!”. I had no desire to even tread in that water yet. Well, Sam has decided that he wants to check it out. See what all the big kid fuss is about. We went to Target to buy the “big boy underpants” and he occasionally spends the afternoon in them. He does really well! After the first couple of days he stopped having accidents.
We are definitely not rushing this but it would be pretty cool if he was potty trained before I had to buy another box of diapers.
For some reason, Reese has been wearing her tap shoes all day, every day.
If, by chance, she has taken them off for a few seconds, Sam snatches them right up.
He cracks me up so much! He copies every thing Reese says or does. Most of the time she tolerates it. However, she does not like when he is wearing her tap shoes.
Reese had her first dentist appointment yesterday. I am not a huge fan of the dentist so I have been putting this off. I decided to not make a big deal about it so that she wouldn’t see or feel my anxiety over it.
She was so brave about going and had a smile on her face the whole time. It might have been the fact that she had me all to herself too. Sam went to play at his buddies Harrison and Davis’ house. He had a blast. Thanks, Jenny!
The hygienist was so great. She was very sweet and definitely put Reese (and me) at ease. And Reese! She was perfect! She was such a big girl. I was SO proud of her. I could stand to learn a few lessons from her myself.
Waiting for the dentist and watching “Daddy Daycare”. That movie is too cute!
Unfortunately, Reese has a little cavity on one of her molars. The dentist said he didn’t even notice it when he was looking in her mouth. He saw it later on the x-rays. We definitely have not been flossing with her and I think it caught us because it is on the inside of the tooth between the two molars. Honestly, flossing wasn’t even something I thought about yet. I feel soooo horrible. What kind of mommy let’s her four year old get a cavity?!? We will definitely start flossing now and hopefully Reese will do well with the filling.
This is a picture they took of Reese after having her x-rays done. It is a picture of the picture but I had to share it. She had the biggest grin on her face.
I am so proud of Reese though and the way she behaved yesterday. I do not give her enough credit some times. I thought it was going to be a pure drama fest but I was so wrong! She even told Sam she loved going to the dentist!
It is so nice to see the kids interact in a sweet way. Lately they have been very sweet to each other. Don’t get me wrong, they have their moments, but overall they play well together. Reese has definitely taken over the big sister role. She protects Sam, looks out for him, and bosses him around.
This weekend when we were furniture shopping Sam would not stay with us. Finally we were over it and and said we were leaving. Sam just stayed put where he was as we were walking towards the door. Reese kept calling his name and would run back towards where he was but she also didn’t want to get left behind. She had this look on her face that was completely torn. It really was so sweet!
When Sam gets in trouble he always runs to Reese for a hug and she always has her arms open wide saying, “Come here, Buddy!”. They are so sweet and I love this picture of them!
There hasn’t been much going on around here lately. We have just been back in the swing of life after the holidays and I have been bad about even pulling the camera out. I am making it a goal to try to get some more pictures over the next couple of weeks because I really don’t want to miss out on the sweetness going on around here.
Friday night we had our neighborhood friends over for pizza and a movie. The girls have not played together since before Christmas because they go out of town for the whole two weeks of break. They were so excited to see each other. They all sat down to have a picnic and watch the movie while the parents played catch-up at the table. They are planning a Disney trip right now so there was a lot of Disney talk happening.
Saturday morning we laid around for a bit and then went out for lunch and to go shopping for Sam a big boy bed. We didn’t make any purchases but found several we liked. By this age, Reese was already in her big girl bed because we were weeks from having Sam. I am just keeping him in his crib for as long as possible. Would it be horrible for him to start kindergarten still in a crib?
When we returned home it was nap time so we got both kids ready for a nap, I put Sam down and we surprised Reese with a trip to the movie theater to see Beauty and the Beast in 3-d. She did very well all week with her chore chart and that was her reward. She loved going but didn’t love wearing the glasses. She would take them off for a while and then wear them again. We had a great “girl party” and then we picked the boys up and went furniture shopping a little more.
After church today the kids took a nap and Lance went in to the office for a little while. Ok, I took a nap too. It was fabulous! After the kids were up we were lazy for a while watching movies (I read a book) and playing on the computer/ipad/iphones.
A couple of weeks ago Reese’s class was talking about the letter ‘M’ and their teacher gave them all masks. Reese came home and decided she wanted to be a superhero. So she wore her mask and I tied a blanket around her as a cape. Well, Sam was fascinated by this and has been eyeing that mask any time it is left alone. Reese eventually got tired of the mask and was fine to let Sam play with it.
Tonight, Sam ran up to me with the mask on and yelling, “I a superhero!”. He is such a fun and silly kid!
I could not have planned a better way to end my evening with the kids.
This week Reese was back to school. While we had a wonderful break from our everyday routine, I was ready for the routine back and I think the kids were too. Reese was so excited to be back at school with her friends. Sam was not quite as excited to be back at the gym but he was happy to have that special time alone with me afterwards again. However, each day he has said that he misses Reese. I have not taken one single picture this week except for a few on my phone. Those consisted of Sam hiding in the laundry basket while playing hide and go seek and a picture of Reese so she could see her hair. She actually let me play with her hair. I always ask if I can play with it and she says no. Her sensitive head wants nothing to do with hands in her hair unless it is necessary. She also played with my hair. It was a lot of fun.
While Reese was at school one day this week I realized that in a couple of months I will be registering her for Kindergarten. My heart started beating faster during this realization! I can’t believe that 2012 is here already. I am not ready to send her to big kid school yet. I remember when she was born and figuring out what year it was that she would start school. I never imagined it to get here so soon. Hopefully the rest of the school year will drag on a little longer than the first half did.
I swear over the break Sam grew, learned, and started talking even more. He has been cracking us up this week with things he has been saying. Yesterday I gave them some apple slices for snack and he wanted some peanut butter to go with them. He kept saying, “Peanabelly pleeeeease?”. Once we figured out what he was saying, Reese and I just giggled and giggled which caused him to say it more. By the time I had the peanut butter out, Reese was belly laughing.
Remember when Reese thought it was funny to wear “clown shoes”?
It was super nice outside on New Year’s day. When we were working in the garage making the frames for the mirrors the kids were playing out in the yard. Before they came outside I told them they both had to put shoes on. When Sam came outside these were the shoes he was wearing. And they were both shoes for your left foot. What a mess!
On Wednesday, some friends and I took our kids to the zoo. It was cold (high was 49 degrees) but we bundled up and had a great time. We arrived around 11:30 and I parked in the front row of the parking lot. I have never done that before…even getting there early before the zoo opens. All of that to say, there was no one else at the zoo. We had the place to ourselves. And it was perfect! We were all bundled up enough that it was perfect in the sun and not too chilly in the shade. The kids had a blast running around together (they had a little more freedom than usual because of the empty zoo) and I had fun visiting with the mommies.
The “babies” of the group. From left to right, they go youngest to oldest.
The “big” kids.
Sam had a new buddy in Harrison. They were sweet holding hands.
All the little rugrats. They are just too cute!!
I am so glad we didn’t chicken out because of the weather. It was a perfect day at the zoo.
When we originally bought our house we thought we would only be here a couple of years and then move on. Well, six years and a bad economy later, we are still here. We really wanted to be out of our house before Reese started kindergarten to be in a better school district but that is not going to happen. So we will make the best of it for now.
Our goal for this year is to do a ton of home improvement so that hopefully we will be able to sell this house sooner rather than later. We started that excitement on New Years Day. Thanks to Pinterest we had our first project and were off to Home Depot for the supplies.
In our bathrooms we just had the basic builders mirrors and we wanted to dress them up a bit.
We started with the half bath down stairs since it is smaller…less area to mess up. After we knew what we were doing (sort of) we moved on to our master bathroom.
After getting it all cut and glued, we put some tape on it to make sure it stayed in place while it dried.
Finally the next day we were able to take the tape off and see what it looks like. Apparently I didn’t take a picture post tape in the half bath. I love how they turned out.
I still need to caulk the corners and then I am going to paint them (this will be a nap time job). I think I am going to paint the downstairs one a dark color but haven’t decided on the master frame. I kind of like it white because I feel like it makes the bathroom lighter.
Now we just need to replace those ugly lights…and about a million other things in our house. Ha! We are off to a good start though and it was a fun project.
For Christmas, Lance’s parents gave us season passes to the Aquarium. Reese and I were very excited about this so today we took our first trip (as season pass holders) down there. We got there right before 10:00, when they open, and it was the perfect timing. We went straight to Guest Services to get our pictures made for our passes and then we were off.
We decided to see if Sam could make it with out the stroller today and he did great! I was so proud of him and he loved running around with Reese. I think Reese enjoyed it too.
Remember our last minute trip to the aquarium last year?We were actually there as a guest of a friend of a friend. We were able to have a sneak peek at the dolphins for some marketing things they were doing before the exhibit was open to the public. We were to have our pictures made and possibly used for some of their marketing pieces. Well, it didn’t turn out too well. We were supposed to stand there smiling while the dolphin swam up to us at the window. BOTH kids started crying when it happened. For some reason the dolphin scared them coming so close to us. Needless to say, we did not end up in any marketing for the new dolphins.
Well today we were able to go up to the dolphin area pretty early on and there was no one else around. It was just the three of us and the lady working there. There were two female dolphins swimming around and my kids were in love! The older one was swimming laps around the tank and would slide right up to the window for us to see her up close. Both kids were pressed up against the glass and at one point she even slowed down and looked like she was trying to give Sam a kiss. That was the only time he flinched and then he giggled.
Sam thought the moving sidewalk was fun.
Funny that there were tons of fish to see but the kids were most excited about playing with the little touch computers that tell you about the fish.
The last thing we did was go to the dolphin show. No pictures were allowed during the show. The people part of the show was kind of lame but the dolphins were amazing. It was fun to see them jumping and playing. When we left both kids said that the dolphin show was there favorite part.
What a fun day! We can’t wait to go back again.
NYE was a packed-full-of-fun kind of day. After our Noon Year’s Eve party we celebrated Christmas with my dad’s family at my Papa’s house. There were so many of us there which was awesome but we definitely missed our cousins who were not able to make it in to town. Again, I was bad with taking pictures but was able to get a few good shots.
The little monkey’s with their Sweet Papa.
Reese wanted to sit in his lap while we opened presents but once she got going she had to stand up and enjoy it all.
Look at all that fun! We are spoiled rotten!
My aunt Lissa made Reese this cute purse!
Later Sam snuggled with Grammy on the porch and ate a brownie. I am honestly not sure what all my kids ate that day. I don’t think there was one healthy thing that went in to their mouths the whole day.
I really wanted to get a family picture for the last day of 2011 but neither little monkey was interested.
These are the two we got and then they were done. Oh well, it represents us honestly. Ha!
What a wonderful day to wrap up the year.
Yesterday we had a party at our house for some friends and their kids to celebrate the new year. However, none of us were interested in celebrating the new year with our kids at midnight so we had a “Noon Year’s Eve” party.
I don’t remember where I saw the idea last year but the second I saw it I knew I wanted to host a party like that. I immediately put the idea in my notes on my phone so I wouldn’t forget. I didn’t take too many pictures because I was having a great time visiting with everyone.
Some of the girls immediately changed in to dress up clothes.
Since Sydney, Australia was so far ahead of us there were already countdowns to 2012 on You Tube so we used one of those to countdown to noon. There was also a fireworks show after the countdown that the kids enjoyed watching.
We had noise makers that I am sure the parents loved on their way home!
Reese had a blast. We had three girls there whose name is Maddie/Maddy. When Reese woke up on NYE she said, “Today is a Maddy filled day!”.
It was definitely a fun time and I think we will make this a tradition!