Look Out World!

Look who's CRAWLING! Its so exciting....and yet so scary. Time to put up gates, put items up on high shelves, and start saying "Where'd Leila go?".

I admit, I'm so excited for her...and yet I'm so scared. Cause this girl's gonna be TROUBLE!

LOOK OUT WORLD! Leila's on the LOOSE!

(Sorry for the poor video quality. It was taken on my phone. BUT at least I can put a video on my blog....which is better than I've been able to do for a long time.)

Self Portrait

While cutting out hearts from construction paper Eden says, "Look mom! Its Eden!" And for the first time she drew a picture of a person all by herself! She's getting so big!

Now she's understanding how this works. She's now also drawn a lion, letter "E", Eden wearing a dress, her toddler bed, and Leila's crib. She's loving her new talent. She's drawing all the time!

Taking Pictures of Two Children....

Its not easy. At least not for ME. Granted, I'm no pro photographer.

A while ago, I attempted to take pictures of my two girls together to fill some empty frames around my house. This is what ends up happening (pictures in random order)....

The ONLY picture with Leila smiling. But of course her eyes are closed and Eden had up and gone.

Probably the best picture I could get of the girls together.
Giggling, blank stares, lifting up dresses....
Not looking at the camera, weird looks...
If Eden was doing a good smile...she always had to arms in the air for some reason....
Everyone tired of taking pictures...
Leaving the scene....
Leila yelling at me to give her the camera....

One of these days I'll get a good picture of the two. Perhaps when its warmer outside, Tyson's around to help get the girls to look and smile at the camera, Leila understand to sit there and look at the camera, and when Eden's attention span lasts longer than 1 minute intervals (I admit, I got her to smile and sit for as many pictures as I did by bribing her with M&Ms....still wasn't very successful.)

Hmm...I may never get pictures taken.

Oh well. I can still use maybe one or two to fill a frame.

Hard Work

Snow, snow, snow.

We've had a few days with LOTS of snow. Tyson and Eden are ending their sicknesses and Leila and I are in the beginning of our sicknesses.

So that means, the manual labor of shoveling snow goes to daddy and Eden.

Isn't Eden so funny in all her snow stuff? She insisted on wearing her snow goggles.
Eden really worked hard to try and shovel the whole time. (Tyson did too.)

Even when the handle broke off of the shovel, she didn't complain and kept working!
Other shovelers came around and she stopped to talk to them for a second. They said, "Are you helping shovel snow?" And her reply was "Yeah. This is hard work!"
And the two sickies stayed inside and played with a large box of toys. ....such hard work....
Then when all was said and done Eden came running to the front door yelling, "I'm done shoveling. I want some hot cocoa."

....Which we didn't have any.

But for all her hard labor, Tyson went out and bought some hot chocolate for her. Overall, she had a really good time and earned her hot cocoa.

*All pictures of the shovelers were taken through a window....avoiding cold.

24 Hours

Approximately 24 hours ago I called a nurse's hotline because Leila's "cold" had turned into lots of wheezing and coughing....figure, ask the nurse if there's anything I could do....

Nurse said, not much could be done but go to the doctor the next day.

I wasn't worried, I mean, does this little girl scream "I'm sick"?

Leila didn't sleep so well that night and woke up in the morning.

Soon after, Eden came running in my room.

To stall having to wake up....I put Leila in bed with me and told Eden, "You should go get dressed." She was pretty excited because she knew she could do this all by herself.

This is how she came back.

(With the exception that she wasn't carrying the wipe case) But she yelled, "Look mom! I'm a Zebra today!" She was very excited.

Then I gave my doctor a call and went to their office soon thereafter.

It was a family event because Tyson's school was cancelled due to a large storm...and I don't like driving in that kind of weather.

Leila hates doctors....with a passion. Pretty much any stranger that comes within her "bubble" is an enemy. She's a big fan of "stranger danger".

Anyhow, the doctor listened to her breathing, gave her an asthma treatment to help her out, took a swab to be tested, then took her to another room to get "deep suctioned" (a rather traumatizing event).

Then the test came back positive....RSV.

Does this little girl look like a girl who has RSV?

She's the happiest RSV baby ever.

Pretty much they don't anticipate it getting worse. But if a high fever or breathing gets worse...take her to urgent care. But she's contagious for a week and the doctor said that it could take until April before her coughing and mucus clear up. Bleh.

We have a follow up appointment on Friday.

Then while taking these pictures of my children I realized....today's a very stripe-y day.

But my kids sure are cute. We're stuck at home, but at least we're having a good time. Heavenly Father is watching out for us and Leila's RSV is very mild.

Eden on the other hand...."mild" isn't the word I would use to describe ANY two year old.

Another positive, weathers so bad that today AND tomorrow Tyson's school is cancelled. So he gets to spend time with us at home. I don't mind the storm....not at all.

Potty Training and Girls' Room: Part....umm....

Part 4?

It has obviously taken some time for me to get around to finishing this project if I can't even remember the last thing I did to girl's room to decorate (or at least TRY my hand at decorating).

Laundry bags and dragonfly hanger. (Man, I wish I were a good photographer.)

I sewed these laundry bags (one for lights and one for darks) quite some time ago but they were left hanging on the closet door handles for a long time. We had this wood board....so we decided to by dragonflies and spray paint to create this hanger (which we had all items for a long time but kept putting off putting it together until now).

Here's where they are in the room.
And of course....as we're going to Target to buy nails to FINALLY finish up this project and get it hung on the wall....I see pretty much the exact same board with dragonfly hangers for sale. Go figure huh?

And since we got nails, we were able to hang some pictures on the wall as well. (Yes, I realize that we're moving to Colorado soon and we're putting extra holes in walls anyway.)

Tyson's already told me that he's not a fan of the pink wall. Says its too bright. I actually kind of like it (I think it looks better in real life than in pictures) but I'm not disappointed that we'll never have a bright pink wall in our house again.
Then there's this project....
Oh dear. How can I best put it....

Eden and I spend an entire day dedicated to "potty training" and I feel like we've made NO progress. Its true. NONE.

I've already tried the "Potty Training in Less Than a Day" and both of us were tired and frustrated after about 2 hours.

So, this time I thought, we'll just put her in underwear, keep her in the kitchen all day long, have to spend lots of time sitting on the potty while we read books, don't get frustrated with her if she has an accident, and reward her with a treat if she goes in the potty.

Now she just thinks that "potty training" means "sitting on this little pink chair half naked reading books".....which she LOVED.

We read:

• Chester's Way by Kevin Henkes (twice)
• Nursery Songs by H. A. Rey
• Music Play by H. A. Rey
• The Little Engine that Could by Watty Piper (twice)
• My First Book of Mormon retold by Deanna Buck (the WHOLE book)
• All You Ever Need by Max Lucado
• You are Special by Max Lucado
• Arthur Babysits by Marc Brown (twice)
• Arthur's Tooth by Marc Brown
• Arthur's Computer Disaster by Marc Brown (twice)
• Arthur's First Sleepover by Marc Brown (twice)
• Arthur's Eyes by Marc Brown
• Arthur Meets the President by Marc Brown

Not to mention looking at a few "I Spy" type books and her nap time and bed time stories.

And these aren't super short books. Eden LOVED it to say the least.

But after spending all that time sitting on the toilet and reading....she still managed to only go potty in it .5 times. Yeah, she doesn't seem to understand the concept. I think (I wasn't watching at the time) what happened was that she was wanting to read a book, so she went to the potty, pulled down the underwear, and sat down. Then she realized she was going...and quickly shot up and started to come towards me.

I tried to help her understand that going in the toilet was a GOOD thing, so I showed her what she did right, gave her a treat, went to dad to tell him and give him a hug....

But she apparently didn't finish going....

Two minutes later she had a LARGE accident on the floor. Then said, "Uh-oh. Am I in trouble now?" I said no, it was just an accident but she needed to try and go on the potty.

I put on a diaper at night.

This morning she woke up and said, "It's Potty Training Day again!! Let's read a book!"

I'm not sure what to do....

Although, when I put her diaper back on for nap time she kept tugging at it because she now finds her diaper more uncomfortable than her underwear. I guess maybe that's incentive?

I'm pretty sure I know what the problem is....

There's something in her little brain that just needs to "CLICK". Then she'll understand and never have a problem again. She just hasn't quite figured out WHAT she's supposed to be doing. And I can't figure out how to explain it to her. Hopefully it clicks sooner rather than later....

A Smile On My Face

TO START....

Alright...I think my last post may have given the impression that I'm some sort of depressed soul with little self esteem.

Not true.

In a nutshell, I was attempting to say "I realize I'm flawed....I should make some improvements." (hmm....maybe I should have just written THAT....that was much shorter and gets the point across.) But I'm not a dreadfully unhappy person.

WITH THAT SAID....

Here's something that truly puts a SMILE on my face...

Laundry.

*sigh of happiness*

Just saying it makes me happy....Laundry. :)

EXPLANATION:

My husband came home a earlier from Utah than I did. While I was away he gave me a wonderful gift. He fixed our dryer.

It wasn't broken....just burdensome.

It would catch on clothes creating large, brown marks and streaks on our clothes or putting rips and tears in them.

My OLD Laundry Routine:

1. Before putting clothes in washer, turn all clothing inside out.
2. Do up any buttons or snaps (baby clothes were a PAIN...snaps, snaps, snaps)
3. Wash clothes in washer.
4. Take out all clothes with loose ends, strings, collars, and/or looser buttons to hang dry (cause otherwise they would get caught in the dryer and ruin)
5. Turn on the dryer for 30 minutes.
6. Hang or lay flat items that couldn't go in the dryer.
7. Once 30 minutes are up. Check on the clothes in case something was caught.
8. Rotate some of the clothes around cause some would get caught in crevasses and end up a tight and undried wad at the end of the cycle.
9. Turn on the dryer for another 30 minutes to finish drying.
10. Fold clothes.
11. Put clothes away.

Now, thanks to my wonderful husband....

My NEW Laundry Routine:

1. Wash clothes in washer.
2. Dry clothes in dryer.
3. Fold clothes.
4. Put clothes away.

Oh....just thinking about it makes me so smile. I am happy.