It's official!

We're officially done with diapers/pull-ups! Forever! Hopefully. I waited to try potty training Matthew at night until we ran out of the leftover nighttime pull-ups from Kaiden. Well, he ran out over the weekend. He has a waterproof mattress pad on his bed, so I was ready for the worst. Last night was his first night without a pull-up on, and he woke up dry! I think I can fairly safely say that he's completely potty trained now. I'm aware that he may still have accidents, but the worst is over. Whew! If that's not motivation to be done having children, I don't know what is! Yay!

Fall Fun '10

This has been a fabulous fall! Having lots of time to spend with the kiddos has been wonderful, and I've learned to really appreciate the beauty of fall. This year we had another trip to the pumpkin patch with Granny and the Coffey cousins. PJ just HAD to have the biggest pumpkin (which was a nightmare to carve, by the way), while the boys chose more modest pumpkin options. It was SOOO warm that day, so it was quite a pleasant trip. Later that afternoon the kids all got to decorate their own Halloween cookies.Fast forward a couple weeks to Halloween weekend. Friday was both PJ's school Halloween parade and free scary-face pancake day at IHOP.After PJ headed off to school the boys, Granny and I headed over for some scary-face pancakes, and returned in time to see PJ in her parade. She looked so excited and happy to be there, but unfortunately forgot to take her hat and broom in the parade with her. Oh well, she looked cute anyway. Saturday we decorated with carved pumpkins and Mr. Fun (the monster on the porch). Later that evening we had everyone over for a spooky dinner and trick-or-treating in the rain. All-in-all, it's been a super fun fall so far, and I can't wait to see what the next couple weeks bring as we look forward to Tattoo's birthday and Thanksgiving.

Reading Recovery

My little Princess has been struggling just a bit with reading this year. Luckily, we have an amazing school which caught on right away, and within a week of the start of the school year they had set her up with a reading tutor in a program called Reading Recovery. Every day she spends about half an hour with Mrs. Michelle and brings home a big packet of work to practice on. Usually it includes 3 books for her to read to me, a cut-apart sentence for her to put back together and glue into a notebook, and an alphabet book. Although it takes us much longer to do her homework every day than it did last year, she doesn't complain at all and is doing so well!
Today, there was a meeting of Reading Recovery teachers at an elementary in Saratoga Springs in which they observed one teacher working with one of their students. For this particular meeting, it was Mrs. Michelle's turn, and she invited Keyana to be her student. So, early this morning we packed up and headed out there, not knowing exactly what to expect. Turns out, they have a special room set aside for this. It's actually two rooms, separated by a two-way mirror. PJ is in the room with her teacher looking at herself in the mirror (making silly faces) , while the rest of the teachers (and me) are on the other side looking through the window at her. It was wonderful, because we were able to see how their lessons take place without making her nervous with everyone watching. Although this was really a teaching tool meant for the other teachers, I really learned a lot about what she responds to and what will work for her as we practice at home. She's progressing so fast!
On a side note, she finally lost one of her front teeth last week and the other one should be out within the next couple days!

Summer Rain

Since moving to our current house, summer rainstorms have become a favorite of ours. Not because there's anything different about them, but now that we have a covered porch, we get to enjoy them from outside, rather than in. I've been itching for a good storm all summer, and it seems in the last week we've hit the jackpot! Tattoo seems to love them the most, running out into the rain immediately after leaving the door, while the rest of us prefer to watch from the dryness of the porch. Here are some fun pics of the boys enjoying some summertime rain!

New Superhero Gear

I was getting very tired of washing Tattoo's 2 pairs of jammies and one shirt that had superheroes on them. I turned to the internet for a solution. I found instructions here for making a reversible Batman/Superman cape. Luckily it was "Coupon Commotion" week at Joann's, and I had some gift cards there, so I went shopping for supplies yesterday. It was super easy to make, and now Tattoo can still be a superhero while wearing regular clothes!

Here's Batman:And Superman:

Superhero Complex

My little friend, Tattoo, has a serious superhero complex. Today while I was working on my freezer meal cooking, Tattoo kept saying to me "superman coat." I had no idea what he was talking about, and told him to go get it and show me. He would disappear for a while, and then come back and ask for it again. So I sent him to go get it. Well, after doing this back-and-forth thing for a while, I needed a break anyway, so I told him to show me. He took me to his closet and pointed at this:He can't say Spiderman, so both Superman and Spiderman are Superman in his vocabulary. By the end of the day, he had a Superman hat on to go with his jacket. He's gotten to the point that he won't get dressed in the morning or back into his jammies at night unless what he's changing into has a superhero on it. Funny kid!

Summer Fun at Granny's!

It's become sort of a tradition to go play in the pool at Granny's on my birthday. Yesterday was no different. As Tattoo gets older, he's turning into the "water bully," and always has to be in charge of the hose. We put the hose at the top of the slide to have a water slide. That was fun at first, but then Tattoo discovered he could spray everyone from a high altitude. We all had a great day, but were sure tired that night! How fun!

Kindergarten Graduation!

PJ graduated from Kindergarten last month! It feels like she was just born, so I don't know how we got to this point, but I'm just so proud of her. Her teacher, Miss Nybo, said that she would look forward to PJ's smile every day, because she knew it would be waiting for her. PJ loves school, and was so unhappy when she was sick, not just because she was sick, but because she had to miss school. Here's to hoping for many more years of that kind of excitement! Love you PJ!

Bug Program

This year, the kindergarten classes had a "Bug Program" at the school. They sang some songs and got to dress up in bug costumes for the event. PJ wanted to be a ladybug. We just got her a head band and twirled together red and dark brown pipe cleaners around the headband for her antennae, and ironed on some black dots to a red shirt for her costume. Very basic, but she rocked it! I didn't get great pictures of the actual event because the flash in an auditorium isn't wonderful and we were sitting soooo far away! Oh well, it was fun!

Keyana's 6th Birthday

PJ turned 6 this year! For her birthday, since she had school, we took her out to breakfast before school, and stopped to buy some donuts for her to take to class. After school, we went out to eat at the Olive Garden. Yum! The next day, we had a party with family, and BBQ'd burgers and hot dogs. It was just windy enough for some fabulous kite flying too! PJ was so excited to get a big girl scooter (2 wheels instead of 3) and has ridden it to school every day since!

Easter '10

We had a fairly nice Easter this year. Because of our weird schedules and lack of transportation for me, we had the Coffeys over to our house for the annual egg hunt and dinner. It was really fun, warm, and tasty! Poor Tattoo took so long to find his chocolate bunny that it melted! This was the weekend before Easter, and before it was snowing.
Easter Sunday, I was pretty excited to stay in my jammies and have a nice, relaxing Sunday on the couch. Tattoo, however, had alternate plans for me. The kids woke up that morning, and found their Easter baskets and hidden eggs. They immediately dug into their candy before breakfast (of course, what kid doesn't?!) Anyway, after breakfast, we snuggled together on the couch to start one of the kids' new movies before conference. After a little bit, Tattoo left me to snuggle with Nathan. We thought that was a bit weird, until Tattoo barfed all over Nathan! For the rest of the day, at about half hour intervals, Tattoo was throwing up. *Sigh* not fun! The barfing slowed down in the late afternoon, so we made our way over to the Morgan's for another Easter dinner and egg hunt. Fun week!

Special Children...

I know that I frequently mention how "special" my children are, but today was an occurrence really worth mentioning. We were in line at Best Buy. I knew that all the children were right around me when I leaned down to sign the card-swipey-thingy. When I looked up, I looked around, and noticed Kaiden behind the counter, massaging the arm of the nice young lady ringing us up. Hmmm....not sure what to make of that! I know I've certainly laughed a lot today, but we still can't get him to tell us why he was even doing it! Luckily, she was very nice about the whole situation and has probably been laughing as much as us this evening. Funny, funny kid! Where do they come up with these ideas?!

Kaiden's Birthday

It's really becoming a tradition for us to take out the birthday child for a special outing, rather than a big present. This year, Nathan was able to get the day off work and come with Kaiden and me to the Museum of Ancient Life at Thanksgiving Point. We'd never been there, and with Kaiden's obsession with dinosaurs, we kept promising to take him. We saw HUGE dinosaurs and an even BIGGER sharky! He even got to dig for bones!
Then, it was back home to squeeze the family party in that night. Everyone came, and it sure was crowded, but we had a lot of fun too.
Happy 4th birthday Kaiden!

Another blog...

I've been meaning to do this for awhile now, but never seemed to get around to it until today. I really wanted my own blog, to write about the things in my life that don't seem to fit into our family blog. Projects, saving money, my weight loss adventures, and the occasional review of a new product I've tried. I've included the link to it here for easy navigation.

Student of the month!

Yes, it's true, PJ is the student of the month in her class for January! Ok...there were actually 2, one boy and one girl, but still it's pretty cool! We went over for the presentation and got some fun pictures. She got a certificate, a pencil, and a coupon for a free meal at Applebee's. Yum! Congratulations PJ!