11 months

John was 11 months old yesterday!

This is HUGE! Because in just one measly month my baby is going to be 1 year old!

So one would think that a blogger such as myself would have prepared for such a momentous post by, I don't know, picking up my camera during the last 30 days.

But alas, I did not. And so I only have two pictures documenting my only son's growth to share with you.

But at least, I feel these pictures really capture the caught-with-my-hand-in-the-cookie-jar moments that seem to make up John's existence these days.

There is nothing in my house that is safe from this little guy! He is into everything!

He also:

claps his hands

says "mama" and something that I am pretty sure is "more" (he always seems to say it when his tray is empty anyways.)

stands alone

can take one step (but is too lazy to lift the other foot and therefore goes nowhere!)

is getting these adorable curly little "wings" over his ears

has discovered his man bits (and is sooo proud of himself!)

and I am sure he has gained some weight and gotten a little taller but since I haven't actually measured him this month, that is just a guess.

That is all I have got for you, folks. You will just have to stayed tuned to see if I pull it together for next month!

You would never guess from the pictures...

that Emma Jane actually had fun at her birthday party!

Or that she loved the Blue's Clues cake her mommy slaved over!

You would think that she hated the attention.

But really, she is just afraid of fire.

Luckily she has a big sister that is more than happy to blow out birthday candles!

Hosted by Krystyn

Over the Rainbow

A while back I mentioned that school wasn't going so well for Libby but then I never really mentioned it again. For those of you that don't know, I did end up pulling her out. And Brad and I have officially made the decision to homeschool.

I am so so excited about this! I was a teacher before Libby was born and although I have never regretted my decision to stay home or even really missed the classroom at all, homeschooling has totally reminded me how much I love teaching!

I have only recently, like within the last two weeks, really started being intentional with schooling Libby. (Prior to that we were just playing and doing what we did before she went to Preschool High.) We just finished up a mini unit study on rainbows and I thought you might like to see some of her work.

Now let me just say that I am not that creative, but thankfully the Internet is full of people who are! The following idea I copied verbatim from Tater Tot School.

We made a Rainbow Lapbook.

(Emma Jane is participating as much as she wants to at this point. She is really interested in school, but I am not pushing her. In other words, I pretty much made her lapbook for her...but she did get some good glue training in during the process!)

For the cover they colored rainbows and I wrote out our corresponding bible verse, Genesis 9:13.

Inside, are two mini books, one entitled God Made Rainbows and the other Noah's Ark. We also talked about the Color Wheel and primary and secondary colors. The girls made a rainbow shape-book. We talked about the colors in a rainbow and I taught them a poem to help them remember ROY G BIV.

That poem, of course led to a discussion about indigo and violet and why there was no purple in the rainbow. This was confusing so we tried mixing colors to clarify the difference. It is still confusing, but the girls had fun with paint! And in case you are wondering, equal parts blue and red make purple, lots of blue mixed with a little red makes indigo and a little blue mixed with lots of red makes violet.

And I personally think the purple doesn't really look purple, but that may just be my camera.

We also finger painted with primary colors and made a rainbow in a jar (which I have no pictures of.)

But the most fun activity was definitely making (and eating) rainbow cupcakes! We used food coloring to dye the batter different colors and then layered the colored batter into the muffin pan.


Libby is going to be very disappointed when she wakes up tomorrow and realizes that her daddy ate the last one!

Little Drummer Boy

John has recently discovered the joys of banging two objects together to create a loud noise.

My daughters usually prefer to use their voices to create loud noises. You can hear them fighting over a golf ball in the background. That's right, I said golf ball!

But try to ignore the silly girls and focus on the adorable baby. He got so excited when he realized he had an audience and started to play louder!

I see a set of drums in my future...

Maybe I should just paint a bulls eye on the bottom of the bowl

I have been a total absentee blogger lately.

No wait. I take that back.

That would imply that I have been doing some blogging.

I have just been absent.

We have been insanely busy the last two weeks. And not the good kind of busy that provides interesting blog material...just busy.

The potty training thing has been wearing me out but I feel confident saying that Emma Jane is about 95% potty trained.

Which is 95 times better than the 0% she was pulling in a week ago! The creepy froggy potty is still in my kitchen. I am afraid to take it away because she is totally independent on it. She even dumps it out herself!

It's probably time to at least move it into the bathroom, though.

So I took Emma Jane with me to the grocery store tonight and of course, two thirds of the way through the store she has to go potty. So we make our way to the restroom. And considering the minuscule amount of pee that actually made it into the potty, I probably should have just forgone the revolting public toilet and let her wet herself!

For those of you with only boys, let me clear up a common misconception about little girls and the potty. Girls have to be taught to aim too! You would think, given the female anatomy, that little girls would just naturally pee straight down into the toilet. You would think.

But no...little girls (mine anyways) need to see what is happening. And so they lean back with their little legs open and pee shoots straight forward into their panties and onto the floor.

And if mommy happens to be standing in front of the toilet...onto to my shoes as well.

I comforted myself by buying some Nutella.

Who's the Boss?

Last week, I was starting to fear that God was reneging on His promise to never flood the world again it rained a lot in Tampa.

After 36 hours of downpour, the kids were going stir crazy and Mommy was just going crazy, so we took off to a playdate at Gator Fred's. (AKA the coolest indoor inflatable playplace ever!)

One of the highlights of the day was the inflatable baseball dome!

Libby, Emma Jane, Wesley, and our friend Connor had a blast taking turns hitting the balls. Libby made it through one of the holes in the backdrop!

Even John had fun playing baseball. He was fascinated with the ball floating in midair and kept trying to knock it down.

All was going really well. Our kids were doing a great job of taking turns and everyone was having fun.

Until the other kid showed up.

A little boy, probably Libby's age comes over to join us. But instead of taking his turn in line to hit the ball, he climbed into the inflatable. Which of course, would have been fine on any of the other inflatables in the building, but this one was clearly not meant to be bounced on. The bottom of it was nothing but a thin mesh net!

Seeing that someone else had climbed in, Libby immediately threw a leg up and was on her way over the edge when I said (loudly enough for other kid to hear me) "This inflatable is not to bounce on."

Libby, perfect child that she is, immediately climbed off without a complaint.

Okay, maybe there was a little, miniscule complaint. But definitely no whining!

Definitely not much whining!

But honestly, I don't blame her for being upset. She's four. In her mind, if she can't bounce on the mesh net, why can that kid? It's not fair.

In a lot of cases, my answer is along the lines of "Life isn't fair. Some things that aren't okay in our family, are acceptable to other families and that is just the way it is sometimes. Life is tough, kid!" Yadda yadda...

This was not one of those cases.

I ignored this kid for all of 10 more seconds, giving his own mother ample time to see that he was out of line and take care of it before I stepped in.

I walked over to him and said, "You need to get out of there. This is not to climb on."

And then I put my hand on his shoulder and guided him out.

He gave me a pretty dirty look but obeyed.

A few minutes later, John was staring in wonder at the magical flying ball again when this kid reached over and grabbed hold of the yellow cone below the ball, cutting off the air supply.

No air = no magic flying ball

I told him to let go.

He did. For about a minute and a half.

By this point, I have had it with this kid. (and his nonexistent mother. Seriously the room was not that big! She had to have seen what was going on!)

So I got down in his face and said, "You are not playing with this properly. You need to go play somewhere else."

To which he replied, "You aren't the boss."

Let me just say, had this been my child, I would have grabbed him by the ear an taken him to the bathroom for a little lesson in respect.

But he wasn't, so I couldn't.

What I did do was give him my "I mean business" mommy face and said, "Do you want me to go get the boss?"

For a split second, I thought he was going to cry.

And for another split second, I really hoped that he would. Not because I enjoy making children cry, but because then his absent mommy would probably have shown herself.

I am thinking that may have been the first time that kid wasn't the boss.

PSF and Played

So you all know what a pain in the...er, neck Emma Jane has been about learning to use the potty. Despite showing all of the signs for being ready to potty train (i.e. staying dry for several hours at a time and telling me she needed to go potty!), she continually peed on my carpet until I wanted to list her on Ebay pull my hair out.

On Monday, she turned 3 years old. Which, based on all of my previous experience with potty training one child, is about 6 months too old to still be wearing diapers! So I decided to give it one more last ditch effort before buying stock in Depends.

I went all out with this effort. Using all sort of tricks that were never necessary with Libby. I made a sticker chart, including an M&M bribe for getting 10 stickers. I made up a potty song (which I am not going to sing for you) and a potty cheer, complete with moves. I took her to Target and let her pick out her very own big girl panties in which ever print she wanted.

And I did one more thing that I swore I would never do! I bought a potty chair.

It looks like a frog.

Kinda creepy, no?

I loathe potty chairs. I think they are gross and unsanitary.

(And this is coming from a woman that washes diapers every other day!)
But I was desperate...

And our first day home with the potty chair and new panties, Emma Jane peed in the frog voluntarily and without prompting three times!

Where did that come from?!

So, show of hands...who thinks that she has actually been potty trained all along and was just holding out for the big payout?
Little stinker!




Hosted by Cecily and Lolli

Now I know my ABCs (sort of.)

I came across this video the other day while looking through some old pictures.

I had forgotten how small and chubby cheeked Libby used to be. (And how nearly unintelligible her speech was!)

Here she is singing her rendition of the ABCs:

Or it could be John with long hair...Seriously, do any of my kids have their own face?!

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Happy 3rd Birthday!

My sweet girl turns three years old today!

Our birthday celebrations began with breakfast.

(Please excuse the ghetto candle arrangement...I probably should have checked my candle supply before this morning!)

As I listened to Emma Jane sing "happy birthday" to herself and "read" her own birthday cards, I got a little teary thinking about how fast she is growing!

At three years old she can run, hop, jump, gallop and do a jumping jack in slow motion. She knows her ABCs, can count to 13, recite all her colors and shapes and cut with assistance. She knows millions of songs and even makes up her own. She loves play-doh, building with blocks and coloring.

She is *slightly* bossy and loves to be "in charge!" She is full of energy and full of laughter. She is so sweet when she is happy, but watch out when she isn't! There is never a dull moment when Emma Jane is in the room.

Our family was truly blessed the day she became a part of it!

Emma Jane's birth day - 3/8/2007

Emma Jane's 1st birthday - 3/8/2008

Emma Jane's 2nd birthday - 3/8/2009

Happy Birthday, Emma Jane!

Conversations with Emma Jane

My sweet baby girl, Emma Jane, will be turning 3 on Monday. So as you can imagine, there has been a lot of birthday talk in our house lately!

She is so excited about turning three and being a big girl, she hasn't been able to talk about much else and if the situation is not directly related to her birthday, she will somehow work it in. For example, the other day, Emma Jane was antagonizing John and when I told her to leave him alone her response was, "But it's my birthday!" I really had no comeback for that.

Dinner conversation most nights has been about Emma Jane's birthday. Last night she was cracking me up so much that I finally just pulled out the video camera so that you could fully experience her cuteness.

And for the record, I have no idea how my daughter knows who Spiderman is, Libby is wailing in the background because it is not her birthday and I usually don't repeat everything EJ says. That is just for translation purposes.

Splish Splash

Here's a little piece of parenting advice for you:

When you leave your children unsupervised in the bathtub...

Not that I have ever done that! No, this is purely a hypothetical piece of advice!

As I was saying...when you leave your child unsupervised in the bathtub, it is a good idea to make sure that the shampoo bottle is out of reach.

Otherwise the once full shampoo bottle might just turn into a tub (and floor) full of bubbles!

And for the record, I had my children pose for these pictures in order to illustrate this entirely hypothetical post. Because as I said before, my children would never be left unattended in the bath.

Right.

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Rude woman at Publix

Grocery shopping is one of my least favorite chores. The free cookie never lasts long enough and there is inevitably going to be a meltdown from Libby one of my children two-thirds of the way through the store. Then there is the at the register sorting of the items I actually want to buy and the "extras" Emma Jane another child has thrown in to the buggy.

Really, kid? Cat food??

Last week, on Monday, I had the pleasure of babysitting my friend Ashley's son. (Seriously, he is he sweetest kid!) And in a brief moment of insanity, I thought it would be a good idea to cart him along to the store with us.

But honestly, shopping with 4 wasn't much different than with 3. Normally I avoid the "car" shopping carts like the plague, but since I had two that needed to be contained, I had no choice. The boys did great together. Wesley didn't bother John and he didn't seem bothered by John, even though John kept trying to take his cookie! The girls just walked beside me as always.

Now the reason I hate the car buggies is that they are basically impossible to steer. And it gets worse as you put more stuff in the cart. Plus the carts are never big enough for all of my groceries!

All was going well. Well, as well as can be expected. Emma Jane kept trying to put batteries in the buggy, Libby was lamenting, hand to brow, that we were "never going to be done at the grocery store" and Wesley became fixated on an Elmo balloon and mentioned it a few dozen times.

But this is all par for the course and I was feeling pretty good about my ability to handle another kid my babysitting/shopping skills. Then the totally predictable unthinkable happened!

As I was maneuvering that giant shopping cart around a narrow corner, I grazed the side of someone else's buggy. And I immediately and profusely apologized! "Oh my goodness, I am so sorry. Let me get out of your way" sort of apology.

And the woman I ran into was totally gracious and told me "it's fine. You certainly have your hands full!"

NOT!!

No actually, she glared me! One of those eyes rolling back into her skull, the mere sight of you makes me want to tie my tubes sort of glares. And it totally sort of upset me. I mean, I didn't mean to run into her. And I apologized. And hello, I had four freaking kids with me! Give me a break!

Thankfully, two aisles later when I almost did have a head on collision, that person was nice enough to smile at me and tell me my kids were cute!

That is really all I ask!

10 months

John is 10 months old today!

(I think. The short month is throwing me off.)

As of today, he:

weighs almost 19 lbs!

is 29 inches long

pulls up to standing and cruises on furniture

walks several paces with assistance

stands unassisted for up to 5 whole seconds!

eats three meals a day

can direct a spoon to his mouth to feed himself. (Mommy has to load the spoon.)

is starting to resist the morning nap

likes to play in the trash can. (I blame Charlie's influence.)

shakes his head "no" (although I think it is actually a dance move.)

totally rocks a sweater vest

has an enormous butt

pulls his ear when tired

is not afraid of the vacuum

(I believe his exact words were "bring it on, dust sucker!")

shuns conventional toys

plays a mean game of hide-and-seek

is just too cute for words!