Busy

While I was busily picking up toys in the living room, my children were busy emptying the contents of the junk drawer onto the kitchen floor! They are so very, very helpful.

Yes, I stood on the kitchen counter to take this picture. No other angle did it justice!

Kitchen Pantry

Since our home remodeling project is on hold indefinitely, I'm making a few improvements to our house. The first was a kitchen pantry. We gave away the kitchen table and bought a stock pantry from Lowe's. Today was construction day. It took Jeremy just over an hour to put it together, but I think I might have worked harder than him--keeping the children out of his way!

It started with dancing on the boards and deteriorated from there. Ultimately Josiah started crying uncontrollably saying, Daaaaaddy, Daaaaaddy, Daaaaddy.... Jeremy had to stop and hold him and then we realized that we had hurt his feelings by leaving him out. He wanted, maybe needed, to help. So we told him to stand right next to Daddy, gave him nails to hold, and then he was a happy little man.



I'm going to be able to put a lot in that pantry. A whole shelf has already been dedicated to the cereal that had been stored on top of the refrigerator and the 4 large bottles of apple juice that I buy every week are also now tucked behind doors! Behind doors!!?? What a novel idea for my kitchen (all of my upper cabinets have never had doors).

Guess What Today Is!?

It is one year since I started potty training Aliza! Yes, folks, it's true. I've been at it for a year and the task is not completed yet. But we are making progress. In fact, since about Christmas Aliza has woken up dry in the morning and after naps. Huge progress! We have one more big hurdle to cross--pooping in the potty. She does not have any qualms about pooping in pull-ups or in her panties. She has informed me, though, that she will be big enough to poop in the potty when she is 4. (Maybe the reason behind yesterday's conversation about not wanting to grow up?) When the current package of pull-ups is gone there will be no more. Maybe by next year (but hopefully before) I'll be able to report that indeed Aliza is fully potty trained. This Mommy is sure hoping that will be before I start potty training the next one. lol.

Don't Want to Grow Up

Tonight Aliza got this sad little look on her face and said, "Mommy, I don't want to grow up. I want to keep my number because 3 is my favorite number." About an hour later she called me and said, "Mommy, can you ask Daddy if I don't want to grow up and if I can keep my number?"

Jeremy looked at me like what in the world am I supposed to say to that? I told her that Daddy said ok, but that she might find out that being 4 is a lot of fun and 4 might be her new favorite number.

Her birthday is still about 2 months away!

(Shhhh...she might be a little bit like her Mom!)

In MY House

These are in my house! I can hardly believe it. I still have to look twice when I see them in the laundry room. This is the washer and dryer that we had priced for our "new" house when we remodeled. When that project got postponed I jokingly told Jeremy that I wanted them for Christmas. He said, "No appliances for Christmas presents" until he found an ad for a sale at a local appliance store. Buy a washer, get a dryer free--on the exact model (Whirlpool Duet) we had on our dream list. He actually called the store to make sure the offer was legitimate! It was and he immediately went and ordered one.

Thank you, Jeremy, for making me feel so special! Merry Christmas to me!

Miracles do Happen!

This makes my heart sing. My children are currently playing together in Aliza's room with her Christmas toys, happily!!! Maybe Aliza is trying to avoid bed time a bit, but I don't care! Josiah is just eating up the opportunity because he has wanted so badly to go into her room and she hasn't let him. Now he gets to check out all the toys.

Starting Off the Year

This begins my 3rd year of blogging. I was thinking about how to blog, what to blog etc. and I decided that this is just my life journal. I'm not trying to be some sort of internet personality, it's just me and where I'm at right now in my life. Yup, you'll hear a whole bunch about my children this year because that is where I'm at!

Here goes!!

We had a lovely 3 day New Year's weekend at home. It is an extremely rare occasion that we have a 3 day weekend at home. We usually grab those extra days as excuses to visit Jeremy's parents. It was windy and freezing cold. The wind chill was -2 and -4 at night. On Saturday we lost electricity from 10:45-2:30pm. We were thankful for our propane insert. The heat goes straight upstairs. When nap time rolled around I was happy to hop under the covers.

So given that it was a holiday week and quite cold I spent lots of time playing and cuddling with Aliza and Josiah. One afternoon Aliza woke up a good 1.5 hours before Josiah did. She likes to watch NickJr.com these days so I sat on the couch (with a book) beside her. I had my arm around her and she was all cuddled into me. Out of the blue she looked up at me and said, "I love you Mommy. Mommy, you are the best Mommy in the world. And Mommy you are my best friend in the whole world." That was the best. I still smile thinking about it.

That morning Josiah woke up calling, "Mommy, Mommy!" I got up and brought him over to our bed and he proceeded to look at me and say Mommy and point to Jeremy and say Daddy. I've been hearing Mommy ever since. Josiah has generally bypassed saying the "easy" words. He said Grandma, umbrella, yellow, and backhoe before he said Mommy and I still can't get him to say Hi.

In the last couple weeks Aliza has developed the ability to tell stories. The facts are straight, but the time frame is way off. Things that happened yesterday she'll say happened last year. This ability has led to even more constant chatter and more complicated directing and demands than we had before. By suppertime last week I had had enough. I just wanted her to eat. I told Aliza to be quiet. She promptly said, "But Mommy if I be quiet my teeth will want to keep talking." Without missing a beat those teeth kept talking.