April 2009

All 3 watching for daddy to come home!

Chloe

Chloe is starting to follow along with the words in books we read to her, and she knows words in the stories. The TAG pen and TAG books that we got her have helped her recognize many words! We love the TAG!

Chloe loves to cut out shapes. She has me draw silly shapes, and she cuts them out. She does a great job!

She is learning so much in school. I love to hear all about it. She was even telling me about monarch butterflies the other day. I had her screened to be a peer model for one of the special education classes at the school I work in. She passed the screening, and I think she will be a great peer model to the students in that classroom. She will hopefully start that in the fall.

No naps anymore. She has quiet time that she spends doing "quiet" things since Kyle still takes a nap in the afternoon.

She loves board games and card games!

Kyle

Kyle started the month with an ear infection. He was miserable for a few days. I was up with him all night on April 1st. He kept saying "Mama, ow,ow!" On April 2nd, his ear drum ruptured. He is all better now!

He is completely potty-trained. It was hard at first for us to take him places, because I feared he would have to use the potty, but he has learned to hold it until we can find a potty or until we get home! :) He will even wake up in the middle of the night to go potty and then go back to sleep. He has had ZERO accidents this week!!  He goes on the big potty sitting backwards...no little potty anymore!

He sits at the big table or little kid table. He no longer sits in his booster seat. He doesn't eat as much now since he is able to get up and walk around.

Kyle loves to snuggle and have me rock him. He comes up to me and says "I wanna wok". This is one of my favorite times of the day.

He loves to give kisses. He calls them "tisses".

Kyle wakes up in the morning in a great mood, but he wakes from his afternoon nap in an awful mood! I sometimes have him skip his nap just so he stays in a good mood for the rest of the day!

He says "I uh you." (I love you.)

Us

Eating out is very rare unless we go by ourselves, which is also rare. Hopefully by next year, Kyle will do much better in restaurants and not want to go wander around the places. Chloe was 2 1/2-3 when she started being very good in restaurants, so we hope we get to that point very soon! I look forward to going out again as a family and being able to eat a whole meal without having to box it up and take it home to eat. For right now, we will continue to mostly order out on the weekends or go to very kid-friendly places to eat! :)

With a 2 and 4 year old, there is little time to get much done around the house. There is really no use cleaning during the day, because they get all their toys out again anyway! I love a clean house, but I have had to learn to just forget about it for awhile. I would rather spend my time playing with them than cleaning up after them.

VIDEO

Pre-school Open House/Performance

We attended Chloe's first Pre-school Program/Open House tonight. Chloe enjoyed showing us all her art projects!

We then watched a special program the children have been working on. They have been practicing songs and a Rainbow Fish play during class. They did a great job!

We ate some snacks and went on home in the pouring down rain!!

Chloe and Andrew dancing!

Chloe and Brooke

Chloe and Karlee

Cade, Ryan, Robbie, Chloe, Otto and Karlee

Cade, Chloe and Andrew

Chloe and Robbie

Mrs. Sigler....Chloe's AWESOME teacher!

VIDEO

Weekend Birthday Party

We helped Mallory and Samantha celebrate their 1st birthday today!

They were very cute as Thing 1 and Thing 2! They also had a yummy Cat in the Hat cake!

It was a windy day, but at least the rain stayed away since we were at the park! It was funny at one point when pieces of cake that people were eating started blowing away!

Happy Birthday!

VIDEO

Soccer

The kiddos are getting interested in soccer!

They are both kicking the ball very well! We hope to get them in Soccer Tots soon, so I will show some video of that whenever they start. For now, you get to see them playing in the yard!

Easter 2009

Kyle and Chloe posing for an Easter picture in the backyard!

Kyle having his snack on the way to church!

Kyle and Chloe posing for a picture outside church!

Kyle with a mouthful of M&Ms.

Chloe was so happy the Easter Bunny came to visit her!

Homer waiting and hoping for some candy to fall on the ground!

Chloe and Kyle helping decorate the bunny cake at Grandma and Grandpa's house!

I didn 't realize Kyle was licking the gumdrop until I saw this picture!

Grandpa and Kyle

Grandma and Chloe

Chloe and Kyle with Paw-Paw

Everett and Kyle with Tata

We spent Easter 2009 with both sides of the family!

We ate lunch with my family, and then we headed on over to Everett's brother's house for some more sweets and egg hunting!

Decorating Easter Eggs!

Chloe had a fun time decorating Easter Eggs!  Her favorite part was painting the glitter on the eggs at the end!

Poor Kyle fell asleep right before we started.  He is recovering from a rough week of an ear infection and a ruptured ear drum.  He feels so much better now, but he is still trying to catch up on his sleep.  Maybe he'll be able to join in the egg decorating fun next year!

Happy 35th!

Today is Everett's birthday!  His 35th birthday!

His parents came over earlier in the day, and we had his birthday cookie cake.  We then went out and had a great dinner with Tony and Rachel at Kirby's Steakhouse!  My parents were so awesome to take care of all 3 kids while the 4 of us went out together for the first time in a few years without kids!  Thanks so much, mom and dad!

Hope you had a fun birthday, Ev!  Love you!

Spring Break Camps!

Karlee and Chloe

MONDAY, MARCH 16TH....CHEER CAMP

Chloe attended Cheer Camp today from 9:00-11:00.  She was very excited that 2 of her little friends were there!  Halle came over to our house early this morning and rode with us up to the gym.  It was fun listening to them talk on the way.  I could tell they were very excited!  Chloe's friend, Karlee, was also there, so I knew she would have a great time with both of them!  There were 36 little girls there!!  They learned jumps and a routine.  They had the parents come back at 10:45 for a performance!  It was very crowded, but it was fun to watch!

TUESDAY, MARCH 17TH....DANCE CAMP

Chloe attended dance camp today from 1:00-3:00.  There were 4 girls in the camp...much smaller than yesterday's camp.  I went back to watch her "performance" at 2:45.  I was surprised they learned a whole dance in less than 2 hours!  They must have worked hard!  She looked like she was having so much fun!

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 18TH....PRINCESS CAMP

Today was Princess Camp from 9:30-1:00!  Chloe wanted to be Cinderella, so we took her dress and shoes with us.  She was excited that her friend, Karlee, was there, too!  When we got there, all the little girls were bouncing on bounce houses with their princess dresses on, so Chloe wanted her dress on, too.  The girls danced, played "princess" games, played in the gym, got their hair and makeup done by Sweet-n-Sassy, and ate lunch!  She said this was her favorite camp of the week!

Chloe and Brooke

Halle and Chloe

THURSDAY, MARCH 19TH....CHEER CAMP

Today was another cheer camp from 9:00-11:00.  There were not as many in this class as there were on Monday.  They broke up into little groups and learned a cheer.  They had a performance for the parents at 10:45.  Her little friends, Brooke and Halle, were also there!  She had such a good time and got to take home some pom-poms!!

Andrew and Chloe

FRIDAY, MARCH 20TH....CARNIVAL CAMP

Chloe ended her week with Carnival Camp!  This camp was from 9:30-1:00.  They played games, did crafts, played in the gym, played on bounce houses, ate pizza, rode on a little choo-choo, got their faces painted, and had popcorn!  Her friend, Andrew, was there, and she was so excited to see him!  If they have this camp again in the summer, I am sure she will want to do it again!

VIDEO

PT Update!

Things are going well. Kyle is still having some accidents, but he is going to the potty more times than having accidents now. Most of his accidents are of him running to the potty and not making it there in time. I think he has come very far in the past few days. Kyle is now in underwear all the time.

He calls the potty..."hobby".

In the past few days, we have taken some short trips to the store, and he has not had an accident in the car or at the store! I will aim for longer trips out of the house during the next few days....

This is his second night in underwear. He woke up dry the past 2 mornings! :) As I was writing this at 9:15 tonight, he woke up and yelled "hobby" under the door. I went to get him, and he went potty!

I probably won't be posting anyting else about potty-training, but I just wanted to say that we are done with diapers! Yeah!

Tired Little Buddy

I was making lunch, and when I turned around, I found Kyle asleep on the carpet!  Poor thing.  This potty-training really has him exhausted!

Potty Training....Day 2

Monday, March 16th

Things were much better today! Kyle came and told me everytime he either went in his underwear or had to go on the potty. I was so proud of him those times when he came over to tell me "Potty!" before he even went a drop!

The big thing we did today was let him take a nap in his underwear! I put 4 towels on his sheets and another fitted sheet on top of those. He slept almost 2 hours, and he did wake up with a wet bed. It was not very wet, though, so I think he stopped himself when he started feeling it. That is just what I was going for! Yeah!

While he was playing outside, he came running in and stood by the potty for me to get over there. He went all in the potty! I was so proud of him.

While Kyle was at the table eating dinner, he got right up and went over to the potty. He waited for me to get there. He tee-tee'ed all in the potty!

He still has some work to do, but he is well on his way! He had a few accidents and went in the potty 12 times today!

Potty Training...Day 1

Sunday, March 15th

Our first day of potty-training is finished. This is so exhausting! The staying home and the constant reminding to Kyle that he needs to go potty just wears us out! I am so determined to do this the whole week. All I keep thinking...no more diapers for Kyle.

We spent the day with Kyle running around wearing real underwear or nothing at all! He had 11 accidents during the day, but he also went on the potty 10 times! Hopefully he will learn to hold it a little better! Most of the accidents were very little. He came to tell me each time he had had an accident which made me very happy. He got skittles every time he went tee-tee on the potty. Chloe would also get skittles every time Kyle went on the potty, because I knew that would encourage her to cheer him on! I put a pull-up on Kyle for his nap and at bedtime. Overall, I think he did well for his first day! Let's see if he remembers any of this tomorrow!

Chloe was promoted!

Karlee and Chloe

Chloe was moved up to the next gymnastics class at EXCITE! She is very excited that her friend, Karlee, will be in the same class! They are now on one of the younger pre-team classes! This class is at a much better time and is at the location by our house, so I am very happy about it being so close to home now!

Chloe loved her first night.  She keeps asking to go back and makes up "routines" in the meantime!  Here's some video of her practicing at home.  

They did a great job on the first night!

Congratulations to both of them!