ice skating?

Last Monday I decided to surprise Kait after school and stop by an outdoor rink that’s kind of on our way home.   Kait has only been ice skating one time, when we went in Bryant Park in New York City on Christmas Eve.  *sigh*  Loved it!  Anyway, I had the little ladies bundled up in their “ready for snow” clothes, and they all three headed out on the ice.

Off to a good start.

And . . . we’re down,

and down, and . . . . wait for it . . . .

watch Pendo and Kait . . .

down again!

Every time someone fell, Rose just laughed and laughed!  Let’s just say there was a little bit of skating success and LOTS of laughter this particular afternoon.

 

 

Read Full Post »

scientist in the how-ou-se

OK.  This is just too cute, but a little background info first.  Our eldest daughter, Kait, readily admits she doesn’t like to play with toys.  She really never does, unless she’s with a friend.  She’d rather read or do a craft than anything else, but she also likes to bake and play around with cooking, too.  She’s recently developed a real interest in science.

With some Christmas gift-card “money”, she chose this.

Maybe it’s the teacher in me, but I LOVE the Magic School Bus.  Ahhh . . . good memories from the ol’ classroom days.  Anyway, Kait chose this MSB science kit.

It has (almost) everything you need to do a bunch of science experiments, including flasks and petri dishes!  Soooooo fun!

The first experiment we’re doing requires a few days to complete.  Every day she carefully checks it

and records her data.  Shouldn’t be long now until we see some mold-growth, at least that what she’s hypothesizing will happen.  (Is hypothesizing even a word?)  We’ve only conducted two experiments so far, and we have lots more to try.  My favorite part is seeing her really light up and get truly excited to do everything on her own.  I also love that it’s quality time I get to spend with her apart from our regular read-aloud chapter books.  Just something a little different that we can do together when the little ones have gone to sleep.  If we like this kit a lot, maybe we’ll even try another one of them.  It’s a good gift idea for any budding scientists in your life as well.

Read Full Post »

play time

On Sunday afternoon, I took the little ladies for a play date at a local children’s play area.  It was their first time there, and it was a big hit!  One of their favorite parts was the grocery store area.

Rose needed TWO baskets for all of her planned purchases, and she crammed them as full as they could be.

She loved carrying them around and trying to find more things to cram into her baskets before heading to

the self-checkout line.

Pendo preferred practicing

and practicing

and practicing her knife skills, just like Daddy.

It was the perfect thing after the unwelcome visitor named the stomach flu.

 

 

Read Full Post »

progress

We’ve made some big progress in the past four days!

#1.  For the first time in 3 years and 5 months, we are no longer warming up milk for little girls!!  They are drinking it cold!!  (I know.  We should have done this ages ago, but other things were more important)  It took about a month, but we baby-stepped Rose and Pendo to drinking their milk cold by just warming it up a second or two less every day.   Now to break the chocolate-syrup-in-the-milk habit . . .

#2.  One of the little ladies has now been able to play with the special “I pooped on the potty” toy TWICE!!!  It’s too early to declare her fully potty trained, but we are getting close now!!!

And for fun, here’s a couple of pics from awhile ago when our van was in the shop and we got to squeeze into G’s car for a week.

See, they do love each other!!  I need to look at this pic when they are struggling with sharing and using their inside voices (AKA screaming over the same toy).

Read Full Post »

paint!

It’s really hard to wait for your turn when you’re 2 1/2.

Read Full Post »

struck down but not destroyed

We’ve been hit hard here at the Austin house.  The stomach flu came bursting through our door during the night Friday night and has proceeded to wrestle us to the ground one by one.  Kait was down for the count for three days, and Rose  was flat on her back for two days.  Pendo was next, and then it was my turn.   I can’t even tell you how many loads of laundry have been washed, how little sleep we’ve managed to cope with, and I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve changed my clothes from being puked on.  We’ve watched more PBS in the past five days than we do in 14 days when we are well.  One good thing has come from it, and I have to search long and hard for something good, let me tell you.  I’m worn out, for sure, but I realized today that I’m not worn down from arguing and normal 2 and 3 year old sister behavior.  It appears that the little ladies have taken a brief break (while they are not feeling well) from disagreeing, from demanding the same thing and the same time, from both begging for the pink cup and the red plate, and from pushing each others’ buttons.   Yay for a reprieve from selfishness!!  Today has been back to normal around here.  I can finally look at food again without wanting to vomit, and my kitchen is actually clean.  I’ll post the pictures soon, the only ones I’ve taken in a very long time, the ones that caused such big smiles from the little girls.

Read Full Post »

longing

I mentioned in the last post that I’ve been hoping to find time to go to Treasure Mart.  Well, I did get my chance on Saturday.  Long story short, Kait is quite sick with what is likely a stomach flu so our my entire weekend plans had to change.  The girls and I have just been home.   It is very difficult for me to stay home with 3 girls in our cozy condo, without being able to go outside or go anywhere for even one day.  I need to go places, people!!  Don’t get me wrong.  I can tend to be  a homebody, but I need to go at least one place a day or I go a little bit stir-crazy.  That’s how it was going on Saturday.  G had to work quite a bit, so I asked him if I could PLEASE go to Treasure Mart for a quick peek when he returned from work in the afternoon.  He graciously obliged and I loved every minute in Treasure Mart.  That place is just crammed with other people’s stuff, and it’s so interesting to see what you can find.  Most of it is stuff that you would think “Who in the world would buy that?”, but there are some gems mixed in, too.  I am on the hunt for something to store our art supplies in, and I found a couple of options.  Sidenote:  these pics were taken with my phone, so forgive the poor quality and weird angles.  I just took them to show G what I had found and get his opinions on them.

#1.  an old pulpit

I just had to smile at this one.  Wouldn’t it be fun to store art supplies in an old pulpit?  I grew up looking at something like this every Sunday of my childhood.  Turns out it was a bit too big for our space, so no dice on this one.

#2  a “music cabinet”

I liked this one a lot.  It was certainly in the price range, and the size worked well for us as does the color, but the insides needed a bit of work, and I couldn’t commit to it unless G saw it in person and agreed to help.  Darn!  Had to pass this one by.

#3 an ooooooooooold refrigerator

Sigh.  I’m in love.  No matter that it is out of our price range (most likely, but you better believe I’ve schemed and schemed about how we could afford it).  It’s a bit on the large size for our space, and it’s not actually all that great for storing art supplies, but isn’t it AMAZING?  I really do love it.  I’ve been thinking about it since I got home Saturday.  I talked myself out of it, though.  It’s not perfect, and it’s too much money, but I love it and can see it in our future home, too.  I love that it’s a piece of history that’s fun and funky today.  I’m so tempted to go back tomorrow to see if they still have it.  It’s most likely not meant to be, and I can live with that.  You better believe I’ll be checking back at this store in the future, though.  So many fun, quirky things.  I’m sure to find something fun that will work.

In other news . . . here’s a hint at what we’ve been doing the past two days while we’ve been holed up at home.

Big smiles from big fun that those of us who aren’t sick (for the time being) have been enjoying.  More pics to come after I edit them and do my best to stop longing for that old refrigerator.

Read Full Post »

rearranging

Thanks for all the encouragement and for some ideas for potty training.  Still not going well.  A couple of days ago I unveiled the new toy, the one that was going to motivate both little girls to never soil their undies again, and . . . I kid you not . . . they were incredibly excited about it!!  I showed them how it worked, and they were oh-so-eager to try it.  They understood that they could use it as soon as they poop in the potty, and within five minutes of showing them the toy, they BOTH pooped in their panties.  Oh well.  What can you do but keep trying?

In other news, I’ve set some goals (not resolutions, let’s be clear) for this year, and for the past two weeks I’ve been working towards the first one.  I’ve kind of set my camera aside for a bit while I focus on that first goal, so I haven’t taken pictures to show you of what we’ve been up to.  I’ll get back to the photos soon though, especially since it has a major role in my third goal for 2011.

Here they are, for accountability reasons.

1.  Play and create with my kiddos more

2.  Have a consistent time with God

3.  Learn much more about my camera specifically and photography in general

That’s it.  There are many other things I want to do this year and learn more about, but these are the major goals.  As for the first one, playing and creating with my girls more each day, I’ve had to do a LOT of rearranging.   I have been greatly inspired by a book by sis-in-law gave me when we returned from Kenya last March.  I’ve been working to completely rearrange how I store our craft supplies, and I’m longing to make them easily accessible every day.  That requires replacing this guy.

It’s our trusty microwave stand that doubles as a very small craft storage cart.  It stands right beside our craft work space, otherwise known as our kitchen table.    I’m looking online, and I hope to find some time to poke around in one of my very favorite stores not too far from here.  Warning:  Here’s a bunny trail.  Oh, I love Treasure Mart!  I could spend 2-3 hours there easily, but there’s no way on God’s green earth that I would consider taking my sweet little ladies there with me.  I’ll have to wait until G can watch the girls sometime this week.  I’m seriously getting antsy with anticipation about going there again.  It’s been about two years since I set foot in there, and I can’t wait.  Anyway. . . enough rambling about a store that many of you will never have the chance to go to since it’s local . . .I’m on the hunt for a bigger art cabinet that can also work to hold our microwave.  We’ve also been painting like mad around here and adding all kinds of hearts to get ready for Valentine’s Day.  I know, we’re a wee bit early.

And, because I’m boring myself to tears with this post, here’s a fun picture that our friends took when they watched our girls a couple of months ago.  This was Pendo’s first time playing hide-and-seek, and she chose this hiding spot all by herself.

Read Full Post »

help wanted

Calling all mommies, grandmas, aunts, and anyone who has been around toddlers and preschoolers!!!  We need some help!

There’s a lot of this going on in our house.

Do you recognize the “I’ve got a turd in my panties” swagger?

If she weren’t so cute, I think I’d lose my mind.

Don’t worry, this little precious is doing the same thing, but she doesn’t even bother to do the cowboy strut.  She just goes about her business looking a little guilty.

So here’s the situation.  I’m T-I-R-E-D of washing poop out of panties and picking turds up off the floor.  Last week I took the girls to an adoptive family playgroup.  OH!  I was so excited to go and meet other local families like ours!!  (It WAS really great, by the way).  But, wouldn’t you just know it, after being with this new group of people for about five minutes, BOTH girls decided to take a dump in their panties.   I wasn’t too surprised.  I thought that might happen, but it’s still SOOOOOOOOOOO frustrating!!!  As I was cleaning the second one up, her little turd rolled out of her panties and onto the bathroom floor.  This happens fairly often at home where I can quickly clean up and disinfect with no problem.  I had nothing with me to do that here at this undisclosed church bathroom.  I only had two, yes two, wipes with me anyway.  I needed those and more (had to get a little creative) to just clean up the dirty buns, so I just did the best I could at cleaning up this wayward poop and tired, in vain, to laugh about it.  I’m really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really tired of my girls NEVER pooping in the potty!!

I’ve tried rewarding with chocolate, the very exciting “I pooped in the potty” dance, the phone call to dad right after it happens to share the good news, the “Mommy is reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally tired of cleaning poop out of your panties.  It’s gross.  Today, you can clean up the mess” approach.  So far, NOTHING is working!!   After talking to some other moms in my book club last night, I went out to Wal-Mart this morning and bought some VERY special shiny, fun stickers to make a sticker chart for peeing success, and I also bought an extra-special toy that they will be allowed to play with after they poop in the potty.  We’ll see how this goes.  I’m hoping for the best, but not expecting much improvement.

Here’s where you come in . . . Do you have ANY, I mean ANY, advice or ideas of what we can do to encourage pooping in the potty?  We’re doing fairly well with #1 (though they did regress over the holiday travel and we’re trying to get back to where we were before we left), but the big #2 has always been an issue with both of them.  They’ve had success maybe 3 times each, and I’m tired of the cowboy walk.

So, please help!!!  Let me know what you’ve done or not done to help the kiddos you know.

I do realize that each child is different, and Rose’s prematurity could be playing a little role in this as well as Pendo’s somewhat young age for potty training, but I really think they can both do it.  What do you think?

Read Full Post »

b-day fun

Ahhhh . . . . what a nice birthday I just had!  It really helped that it was on Saturday and G could take the day off AND it really helped that our friends offered to spend a good chunk of their day with our girls so I could actually go somewhere for the big day this year.

I must warn you that this post will likely bore you to tears.  If you’d rather not read about each detail of my birthday, then hop on over to some much more interesting part of the internet, but please come back soon because I’m going to be putting out a major call for help before long.  More on that in a couple of days.  So for now, either settle in with a good snack or just head over to something more interesting.  Doesn’t matter to me either way.  I know at least my mom will read every last detail and ask for more, and if you know my mom, you know that it completely true. 🙂

First off (can you imagine this?), I was able to stay in bed until the ripe old hour of 8:15am!  I wasn’t asleep, mind you, but I didn’t have any responsibilities.   I can’t even remember the last time I’ve lounged under the covers that long.  I came downstairs to find my man hard at work folding 3 loads of laundry!!  He even (can you even imagine this?) put most of it away for me!!!  He also got the girls their breakfast and cleaned the bathroom.  Ahhh . . . that would have almost been enough for the whole day to be amazing.  (oops, I don’t mean to imply that he doesn’t help out around here because boy. does. he. ever!!!  Just not so much in the timespan of one hour).

We both got ready for the day and got the girls ready, then our friends S and J came over.  They took all three girls on a fun outing as well as out to lunch at McD’s.  Then they brought them home and put them down for naps.  All this meant that G and I had hours to ourselves!!  I had decided that I wanted to go to Zingerman’s to get a couple of free yummy birthday treats.  We adore Zingerman’s and hardly ever go there, so this was going to be a real treat for me.  When we arrived we were told of their Tour de Food going on right now, so we changed our plans a bit and decided to go for it.  G and I are what you might call “Foodie wannabes”.  We watch the Food Network, try many new recipes from there and other sources, and have broadened our food horizons in the past few years.  This Tour de Food sounded fun for both of us.

We got my six free bagels from the Bakehouse as well as purchasing some other delights for later then we hopped on over to the Creamery for my free gelato (Oh. My. Glory!!!  The dark chocolate gelato was like eating spoonfuls of truffles!).  Then we skipped next door to the Coffee Company for a free cup 0f joe and some delightful smells.  (G helped me out by drinking the coffee for me since I have yet to join the coffee craze.  I know.  It was hard work for him.)

After that we had to drive across town to the deli.  Oh.  How I enjoy that place!  We picked up some more bagels and some peppermint tea, then went over to the Roadhouse for the grand finale.  It was grand, let me tell you.  G and I don’t often go out to eat, especially at a place like this that really knows food.  Our rare dinners out most often include chicken nuggets and pizza, so going to the Roadhouse was a delight.  Our waiter was amazing, and when he learned it was our first time there and that we really loved food and food knowledge, he really hooked us.  He also hooked us up with some free samples of the sweet potato fries and the grits.  Um.  Yum!!  Then . . . lunch arrived . . . some amazing bar-b-que raised just a few miles out of town and smoked and grilled over oak in their fire pits right outside.  We also split a side order of (almost) life-altering macaroni and cheese.   I will remember that mac-n-cheese till my dying day.  OK.  Not really, I hardly remember anything anymore, but I will remember that as long as I can.  You just have to try it.  In fact, to bore you more, one of our favorite Food Network chefs chose this mac and cheese as one of the best foods he’s ever eaten.  I believe it.  I can’t wait to have more.

Lunch was amazing.  Amazing.  Amazing.  We got our free t-shirts and took our very full bellies over to do some shopping at the mall.  After that (don’t worry, I won’t walk you through every single store we went to like I overdid it with the food explanations), we headed home to some very happy girls who didn’t miss us at all.

A couple of hours later some more friends came over for pizza and cake (scroll up for a photo of the delightful cake G made for me!).  It was a really fun day full of phone calls from people I love, special emails and cards, and time with friends . . . a very happy day to remember.

 

Read Full Post »