Two days in a row!

We are to give thanks every day, but some days it is easier to do that than others. Yesterday was one of those days when it was easy to be thankful throughout the day. Oliver didn't have any accidents on Thursday, and he was successful again on Friday. Thursday was the fourth day this month he had an accident free day (Friday was the 5th), and it was the very first time he had two consecutive days without accidents! Yesterday was the most impressive because he never even had damp underwear. I think it was the very first time he stayed in the same pair of underwear all day, and that included staying dry during an almost two hour nap (longer than usual). One thing that made this feat easier was the fact that he pooped in his diaper in his crib right before he woke up at 8am. He didn't poop in the potty the past two days, but I'd much rather clean a messy diaper than a #2 accident in underwear. Thursday I had a headache throughout the day that I felt was due to lack of sleep. The Lord graciously allowed me to get more rest Thursday night. Ian and/or Oliver are usually up by 6:15 at the very latest, and often one or both of them are up by 5:45 (if not earlier). Ian was up once in the middle of the night (2:00 I think) and Paul got up at 5:15, but Ian slept until 7:00, and then he crawled into bed with me and slept another hour until Oliver woke up at 8:00. I didn't go back to sleep after Ian joined me, but I was able to rest and spend much of the time in prayer. Oliver slept TWELVE hours, much better than the 9-10 he's been getting most of the time lately.

 I had planned to take the kids on a homeschooling field trip to a corn maze (different place than we went last week) at 10:00, but I decided on Thursday night we needed a morning at home. Considering how late the kids slept, I decided this was the right call. I felt badly when one of the moms called to see where we were. Oops! I am sure it would have been fun, but it was heavenly just to stay home. We did spend some time outside this afternoon as the weather was absolutely perfect (much warmer). I also got caught up on some housework, which felt good (I mopped the floors, Nadia vacuumed, I mowed the lawn, etc.). The picture at the top of the post was taken yesterday while I was doing school work with Nadia. Oliver put Nadia's boots on all by himself, and I just had to take a picture! Similarly, the boys were playing in an Amazon box (they also had some tinkertoys in their hands) during her school work, and I had to get a picture of that as well. Kids (and cats) just love to play in boxes!

Foto Friday

Thankful Thursday

1. We were so thankful that my mom drove up to spend a day with us last Friday! Driving up here and spending a night means spending at least 7 hours in the car (round trip) plus not getting the best night's sleep due to things like Oliver waking up at 5:45 and a toy in the toy box saying "I am that hero" off and on throughout the night. OOPS! The kids LOVE to spend time with their grandparents!

2. It was such a delight to have THREE grandparents attending both soccer games on Saturday afternoon.

3. The seven of us (including three grandparents) had a great time at Ard's Farm on Saturday afternoon.

4. I am grateful for the lens I got in June and also the external flash my parents gave me in April. Although it made my camera much larger than it usually is when I am using the 50mm lens I use most of the time, the pictures turned out much better. I learned in August that the lighting in the museum is not good for taking pictures.

5. I forgot to mention in my post last Thursday that last Wednesday night the kids and I saw a beautiful large rainbow outside church .

6. I've been enjoying having pumpkin foods lately. Last week I tried a recipe for pumpkin pancakes, and this week I bought a box of pumpkin cake donuts. The next time I make cookies I'm going to make pumpkin cookies. YUM!

7. We were pleased with the progress Ian has made with singing on a stage (as evidenced by how he did on Sunday morning).

8. We had a great time at Hallo Fun at Knoebels on Sunday afternoon with Paul's dad.

9. The Steelers won on Monday night!

10. We had a great time at the Children's Museum on Tuesday afternoon. Since I am not very craft oriented, I was thankful the kids were able to do a couple of crafts there. Ian has been carrying his owl all over the place!

11. Although Oliver is still having accidents and still using the froggy potty when he pees, I am very thankful that he has never had a #1 accident when indoors anywhere other than our house. It's always a big relief to find out he hasn't had an accident when we're at church, the shopping mall, Children's museum, Bible study, etc. Yesterday he peed in the potty before dinner, but then he didn't go after dinner. I was very nervous when I dropped him off at Puggles, but he stayed dry and then peed in the froggy potty in the van before we drove home. This means he had held it for four hours. Whew. I keep bringing a change of pants and underwear, but I am very glad that no one else has had to change him out of wet clothes.

12. Paul is taking Nadia on a field trip this afternoon at Camp Susque. In the two hour class students will explore ponds, streams, and wet lands looking for critters and learning about water quality. Topics include aquatic eco-systems, water testing through a hands-on lab, and wading in the Lycoming Creek looking for various aquatic life. It's for students in K-5 so I'm staying home with the boys.

13. Tamera (online friend who reads my blog) told me about the website Be Inspired Boutique, and through that I was able to order a pair of matching dresses for Nadia and I to wear next summer that were very reasonably priced (since they were on sale plus I used a $10 off coupon code). I am going to give it to Nadia as one of her Christmas presents. I have a feeling it won't be the last time I order us matching clothes. I'm sure at some point she won't think it's cool to match Mommy so I'm going to take advantage of it as long as I can. I was also relieved that the dress fit me because the pjs I ordered for myself from Children's Place were WAY too big, and although I didn't pay shipping to receive them, I did have to pay the Post Office to mail them back to get a smaller size.

14. Oliver has finally started eating bananas! I figured that if he would eat vegetables we'd eventually get him eating fresh fruit, and that is starting to happen!

George Washington's Breakfast

A few days ago we read Jean Fritz's book George Washington's Breakfast, and after we learned that he usually had three johnny cakes and three cups of tea for breakfast, Nadia has been dying to make johnny cakes. According to our curriculum, we were supposed to make that recipe three weeks from now (next week we're supposed to make hasty pudding), but I certainly don't feel obligated to follow our curriculum to the T so she helped me make some this evening. The recipes said to either put apple butter or molasses on them. I figured the apple butter would go over better, and since our apple butter was made the colonial way (over a fire no less), that seemed the most appropriate. I am not sure if I've ever had them before, but I was expecting to like them since I love most things made with cornmeal, but I actually wasn't a big fan. One or two bites was enough for me. I preferred to have tuna noodle for dinner. I didn't verbalize my opinion, but it turned out Nadia felt the same way. She did however enjoy her very first cup of hot tea that Paul made her. In contrast, Ian wasn't keen on the tea, but he thought the johnny cakes were the best thing ever (his exact words!). He ate his plate full and then also finished Nadia's johnny cake! We've been having a lot of fun learning about George Washington this week. Paul thinks he's the best President our country has had to this point in history. Last week our chapter book correlated with our study of Ben Franklin (I read them Ben and Me by Robert Lawson). This week's chapter book, The Cabin Faced West by Jean Fritz, correlates to the time period of Washington but doesn't have much to do with him in particular.

I could have titled this post "shopping spree." This morning I set a new record for the longest time I spent with my three kids at the mall (by a long shot). I have spent that much time walking around yard sales with them, but I have never shopped with them indoors for that length of time. Prior to going I promised a treat to Nadia and Ian if they were good shoppers (and also helped me with Oliver). They had their choice of a sharing pretzel sticks from Auntie Anne's or a ride on the indoor carousel or ice cream from Dairy Queen. I think if Oliver had a vote he would have picked the carousel, but the other two picked Dairy Queen, and Oliver did enjoy sharing an ice cream sundae with me. Nadia had a Dilly bar, and Ian had a cup of chocolate ice cream. He won't eat hard ice cream so only has ice cream a few times a year. The kids definitely earned their ice cream treat because I had them all over the mall while the van was having the annual inspection done at the Toyota dealership. I used a $10 off $25 coupon at JCPenney and the same type of coupon at Bon Ton. I bought things in six different stores. I was nervous about Oliver having an accident, but he stayed dry and used the froggy potty in the van before we drove back home.

I very rarely buy new shoes for the kids. It's hard to pay retail when I'm used to paying $1-3 per pair of shoes for them at a consignment shop or yard sale. However I had been stocking up on size 13 shoes for Nadia because she wore size 12 last winter, but her feet only grew a 1/2 size. The size 12 shoes hurt her feet, but the size 13 shoes fall right off her feet. I do have a size 12 1/2 black patent pair for Sundays and a size 12 1/2 pair of sneakers for her, but she's accustomed to having far more than two pair of shoes (although that's typcially all Ian has). I "splurged" and paid $16 for a pair of brown leather flats for her in size 12 1/2. Once her feet grow a little more she'll have LOTS of shoes to pick from because I bought quite a few in size 13.

Potty training Oliver has led me to make two purchases for myself. First, I bought myself a new camera bag on Amazon a few weeks ago because I typically would put my camera in his diaper bag. Secondly, I decided to get myself a new purse. 20 years ago I used to own a variety of purses to coordinate with different color shoes (brown, black, white, off-white, etc.). I gradually transitioned to two purses a year and then down to just using one all year round. More than six years ago I bought myself a slightly larger purse (still would be considered small according to many women) that was big enough to hold a diaper in the instance I didn't want to bring a diaper bag. I have been using that purse since that time. The purse is still in fine shape, but since I don't need to carry a diaper any more, I wanted to go back to my preferred smaller size purse. The first purses I looked at today set me in serious sticker shock (they were between $100-200 each!), but I eventually found one I liked for less than $25. I let Nadia pick which color purse I bought.

Another item I got myself was a new pair of sneakers. I can't recall the last time I bought the ones I've been wearing. I'm pretty sure it's been more than six years. Shopping with three young kids causes one to be as efficient as possible. I found myself rushing into the shoe store and scanning the wall and picking one (that was on sale) as quickly as possible. When I got home I threw my lawn mowing sneakers away as my old sneakers will now be my lawn mowing ones. All in all we had a very successful shopping trip, and the van passed inspection.

$2 Tuesday

In August I learned that the Children's Museum in Bloomsburg has a $2 Tuesday once a month. Since Oliver is still free, it means it only costs $6 for the four of us to spend a few hours there. This morning we left the house at 8:40 for ladies Bible study and when that was done (about 11:15) we ate lunch in the van en route to the museum. We stayed there for 2 1/2 hours. The kids would have loved to stay longer than that, but I knew it was time for Oliver to have a nap. We made a quick stop to pick up some groceries and then all three kids fell asleep on the way home and then continued to sleep in the van once it was parked in our garage. Oliver slept the longest of the three (75 minutes). I was nervous about how he would do with potty training considering we were away from home for seven hours straight, but he only had one accident today (pooped in his underwear while we were at the museum). Nadia and Ian made two crafts at the museum - an owl made from a paper towel tube, googly eyes, and cupcake holders and a pumpkin made from tissue paper, construction paper, and contact paper.

On days when we take a "field trip" I still feel that we should do some schoolwork, so I worked with Nadia from 7:30-8:15 on math, spelling, and history. The picture above was taken yesterday morning when she was working in her science book (we've just started the chapter on insects). She was wearing the Frozen necklace Paul's mom gave her on Saturday afternoon. She loves it!

Early Bird

Oliver's normal wake-up time has been between 6:15-6:30 for a few months. Some mornings he would wake up at 5:45, and usually at least once a month he'll sleep until at least 7:00. For some unknown reason he woke up at 4:57 this morning. I will not get him prior to 6:00. I try not to get him before 6:15. Up until recently, if he woke up at 5:45 he would usually cry (or scream my name) for at the most five minutes and then he'd usually sleep for 45 more minutes. Over the past several days that hasn't been the case. He hasn't been going back to sleep. I really thought he would go back to sleep this morning since he woke up SO early and had only slept for nine hours. Nope. He would scream MOMMY for awhile (maybe 15 minutes) and then be quite for a little while and then go back to screaming my name. This went on for about 70 minutes until I finally went and got him. It was really bad timing to have a short night of sleep in light of the fact that Paul and I were exhausted from our time at Knoebels plus I figured I'd be staying up later than usual tonight to watch the Steelers on Monday Night Football. They looked really awful at the beginning of the game so I thought I'd be going to bed at half-time, but then they scored 21 points in the last two minutes of the first half. This meant I was staying up until the end of the game.

 Oliver again proved the adage "bad sleep follows bad sleep" true by waking up after only sleeping for 45 minutes during his afternoon nap. Since he had only slept 9 hours last night, there was no way I was going to accept at 45 minute nap. It started out the same as this morning in that he was screaming my name and then quiet and then screaming again, but this time he fell asleep after 30 minutes of that and slept another hour. The downside of him spending 2 1/4 hours in his crib during his nap was that he had an accident, and I needed to wash his bedding.

Oliver didn't have any accidents on Friday. It was his second "accident free" day this month. Saturday was a bad day with potty training. He had two accidents while he was awake and one while he was asleep in his car seat during Nadia's soccer game (all were #1 type accidents). Up until Saturday he had been averaging one accident a day. It's been almost a week since he told me that he needed to go #2, but I have caught him a few times in time (when I see him running away to another room I usually figure out he's about to go #2) so he has gone #2 on the potty most days. Yesterday went better than Saturday even though we were out and about most of the day (I brought the froggy potty to church and to Knoebels). Not counting the accident during his nap, he had two accidents today. I'm hoping that we can get back to no more than one accident a day and hopefully start to have more and more accident free days. I still haven't been able to get him to go #1 on the regular potty. Hopefully soon!