Playdate in the Park

Sarah brought home a flyer about "an evening in the park" event. I invited my sister and her kids to come along.

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We parked at Rachel's house and walked to the park.

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Sharing pizza with Peter.

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Sarah's chalk art

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Emily didn't play very much on the play set

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On a side note...

anyone know what this tree is? It's in my sister's yard and they aren't sure!

Strider Pre-Bike Giveaway!

Bizzi-Mommi is doing a giveaway and it would be really cool to have one of these balance bikes. I'm sure that all 3 of the older kids would love to ride it! (Andrew not so much, since he isn't walking independently yet!)

The Ups and Downs of Potty Training!

Lately, I have alternated having William in training pants, regular underwear, and diapers. Most days, I'd let him choose. Then after changing wet undies for the 8th + time in a day, I'd put him in a diaper. We would talk about the fact that pee and poop going in the potty and not his pants.

Two weeks ago, I decided that I needed to intensify my attempts at potty training him. So I put him in regular underwear and had him sit on the potty every half hour. We had about 4 successes and about 8 misses. Partway through the afternoon, William told me he wanted to wear a diaper and I told him that he didn't wear diapers anymore. The next day he had 6 successes and 2 misses. It has been up and down with how he does, but on the whole, he's getting better! He even had one afternoon where he went all on his own 4 times! We're up to about 1½ hours between when I have him go and he's usually dry when he wakes up from his naps.




I had gotten this froggy potty awhile ago to make it easier for the boys. It is alot easier than trying to use the "Splash Guard" on our other potty or the ring for the big toilet.















Action shot.

Here he's actually wearing training pants (pink ones at that!) since I hadn't had a chance to wash his regular undies and some of them were missing somewhere at the time!

Itsy Bitsy Spider

Here are a couple pictures of the"Itsy Bitsy Spider" in the church nursery.
The web didn't turn out how I had seen it in my head. I guess I should have drawn it out on paper first!






William is pointing to her


















Here, he has gotten the "Itsy Bitsy Spider" book

Andrew playing with new balls

Free Photo Book

HotPrints (or on Facebook) allows you to get one free photo book a month and I just made my first one! I decided to make it of Emily as I have photo albums filled with pictures of Sarah, but not so many of Emily! The books are ~8x10" and have 16 pages (including the covers). Here is a pdf of the book I ordered.

On Being Sleep Deprived

Scribbleprints is doing a giveaway for a 'Sleep Deprived Parent' button. I figured that pretty much sums up what I've been for the past 6 years!

It started while I was pregnant with Sarah since it is hard to sleep well those last few months of being pregnant. Then all 4 of our kids haven't slept through the night until they were close to a year old (although I'm really hoping that Andrew is faster, but he's already 8 months old, so he's probably going to follow in his siblings footsteps!) And since I've gotten pregnant with the next baby right around the time the previous child is a year old, then I was exhasted from being pregnant and the whole cycle started again! So I haven't been well rested in 6 years! I am looking forward to when Andrew is sleeping through the night as then I can start getting the sleep I need since he is our last kid.

I feel like my brain is a colander and most things just go straight through! (I guess it's a colander with really big holes!) I leave one room on my way to do something and by the time I get to the other room I've totally forgotten I was going to do something! Not just that I forgot what I was going to do, but totally forgot I was going to do anything and I start doing something else! I don't know how many times I've come back to the kitchen and the dishwasher is open and in the process of being unloaded or loaded, or I find a half written email on the computer from an hour before, or the dryer is open waiting for me to put the wet clothes in after I've walked off with the dry clothes, or the washer goes through its whole wash cycle empty because I went for the next basket of dirty clothes and forgot I was getting them! One time I went to nurse one of the kids in the night and thought, "But I need to put this baby down first", so I laid the 'baby' on the floor and when I got back to bed, my pillow was gone and I found it on the floor outside the nursery! Or another time, I got in to nurse baby and realized I didn't have my glasses on (which for me pretty much means I'm blind) so I went back in the bedroom for them and when I put them on, something wasn't quite right. Dan looked at me and asked what I was doing. Turns out, I was trying to wear his glasses! But I better go make sure that the washing machine is actually washing clothes right now and that I haven't left something out that needs to be in the refrigerator!

Spring Flowers

Here are some pictures of this year's Spring flowers taken on Easter Sunday! Last year it was almost a month later before the flowers were to this point!




































This is the most blooms the Forsythia has ever had! Maybe its "hair cut" last year helped!

Starting Seeds

I bought this greenhouse tray marked down at Meijer last year thinking that we could start some seeds in it this year.

All ready to start

















inspecting the hard peat pellets


































adding water to expand the pellets


















starting to expand














Fully expanded














planting seeds













we planted Cubanelle Peppers, pumpkins, and bell peppers. The 2 types of peppers are from peppers that we had bought and the pumpkins are seeds left over from another season. We will get some more types to plant in the other rows.














in the sun to grow!

Andrew is 8 Months Old!

Andrew is 8 months old!! He is crawling all over the house now (usually looking for me!) and pulls up on low objects. He got his first tooth on Wednesday and he now weighs 19 pounds 0 ounces and about 28" tall (hard to do while he is sleeping!)

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Here are some more shots of Andrew over the last couple of weeks:

Ready to go for a walk. This picture doesn't show how excited he was to be in the backpack!

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Sleepy boy!

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1st corn on the cob.

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He's actually just coughing, but it makes it look like he is making a face about the corn!

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"How do I do this??"

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Yum!

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April 1st, wearing a frog shirt for Great-Aunt Marge's (Mommy's aunt) surgery.










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With best buddy Peter!











"There you are Mommy!"