Potty-trained!

Guess which Blake boy has not had an accident in his big-boy underwear, even at naptime, in more than 2 weeks!?

This handsome (2.83-year-old) fella! 

(The mark under his nose is a little scrape from falling off the swings at Aunt Alicia's last weekend.)

Now we have two boys fully potty trained!

(in less than a year)

Sam started asking to wear big boy underwear last summer, but he still had frequent accidents till early Fall.  Starting in Fall, he began to hold it for long periods of time, but unless I reminded him, he wouldn't ever go, and would eventually have an accident.  In December, he started pooping on the potty regularly, and finally, in the last month, he is now doing both ALL on his own! 

No fighting, no fits, no reminders, no accidents.

No more potty drama for this mama.

And I am happy to say that after potty training Landon, Sophia, Alexis, Dori, Xander, Archer, Santi, Jackson and Sam, I am really excited that the next little one to potty train (Allyson) won't be for quite a while!

Spring Break Hike

All you need in life is Play-Doh...

But if you don't have Play-Doh, hiking is fun, too. 

"Hey, look at that!  That's where we live!"

Especially with a friend!

Since we were hiking with Daddy, we had to stop for a hunter's education moment. 

Deer tracks.

Stair steps.

Stopped and checked out the local wildlife.

And couldn't resist scaring it off the logs. 

"Come on, Mom.  We're boys!"

Exploring and climbing during lunch break.

...And after

Apparently, you are never too old to climb a tree.

This one loved the adventure!

This one not so much...

This one was content to stay on the ground and watch.

Trees are so fun to play on.

or with.

The view of the lake from the top of the hill.

The happy hikers.

The girls of the group. 

One of us is totally worn out. 

Okay, okay, two of us.

My Poor, Mistreated Children

We had an extreme weather change today.  I dropped the boys off at preschool playgroup and by the time I went to pick them up 2 hours later, the temperature had dropped about 20 degrees and it was raining.

So the boys couldn't go outside to play. And they needed to.

And if you have ever taught in a public school, you know that when the weather changes, the behavior does, too.  Every activity they have chosen has either ended in a screaming match, a fist fight, or something getting destroyed. 

After interrupting an adapted game of baseball where one child was throwing a plastic toy bin and the others were trying to hit it with Thor hammers and swords, I found that the plastic bin was in pieces.

I had been out of the room for less than 5 minutes. 

Exasperated and running out of punishments, I first made them clean up every single toy off the playroom floor.  Then I told them that if they couldn't treat their belongings properly, they didn't deserve to have them. 

I took every bin of toys kept in a plastic bin and put them at the top of the closet. (That is A LOT!  Remember, I ran a preschool for 3 years - my boys have A LOT of toys.) 

They.are.hysterical. 

I think I made my point.  They will not get them back for several days.  Today has been awful.

Currently, I am listening to them sobbing at the top of the stairs from behind the gate where they have been banished until I regain a semblance of sanity. 

"Don't take our toys!!  We don't have enough toys now, Mama!!!"

Oh, they are so mistreated.  I feel sorry for them, don't you?

All About Allyson

 Ally will be 5 months old on Sunday; tomorrow she gets her 4 month shots.  This is belated because on the date we had scheduled for her to get her 4 month shots, she had RSV.  This was the first time she had gotten sick. It was pretty sad to see my teeny little baby coughing so hard she'd throw up a bottle.  We had to treat her with a steroid and a breathing treatment.  The mask for the nebulizer didn't even fit her face.  I just had to hold it in front of her face while she squirmed all around.  But thanks to our household ER doctor, she made a speedy recovery and all is well now.

In other events, Ally just recently began sleeping through the night.  (Woot Woot!!)  Of the last 7 days, only one has she woken up for that 4am feeding.  Otherwise, she goes to bed around 8pm and sleeps till at least 7am, once it was 8pm!!  That means I can sleep in sometimes if I stick in a movie for Jack and Sam!  That is really cool!!

I was trying to hold off on feeding her rice cereal because the new guidelines say to wait till babies are 6 months, but just in the last week, I have been struggling to keep up with her eating habits, so I caved and decided to start supplementing with cereal.  She drinks about 6-7 oz of breastmilk every 3 hours or so now.

I guess tomorrow we'll find out how much weight she has gained and where she is at compared to her baby peers.  She still seems small to me and many comment to me how tiny she is, but I think my 6 lb, 12 oz newborn now weighs over 14 lbs.  Not as big as the boys were, but she is a girl, and I hear they tend to be smaller.  She still wears some 3 month clothes, but she is in mostly 6 month clothes.

She can roll over both ways, and reaches out for toys if they are within her reach.  (Her favorite toy is an Eeyore toy.)  She has started to sit up with minimal assistance, but I don't think she'll be sitting in her own for another month.  She still loves her swing, although I am trying to get her to nap in her bed more and more because soon she will outgrow the swing.  She usually takes a morning nap for about an hour, then naps for at least a couple of hours during Sam's naptime around 1-3, and thn naps again around 5 for about an hour, then goes to bed at 8.  All I have to do is put her down in her bed and she goes right to sleep; usually with no crying whatsoever.

She loves her brothers.  She likes to intently watch their activities all around her.  If they happen to come near and talk to her, she breaks into a huge, face-brightening smile and tries to talk to them.  She loves to have one-on-one attention.  She'll talk your ear off with her babbling, especially in the evenings when she is a little tired.  That is also the easist time to get her to laugh.  It's almost like she's sleep-giddy. 

 She also loves to stand up in her Exersaucer and reach for the toys. She talks to them and gets frustrated when she can't get them in her mouth because they/she don't reach that far.

She has the easiest temperament. Even in the mornings, when she has slept all night, she is not demanding for a bottle. She lets me get the boys breakfast while I warm up her bottle and waits patiently, watching them from her high chair. Sometimes, I even have time to pump a bottle for her, before she really starts to protest.

We are so blessed to have Ally in our family. She is very loved by all of us. :)

Doh!

Man, I have had quite the morning!  Since I know Ally can sleep through the night now, when she woke up at 4am, I let her cry it out.  At 5, she finally fell back asleep, as did I.  Then Ben had to get up for work a few minutes later.  Then Sam woke me up again at 6am, ready to get up.  I put a movie on for him so I could go back to sleep, but at 6:30 Jackson had apparently also woken up and they decided to have a screaming fight in the hallway right outside Ally's door, so she woke up again.  I gave up the fight and got up.

At 9:30, still in a half awake stupor, I got all the kids ready to take Jackson to preschool playgroup, locked the bottom lock and shut the door.  I then found out that I did not have the keys to the Armada in the diaper bag as I had taken them out and put them in my purse for my hot anniversary date last night.  I also had to no credit card to slide the lock open with as my wallet was also in my purse.  And to make matters worse, Ben had failed to put our hide-a-kay back in its location the last time he used it. So there I was, stranded on my front porch with 3 kids. 

Thankfully, I did have my phone since I grabbed it off the charger before walking out the door, and I was able to call a friend who happened to be nearby, to save me with HER credit card!  The funny thing is that yesterday I came across the empty hide-a-key container, noted that it was empty, and felt a prompting to go find the key and put it back in place, and I didn't listen.  That's what I get for not following the Spirit!  At least I didn't get a major humbling reminder, just a ten-minute annoying "doh!" moment.  Thankful fot that.