my bad

It appears Hannah is a new child....I thought high maintenance was going to be trouble, but it looks like she didn't want to be on a 3 hour schedule like her siblings, home girl wanted a 4 hour schedule. She use to snack and was a pretty slow eater, but now she won't touch food until it is pretty close to four hours and she can chug (still not as quickly as her sister- fat girl did). I mean now she will eat, play and just fall asleep on her mat or she gets a little fussy so you swaddle her and throw her in her crib and she is out. Love it! I guess I should say thanks mom for figuring this one out. A week at the Grandparent's does a girl good.



I should also give a shout out to T (and I guess to me too for being able to break a 3 year old- stubborn little thing). He is doing an awesome job on the potty. He gets angry when you ask him if he needs to go, but will tell us now and has been staying dry (even during nap and night time). He is still not pooping, but he only does that once a day and waits for his pull up (he did for Grandma so I will work on this too).

Here is a pic of T. I know where the saying momma's boy comes from. He is the only one who will snuggle with me. I earned it since he only liked me and my mom for a year and a half and so we spent a lot of time together.

This week started off a little bumpy. I started work on Tuesday (no big deal- Mom has Hannah so that helps a lot). I leave the house at 6:30 and drop Hannah off with mom (Ms Corinna is so sad that she doesn't get her time in the morning to chat with Miss Hannah) and then drop the kids off when the doors open to Mt Pisgah. Then I drive to Lenox. All in all about 1 hr 15 minutes for me in the am. Luckily, I am going to work from home about 3 days a week so that will help a lot. Mom is a saint for getting Hannah so early and lots of times she also picks up the other kids. This week Frances was having some issues (stupid weather). We were able to actually keep it under control, but she did miss school Wed/Thurs/Fri.

My sister is in town so we have been hanging with her. Christine and Terri ran up to Lakewood on Friday (I have only been there once because since they moved it I usually head down to Scott's). Friday night we went to Taco Mac. Saturday we went to the first easter egg hunt of the season at my folks' neighborhood(2 more left- we were invited to two more, but they all fell on Sat). Then back to the folks to celebrate Dad's 78th (pictures below).

Sunday was Palm Sunday so there were plenty of things to do at church. We got there in time for the kids to get dressed in their costumes, do a few crafts and see the doves. Then Frances sang at church. After, they walked down Spring Street (following a donkey who was not so happy at the end of his walk) with their palms. They continued to wave their palms and say Hosanna all the way home (and of course in Wendy's).










Thomas went on the potty...so they all get rewarded (little vultures)


We left the room and Rusty was having trouble breathing.....wonder why the kids are the way they are, but they actually didn't seem to have a big issue from the room (just a little coughing)

Cancun

We (Rusty, Christine, Bob and I) headed off to Cancun Thurs-Sun. Thanks for all 3 sets of grandparents to take the kiddos. It took about 12 years, but finally Jaime and Eric got married (they were on California Time). Jaime was our college roommate. She lived with Christine when I was in London and then we lived the rest of the time with her. When she graduated we were there to hang with Eric (Christine and Eric were partners in crime and we even went on a spring break cruise one year with him). Cancun was a great trip and a beautiful wedding! So much fun....here are a few pics.

awesome- the driver was passing out beers (while driving like a bat out of hell)



view from the room




wedding site



love this pic of jaime and her dad



the wedding

mom of the year

Yep, with my fantastic (definitely by the book) parenting skills, I am sure I am on the path to mom of the year. If this story doesn't push me over the edge for the award....then I am at a loss (I figured I needed to record this so when T is older and telling stories of why he ending up the way he is he has some good ones from when he was little).

As I mentioned, T is potty training. He is doing pretty well (even staying dry at night time and asking to go during the day), but is still refusing to poop. He usually waits until night time about 7ish and goes. For a few nights he decided he wanted to stick his hands in it to really see if that was what was going on--really! Luckily, he never painted his room, etc with his findings. Day 3 of this and I told Rusty I would deal with this little problem. I cleaned T up and told him he had to take a bath. I threw him in the tub and turned the cold water on. Yep, you heard me right. I got the cup out to clean him off and used cold water. All I have to say is that hasn't happened again. If he goes in his pull up, he tells us right away and shows me that his hands are clean. I mean each kid is different and you have to use different tactics with each. This appears to have done the trick.

Update on Thomas

(Knock on Wood)- It appears the potty training is continuing to improve. He is doing a really good job peeing on the potty, but stubborn little dude refuses to poop (He used to and won't now and I have tried to bribe him with everything I can think of).

Today he told me that I was being ridiculous. The stuff that comes out of this kid's mouth just cracks me up (which at times makes it hard not to laugh when I know you aren't supposed to egg him on).

He is still a klepto and every night I go to his room and try to remove a few handfuls of stuff that he has put in his bed. For a while he wanted to sleep with his light on so I bought him a lamp so it wasn't as bright as the main light. I then bought a little bug for Hannah that plays music and lights up (it projects stars on the wall) that he proceeded to steal. In this case, I am fine with it (to make his daddy happy, we bought him a green frog and game the pink bug back to his sister) because now he wants his door closed and all lights off so that he can see the light (it has a timer so the lights and music stay on for 30 minutes). Now if I could just get the red glitter shoes from him...

C-A-T-S

:(

We were all ready for the game on Saturday....we all had our game day shirts on and followed our game day and pre-game day rituals. Sadly it was not enough to help the team (yes, these things make a big difference on the outcome of games and how they play). I guess I can say March Madness is a love-hate thing for me. I love March Madness and we both usually take off Thursday and Friday to watch all the first games. I hate it too because when Kentucky loses they are done for the year. Depending on how they lose, I usually hear for a few days some sighing and a play by play of what happened and basically just Rusty is in a dark place. He took this year's loss pretty well I must say.