Easter morning

The kids woke up to their Easter baskets that they had to find. Ethan is on sort of a dragon kick so he got some dragon books and a stuffed dragon. Belle got a unicorn along with a couple more Usborne books. Oh and candy of course.







Then it was off to church. We weren't sure if Ethan would be able to go this week, with all his coughing. But he had been really good the past couple days. Of course after church he went on a huge coughing spree in the car. Hopefully he just saved that til the car and didn't cough in church. **eye roll** The ride home from church now consists of Belle telling us how bad Ethan has been in sunday school. The two year olds participate in preschool worship now and the two year olds must stay in a marked off box on the floor. I'm sure Ethan is one of the youngest since he was kicked out of the nursery before they had an actual 18mos-2yr class. I can just picture how this plays out with him. It'll be July before we can see how he really behaves with our own eyes.

Easter Egg Hunt

Oh my poor neglected blog. Its harder and harder to update.

We took the kids to the Franklin Easter Egg Hunt. It was in the Rec center because of all the rain we had. The only reason we were able to go to this is because Belle's soccer game was canceled for the same reason.

We've never been to anything like this, so we had no idea what to expect. Apparently they threw 3000 eggs on the gym for the kids to have a free for all. Easy enough. It was pretty entertaining to see the parents get all hopped up about it and try to jockey for position. We had a very laid back attitude about it which was good because the gym wasn't all that big.

Ethan decided he wanted to meet the Easter Bunny, but got scared once we got there. Belle was scared all along so mommy had to get in the shot.


Here we are waiting for the whole thing to start.





The one and only shot I got of Belle during the easter egg hunt. She was off and running, shoving fist fulls of eggs into her basket.


This one on the other hand took his time and was in no hurry.


Here is their combined loot. Not a whole lot, but they had fun. Belle even got a pool day pass.


The kids came home and we divided the candy evenly and let them go to town. Ethan of course had some left over and it was killing Belle. After lunch everyone laid down for a nap. A short time later a kid walks into our room smelling like peanut butter and chocolate. Apparently Ethan didn't want to sleep and decided to finish his candy instead.

Homeschool Convention

Most of you are aware that Nic and I have decided to Homeschool next year. Well we thought we might as well go to the convention. What better way to get an idea of what all is out there. And to hear some speakers who have words of wisdom to pass along.

We listened to a lot of great speakers, but I think Susan Wise Bauer was my fav. We did't see her til the last day and it really made me wish that I had caught some of her earlier sessions. I loved it when she said something to the effect of that we'll probably screw up our children regardless. That even if we completely mess up, they still have a pretty good chance of being perfectly fine. Ha ha, I'll admit to wondering if I'm going to totally screw up my children by homeschooling. Susan had such great suggestions and was just an awesome speaker.

I was also surprised at the amount of "normal" people there. Ha ha. Count me as one of those people who thought a lot of homeschool kids were weird. I mean I did marry one. =) And he's pretty weird at times. There was just as much variety at this convention as you'd probably see at a public school. Only difference is that the vast majority of those in attendance were probably Christian.

My mouth hung open when I witnessed a boy and a girl, 13-14yrs old have a deep discussion regarding the bible and their previous session. I didn't catch it all, I didn't want them to see me staring. These two kids were perfectly normal looking kids and would probably be part of the cool crowd in a public school. It was pretty cool to witness. I hope my kids will develope that sort of maturity some day.

We ended our Friday with a Tim Hawkins concert. He was HILARIOUS of course!

We came home with some curriculum and probably a little overwhelmed. But I think we're both probably excited to see if we can do this thing. I have debated on starting another blog and documenting our homeschool misadventures. We'll see if I develop the courage.

Fourth row!!

Go Team Dora!!

Belle had her first ever soccer practice this week. She did really well. Especially considering that she had been a sick mess the day before. She is on a team at the church where she goes to preschool. All the 4-5 yr old teams have cartoon names, like Veggie Tales or the Backyardigins. What are we? Team Dora!! There were a few groans coming from mostly the parents of the boys. =) And it's funny because there really are not a lot of girls on our team, only 3. I'm real curious to see if our shirts are pink or something. I say this because I distinctly remember seeing a girl in Walmart last year with a FMCC soccer shirt on that was pink.

Practicing her dribbling.




Devotion time with the coach's wife.


And of course had to keep Ethan occupied.


He would not let me take his pictures. Little stinker.


In other fun news. We made Angry Birds!! How awesome are these! The kids love them and Ethan even wanted to sleep with one tonight. I am however not letting the kids touch my favs, which are the black bird and the yellow bird.



Look Belle even made some!

My Little Reader

I thought I'd document how well Belle is doing with her reading. She's finished her first BOB book set and while at an Usborne Party I picked up this set of 15 books. We have enjoyed a few at the library, but got frustrated when the ones we wanted were never there. So it's nice to have our own collection. She's already on the 3rd book and we just got it Sunday.

She's doing great and loves reading by herself.

Updates

Nic made the comment on how I never update the blog since Facebook. It's the truth. So I thought I'd share some pictures. Truth is that I haven't even picked up the camera much lately.

I think I've pretty much consumed my computer time with either work or researching homeschool. Yes, I've completely lost my mind and we're going to homeschool Belle next year. Crazy, I know!! So I'm researching curriculum and what not.

No child labor laws in this house.




Belle went through a nudist phase for a couple weeks. Here she is working on a workbook and showing Ethan. I was hoping that some of the numbers would soak into Ethan's brain. Im trying really hard not to compare him to Belle at her age. But the good news is that Ethan is trying. He'll count 1,2,3,6,13. . =) And he did recognize 3 letters by sight the other day. I keep telling myself he's only 2.5, geez.



Belle starts soccer practice tomorrow. Stay tuned for cute soccer uniform pics. Belle got outfitted with shin guards and cleats and a soccer ball. Ethan would not stand for being left out. Nic had to take him to walmart so he could get his very own ball. They've been kicking it around the yard during this awesome weather we are having.







They finished the afternoon playing "drive-thru". Ethan ordered "chicky nuggets" and "fench fries".


In other news, Belle has been doing awesome with her reading. She's really coming along nicely. I'm super proud of her.

Do the **clap clap** Potty Dance!

I was excited to hear about the Potty Dance event at the Children's Museum. We don't see that commercial much because we don't have cable, but I know Brody knew the dance. And since Brody has needed a little extra push on the potty training issue, I figured it couldn't hurt. Ethan has even shown some interest here recently. I just thought it would be a fun event to take the kids too.

We had been getting really excited the week coming up to the dance (or maybe it was just me). We were practicing our potty dance and listening to Ralph's World music. I had never heard of his music til I looked him up. Some great stuff. I even downloaded some songs to play in the car. My favs are Animal Friends and The Great Outdoors. I can't get the songs out of my head. That and of course "do the **clap clap** potty dance".

Ethan of course got sick earlier this week. Just our luck. After not being sick most of the winter, it finally caught up with us. But I figured if Ethan couldn't go, Belle would love to go dance around. Well by the end of the week Belle had it. I thought the medicine was helping her, but she took a turn for the worse Friday night. But the good news was that Ethan was well enough to make the trip.

The museum was full of Pull-ups stuff. There were even free pull-ups. Yay!! Between Sara and I, I'm sure we've spent a small fortune on pull ups. So it was nice to get some freebies. Maybe I got a little too excited, because I wanted a spot close to the stage and we got there a little early. The concert was supposed to be at 11am and we got there at 10:30am. The boys got maracas, which they promptly started using as swords, and some inflatable guitars. We tried to occupy ourselves for awhile, but low and behold the concert wasn't going to start til 11:30. It was supposed to start at 11am. I couldn't imagine trying to occupy the boys for another half hour. Unfortunately the boys were done, or atleast Ethan was done, so we decided to just head out. It was a bummer, and kind of crappy considering they couldn't start on time. I mean, who makes 2 yr olds wait. =) We did catch some of the music as we strolled around the exhibits.





There were no picture of Ethan really in the concert area. He was glued to my hip.








The boys played with this constellation area for awhile in the Dora and Diego exhibit.


And what is a trip to the Children's museum without a ride on the carousel.






Its fun to see the looks of pure joy on the kids faces. They loved the carousel.


Oh and of course we didn't expect to come home and kids be magically potty trained. But Ethan has been more aware of his diaper. And he even agreed to sit on the potty tonight. Problem being that he won't sit on the big potty and the little potty was downstairs. So Nic ran downstairs while we waited in the bathroom. We came so close, but Ethan peed on the floor. While doing so, he said "pee pee potty" in a tone that made you think he knew he was supposed to put it in the potty. Maybe this will be a start on the road to potty training.

Almost potty time!

Some day Ethan will kill me for posting stuff like this. But I have the same sort of posts of his sister, so all is fair.

Well a couple days ago Belle was running around in her underwear. For reasons I can't seem to remember. She's going through a phase where she doesn't want to wear clothes. Anyway, Ethan noticed this and thought he would run around in his diaper. Fine, we'll just have a nudist colony in our living room. After about a minute I think Ethan realized that "hey sissy doesn't wear a diaper" and commenced to taking his own off. Fine I thought and went and grabbed him a pull up. Nope, he knew better. So what does he do? He promptly goes over to the basket of clean clothes and picks him out some underwear. His sister's underwear and tries to put it on. I gave in and helped him, knowing full well that I was going to have a puddle to clean up any minute.

I grabbed the potty seat just in case something clicked and he decided to use it. He'll sit on the potty for about 15 seconds, but nothing has ever made it in. So he ran around in underwear for a little while, occasionally pulling them down to sit on the potty. Nothing ever happened, but maybe he's starting to understand the concept. Of course he peed in the underwear and I gave him one more chance. I went and got something a little more appropriate, some white training undies. I even set the timer thinking that maybe we could implement that. Nope, peed right away in those. Well it was fun while it lasted. Now Nic and I can start preparing ourselves for potty training this summer. Im pretty convinced that it's 80% the parent. So as soon as we're ready to get rid of diapers and not turn back, we'll do the potty training thing.

Oh and we are SO getting a new potty seat. The little shield thing kept getting knocked off because Ethan is pretty short. We obviously didn't have to worry about that with Belle. If anyone has any recommendations, throw them at me.

But he did do a fairly good job of remembering to "push it down". =)


Talking to mamaw in his girly undies


Finally in something a little more appropriate


Oh and I have bought him some boy undies in case this comes up again. Had to get 18mos underwear for his tiny little butt.

Next weekend, Sara and I are taking Brody and Ethan to the Children's museum to do the Pull ups Potty Dance with Ralph's World. Should be fun! Maybe it'll get the boys excited about going potty. Well we can hope anyway.

Aww, they do love each other!!

The kids have been playing together so well lately. They'll run all over the house pretending to be someone or something. Belle will sit in Ethan's room with him driving his Cars around his geotrax set. Ethan will play dolls in the dollhouse in Belle's room. They've wrestled on the couch, or took turns jumping off the couch into their bean bags (before they got yelled at).

So I thought it best to document it while it lasts. Who knows, they could be at each other's throats tomorrow.

Laying under the table eating pretzels


Enjoying all the costumes I got for 75% off around Halloween time.


I told Belle to act like a pirate, this is what I got.

Love Shutterfly

And you know what I love more than Shutterfly. Free stuff from Shutterfly (except for shipping of course)

Scripted Name Baby 5x7 folded card

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ABC Drill Sargeant

Belle is sitting on an ABC poster and she's drilling her brother on the alphabet. He seems to be a willing participant, so I'll take it.

Saturday morning

Been playing with the ipod camera capabilities. It's convenient, but not always the best quality. Lighting is key. And I haven't figured out how to get HD videos. Oh and wondering if there is a way to record video horizonally. It looks a little weird vertical.

But here is some fun we had this morning. Yep, the kids jump off furniture over here.



This was from the Instagram app.

She's reading!!

I had forgotten about the collection of BOB books that we had. It occurred to me to maybe try them out again. She's doing awesome. She's read two of the books very easily, but gets stuck on a few words with the rest of the books. She's been very proud of herself!

Ah, my baby is growing up.

Droid!!

I've been playing with this wonderful Droid2 now for awhile, but had to give it up this week. It's been wonderful. You may remember me going to this party with Ariel hosted by the Queen of Free. I had been wanting a smart phone for awhile, but just haven't wanted to pony up the money. So this was a nice treat and let me get my feet wet a little.

There were all sorts of fun and useful things I found on the Droid. I think I used the VZ Navigator the most. It was nice since we don't have GPS in the car. I loved how it would find nearby restaurants by using our location. That was an especially useful app on a recent trip to IKEA.

I think Swype, might be my favorite app. I had originally thought that I wanted a Qwerty keyboard, but after discovering Swype, I never used it. It is so easy and SO intuitive. I wish I could get that app on my ipod touch.

Then there were the fun apps like Grocery IQ and of course the amazingly powerful time suck that is called Angry Birds. I was familiar with this app before the Droid, but its just so addicting that I had to have it on the phone too. The kids LOVED Talking Tom. I really didn't see what the big deal was, but man that app really entertained the kids. There was even a Talking Santa app for the Holiday season. One thing that I learned, that once I download kid apps, the device is no longer my own. The kids were always wanting to play on it.


The Droid even saved my rear one night when my internet service was down. I had several projects that needed emailed to their respective clients and the mobile hotspot that the Droid created save the day.

Only problems I had were getting videos off the phone. Seemed like I could never get a strong enough connection to get a large video uploaded to youtube or to an email. And the picture quality wasn't always the greatest, but definitely better than the pictures that come off my current phone.

Overall it was a great experience and when the day comes that I might get a smart phone, a Android phone will definitely be it. Thanks Verizon and Queen of Free for letting me have fun with this phone over the holidays.