DYING

Emilie brought home a virus, likely a virus that she got from the family we stayed with.  Day 3 of 103.1 and her fever is not breaking.  We were up all night long.  I am dying.  Her pediatrican says it's just a virus.  Jet lagging and even more exhausted than when we left.  (But the wedding went well, thank God!).  Please get well... soon... soon...

overwhelmed

Trying to pack for our trip to LA.... sick with a cold, and a urinary tract infection (greeeat).... and totally exhausted and overwhelmed.  Lord help us!!  So many things have to go right on this trip... or it will be a complete disaster.  Praying for mercy...

Dutch Wonderland!!!!!!!!!

 Summer would not be summer without a trip to Dutch Wonderland in PA!!

We LOVE this place..

 They were knocked out on the way back!

 If only this girl would take naps regularly!! 

 We used to take silly pictures of ourseles in the car, while we were dating..

You're never too old to be silly!  :-)

Frist Swimming Lessons!!

They've been SO excited all week to take their first swimming lessons!

Too bad it was overcast and cool outside..

Don't you love the yellow caps?  :-)

 Two of the 4 kids didn't show up... so we had the whole pool and instructor to ourselves!

 Dumping water on her head...

There was some crying (Eliz) and pleas for help ("Get me out!  Mamma help!")... but overall they did great for their first time in the water!!  And they were all smiles coming home.  Looking forward to a summer of swimming lessons!

The girl loves to draw!

Please excuse the dark pics but here's some of Emilie's random drawings (the girl draws DAILY)..

 That says "Princess Mona Lisa"  :-)

 This is actually a person holding a doggie balloon!!  WOW! 

(The person has no body b/c she ran out of room)

And this one is a mamma pushing a baby in a stroller.  :-)

Potty training update: read at your own discretion!

So they say you take 2 steps forward, and 1 step back when learning a new skill.  The good news is Eliz has had no pee accidents today!  WOW!  Granted, she is spending a LOT of time on the potty (even scooting it around the house, yes, I gave in) and watching TV sitting in her potty.  Sigh.  Whatever it takes, right??? 

Anyhow,  Jee was working from home today, and usually I leave Eliz at home to pick up Emilie from school/camp when he's home.  So I was about to pick up Emilie from camp (which she is LOVING), when Eliz had to poop.  So I had a dilemma: either I put her in a diaper to ensure no accidents occur, or I trust her to STAY on the potty while I'm gone (for 25 minutes) and ask Jee to keep a quick eye on her. 

UGH.  Well, I made the wrong choice.  I trusted her to stay on the potty, only to come home to poop on the floor.  That would not have been bad if that was it.  Really!  I would've been ok with that.  But she STEPPED in the poop and proceeded to walk all.over.the.house with her poopy feet.  She completely ruined the carpet in the living room - a cream Berber carpet we got second hand but which I really really liked - and all over the kitchen and down the stairs. 

I lost my mind when I got home.  I had one girl covered from head to toe in sand, soaking wet in her bathing suit from camp - and one more girl covered in poop - legs, feet, hands.  Let's just say I hope this never happens again.  I'm mostly sad about losing the carpet.  Sigh.  Well, hoping for a better day tomorrow!

Do it again!

I saw this great quote today:

"Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged.  They always says, “Do it again!” and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead.  

For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. 

But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony.  It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again!” to the sun, and every evening, “Do it again!” to the moon. 

It may not be automatic necessity that makes all the daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them.  

It may be that He has an eternal appetite for infancy...

for we have sinned and grown old 

and our father is younger than we. "

GK Chesterton

Let me not grow tired of "doing it again!"for the kids!

I don't know which is worse: potty training or sleep training!!!!  This is SLOW going.  She would rather hold her pee for 2+ hours than pee in the potty.  This girl hates the adult toilet.  If I can't potty train her this summer, she can't go to school in the fall.  Which is not part of the plan!!  Emilie got it in 4 days.  But she was a year older than her.  Lord help me!!  I am losing my cool every.single.hour.  Cannot wait until she gets this!

Potty Training!!!

Emilie is at camp all week for half a day, so I decided it would be the best time to potty train Elizabeth.  I definitely do not enjoy potty training!  But, so far: 2 accidents, 1 pee in the toilet.  We are getting somewhere!

Visit from my brother and family!

It was SOO nice to catch up with my brother, my awesome SIL and super cute niece last month!

Even more special, was the chance to celebrate David's birthday while he was here. 

I haven't celebrated his birthday with him since we were kids!

 Emilie clearly enjoyed the chocolate cake.  ;-)

 And the girls LOVE their cousin Ava!

Ava and Elizabeth were born 2 days apart.  :)  Jo and I were in the hospital at the same time 2 years ago having c-sections!  And now they are inseparable when they are together (which is not often enough!).

 We hit the playground a few times... love this particular one!

 Enjoying the breeze! 

 I will miss you guys so much!

Baby boy is due in October.  Can't wait to meet him!!!

Love you guys!

Now that school is over, Part II: Homeschooling, on the side

So I've been spending a lot of one-on-one time with Emilie in the afternoons while Eliz is napping, teaching her the phonetic alphabet (A says "ah", B says "buh").  She needs to know this in order to read and she's been so interested in learning how to read.  We're also working on her numbers, counting from 11-20 (she misses 15 and 11 apparently comes after 16!), and also practicing her writing skills. 

Emilie LOVES to draw!!  She is an amazing artist - like both her grandmothers, who both painted in their youth!  She is so amazingly creative and draws everything from angels to buses and submarines.  She even drew a mommy holding a baby inside her belly!  What amazes me is that every day she will think of something NEW to draw.  I for one, know that I am NOT that creative!  :)  I will have to post pictures of the drawings soon.  For now, I am really enjoying watching her love to LEARN - and it gives me such pleasure to be a small part of that.

Now that school is over...

So now that school is over, like so many moms, I wonder, "what am I going to DO with the kids all summer?!?"

 We try and spend as much time outside as possible -- when the weather is not 100 degrees and humid, as it was all last week.  This week was so much nicer!

 We do fun "experiments".  I picked up a little "rain catcher" at Tuesday Morning.  They love it!  So we leave it outside on the porch.  And after a heavy thunderstorm, they go outside and measure how many inches of rain we got.

TWO inches! 

 She was so excited.  Then we made a rain catcher notebook and decorated the pages.

 And we experiment with water and food coloring - mixing colors!

 She gets that red + yellow = orange!  And so many others combinations...

 Of course little Eliz can't be left out!

And when it's too hot to be outside... I let them burn off energy by... CLEANING!!!

They LOVE to dry mop the floor!  It's win-win for everyone, LOL!



ELF School Graduation!

I am trying to get caught up on the month of May!

Emilie's school put on a "graduation" ceremony themed "A Day at the Beach".

The kids were SO cute, singing songs about being fishes, swimming, etc etc. 

 Then each student had to stand up and say their full name, and they received a cute "diploma"!

I thought it was a really fun thing to do for the kids... to give them a sense of accomplishment for lasting a whole year in school!  ;-)

 This is Claire, one of Em's friends.  They are like 2 peas in a pod.

 It never ceases to amaze us how FAST these kids are growing up!!

Emilie's 4th

It has been SO busy here!  I didn't realize a month had gone by since my last post until Jee mentioned it last night.  

Emilie had SUCH a fun time at her birthday party!  Wish there were more pics, but I was so busy entertaining the 25 people in our house that I couldn't think about taking pictures!

 And I have to say, my costumes for the girls did not turn out as I had hoped (LOL).  In fact, Elizabeth refused to wear the blue helmet/headband I made, and Emilie's "Milli ears" stayed on her head for about, oh, 2 seconds!  Jee's BOT costume (which he made himself - wow!) was probably the highlight of the day.

She was all smiles!!  

And she loved opening all her gifts.   There's that Umizoomi pinata in the backround, which all the kids loved. Found it on ebay.  Gotta love ebay!