Busy Thanksgiving Weekend

Thanksgiving weekend was very busy. With Thanksgiving, 20 lbs of potatoes to make (thank heaven for all the help), my Mom's Birthday, my sister going through the temple, and a Bridal Shower, dealing with one sick kid and my own cold and losing my voice for the bridal shower there wasn't a slow moment to be had.

My sister Miranda looked after the girls while Nathan and I went to the temple. It was nice to be with my sister. The session was filled with family (the beauty of a small temple).

While we are at Grandma's house the girls wake up early to play, are too excited to take naps, and don't want to go to bed. Understandably they get quite cranky especially for bedtime. Mandy starts putting the girls to bed and Emily tells her, "I'm mad at you Aunt Candy." Emily cried and carried on about going to bed, a great indication that she is very tired. After she was done putting them to bed Mandy heard Meredith tell Emily, "Just go to bed, Emily." Spoken like a true sibling tired of hearing the other one cry. I have no idea why Meredith was being the good one.

In the meantime I have to get a TON of stuff done before we leave for the Holidays and my sister's wedding in less than 3 weeks. Her wedding is the day after our 5th anniversary.

Happy Halloween

Hope you had a Happy Halloween!

Potty Trained!

She's potty trained! We've gone over 48 hours with no accidents. Not even a bedtime accident. I'm so excited about it I had to share!


We did the 3-day-Potty Training program. It was sort of a rough 3 days. We started on Thursday and by 10am I was thinking, "This isn't going to work! There's no way!" Even the second day I was still thinking that. Even for half of the 3rd day I was thinking the same things but was just a little more hopeful. The evening of our 3rd day was a lot better, partly because she was tired of drinking juice! The novelty of having cool juice boxes anytime she wanted one didn't last. I guess we should have tried a tea part or something, but I was tired of the drinking thing as well.

Here they are at the end of the 3rd day watching football, eating popcorn and drinking orange juice (yes, I grew up with the same tradition and I'm keeping it). I'm just glad the house was as clean as it was. The program doesn't allow for much cleaning. You have to constantly be watching the potty trainee. :) You're also supposed to dress your child in only a shirt and underwear, I promise I really do fully clothe my children!

I can't believe how much my girls have grown!

Emily's 4th Birthday

She's 4! The wonderful things about being 4. She's been quite a good helper. This is very different from the 2-year-old kind of help. 2-year-olds can "help" more than it's worth. 4-year-olds (or almost 4) can actually help. When I tell her a friend is coming she'll pick up the living room or other little chores I can give her. Her newest favorite is rinsing off the dishes, which actually presents more of a problem because then Meredith insists and 3 people at the sink does NOT work.

She also helps out by tattling on Meredith. I know I'll need to explain that tattling isn't very nice, but it has really helped me out during Meredith's terrible two's. So, maybe after that? "Mommy, Meredith's being naughty!" I hear this a TON.

Emily loves preschool! She sort of had a rough start and didn't want to go, but now she loves it. My only complaint is that when she gets in the car she asks to go play with friends. Preschool isn't enough anymore. Meredith and Emily really miss each other when Emily is at preschool. They are very happy to see each other after those two hours. I love seeing them help each other out and be nice and share.

When I went to the parent day at preschool we did an art project together and they asked the parents to write the child's name on top of the paper. Emily wanted to do it herself! The letters might have been a little crooked, and maybe one of them was 90^ the wrong way, but it was very legible. (Great! Maybe she'll have better handwriting then me! :) I was super excited. She's learned a lot.

Our newest favorite game is to figure out what letter something starts with. (Door starts with "D", Piano starts with "P".) Sometimes I give out bigger hints and sometimes I don't have to give any hint at all.

I have loved being Emily's Mommy. It has been the fastest and best 4 years! I love you, Emily. You are such a sweet, loving, little girl.

Crafting for Boys with Ribbon!

I love crafting with ribbon for my girls, but can you find a ribbon craft for a boy?


Apparently you can! Count on me to figure out a way somehow. :) I did some ties for a friend who is having a boy. The first picture is a tie out of ribbon. Just tie the knot, cut it to the length you want, and then cut the neck part in half and put elastic there instead. (I did a REALLY small neck and just added a lot of elastic.)

The second picture I did just a little differently. The one on the left I made out of some scraps I had. The one on the right I stole one of Nathan's ties (Thank you, Nathan, for your sacrifice.) and made a baby tie with this tutorial. Although, I made a small change or two to it, so I'll just have to do one big tie tutorial with a couple of different ties. So fun to figure something out yourself. I wanted to be able to share with others how to make a tie, so I didn't want to spend 6 or 7 dollars for a pattern/tutorial, so I did it myself! No worries, I'll be ready to share soon.

Ornery 2-year-old

It's amazing when a tw0-year-old can talk. Emily didn't say much and I had no idea what she was thinking. I'm afraid that I know with Meredith.

Nathan's Conversation with Meredith:
N - "Your room is messy"
M - "That's ok. Mommy clean it."
N - "No. It's not Mommy's turn to clean it. Can you clean it?"
M - "Oh. Daddy clean it."

Meredith and I speaking this morning:
J - "Don't touch that."
M - "No, I touch that." And then she picks it up (a different item than I was talking about so I didn't stop her) and runs off.

And I'm supposed to raise this child when she's a teenager. Oh dear!

Signatures

So, I'm just playing around with the blog. I ended up with a new header and a new background and I'm just playing around with signatures. And now I think I should just go to bed. :)