Mickey Mouse

Tuesdays are our pj days for me and the kids - the only day of the week that we don't have to be somewhere or do something. So today I was switching out sizes for the kids and getting my winter stuff out. Schlepping stuff to and from the attic. We had an incident with a mouse. A mommy mouse and a couple mouselings (still too new to be mobile - praise the Lord) made their way into my bedroom via a bag of sweaters that came from the attic. Ted had a head to head with the mouse and I came pretty darn close to a full fledged panic attack. I actually scared Ben when I called him b/c I don't panic about stuff. BUT, all is well now. Please don't ask Ted about it. We're trying to forget about it. I am, however, interested to see what he tells everyone at preschool tomorrow.

Catching up on pictures . . .

This is how Sophie has been eating lately.


Do you have anything else to entertain me?



Family dinner at the Tuel's.

Will & Ben Santen and Ted doing silly string.

Sophie's 1st Young Life sweatshirt. Thanks, Jaclyn!
Lost Canyon, AZ

Sophie trying to eat her entire hand. Check out those arms.

This is for you, Sara

Our weekend in review . . .

Sophie's hair was driving me CRAZY! I couldn't stand all that stringy hair in the back . . . and the forming rat tail.




So, I cut it. Not very straight b/c it's hard to cut hair on a bobble head!! But it's SO much better.


This is all the hair I cut off.

In the meantime, Ted's sitting on the other side of the kitchen in his underwear getting his hair cut while trying to get every single piece of hair off of him. I wonder where he gets his obessiveness?

We had a work day on the River Camp room at church - painting, decorating, etc. Ted played in the kayak a lot of the day.

This is our friend Sydney. She is a couple months younger than Ted and is dying for a baby sister. So, we help her parents out and take Sophie over to play. Sydney gets her baby fix for awhile and Ted gets to play with all her cool toys!

I took both kids grocery shopping for the first time on Sunday. Ted has to stay in the seat of the cart - otherwise he climbs everywhere. So I put Sophie in her seat in the cart. Doesn't leave a lot of room for groceries. Poor thing got to hold the bread, eggs, and other misc items. I didn't have the camera for that one . . . you'll have to use your imaginations!

fun things that happened today

1. I found Nick Jr. and Noggin stuff on "On Demand." I'm glad that I let the cable guy talk me into keeping some parts of cable - at least temporarily. WOOHOO!

2. At bible study today, I realized some fun things about what God is teaching me about ME. Not about ministry or others or for me to pass on to others.

3. Ted and I did ALL of his puzzles tonight and played two game of Nemo Memory. Then we shared a bowl of ice cream at the start of the Mountaineer game. Baniwa and chocwat. =)

4. Sophie moved out of her swaddle to a sleep sack!!! (I'm sure the grandmother's will be thrilled!) I'll have to post pictures of that sequence sometime.

5. Ben came home in the middle of the day and we had family snuggle time in bed.

6. At our staff meeting today, Sophie was sitting on my lap watching everyone and just fell asleep. It was so sweet that she felt comfortable enough to drift off to dream world without snuggling or her thumb. (That cat nap totally screwed up her afternoon nap schedule but it was worth it).

7. Sophie added applesauce to her diet. We've done cereal and bananas so far. Bananas were not good - she actually gagged on those. We'll try those again at a later date.

8. I realized today that Ted is changing how he plays. He's starting to pretend more. Today he was a monkey, bear, lion, and donkey. He's also starting to build things instead of just line them up (ie the food from the cabinet being my castle).

punkin

Everytime Ted says "pumpkin" it sounds like he's saying "bucket." Don't know how that one works.

We had a family pumpkin carving night which ended up with Ben doing all the work.



Ted waiting in great anticipation to "open the punkin."



Drumming on the punkin while waiting for Daddy to get the top off and scrape a little.



Crying b/c he got punkin guts on his hands.

Seriously, he wouldn't get near it. So Ben did all the work while Ted drummed on the pumpkin hitting Ben's knuckles several times. Needless to say, it definitely wasn't the fun family night we had in mind!

In case you didn't notice, we had a pj day yesterday!

Thoughts . . .

I have come to truly cherish 8:00 pm. It is the end to my "work day" in all senses of "work." I no longer feel guilty about sitting down to watch a little tv, read, blog, etc. Occassionally, I'll fold a load or two of laundry or wash some bottles. But it's now my time - or my time with Ben when he's home in the evenings.

Today I did the unthinkable . . . I got rid of Noggin!! I just don't think it's where we need to be spending our money right now. At 7pm I started to panic. Seriously. But we have a Diego dvd that made it for tonight. It threw Ted off a bit b/c he was waiting for Dora. If you happen to have DVR and would like to record a couple of episodes of Diego, Dora, or Backyardigans, we'll pay for the dvd's!!! It has become part of his wind down time in the evenings - he gets pretty crazy between 5pm and 7pm. 7-8 pm is when I get the house straigthened up and get everyone ready for morning. I have to call the cable company back tomorrow. You know when you call to cancel stuff and they start giving you deals - yeah, well, I have to call again tomorrow and stick to my guns! =)

I have also come to love blogging. I love to journal but I'm terrible about doing it for the kids. I'm looking at this as a sort of scrapbook for them. Ted has about 1/4 of a baby book. Sophie has none. So, this will be their books! I'm alright with photo albums but getting further and further behind. Maybe I'll just have to have a photo weekend! I wish that I would've known about blogging when Ted was a baby. The stories we could've told . . .


So yesterday, I didn't really plan to clean out my cabinets. But Ted wanted to build me a castle. It's been needed for quite some time!

Ted's 3rd Birthday

Well, Ted is officially 3! I'm feeling a little mushy I guess. I can't believe he's 3. He has officially moved from a toddler to a preschooler. For the first time in my life, I feel a little old. Saying I have a 3 year old seems bigger. I feel like 2 wasn't the greatest year for him. I started getting sick with Sophie on his 2nd birthday. I layed around until May, then his life completely changed. I'm proud of how he's handled it all. We were talking about some of the highlights when we snuggled in bed last night: playing with Kennedy and Rachel all the time, getting to spend several weeks through the year with his grandparents, getting a baby sister, learning to talk, being more independent, no more diapers, getting to go to big places with Daddy, fewer breathing treatments and doctor visits. It was a good year.

We had a good but busy birthday. I was at a women's retreat Friday and Saturday. So Doh (Ben's Mom) came to hang with Ben and the kids. They bought pumpkins, played, and made cookies on a stick to take to preschool. On Sunday, we did the typical 8 am-1 pm stint at church, had family naptime, opened presents, and had some birthday ice cream (no need to compete with Doh's cakes). His friend Ben came over with his family to give Ted a birthday present and stayed to watch some football (they don't have cable). We were going to carve pumpkins but, by the end of all that, it was bedtime! Today he took his cookies on a stick to preschool and they were a BIG hit. Thanks, Doh! We didn't get many pictures from yesterday - sorry. But we're going to carve pumpkins tomorrow. Stay tuned . . .

The best laid plans . . .

I told you about the fabulous weekend that we had planned in my last blog. But how quickly things change . . .



My parents left Charleston with the kids around 1:00 pm on Friday. Ted went to preschool Friday morning and was feeling pretty good. I gave him a breathing treatment and he was a little junky but otherwise he was fine. By 6:30 pm, we go the phone call that he had a 102 degree temperature, was throwing up, and wouldn't stop crying. Our plans went out the window and we drove to New Martinsville after half-time of the GW football game. (BTW congratulations to Beth Anne who won Homecoming Queen - woohoo!). I MIGHT have left him there but Ben's folks were working and sick and my dad had a class all day Saturday. So I couldn't leave my mom on her own Saturday for us to go to a football game.

I choose to sleep in Ted's room as oppossed to sharing a room with Sophie. She's pretty noisy when she sleeps. Bad idea. Ted was THRILLED to have a roommate and couldn't go back to sleep. It was after 3am when he finally went to sleep and was up again by 6!!! Ben wanted to have lunch with Grandad at the Court Restuarant so we decided that we would stay through the WVU game. Ben called after lunch to lament over the fact that NOT ONE station in the local area was carrying the game. Evidently that wasn't such a bad thing b/c the game was pretty ugly. So he listened to it on the radio.

Terri felt better after the morning and decided she could finish up Ted's cake so we had an impromptu birthday party on Grandad's front porch. Backyardigan cake and everything. It was a great ending to a kind of lousy weekend. But that's the price of parenthood.




The hit gift of the birthday party - silly glasses from the Dollar Store. Grandad wanted a piece of that action!



Ted's AWESOME Backyardigan cake with Uniqua (U-knee-ka-wha as Ted says) and Pablo. Uniqua is the pink something or other and Pablo is the blue penguin in case you're not up on the lastest kid's shows.



Sophie slept through some of the party. Please disregard greasy bangs from lack of bathing!

Allergy Season

Allergy season is rough at our house . . . especially when I insist on keeping the windows open. Who doesn't want this nice evening air going through their house, not to mention keeping the electric bill down. But Ted struggles. It all just settles in his chest. And I'm terrible at discerning when he needs to stay home and rest. (I will say this has been the longest stint EVER w/o a breathing treatment - woohoo!) So this morning we were at the church putting Sophie down for a nap, going to do a little work before bible study, and Ted just couldn't quit coughing. Enough that he was coughing up stuff. So when he finally asked, "What is this stuff in my mouth?" (Sorry for being gross!) I knew it was time to go home for another breathing treatment and some of our favorite medicines. So, we spent the day at home. I let him watch a lot of tv to rest. He had french toast for dinner and we snuggled on the couch a lot.

When he was going to bed, he asked if he could sleep in my bed. He's NEVER slept in our bed - with or without us. We've just never done that. I thought it would be fun for him. I can hear him better b/c the door is open and it's a little closer to the living room. And he's back there singing. He goes between Blessed Be Your Name, Country Roads, and talking about the penguins he saw on the episode of Diego right before he went to bed. I peeked in on him and he looks so cute laying there in the big bed with the covers up to his neck. . .

Both kids are going to New Martinsville tomorrow to spend the weekend with the grandparents. Doh & John Pap are Ben's folks. Dampa and Gary Pap are mine. Ted made those names up himself. It's the first time I've left Sophie. Sigh. But she's so good I'm not really worried. Ben and I are going to the WVU game on Saturday and coming back to Charleston for church duties on Sunday. Then we're going back to NM on Sunday after church to have Ted's family birthday party. He's turning 3! Can't wait to share the pictures with you . . .

Ted's 1st Day of PreSchool

FYI: We are in full swing of Young Life season. Ben is gone a lot in the evenings and my children go to bed by 8:00 pm. Sure I could read a good book, clean my house, fold the piles of laundry, do a little work, and the list goes on. But by this time of the day I'm ready to be done. So I'm currently watching one of those shows on TLC about people that have a gazillion children (that's an entirely differnt blog!) and wasting time on Facebook and posting a blog. That's way more fun than anything I listed above! =) So that gives me plenty of time to share all the details of life. I guess that's the beautiful thing about a blog . . . people don't have to read it if they don't want to.

Last night we went to Chuck E Cheese's as Ted's reward for filling up his "pooping in the potty"chart with stickers. I think we've really turned a corner in that regard. However, I thought the days of getting peed on were long gone. In the past week I've been peed on no less than 4 times. This aiming thing isn't as easy as it looks evidently.

Ted had his first day of preschool today. He was such a champ. Up until about two weeks ago, anytime we've left him with a sitter or at church, we've been in major meltdown mode. But, again, we've turned the corner. No tears. No "are you leaving me, Mommy?" He just jumped right in. I picked him up (in the same clothes I left him in!!!) at noon and he told me about coloring, walking in a line, being quiet in line (putting his fingers on his nose to show me how he was quiet) and that he had so much fun and wants to go back to preschool. Hey, I'll take that.

Ted goes to preschool . . . and potty training (part 3)

So, I think Ted is ready for preschool. He is doing really well with potty training. Mostly b/c he won't go to the potty for anyone but us. He totally holds it. So I think that it will work to our advantage. We have had a couple #2 issues as of recent but I have figured out that negative consequences (taking away tv or his puzzles) are much more effective than positive reinforcement (ring pops, stickers on his Chuck E Cheese Chart, etc). So last night, he pooped in his pants while I was working at the church. I decided to get serious and take away the blankies. He's been a little more attached recently and I wanted him to know that I meant business. I prepared myself the whole way home for tears, screams, and general ill will towards me. But all I got was:

Ted: Can I have my blankets, Mommy?

Mommy: Not until you poop in the potty.

Ted: Oh. Night, night Mommy,

AND THAT WAS IT! The child has not slept without a blankie since he was 6 months old. Perhaps I made it more of an attachment than I did. This morning he wanted to watch "one of my shows" on tv. He sure did go in a hurry this morning.

This afternoon, we went to his class at the YMCA and he got to see the classroom, have a snack, and meet some of the other kids. . . So, Monday morning at 8:oo am, he'll be walking into preschool with his little Spider Man backpack. I'll let you know how it goes.







Drumming with Roger. Ted was in heaven.

Sophie turn 4 months

Sophie went for her 4 month check up on Wednesday. She weighs 16 pounds. Apparently, babies are suppossed to double their birth weight by the time they are six months old - Sophie weighed 7 pounds at birth - YIKES! We are a little ahead of the game. Our doctor suggested we start her on cereal and that might help with calorie intake from formula! She is in the 90th percentile for her weight, 26th for her height, and 90th for her head! We'll call her pudgy, stout, and smart! =) She's been rolling over from her back to her belly for about a month. She did it accidently for awhile just trying to get her fingers. But the other day she pushed herself back over from her belly to her back. She was exceptionally smiley and cordial. She just smiled and talked through all the poking and proding.


So, we gave her some cereal this morning . . .


getting psyched to eat some cereal . . .



not sure what to do with the cereal once it hits her mouth . . . during this picture she got a little impatient and went for the thumb . . .





. . . so i pulled her thumb out and she went for the hair. needless to say we ended up with a bath after all this. more cereal ON her than IN her! =)