Newest Creation

I have been working on layouts. I think I've done about 6 in the last month. Here's the one I finished today. My niece, Chloe, and Addison last summer walking to the park. I love this photo. My LO is kind of busy and I totally lifted the idea from a magazine but I do like it. I used a lot of product on this! My birthday was Saturday . . . I'll save all the exciting info about that for a separate post. . .

2 Pee'ers in the potty!

We gave the kids potty chairs for Valentine's Day (hey, what says LOVE more than a potty). Tonight we had them sit on the potty when we were putting on their jammies. Addison has sat on our "old" potty chair many a time and never done anything even after 20 minutes. Tonight she pottied! So we made a HUGE deal about it and drug the boys out to look and immediately they wanted to sit too which is BIG cause they have never been interested in it before. Caden wouldn't budge off that potty until he went and he did! Now Ethan is another story. First there was a big tadoo about which potty we wanted (the blue one, no the white one, no the blue -- what was I thinking getting 3 different colors????) And for some reason he thinks you should put your feet in the potty too. But he did sit there for a while. What a first step, huh? Bring on the underwear . . . well maybe not yet but soon!

Ethan went to the audiologist today. His hearing test showed him to have the same amount of hearing loss in his left ear (moderate to severe) and his right ear is still measuring normal. Aaron was home sick with some sort of stomach virus and I made him watch the other 2 thinking taking 1 is easier than 3 -- wrong! Ethan was a maniac. He threw fits in every place we went. "Yelled" and told off everyone at the scrapbook store. Got super mad EVERY time I had to put him in his car seat. Another thing I noticed is when you only have one, people don't look at you in awe and say what a great kid you have. They look at you like "why can't you control that child" and "please don't have another kid and God help you if you do since you aren't handling this one very well". Here's a tip: don't take a loose kid in a scrapbook store -- bring a stroller or rope to tie them up or something. Anyway maybe I just don't notice how WILD Ethan can be when there's 3 of them or maybe he doesn't know what to do when he's alone without the other 2 to help him remember!

On another note, if my husband is sick again tomorrow I may pack up the kids and we'll go to the mall or maybe I'll just go lock myself into the bathroom for an hour or so. I can't take it! He has some stomach virus or a reaction to some new meds (we're not sure) but it is driving me crazy. I guess he is the ONLY one who has been sick and STILL had to do things like help with his own children. And I'm not kidding this illness has given him the unique gift of being in the bathroom every time I need him to help. This is day 3! I hope he's back to feeling good tomorrow and goes to work!

I did manage to get a couple scrapbook layouts completed this weekend. I think I am going to make an organized list of layouts I would like to do and get the photos printed so I have everything ready to go when I have the time. I spent a lot of time on Sunday trying to decide what photos I should scrapbook and looking for ones that were printed and couldn't find.

Remembering

Life ain't always beautiful
Sometimes it's just plain hard

Life can knock you down, it can break your heart

Life ain't always beautiful

You think you're on your way

And it's just a dead end road at the end of the day

But the struggle makes you stronger

And the changes make you wise

And happiness has it's own way of takin' it sweet time

No,life aint always beautiful

Tears will fall sometimes

Life aint always beautiful

But it's a beautiful ride

Life aint always beautiful

Some days I miss your smile

I get tired of walkin' all these lonely miles

And I wish for just one minuteI could see your pretty face

Guess I can dream, but life dont work that way

But the struggles makes me stronger

And the changes make me wise

And happiness has it's own way of takin' its sweet time

No, life aint always beautiful

But I know I'll be fine

Hey, life aint always beautiful

But its a beautiful ride

What a beautiful ride

sung by Gary Allan

By the numbers . . .

1. I have lost 5 pounds currently. It's a slow go and I'm not really doing much to help it along and once it warms up maybe I can walk to lose more.

2. It was exactly -8 degrees here today. I am TIRED of this cold weather.

3. I made $192.29 on my box of scrapbook junk on ebay -- not too shabby some stuff I got what I paid for it 7 or 8 years ago.

4. I have deleted hundreds of photos off my computer. They are almost organized. My sis volunteered to download them from her computer for me if I mail her a CD so that helps.

5. I got 1 layout done for my scrapbook class and now I am 2 weeks behind.

6. Oh yeah, I have 3 kids!

Awww . . . the memories

I love to jump from one project to another while never really finishing anything. So I am still ebaying our "clutter/junk" but then my sis tells me there is a sale on 12x12 photos for $2.49 at http://scrapbookpictures.com/.

You're thinking why would anyone want a 12x12 photo so when I see THIS:

NOW I'm all about 12x12 photos! So do I just go and pick 1 or 3 photos to make into a 12x12? Oh no, I start going through every photo I have on the computer which may I say is more than one person should have, triplets or not. Now I am spending hours looking through all photos, deleting bad ones, reorganizing the files, renaming files, and writing down ones I need to download to print to make scrapbook pages. Yeah, right, like that's going to happen. The downloading process wouldn't be that big a deal but I have dial up service and I think it took me about 2 hours to download just 10 photos . . . I want to download way more than 10 (can you believe that?). So obsessed and probably will never finish anyway. . . But am finding some cute photos like the one of the kids in one crib in their "robes" after bath when they were almost one! So cute!

We're off to open gym playgroup today . . . kids haven't left the house since the weekend -- hey neither have I!

A Pot to Pee In!

We finally have a pot to pee in . . . in our on-going remodeling project. Of course we have one upstairs too so we weren't totally potless! No sink but shower and potty is a great start.

We had our EI meeting for the kids today to find out where they stand on many fronts. Addison has been dismissed from all areas: speech, physical therapy, and developmental evaluations -- she graduated! Caden will still get speech twice a month but speech therapist thinks he will be dismissed in the next 6 months and so do I -- he is really coming along. Ethan's delays are starting to show up much stronger than before. Mainly because he has less than 10 words and a few signs. He will continue speech therapy once a week and now will get occupational therapy once a week too. He needs to increase his attention span and learn some creative play to help him stay on task with speech therapy. He is way ahead on the physical front -- at least good to hear some positive news! Then my coordinator brought up in May we will begin talking about PRESCHOOL! I thought "WHAT?" They are 27 months now and this is something to talk about for next school year when they will almost be 3. But not sure how I feel although it seems really scary at this moment. At this time I am definitely against all day preschool, 5 days a week. I am more in of a half day kind mode or 2/3 days a week kind of thing. I will learn about it in May and see what they offer and such. I'm leary of sticking them in preschool at 3 since they will not go to school until they are almost 6 -- I think going to 3 years of preschool is too much GEEZ can they enjoy being toddlers? I will start making lists of questions/concerns for the preschool person coming to meet with us in May.

I have had the hardest time being "focused" lately and I swear the sub-artic temps here in the Midwest have frozen my brain. I am behind on housecleaning, laundry, scrapbooking (I signed up for an online class and haven't done the first assignment yet and the next one will be knocking on my door tomorrow). I finally got all my EXTRA scrapbooking stuff listed I had about 15 auctions to list stuff I'm not using! I want to get it out of my way and earn a little bit of cash to go toward the new stuff coming out! Doesn't look like much does it, but photographed in somewhat of an orderly way and described nicely makes it worth about $43 currently!



Well I hear "MOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE" coming from upstairs I guess they are done napping . . .

4 kids are just as easy as 3!

I'm back . . . sorry I don't know what was wrong but I couldn't log on to my blog. I have more computer problems and don't know much about them to begin with.

My nephew came and spent the night with us from Sunday to Wednesday. Jackson is 5 months younger than us (22 months). He had never spent any nights away with his Mom or his Dad. He was soooooooo good! I thought naps and nighttime would be hard but he slept great! He is so good and it was not hard to have an extra -- he fit right in. He was glad to see his Mom and Dad yesterday and I think they were super happy to see them. It was really hard for them to let him go but they are expecting another baby in May and I said it would be nice for them to have some alone time to do "whatever". It won't be as hard for them to leave him either when they are in the hospital and they will know that he can handle it well. I miss him today!

It has been so cold here. I think the high is like 3 degrees most days. Our house is big and old. So it feels about 5 degrees inside. I have been grouchy and not feeling like getting much done. Even with 2 pair of socks on my feet are still freezing. I am all too ready for spring!

I am still on the weight loss track. I have now lost 4 pounds. That's not super great but I have not been exercising. I still want to walk but I am not going out in this cold nor am I hauling 3 kids to the mall. It is just way too cold for me. It's definitely not as hard now as it was in the beginning.

Oh yeah despite what I thought four 2-year-olds can fit into a bathtub at the same time even with one laying down!