what do you do when the kids don't nap?

Invite another 3 year old over and send them outside! The girls decided not to nap yesterday, so I called up a friend who's leaving for vacation tomorrow and offered to watch her daughter so she could get some things done. I sat back and watched as they enjoyed the water and sand. Since it's finally cooled down a little I refilled the sandbox, since it will no longer stick to the girls and make a huge mess. The sandbox hadn't had much sand in it all summer, so the girls were excited to have sand to play with again. I also turned on the sprinkler and filled up the water table. The highs are only supposed to be in the 80s, but currently it is 90 degrees. We also went to the park yesterday morning and met some neighbors! Everyone is coming out after the long summer to enjoy the nicer weather. It's the opposite of the north here, we hide in the summer and come out in the fall/winter/spring.

the most useless size

I have found that 24 month and 2T shirts are the most useless size that exist. I pretty much completely skipped this size for Hannah, going right into 3T. Yes, the 3T was a little big, but not enough to make it worth it to buy a size smaller. Well, Evie is definitely getting too tall for 18 month shirts, so I started buying a few 24 month/2T shirts from the thrift store since I didn't have many at all, thinking this would be the right size for her. I was wrong, all the shirts are way too wide and most are too short on her as well. Which means last week I went through Hannah's drawer and pulled out the 3T shirts she was still wearing and transferred them over to Evie. Craziness, I know, but it's true. Shirts Hannah was wearing just days before fit Evie and look good on her too. Which means Hannah's clothes got an upgrade from the stash of 4T clothes I had been waiting to introduce into her wardrobe until needed. I'm guessing the girls will be in the same shirt size soon, as Hannah is short torso and Evie is long torso. Here's the only pictures I could find of the girls in the same shirt.

Ok, so I don't have any good standing pictures of Evie or Hannah in the shirt, but it does fit, you'll just have to believe me.

Side shot so you can see it's not too short on her

A day in the park

Today was beautiful!! It was so nice I got the kids out of the how as fast as we could to go to the park. We were at the park this morning for about two hours, and then did toddler time at the library, after the library we made a quick grocery trip and then home for lunch. When the girls went down at 1 pm I didn't hear a peep from either of them. How nice! They slept until 4:30 and then we went to the park again for a picnic dinner with some friends. It was so nice to be out all day and made it a much easier day on me, as the girls don't fight as much when playing outside. Both girls went down for bed without a peep as well, I think Evie was asleep within minutes because she didn't even manage to get her pants off :-) The whole week is supposed to be nice weather wise, so we'll see how often we end up at the park.

Nathan had a "need" for cup cakes last night, so I made them and he brought them in to school for his presentation, and I brought them to our picnic in the park. This is what my kids normally look like eating cup cakes, but my girls did well today, so I had to take a picture of my friends daughter

Although Hannah did enjoy the treat!

totally slacking

I realized I have totally been slacking, as I haven't posted anything in almost a week! Could our lives really be that unexciting? The short answer is yes. There really hasn't been much to blog about. I've been trying to keep things low key for the past couple weeks, not having people over twice a day, or even everyday. Just trying to enjoy each day as much as that is possible with two young children who are testing every boundary setup. It really doesn't make for exciting blog entries. However, I would like to report on my experiment with no toys in the play room. That seems to be going very well. It's definitely helping to control the toys and keep the house neater, as there are not as many toys out and not as many to be carried off to every corner of the house. :-) Evie is very much into picking things up now before moving on to the next which is great. We will continue to evaluate and see how it works. I have realized that there are quiet a few items I can get rid of, as the girls are not playing with them and the extra storage space would be helpful, as I think my ultimate goal is to have all the toys in the closet under the stairs (currently there are a few there and a bunch in the office/tv room). Maybe one day all this will happen, but for now I am enjoying less toys and more purposeful interaction!

lots and LOTS of pictures!!!!

I realized I haven't posted any of the pictures from when Debbie was here. Debbie came and stayed for a week and is really good about taking pictures. Apparently the person responsible for posting them has been slacking, sorry about that. The month has been kind of crazy and as I was just posting other blog entries tonight I started going through my pictures for the first time since uploading them on to the computer and realized I hadn't posted any of them. Here they are. Enjoy!

Did I mention I slept for a LONG time after surgery? Apparently Evie was watching me :-)

Hannah and Lyn on a "train"

The girls enjoyed playing with Zach and he did a great job with them!



Everyone helped husk the corn for dinner



Debbie did a photo shot with Evie while I was at the eye doctor with Hannah


and also did one with Hannah and Evie at some point, see how I didn't know these pictures existed until tonight...Thanks for the good pictures Deb!


Aunt Debbie also did fun things like paint their nails


And read lots and lots and lots and lots of books, especially to Hannah :-)



And took other funny pictures, I think Debbie had a better shot than this one, but I like this one because the girls are laughing, I think Hannah is giving Evie a raspberry on the arm....

That's all folks, hope you enjoyed them!

getting around the gate

I know I mentioned previously that Evie is able to fit through the banister and get up the steps even when the gate was closed. Well, after having done this once or twice, she "forgot" about it for a few months, but it came back today and she did it at least five times. I got some pictures since she did it so many times.

Who me? Doing something wrong? Never!

Sunshine

We've had a lot of rain lately, so much so, that our yard is like a marsh land, so when the sun comes out the girls want to go outside! Today they played in the backyard in the sprinkler (yes, just what our yard needed, more water) because even though it's wet, it hasn't cooled down much. And had some fun on the swing set too.

They both enjoyed running through the "shower"

Did I mention Evie can climb into her swing on her own now?

And swing off the archway of the swing set? "Mommy watch"

They were playing peek-a-boo with me, Hannah hit her head on the steering wheel and wasn't too happy.

But there were smiles!

preschool day 1

Today I attempted to start preschool with Hannah and her friend Ally. Niki and I are planning to switch off teaching and just do the combined lessons once a week for about two hours. Today went fairly well, I kept it simple, books, a craft, coloring and the letter A. The girls did pretty well in general, Hannah got a little out of control towards the end and ended up in her room for some quiet time, but that's what happens when a three year old decides to stay awake until 10 pm and wake up at 6:30 am and not go back to bed. It wasn't the best start, but I think it was a good start. I've found tons of lesson plans, craft ideas, worksheet and whatever else I can imagine online and am excited to get started with a little more formal teaching. The one day a week with Ally, combined with Community Bible Study which we are doing on Thursdays I think is a very good start to some formal teaching and I'm looking forward to seeing how it works :-) I was impressed by the attention of Evie during school, I wasn't sure if I'd try and keep her engaged with what we were doing or just let her play, she stayed engaged on her own for most of the activities and only took a couple extra play breaks, so that was also a good sign. With the toys gone out of the playroom and less distractions, I hoping a short period of focused "school" each day will happen, we'll see how that goes.....at least we're off to a fairly good start!

experimenting - days 1 and 2

Sunday night after the girls went to bed I took all the toys out of the playroom in an attempt to control chaos in the house. I've put all the toys in the closet or in the office and allow them out on a request bases after the previous toy is picked up and put away.

Yesterday we went to the library and left the house around 10:40 am, before leaving I had not gotten any toys out. Kids don't really need toys do they? After nap I got out the food and dishes. The girls had a great time playing with them and serving up dish after dish. This and books was what they did for the rest of the day.

This morning Ally came over and I started doing school with her and Hannah, more on that later, so no toys were out until Evie got bored about an hour into it. Then another request for the dishes and food. After nap Evie did a great job picking these up to get out the marble works set, and then when she wanted to go outside she made sure to pick up first without being prompted.

Tonight the play room is clean again. Much less fighting to pick up, and a much more controlled environment. I think I might keep this little experiment around.

wheelin' and dealin'

Did you know you can negotiate a price at Old Navy? Probably not on everything in the store, and it probably doesn't work every time. But I was look for a new swim suit for Hannah and didn't find one at the thrift store, so I went looking at clearance sections of stores. I found a mis-matched top and bottom for a suit and brought it up to see how much it was. Too much for my blood, so I walked out, as Debbie and I were leaving I turn to her and say "I wonder if they'll take $5 for it" so we turned around and decided to find out. Sure enough they did. I've decided I really shouldn't live in America, I'd do much better in a different country where I could bargain for everything I buy. :-)

my kitchen helper

Evie loves to watch and help do whatever she can in the kitchen. Anytime I'm making something she pulls a chair over and asks if she can watch. She's gotten good at pealing garlic and helps dump ingredients in for cookies and such. The other day she was helping me with some brownies. After we were finished I let her go at the bowl.

a slow week...

I thought this was going to be a quieter, more calm week. You know, not have every day booked and just have some time to stop and think and plan maybe? I was wrong, we've had something every morning and a couple evenings as well. It's ok, there's always next week, right? The good news is yesterday I got my stitches out! I was very happy, as they had used something akin to fishing line for the stitches and they were really annoying me. Nathan also finished his first class assignment, a book report which was due Monday. His next assignment is in two weeks, although he has lots of reading to do in between. Tomorrow looks like it might turn out to be a quiet day, as our plans have been canceled.....we'll see what adventure it brings. :-)

sometimes I miss sales calls....

Ok, maybe not. But at least the sales call is at a decent hour. Today I got a non-profit call at 8:20 am and a survey call at 9:30 pm. What's up with that? I thought those kind of calls are only supposed to happen between 9 am and 9 pm. At least it wasn't as bad as the 11:30 pm political call we got one time, but they at least apologized when I emailed them to inform them they called at 11:30 and said their phone system had malfunctioned. Don't other places have phone systems that calculate the time for them and make the call automatically, at reasonable hours?

pants check

Each night when we put Hannah to bed we've started doing a pants check on Evie. Most nights she has no pants on, which means no diaper as well. I've been getting good at redressing her while she's a sleep :-) We've been putting her in diapers for naps and night still, but I'm beginning to wonder why....she doesn't actually use the diaper. If she needs to go potty she takes it off, well, actually she just takes it off in general, she's not a big fan of it anymore...but definitely when she needs to go it's off. She's managing to stay dry while sleeping, so I'm wondering if diapers are really necessary and why I bother with them?

quote of the week

We've had a lot of rain lately. There was a tropical storm that passed through most of Texas and gave everyone in the state lots of rain. We were no exception. The girls were out playing in the sandbox, which had not been properly covered, and found a worm.

Hannah comes in and says "a worm! It's beautiful. We found a worm!"

The girls are getting tired of being inside, they're itching to go out. Unlike the rest of the world that goes out during the summer and stays in during the winter, it's the opposite here in Texas. On Friday we went to an indoor bounce house, Hannah really enjoyed it, Evie not so much, but after an hour and a half they were both ready to go to a park instead. We did go to the park for a little bit after the bounce house and it was actually quite nice that day. We did make it out a few other times this week as well and have setup the water play things (pool, sprinkler, water table) again, so they're enjoying that. I can't wait for the cooler weather and park days again!

new potty = trouble

Evie doesn't like using new toilets, I don't know why, but it's been a relatively recent thing. Today was a good example. We were at a going away party for a friend and she went into the bathroom, the hosts for the party have a toddler, so they even had a small potty, I put her on the big one, she didn't go. I let her try the small one, didn't like that, so back on the big one she went. She still wouldn't go, gets down and says "no thank you, no thank you" very typical Evie response. I let her go and within five minutes she had striped and peed in a ball pit. The good thing was the ball pit was just a small inflatable swimming pool, so it was easy to clean out. The other good part is she took off her clothes before going, as I had forgotten a backup outfit for her this was a very good thing. :-) Other Evie adventures from the party, she found the crayons, but fortunately I caught her before she colored on anything. She also managed to climb and get bubbles off a very high shelf, open the container and attempt to blow them, all without spilling the bubbles. It was pretty impressive, and since she didn't actually cause any damage everyone was pretty amused with all she was able to do.

my computer's been hi-jacked

Nathan has a book report due Monday. This means he's on the computer every evening, which is when I normally blog. Our desk top died in the spring, and we haven't done anything fix it....so I have no computer to use while he's doing homework. The girls haven't been napping well, so nap time blogging hasn't been happening. Hopefully in the next day or two I'll be able to update the blog with stories from the past week, but for now, Nathan needs the computer back.

since last time....

A lot has happened since my last post. The long weekend has been a busy one. My sister Debbie came into town on Thursday, Friday I had minor out patient surgery to remove a cyst and slept pretty much the rest of the day :-) Debbie helped with the girls, which included taking them to the library to see a firetruck and ambulance. Saturday was a birthday party in the morning and then we took Debbie out for Mexican that night. Sunday was church and a visit with Lyn and Zach. We celebrated Lyn's birthday since it was just a week ago and had some yummy cake and ice cream :-) Today was a little more low key, trying to keep the girls out of Daddy's way while he worked on a book report, and then I had a private swim lesson in the evening. This week Community Bible study starts on Thursday, so we'll be getting into our fall schedule. Hopefully the weekends will slow down a little in the fall, but we'll see.

swimming lessons!

We just finished another round of swimming lessons today. All the kids did really well and it was a lot of fun. I remembered to bring my camera to lessons today, so I took some pictures of the kids while swimming.

I had the three year olds start each lesson with five bobs.

I thought this was a really cool picture :-)

Here are the water babies, which were the under twos, picking up rings off the step.

During the water babies class I kicked all the big kids out, so I actually got to focus on Evie which was fun.