Short notice

This morning was pretty chilly outside.  I loved it!!  It was only 60 out or something and i thought it was great.  Sunny and beautiful.  Everyone here is so used to it being so hot that they acted like this 60 degrees was 30 and they needed parka's or something.  hahaha  It was actually kinda humorous when i dropped Julia off at school.  Everyone saying how cold it was over and over again..."oh my gosh, its so freezing out this morning", i heard many times in a few minute period.  It made me smile, "this is your freezing cold" i thought.  And i dont even come from an area that really gets THAT cold, but still.  60 degrees in November is pretty nice and would require a hoodie, capri's and flip flops in Oregon (if it werent raining and colder)  Another beautiful thing we saw while walking my daughter to school, was a Coyote.  Yes i said beautiful :) It just ran right past us!  No biggie, headed somewhere i guess.   People out walking, kids on their bikes...didnt matter, everyone didnt seem to care much :) 

While starting my walk home, minus one kid, a friend of mine yells from across the street " are you coming to my house later today!?"  Uh, huh?  " what are you talking about, for what?"  I say.  Come to find out, Julia has a girl scout meeting today, at her house, after school.  Lovely.  I have no car, she lives a mile from the school, which means 2 miles from me.  So almost 4 miles total to and from. 4 miles may not seem like much, and it isnt much, for me.  But to have to walk that with miss Madisen, is going to be a PAIN!  Its only supposed to be 77 here.  Which is perfect because they have barely any humidity so it will be great.  But its still the sun beating down on us which feels hot.  I thought about skipping the meeting but they are decorating Christmas tree ornaments that they are going to sell at the school holiday bizarre in a couple weeks.  Plus, she only has one meeting a month, so i'd hate for her to miss it.  The whole reason i signed her up for this girl scout troop was because it was a 'meet on friday' troup, and that worked with my schedule.  UGH.  I hate having these things thrown on me last min.

My cute little pottier in training :)

So now i have to interrupt Ella's potty training to deal with this.  Wouldnt seem like a big deal but she has been dry all day and i hate to throw her in a pull up.  But i will because im not going to be trying to take her potty in a new place, this early in her training.  Also, a home that will be packed full of strangers to her and myself and i dont need the added stress of it all.  So, after finding all this out, i come home, deal with the regular routine of snack and lunch and nap the little girls.  Fit a quick shower in, start dinner in the crockpot since i knew i wouldnt be able to have much time after walking home later, and then decided to start this blog entry :)  Ella has woken up since i started this, and she was dry, and went pee on the potty!  Maybe she isnt going to be near as stubborn as i thought she was!! :) 

Well, time to go prepare little baggies of snack for the kids after school, because we wont be returning home for snack.  I really wish i had a car during the week, or a golf cart, or even a horse and buggie at this point! lol 

Until next time...

Sleep deprived and potty training....dont mix

The way she finally passes out at night lol

 For the 4th night in a row the baby has woken me more than once a night again, like when she was a newborn.  Then right after she goes back to sleep, Ella decides its time to get up.  Even though the sun isnt even up and her room is still pitch black.  She even has black out panels on the windows to keep the light out.  Julia has some too, but hers are the Target brand and let much more light in than Ella's.   Because its not even 6 am yet and Ella has woken up Madisen, as well as myself and Julia, the whole house is up.  Are you kidding me?? Its waaaaaaay to early to start the day.  Its not like everyone is up and relaxing and i can just sit on the couch and watch tv or anything.  As everyone creeps out of their rooms, i have to remind them to go to the bathroom.  You would think a mother wouldnt have to remind her 4 and 6 year old to go pee right after they get up in the morning.  But i do.  Otherwise they both hold it until as long as possible and then they fight over who gets to go first when its a matter of seconds before someone pees their pants.  Which hasnt happend yet, or at least in a very long time.  But the fighting is the wrong way to start the day.  Especially when i've gotten little sleep.  Puts me in a bad mood!  Time to feed the baby.  In the 10 min. it takes to feed her, i will be asked about breakfast at least 3 times.  Ella will say she is "hungey" and start pulling on her high chair.  That reminds me, she needs to start transitioning out of that because i need it for Aubrey soon.  Anyways, feed the baby, put her down somewhere, or hold her and make the other girls food with one hand.  I've gotten pretty skilled at making things with one hand these days. :)  Serve the girls their breakfast while i usually dont have a chance to eat mine, or im standing and taking bites as i run around the kitchen.  Emptying the dishwasher from last nights dinner dishes so it can be stuffed full a few more times through out the day.  Sometimes i really think about just using paper plates, sure would make clean up a lot easier!

I knew that potty training Ella would take, patience, time and consistency as when you're potty training any child.  She reminds me of Julia in many ways and Julia was by far my most stubborn child when it came to potty training.  I would have started 2 months ago, like i normally do, when they are 18 months old.  But as most of you know, i kinda had A LOT going on :)  Now dont get me wrong, she is being stubborn, but not as bad as i thought.  I've had her pullups the last couple weeks.  Yesterday i decided to just go all in and put her in undies.  Sure doesnt make my day any less stressful or easy.  I thought i could do the once an hour potty time, but i have to work up to that.  This girls pees all the time!!  I take her every 30 min. and she still has a few accidents a day.  Oh well, we will get there.  This is my first kid to potty train. Or even my 4th or 5th.  I used to do it for a living when i was a early preschool teacher at Kindercare for the 2-3 year old room.  I always had a class of ten, 2 year olds by myself.  They had to be potty trained and turn 3 to go into the preschool room.  My turn over rate was pretty fast cause i would have them potty trained pretty quickly.  I would get on average a new set of 10 kids every few months.  So just estimating, i've potty trained about 60 kids.  Well more like 65 kids including the ones i've nannied and my own.  Not counting Ella or Aubrey yet :)...  Goodness thats a lot of kids.  Surely i was not paid enough! lol The ones in the daycare i had fully trained by 2.5, they werent coming to my room until sometime after their 2nd birthday.  The ones i nannied and my own have all been fully trained by their 2nd birthday.  I've learned very specific ways of potty training all types of kids.  Some work best with rewards, like M&M's, others do just fine with stickers, a sticker chart, or nothing but praise and a hive five.  Just depends on the kid :)  Consistency is definitely the main focus for me.  Once i start them in undies, theres no going back, or they will not potty train as quickly.  Of course i still use pull-ups for nap and overnight.  At least for now, and until they start to be dry, i will continue to use them.  Also, in this early stage of training, i will still put a pull-up on when i leave the house.  At least until she starts to hold it for a couple hours at a time.  Even with all my training,  it is still HARD.  And requires a lot of hard work on my part.   And it sucks!  Not having enough sleep, being grumpy, and trying to keep calm isnt easy.  I still havent had my coffee!  

Madie reading

 Ok, enough about potty training.  Im so proud of my 4 year old daughter, Madisen.  Who is now reading!  She literally can read almost every word in the book "Green Eggs and Ham".  I have a video of it that i would post here, except for some reason the add video part of this blog isnt working. So a picture will have to do.  She amazes me!!  All my mommy hard work is paying off :)  

On a side note..i have a killer headache today :/  Bleh.  And still need to give Julia and Madisen a shower.  I cant wait until they are able to do that themselves! 

 A couple baby pictures to leave you smiling :) 

 Until Next time...

I DID IT! plus "WINTER" wonderland FUN

I did it! I did it! I finally tackled my closet.  Phew!  Feels so good to walk in there and not have 2 huge boxes with hangers and clothes i never wear draping all over the boxes lol.  Also cleaned the bathroom tub and counters, sink, etc.  Found a spider in the process of putting clothes away.  Those that know me, know i HATE spiders with a passion.  It boarders on arachnophobia but not quite so bad.  Since Aubrey was napping in her crib and Ella was napping in her room, which is on the other side of my closet wall, i had to be quiet.  And i was :)  I calmly walked my shirt over to the tub where i turned on the faucet and rinsed it down the drain.  Which of course i then closed to make sure it didnt crawl back out! lol  The spiders here have different markings than the spiders im used to back home, so they creep me out a little more than usual.  Anyways...mission accomplished!!  Closet and bathroom FINALLY organized.  Now its time for a ton of laundry.  Bleh.

Last saturday we attended the winter wonderland thing that Intel put on at one of the farms out here.  It was a lot of fun!  We spent 3 hours there and that was plenty! lol  Free food, but of course all the food lines were always crazy long, and since this is Arizona, it was hot standing in the sun.  Good thing we got there when it opened, and lunch was the first we got.  Barely had to wait in line for that and most of the stuff the kids went on were short lines too.  As we walked around and more people showed up, the lines were ridiculous!  The whole 'eat as much as you want thing' went out the window because there was no way either of us was going to go through a line like that more than once with 4 kids.  

After lunch the first thing the girls wanted to do, was ride a pony.  No problem, short line and it was right next to the lunch area.  SWEET! :) 

Then off we went to see and do everything there was to offer.  There was a few little kid rides like you would find at a fair.  Julia willingly went on these, but did NOT like how high they went.  Madie of course, loved it!  They got to control if it went up or down, and madie is smiling and making it go up.  And we see Julia, with huge eyes and yelling at madie that they are high enough and to make it go down!  We couldnt help but laugh.  These are rides are for 5 and under!  But she got to go on anyways lol.  

Then we spot the roller coaster.  I was sure Julia did not want to ride that!  It reminded me of the one at Oaks Park in Portland, but this shorter in height and was made of metal.  Thank goodness, that wooden one scares me! lol  Jeremy convinces the girls to sit in front, i did not think this was such a good idea, knowing how Julia feels about rides and heights and everything.  So of course after the roller coaster goes up, it must go down.  It starts it decent and i hear Julia screaming, not from excitement or joy, but from pure horror.  Then i see her face as they go around and she is balling her eyes out and her face is all red and i feel awful!  I should have told them not to sit in the front.  At this point i realize she has to go around two more times.  Here comes round two, she screams again and is kinda crying this time when i see them go around.  Im almost in tears now knowing she has to go around again.  She doesnt seem as bad as they start the 3rd go around.  Still, I hear her scream as they start to decent but this time no tears and actually as smile on her face as it comes to a stop.  She said she had fun, so i guess i can feel a little bit better about her being scared to death for the first half of it lol.  She points to the swings that a fair would have, and says i am NOT riding those.  Too bad, the swings were always one of my favorite rides!  Oh well.  As for Madie and the roller coaster... she was stoked to get on, she was happy riding it, and would definitely do it again.  Thats my girl! :)

Thumbs UP!  We did it!

Next was a petting zoo, some huge ground pillows to jump on, watched some pig races, got a tiny scoop of ice cream, but passed on the corn maze.  We were going to ride the train but the line was long, as well as the line for the hayride.  I didnt want to leave the stroller, and by this time we had already been there over 2.5 hours and it was getting pretty warm out.  

Had a baby chicken using this pig as a pillow lol

They started head butting after i took this

Started to relieve its massive bladder while i was taking this picture..haha

These things were awesome!

I wanted to go on it too!

The pig race was adorable! :)

Before we headed home, we had to make sure and stop at the pumpkin patch!!  They tried to make it like you were walking around where the pumpkins grew, but there were no vines attached to them and the small field was a little to perfect to have grown pumpkins in it.  No biggie, still had some pumpkins and the girls liked walking around and picking them up.   At least we didnt have to worry about tripping over a vine or stepping on a rotting pumpkin!  Although i do still love the Oregon pumpkin patches better :) 

Madisen

pretty empty pumpkin patch

Julia 

One more stop before it was time to leave.  The big tube slides!  The girls walked the mini hike to get up to these things while we waited at the bottom to take pictures and stay with the stroller full of sleeping kids lol

Yay for free Intel activities!  The girls had a blast!!!  

The girls loved the pumpkin ice cream! :)

The train we never rode but wanted to!

Until next time...

Puke and Pictures

My 4 beautiful girls

My 20th month old picked up the stomach bug from somewhere.  In the middle of the night i hear *cough cough* followed by screaming and crying.  Which was odd cause she NEVER does that.  I head to her room to see whats the matter and comfort her, reach to pick her up and realize she is soaked.  At that instant, i knew she had puked.  "OH GREAT, OH CRAP!!" and maybe some other not so appropriate words came out of my mouth.  On goes the light, "sorry Madie" i say to my other daughter who shares a room with Ella.  The puke was EVERYWHERE!  The kid had barely eaten anything all day, obviously now i realize it was because she didnt feel well.  I have no idea how she could throw up this much liquid when she hadnt even consumed that in over 12 hours.  Anyways, back to it, it was everywhere, and i mean everywhere!  All over her face, hair and pj's, down the side of her dresser and onto the floor, all over her mattress, blankets, pillow and carpet.  Needless to say, i had to give her a quick "bath", which was really just a quick wash down and shampoo of the hair.  Handed her off to the hubby who held her while changed her sheets and got her some clean blankets to sleep with.  All of this taking no more than 20 min. prob.  And wouldnt ya know...6:30a and she's wide awake!! Which didnt matter much because for some reason my 3 month old, Aubrey, has decided that 4:45 or if im lucky, 5:15 is her new wake up time.  She wakes up so freaking happy and adorable and cooing, but still...shes awake!! And im tired....
11 am rolls around and i start making the girls lunch.  I can see Ella is tired and wants to go take a nap, but i like her to go after 11:30 at least.  She has refused food and has only drank water the whole day.  Remember, she didnt eat the day before and puked up a gallon in the middle of the night and has once again not eaten and has only had water and ONE bite of banana at about 10.  She didnt want in her high chair for lunch, so only Madisen is eating.  I sat down to nurse the baby.  Here comes Ella all tired and kinda whinny and lays her head next Aubrey on the nursing pillow.   No signs of anything about to erupt out of her again, but by golly it sure does.  This time, covering ME, aubrey, my nursing pillow, chair, and the living room carpet.  So i yell for Julia to come quickly so she can sit and take the baby for a min. Meanwhile i grab Ella, who managed to only get a little bit on herself.   How nice, thank you Ella :)  So i strip her down and clean up her face, then go get aubrey who, thankfully, didnt have but a little on her hair, most of it was on my nursing pillow and me.  Joy.  Cleaned up Aubrey and put her in the swing.  Im surprised at how calm Ella is being while i shuffle around as fast as i can so i can eventually get to cleaning ME off.  I can tell she is feeling better, well of course she is!  She just projectile vomited all over the place, i bet her tummy feels better! lol  Off she goes for a nap, im so nervous the rest of the day and all through the night that she would throw up again.  She didnt!  She even had some of her appetite back in the am, which made me nervous it would come flying up again too, but it hasnt.  She has kept it all down since monday afternoon.  

Today is election day!  But i am more excited that its my Nana and Papa's 63rd anniversary!!  They are such amazing people.  My nana has to be the nicest person ever, i dont think she has a mean bone or thought in her body.  She truly is a saint.  And i miss her everyday that im in AZ and cant see her.  I called her today and wished them a happy anniversary.  It just makes my heart smile when i talk to her, hug her or see her.  I Love you Nana!! 

So our whole house is organized and things are all put away from moving.  This doesnt count the normal mess in the kitchen from mail and/or school stuff.  And it most certainly does not count my bedroom.  Why is it so hard for me to get in there and clean that room!  Its like i look the other way everytime i go in there or i will freak out about how messy it is.  Aubrey is going to share our room.  She has her own little corner area and a whole wall that has her crib, dresser, etc. over there.  And we have baby clothes all over my dresser, boxes of stuff that have yet to find a place to be emptied too, and a closet full of boxes that have hangers, clothes, bathroom towels or whatever in them.  I just cant seem to get the energy or the want to go through all those and put them away.  I actually started to today when Aubrey was taking a little cat nap.  But then after lunch when Ella and Aubrey go down for a good nap, i tried to tackle it again but just couldnt finish it.  It is the only time of day i can get a shower in, unless its a day my husband isnt working.  Then i can get one in at any time really.  But the days its just me and the kids, nap time is the only time.  Then i did laundry and other house things before starting this.  I think i'll tackle it later this week.  Im thinking once i get the closet all organized, i can move in the boxes that are in my room that really have no place to be emptied and i can store them in the closet and out of my view.   Anyways...thats boring for everyone, sorry! lol

Maybe a few pictures will catch your attention again :)  I love taking pictures of my girls.  I wish i had a better camera.  There are much more updated ones now, and mine always makes a gray spot appear in all the pictures and i have to go through them one by one to take it out.  Its annoying. The other morning i took a few pictures of all of my girls together and then a few random ones.  Aubrey thinks she is like 6 months old or something!  She just turned 3 months old about a week ago! lol

Aubrey's 1st time in her exersaucer!

She likes it!

Silly Ella :)

My girls of course are still making me tons of cards and drawings.  I love them!  They are soooo cute!  Julia is old enough now that hers are turning more into stories but she still whips out a card or two, or twenty over the weekend.  Here is one from Julia and Madisen yesterday.

"i love you so so so much Mommy, and myself" by Julia

By Madie

Until next time...

Pumpkins, paint, stickers and the zoo!

Walking Julia to school

Been pretty busy since my last post.  Which is good, i like being busy.  You'd think having 4 kids would keep me busy enough, and it does.  But for some reason i like having other things to do, places to go, people to see...sometimes :).  Anyways, let the kids go swimming the other day.  Its been getting kinda cold over night here now, so the temperature of the water has cooled off some.  Its not horribly cold to get into, but still that shock for a min. when it goes above your belly button, and you suck it in and hold your breath because its cold haha.  The girls didnt mind, of course.  Even Ella wanted to go in.  My husband was in with the girls while i stayed inside with the baby.  I didnt feel like getting in anyways.  If it was an in ground pool, i would get in more.  The ladder into the pool freaks me out, and its so much work trying to get dry when you have to get a baby and a toddler dry first and deal with all the soaking wet suits and towels.  And when i go swimming, i like to swim, not just stand there and walk around.  The girls like to chase me and splash and thats fine, but not when i just straightened my hair, i dont want to have to re-do it.  So i let their dad go in, its easier for guys.  About 30 min. later, he is calling for me to come get ella.  She didnt care she was getting out, but she also hadnt complained to get out.  She LOVES the water!  She didnt seem to care that the water was so cold, her legs had turned to a bright red.  She could barely walk when i got her inside because her poor little legs were so cold :(  I spent some time warming her up and getting her into dry clothes.  She thought it was funny i was rubbing her legs lol.  Her normal skin color took 3 hours to return!  

Double french braided the girls hair monday night :)

We also went and checked out Phoenix zoo this past saturday.  Ended up getting a membership because the entry fee to get in ONCE was going to cost us $60!  And thats with the 2 youngest being free.  So it made sense to just get the membership because it was cheaper than 2 visits there.  The girls had fun!  The place is great!  And we only saw half of it lol.  You can rent paddle boats!  Madie was tired of walking and was ready to leave.  We figured we might as well go, we had already spent almost 2 hours there and since we had a membership now and all year round weather to come back, we could do just that.

The girls are so excited for Halloween.  We went to Julia's Monster Mash/fall ball thing at her school on friday, after she had a fun girl scout meeting.  We showed up for the ball only to find out they required tickets.  Tickets that apparently were on sale all week.  Well i had gotten NO INFO on this, i kept waiting for something to be sent home.  I finally asked a teacher on friday, about the ball and she never mentioned needing tickets.  Im so glad we decided to not walk to the school for the ball or we would have had to walk home, to then get in the car and go to an ATM to get the cash to buy the tickets at the door.  The things we do to make our kids happy! :) The girls had fun dancing at the ball.  Madisen of course got tired and didnt feel like dancing anymore.  You'd never know with Julia and Ella that we had past their normal bedtime, they were dancing like crazy!!  Julia saw some friends there, and ran around a little bit them, but for the most part, stayed in a little circle with us and danced.  Boy does she get REALLY into it.  Its hilarious!!  I wish i could have gotten a video! 

 

The girls all ready for the Monster Mash/ Fall Costume Ball

Not sure if i mentioned before that we showed up to Chick-fil-a on daddy daughter date night.  I kinda laughed because it reminded me of the nasty White Castle having reservations for valentines day....Um gross lol.  But this was actually really cute!!  They had half the restaurant closed off for reservations only.  The food came with dessert and a little gift for the kids, plus they had a horse drawn carriage ride!  That was for anyone, so after we ate ( i got a salad, trying to lose weight!) we all rode the carriage.  The girls were so EXCITED!!  It just went around the parking lot, but it was soooooo cute!  Made me miss horse back riding even more.  I should find a place by me that does that, there is definitely enough horses around here :) 

 Since tomorrow is Halloween, and we have not carved our pumpkins yet...i know i know :(  I decided to let Madie paint hers while Julia was at school and Ella was napping.  Doing it in groups is far less stressful.  When we get home from picking up Julia, i will let her paint her pumpkin, and also let ella paint one of the small ones.  I painted the other small one that is Aubrey's since she cant do it herself this year :)  

Finished results-green dots are cheeks :)

My pumpkin of course :)

 After Madisen was done painted her pumpkin, i let her paint some pictures and then do a sticker project.  Shes had a fun day!  

PAINT

STICKERS!

 Ella and Aubrey have been asleep for over an hour now, so any min. one of them will wake up lol.  Probably the baby since Ella at least takes 2 hours naps during the day.  Also took some great pictures of Aubrey this morning.  She is such a happy baby, just melts my heart!  I love my girls so much!!

Last nights bath

From this morning

Until next time...