Success

We have had a very hard time of potty training Josh. People would give us the know how on potty training and absolutely nothing worked. As parents we were really tried of people telling us that our child had to be potty trained I knew that. As a mother of just boys I have not had that child who walks up to me and tells me their ready. We've been working on Josh for the last six months with absolutely no success till today. I'm so happy for Josh taking the step to potty training. He was so happy with himself. For the last week since I went out and purchased a musical potty chair that sits on the floor I have been making Josh sit on it for 10 min at a time every thirty minutes and I was getting really angry and frustrated that he would wait till he was off the potty to use his pants or the floor. So when I was in the living room with Eric and heard the music from the potty I thought oh Josh is just messing with his potty well the next thing I heard was, " Mommy I did it!" Well I went to see what he had done and yes he had gone and used the potty with out me even telling him to. Now I can feel like a mommy who is teaching her child instead of pulling my hair out in frustration. Good Job Josh! :)

What do you do with your left over PVC pipe?

My Father in law was really good at estimating how much PVC piping we needed. There was just a four foot pipe left when he was done putting in our sprinkler system. So what do you do with the left over? Well we turned it into a batting tee. Josh loved being able to hit the ball without the tee falling over. You can always find something to do with the left overs. I also put a picture of Jason and Josh working together to put the play area boarder in. Our yard is already looking better and if this 65 mile an hour wind would stop we'd put the play ground bark in but that will have to wait till anther day. Enjoy :)

Working on the yard

This last week Jason's Dad had work to do in Reno so between work visits and lunch dates and dinner appointments he also fit time in to do our sprinkler system in our back yard. He is so wonderful he saved us a couple thousand $$. This is what my yard has been looking like the last couple of days, until we have the trenches filled in Josh can't go out and play because it's kinda dangerous so I've been entertaining him and Eric so I hope my husband can find some time to fill in the trenches so I can release the boys out into their natural environment.

Nine Months!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can't believe that my precious big baby is nine months old.
What can Eric do now
He has mastered rolling he can get anywhere he wants when rolling to it. he is close to crawling but thankfully he is not there yet.
He has six sharp teeth,
He has started to eat little chunks of meat
he loves to feed him self crackers and pieces of fruit or veggies.
He has the sweetest little personality he is so laid back and very happy.
He loves to be with his big brother.
We love our beautiful baby boy and enjoy having him in our family.
His Dr's visit is tomorrow so I don't know how much weight he has gained so I'll update later.

Weekend in Cali

We always have fun in California when we visit family. The weekend trip had been put off for about three weeks so we were very excited to go we usually go monthly but with family coming and seeing us more often and all the nasty viruses lurking around our house we had not been back since Christmas. So we played a lot with Grandma and Aunt Jenna and Dilyn. The men were busy helping someone put their garden in so Saturday was full of fun at the park. Then when the men did come home we had fun with them too. Sunday was fun we relax in the wonderful weather wearing t shirts and shorts and just having fun till Josh decided to fall into the pond. We were all worried till he was crying in the water shoulders above. It was actually a very funny sight. Well we cleaned him up and the whole time I was changing him he kept asking "what happened I fell in." Then as soon as all his clothes were back on and he was semi clean again he was right back to the pond. The weekend was fun and as always way to short. Now we look forward to getting back to work on our yard and turning it into our personal paradise.

Backyard fun

Jason and I are finally going to finish our backyard this year so that we have a nice place to relax after a long day and watch the boys having fun in a safe environment. As part of the work we built a new swing set that has a fort attached and has become Josh's new favorite place to play. He dose not want to watch TV as much as he use to now he wants to play in the backyard. This is just the start to our design and fun. Enjoy

St. Patty's day fun

We are not much of a St. Patty's day fun fest at our house but having a kid that goes to school we did try to make it fun for Josh and Eric by making green milk and wearing green all day. That's about as St. Patty's day as we get at our house. We don't eat red meat so the corned beef was out and well we've been super busy this week building a park in our backyard to really sit down and eat a dinner together you know we only have a couple of hours a day to work on a project that has taken us about twenty hours to complete. I'll show pictures of the creation in a couple of days. We do work on it together as a family so we are together at the end of every day. This week TV has been mostly off which I love I can't wait till our backyard is finished and we can spend the summer days outside plying in our private park and reading. Or spending quiet evenings out side after the boys have gone to bed. Can you tell I'm a little excited to finish our backyard after two years of it being a massive sandbox? Well the update pics on the back yard will be posted soon. Hope everyone enjoyed their version of the St. Patty's day semi holiday. One of the pictures that I posted is of Eric showing off his one little tooth on the bottom and lots of teeth on top. He just cut another tooth on the bottom yesterday so that little tooth will not be alone for long.

Conversations of Josh

It always amazes me how much Josh has blossomed over a year. He talks all the time now. today's conversation went something like this.

Mommy: Josh why are you in the Freezer?
Josh: I'm hungry
Mommy: okay what do you want to eat?
Josh: oh I don't know let me see, ummmmm I don't know.
Mommy: well there's a corn dog, chicken nuggets.
Josh: no no no no no thank you mommy not those.
Mommy: well then what is it that you really want?
Josh: ummmmmmmmmm Chocolate please
Mommy: that is not a lunch
Josh: I know I'll eat a cheese stick too. Thank you Mommy

I did end up giving him the chocolate just because he was to cute not to.
now that is a boy who knows how to negotiate.

Gotta love them

The last couple of weeks everyone in our house has been sick but now after antibiotics we are feeling much better. The coughing is down the crying is down and the laughter has picked up a lot. Eric loves food its just part of his personality and with his new teeth he can chew on anything that looks scrumptious. Josh, now there is a boy who has little use for food but loves art. He can actually draw things better than his parents. Today while I was having an exceptionally painful migraine which happens from time to time and waiting for the pain relievers to kick in heard her boys giggling so I investigated. I found Josh and Eric sitting up in Eric's crib playing together with the crib toy. Now Eric can not sit up when he has been laying flat on his back on his own yet so I know he had some help from his brother and I'm glad no one was hurt in the process because Eric is one big boy and Josh is kinda small for his age but I did get some great pictures of the boys playing and laughing together. Unfortunately I erased the best one on accident because I was trying to focus with a migraine which for anyone who has had a migraine knows that is next to impossible. So after waiting a few minutes longer till my head was no longer ringing I was able to get a couple of really cute pictures of my wonderful boys that I love so much.

Tired, Frustrated and very much discouraged

Our house was attacked by a very nasty virus a couple weeks ago, it started with Josh as a harmless little cold that turned into an attacker over night. It spread to Eric and then to Jason and finally to me. The whole family has been sick for two weeks now and getting very tired of it. We were happy to go to Church yesterday because it has been a few weeks , which for us is an eternity. We love church more than we can describe. It is very hard for us to even miss for sickness. Anyway Josh has been on antibiotics for a few days and doing well.After church we looked at Eric to find he had pink eye. Now Eric is on antibiotics because he is not doing well but will be soon. I'm going to the Dr's tomorrow because I'm really not doing well and Jason is off and on on how he feels so we don't know if he will go to the Dr's. This sickness in our home is effecting our abilities to do our work and function. We're tired of sickness, were frustrated that we missed out on seeing family over the weekend. Jason's brother will be leaving on a mission in a few months and we wanted to see him as often as possible before he leaves and that is being thwarted by sickness. We're discouraged because in the six years that Jason and I have been a couple we have never been this sick for this long. We are a healthy family. Our boys rarely ever get sick and we get sick maybe once a year with mild colds and it lasts for a couple of days and after that we're on our way. I will say that the past couple of weeks have taught us a couple of valuable lessons. We have had our endurance tested,our faith tested and our patience pushed to the limit. I know that when my family is all better we will have more appreciation for our good health and modern medicine. Keep us in your prayers we really want to go see family this weekend so we can be with those that love us. It's really lonely here in NV with the closest family two hours away which when we're talking about going over the sierra mountains in the winter can turn into seven hours. I just pray that the Lord will be merciful and decide that our lesson was learned and lift this sickness off of us so we can be with family.

Antibiotics, such a blessing

Josh has had two of his three doses of medicine today and the difference is like night and day. He is eating again and playing in his room. He just came up to me thanked me for making his head feel better. There is no greater joy in a Mothers life than when her children start feeling better after being really sick and thanking their mother for taking care of them. I feel so blessed to have Josh as my son he is very much like his father, very considerate of others and unfailingly kind.

Trip to the Dr's

Josh has been one very sick little guy for six days now with very high fevers. I talked to a nurse to see if he had an ear infection and they told me no he was infected with H1N1 virus and that in a few days it would burn off the virus. Well four days later I went into the Dr.s with him to see what was really bothering him the diagnosis was........ he dose not have H1N1, he has Pink eye, Two really bad ear infections, strep throat,and a nasal infection. The Dr. looked at Josh and asked him if he was in any pain, my very brave little boy said, "I'm okay can I have a sticker". Dr. Clark scratched his head and told me that I had one very brave little guy who was taking all the pain in amazing strides.
I had a nasal infection a little over a year ago and was in excruciating pain. My little boy has a lot more pain than he is letting anyone on to. Well now he is taking an antibiotic to get rid of the mess reeking havoc on his little body. By Sunday he should be able to go to church and be my healthy happy boy. Now we need to focus on getting him to eat food and gain back the weight he lost. Next time Josh has a high fever and tells me his ear is sore I'm taking him to the Dr's not a nurse. I Did have the Dr. take a look at Eric because I was worried Eric would have pink eye but no Eric is nice and cleared up thank goodness, Eric is over his nasty cold. For my overly worried parents None of us have H1N1 just colds.

Kids will be Kids

Eric wants to crawl so bad he keeps rocking back and forth and when he ends up going backwards he gets really mad cause that is not the direction he wanted to go in. I'm so relieved that one of my boys is 96% better now if I could just get my picky eater to get well. We were told that the reason this nasty virus is attacking Josh more than the rest of us is that he is suffering from malnutrition among other things. Now doesn't that just make a mother feel great, that her child is not fed well. I do try to feed him it's Josh that wont eat and when he is sick he goes on a food strike. So I'm really looking forward to him getting well. The virus has passed it's contagious phase but his little body is going to be suffering from the effects for a few days more, poor little guy. As for Eric I've tried to tell him that he really doesn't want to crawl what he really needs is to stay my chubby little baby a little bit longer, we'll see if he listens to me or if he decides to become mobile.
Eric is already a fast little boy I can't prepare food while holding him because he grabs the food as fast as he can and shoves the food in his mouth like I'm going to starve him if he doesn't feed himself. He's become very uninterested in his baby food and just wants ours, which I don't tend to give him due to his age. How do I have one child who hates food and one who loves food. I always thought it was how the parents taught their kids. I'm finding that how much a child likes to eat has little relevance to how much a parent has taught them about food.
Kids will be Kids