Stranded in Pottyland...

A two-year old is kind of like having a blender, but you don't have a top for it.
Jerry Seinfeld

 I was so excited that we reached a breakthrough in potty training last week with Alexis. Until then, she or Avery would only go after sitting for forever and me giving them tons of juice until they couldn't help themselves any longer. Well, you can imagine that technique just wasn't gonna work for us. But at some point last week I took everything off of Alexis and 10 minutes later she went in there all by herself and came out yelling "I went potty, I want a sucker!" Of course I had to give her one. And then she went about 20 more times that day and has been doing pretty good ever since. No pooping yet, but I'm just glad to have made the progress we have.

So of course since she's going, Emory and Avery want to go too. Emory does actually go sometimes, Avery rarely. But unlike Alexis, they will need to sit a while and I've learned that lots of damage can be done by three toddler/ preschoolers in the midst of potty training. In the past two days here are some of the things we've experienced;

• twice I've walked in and two of them were in the bathroom pouring water all over the counter & on the floor... 
• while I was in the bathroom with Avery, Emory walked out without a diaper after sitting but not going. A few minutes later she apparently peed all over the wood floor, walked through it, and fell in it.
• Someone got hold of some random stinky diapers that were folded up. They put them in their toy basket. I found them today while I was picking up toys and smelled a very unpleasant odor.
• Avery dropped Kaleigh's walkie talkie in the toilet. I was standing right there but wasn't fast enough to stop her. 

I'm sure there will be plenty more "fun" to come. But what can you do but laugh and be glad this stage doesn't last forever! And there are some real funny moments, like walking in Kaleigh's room and finding Avery sitting on her new IKEA potty like this -

Truly a queen on her "throne"

Book Reviews

A lot of my friends are having Hunger Games withdrawal & looking for a new book to read. I've been suggesting b/c it is the same genre - this series

 Uglies by Scott Westerfeld
This is set in a futuristic sort of Utopian society. In an effort to keep peace, every citizen is given surgery at  age 16 to become "pretty". Tally Youngblood is the central character & right up until her birthday is looking forward to following the future set before her. Then her best friend Shay inexplicably disappears. Tally is called upon by the law to become a spy of sorts & find Shay by following clues to where she may be. Along the way she finds out some terrible things that threaten to undo her whole way of thinking. And she meets David. There's always a David, isn't there?
This is the first book in a trilogy. The 2nd & 3rd are called Pretties & Specials. And even an extra book called, well, Extras.

I also read a stand alone book that I liked called

 The Scent of Rain & Lightning by Nancy Pickard
We open meeting Jody Linder, age 25 and slowly come to find out her story and even parts of her story that she doesn't know. At age 3 her parents were murdered and over 20 years later the past & present collide when the killer is freed from prison and returning to her very town. Without giving too much away, this is a mystery; a story about love, family, loyalty, greed and all the things that make people do crazy things. There are twists and the ending is pretty shocking. I will be reading more by this author...

I don't ever buy books, just check them out from the library so I can't offer to loan these to you but they are pretty popular & easy to find. Hope you enjoy but if you don't it won't hurt my feelings :)

My Review on SwagBucks

Swagbucks is super easy to use. All you have to do is register, sign in, and use their search function. I signed up for Swagbucks once before and didn't really understand what they were about so I didn't earn much & was discouraged quickly. This time around I'm loving it! Swagbucks is basically just a search engine, like Google, only they pay you to use it.

My method of earning is to use their downloadable toolbar. Any time I want to search, I just type it in their search box & it randomly award "bucks".  I'd say one of five searches results in bucks. Searches are saved so now I rarely have to type anything, I just select "hotmail", "facebook" or whatever in the drop down menu. An added plus when I've forgotten what I was doing by the time I got to my computer :)

Although there are many other ways to earn, this is the only one I've used and it's working for me. In about 4 months time I've earned enough for 5 $5 amazon gift cards. And I haven't once spent any extra $, signed up for anything or wasted my time doing anything I wouldn't normally.

It's pretty effortless for something I will most definitely use. (And I would have spent that money at Amazon anyway.) I've found that on most days, I can earn anywhere from 20 to 60 Swagbucks. There are all kinds of prizes but I'll stick with the Amazon cards for now.

When you sign up, you'll get some Swag Bucks to get you started. If you'd kindly sign up through my link  http://www.swagbucks.com/refer/shellstat I'll earn a Swag Buck every time you do. Yes, this is also a shameless plug but I wouldn't recommend it without knowing that it does work. Give it a try for a month or two, and I think you will be happy with it, but if not, you are not "out" anything.

Endless Summer

Summer is the time when one sheds one's tensions with one's clothes, and the right kind of day is jeweled balm for the battered spirit.  A few of those days and you can become drunk with the belief that all's right with the world.  ~Ada Louise Huxtable
 

These two are going to be trouble!

I don't know about you, but our summer is flying by. We had a fun 4th of July weekend even though Nathan and I were both mourning the fact that we should have been on our annual Guys & Wives Reunion fishing & catching up with old friends. He more than I was probably mourning! We still had fun though, had a couple of friends over and Nathan constructed this lovely slip & slide in our backyard. Because our yard does have a slight hill, it was great for that, but it also has an abrupt steep drop into a creek. So Nathan had to construct a barricade at the end using our old deck railing and some 2x4s. It was a true redneck water slide if you ask me, but it was fun anyway. Wish we could keep it but that wouldn't bode so well for the grass in our yard. What little is left of it anyway...

This photo was popular on facebook - Sara's face says it all!

Nathan's barricade at the end! Nice, huh?

Noah picked up some speed on the way down - trying to slow himself a little!

I got in the spirit of the 4th & made some festive goodies to go with our grilled chicken and sides. I made the Liberty berries by dipping the strawberry into white chocolate then into blue colored sugar. So easy and soooo good. Kaleigh helped me decorate the cookies. She used most of the sprinkles on one cookie, then we had to ration the rest! 

We ended the evening with watching the Benton fireworks show then doing a few of our own. The twins didn't scream this time but they also didn't watch much. Just hid their heads in our necks. Avery was trembling from head to toe when they started, poor thing.

New York - VBS Style!

I'm so tired but I want to go ahead & post while this is still fresh & not majorly old news. We just finished up VBS this week. I worked in 4th grade crafts (no diaper changing for me, thank you) and we had a great week. Super busy, never an idle moment, but fun too. The kids in our classes were wonderful and I hope they learned lots.

My kids seemed to have a great time. Emory charmed her teachers and Kaleigh always has fun so this week was no exception. And the twins walked into their room each day without hesitation so I can only assume they were glad to be there. Not sure how much they learned b/c all they could talk about was the "Balloon Man". This guy was in front of the church and they were terrified of him at first but slowly developed a fascination. Every day I tried to ask them what they did or learned and all they would talk about was the balloon man. We had to drive by slowly on the way out every day too.

















They are scared of a lot right now. Besides "balloon man" they are scared of water (in swimming pools, not bath), the dark, tiny merry go rounds or any moving ride, and were terrified of fireworks as I mentioned before. Definitely the only way to deal with them is to let them ease into on their own and on their terms. Strangely though, they like bugs and dogs. Even big dogs don't scare them at all and we don't even have one.

Work-a-Holiday-Weekend

Nathan and I tossed around the idea of doing something fun for Memorial Day weekend but in the end we decided there was too much work that needed to be done around here. We did manage to fit in a little fun among the work.

The deck was pretty much finished last summer but needed to be stained. More to protect it, but it also looks much better, don't you think? The first picture is with the rails done & the second is with the whole thing stained.








Nathan started working on that Thursday night and worked Friday and Saturday also. Friday night I took the kids to a birthday party. Emory spend the night with her Nana & Poppa. Saturday us girls slept in while Nathan worked then we went to pick up Emory. We stayed & had lunch with Nana & Poppa.

Sunday was church, then Nathan and John Paul put in the posts for our fence. Sunday night we met our friends Andy & Liz downtown to watch the fireworks. That's a great show if you've never seen it. The twins might disagree with that though. We were pretty close and the noise terrified them! Avery spend most of the time with her head buried in my neck and clinging to me so hard I could barely breathe! I'd tell her to turn & look and I'd say "isn't it pretty?" "Yeah", then she'd turn and bury her head again - HA! I just hope we didn't traumatize them for life! Emory liked it, she'd point and say "Yay" & "ooh".

Monday my parents were at the house and Nathan & our dads worked on the fence for most of the day. I took Kaleigh to another birthday party. It was a swimming party.

Nathan was off Tuesday too b/c he had a day off earlier this month that he forgot to take. We got out the kiddie pool for the kids. It took a while for some of them to come around but eventually they all decided it was fun. Kaleigh told us it was the most fun time she ever had. I don't really know what to think about that but I hope it's not true!

It's so sad that Emory turned a year old and I've all but forgotten about her on this blog :) She's changed sooo much since then too - I've got to document some of her milestones.

To be cliche, she is a bundle of energy. I told one friend I think God gave her an extra dose of "presence" in this world. Even next to a vivacious 5 year old and rowdy 2 & 1/2 year old twins, Emory never gets overlooked in this house! She gives all of them a run for their money!

Here's what she's doing now, almost 16 months :

• Running all over - she started walking right about 13 months and as predicted never slowed down from there. She & the twins will line up at the door and say "Mark, set, go" and run races. It's hilarious, of the 3 of them, at least 1 of them never makes it to the finish without losing track and going off to do something else. :)
• Talking - she started talking right around the time she was walking, and off the bat was saying all kinds of things. She continually says new words every day, and a couple of phrases like "over there". At one point I started to make a list of her words but I lost track at 40 over a month ago. It has amazed me to see her learn so quickly on her own. We taught the little ones to call Kaleigh "KK" and she says "KK" all the time when she sees her but just today I heard her saying "Kaleigh". (Kayee) She calls Alexis "sexy" HA! Actually she calls both the twins that. She's definitely learning tons from her sisters. Sometimes when she repeats the twins it sounds just like them.
• Another thing she's learned early and is advanced at is temper tantrums. I'm just hoping this is a very early terrible twos thing that she's learned from watching the twins. :) She can hold her own with them too.
  
• she follows instructions really well. I'll tell her to get something and she'll get it and bring it to me
• Can point to her nose and belly. Loves her belly! I haven't said much about her belly button but she had a herniated belly button. It stuck out a ton but has gotten smaller & smaller and is almost normal now.
  
• Likes to look at books, climbs, "talks" on the telephone. She can turn almost anything into a phone :)
• I've actually sat her on the potty a few times. She tells me a lot when she's stinky so I figured I would give it a go. She wanted to sit on the potty after seeing the twins training. Which is not going well, by the way. Anyway, I thought, why not just do all three at once. None of them ever go, so it may still be a while.
• We haven't been to the doctor in so long but I think she weighs like 24 pounds. We just moved her into a convertible car seat. We don't make it to regular check ups and she's only had one series of vaccines (that's a whole other post). But she's been pretty healthy.
  

So that's pretty much where we're at right now. I love her soo much. She's still so chubby and cuddly but losing her babyness :(

Mother's Day, Zoo Day, it's all the same to me...

Not that I'm hoping to win some kind of award here, but I let Nathan go out of town on Mother's Day, gasp! That decision was multi-faceted, the first being that he had a chance to go with some good friends to a free Cardinals game, how do I tell him to pass that up? The guys really don't get together a lot, which brings up my 2nd reason - the girls do get together a LOT! :) And thirdly, I kinda remember getting really sulky last year when my kids (who were 4, 1, 1, and 3 months) didn't seem to get that they were supposed to be really nice and easy and cooperative, at least on that one day a year. So this year, I figured, whatever, no expectations, no disappointment. And that Nathan will make it up to me in a BIG way! HA! Not sure what that looks like yet.

It was okay, though. First, Kaleigh upon seeing me Sunday morning said "Happy Mother's Day!" then ran out of the room & came back with my card that Nathan had helped them do ahead of time. It had quotes from all the kids and was soooo sweet and funny. "I wuv you mommy", "i like favorite mommy", "uh uh uh uh meow, meow" and Kaleigh had written "I Love you mommy" in the prettiest handwriting. I tried to scan it but the thing just will not work. Then Avery saw me in my dress and told me I was pretty. So they were actually pretty nice to me. Getting them all ready for church went surprisingly well too.

After church our friends Andy & Liz offered to take us out for lunch. I asked them "are you sure" b/c my kids can be quite the handful. Emory especially. We did it and it was fun, and the kids did throw the expected number of fits. They got to eat lots of chips & salsa too! It was such a thoughtful thing for them to do. And Nathan got back that afternoon & we celebrated at his parents house. It was a pretty nice day overall.

Yesterday was our annual church outing to the zoo. It's basically our one time a year to go. Patti came with me to help. Our Mommy & Me outings are to try and get to know other Moms from our church a little better. I think it's a great idea but I really can't be that social since I'm having to chase all the kids around! The twins are at a great age to really enjoy the zoo, although Avery was having more fun petting our friend's baby. I told Sara, next time we'll skip the zoo and just come stare at Lily.

Birthday Fun...




It's been such a nice birthday. Today we celebrated with mine & Nathan's parents, Laura, and the kids at our house. Since we couldn't be with my parents tomorrow for Easter, we also had a Easter Egg hunt for the kids here at the house. They have become quite skilled hunters - even Emory knows how to open eggs. She found a peep in one and was forever on the hunt for another one after that! My dad had put money in some of the eggs - only Kaleigh appreciated that. The others threw it on the ground, in pursuit of more jelly beans. They'll learn...








I got some nice gifts - mainly one big one that Nathan, my grandparents and parents are helping with. A groupon the other day was for laser hair removal here in Benton and it was such a great price I couldn't resist. I've looked into it before but would never pay the regular price. This was an amazing deal and I will love not having to worry about shaving my legs! I also got a Starbucks gift card, a pedicure gift card w babysitting from my mother in law, a purse and some useful items from my parents.

Last night, we went out to IHOP with my parents and my sister & her new boyfriend. April was kids eat free month and we wanted to take advantage - HA! They may change it after experiencing our family!

Kelly gave me this poem for my birthday. I had to share. I loved it. Don't read too much into it, parts were just for dramatic effect.

ODE TO THE SHELLSTER
There once was a girl named Shelly
Who loved deeply her beautiful sister named Kelly.
Growing up they would chase each other with knives (!?)
but eventually went on to do bigger things with their lives.

Shelly met her husband during her late days of college,
While they were both pretending to be in pursuit of more knowledge.
They have a history of going on peculiar dates together,
Which made it obvious they were in this for forever.

She was the 1st of the children to be wed,
Many tears her father did shed,
Realizing before the other two settled down he'd surely be dead. {HA!, love it!}

She has many interests you see,
besides being a baby factory, :)
Dumpster diving, garage sales, and finding good deals,
Reading, dirty dancing, and late night eating are some of her appeals.
I've seen her dress like a burn victim for Halloween,
And if anyone got in the way of her puzzle working she can be quite mean.

I am thankful to call her BIG sister of mine,
And that we were able to share the same bloodline.
I hope her 32nd birthday is filled with many good memories,
And she goes on to have many more Emorys!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What I'm reading...

When I saw that Kelly's Korner was linking up to your reading list, I had to participate! With 4 little ones, I have to sneak in reading wherever I can but I somehow manage to...

Right now I'm reading more nonfiction than usual. Beauty in words, this book is changing my life,
One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp













Also Choosing to SEE by Mary Beth Chapman. This one is also wonderful. She is the wife of Steven Curtis Chapman and just so real and honest.












I just finished Matched by Ally Condie. It is the first book in a trilogy and the other two aren't written yet, so I recommend just waiting to read these until Nov 2012. I hate waiting for a sequel to be written!

I'm about to start Francine Rivers new series, Her Mother's Hope. This one has at least 2 books written so I can deal with that. :) I think I've read everything that Francine Rivers has ever written and always like her books. If you haven't read the Mark of the Lion series, go read them right now!

One of my recent faves was The Hunger Games series. This one is better than Twilight, people! It's not about vampires but it is a young adult fantasy series so the comparisons are inevitable. I know most of my friends have read it and loved, loved it. And they are making a movie, yay!







And probably my other favorite recent read was The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield. It took a little time to get into it, but it is so worth sticking with, I promise. Hope you enjoy.

Twins "Burp" Video

I also posted this on facebook, but wanted to share this video of the twins. They were supposed to be singing, which is also funny, but what we got was even better! This age is so challenging right now. They are either fighting or having fun and giggling together. Or up to no good... No matter what - they are always together. The good times make the bad soooo worth it. And it's so sweet and mysterious, this bond that twins have.

Happy 60th Birthday, Mom!

My mom turned 60 on Wednesday and we celebrated on Friday night. It also happened that my grandparents were coming to visit from Alabama so that added to the celebration. It was a crazy week (more on that in a sec) so I didn't get to do as much as I had hoped, but I still thought it was a nice time. The kids really enjoyed visiting with their Great-Grandparents and I think the feeling was mutual. We also had a good time with them. I'm blessed to have such healthy, loving Grandparents.

For my mom's "party" we didn't do much cause she's not a person who likes a lot of fuss, but I did a 1951 theme from the year she was born and we had a little quiz and some decor. I made a poster with some old pictures and had the family write notes to her. I'll try to compile it into a book sometime before her 70th birthday :).

It's so easy to think of nice things to say about my mom. She has many wonderful qualities. One thing that kept coming up was how much a servant she is. God definitely gave her that gift. Even during her party she kept trying to work and I had to get her out of the kitchen. She does so much for us and restores my sanity every time she & my Dad come to visit. She's also a great listener and gives wise Christian counsel. I'm so blessed to have her for a mom!

As I said before, it was a crazy week. We were still trying to finish the bathroom, then we all ended up with the stomach bug. The kids had it so quick I was convinced we wouldn't get it or at one point I thought we already had gotten it. Boy was I wrong. We were feeling okay pretty quickly afterward, just not good and very worn out. So in all, it was a wild week with some ups and definitely some downs!