Family Portrit

So here we are. :-)

Boys harder than girls??!!!

So everyone kept telling me that potty training boys is WAY harder than girls. Ummmm says who?! Man if Megan was as easy as Spencer has been I wouldn't have been dreading this so much. So here's the scoop. E's parents decided that he needed to be potty trained. He is totally NOT ready for this big adventure we call peeing on a toilet. But then neither was Spencer. We are starting with E next week. Seeing as how Spencer is almost 6 months younger than E I decided to start a week earlier because I thought he'd need the extra time. Ummmm yeah no. So Monday came and as I stated in an earlier blog 9 sets of underwear and 6 outfits later he was naked for the next 1/2 of the day. Tuesday well we just kept him naked and he peed all over the house (you can imagine my dread mounting because he had absolutely NO interest in the potty and was NOT going to sit on it). Thinking that he was just not ready and me wanting to give up for the time being was foremost on my mind. However, knowing that I am going to start on Monday with E and already having his parents tell me that it might be a long couple of months trying to potty train him I figured I was going to have to do it anyway... the hard way vs. waiting till their ready... I might as well keep going. I am soooooo glad I did. Yesterday I decided to have Spencer sit on the portable potty everytime we did something sitting down (eating, play dough, puzzles, movies, painting) I also provided a multitude of special activities that we would do sitting down. He did excellent with that. Had only one accident yesterday and that was because I was stupid enough to put briefs on him. He thought he was wearing diapers for a moment. Today he woke up early because he needed to pee. Yep, I was still asleep so I forgot that I had to get him to a toilet (decided no pull-ups, they are just diapers that go on differently). Yep urine was trailed throughout the house while I lazily slept in bed (yes my kids wander around until we wake up what of it? They know where the toys are.) Well pine-sol and a naked little boy later he decided he needed to use the potty (I was busy mopping so I wasn't too concerned about things right then). Voila! He did it! After that I kept asking him throughout the day and he'd either say yep or not yet but he was consistant! And no accidents! Half way through the day he decided he was ready for briefs, so we got him dressed and waited for an accident that didn't come. He did great the whole day! I am so thrilled! I totally thought he was no where close to being ready. All I can say is AHHH THE POWER OF CHOCOLATE AS AN INCENTIVE!

3 little pigs meet the wicked witch of the west

So I set up my oscilating sprinkler today to water my garden. This is the sprlinker we all grew up with that goes back and forth in an arc. Well the kids (3 little pigs) were in the play house and were screaming and laughing that it was "raining". Well when they thought it was all clear they came out of the house just in time for the arc to come back and hit them, soaking them. They giggled and laughed pushing and running back to the house. Picture this for the next 45 minutes for every arc of the sprinkler. The funny part was they couldn't understand why the "rain" stopped and they came to get them. Finally Megan and Spencer figured it out and were running back and forth in the "rain" having a grand old time. Poor little E though thought it was some sort of water torture. He didn't have the reaction time to run out of the house and the arc in time without getting wet. The poor thing was quite distraut because he kept getting hit with the water when he stuck his head out the door. He even tried to see out the little window to try to see if it was all clear and got the water right in his little face. Each time I tried to help him out he didn't do so hot so we kind of let him adjust to the water. The other little ones were just like "E, run now now!" I was running into the water to grab him in between arcs only to have him run back into the house when I put him down in the clear. Needless to say we were laughing hystarically the whole time.

I have a garden, I garden, I'm a gardner.

So at the earging from some friends and the final kick in the pants from Candide I have made a garden. Not a big one, actually it's kind of pidly but hey it's mine and as of right now nothing's died. Although I only give it a week to kill something. I actually reserve the right to have the whole garden go belly up. I usually can't keep plants alive (the main reason why I changed my major from horticulture) no matter how much I love them. Maybe it's because I love them too much. I limed the soil and incorporated some potting mix to loam up the bed nicely. Yep I was convinced it was going to be a great little garden.... That is until I decided to let my 2 toddlers help with the planting. 1. Megan does not like getting her hands dirty so she went from holding the transplant by the square of dirt on the bottom to the very top leaf with two fingers. 2. Spencer following Megan's lead had the entire plant sandwiched between his hands while he was rubbing his hands together almost as if he was trying to start fire with my poor pepper plant. 3. The next plant Spencer brought me didn't even have the soil attached to the roots. Yep just the poor little white roots exposed to the cruel world. 4. Megan being her ocd self couldn't put any more than 3 little seeds per hole. Where as Spencer decided that the seeds "fly" really well. Let's just say that I will have giant pumpkins, zuccinis and cantelope amoungst the tomatoes, peppers and basil. Who knows what will come up if anything but hey it was fun for a day. The kids love watering the garden so right now we have kind of a swamp thing going on but you try telling a naked 2 year old to stop spraying the water (he's naked because we are potty training, not because we are watering the garden although that's not a bad idea). Anyway I'm quite proud of myself but I figured it was worth it if I can get one plant to survive (my bet in on the basil right now... the kids didn't touch it although that's not saying much because I did.... hmmmm ) ps. 6 outfits, 9 briefs and 1 day down for potty training... who knows how may left to go. Tomorrow he's just going naked even before I reach the end of his available clothing. I don't think I can do that much laudry and survive the week.

Candide

So I'm having issues finding the "great" in "great literature" of Voltaire. I'm presently reading Candide and seriously is this good? It's a fast read, I'm half way through it but seriously? This is "good" or even some people put it "great"? I just don't get it. Any insites that I'm missing anyone? Please enlighten me.

dancing queen

OK I must admit I've done at least half of these moves in my lifetime. Hee hee. I laughed so hard to think that yes I was once such a dork. :-) Have fun looking at this site.

Did I mention I live in the coolest place?

Today we went to Gettysburg. We slept in as much as possible packed the kids up and off we drove (leaving about 11) We stopped in Fredrick for some much needed Cracker Barrel (if you don't know what this is... it's heaven on earth for anyone from the south.... gooood fooood). We did the audio tour of Getttysburg which was amazing an awesome!!! Then we drove home. We are waiting for pizza to arrive, a gift from our friends. We shall be watching their 3 younguns' for the evening. Fun stuff. Great Day. Kevin's home with nothing to do except rest relax and entertain us. Also note that they took me mothers day shopping last night. My hubby has excellent taste in clothing bytheway. fun stuff. Happy Mothers' Day tomorrow!

Reading is fun

So in the very recent past I tried to make an attempt to read the ultimate classics. I made it throught the Aeneid only because I enjoyed it the first time I read it. I had a hard time getting up the energy to read anything else however. Recently upon browsing the library I found that I MISSED THE 11 BOOK! of the Wheel of Time Series by Robert Jordan. This is a series I started while still a teenager and have anxiously awaited each sequel to the book. Somehow in all the hubub of this past year we (Kevin included because I got him hooked on them too) missed the release of the 11th book in the series. 11th book! you say? Oh yeah baby. This is a fun series (epic fantasy) and there are only supposed to be 12 books in the series. It is totally fun to read. So then I find out that Robert Jordan the author .... HAS A TERMINAL DISEASE! ARGHHHHH!. If he dies before finishing the last book I will be so bumbed I can not express. The book was good bytheway. Onto another book. I started.... and finish Terry Goodkind's "Wizard's First Rule". Ummm it was really really good. It was fun to get sucked into a good book... although I admit I was a bad mommy for a day... and a half. sigh I'll have to do better next time or I'll have to not let myself read anymore.

Daddy Enough!

So Kevin was bugging the kids this morning. I don't even know what he was doing. Megan was getting annoyed and finally said "Daddy Enough!" Needless to say mommy was roaring and daddy's jaw dropped in astonishment of having his discipline word used against him. *hahaha*

New take on the Atonement

So yesterday was stake conference. Aside from being the normal wonderful stuff we were able to have a 41 stake conference with a video feed from SLC with Pres. Monson and Elder Ballard amoungst those giving the talks. Anyway as part of the video feed before anything started they had video of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing. On a portion of the singing, pictures were put on the screen depicting the story of Christ. This was nice considering we had to be there really early because Kevin was ushering. I had just come back from taking the kids for a walk to get their wiggles out and we were sitting there quietly looking at the pictures on the screen when a picture came up of Jesus when he met Mary in the garden, right after being resurrected. Enter the take of my 3 year old daughter. To understand where she is coming from and not to judge me as a delinquant mother on teaching her about Christ you need to understand our previous conversations about Christ and the resurrection and atonment. "Mommy, Jesus has boo boos?" "Yes honey...." "Make it better mommy!" "Sweety these are special boo boos...." "Make it better mommy!" (now close to tears because I was failing to act in a expidited manner) "Meggie, these boo boos are different. These...." "Make it better mommy!" (now full tears errupt) So mommy for the time being put band-aids on all our board books with Jesus's boo boos... at the direction of my 3 year old. Progress a few months to the future. "Mommy are Jesus's boo boos better?" Aha! I thought another teaching opportunity! " No sweety these boo boos are different because they won't get better right now. You know when....." "Are they scabs now?" "Well, they...." "Mommy, look I have scabs! They aren't boo boos anymore they're all better." Sigh I guess we'll wait another month or so before trying again. Progress a month later to Easter time. I was going to get through the Story of the resurrection. "Look this is Jesus after the bad men hurt him, he died" "OH NO! He's sick. Make him better mommy!" "Sweety, it's ok because he got better. (at this point really not wanting to explain death) When he got sick they put him in a place called a tomb." "Oh look mommy! A dragon cave!" "Um well it's a cave but there aren't any dragons there. That's where they put Jesus." From there we talked about the resurrection and how Mary came and couldn't find Jesus etc. Progress to yesterday. A picture (actually the same picture) of Jesus coming to Mary in the garden came up on the big screen. Megan quasi yells out "Look mommy! There's Jesus and the fairy. She made his boo boos all better!" Proud mommy. Yep. That's my girl. *snort* "Um, that's Mary." "Oh"

arghhh I erred

So when I got the email from Kevin saying "we got schedule #2" for rotations. I thought "great! we got our second pick". Hahaha not so. We got our fifth pick but schedule #2 on the paper. Hee hee oops. Oh well. It's still really good. 1. Smalls (neuro, anethesia, family medicine, psych) 2. Surgery 3. Ob/peds 4. Medicine This way he'll be able to look at what he wants to before planning externships. The ONLY bad this is he won't have medicine first to prep for pediatrics. That's not all bad though. YIPEE!! Did I mention I was excited!!

Rotations Schedule

So we got our rotations schedule today. This will be a good schedule for us, especially in that Kevin wants to 1. specialize in something with Pediatrics or 2. Surgery (ent for kids...) Anywho for choosing your rotations and residency there were several things to consider so hopefully this isn't too confusing... although we're in it and we were confused. 1. What you want to end up doing DO NOT do first or last. 2. If you want to do something with pediatrics do internal medicine first that way you'll have a good background going into it so you can really shine on your rotation. 3. If you are interested in Surgery at all do Peds/OB first so you have exposure to the OR so you shine.... There are a whole lot of other things to consider, more specifically the timing. Now a days in order to really get the residency that you want you need to do either a) research *being published and/or b) externships to the places you want to go. Externships are rotations at other universities. So we GOT A GREAT SCHEDULE FOR ROTATIONS!!! This is the order we will be doing it. 1. Medicine (July 6 - Sept 24) 2. OB/Peds (Sept 25 - Dec 15) 3. Gen Surgery/Surgery Specialites (Janu 3 - Mar 25) 4. Neruology/Anethesia/Family Medicine/Psychology (Mar 26 - June 15) This is soooooo exciting. I have no idea how Kevin is handling the excitement... especially since he has 8 hours of class today and 5 more finals to go by next Friday. But here's the biggie WE HAVE ONE MORE WEEK OF MEDICAL SCHOOL CLASSES THEN WE ARE DONE! AFTER THAT IT IS ROTATIONS. NO CLASSES! YIPPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!! We are trying to decide what we are going to do on May 12. We are so going to go party. Can you believe we made it! This is a riot. I can't believe we are half way done. Crazy

Healthy battle

So we are trying to be healthy. Period that's it. Weight loss is good but not necessarily of major priority. I've pretty much been the same weight since I was ummm 13? Yep fun stuff. Exercise or not diet or not I just don't lose weight. Muscle however is a different matter, size, different matter entirely. Within that same weight I have gone from a size 10 at age 13 to a size 8 in college to a size 4, 5 years ago (having gardia helped with that one) to right now having a size 8 be baggy on me. For all the men reading you can just ignore the sizing things because they wont' make any sense to you. Anywhoo. So the attempt to be healthy. I've been exercising lately... sort of. I tend to come up with excuses. I don't' want to be inside, I've got three kids and no way to transport them, I'm too tired in the morning, I'm completely exhausted at night. I need better shoes if I'm going to go walking in the morning before the kids get up.... you get the picture. Then I came up with this brilliant plan to go walking after the kids are up before my others get here. Then the ultimate excuse I need a double jogger. I have a double stroller but Spence's legs are soooo long that he finds it funny to put his legs down and stop the stroller in it's tracks. Um after 100 feet and him doing it 10 times... not cool. Anywhoo so I have decided I'm saving my splurge money. This is the money not part of the salary deal that I earn on the side. We have a waiting list of things to buy with this money (vacation, bike for kev then.... double stroller). So I've decided that I am sooooo saving for this one or this one This is after great debate and research. Look and drool for those of you that need a double stroller. Hee hee. (I must say I'll probably end up getting the $170 one from target but it's fun to dream) The reviews on the valco one say that you can buy an attachment for a third seat without having a triple stroller which I haven't seen pictures of so I'm still looking. The city series of babyjogger got incredible reviews and babyjogger brand is we reknowned... Yeah for target. Ahhh dreaming....