A couple of Firsts for Molly

So yesterday was a milestone for Molly....good and bad!

She got her first timeout and she also peed on the potty for the first time!!

First....her timeout experience......

She has always been a good listener. At this age, Brody was already starting to get timeouts because he heard me when I told him to do something, but would do it on his terms. Well....guess who is starting to the same. Normally, we have been able to tell her something, maybe twice, and she ends up doing it. Lately, it is with her and the DVDs that we are having an issue. In our TV stand, she likes to open the cabinets and take the DVDs out. She got in trouble for that a couple of times this weekend. Well, last night, she wasn't listening when we asked her to get out of the kitchen while we were cooking. So after telling her for the third time, Ted took her to timeout. Whew! That was an experience. She wouldn't sit and would not stop crying! After about 5 minutes of Ted sitting there with her, I finally went over there and poor thing had the "yuckas" (when you can't catch your breath after crying so hard). She sat there for me and I told her why she was in timeout and she calmed right down. After about a minute, I finally let her get out and she was much better. Ted said that she reminded him a little of Ethan when he was younger because he was so stubborn sometimes when you tried to discipline him. We both said that Brody was never like that. Now when he goes into timeout, the first thing he says is "I want to listen....can I listen Mommy?" even when he may not have had an issue with listening to put him there in the first place! Anyway, that was our timeout experience.

Now for the more exciting part! She peed on the potty!! She has been obsessed with sitting on the potty for a while and constantly says she has to pee, but when we put her on the potty, nothing happens. Last night, before her bath, she said she needed to pee, like always, so we put her on there! Well....lo and behold, she tinkled.....just a little bit, but still.....she tinkled! We were so excited and she started to get a shy look on her face. I don't think she knew what to think. Even Brody was cheering for her. It was pretty cute! Hopefully, this is the start of something because I can tell you that I am tired of buying diapers for her!!! I am hoping she will be just as easy as Brody to potty train. Once he got, he really got it!!

Here are a couple of cute pictures of my little princess!! I can't believe she will be 2 years old on Sunday!!!

My girlfriend Connie watched the kiddies for me one day so I could work and she bought her a dress up kit, with a skirt, tiara, jewlery, purse, and furry little heels! She loved it. Here she is sporting her bling!!!

I love how she is looking up at Connie's son Jack......her prince! :)

And finally, here is a picture (of a picture) of the kid's school picture. They turned out great. I had a hard time picking the ones I wanted. They had a couple poses of each of them separately and two of them together!!

Happy Halloween!

Happy Day After Halloween!

Last night was a lot of fun. Ted is out of town for the week hunting in Charlottesville and his Mom has been here for the past couple of weeks. She was gracious enough to stay another week while Ted was gone in case something came up at work and I had issues getting the kids. She is so sweet!!

We had a house full of people last night. My parents came over to go trick-or-treating with us and my sister, brother-in-law and my niece and nephew came over too. My neighborhood is nice to trick-or-treat in because there are plenty of houses and lots of candy!!

I got some great pictures of all the kids, and my sister did too. Unfortunately, I left my camera at home so I only have the few I took with my phone. Brody went as Spiderman and Molly was Minnie Mouse. Luckily, the weather was pretty nice and not too cold. I only took Molly to a few houses and then she went back home with my Mom for her bath and bed. I let Brody stay out later and he got lots of candy! It was great to see him get excited. While he was excited last year, he was a little scared to go up to some of the houses, but not this year. He is such a big boy. And, during school yesterday, his teacher talked to all the kids about the importance of staying with your Mom and Dad and not running off. He told me "I have to stay with you or someone can take me. Mommy, they are not nice people if they take me!" He is so smart!!

I didn't get any pictures of Anthony and Ashleigh on my phone, but Anthony was the guy from Scream, with the scary mask that has blood on it. Molly wanted NOTHING to do with him. Everytime he got near her, she freaked out, and kept saying "I scared!" Poor Anthony.....he would take the mask off and try and reassure her that it was just him, but she was having nothing to do with him!

Here are a few pics.......

Tab sent me the picture below of Mallory! ADORABLE! I love how she is standing in this picture.

New Post

Well, things are starting to heat up again at work. As much as I love my job for the most part, this is going to be a pretty stressful Fall/Winter. Plus, next week we are supposed to find out if we won the big project I was working on a couple of months ago. To say I am nervous is an understatement! But, what will be will be!

On the home front, things are good. Hunting season officially opens up this weekend so Ted is happy. He has really started getting into fishing since he got a kayak so between that and hunting, I am hoping to see him a little bit for the next three months! HA!

Kiddies are doing great! Brody is doing really good in his class and he is growing up too fast. His vocabulary is crazy and sometimes it is hard to believe he is only 3½. I bought Ted and iPad for our anniversary and right now, Brody is getting more use out of it than he is. When Hurricane Irene was preparing to hit our area, Ted downloaded some shows on it to occupy the kids if the power went out. Well, the power did go out and stayed out for 5 days. Luckily, our neighbors have a generator that is hooked to the gas line so they pretty much had all their power so we stayed over there a majority of the time. Well, now all Brody wants to do is watch his shows on Ted’s iPad. We bought him a few games on it the other night and he loves playing them. It is crazy how much he is able to pick up the first couple of times he plays it. I hate to admit that sometimes it is nice for him to be able to occupy himself for a little bit at night so I am able to do things when I get home from work. :)

Molly is growing up way to fast. Her 2nd birthday is right around the corner and I can’t believe my baby will be 2 years old!! She has started showing some interest in the potty so we put her on it right before her bath each night, but of course, we have had no luck so far. I am glad she is showing interest in it though. The next class up from hers at school is the potty training class so similar to Brody, once she moves up, we will start concentrating more on that. I know she is still young, but hopefully she will be just as easy as Brody was to potty train. She is also starting to become picky about her clothes, or I should just say her shoes! I went shopping for her last weekend to get some winter clothes and I bought her a couple pair of shoes. She wore one of her new pair to school yesterday and when we got home, she refused to take them off. Of course, Ted walks in and tells her to sit so he can take them off and of course, she does it! I swear……I think she is going to listen to her father more than me, which will be a problem! She also has the best sense of humor. She laughs at everything and has the greatest smile! I think our next transition will be transitioning her from her crib to a toddler bed. The only problem I have is that she has not even showed the slightest bit of interest to climb out yet. She LOVES her sleep and I think she is in love with the crib so it will be interesting to see what she does when the time comes to transition her.

We got Ethan last weekend for the first time since the summer. He stayed with us for a month and ½ over the summer and it was great having him with us. The kids love him and constantly ask where he is when he isn’t home. He is in 8th grade going on 18. I can’t believe how grown up he looks and sounds! I know I say that all the time, but it still amazes me how much more grown up he looks every time I see him!

I have been horrible with the camera but I did take some cute pics of the kids yesterday. I will try and remember to post them this weekend!

Out of the Mouth of Babes

Okay...I know I need to post some more recent pictures, but unfortunately, I don't have my camera with me. But I wanted to post a funny story so later in life, I won't forget this.

Last week, I was getting ready for work and Brody was up. Ted got his clothes out and he was getting dressed. Ted left and Brody had headed downstairs to get a drink from him and say bye before he left. I knew he was down there and figured he would come up after Ted left. After a few minutes, I realized he hadn't come up so I went out to the hallway and here is how the conversation went:

Me: "Brody, where are you?"
Brody: "Right here Mommy?"
(I still can't see him so I am not sure what he is doing)

Me: "Come up here while I finished getting ready"
Brody" "Okay....coming!"
(a couple minutes pass and no Brody....)

Me: "Brody, I said come up here!"
Brody: "Okay....I am coming. Jesus!"
Me: "What did you just say?"
Brody: "Chuck-E-Cheese's?"

Okay...first of all, I couldn't believe he said that. Secondly, I can't believe he is already smart enough to try and cover for himself when he knows he did or said something wrong! Crazy!

But....gotta love him! :) He is just too darn cute!

Random Pictures

Here are some random pictures of the kids that I have on my computer at work. I need to download the ones from my camera and post them. I haven't done that in a while. I really am starting to stink with the picture taking! :(

This picture cracks me up. Tab sent it to me. It was taken during Mallory's birthday party. Not sure what the expression was about, but he looks a hot mess!

This is a better representation of my little man. This sums him up perfectly! He is always happy! :) Love it!

See? Another day, another great smile!

Here is my sassy little girl. Sarah - in this picture, I think she resembles Joseph a little!

Daddy and his little girl. She is going to give him way more gray hair as she grows up!

Here she was coloring at the Children's Museum. I am pretty sure we have a lefty on our hands!

Whew! Time for a Breather

So my monster project finally went out the door. It is now in the hands of Massachusetts and we now wait to find out what happens next. I am keeping my fingers, toes, legs, arms….everything crossed in hopes we win. I think we definitely have a high chance of winning and retaining this piece of business, but we never know what is going to happen. I will be on pins and needles until they announce the winner.

I took off a couple of days this week to catch up on things. My intention was to clean the house and do stuff that I have neglected over the past 2 months….but guess what? It didn’t happen! I ended up being pretty lazy and sleeping. I told Ted that I can’t believe how tired I have been the last week or so. He told me to just relax and it was probably my body trying to catch up from all the late work nights, the travel and the stress. I am definitely feeling a bit better now that I had a few days to rest up.

The kids are all doing great. Ethan went back to his Mom’s this past weekend and will be there for the remainder of the summer. Loved having him at home! Like I said in a previous post, it feels like we are complete when he is there. The kids have been asking about him a lot because he was with us for over a month. I love that they do that! :)

Brody and Molly both moved up in their classes at school. I had a brief meeting with Brody’s new teacher last week, since I didn’t know who she was and wanted to introduce myself to her. I LOVE HER! She is awesome and we had a great meeting. She said that she is a pretty strict disciplinarian (yay!) and that whatever Ted and I have done with Brody, we need to keep it up because he is so well behaved. That made this Momma smile! It totally warms my heart to hear that. It makes me realize that when we have to get on him for things and punish, the results are paying off! In his new class, they go on a field trip to the movies down the street every Tuesday. She said she was impressed with Brody considering it was his first time. I have always been hesitant about taking him because I am not sure how he will act. He watches movies at home, but normally he gets ¼ or ½ through and then wants to do something else. The only time he will watch the whole thing is when he is in his room. But, she said he did great and Brody loves going!

As for Molly, she has the same main teacher that Brody did when he was in her class so I know her pretty well. A couple weeks ago, I asked them how she was in the class with the other kids. The reason I asked is because my little girl has a TUDE! Yes, a big fat attitude! She is the sweetest thing one minute and then the next, she is throwing a look at you and if looks could kill you would be dead. She definitely bosses Brody around when we are at home. (He will be my sensitive one….she will be the more strong-willed one!) They said she is the leader of the pack, but not in an aggressive way. They said she gets along great with all the other kids. They love her there! All the teachers love to love up on her. I am thinking that she is holding it all inside until she gets home at night. Don’t get me wrong….she is a sweet little girl, but she can be mean. And like I said, when she doesn’t want to eat something, or she doesn’t want to do something, she lets you know! Sometimes, we laugh because it is pretty funny and other times, we aren’t sure what to do with her. She is too cute to get mad at, that’s for sure.

She has started to say love you (although it comes out “low-you”) and it makes me melt. Last night, after we read our books before bed, I asked her if I could rock her before I put her to bed. Initially, she said no, but when I get her paci, she came right up and just laid on me. I rocked her for a little bit. I could have stayed like that forever. I told her “Molly – don’t grow up…..just stay this small forever!” She said “Yes!” If only that could happen!

I am in such a baby mood lately and can’t believe my babies are growing up. I could have 4 more, but unfortunately, I need a man to do that and Ted said he is done. I definitely respect his decision….we do have 3, but I could have many more Brody’s and Molly’s. Knowing our luck, we would hope for good babies like they were and getting the holy terror!! We thought that would happen with Molly but she turned out better than Brody. But, I am not complaining. I have the 3 best kids in the world and could never ask for anything more! :)

Not funny....but I had to post

Okay...the parent in me does not think this is funny, but the other part of me is in disbelief and had to post this. Brody is a very precocious child. I think the child has been cursed with my smart mouth and it really scares the crap out of me. Here are two conversations we had this weekend: 1 on Friday after school, and 1 on Saturday.

Friday
I picked up Brody and Molly from school. Brody had a note in his cubby from his teacher that said that he had a rough day on Friday. He wasn't listening and she asked that we speak to him about hitting his friends. Brody never hits his friends so I was definitely taken a back.

Me: Brody - what happened today? Ms. Kendra said you weren't listening and you hit your friends.
Brody: Well, Alex pinched me.
Me: You know you aren't supposed to hit your friends. You know better than that. Why did you get in trouble for not listening?
Brody: I did listen to my teachers.
Me: Well, apparently you weren't listening or else I wouldn't have gotten this note.
Brody: Well, apparently I was!

Yesterday
We took the kids to my girlfriend's daughters party at the local children's museum. When we passed the park at the front of our neighborhood, Brody asked if we could got to the park.

Brody: Mommy, can we go play at the park?
Me: Not right now, we need to get home and start dinner. Maybe another day.
Brody: Why Mommy?
Ted: Because we said not right now.....
Brody: Daddy, I wasn't talking to you....I was talking to Mommy. Mommy why?

Both Ted and I sat there with our mouths wide open. We were in shock that he actually said that. I am not sure what we are going to do with him..........He has been so good for so long, but this week, he has had a hard time listening at both school and home. I am hoping this is a short-term thing and he straightens up soon.