Do the (clap clap) POTTY DANCE!

If you haven't seen the Huggies Pullup commercial you might think my post title is a little weird. But I am just so excited about our sudden potty success. Now Isaac is not potty trained yet, but he's been wearing underwear for two days now with only a few "axcadents" as Isaac says. At the beginning of the week he tried going semi nude while playing in the backyard because everyone swears for boys this is the way to go. Isaac is notorious for not liking to be naked, so I was thinking this would not work. However, a couple evenings of this and he figured out what the feeling was when he needed to go potty. Then we tried being naked in the house when he got over his fear of standing in front of the potty. Friday is the first day we tried having underwear on and he made it all the way until the end of lunch without an accident. He got many M&Ms for going potty all morning. He still hasn't figured out how to empty his bladder at a given potty visit so he going a lot. Here's to potty training my cutie now that he finally seems ready! The journey begins...again.

Finger knitting at last!

I have been waiting for Y week to teach them about yarn and how to finger knit! (Plus, it means we are almost finished with our first year of homeschool.) We watched a short video about the history of yarn and then watched a video on how to finger knit. The girls both picked this up super fast and were able to do it on their own and make necklaces for their dolls (not quite patient enough for scarfs.) Isaac, on the other hand, was not so successful.

Genevieve, of course, had issues starting from the correct finger and did a good portion of hers backwards, but it still turned out OK. She's been my backwards girl from day one, and I don't expect anything to change anytime in the near future! It started with having her days and nights mixed up as an infant, and then always putting her shoes on the wrong foot, and finally reading books backwards, and writing letters and whole words backwards.

I made this bracelet for Isaac.

Here's a video clip of them in action...

Prayer for Speck

"Please, help Speck to be as healthy as a trumpet sound." ~Isaac

A Big Surprise!

I sent Isaac with his daddy to the "man store," AKA Home Depot, the other evening only to be surprised with these gifts that Isaac just really wanted to get his mommy. What a surprise it was too!

The covered gazebo on the deck is the first surprise. He also planted those plants and hung the boxes for me too.

He also got me this end table for my front porch glider. Don't know what I did to deserve all these gifts.

Since the A/C in our house is out and it is cooler outside than inside, we are getting a lot of use out of these new gifts! We've been eating dinner on the back porch protected from insects and the sun all thanks to my sweetheart!

The Joys of Easter: Part 3

The baskets waiting for the kids when they were ready for Mass were nothing super special since I didn't have enough energy to hand make gifts this year. They had chocolate crosses, a couple pieces of candy, and a few little gifts.

I finally came across a lamb cake mold, and I couldn't resist. This is a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting.

The hunt is on! After returning from Mass, we went straight to egg hunting before the foretold rain arrived. After the hunt some friends came over for a lunch and some cookie decorating. And, of course, the lamb cake! Hannah led the reading and opening of the "Resurrection Eggs" with their friends. (If you don't know what "Resurrection Eggs" are go to this link to find out how to do it with your little ones. I think it really reenforces Christ's Passion and resurrection in a tangible way for little ones in a world that so easily gets lost in bunnies and candy on this day.) It was precious to see Hannah leading this! She is a natural leader.

Showing off the loot...

That's all folks!

The Joys of Easter: Part 2

First thing in the morning...

Leaving for Mass...

After Easter Morning Mass...

I will certainly treasure these pictures forever!

The Joys of Easter: Part 1

Egg Dying

Hannah dyed her eggs carefully as usual. I tried to teach her how to do half one color and then half another color. Love this girl!

Poor Genna, when showing her eggs off to daddy and myself, broke two of them. Made it through the whole dying process only to break two at the end. She was so upset because one of them was her favorite pink one, but she cheered up when I explained that we are going to break and peel them to eat them anyway. Love this girl!

This is the same guy who broke every egg last year. Not a broken egg this time around! Love this guy!

These are for our three priests...

These pictures were all taken Saturday evening. The real Easter day pictures will be up tomorrow. Happy Easter!

My Mommy Made It!

I made this poncho for Genna. I let the girls pick out their own pattern fleece at Joann's. I made one for Hannah too, but it isn't getting worn much because it makes her hair frizzy when she pulls it over her head. Oh yes, she's that particular! I call her "Picky Pants." At least my Vieve is appreciative of my hard work! OK, so it only took me half an hour to make, but still...

Math on the Street

Literally! We did Math outside on the driveway today since it was a nice day. I wrote out problems for them to do. Here's Genna. She is just starting number bonds in her Kindergarten B book (Singapore Math.)

Here is Hannah. She is well into her 1st grade Math book (Singapore also,) but it seems needs to memorize her number bonds instead of just figure them out so that the addition and subtraction facts come easier and faster. So I have stopped progressing in her book until she has them all memorized. Since we only have two and a half weeks left this year, we will just continue practicing that over the summer if that's what it takes.

Hannah wrote me this note to tell me she needed to go inside for a potty break. I think the "TOOO" is supposed to be a "To:" Other than that and "HAF" her spelling is pretty good.

Isaac wanted some work too, so while the girls were busy we finished a pattern (which he calls "patterin") and worked on our short vowel sounds. I have a song for the short vowel sounds and he has learned them all. He got a big star by his work since we weren't inside near the stickers that he usually gets for doing his "school work."

Not a "speck" anymore!

On our way to pick up the kids from a friend's house, we stopped and got these cookies decorated at a bakery to break the news in style. Let me tell you, this was a good idea! If you ever have to break some news to someone who may be disappointed to hear it, write it on a cookie. It definitely takes the edge off. Hannah was the only one truly desiring a girl and seemed to take it very well from the cookie.

Speck made his gender very obvious and was an active little guy during most of the ultrasound. He was doing some kick boxing or something in there moving his arms and legs all over the place. The radiologist came to talk to us after the ultrasound and said everything looked great which was a big answer to prayer. Now I have to start praying that this little guy doesn't have a competitive spirit and try to out do his big brother in the birth weight department. Here are a couple of crumby pictures of the ultrasound picture since my computer is still not fixed and this laptop is a pain to hook up to the scanner. I should have a new CPU by next week sometime and be able to get the originals scanned in and up on the blog.

As for names, we have four that are in the running that we both like. We will have to start talking about that more now that we know Speck is a boy and, as my dad pointed out, definitely not a "speck" anymore.

W: Part 3

Whales! We read lots of awesome books about whales and talked about their lengths in how many 6 ft daddies we would have to line up. They all really enjoyed this topic, and it made me wish we could go to Sea World. They would love it! We read two books on Tuesday and then two more on Thursday. The books were redundant, but this is good for them to actually remember the facts. Thursday, Genevieve totally shocked us all by remembering the words and definitions of "breaching" and "echolocation." She even pronounced them correctly. Amazing!

Speaking of Genevieve, she also finished the book Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons last week before she even started Kindergarten, earning herself a date alone with Mommy. We are doing great there! She is not far behind her big sis. I have found that she tries harder than Hannah because she wants to keep up with her big sister, in everything from bike riding to reading.

Back to whales, we also did our fist Origami project and made whales out of the totally inappropriate construction paper. Then I had them glue them to another piece of construction paper and make an ocean scene. This was fun and turned out nice.


The other W thing we did was back to weather. Hannah made this...

You can turn the plate underneath and see the weather change in the window. She did this all by herself during her rest time. It was a last minute project that was in a book about weather that she wanted to do, so we set her up, and she went to town. I just had to put the brad in the middle after rest time was over. That's my kind of project! Isn't it everybody's?

So, we are onto X week now. Almost finished with our alphabet and our school year! I am so ready for the summer. Swimming, playing, traveling, nesting...By the way, we find out what gender Speck is tomorrow if all goes well! So check back soon!

Sweeter than the sweetest!

Genevieve

Not that all my kids aren't sweet, but anyone who knows them would absolutely define Genna as "sweet." I would describe Hannah as a "little mother," and Isaac as "adorable." This probably changes ever so slightly as they grow up and change, but Genna has always had this sweetness about her. This week Isaac took her pillow pet away. I had him give it back and ask if he could have a turn with it. She then said, "Yes, at rest time and room time you can have her." Then we sit down to do our religion readings. After we get comfortable, she turns to Isaac and says, "You can have her now too. Mom, are we having circle time today? Then he can have her then too." She truly embodies Matthew 5:40, "If a man asks for your shirt, give him your cloak too."

Another time I heard Hannah say, "Let's play evil." I said, "Hannah," disapprovingly. Genna says, "No, Hannah, nuns don't play evil." Hannah then says, "But you are not going to be a nun until you are older." Genna says, "But I have to practice!"

This girl is truly disappointed if I ask Hannah or Isaac to borrow something they have. Brian has been trying to explain sharing the sharing and letting others share their things as well and learn to be more giving. It's no wonder her siblings have such trouble with not getting their way with a sister like that!

Gardening in Progress

Finally! Some warmer weather and it's time to plant stuff! We've been outside on all the sunny warm days building and planting. Here's our gardening in progress...

We are growing tomatoes, cucumbers, and basil from seeds. They are all still indoors getting ready to go into our backyard vegetable garden. However, this potato plant can't wait any longer to be planted. It's in the yellow pot and it was taking over my bathroom.

Here is the garden that Isaac and Brian built for us a few weeks ago. We are planting the potato in a verticle garden style using the Lowe's bucket. The gate is to keep our resident bunnies out of our garden.

As for the front, we have done much more work on it.

This Clematis was the only thing already here. I added these pretty little double begonias here.

I have already shown you some of my tulips, but now I added a bunch of tiny begonias and a little creeping phlox to this bed and all the way down.

This is a picture of my cute middle child next to the still "in progress" flower bed around the Japanese Maple tree.

Here is the finished product, complete with Impatiens and bricks.

And here is the gliding double patio seat that my husband surprised me with, possibly out of gratitude for planting all this stuff in my current whale-like condition. We've still got a lot of work to do, but now we have a lot behind us too.