Standing Tall

I have been a little slow on the posts lately. So, I decided to put aside some of the things I really should be doing right now to add a few notes about the past couple weeks.


Our bedtime ritual around here puts Vinny and Addie to bed, then we go downstairs and get Elise ready for bed and she gets a bottle before heading to bed- either in our room or in the shared room with Addie. She keeps getting put back in our room when one or the other of them gets a cold and they start waking each other up from coughing. That is a situation we will need to take care of soon enough. Anyway, after we read books, brush teeth and say prayers Vinny gets in bed and we go tuck Addie in and I go back and tuck Vinny in while Dave heads down to get Elise in her pj's.
Tuesday night Dave came out with Elise in just her diaper to do their walk around as she loves to be in just a diaper! They were practicing some standing and Elise stood on her own for about 15 seconds:) It was so cute. Then she did it again and was gaining some confidence so she was trying to pull her diaper off with one hand while steadying herself at the same time. I am pretty sure she will have tooth number 2 by the end of the day today. It is just trying to poke out. She has had her one toof (as Vinny and Addie call it) for 2 months now:)

Adelaide sat with me the other night and let me brush her hair. This does not happen often and it is good that her hair really doesn't need brushing very often because aside from right after her bath it is usually a battle to try to get her to let me touch it! The other night she seemed to be enjoying it and I was able to try out my french braid skills. I am pretty rusty and I was always a lot better at doing my own than doing for other people. I got one in it was pretty loose, but it was there.

Yesterday after we picked Vinny up at school we had to run some errands. When we got home I unloaded the van, including Vinny and Addie, and went to put the van away. I came in about 90 seconds later. I found Vinny and Addie in the bathroom. Vinny had helped Addie get her coat off, get her potty chair set up, get her pants down and was getting her lined up to go potty. I got in to help with the final part. Vinny just told me that she needed to go potty, so I had to help her since I was the biggest one in here. What a great big brother!! He really likes to look after his little sisters!!

Vinny had a pajama party at school today. They all looked so excited this morning. They got to wear PJ's and slippers and bring a stuffed animal. His was his santa teddy that he sleeps with every night! At near the end of their day they got to snuggle up on sleeping bags, eat popcorn, and watch a Sesame Street video. Vinny let me know that they put butter on the popcorn and wondering if we could have that on ours next time.

I think that sums up my post for today. I will try to add in some photos very soon. I am pretty behind on those.

Toilet drumming... 4 yr old pop singin'....

I don't know what it is about the toilet and babies, but my kids can't get enough of the germ filled bathroom toilet areas (all three have gone through this in our house). Elise is getting into EVERYTHING these days. One of her current favorite ways to entertain herself is to sneak into the bathroom and pull up on the toilet and start drumming. Another is to make her way to the carbon monoxide detector, yank it out of the wall, and proceed to beat it on the tile floor. If she can find a night light, she has figured out how to remove the diffuser thingy and start sucking on it. She gets into everything now, but she is so fun to watch. She crawls (so fast) and pulls herself up on everything.
Vinny and Addie have really started to have fun playing with Elise. When you hear the three of them all laughing, you know they are up to something!! It usually involves Elise being pulled around the room by one or both of her siblings and they are all just rolling in laughter. Vinny has taken to 'watching out for Elise' frequently. This will often result in carrying her around (only dropping her occasionally). They really are pretty careful with her and just like to make her laugh. We try to find safe way for this, but they like to be creative! When we go places they always like to tell people 'this is my baby sister Elise'.
Adelaide is doing wonderfully with the undies. We are working on getting her to use the big potty with a potty ring. We are still bringing her potty chair along when we go places so she can go in the van. This works pretty well, but she thinks it is fun, so she goes potty a lot! :) She has also taken to picking out her own clothes much more than before. It used to just be shoes that were an issue, but now we have a lot of days that we just have to wear a pretty dress!! sometimes the dresses are decked out with boots or whatever shoes she just HAS to have that day!! Not worth a fight, so she can look pretty comical. I don't know that What Not to Wear would approve, but she is only 2!!
Tonight Vinny was walking around singing mims 'This is Why I'm Hot' tonight. So, I was a wee bit disturbed by this, but it sure was funny. He has been doing very well lately. We had preregistration for kindergarten this week. Yikes! my little boy will be going to kindergarten next year. Holy cow!! Time flies! Of course this is not till September, but it is still hard to believe.
So, I don't leave out the furry baby. Beasely had her yearly check-up today. She was her normal scared to death self. She gets just terrified when we go for check-ups. She trembles as soon as we get into the office. I have to hold her for everything they do, she won't take treats from the evil-doers and she had so much dander covering her fur while we are there it looks like she just came in from a blizard. She is a healthy pooch:) She got the whole ball of wax today, all the shots, blood draw and nose kennel cough thing. She is all set for the year.
That ends my update for now. Hope everyone is staying warm! It is stinking cold out!!!

Time to confirm my reservation at the nuthouse!

Adelaide is doing a wonderful job at going potty. I am really not calling it potty training for her, since she pretty much did this solo! She is still wearing a diaper for naps and bedtime, but has been staying dry for most of those too. It is very impressive. One little glitch is that so far she only goes on her potty chair soooo, we have to take the little red potty with us in the van and she goes in the van when we are out and about. I think she thoroughly enjoys this! She goes before and after most places that we visit and thinks it is pretty funny when I open the van door and dump her pee out (after I have checked that the coast is clear - hey, dogs and men go wherever they want, right?).
Since this little revelation of hers she has also discontinued her siesta. She is still in her cage, oh I mean crib, for a couple hours, but is not seeing much in terms of sleep. Ugh! I am hopeful this is just a little phase and she will slip back into her reliable napping pattern. Or, as my title suggests, I may end up pulling my hair out and wind up in an institution!! Just kidding there, but really, I so so enjoy my afternoon nap time. Vinny is up, but he really enjoys his sister free time as well and knows there are little things he can do when his sisters are sleeping. I am counting on a few more years of worry free napping from littlest one around here!

Can a 2 year old have a New Years Resolution??

Apparently Addie decided that the new year meant a new you!! She had been periodically asking to go potty, usually before bedtime, and would go. Then the next morning wanted nothing to do with it again. I was not feeling the need to push her on it yet. She is not 2 1/2 yet, and I just didn't want to force it on her. So, when on New Years Eve she wanted to go potty before bed and did it, I didn't think anything of it. The next morning we asked if she wanted to go potty and wear Dora undies and she said yes. She is now ending her third day of being daytime diaper free. We have still been doing the night diapers- and naptime (I am short of crib mattress pads now that we have 2 cribs). She has only had two accidents both in her booster seat. I guess she thinks eating trumps going potty. Today went very well and it has really been quite amazing to see her just do it on her own. Vinny was not an easy subject to work with:) They all figure it out on their own time and I guess maybe this is Addie's time (I am not holding my breath that we don't lapse a bit here and there!). We have not been on a regular schedule this week, so we were able to stay home all day. We will see how it goes when we have to start leaving the house this coming week, especially since she has only gone in her potty chair and never on a big potty... the idea of having just one in diapers is pretty nice!

The toys are among us

Christmas time.... let the plastic decor multiply! Wow! The kids made a haul this year. They are having a ball with all the new toys. We had family parties Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and are supposed to have one Saturday - mother nature may be calling that one off for us. The red suited man made an appearance here on Christmas Eve so Christmas morning was extra exciting for Vinny and Addie. Elise doesn't much know what is going on! It has been a super Christmas for all of us and has been great to make it to the family gatherings.
Vinny is excited about all his gifts and had a hard time going to bed tonight because he has not gotten to play his new Monopoly game yet! Addie is all over her new baby gear and barbies. At nearly 2 1/2 Addie already has more Barbies than I ever had! :) I wanted to take the shoes away so they don't end up in Elise's diapers, but Addie will have no part in that!
We have had several late nights in a row and not much for naps. All of us are getting tired out. We have a long recoup stretch coming up as Vinny has next week off from school and Dave heads back to work, so we will be doing some lounging and playing with the new 'stuff'. That is it from here tonight.... been some late nights for mom and dad too, time to snooze!

snow, snow, snow

Well, I do not claim to be a fan of winter or snow or any of the things that go along with it. Why I am still living in Wisconsin, I am not sure. I would say it is because it is simpler than trying to convince our entire family to move elsewhere. I am already working on my own kids suggesting that they can live someplace warm so mommy can have a way out of here:):) I guess the snow is pretty. If we could have snow and not freezing cold, I think I would be okay with it. I almost like it when it just snows and the temps are reasonable (like 20's or 30's). Dave claims to enjoy it (another big reason we are in WI!) and thinks I should just give snowmobiling another shot (I find this pastime to be cold!).
So, anyway, this rant about winter is brought on by the continual snow events taking place and the fact that we have a horrendous driveway (somewhat long -about 500 feet and VERY steep). I took Addie to the store this morning to pick up a few things and we could not get up the driveway - grrrr! At least I was able to back it into the snow halfway down so we didn't have to walk the whole thing. She was super funny when I got stuck and started sliding backwards. She started whimpering and saying 'me house, me house'. Then she thought it was pretty funny when I told her mommy got the van (which,btw, is AWD) stuck in the snow. At least the cleanup was not my deal - that is Dave's department:)
Definately looking like a white Christmas and Santa should have smooth sailing!

Time sure flies. Especially this time of year. It has been a busy month so far and will be super hectic next week for all the Christmas parties. I spent a week cut off from the cyber world! That was hard to take. Dave was out of town and had to take the laptop (currently our only computer) with him. I really seemed to accomplish a lot of things that week with no internet distractions and much less food prep - kids got easy kid food all week and I had easy stuff. I watched the nightly news since I did not have any of my news websites to periodically check up on the happenings around the world. Anyway, since then I guess I have been busy with the normal stuff and holiday things on top of them just didn't make room for my poor little blog.
I am currently trying to create a warm vacation atmosphere by loading up the woodstove and pretending it is the ocean instead of a sea of snow out my windows! Hope I didn't kill my fire with the big log I just added!
So to catch up on things...
Elise is super cute and really getting an attitude and moving around like crazy! On Sunday her first tooth finally poked through. It had been blistery for a good month. Last week she started pulling herself up to standing. Now she pulls herself and starts to scream (an earpiercing one!) because she doesn't know how to get back down. She started sleeping in her crib at night on Sunday night. She has been doing pretty well. The first night she slept all night (I hadn't gotten to sleep through the night in a couple months). Since then it hasn't been quite as long, but still an improvement over what we had before.
Adelaide has become a princess (in her mind anyway). She will grab Vinny and they dance and twirl about. This morning when I went to get her, she was twilrling her bear blankie and calling it her princess:) She still likes the pirates and dinosaur toys too, but she has been giving her babies and dollhouse a LOT of attention lately.
Vinny is so super excited about Christmas it is almost contagious! It is so fun to be 4!!! He will run around and say this is going to be the best Christmas EVER! he wants everything - yikes! He had his first school Christmas program last week. It was very cute. He was a shepherd. He was standing next to one of his buddies during the last portion of the program and the two of them had to be sushed by the older kids several times!
We have started to use our wood stove in the basement and it has proved to make a very warm cozy place to spend our days! Last weekend it was in the 80's down here! We are figuring out the best way to keep it hot overnight and working out the kinks. So, as much as I was not sure about the thing, I am starting to really like it. Now if I can just get it going today. hmmmm.

In preparation for Christmas we went to see Santa at the library a couple weeks ago and then went to get our tree. It was very very cold. I got pics of Santa, but was too frozen to take any shots of the trek to get the tree. Last weekend we got to have a lot of snowy fun. We built a snowman and a fort on Saturday (all of which melted on Sunday). We had gone sledding when we first got the snow and Vinny and I just came back in the house from going today. So, as much as I don't like snow and could really do without winter and cold, it is fun to go out and play in it now and then.