Hello Babies!

Three of our good friends recently gave birth and I thought I would share a picture of all the cutie pies ;)

Kelly and Jeremiah had a baby girl: Nadia Grace, born in March.

Katie and Tony had a baby boy: William Robert. Born on May 19th.

This is Williams older brother Noah with Josiah.

Brandi and Kevin had a baby girl: Kayla Jean, born on June 16th.

Up North

Josiah and I headed up north for a week long vacation on the lake! What a great week and incredible weather. We even had a rain day so we could get into town to do some shopping. I was in need of a new swim suit. Something I didn't know until we got up there and I put my old swimsuit on the elasticity had completely gone out of hte top. After much trying on and dissappointment, I finally found one that I really liked and that fit :) Happy days!


I took so many pictures (over 200) that I don't have time to post very many right now. But I thought I could post a few really cute ones that kind of summed up our week. Hopefully I will get around to posting more later...but no promises ;)

Good Bye Diapers ;)

We have great news....I believe we have been successful in potty training Josiah. He had one accident (the yucky kind) when he wasn't wearing underwear last week and has gone poop on the potty ever since. And only a couple pee accidents since (which I hear can go on for several years). So we super excited about our little mans success ;) He is just growing up so fast!

June Fav Pictures

Yummy good! Peanut Butter sandwhich...I could live on these ;)

Cute...

Cuter....
Cutest ;)

A visit to see a good friend Katie and her new baby :) This is her 3 year-old Noah looking cute for a cookie with Josiah.

Eating their reward!
Baby William Robert, born May 19th, 2008. 9lbs 3oz (a perfect size, if I don't say so myself :)
Driving the jeep before Church. Mom got the time wrong and we had an hour to kill before going to church, so we played in the yard. Beautiful day!

Mama and Josiah...not sure why his foot is sticking up??

Daddy and Josiah
The Pointer :)
Pointing at planes

My little helper ;)
If you can see the peanut butter or are wondering why I posted a piture of our very messy silver wear drawer...look closely. Josiah got into peanut butter and was trying out about a third of our silverwear seeing which would be the perfect utinsil to transport the yummy goodness to his mouth :)



I asked him to fill the water jug :)

Showing off his Jeep Skills

Cousins come for a Visit

I think Samantha and Nathan had a good time and I know Josiah loved having his Cousins visit for an entire weekend!! Hopefully they can come again very soon ;)

A visit to the local park to burn some energy off

We put the kids to work right away helping us in our garden...didn't last long, but Samantha at least helped us get some seeds planted.

Unfortunately all of our hard work in the garden was mostly washed away that night in the terrential down pours we received. Oh well, it was fun planting anyway!

Everyone had to have a turn driving Josiah's jeep...And Samantha made sure she was included in on the fun!

Nathan taught Josiah to say "Cheeseburger" for pictures, so most of the pictures from this weekend are of the kids saying "bur" :)
They kept doing drive-bys for more chips...they would stop, hold out their hands and say "more chips, please" very cute!
Samantha took this picture and it actually turned out really well. There are few pictures out there of me that I can say that about, so I thought I would include it here.
This is a picture of the 4 of us stuck in the old part of our basement during a tornado warning. Thank goodness Dan had left behind his laptop and that we had power!

They do love to wrestle. We were trying to set up the tent and they just wanted to play on it ;)
Yep, the boys are sitting on Samantha. Silly kids!
The reason this picture is so foggy is because the humidity was at an all time high. We had received 4-5 inches of rain the night before and the back part of our yard was flooded. Who needs a splash park when our back yard was one big splash pad. The kids had a ball.
Nathan especially loved the nightcrawlers. I guess the worms where they live just aren't as much fun. He also passed the love of worms onto Josiah :)
Playing in the sandbox, filled with water.
And of course after a day in the sand and mud...it was bathtime!Just a cute picture of Josiah that I took in June.

And I thought I would end this post with the cutest picture I took while Samantha and Nathan came to visit! Thanks for a fun weekend.

Pictures from May

$4 at a garage sale...the best $4 I have ever spent on a toy for Josiah. Daddy got smart and put the lawn mower battery in it (same voltage) so we didn't have to go and buy a new battery :) He spends hours driving around. And even though we are bias, he is an amazing driver! He just got in and new how it worked. Just like his daddy!

Very serious about his driving and is very good at backing up when he gets himself into a jam!!
Loves to help out in the kitchen...sometimes I actually let him help!
$10 Garage sale motor cycle...he loved it of course!
Josiah and Luke going for a ride on Luke's 1st birthday in Luke's fun new bike cart :)
Before the haircut!
After the haircut!! So very handsome!

"We Did It"

Straight from a babe's mouth!! Josiah went poop on the potty tonight!! Dan caught him in the act and asked him if he wanted to go on the potty and he said "Yah!!" Dan took him to the bathroom, Josiah sat and proceeded to "Go Poop" and afterwards said "We did it" Yeah! I know this doesn't mean that he is completely potty trained, but this is a huge step :) When I called him tonight I said to him "You're a big boy now" and Josiah replied "Yah, go poop" To cute! He was so proud of himself. Now will he do it again and again...that is the question! At any rate, I am pretty excited!

On the peeing front, there have been a few set backs. Probably due to potty training at a youngish age maybe. I don't know! But I caught him trying to pee on his craftsmen workbench! Thank goodness I caught him and made him go straight to the bathroom. I forewarned our daycare, just in case. The news I received that night was that he had pee'd in the toy box and then pee'd on the wall in the dining room. They looked at it as though he was a little puppy being potty trained, always looking for the next spot to go pee! That kid! But what are you going to do :) Thank goodness, Kim is very understanding and simply laughs if off ;) And then today Kim said that he didn't go on the potty very often at all. He started peeing in his pull-up. But they were also out on the slip and slide and his little body was probably confused by the wet pull-up and what not. Plus the other kids at day care have really started to get after him when he pee's outside or anywhere else for that matter, so maybe he was just being shy today. Who knows! So we were super shocked to have him poop on the potty!

What a huge milestone!!! I can't wait until we can ditch the diapers! What a savings that will be :)

News with Josiah

POTTY TRAINING: The most current and most exciting news is that we are over 50% of the way to having a fully potty trained little boy. We have been working with him since January, putting him on the potty to go pee 2-3 times a day. Mainly in the morning and at night, which he was more than willing to do. We would say to go "Bubble" Pee and he would go and get excited that he made bubbles in the toilet. Then of course the best part, flushing :) Then 2-3 months ago, we put him in underwear for the day and with 1 hour he had pee'd his pants 5 times. Not ready. Then last weekend, I decided to try again. I was going to be home all day and outside for a good majority of the day. And it took. He had 3 accidents throughout the day (much better than 5 in an hour). And ever since Saturday night he has not had one single peeing accident. I can hardly believe it. He loves to "Go Pee"! We went to church on Sunday morning and I put a pull-up on him, just in case he told the teacher he had to go. Apparently he told her 5 times and it wasn't until the 5th time that he actually went. He was amazing this weekend. He started to grab himself when he felt he had to pee and would either tell us or we would ask him. I am soooo proud of him and excited! Pooping is another story, but that too is in the works. Today at day care he spent 30 minutes going back and forth to the toilet trying to go poop. Holding his back end and front, saying "Go Poop" So the interest is there, he just doesn't know how to yet. All in time. I still can't believe that he hasn't had an accident since Saturday night (morning or naps or anything :) I just hope that it continues.

THE JEEP: We bought him a Jeep (the one that they drive around and it can hold 2 kids) at a garage sale for $4. The best buy of the year!!! We knew that buying one at a garage sale would mean that we would need to buy a battery. But my genius of a husband figured out that they lawn mower battery was the same voltage and would work in the jeep. So for $4, Josiah is having the time of his life. I will post a picture when I get a chance. But he is so cute in this thing. But the crazy part is that he truly understands how to drive this thing. He can park the car in the garage and back it back out. He understands how to back up. How does a 2 1/2 year old know how to back up a car. I know adults that have difficulty doing this. He knows that if he gets stuck, to back up, turn the wheel and continue forward. How does he know this? I have no idea!! But the real kicker is that last night Josiah was driving the Jeep in the neighbors yard and Dan had told him not to one to many times. So he made Josiah park the Jeep in the garage and proceeded to unplug the battery. Dan left the car and Josiah and went back to what he was doing. Shortly after that, Dan hears the sound of the Jeep backing out of the garage. That little stinker (very smart stinker), figured out how to hook the battery back up. He understood that when Dan unhooked the battery (which Dan didn't think Josiah had witnessed), that that was the cause of his car not working. Then he figured out what Dan had done to the battery to make it not work and proceeded to fix it. 2 1/2 years old people! I don't even know how to hook the battery up to the Jeep, How is the world does a 2 1/2 year old know how to do this. Long story short: We love the Jeep and Josiah loves the jeep even more :)

TALKING: He is talking up a storm. Some of the funny things that he is saying these days: "Come Here, Right Now, Okay", "Right there, over there, down there, up there", "Josiah's turn, Okay", What doing?", We say to him "It's time to go Nigh-Nigh", his response "Really soon Nigh-Nigh", We tell his to say "Thank you" and he says "your welcome", Night time routine: I say "I love you" Josiah says "I love you too" I say "I love you more" Josiah says "I love you more" (my favorite I think).

PEANUT BUTTER: the catch all food. What do you want for breakfast "Peanut butter", what do you want for lunch "peanut butter", what do you want for dinner "Peanut butter", you get the picture!! Loves it!!!

MY FUN KID: He is just so much fun right now! Still gets lots of time-outs (which is very good about taking, most of the time), but for the most part, he is just so funny in the things he says and does. We are just loving spending time with him, which will come in handy when trying to budget because hanging out around the yard on the weekends is a lot of fun!!!

PICTURES: I will try and follow with some fun pictures here in the next week or so!

Hiatus Over

I hadn't realized it had been so long since I blogged until I logged on and read that my least blog was on April 10th. Almost 2 full months, where has the time gone! I think I have mostly been focusing on scrapbooking both for me and I am also scrapbooking my stepdad's memoirs ( a very fun and rewarding experience).

So where to start!! News with me I suppose is as good a place to start as any!

WORK: I have been at my new job now for a little over 3 months now and am starting to find my groove here. I am still adjusting to working with the 4 other girls, but we have kind of gotten past the first akward phase as they learn my personality and I learned theirs. So we have had many good weeks in a row. I am back in training learning the last leg of stuff in order to be fully trained. So that will be nice to get that out of the way.

WEIGHT WATCHERS: I started back to Weight Watchers about the same time I stopped blogging and I have lost a total of 14 lbs as of this morning. So I am pretty excited about that. My goal is 20 lbs by my birthday on June 30th :) So that is 6 lbs in 3 weeks...doable, so we will just have to see. I just need to stay focused and not let stress induce eating!!

CHURCH: Another big deal in our little lives is that we have been considering checking out new churches. A huge deal since we have been at our church for 8 years. But so much has changed in 8 years and we just don't feel like the church is meeting our needs any longer. So together, Dan and I made the decision to start looking for a new church. Last weekend we ventured out and attended the church just down the street from us. And it turns out that several of the families from our day care also attend. Josiah walked in and new many of the children and we knew many of the adults. I also saw a person that I met at Weight Watchers who has small children and we keep trying to get together but it never seems to work out. We also really enjoyed the change...the way communion was given, the music especially was so simple and everyone knew when and what to sing, and we really enjoyed the sermon. Before he even started he let everyone know that he would be going a little long because he more to say than the 15 minutes left in the service. That was great. He wasn't constrained by the music program or antsy people expecting to leave at preciscly 12:00pm. And the sermon was straight from the Bible. People brought their own Bibles and there was an outline in the bulletin to follow along. I loved that! I mean using your Bible at church, what a consept. Overall, it really fit well with Dan and I andI think we are going to keep attending. I think it was a change that we really needed. The hard part is that I am still involved at some things that take place at my old church and I am not sure how that will work out. For example Weight Watchers takes place in teh choir room at the old church, so I pass the pastor's and lay assistants office on my way to the choir room. I was also taking Josiah to toddler time, which is not offiliated with the church but is located at the church. I have considered going to MOPS, which is also at the church. You get the picture. There is alot going on at that church and I don't know how or when, or if I even need to sever any of those ties. I would hope that people would understand, but I have a feeling they will not. Only time will tell!

BUDGET: We met with my good friend, who is a financial guru;) She loves helping people with their budget and has taught several classes teaching people how to get out of debt. Something we need to get in order desparetly. My new income makes it hard to meet our financial demands month to month, let alone trying to pay off debt. But we sat down and came up with some things to focus on right now. One of my first things I am going to try and do is to sell my Aztek. If I can make a profit on it (which my car salesman brother thinks I can), then I can pay off the Aztek and buy a really cheap small car that will be completely paid off. That is the ultimate goal at any rate. We are also looking into reducing our daycare rates, but not at the expense of our daycare provider. I don't come in to work until 2:30pm, but Josiah is in the middle of a nap around that time, so he still needs to get their sometime around 12:30-1:00 or so. Which means he is in daycare for 5 hours, which is considered a full day anyway. So I am not sure that we will be able to reduce that cost any. If it means losing our daycare provider, I am not sure we are willing to make that sacrifice. At any rate, we are getting a handle on our finances and we hope to make a serious dent in our debt over the next couple of years.

GARDEN: We are putting a garden in...lots of work, but I am looking forward to it this summer since I have the mornings to take better care of it :) I hope that we can keep up with the weeds!!!

THE ROOF: Memorial day weekend, with the help of the best friends in the world (Mike and Dave and Mindy for support;)) we tore our roof off and replaced it in 2 days. Small roof, but it went very smoothly!! We also had a great cook-out and bon-fire after all the hard work was done on Saturday :) I love summer!

I think that just about covers it for me :)