Something More Insightful...

I was pretty bad about updating my blog the second half of October, wasn't I? Not even sure why, but it definitely happened. Well, we had a visit from my brother and his family that was LOADS of fun. We were all sad to see them go. In fact Mack was asking for her Uncle Carlos for several days after they left. Kaitlyn ended up with a totally random double ear infection Halloween weekend, but was luckily she had taken enough doses of antibiotics that she was A-OK by Sunday. Trick-or-Treating on base was COLD but we had fun. We went with some friends and I think the girls had a good time. I am sure that I have a ton more to write about, but for now, this is all. When I have something more insightful to talk about I will be back.

SuperNanny Style Time Outs!

Yesterday I came to a startling realization. OK, maybe it was startling because it was something that had been nagging the back of my mind for months now, but it was a realization nonetheless.

I have done my poor little Kaitlyn a serious disservice by not disciplining her as stringently as I disciplined Mack at the same age. Mackenzie has gone through fazes of being in time-out multiple times a day in an attempt for her to learn the rules and understand how we expect her to behave not only in our home, but also in other places. With Kaitlyn though, I seem to have somehow messed that up for her and in being more lax with time-outs, have created a child who DOES NOT know how we expect her to behave and therefore is a little terror most of the time.

And not that she isn't a sweet girl, but she also has a little mischievous streak that comes out and often takes awhile to go away again. For example when she hits Mack or doesn't listen to me, I usually just correct her, tell her to apologize and then move on. With Mack in the same situation, she would have been sent to a time-out, and been expected to sit there (without getting up) for 2 minutes (or however old she is) and then would need to apologize for whatever behavior had gotten her sent there in the first place.

So in realizing all this, I have made a decision. Kaitlyn is about to start getting some tough love when it comes to discipline. I began last night with a true SuperNanny style time-out. Basically it took about 20 minutes before the kid actually sat in time-out for her whole 2 minutes without getting up. But you know what? It has ALREADY made a difference. The threat of a time out today was enough for her to correct her own behavior and follow my directions. We are about to have THREE children all under the age of 4 and if I can't get Kaitlyn to behave the way I need her to we are going to have some serious problems. I hope that I can stick to my plan, not get so upset about her not following the rules that it interferes with the plan, and get Brian on board! Wish me luck!

Yay Baby!

Well we had our first baby appointment today! I think it's crazy that here in Minot you can't get an appointment until you are at least 10 weeks. But oh well because we got to see a pretty good shot of the baby when we got the ultrasound done. I am 12 wks and 4 days and am due on April 22nd. Yay baby!

But not yay for the baby that just woke up from nap. Short entry today.

Caution: The following message contains POOP!

So the inevitable happened. One of the few disgusting things I had NOT had to deal with having two small children. But alas, Saturday night would prove that I could not handle the one truly horrendous thing would make me have to leave the room to prevent myself from throwing up all over the place. Kaitlyn POOPED IN THE TUB! I know, I know. Many of you have had to deal with this and some of you more than once, but I had been lucky up until this point and have never known the true horror of it til now.

It started out as an innocent bath. Girls playing and splashing and swimming. The usual. And then things turned ugly. I went to the hall closet (still within eye-shot) to get the girls towels out and upon my return I saw it. A disgusting grey turd (I never use that word, but it seems appropriate) floating right next to Kait. I didn't know it at the time, but as I was realizing that this thing floating in the tub is her poop, she is still squatting down in the water pushing out more poop! As soon as it all starts to click what is happening, I begin to freak out! Totally! I grab Mack out of the tub, not caring that she is soaking wet, crying and asking "to be warm", start screaming at Brian that there is poop in the tub, and finally get Kait up and out as Brian is coming up the stairs. LAUGHING! He's laughing! That jerk! Only he's not a jerk. He's a saint. Because after I get both girls out of the tub and take another look in the tub (BAD IDEA) I realize that the lack of morning sickness I've had throughout this pregnancy is about to begin in that minute if I didn't escape that room. I grab a towel, wrap Mack up, tell Brian I CANNOT deal with this and leave him in the room with the floater and the culprit. However, as I am leaving the room Kaitlyn seems to have also realized how disgusting it was that she pooped in the tub and starts gagging. Then to make my mommy guilt worse for abandoning her in her time of need she begins to throw-up. But fortunately for me, I put my mommy guilt in check, decide that I can at least take care of Mack and therefore still perform my motherly duties and take her to my bathroom to finish her bath. I'm not sure how Brian deals with the situation in the other bathroom but after about 5 minutes he and Kait join us in my bathroom so we can finish Kait's bath. After things calmed down, and we got the girls bathed, dressed, brushed, and in front of the tv, I attacked the bathroom with A LOT of bleach, making sure all their toys got a good soak before rinsing them all off. So needless to say, there is rarely a dull moment when dealing with small children. And I also know that if this happens again and Brian is not home, that floater will stay behind closed doors until he is.

Spacious White Home

So since my last post we have completely moved out of one house to a new one on our street! We have gone from a very small yellow duplex to a single-standing spacious white home! I am super excited about this transition and have been pleasantly surprised at how well the girls have been adjusting. Something that I probably wasn't as worried about as I needed to be. I told Brian the other day that as proud as I am that they have done so well with the move, I naively thought no less of them. I forget that change is a dramatic thing for most people, especially little tiny people whose worlds are so small anyway. I embrace most changes and find them exciting and fun. I suppose that is why I married a man in the air force. A life full of constant change. But again, to little people, it is a big deal!

But despite this, they have done an amazing job and we also put Kait straight into a big girl bed once we moved in. Now keep in mind, Mack was JUST moved into a twin bed the week before her 3rd birthday (Aug 7), so moving Kait so early is a big deal. But she seems to be handling it well and is still taking afternoon naps without too much fuss so that proves to us that she is old enough to handle it. Kaitlyn seems to handle things like this better than Mack did. We had tried to move Mack to a big-girl bed when she was 2 1/2 and she was NOT ready for it so we had to put her back in her crib. It broke her heart, but there was no way she was going to sleep in that bed without keeping herself and Kait up. And my little Kait is still regularly *trying* to use the potty. She has gone pee pee a couple times, but more than anything she just likes to strip off her clothes, sit on the potty and use toilet paper. But again, this is more than Mack does even at this point. After we get completely unpacked and settled into this house that will be my next task. Getting Mack potty-trained. Ideally my goal is to have Kait and Mack potty-trained by the time New-New Baby (Kait was New Baby) is born. But I am not going to stress myself out about it either. If I end up with three kids in diapers, then I will have three kids in diapers. Not a huge deal in my world. If I'm already changing one, then I can change the rest too. I will post pictures of our old and new houses and you can see why I am so excited for this house!

...always waiting for the bottom to fall out...

During church today I had a serious desire to blog about something that has been weighing on my heart a lot over the last couple of years. It is something that I have talked to a few people about, but I don't think I have ever really opened up about the full extent of the situation. I don't even think situation is the right word, I just can't think of anything else to call it. So, basically, I have felt that the last three years of my life have been too good to be true. To the point that I am almost always waiting for the bottom to fall out. And I realize that this doesn't actually seem like a problem and like I'm finding reasons to complain somehow, but that's not what I feel this is. And don't get me wrong, if I look at the actual events of the past three years, it has been anything but perfect, but somehow, everything that has come out of the craziness has been such a huge blessing in my life. When I try to imagine a "better" life for me and my family, I can't. Well, maybe I can imagine some warmer weather, but even that struggle has made me a stronger person and I am grateful for that.

I know this is a lame analogy, but all of you Sex and the City fans will know, in the first movie . Carrie asks Charlotte why she thinks something bad is going to happen and Charlotte says "Because! Nobody gets everything they want! Look at you, look at Miranda. You're good people and you two both got shafted. I'm so happy and... something bad is going to happen." That pretty much sums it for me. So many bad things happen to awesome people, and I just keep wondering how I got so blessed. And of course my go-to answer is because of Jesus Christ, and while that is true and I know that to be true, I find it hard to fully believe. Which then scares me that maybe my faith isn't what I think it is if I can't even accept Christ's blessings without questioning them. And that is where the problem is. I am having a crisis of faith of sorts and I'm not even sure how to move past it and deal with it. I need to know how I can just trust in the Lord that he is taking care of me. And that even if something bad is going to happen, I need to not dwell on it and worry on a constant basis. I need to know that my faith in Christ is secure enough that even when bad things happen, as they inevitably will, I know he will still shower me with blessings because I am his child.

Another Little Piece of Craziness!

Well things are certainly changing! And the thing that has been changing the most (or will be in the very near future) is my waistline. And by waistline, I mean uterus! Yup, that's right! Baby #3 will be making his/her appearance at the end of April! We are so excited to be adding another little piece of craziness to our lives. Mack is already preparing for the new little one by oh-so-generously shoving toys down my shirt for the baby to play with! I just love the way three year olds think! Kait of course doesn't really get it yet, but I'm sure that at the point my stomach becomes too big for her to comfortably sit in my lap she will realize something is different. That was about the time Mack finally noticed something. Of course, Mack did her best to ignore the fact that there was another baby in the house til Kait was about 3-4 months old and became somewhat mobile. But Kaitlyn likes babies more than Mack does, so hopefully she will see the new baby as a blessing and not as competition for Mommy and Daddy's attention. Another exciting thing about this pregnancy is that I have not had any morning sickness (yet!)! Let's just hope it stays that way. I had a very easy pregnancy with Mack, and only had mild morning sickness in the first trimester with Kait, so hopefully this will also be an easy pregnancy. When this baby is born, we will have three babies under 4! We must be nuts, but the way I figure it, we got through having two babies 16 months apart, and this time, Kait will almost be 2 1/2, and will be a little more self-sufficient than Mack was when she came along. I think we have such an awesome support system, here in Minot, and back home that we will be just fine.

On another note, it has been awhile since any developmental updates for my two beautiful girls and that hubby of mine, so here we go:

Mack has her first imaginary friend! She knows most of her ABC's (minus the whole l-m-n-0-p part) and can count to 14! She sings constantly, knows a ridiculous amount of dinosaurs. And not just ones like stegosaurus, t-rex, triceratops, etc. We are talking dinos like, protoceratops, oviraptor, compsignathus! Ones I have never even heard of until my little dino-obsessed beauty came along! She is very polite and whenever she says thank you to someone she is very specific about what she is thankful for (which I LOVE about her). She is such a good big sister to Nunnies. Even when Kaitlyn is pulling her hair or stealing her toys, all she does is yell "KAITLYN MYERS! YOU STOP THAT!" One day I was curious to see if she knew what her name was, since she obviously knew Kait's. Her response was "Mackie" and I said "Mackie what?" and she said "Mackie Doodle!" Haha! Love her.

Kaitlyn, who will be 2 in December (I know, I can hardly believe it either!) is definitely gaining new words on a weekly, if not daily, basis. She has such a better grasp on language than Mack did at that age. Just goes to show that they really do things in their own time. She is constantly pulling down her pants and yelling PEE PEE while she runs to the potty. Now this would be way more exciting if any of these episodes actually resulted in pee pee in the potty, but unfortunately, it has only happened once. But again, the fact that she semi-understands the process and is so excited about it are all good signs! She is getting way more interested in books than ever before. Every month she seems to have a little more patience to sit with me to read. Plus it gives her an excuse to cuddle with Momma and since that is one of her favorite past times, it works out well for both of us.

Brian, who is also just growing up so fast ;) has been working harder than ever which sadly means way less time at home. He now has an office job on top of his alert schedule, so he is a busy busy bee. I have pretty much grown accustomed to planning the girls and my activities without him and if he happens to be home, we make adjustments, but usually that doesn't have to happen. I think that he is perfect for his new job though. It's all about paperwork and organization, and if anyone knows my husband, they know he is a clean freak and has to have his space organized. I, on the other hand, have no such sense of order in my life, and thus we are balanced. He has made me a little more conscientious of my messes, and I have relaxed him a bit in the clean department. He has also been hitting the gym at least 4 times a week and it has definitely been paying off! I wish I could lose weight like that...Of course that would mean having to go to the gym 4 times a week and I'm lucky if I make it two times a week to Zumba! (Which is one of my favorite new things and highly suggest everyone try it!)

Oh and last but not least, we bought a van last week! A 2007 Honda Odyssey. It is so convenient and drives really well! Plus has a dvd player in the back for the girls which will surely come in handy with all the cross-country trips we do! If only we had had it this summer! Oh well, we are excited and the girls both love it!

Must Be Fall

So it really must be fall already and my Little Nuggs sure knows how to make sure I am aware of this change. Complete with fever, no appetite, slight wheezing and major congestion. Oh how I love this time of year. NOT! And we have such a busy week ahead of us that I am keeping us home for the day to help her recoup so that we can go ahead with our week without any illnesses interrupting us.

Mommy triumphs and trials

Well life with two babies is obviously hectic and crazy at times, and so it has been months since my last update. For this I apologize. I can probably guarantee however that in the coming months my posts will become a regular activity for me. Not only are the cold months coming where there is significantly less to do, but we also recently purchased an iMac that is beautiful! And in the basement which is not near the babies' room so I don't feel bad typing on it while they are sleeping. My computer is in our bedroom and I pretty much avoid going upstairs whenever the girls are asleep, and the only time I am able to even get on the computer is during nap time or bedtime, so blogging has become a difficult task. But now my problems are solved! I again my place to vent my mommy triumphs and trials.

One big triumph in our household today was potty-training!!! Ok, I say triumph when really it was like a small step in the right direction, but I will take it! My little Nuggies, at only 20 months old, decided to go pee pee in the potty! Where as my Mack refuses to go on a regular basis. And what do you do when your kid just truly DOES NOT CARE? She has full control and knows exactly when she needs to go. She just choses not to. Unless of course you are in the middle of a playground, no bathrooms around and she has the option to pull her diaper off and squat in the grass. Then she LOVES to go potty! Go figure.

We are trying to make the most of our quickly ending summer and made some finger paint out of cornstarch, water, and food coloring and played in the splash pool. The girls were a mess but they had fun and that's what counts. Then my neighbor VERY generously invited us over for dinner, so it made my evening QUITE easy once we got home. Baths, stories, prayers, then bed! I love these kind of nights.

A little too much...

It's not often that I feel lonely and depressed about living in Minot, but there are times when the reality of our situation starts to feel like a burden. It's usually around holidays when everyone is together and we are here. And even then I feel like me and Brian and the girls are able to create our own very personal family memories so it's not so bad. But there are times, like today, when the girls have been sick all weekend, Brian's pulled back-to-back alerts, my friends are making huge plans that I don't get to be a part of, and we missed yet another holiday with our family, that it is a little too much to handle. I know that I have so many blessings and that really our life here is pretty good. I do know that. Sometimes it just doesn't seem to be quite enough though.

Pretty dang cute!

The Nuggs is officially walking and standing up on her own now! Her crawling is at an all time low, and soon it will seem non-existent. I am so proud of her every time I see her stand up! She concentrates so hard on it and it usually takes her a few tries, but it is pretty dang cute every time! She has also started to pick up on more of the signs I've been trying to teach her since she was 9 months old. Her learning more signs has helped curb some of her tantrums, but she definitely has her moments where nothing can calm that girl down. She is a very stubborn girl and can be VERY hard to handle sometimes, but she's cute, so we will keep her for a little bit longer ;).

Slowly but surely...

Well it finally seems as though winter is winding down here in ND! Ok, maybe it wouldn't seem that way if you looked outside and still saw piles of snow and cloudy skies, but it's happening. Slowly but surely the snow is melting and the temperature has been in the 30's for over a week now. The downfall to this weather change is that it feels as though spring is so close, but I know it is still so long till the girls and I can actually enjoy the outdoors.

On another note, Kaitlyn has finally started walking. No, not consistently yet, but she's trying. I guess that too, will be a slowly but surely situation. As well as Mack's potty training. We are attempting for the second time around and looking for more consistent results. It seems to be going well. We implemented a sticker chart that she gets to add a sticker to every time she goes potty and she LOVES it! In fact, she tried to go potty for 20 straight minutes just so she could get another sticker. I think the chart maybe worked a little too well. But then through the night she definitely made use of her diaper, so we still have a long way to go.

Good News

Well, this is my first week in Minot without Brian! Just me and the girls for 5 days! I thought it would be worse, but we are two days down and all doing fabulously well. In fact, we even got some good news that Nuggs has started gaining the proper amount of weight again. Between 9 and 12 months she had gained less than a pound and as many of you know, that is not normal for a baby. So I took her in, was told to feed her as often as she would eat, and give her all the whole milk she wanted. I did just that and now she is back on track! We have another check up in a month, but assuming she keeps up her weight gain she will be back on the normal baby check up schedule. Other than that, everything has been business as usual around here. Mack is her usual goofy self. Her newest thing is that she is a different animal every day. She'll wake up and say "Pick up baby elephant" or "Say 'good morning baby care bear'" it is cute and silly and i love her for it. Nuggs is also her usual goofy self, but unfortunately for us, her goofy consists of waking up in the middle of the night, acting wide awake and trying to play games. Similar to how she acted as a very small infant. Some things never change I suppose.