Help A Mom Out!

I've got this smart, little four year old who has all of the sudden become some little two year old just starting to potty train (or so it seems)...Samantha had been potty trained since she was 2 years old, but recently she's had times where she "forgets" to go potty on the toilet for days at a time.  This most recent bout of forgetfulness has lasted way too long!  I mean, she knows where to go to use the bathroom.  She knows she's not supposed to go in her pants, but for some reason she does.  She tells me "my brain is telling me to have too much fun and go in my panties."  I told her that she's in charge of her brain and she can tell it to stop telling her that!  You see, her excuse is that she's "just having too much fun."  Yeah, too much fun to STOP and go to the bathroom.  Very frustrating!  We've tried doing the sticker chart, AGAIN.  We've tried treats at the end of the day, if there's no accidents.  We've now decided that instead of rewarding, maybe we need to punish. I know, it sounds harsh, but she already knows the routine.  So, we have taken a few privileges away, and today was better but I worry it's just temporary. Anyway, I was just curious if there's any other moms out there who have dealt with this same situation.  Is there any suggestions?  And ideas?  Help!

Gaming with Dad

Jeremy downloaded a game onto our Wii that he's been playing the past few days. Here's a glimpse of what the future might hold for our children when it comes to video games...You can see, Parker is really excited and happy to have a Wii controller and be with Dad and to "play", while Sam really doesn't give a care and ends up falling asleep. Like Father, like Son.

Family Fun!

Our family REALLY likes Halloween, so we decided to invite the rest of the family over for a fun night of making caramel apples, and spooky haunted gingerbread houses. Thanks to my mother-in-law who already had the houses, Emily and I took charge of the caramel apples. The apples turned out good, except the caramel got too hard too quick, so we had trouble getting our fun toppings to stick! Any ideas out there??? We tried putting cream in the caramel, but then it got too thin. What to do? We were able to keep some goodies on our apples, like sprinkles, nuts, cookie crumbs, choco chips, and we also drizzled chocolate on them. It was really fun! The kids seemed to really like it too. The gingerbread houses were fun too, but very time consuming. Luckily, I have an artistic husband that kinda took over. Ours turned out good, but Jeremy got bored with it and stopped being as creative as he could've been. Jake and Emily's turned out really good. Better than ours! They went all out! Well, thanks family for a fun night. Maybe we'll try it again next year!

I had my camera on a weird setting on accident, so not many pictures turned out...rats!

Jubilee Pumpkin Patch

It's that time of year! Pumpkins are in season and ready to pick and we were ready! Today we went to a great pumpkin patch not too far from us to get a pumpkin. The weather was gorgeous today, with the sun shining and cool Fall air. It was perfect pumpkin picking weather. We went with Jake, Emily, Taylee, and Rohne. The kids LOVE to be together (as well as us adults), so it was a lot of fun. It was really busy, so we got our pumpkins and got out pretty quickly. We did get to enjoy a bumpy hayride to the patch. Parker was totally in awe as we made our way on the hayride and kept it up for a while even afterwards. He finally let loose and became himself again after a few minutes while choosing the perfect pumpkin. We got some pretty cute pictures of everyone, mainly the kids. A pumpkin patch seems to be the perfect background for Fall pictures. Here's some of the fun we had!

This was the first picture I took of the kids after the hayride. Parker isn't in the pumpkin picking spirit yet. He's still amazed at that ride we just had. Can you tell?

He's starting to loosen up now!

Sam and Tay being goofy for the camera.

The girls checking everything out.

We tried to get a pose out of the troop, but wasn't too successful...

Parker loves to point and be amazed at everything around him. What a silly kid.

Samantha thinks she has to be with Taylee at all times. Most of the time she insists on holding her hand, but in this case she holds her arm to keep from falling off the hay during our hayride.

Parker and Dad. What handsome guys I have!

Preschool

The whole preschool buzz has been going around for months now. I haven't really been too into it, being that Samantha still has 2 years before kindergarten. I've always thought 1 year of preschool, at least for her, was sufficient and we'd start next year. Well, my sister-in-law and friend were both thinking of doing a little "at home" preschool with their girls, so I decided to join in and see what would come of it. We've decided on 2 days a week, rotating the teaching around between the three of us. We're actually only doing 1 day a week right now, but only until the middle of next month when all our sports classes for the girls are over. Anyway, things have been going great! The girls really seem to get excited and love to go to preschool. I taught my first time on Friday and things turned out really well. We focused on the letter "C" by practicing writing it, talking about it's sounds, talking about words that start with it, playing a game (which I incorporated counting in), doing a couple crafts ( making crowns, and a big cotton ball letter "C") reading a couple books, singing a crocodile song, making cookies, eating the cookies and some cheese and crackers... we had a lot of fun! I'm so happy that I'm able to have some good friends to do this with. Our girls are having fun together and learning at the same time. Maybe next year we'll do the so called "real" preschool, but for now this is way cheaper and seems to be just as beneficial and fun!

Taylee, Sydney, and Samantha decorating their crowns with jewels and sparkly stuff. What a girl thing!

Spooky Wreaths

The other night, we finally had a time when we didn't have anything to do! It was amazing! We almost always have something going on, whether it's Jer, Me, or the whole family. Anyway, Jeremy came up with a brilliant idea, which he took full charge of. He decided we should do a craft. He thought something Halloweenie would be appropriate. We ended up making Halloween wreaths with ghosts, leaves, bats, and pumpkins on it. Jeremy took the time to cut out each one, after drawing out and designing them. What a job! Then Sam and I assembled the ghosts and pumpkins with eyes and mouths, then pasted them on our paper wreaths, which Jer cut out also. What a good dad. We made one for Samantha and one for Parker. Parker wanted nothing to do with this project. He was too interested in his tootsie pop and a Barbie movie. What a little man...

Awaiting the project by eating a sucker

Jeremy drawing out the bats. I kinda interrupted him!

The finished projects!

Halloween

Just to get everyone in the mood this year!