A good idea

One of my friends and I were talking about how hard it is to keep a journal when we have so much else going on. She says that she just prints out her blog at the end of each year and uses that as her journal. I thought that is such a good idea that I think I'll do it too. So I'm going to try to post more often and will be writing down all kinds of things that I want my kids to hear about or remember when they are older. So, some funny things that have happened recently............. Graham bought a new backpack at Walmart the other day, it was $3 on the clearance rack so I let him have it. We get home, he puts on the backpack and says "Momma you take me school now?" I tell him, "no Graham-ee you need to go potty in the potty chair first" he says, "ok I go potty", he goes up the stairs and I follow him after a little bit, he's coming out of the bathroom and I can hear the toilet flushing. Now we've been working on potty training a little but he usually just sits on the toilet a few seconds then hops off, flushes and washes his hands, so I didn't think he'd actually gone. He tells my, "momma I pee my finger" so I laugh and tell him he needs to not flush it and show me next time. Then I pick him up because he's so cute and his little white t-shirt is wet and kind of yellow down at the bottom, so I guess he actually went potty. I was so proud that I gave him 5 m&m's and called Brian to tell him. That was 5 days ago and he hasn't gone in the potty chair since. Oh well, it's a start and we'll keep working on it. Last week we were all driving somewhere, all 5 of us. I hear the girls in the backseat talking and their conversation goes like this. Stasia: "Korky I wish we were cousins" Korky: "Why?" Stasia: "Because then we could go over to each other's house and spend the night and have slumber parties and play Barbies and it would be fun" Korky: "Yeah it would be fun!" This from 2 sisters who share a room and have an extensive collection of Barbies and just got bunk beds! And lastly, this is what Graham's Nursery (Sunday School) teacher wrote about him on Facebook last night Marie Jones says: Well I have to brag about my little nursery class today. They were so sweet. When I held up a picture of Jesus, Graham walked over and kissed it and put his face on it for a hug. That little guy loves Jesus! We had a fun time in there today.

Graham's first haircut

Yesterday on Jan 8, 2010 Graham got his first haircut, most everyone knows that Graham has pretty long hair, and it was time to trim it. Our friend up the street Randi said she'd do his haircut for us, she works at a hair salon but also does cuts from her home. I think Brian wanted to cut his hair short, but Graham, Randi and I wanted to keep it long, so we ended up with just a trim. Graham did pretty well, at first he didn't want to sit by himself and cut his hair, he kept saying "leave it up" which means he wants his ponytail. So finnally he got on daddy's lap and we told him we were just gonna trim it and cut the yucky stuff off, he said okay. So we handed him a sucker and let him help by holding Randi's water bottle and he did awesome! (except he didn't want to wear the haircutting bib thing, instead he wore his superman cape) And as a super bonus Sis.Randi didn't charge us, she said 1st haircuts are special and fun and she was happy to do it for us, thanks Randi!

Before the haircut

Trimming!

All done, thanks again Sis.Randi

The girls new room

For Christmas this year we bought the girls new bedsets, paint and curtains, we wanted to update their room as well as find a way to better organize it so maybe it'll stay cleaner. So the day after Christmas we spent cleaning the heck out of their room, threw away all the broken toys, papers, and crap that little girls have all over the place. The girls had recieved new jewelry boxes from their Grandma so we organized their jewelry too, we threw out all the old torn up or finished coloring books, organized all of their art supplies into trays and put inside the drawer of their built in desk. We cleaned out the fish and turtle tanks, we vacumed like crazy and moved everything away from the walls, we cleaned out the closet and dressers and got rid of all the clothes and shoes that don't fit anymore and the ones that were all grubby too. It was a big job, you should have seen all the crap we took out of there! On Sunday Brian painted the walls and ceiling, we went with a light, light blue. It matches both of their new bedsets pretty good, then for curtains they are a sheer white/purple. Most of their funiture is white, except for the Barbie cabinet is a pinkish/purple. We spent Monday putting the room back together, we put the bed up into bunkbeds (they had both been down on the floor before), put the new sheets, blankets and pillows on, we hung new shelves up close to the ceiling and kind of rearranged some. Now the room has alot more room to play, the Barbies are all enclosed in one cabinet, and the room actually has been staying pretty clean. Both girls wanted to sleep on the top bunkbed, so we came up with a compromise that at the beginning of each month they will switch, so for now Anastasia is on top and Kortnie on the bottom, we'll be switching in FEB. Overall it was a big project, but we all worked really hard on it together, and it's looks alot fresher and brighter, the new paint helped out tons! So the colors are white, blue, purple and pink. They come together pretty well. There are some pictures below. Bunkbeds up!

Brian put up 2 new shelfs, this one has stuffed animals and the other has photographs and collector Barbie's, down below this shelf is their big dresser with their CD player and fish tank, to the left is the bunkbeds

Barbie Corner (all Barbies and their stuff is stored in this cabinet), this cabine is down towards the foot of their beds, to the left of the cabinet is a window, then another small dresser and the closet, on the top part of this wall is the 2nd shelf that Brian hung.

This is their built in desk, it has the Turtle tank and some books on it, the desk shares this wall with the closet which is to the right and the bedroom door is to the left.

It snowed!

It snowed last night, the kids were so excited that they had to go out and play in it. It was dark, about 7:30pm and they got bundled up and went out to make snowballs and have a snowball fight. Brian went and joined them and I stood on the porch and took pictures. The first picture is Brian and Graham throwing a snowball at me. This morning after Brian left for work the kids and I ate our hot cocoa and oatmeal, bundled ourselves up and walked up the street and went sledding on some hills back behind our neighborhood. We only have maybe 2 inches of snow, so it wasn't ideal for sledding, but we still managed to get about an hour's worth of fun in before we all decieded it was cold and we'd better head home to sit in front of the fire. I think we'll make some cookies together later on today and have some chicken noodle soup and grilled cheese for lunch. I kind of hope it stays cloudy and cold all day so we can have an indoor movie, cookie and soup day, but I can already see blue skies and sunshine starting to peek through the clouds. Merry Christmas everyone!

Merry Christmas

Here is a preview of our Christmas pictures, got the girls some new dresses and Graham got a new tie, we took some photos this morning before church and I'm having fun "creating" with them.

Anastasia's 7th birthday

Anastasia, our oldest kid, turned 7 on November 18th. We can't believe that 7 years have gone by. Our big girl is in 1st grade, she is super-smart and reads very well. She enjoys playing sports like baseball, soccer and volleyball. She loves going to church. She has lots of friends and isn't shy at all. She is a big helper to mommy and is eagerly learning how to cook, she can do quite a few things in the kitchen (supervised of course). She is a great big sister too, she is trying to be supportive of Kortnie's new challenges and she is always willing to love on Graham and change diapers too! This year her birthday fell on a Wednesday, so I took cupcakes to her class. Then we had a slumber/pizza party on Friday night. Brian and I were very brave we took 5 extra kids (for a grand total of 8 kids) to Pizza Hut for dinner. Then we came home and opened presents and ate a Dairy Queen Oreo Blizzard Ice Cream Cake! Yummy! After cake the 2 kids left to go home and we had 3 extra girls spend the night. The girls had fun doing hair and nails and makeup. They watched movies and talked about boys (they sure did even though Brian and I told them they are WAAAAY too young to be talking about boys!) They stayed up till after midnight and then were up by 6:45am and playing Barbies. I made them blueberry pancakes for breakfast, then they played makeup again. The 3 extra girls headed home at about 10am. We sure are glad that we have our Anastasia, she is one awesome girl and life definitly wouldn't be the same without her. We love you Big Girl!

Anastasia opening presents

Mary-Margaret, Andre, Zoie, Stasia, Korky, Hailey, and Brooke

Mary-Margaret, Stasia and Brooke with makeup on

Korky and Zoie with makeup on

How Insulin Pump Therapy Works

How Insulin Pump Therapy Works This is for Michelle, a website all about the insulin pump, which we hope to get Kortnie on in a few months. Click on the purple link.