2014 Resolutions

2014 Resolutions or Maybe I should call them TO DO List instead. I read somewhere that it takes 21 days to make something a habit. So if I can get through 21 days it will be a habit instead of a resolution, right?

What started this, this late into 2014? Well, my 3 yr old telling me she was fat, that's what did it! So here we go.

2014 TO DO LIST
1. Stop calling myself fat & start thinking of myself in better terms like healthy!
2. BE HEALTHY!

• Eat Right
• MOVE, MOVE, MOVE
• Lose some weight

3. Show my girls that anything can be done when you put your mind to it!
4. Work on my relationship with my husband by doing more together (it seems like we aren't connecting on a daily basis because of busy schedules)
5. Find the patience that I once had for my 3 yr old & use it more often!
6. Stop yelling!
7. Get our Electrician back here to finish the electrical work in the basement!
8. Find a way to keep Bailey from running away.
9. Menu plan & shop accordingly
10. Save, save, save!
11. Sell the baby stuff! We aren't having anymore so its time to start getting rid of it & make more room in the house.
12. Make Paityn & Madison's blankets that I have been wanting to do.
13. Spend lots of time outside this Spring/Summer/Fall with the girls (since Paityn will be older & hopefully toddling around by then)
14 Spend more time playing play doh & painting & all the messy things I have been avoiding because I don't want to clean it up.
15. Involve Madison more in chores & making dinner.


I can do this! I can do this! 21 days to make some good habits!

Rocking my baby

I sit here at 11 pm with your little body nestled into mine, Paityn. Sucking your thumb & starting to fall asleep. I know I should put you in your crib at this point but I can't bring myself to do it. It won't be long before these moments midnight snuggles fade away & you become a sassy 3 yr old like your sister.

I wish time could stand still for a while. You girls are growing so fast & I don't have a rewind button on your babyhood or your sister's either. I am trying to store as many memories as possible for you both, but its hard & I just want to enjoy you two.

Oh Paityn & Madison! You girls have my heart in your little hands. My heart is overwhelmed with love for you that I have a hard to not bursting into tears all the time. Tears of joy, joy you both have brought me & tears of hurt & pain because I feel every owie you get in my heart. Why you ask? Because each of you is a part of my heart. Some day when you are Mommies, you will understand.

Just do me a favor & don't grow so fast.

Happy 1/2 Birthday, Paityn!

Oh Paityn, where has the last 6 months gone? Last thing I knew you were itty bitty & then I blinked & you are this 6 month old little girl.

You love to eat solid food. Anytime I put you in your high chair you scream your head off until I feed you. You squeal & laugh when ever I bounce you on the couch cushion or the bed. You smile at your daddy every time he comes into the room. You have learned to shake your head no. You sit up pretty good, but are still trying to figure out how to get moving. I know for a fact that the minute you figure out this crawling thing you are going to really become a handful. You love bath time especially when you get to splash around in the tubby with your big sister. You watch Madison like a hawk. You are starting to babble up a storm, which means I will have 2 girls who don't stop talking! One of your favorite things to do now a days is to make your excersaucer rock.

Oh, these last 6 months have been awesome because I got to watch you grow. I can't wait for the next 6 months to see what they bring as well as to see you grow your whole life.

Blink & time goes by

How is that over a year has gone by since we moved into this house? I'm having a hard time with that because it seems like we just moved in yesterday. I know its not the case because I was pregnant when we moved in & now I have a beautiful almost 5 month old sitting here in her excersaucer playing.

Time just seems to go by quicker the older I get or is that just because I have kids?  Its hard to believe that 2 kids can grow so fast, but they do. Take a baby for example. As a newborn as in hours old, what do they do? Eat, sleep, pee & poop, right? By 5 months old they can smile, laugh, follow movement, turn their heads to noises they hear or to look for mommy or daddy & start mimicking sounds. Some can even sit up at this point & others may already be on their way to crawling, Hell, I've seen video of one that can pull themselves up to a stand & even take a few steps holding on to a piece of furniture (crazy earlier & thankful its not my kid!) They learn & grow so fast that at times like with Madison I don't remember her ever not talking. I have to ask her every now & then where she learned things because truth be told I don't remember teaching her or anyone else teaching her certain things. She is 3 & knows her abc's the song (we are still working on letter & number recognition). That seemed to happen over night! She puts herself to bed 1/2 the time!

I find myself sitting there at night after both girls are off to sleep in their beds what they will wake up tomorrow & know with no one teaching them. Both of them are little sponges. I wonder when I'm going to walk into Paityn's room in the morning & find her standing there waiting for me instead of laying there happily playing. When is it that Madison will be getting up to potty all by herself in the middle of the night without any help?

Madison is already starting to need me less or at least in a different way. I don't have to get her dressed, but I do have to pick out her clothes so she matches & doesn't look like a clown when we need to go places. She'll get to pick out her shirt or pants & will just get her the other that matches it. Like today she picked out her Roll Tide Jersey, so i grabbed her a pair of black yoga pants to wear. Though she did pick out her pink Minnie Mouse socks to wear with it, but its her feet who is going to really see that!

My kids make the days go slower especially when they are cranky! They also make the years go fast! It's like I blinked & a year went by.  My mom sure wasn't kidding when she told me to not blink because once I do the next thing I'll know is Madison will be 16 & off to prom, then with another blink she will be getting married & having babies of her own. There is something to my mom's words. There always has been, too bad I never listened until I had my own babies.

What do you do to tighten your belts?

I've been the one paying our bills for years now. Since I was the one always home, but since we moved into the new house, it stresses me out! Since we moved its like the house is eating our savings up! Yes, its all stuff we needed like blinds for the windows, a snowblower, a lawnmower, weed wacker, edger & all that good stuff. We needed to build a bedroom in the basement too, so that ate up a good amount.  Then there are those things that you need to pay for like insurance. Its higher because we are in our own home instead of in the townhouse. Taxes are going up soon too & that stresses me. We also spent a good amount on canning stuff since this was the first year (jars, processing pot & all the accessories needed), but that will save us $$ in the long run this year because I won't have to buy pickles, salsa, diced tomatoes, stewed tomatoes & so on.

I have recently gone through what we have been spending the most on & it comes down to groceries & "household" things. So I have told my husband we need to stop eating out (his lunches mostly) & we need to cut way back on our munchy foods like chips, pretzels, nuts & what not. Even the beer needs to be cut back (way back).

Besides these items I've been thinking about what else I could cut out. We don't have balances on credit cards. I've already tried to refi my truck unsuccessfully to get a lower rate. I already got us on a lower cell phone plan. I think we can ditch our home phone because we never use it & it costs us $20-30 a month. I'm tied into my cable due to a contract, so I can't do much there though I will look to see if we can get a cheaper plan.

I stay home with my girls 9/10 times. I usually only leave the house to go places when we need groceries or for Dr's/Chiropractor appointments. So I don't get tempted to buy things we don't need or need gas as often since I have a gas guzzler (Trailblazer). Though I do make my trips back to IL to visit family every so often, but thinking this is going to slow down now.

On the plus side, I don't have to worry about our utilities bills being too high. It costs us the same amount here in this house as it did in the townhouse (the house is at least 2x the size 3x if you include our basement as the townhouse) because we got put in geothermal instead of your standard heating & air conditioning. I also have no gas run to the house. Everything is electric! Its great except when the power goes out, but we haven't had to really deal with that at all. We flicker during bad storms & have lost power 1 time for an hour due to a scheduled outage (they were fixing something up the road).


So what do you do to save money?

Shattered

Feeling like my world has just been shattered again. I just put the pieces back together from my grandpa's death & now I have learned that my grandma has cancer. It was found in the roof of her mouth. They did a biopsy & from reading the report it didn't seem like anything serious. Then she had surgery to have it removed. They got most of it & the surgeon commented that it looked benign, so we were all so hopeful about what it would mean for her.

She has an aggressive cancer. One that if it goes into remission has a good chance of coming back & spreading. She has to go for radiation for 6 weeks 5 days a week. They are giving her a few weeks to heal from her surgery before she begins. So during this time I'm heading back for a visit with the girls. I'm not sure if she will be able to hold the girls while she is going through radiation so I need to make sure she gets them in her arms before, otherwise that could be a long 6 weeks for her.

Its been over a week now since I was told. I've come to terms with what it means right now, what it could mean in the future & now hope fills me again. I know my grandma. She is a feisty, strong 78 yr old woman who engages in water fights with the great-grand-babies & grand-kids & anyone else who gets in the line of fire. I know she will fight hard especially with her having another great-grand-baby on the way (no its not me). 

If you read this, could you take the time to send out a prayer or good thought for her? That would mean more than anything else.

Adventures in Potty Training

I have tried everything to get Madison to potty train. We have bribed her with everything known to man.

• Candy
• Money
• Toys
• Stickers
• Party hats & horns
• Movies
• Shows
• Chocolate Milk
• Treats
• Going to the Park
• Going to lunch
• Going to the mall
• Getting to go to pre-school (more kids her age!)

Nothing worked for more than a day. I took to a potty chart & nothing. I tried a Responsibility chart. It peeked her interest & she'd sit on the potty when she got up from bed & before taking a tubby, but that was the extent. I couldn't believe this 3 year old kid would rather sit in pee & poop in a diaper than to have a clean butt!

Then it happened. She pooped her diaper & sat in for I'm not sure how long. It was long enough to make her poor bottom red & hurt. That's when she spoke up. I literally had to wrestle a bare-assed 3 year old to the floor & hold her down to clean her butt because it hurt her so bad. That was it. Something had to give & I'd be damned if I allowed my child another day of diapers. I hadn't wanted to force her for fear she would think it was a bad thing & retaliate with peeing & pooping on my floors, but this was the last straw.

I called my mom after putting Madison to bed & discussed a strategy. My mom couldn't believe that this girl would be so ok with sitting in poop. She said she had never heard of a girl being ok with this. Goes to show how strong willed & pig headed my daughter is. I wonder where she gets that from (looks around). 

Tuesday, we got up & got ready for our day. She got put in a pull up & we went to Walmart. At Walmart we picked up a couple of packs of big girl panties. We had 3 pairs at home, I figured 2 accidents & we'd be screwed so we needed more before we started this adventure. As soon as we got home the new rule went into effect. If we are home & awake no diapers! So she sat on the potty & we put on big girl undies. She did good. We only went to diapers at nap time & bed time. Unfortunately she held out until that diaper at nap time before peeing. She some how stayed dry all afternoon & into the evening. Then right before bed time it happened, she had her first accident. She started in my bedroom & had a trail all the way to the bathroom. Hey, at least she tried to get there!

Wednesday. We got 1 pee in the potty & then an accident after dinner while outside playing with the puppies with daddy. No biggie! Though she does scream bloody murder when she has an accident.

Thursday We got 1 pee in the potty & no accidents. Then we got in the tubby for bath time & the worst happened. She pooped in the tub. All hell broke loose for that!

Friday. We got 2 pees in the potty & a poop in our pull up at nap time. 1 accident on my kitchen floor shortly after sitting on the potty. We woke up from nap with a dry pull up.

Saturday. We got a few pees in the potty. No accidents & a dry pull up after nap.

Today. She finally figured it out! She woke up dry at 6:30 yelling she had to go potty! She did it. Through out the day she'd just go sit on the potty & pee & then tell us she did it. Then the big deal! She pooped on the potty. I was feeding Paityn & then all of a sudden she yells "I'm pooping!" I asked if she was on the potty & she says "YES" She did it! She pooped on the potty! Her words after pooping on the potty were "It doesn't hurt my butt!" We had no accidents. Now, what really solidified it was she just woke up & yelled "I have to go pee!" So I raced up the stairs got her out of bed & we ran to the potty. Took off her diaper & sat her down. Within seconds she peed! She is now back asleep.

Its been a rough week! I can tell you the first 3 days of potty training made me want to drink! I am so proud of my baby girl! She is turning into such a big girl! If I had known that taking her diapers away would have made her finally start going on the potty I would have done it months ago.

Hardest week, yet with a toddler, but so worth it!