time to potty train?

So this morning Rylie came into the living room and said, "Oops - my diaper is falling off!" So she unzipped her jammies, took off her diaper, and said, "Hey, where are my wipees?" Then she found the wipes, took one, cleaned her own bum (she was just wet, thankfully!) and grabbed a new diaper. Had it been a pull-up she might have been able to complete the process all on her own.  Too bad she's terrified of the toilet...Do we really want to start this before the new baby is born? Do I put her in pull-ups during the day and "test the waters"? Or do I chalk it up to a smarty pants who likes to be independent, but don't push the potty training yet?

New pictures, finally!

Ok, so I've updated our picasa web site with lots of pictures (remember: the link to the website is on the right side of this blog, just below my "profile,") but I wanted to put a few pictures up here. Hopefully  I've got this done in time for Cam and Kym to see on their once-a-month trip to a computer there in Africa!

I've included a picture of my little birthday party that we had this evening when Dan was home. It was a great little party, and the kids made me sweet cards and I got some cute presents from Grandma Jill and Auntie Doone.

Also, after a few snafus with the swingset company, we finally got all the parts to put together the swingset that both Grandmas and Grandpas got the kids for Christmas. And Dad was here this past weekend to help us put it together (which I'm sure Dan appreciated as well, since he won't have a free weekend for some time to come!) It's been super cold here, but the kids have bundled up at least once a day to go play on the swings and the slide. (And the day we set it up, they used the slide to stop the wind as they huddled in their little makeshift blanket tents to wait.) I love having it, though, and we're all so thankful for our sweet, generous grandparents!

Oops...it's been awhile!

I promise that we didn't disappear after Halloween. Life got really busy thru November and December and hasn't slowed much since then but we are doing our best. This is actually Dan making a blog entry, my first one, so I hope this goes over alright. I'm not as eloquent or grammatically correct as Shell is but I'll just give you the facts.

The holidays were great, we really wish we could have made it out to Lake Havasu for Thanksgiving. We really miss that yearly trek and spending time with my family. I realized that I haven't seen my sister's family since we moved out here to Georgia almost 2 1/2 years ago. Fortunately work will take me out to Tempe in late March and I think I'll stay an extra day or 2 and go see them. We spent Thanksgiving and Christmas with Shell's family once again. We had a great time and the kids are always happy to go to Grandma and Grandpa's house. The kids were excited for Santa to come and visit and we were pleasantly surprised by a little extra from the UGA athletic association which made it just a little nicer for the kids. Both sets of grandparents chipped in together to buy us a swingset which we finally got together this weekend (there always seems to be missing parts on those kind of things). The kids are already loving it! 

But with January it was back to school and work. I'm now heading into my busy time of the year. We had our first indoor track meet this weekend in Lexington, KY and I won't be done with indoor and outdoor track until mid June. It makes for many weekends away from home but at least it's a job and with the state of our economy right now...that isn't so bad. Shell is teaching her mon/wed night class again this semester and we're hoping the baby can wait to show up until that's mostly done. Our days and nights are very busy and we get small windows of time where we see each other so we try to make the most of them.

As for the baby, well he and mommy are doing well. For those that don't know yet we are having another boy. That will even things up at our house at 3 and 3, a nice well rounded family. We have no idea on a name yet and really haven't discussed it much. When we have it usually consists of Shell suggesting names and me shooting them down. So we've still got quite a way to go there. We are excited, nervous, a bit scared, and happy all at once.

Well I'm going to end here. We really are going to try and do better with the blog and posting more pictures also. Until later...

TRICK OR TREAT!

Finally, tonight, we got to go trick-or-treating! We had a long week, waiting for Halloween. On Tuesday we went to the ward Trunk-or-Treat party, which was so fun. And that was especially nice because Dan was in town. So we got to have a fun family Halloween party. Olivia has been planning to be a kitty cat for so long, and luckily for me, I found a strip of black crushed velvet in my sewing scraps. So we made her a tail and some ears and painted her face and she looked adorable. And Rylie loves her ballet dressup clothes, so she was especially excited about wearing her ballet shoes to church. Tucker, on the other hand, hasn't been able to decide what he wanted to be for Halloween. We were vascillating between Batman and Ben10 and Sonic the Hedgehog. Thankfully, he decided on the easiest of the three costumes to create, Ben10 (he's a character from a cartoon about a little boy who saves the world by turning into different alien forms to defeat bad guys, using an extraterrestrial watch that crashed to earth via a meteor - you can see why it might be the favorite show of a 6 year old.) :)

By Halloween night, however, Olivia had changed her mind about being a kitty and Rylie had filled her tutu with peanut butter, so Livs and Rylie donned two of Tucker's old costumes, with only two minor additions - ribbons, to make a GIRL dinosaur and a GIRL giraffe. They were adorable, and lots warmer for the cool night air. We went trick or treating with our best friends Aubrie and Robbie. I was glad to have Amber and Ryan's help trying to corral three sugar-high children in the dark. It really was super fun. :)

the pumpkin patch!

We had such a fun Saturday morning at the pumpkin patch! The kids thought it was so cool to pick out their own perfect pumpkin from the field, and then they got a wheelbarrow ride from Dad. "He's SO strong!" Then we got to play on the big tree swing (we did this when we went strawberry picking at the same fields...) and talk to the horsies. But the fun new addition at the farm this year was the pig racing. They let these adorable little piglets run around a tiny corral and the kids cheered them on as they ran. They thought that was hilarious. I did, too, actually. :)

It really was a beautiful fall morning, and I love it when we get to spend such wonderful time together as a family. It doesn't happen often enough, it seems, but when it does, it's just fabulous. :)

the annual besties weekend

Just a few weekends ago we had our annual "besties" reunion - a group of my 10 best friends from my freshman year at BYU, and every year we get together for one weekend (without hubbies and without children, unless they're nursing babies) and we have a BLAST.

This year we went to Boston, and it was so incredibly fun. We got to walk the freedom trail, visit a pumpkin farm, "meditate" at Walden Pond, tour Harvard yard, cheer on the regatta racers, and eat - A LOT. Plus, it was fun just to revert to the silly-college-girls attitude. There's a reason that these girls are 10 of my best friends in the whole world. I come home rejuvenated and revivified. :)

Moo, Mim, Jennie, and Jenn at the bank of the Charles River, cheering the regatta race.

Jennie and I enjoyed a little relax time by Walden Pond

a little miracle

I know those of you who've talked to me over the past two years that we've been here in Athens know how much we have relied on the Lord to help us through some difficult financial times. We really, truly, have survived on the miracles and the blessings of paying our tithing. And this afternoon was just another example.

I was looking at our bank account this afternoon and fretting just a bit about our finances. (Ok, more than "just a bit" - I was seriously about to have a mental break down.) We are not quite half-way through the month and there was barely enough money left in our account to cover our tithing check that will probably clear some time this week. And we still have bills and groceries and gas for two more weeks that we need to pay for! As I was stressing out, I was concerned that there was a dramaturgy job I finished a month or so ago, that I still hadn't been paid for. I was about to write a desperate email to the theatre that owed me a paycheck, when suddenly and very calmly a voice came to my mind that said, 'just go check the mailbox.'

I was eager as I walked down the driveway hill, and when the first envelope I noticed after opening the mailbox was stamped "Salt Lake City, UT" I knew the Lord had heard our humble prayers. This was the paycheck we were waiting for, and I was so thankful that I listened to the spirit, that the Lord sent us this blessing yet again, and that we will now be able to pay our bills this month. I'm so grateful for tithing!