Winter Haze

Well, we are in the middle of winter and the longest month of January and here is what we've been doing.  Ella lost tooth #3.  She of course, was super excited.  The kids are always ready to go to bed when the tooth fairy is going to be coming.  They even want us to go to bed early, which I should do because Ella came down and woke me up at 1am to tell me the tooth fairy had come.

And the easy bake oven has been a hit.  And this day Josie wanted to make the entire batch of cookies in her oven.  Which she did and it only took about 3 hours.  She started to lose interest after about hour 2, but Ella came in to save the day. 

Trying different shaped cookies

Her finished batch of cookies

And boy have we gotten the snow!  We've been able to get out and enjoy it including the rare sighting of dad out in it!  Eli is all about the snow and Josie and Ella can get all dressed in their snow gear independently! Woo! 



 





Eli loved being buried

And playing in the snow isn't complete without hot cocoa.  This time we made it into a good ole tea party.  We hadn't had one of those in a while and this was perfect day to have one.

 We've been getting a little crafty around here too.  It was spirit week at school and here is Josie dressed up in the school colors.  She looks so BIG and grown up! And Ella had a sick day so we worked on her Valentine's Day box.  She loves Spiderman and here is her finished product. I really didn't help her too much even though she was requesting it.  I did give her a little direction.

And then we've had a few snow days so we've been trying to keep busy.  The kids school has a desert auction to raise money for the school so we made cut-out cookies and decorated them for the auction.  This was my first time doing cutouts and I think they turned out pretty good.  I decorated the ones for the auction in the school colors. And the extra the kids decorated.  Eli was REALLY into it, he loves doing crafty things.

 

 

 

 



 Not all of our cancelations have been snow related.  Today, January 30th, 2019, we have broke the record for temps.  School was cancelled due to the extreme cold.  With it being -20 and wind chill, it feels like -39.  So we have been inside playing games and baking and trying to beat the indoor blues.  The girls have had some chores too.  They cleaned the bathroom sinks and today, I think, they will need to dust the house. :)

 

And here is a late night visitor we had.  I thought this was kinda funny.  Either she's trying to get warm, find food or take my packages!! 

 

 

Potty Training

Well here we are, onto Eli being potty trained.  He showed some signs of being ready and he is just a few weeks shy of 3.  I decided I would try this past weekend due to a snow storm that I knew we would be indoor a lot.  So Friday morning I put him in underwear.  He had a few accidents and then I "caught" him one time on the potty.  He was so surprised and nervous when it happened, it was funny.  I told him that was pee peeing on the potty and he got an M&M and we clapped and he was sooo happy.  After that he seemed to do good and by Monday morning I sent him to school with underwear where he had one accident.  He had a few successes with #2 and a few not successes, but I know that takes a while.  Throughout the week he was doing good with a few accidents.  I really thought he was catching on. 
When I started him, I said I was not going to stress out, fight or push him.  I want absolutely NO stress.  After Ella with her holding her poop for DAYS I won't be able to handle that again.  So with that mind set I was way more relaxed.  On wednesday morning he woke up and refused to go on the potty first thing in the morning-he had a pull up on-but I wasn't fighting him on it.  He was in a very foul mood.  I pushed a little but he was laying on the floor screaming NO.  So we started the day and he eventually went on the potty.  I started to notice a down hill on this day.  By friday, he REFUSED to go for me, had an AWFUL #2 in his undies that I just threw the underwear away at the Y.  I asked the kids cove worker to take him to the potty for me because he hasn't been going for me and I had some errands to run.  By friday night he was refusing to even let us change his wet pants.  Saturday, Joey was working with him and more accidents and more refusing.  I was kinda done as I didnt' want to fight with him. And by Sunday he is back in a diaper.  I feel like he is capable of this but his defiant nature I was experiencing not just with potty training was taking over. I don't know if he's tired or what but his cute personality was taken over with defiance, tantrums and whining.  So potty training round 1 is a fail.  Maybe round 2 in a few weeks will be a success. 

Happy New Year

We had a small, very small gathering at our house for NYE.  We had people over starting at 4pm so we could celebrate with kids and not be up late.  My how that has sooo changed from before kids.  So about 7:43pm our friends kid was starting to fuss so we played a youtube video of the 2017 ball drop on our TV.  And we toasted!  The kids had their sparkling grape juice and all.  They weren't quite sure what was going on, but quickly learned what a cheers was--especially Eli.  He was soo into it.  Josie said she didn't like her grape juice that's why she isn't all about the cheers!

Group Cheers!

Ashley and Ella CHEERS

And Eli CHEERS

And another group cheers for a very happy new year!!

And on new years day, Ohio State played in the rose bowl.  Here is Eli trying to cheer them on!  Good start to a new year when the Buckeyes win!!

And now it's back to reality, the toys are all put away, the Christmas decorations are put away and everyone is back to school and work.  And just like that another year has passed.

Christmas

This year Santa came early so we could be in Ohio on Christmas day.  The girls wrote him a letter and St. Nick delivered the note to Santa.  Santa said he would come early and so he came Friday night.  The kids were very excited.  We did our family tradition which is going to see the Christmas lights in our PJ's and then coming back and having cookies and of course setting them out for Santa. The girls wanted to see if the reindeer liked grapes or carrots better--grapes won over carrots 

Ella woke up first but was able to go to sleep, however the sister she woke up was not.  She was away at 5:15am and waited until Eli woke up.  Then we woke up Ella!!  I suggested that we take turns opening gifts so we can see what each other received and I can't believe it--they agreed.  It worked out so well so we could enjoy it.  It wasn't just over in 5 minutes.

Santas gift he left

Eli checking them out and getting excited

 

 

 Eli opened his gift from Josie and is very excited for his Thomas the train activity pad.

Josie got some dress up clothes

Ella opening her hatchimals

Ella's superhero dress up outfits

Josie and all her Christmas gifts

Eli the shark and his gifts

Horsey Ella and her presents

 The girls got some nail polish and were ready to paint them right away

Doing lots of dressing up.  These GIANT animals heads are so funny to me.  They crack me up!

 Then on Sunday we packed up and left for Ohio.  We were able to celebrate with family since Santa came early.  The girls and their new dolls

Playing playdough with Lexie and Uncle Joe

Eli was super stoked about his tractor he wanted to sleep with it

Cousin time

 And then back to Iowa it was.  We needed just a few days at home before we started school/work again.  The kids enjoyed all their new toys and I tried to organize and clean up the mess we left on Sunday.  All in all we had a good Christmas and hope you did too!