Winnowing

Trying to edit down the clutter and extraneous stuff in our house again (always...)...not helping that most of the household is comprised of unconscious hoarders...

Speaking of shiftless hobos...

Family Business

Everyone in the Morgan household is healthy and happy at the moment. *Knock wood!* Poor little Aubri was scheduled to get a shot yesterday and ended up getting 3! Bless her little heart!  She had no idea what was happening when the nurse jammed a shot in one leg, then the other and came back to the original leg for the last one. I'm told she was crying for Mommy and Daddy afterwards. I wish I could have been there to comfort her but I am also glad she associates that pain with her aunt instead of her mom! ;.)

Later, she told me about the shots with her bottom lip jutting out and I gave her lots of hugs and kisses to make it better. Now, instead of walking like a drunk being pulled with an invisible string attached to her waist, she walks like a drunk being pulled with an invisible string attached to her waist who has recently been clubbed in the leg. I bet she has already forgotten the whole tragedy already.

David has been cracking us up lately. We really need to film his story times because they show so much creativity! Last week I asked him what he did at Aunt Dee's house and he said they went to church. I said "Really, what did you do there?" He replied "Played in traffic." Okee....

And the other night at bedtime after we'd read 3 books I told the kids that it was time to get in bed. David stopped me and said "Actually, it's time for me to pee" Good boy! He's gotten so much better about the late night peeing thing too...if he has to pee he either quietly goes to Scott's side of the bed to whisper for help or just pees by himself and gets back in bed. We leave a light on for him so it's no problem. He's such a good boy and a quick learner!

Emi is doing well with school starting back up and next week SOCCER starts back up. I hope her cleats from the Spring season still fit but I sorta doubt it because the size 8 Crocs I bought her are being returned as I type this because she is now wearing a size 9!!! Baby girl is growing like a weed. She recently decided that she wanted to wear her hair loose in an afro and while that initially gave me heartburn, we are working with her daily to moisturize and detangle her hair. It's a struggle but she looks so cute! I am trying my hand at cornrowing and I am S-L-O-W-L-Y getting there. I get much need inspiration from Katie at Happy Girl Hair.

We've been busy with school starting back up but we still make time for the Farmer's Market, bike riding and swimming. And we've really been concentrating on cooking dinner at home every night. Last night the family approved of my first time manicotti dish (which was uber filling) and the night before I made pizza after I saw a cool brie, proscuitto and mushroom pizza recipe by Half-Assed Kitchen mentioned on She Likes Purple.

I have been trying to use up ingredients that I purchased some time back before they expire (i.e: manicotti, quinoa, red lentils, brie, proscuitto, etc) and sticking to a weekly menu in order to adhere to our budget. It's been a challenge but we love a good food challenge here in the Morgan household. We've been lucky enough this week to have made enough of some good meals to have leftovers for lunch and also freeze extra meals for the days when I don't feel like cooking...

First Day of Third Grade

Baby Girl is Growing Up....

Good Thing?

So! This is the 3rd night in a row that our potty trained son has waken us up around 3am because he needs to pee.  (As I type this everyone is back to sleep except for me!) For more than a month now he's been peeing and pooping in the potty and letting us know when he has to go to the bathroom (during the day) and we feel really blessed that things have gone so smoothly....until Monday at 3am, Tuesday at 2:32am and this morning at 3am. I am awakened before I've slept 5 hours straight and it's making me very grumpy at work (not that I needed any help with that!).  David walks into our room in pitch black and declares "I need to pee!" waking us up from a dead sleep. We praise him for peeing and he gets back to sleep no problem, but I have a hard time getting back to sleep. I thought the Monday am episode was a fluke and didn't take any precautions with limiting fluids before bed Monday night....and then he woke us up at 2:32am Tuesday to pee. So, last night there were no fluids after dinner and he peed before his bath, read some books and went to sleep. I thought we were home free until an hour ago. Mama needs her uninterrupted sleep. When someone wakes Mama up at 3am, Mama usually responds by calling the police (kids loud partying) but those days have been over for a long while now...

Emi didn't get up in the night to pee when she was this little...she was much older! So we have nothing but that to compare too. So I consulted Dr. Google and checked out potty training forums, etc and found that this 3am awakening is actually a good thing? (Not for me). I can see how this can work to our benefit (dry PullUps!) but I would take a longer stretch of sleep over dry diaper most days. So, I guess we need to work on David getting up to pee by himself in the night....and ensuring that he pees right before bed.... (and also maybe waking HIM up to pee before we retire for the evening?) to head off needed any 3am bio breaks. Many of the resources I read recommended waking your child up at 3am to help them to the toilet so that they can wake up dry... I am not convinced that THAT would be a good thing because then everyone's sleep is disturbed and it's just training the child to wake up at 3am (never desirable in my book). But I don't want to be trained to awaken during the "unholy hour" of 3.

I understand that we need to go with the flow (hah!) and that I should be happy that David is waking up when he needs to pee so we'll take this as a victory and work on more independent pottying.

Anyhoo...zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Weekend Warrior Prose

So I crafted a nice draft blog entry Monday to provide updates on the items listed in my last entry and while the e-mail system showed that the draft was sent (twice actually), it was not. Nevermind that I cleaned out my "Sent" folder of senseless garbage and even purged my e-mail trash. When I logged in to Blogger last night, the draft entry was not there and I wanted to cry. Maybe I need more sleep or exercise, I don't know but I will try to recreate the "magic" that was pre-created on Monday.

Emi survived a week at church camp... and she won 2 (almost 3) awards: Messiest Camper and The Kid Who Ate the Most Candy. I DID tell her to live it up while she was at camp so who can blame her having so much fun with her first camp experience. The awards were presented at church on Sunday after the counselors assembled the kids on stage. Emi's eye got as big as saucers when a counselor described the Least Hygenic Kid Award and then announced that it went to a boy who didn't shower the entire time (his dad said if he went swimming every day he didn't NEED to shower). Emi had one shower on that kid...

We were going to drive up to the camp to have dinner with Emi on Wednesday but Emi didn't want us to "embarrass" her by showing up to check on her at camp. We were sure she'd be crying for family by Wed but the only whining came from her spending all of her snack money at the snack shack. She went from "Mom, it costs MONEY for you to eat dinner with me! Please just let me have this one week for myself." early in the day to "Could you guys please bring me some snacks and my goggles? You guys can have dinner with me while you are here." later on, when we'd already made other plans...

Which leads me to the update on Salty: It was the crank sensor and we got her back Wednesday after work with minimal damage to our budget. (I love my mechanic!) I couldn't be happier to have my wheels back. While I appreciate that I can drive Scott's pickup when the Disco is in the shop, I don't feel as competent a driver in the truck. Parking is very humorous to watch - seriously like driving a boat. In my Disco I can see everywhere and the turning radius is really tight so I can whip in to parking slots easily. In the pickup I feel like a little girl in need of a booster seat whereas I can crank the seat up high in my car and ride like royalty. The kids seem to like the Disco too because they can see all around them (love the Alpine windows!) and mommy is much happier in her own vehicle.

Our pool plumbing sprang a leak recently too...right around the pump. So we dug up and hammered a few areas looking to replace plumbing and then 3 work days, 3 different game plans, 5 pits, concrete saw and jackhammer later, we had a fix! Saved about $1,000 and we have a plan to put a cabana in to replace the hammered pool house and hot tub (which REALLY needs to go!).

Emi and I got to take an hour long bike ride around the neighborhood while the above carnage ensued and I can't tell you what a joy it is to be able to ride bikes with my little girl (who is trying to grow up way too fast). We also enjoyed tomatoes fresh from the garden and time with extended family and friends.

The Little Ones

Last night was the first night without big sister and it was rather quiet around the house. David and Aubri played nicely in the sun room while I put together dinner after work. Then after dinner we listened to Wee Sing & Learn Opposites and looked at the accompanying book. I was snuggling with David when he hugged my neck and said "I love you, mom" in his sweet raspy little voice. It's not the first time he has told me he loves me, but it was genuine and out of the blue and I'll take it! We snuggled more while we looked through the "opposites" book and came across the Happy/Sad frog combo, David seemed concerned about the frogs, specifically Freda Frog because she was sad (note the "daddy" frog was happy). We continued to go through the rest of the pages, but David always wanted to go back to the frogs after every page. Freda had a boo-boo on her knee and while Aubri kissed the page to make the "mama frog" feel better, David was really concerned because he didn't want the "mama frog" to be sad anymore. We talked about why the frog and fish were sad and thought maybe it was the skinned knee and hunger pains so we talked about bringing them some bread. I asked David if HE was sad and he said no, he was happy....and I believe it! David is very sensitive not only about his own feelings, but for other's feelings and that is so sweet.

Earlier, before we dropped big sis off to go to camp, he kept telling the camp volunteers and my co-workers that he was going to get on his bike and get Emi from camp...he didn't want her to go. Later when I said I missed Emi, David looked so concerned at me and said "Don't miss Emi, let's go get her". He's like cinnamon, so sweet..

Before we read about Opposites Aubri asked me to play "Baby" (she has Bieber Fever). David had been running around singing the Ludacris part  of the song (When I was 13 I had my first love...). We played the song and Aubri wanted me to hold her while dancing. Sweet baby girl...

So, while I am trying to soak up this time together with just the Little Ones, part of me is trying to speed up time because 1) we forgot to set out our completely full trash dumpsters last Wed (the flies! OMG the flies!) so trash is piled up all over until tomorrow morning;  2) the Disco is in the shop again after dying on me on Main Street on Sunday and 3) I am MISSING my sweet big girl Emi!

Feel the Fear

Today my little girl Emi finally learned how to ride a bike!



We are so proud of her. She was scared to ride her bike for a long time...even asked us yesterday to put training wheels on her bike like David's but we lost those wheels a bike ago. We've needed to upgrade to a bigger bike but we wanted to know that she was commited to the bike. She finally experienced that euphoria associated with learning to ride the bike! Yea Emi!

And also she played the piano and sang simultaneously during her piano recital. Something I never would (could) have done at 8 much less now! She feels nervous but still gets up there and performs....she's amazing!