the sleepover

We are having our first sleepover, well as much as it counts at this age. Needless to say AJ thought it was the best thing in the world. My friend's little girl that I watch sometime, needed to stay the night, since her mom had an emergency case late night and had to work again early in the morning. So we moved the pack-n-play and AJ was throwing everything into.... "here Lucy can have my pillow and my blanket, and my zebra and my sheep." I had to secretly sneak everything back out of there so there was actually room for her! AJ may be a little temperamental at times and persnickety about how things are done, but I love the way he always wants to do stuff for people.

I think he is pretty much potty trained, in fact there have been several days where I rarely tell him it's time to go... so I think we are getting there. Now we just have to work on the poop training.... no one ever told me this was 2 separate events!! We have been telling him how proud we are that he is going in the potty and he should be proud of himself for being such a big boy. Well tonight when TK & AJ were getting ready for bed, he said TK I'm going to give you a hug and then he told her he loved her so much and looked at her and patted her back and said I'm so proud of you! It made me laugh and made me want to cry at the same time. (Don't worry he's not perfect all the time... just wait until she pulls up on his chair or something that is doesn't want to share, he'll knock her down fast.) But now he is learning is going to get in trouble for that so he'll push her and then walk to the other side of the room and look at her like I have no idea what just happened. Kid is smart!

This paragraph is about my faith: Lately I have been so stressed!!! and then the fridge broke, obviously doesn't help at all, so I was upset and trying to figure out what in the world God was trying to teach me through these trials lately. Well today we get a check that the electric company overcharged us or something... didn't really read why, just went and cashed that sucker! Anyways is should cover the cost of fixing the fridge (again... 3rd time to fix this thing and it is less than 6 years old!) so amazing ~ once again you just never know how God is going to work things out!

our neighbors

We have the best neighbors in the world!! Seriously I think I am going to list that as the best feature of our house whenever we get around to selling it. I don't think I can even possibly start to remember all the things they have done for us ~ they are so generous. For instance last night she stopped by to ask if we wanted to have some dinner because they had made to much ~ it was delicious, plus you know I was just going to make a frozen pizza or something else on my level. AJ thinks they are they best people probably because they keep popsicles in their freezer for him and have turtles in their backyard. Since TK was born they would come get AJ and take him for walks, ice cream or just over to their place to play. It has been so nice just to have a few minutes to do the dishes or sweep the floors or something. Also a couple of weeks ago they gave us a gift certificate to one of my favorite resturants and the watched the kids for us ~ this was the first time we had been since May '06. One more quick neighbor story last night I decided to take the kids and the dogs on a walk when we walked out the door, the other neighbor's pshyco dog came run at the dogs and bit louie!! Both Ellie and Louie were their leashes so everything was all tangled up and I was worried about the dog going after AJ who was standing next to me or TK who was strapped in the stroller. Well the nice neighbors came running yelling at the dog and lady ~ saying things I wanted to, but don't have the guts to say. Louie is fine and the lady said she would keep her dog on a leash... I was thinking... mmm, isn't that the same thing I asked to do last week when I went over and talked to you about psycho. I was just so glad the nice neighbors were out to hold Ellie and get AJ settled down while I checked out Louie. Well I need to go write them a thank you note and get TK sleeping ~ that little boogger doesn't want to take a nap today (-:

the kids

Well for those of you know AJ, you know how particular he can be. So Mark put him to bed tonight and everything seemed fine and quiet and then we hear him talking... so Mark goes to see what is wrong and he says he needs mom. Well he has a teddy bear that we put on outfit on a few days ago and he keeps in his bed, he was holding the bear saying get it off and I happen to catch out of the corner of my eye that the light is on in his room.... not the night light but the 4 bulb big overhead light. This probably won't be such a big deal BUT he shares a room with TK. So I hit the light and look at her... just sprawled out in the crib and could care less. Now seriously how does this happen that she can sleep through that light being turned on, but can't possible start to sleep through the night!!! Anyways I go back to AJ who is saying mom just get the yucky stuff off. I'm guessing he must have wiped his nose on the bear, 'cause something crusty and gross was on the bear's outfit. Well thankfully we got it all off and taken care of and everyone is sleeping. This was so surprising to me because whenever he has need to check something out before he always goes in our room and looks at it there using our light (I leave our reading lamp on until we go to bed), so I surprised to see this bright light on.

On a different note , fall kinda of surprised me this year and I am totally unprepared. Meaning I didn't have any clothes for the kids for this cooler weather. I think they each had a sweatshirt and that was about it. So we have been doing some shopping these last couple of days. I think AJ is going to be like his dad and love shopping!! The only probably is he has no concept at 2 1/2 that we don't just pick up whatever we want, we actually have to pay for it... he thinks we should just always take one of each. One of the purchases we made was his halloween costume ~ a dragon (he's been asking to either be that or a dinosaur). Well he loves that costume, of course he wouldn't try it on until we brought it home and cut out the tags. It was the first thing he put on this morning and he took his nap in it this afternoon. The only problem with the costume is it has wings which means mom or dad gets to fly him all over!!! We should have great looking arms by time halloween gets here (-:

That smell

The past couple of days every time I walked into the kitchen I could smell something a little peculiar. So I thought I should figure it out. I thought maybe one of the kids left a snack in the Tupperware cupboard were they play sometimes, but nothing. Next I moved on to the other cupboards, still I couldn't find anything. I thought maybe I should scrub the counter again for like the 50th time. Well this morning Tallula opened a cupboard that I keep the ice cream and ice tea maker and the smell was horrendous. I look down and there was a bag of potatoes that was completely rotten!!! It was so rotten they were actually molding ~ it was so disgusting. Anyways I'm just glad I found it before I had to clean the oven or something drastic like that.

Labor Day

Well ~ first an update on Mark. He is fine.... he apparently had a virus that the doctors didn't really identify. So they let him leave Thursday afternoon and he came home and slept the rest of the day. He thinks he shouldn't have been in the hospital at all, but I say better safe than sorry. I'm just glad he is feeling better and can move around again!

So we left for Missouri to visit Mark's aunts. It was so nice to get away and just relax for a couple of days. We stayed with his Aunt Kathy and Uncle Ralph (or uncle grrralph as AJ says) ~ they have a pool so Mark and AJ spent a lot of time in there. It was so fun to see AJ get more and more confident in the water... in the beginning he didn't want to even go in he just wanted to spray Mark with the hose! AJ is at such a fun age ~ it is so neat to see him do new things. We also had a bond fire and made s'mores; it was a blast! Then we went to visit Aunt Joyce and Uncle Lynn so AJ got to play with Ozzy and see the horses. All in all it was a totally blast and we all loved getting away! On the way home AJ asked where the ticket was ~ I told him we were trying not to get any tickets on this trip. I realized after we got home that the last couple of trips we took resulted in a ticket ~ one for me and one for Mark. Anyways it is nice to see we have broken that streak!

Well I thank everyone that prayed for Mark and sent such thoughtful notes ~ I really appreciate it more than I could say!