This kid of mine....

This kid of mine in SO NAUGHTY!
He has had quite the attitude lately, and I'm not quite sure what to do with him.

Yesterday he decided it would be totally awesome to get into Mommy's make-up, get out my mascara and smear it all over his body, arms legs, feet, hands (except not the face of course)!

That is not all! Oh no

He then continues to smear it all over a huge section of my carpet!

Where was I, you ask?

Ignoring him, but that's not the point. He knows better! He's THREE! He knew better!

Luckily we had a friend near by willing to lend us her carpet cleaner.
Then after getting the mascara out we realized that, that section of carpet looked SO much cleaner than the rest of our front room carpet so we did the whole thing, and by we I mean C did it.

So yippee for clean carpet!

Now what to do about this naughty boy?!

No I did not take any pictures of him or the carpet, I was too mad at him. I threw him in the tub and couldn't look at him for the next ten to fifteen minutes, while he soaked. He left a nice black oily ring around my tub too by-the-way, which is now sparkling clean, I guess that is one way to get me to clean the tub.

Ooooo that boy!

Forever ingrained in my memory

I was remembering this certain moment that I have locked in my memory, the other day. It's one of those eye openers, where you see the exact personality come out in your child, one of those memories that is ingrained in your head forever. But I thought, what if I do some how forget this, I want to write it down so I won't ever forget.

E is a people person, she always has been. She was never, NEVER a momma's girl. I wished so bad that some day she'd miss me when I went off to work, but no, she was more excited to play with the babysitters kids, every time.
She LOVED complete strangers if they'd give her the time of day. She discovered herself in the mirror at a pretty young age. I would catch her "practicing" her faces in the mirror, she'd do every face from pretty and cute to mad and "feel sorry for me" faces it was pretty funny to watch that girl enjoy looking at herself. At the age of 18 months she was flirting with the bag boy at the local grocery store that she had a crush on, yep that is E for ya!
One trait that she has developed over the years is her sense of humor. Now I think all kids love to be funny, but E takes it to the extreme! She absolutely LOVES to make people laugh but more noticeably by the age of three she loved to make her peers laugh. If she found that she was doing something funny and it made kids laugh, she'd do it a hundred times just so she could get that "laugh" over and over from the kids. She is such a jokester and if she hears a good joke she tries to repeat it over and over so she can remember it and tell it again and make people laugh. She is the Queen of silly faces and goofiness, she is a typical class clown always wanting to make others laugh, always wanting attention on her. SCARY I KNOW!

At three years old I put her in preschool with a friend and neighbor kid. We would carpool and take turns each day/week driving the kids.

One day I showed up early to get her and I sat by her room and watched as they finished up their day. There was a birthday kid and so the snack was cupcakes, store bought of course because they don't trust us Mom's any more to bring in home made, sad I know. So on these store bought cupcakes had that perfectly piped huge amount of frosting on top.

Their routine for snack time was that no one could touch the "snack" until everyone had been served and not until they said a little prayer of grace that was cute and rhymed, then they could dig in.

Well on this cupcake day I watched E get served in the first table. So, she is laughing and talking with her friends trying hard to keep the attention on her. She is making faces at them and doing everything she can to keep her crowed laughing. I am watching her closely to see her next move because I know this girl so well, I knew exactly what she was thinking......

"how can I get this table of kids to really laugh at me?"

I saw her grasp her cupcake with both hands look around the room at the teachers (knowing she is not supposed to touch her food until they are done saying grace) look at the table of kids giving her attention, look down at the frosting topped cupcake and I KNOW she was thinking, "I have to do this, this will kill them with laughter."

She then quickly takes the cupcake and smashes it into her nose making the silliest face she can while doing it, getting frosting all over her nose. And it worked! The kids roared with laughter, other tables joined in too and E could not have been more happy with her self she could not have been more in her place as class clown than she was at that moment. Of course she got "in trouble" by the teachers but it was worth it to her!

I sat out in the hall laughing until I cried almost because, I knew it! I knew what she was thinking. Then the laughing stopped and the worrying set in....

Oh no, is this going to be her school career of being the class clown and not caring if she gets in trouble? Is she going to enjoy being silly more than she will enjoy learning? Will her grades suffer because of her need to be the center of attention? The fears kept coming. It was not as funny any more to me.

Like I said before, I have the memory ingrained in my head forever and it still haunts me. I still get a kick out of it but I still wonder if that was sign of things to come.

(ha ha, this is a perfect example of her silliness)

Well as far as I can tell, she is enjoying learning SO MUCH in kindergarten this year. She has not yet "been in trouble" and seems to have respect for her teachers. She still talks about her friends at school and how they are "silly" which means she does things to make them laugh. But I think so far I have had my fears a little bit eased as I see her doing so good in K-G so far.

So there it is, there is my story of my silly E girl, one that I will now, never forget.

"I miss my Mudder"

J found a 'capatiller' as he calls it, in the back yard yesterday and LOVED it!

Literally loved it

Like, kissed it, loved it. He's silly that way.

After loving it for several hours in the house, we tell him it's time the caterpillar goes back outside. Well this just didn't fly with this boy. He starts whining and crying "No I want to keep my capatiller whaaa whaa!" You know the routine.

So to comfort him I tell him "Buddy, the caterpillar misses his family and wants to go home. Wouldn't you miss your family and home if you were taken away from them?" I'm sure you've used this one too, it's a classic!

He agrees with me in a pouty kind of way. Then he looks out the back door towards where the caterpillars home is and says "But but but, I would miss...My Mudder (mother)!"

I know he doesn't even know what "Mudder" is. He's quoting Peter Pan by the way :)
So I say "Oh you will? who's your Mother J?"
he says "My capatiller is my mudder."

OK whatever dude! He is so random.

I tried to explain that Mother and Mommy and Mom are all the same person.
NO THEY ARE NOT! Apparently.

Mommy and Mom= ME!
Mudder=His caterpillar.

I'm not sure what that says about me and my position in his life. Maybe he should just go off and live with his caterpillar if he loves it so much!

So the best part of this story is this....
Today after putting him down for a nap I go to clean the kitchen with E and I look down by the back door and there is his "mudder" crawling on the floor apparently looking for her "son" J boy. I had to laugh!

C said he threw him over the fence!
And she came all they way back and in our house just to find her J boy.

So in went his mudder into a jar with leaves, grass and sticks. And there she will stay until she croaks probably. Hey that sounds like my future not too far off, living in my sons house (hopefully not in a jar) until I croak. Wow, so symbolic HA!

Kisses!

Ew that tikles

Sweet talking to his Mudder

Mommy I love to do chores!! Music to my ears!

E came up to me a week or so ago and said "Mom, I LOVE doing chores can I make a chore chart, pleeease?!"
Well when your child expresses "love" for anything but themselves you jump on the opportunity to teach them.

I have for years now given E and J assignments or chores.

Her chores started out with things like: helping me throw away garbage in the trash can, cleaning up toys, clearing your place after meals by putting your plate etc. in the sink.....you know the basics. J can also do these basic chores as well at his age.

We expect it from them but have not really "enforced" them all, all of the time.

Now E's chores have slowly progressed to more difficult ones as she has gotten older. She can help load the dishes, do laundry, sweep, mop, vacuum, wipe off surfaces, windows etc. and J tries to help with these too, but his attention span gets the best of him much of the time, but he tries.

Again I never set up a chart and enforced them but would randomly through out the day ask for help with certain chores and she would usually gladly come and help me. I do this with both kids and they both will help when asked but that was really the end of it.

Like I said before when my slightly self- centered girl expressed "love" for chores and a chart, I jumped on the chance to teach her more about responsibility. We also are throwing in "allowance" to help motivate her to be apart of this family and help out, which also gives us the opportunity to teach her in more depth about tithing and it's importance.

Today was her last day of the week, where she can earn her allowance. She gets five pennies for every chore(we prepared on a chart certain 'big' chore she can do) she does through out the week, though if she keeps up this chore thing, like she has this week, I might have to bring it down a little :) She went crazy this week!

The catch is.....(there always is a catch) she has to behave through out the week and when she doesn't obey our house hold rules, Me or Daddy can take part of her allowance away for every time she breaks a rule.

This is going to be good. We really didn't "crack" down and the taking allowance away, because I wanted her to see when she does chores it "pays". But We now have it in writing the rules and if they are broken you bet we'll take her hard earned money away!

She is so excited about it, even after a week of doing this she still says "Can I do some chores now mommy?"

SURE, ANY TIME YOU WANT!

I actually did do this chore chart thing months ago and she was excited for like two days about it and then it wore off, so I think this earning $$$ for it has helped keep her excited about. I hope it lasts!

Singing while she works!
This girl loves to sing and has tons of new songs every day she comes home from K-G.

Lots of Laundry

Doing her favorite part, checking off her chore

My preschool dilemma

I was having a hard time this year figuring out what to do with J and preschool. I hadn't found a preschool for J I like enough to shell out the dough for. I liked E's old one at the Y a lot but I just can't afford it this year for my J boy. I was feeling guilty, I didn't want to deprive him of something I gave E and she loved it and I knew he would too.

I looked into another one that is closer to home but still I was having a hard time coming up with that much money each month.

Some ladies in the ward were doing Joy School but I think that just isn't my thing, and again I wasn't sure if it was worth it.

So I decided to do my own preschool for my J boy this year. I was some what excited about it at first until I realized he'd be with just me, how boring, he's with me every day!

Well I mentioned it to a friend of mine with a daughter J's age and asked if she would be interested in doing this with me, J and her daughter Hallie. To my surprise she was WAY excited about doing this, and then I got really excited too! For J to have another peer his age do this home school preschool would be much more exciting to him and I know he'd enjoy it more.

Another friend gave us the idea of using this awesome book that is so perfect for their age group. It has one chapter set up for one letter (so 26 chapters). Each chapter gives you ideas on how to incorporate the letter into your day with easy fun learning activities like: science activities, motor skill activities, arts and crafts, games, even recipes for snacks and so much more. It is an AWESOME BOOK I can't say enough good things about it!

My friend and I got together and set up our daily schedules to make sure we were doing things similar, it's good for the kids to get them into a routine. Then we planned to start school the second week in September. The kids will do 'preschool' two days a week for two hours each day. We decided we'd each take a letter for a week and focus on it during both days. During our week we would teach both kids in our own home (so if it is at my house I teach, you get the idea) then the next week it would be in the other child's home.

Well they have started and it's been good so far. The first week Melissa took the letter A and it was an experiment but they did ok. They just needed to get used to this new schedule. I was going to do this week with the letter B but I got sick and so I'll do it next week.

Any way I'm really excited to be doing this for J boy. He likes it a lot so far (it's only been three days total) and I know he'll love it the whole 26 weeks. I have been working the Math out and what I have spent so far and I probably wont need to buy a whole lot more and I figure that I'm saving a lot of money each month at least half of what I would spend at the cheapest preschool we have found (especially gas money!)

I'm glad I chose to do preschool like this. I feel like with just him at home during the day, I have no excuse not to work with him like this, plus it keeps me busy and I'm having fun doing it.

His first day of school (he insisted on wearing this silly hat, his uncle Nathan will be proud!)

Riding his bike down the street to school

The two cute and excited preschoolers on the first day.

Thank You Melissa for doing this with me!

So much to tell...
I feel like I have been busy, too busy to blog, but then I look back at the last couple of weeks and think "What have I even done?"
Well....
Yesterday I stayed home all day and cleaned my entire house top to bottom. Which doesn't seem like much since we live in a small three bedroom town house, but still it had not been cleaned, I mean really cleaned, in a while. We're talking wiping down walls that had dirty fingerprints all over them, that kind of cleaning.

Here's the best part, I spent my entire day yesterday, inside cleaning walls and windows and toilets and floors and the list goes on and on and no one even noticed! NICE! Oh the joys of being a stay at home mom. Actually I lied my neighbor noticed, but that is kind of sad that she is the only one that did and sad that my house was that bad before that she noticed it was finally clean.

Any way besides me cleaning my house every day because it is undone the minute after I do clean, I have been busy with other things going on.

First trying to get in to a routine with E going to school. I've got the morning down pat because I just put her on the bus, but with me picking her up everyday, I'm working on doing more before the time comes to pick her up.

Another thing keeping me busy.....Potty training my boy, fun times!

J is doing great on the potty! We started potty training the week after his b-day (three weeks ago) and it was a struggle at first. He caught on to going #1 (pee pee) really fast but the going #2 (poops) on the potty, uuhgh!

What a nightmare!

BUT he's been doing great the last 4 days or so. He has finally caught on that it is GROSS to POOP in you underwear! He is doing so good now I don't want to jinx it.

Yesterday or was it the day before? I don't remember these days just blend together. Anyway, he just walked in the bathroom put the seat up, pulled down his pants and went pee, pulled his pants up, flushed, washed up and came out! I couldn't believe it! He just went all by himself with out coming to me saying "I got to go pee pee" and then me having to race him in there and help him with everything, nope he just went because he knew he had to go, it was AWESOME!

Since that first time he did it all by himself, he now always wants to go by himself unless it's poops, then I insist that I help until he has that down too.

And, can I just say I think potty training a boy is easier, well for the fact that he doesn't have to wipe every time (when he goes pee that is). And he can just pull down his pants just a little "go" standing up, pull up his pants and he's done, it's nice. I even taught him to "wipe the seat" if he makes a mess and funny thing is, that is his favorite part ha ha ha, he's a silly boy.

I was worried at first to let him go standing up for fear of the messes he may make but....how do I put this....he's got pretty good aim! Nuff said :)

So, I've got the kid trained.
Potty train my boy, CHECK!

My life seems to be some what monotonous these days. I feel like I'm doing the same things over and over, although I know I've been getting out doing different things. I think it was this potty training thing. I have focused for so long on J getting it down that everything else seems to be a blur.

I think we went to the fair some time in there.

I think I picked a bunch of raspberries and made some home made jam, some time ago too.

We found a litter of kittens in our back yard, the momma abandoned two of them and got to keep them for a day until we found a new home for them.

I'm sure there were some other eventful things going on in our lives during J's potty training extravaganza, but I just don't remember them all.

Yeah, I think I'm glad that this potty training thing has come to an end (I hope) and now I can enjoy life again. Yippee!