Spring Break !

First of all I must say I survived the first 2 quarters of my radiology class ( and so did the students) that I taught at CBC. This spring I will just be helping in clinic classes and therefore do not have to come up w/ power points, handouts, quizzes, tests, etc so it should be a walk in the park. I am glad to see that my working life will slow down a bit because my family life always seems to pick up in the spring and summer. That is the great thing about teachng at the college I can kind of pick and choose and that way I can cut back in the spring and then I hope to only have to work 2-3 days in the summer instead of 4 (if everything goes my way).

Here are soem random pictures that describe what we have been up too lately

I have been introducing potty training to Gracee for the last couple of months now so everytime she takes a bath I always try to sit her on the toilet. This is what I found one day--Kraeton trying to potty train her. That would be fine and dandy but he later left her in there and shut the door and she can not get off the toilet by herself. I was trying to locate where the screaming was coming from and found her stranded on the toilet. I seriously think this girl is ready to potty train. In the last couple of weeks she has been hidding to go poop and then coming to me and telling me "poopy" and 1 time she even brought me a diaper and the wipes. Yesterday she decided she was going to try and change her own diaper and I ended up w/ a shoe coated in it from her stepping in it (luckfully it happened in the kitchen and therefore did not make too big of a mess). I have decided that I will probably wait until my next school break in June to potty train her because for the last couple of months I have been telling myself that during my spring break I was oing to take her binky away because she was becoming wayyyy to attached to it. Mission accomplished, yea. Taking the binky from my kids is ALOT harder than taking a bottle away but we survived, well should I say I did. I left Jake w/ her for a couple hours the 1st day I took the binky away and he had to put her down for a nap and he said she kicked his butt. she through the cup across the room then the bink, then started kicking and screaming and literally beating the crap out of him. And while we are on the subject of Gracee we had her 18 month check up. She weighs 22.5 lbs 20% and 32 inches tall 70%, we got out of there w/ no shots so we both were happy girls. Oh yeah, I also had Dr Julie do a physical on me because it had been since 04 and Gracee did not like Dr Julie doing anything too me. the sethescope could not come near me, the ear checker thing, nothing.




Some goofy pictures of the kids:

Krae came out of the bonus room the other day looking like this and thought it was the funniest thing and let me take this picture, I warned him after the picture was taken that about 10 yrs from now he is going to regret that.


Gracee w/ Nina's reading glasses and of course a book.


Last weekend Kraeton participated in a wrestling Camp at the high school where they practiced 4x over 2 wks and then had a little tournament. For little ole burbank they actually had a decent turn out, there were about 50 kids w/ 10 in krae's age group of Kinder and 1st graders. To my surprise he actually did exceptionally well. My son loves sports but is not real serious about them and from what I had seen at practice he was just there for the fun and games. My parents came and for those of you who know my mom she never leaves the house w/out her camera, so I told her you better hurry down there mom because if you are not there when it starts there may not be any picture to take-- I ate my words. He just happens to be good at a sport I could care less if he plays in-- I hate wrestling from everything to what they have to wear, to the way they take care of themselves (diets), to the 1 on 1 "its up to you to win". He now is onto baseball (well actually they overlapped awhile and I have no idea how people do it when there children have multiple things going on, and then on top of that, other children doing other things. It drove Jake crazy that we could not sit down and have dinner together)and to my surprise again he can actually hit the ball, as a matter of fact the coach came up to me 1 night and asked if my husband would be willing to come to 1 of the 3 practices each week to help w/ hitting because he thought Kraeton had really nice form-- too bad we rarely practice hitting.



I got the pleasure last week of watching my niece Laney while my brother and sister-in -law went out to dinner for Amy's b-day (that was a first for us). We really enjoyed Laney's company even though attention to my poor little girl lacked-- I decided to take them on a mini walk and my daughter ended up getting dumped out head 1st onto asphalt from the stroller. I then had 2 crying babies because Laney was afraid since Gracee was screaming and then I had to carry both of them back home (there for a while I was not sure if I was going to make it back home, my arms were killing me).


We went bowling for Ryan and Amy's B-day latter that week and here the 2 girls are sitting together-- did I mention how super hard it is to get both of these guys to look at the camera at the same time-- those stupid delayed digitals



I forgot to mention that I have been cleaning like a mad dog. Since I have been so busy my house has been spot cleaned. I am one of those that always has to have things picked up and looking clean but I am not a clean freak, My house is not spotless, I call my type of cleaning "topical cleaning" because from the outside it looks clean but if you look really close it is not. So I decided that I needed to go from room to room and clean from head to toe, so I started in Krae's room, then the living room, then the kitchen then my office and a few storage closets along the way and hopefully tomorrow I will finish up in Gracee's room and our bedroom and bath. I even broke the paint out and did touch ups in every room. The only bad part to it is that it is taking forever and by the time I am done I will need to start back at square 1-- it will just make me feel soooo much better once it is done.

At the end of the week for some down time we decided that we would go try out camping for the 1st time this year. We have never done it before but we are headed to hood park, yeap that it only a couple miles form us but we decided we would give it a go. Jake's sister and brother in law are going to join us since they just got a camper. I know it may seem a little crazy but we always say we are going to do more than 1 camping trip and we usually only get 1 or 2 in and I told Jake that this is 1 way to get more camping ,but he is convienced that it is way too close to home to be considered camping. I guess we will find out-- wish us luck.

Happy Birthday U 2

So I do not normally post everyones b-days, but this one was worth posting because I had the perfect picture to go with it. Yes, I was told that this had better not show up on the blog (back at Christmas time), but I finally could not hold out any longer (sorry guys). Ryan's was yesterday and Amy's is on Friday. Happy Birthday Wieseler's. I can't wait to go bowling considering the last time I went I fell flat on my face.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MEEEE

In no particular order at all because I randomly did this blog:







Yep, thats right I am one year closer to 30 and its had me a little freaked out this past week. Not that I think 30 is extremely old, but when you tell someone that you are twenty-something--they always reply w/ something like "wow your young". I have a feeling once you hit 30 they no longer will say that, maybe thats just me.

So I got to get up and go have breakfast w/ my favorite girls Jess, Amy, and Bobbie at IHOP. We all decided that going to breakfast was a GREAT idea, until it actually came time to ordering and we all we starving and wanted EVERY breakfast item on the menu. While at IHOP Bobbie mentioned that I should order first since it was my b-day . Later on (mind you it is 9:30am) I hear them start to do a birthday song ( in the back ground) and in my head I was thinking, who in the heck is celebrating their b-day at this time of the morning, then it dawned on me that they we probably headed my way, meanwhile the girls are talking and do not realize what is going on until I say "Sh@!, they had better not be heading over here"--too late they already were. Lesson learned--be careful what you tell the waiters, but we did get to enjoy some yummy ice cream at 10 in the morning, that does not happen too often. We then headed over and got pedicures, and sure as hells bells I got another damn thing of grass painted on my toe instead of the flower that I asked for. I think that the last time I got a birthday pedicure I got the same thing. This time I got a combo, a little bit of grass w/ some corn?????

We had some family over this afternoon for no, not cake (not a big fan of cake but yes I do eat it) but Mud Pie that Jake made me. And of course I cannot forget the presents. Now that the addition was done almost 2 yrs ago (in April), I finally decided that bare walls are no longer OK. So I asked for mainly money so I can get something up on those walls in the new livingroom. I have put it off for so long because we were trying to decide what theme we wanted to go w/. I was thinking an african theme and Jake was not too crazy about that and he would take a hunting room any day, but I am not crazy about that so I finally decided the heck w/ it and got a mirror, a star (since everyone else has one in there house), a couple shelves w/ matching frames, and then I am waiting for the spring craft show at the end of march to get a metal frame work design w/ dried flowers ( thats where my cash will go) in it and from there decide what and where I will hang this stuff. I also recieved a couple cook books, mini crock- pot (for dips), entry way table and mirror, a large painted picture of a rooster (that my mom painted), and a hand crafted rooster (from Jess). Oh and Jake made me some coasters out of tile for the living rom up stairs. And I forgot to mention the present I got myself, a new purse and wallet.

I must not forget to mention that it is my Dad's Birthday also, yep poor guy had to share his birthdays w/ me. I am sure he would say that he never got a birthday from the age of 22 to about last year (I think that is when I finally let him have it back and decided we could share it). I must add there is a good and a bad to having it on the same day. Good that I get to celebrate such a great day w/ him but bad because when I was growing up, regardless if it was our b-day or not--we worked. I do recall that for my 16th B-day I got to pick rocks ALL DAY. I was not a happy camper.

This and That

On a side note I have no idea what is oing on w/ my background, I quess I will have to wait until my personal blog assistant (hint, hint Amy) gets back from Vegas.

I am finally posting some pictures of my finished craft project that I started at the end of January and completed a couple weeks ago, but have never shown. I made Gracee a rag quilt--my very first attempt at a quilt-- good thing it was super easy, thats my type of craft--all it took was to cut straight lines, sew straight lines and then go back and snip straight lines (to rag it up), the last part was by far the longest part.

I also included some pictures just because:


Here Gracee is picking on her sleeping brother-- the last couple nights this is her favorite thing to do. I do not know if she does not like him sleeping or if she feels she finally can get even w/ him (sorry I forgot to rotate the pic)


Krae at a BB game


goofy Gracee


Would you say this girl LOVES cookies?


Here Gracee is w/ her friends Ayla and Addison that were born the day after her. Their parents are Josh and Angie, both of whom Jake went to high school with


I call this double trouble. Don't they look like they are up to something?


Book, Blanky, and Begging. This girl LOVES, LOVES, LOVES books. This particular photo was taken right before bed and she is begging me to read to her as she is whining. I swear this girls heart would not beat w/out her blanky, binky, books, and momma. That is absolutely all she needs (don't let her dad know I said this)


Here Gracee is already in love w/ her blanky even though it only consisted of 1 strip at the time.


close up of blanket


Far away of blanket-- I notived I did not include a pic of the rag side- maybe next time.