updates!!

man, i'm sorry it's been forever. i had a few people ask me if i quit blogging...but i was just on a temporary leave of absence. :) almost everyday i would think to myself, i should update the blog and it never got done! tonight i have an event for work in greenbush, so i have some free time for about an hour and thought i'd update you on life.

so updates on my last blogs....morning workouts...went extremely well and i was happy with how i felt about myself. for some reason thought i have not gone in two weeks. my hope is to start doing that again. the days i would work out in the morning, i felt soo much better/healthier/happy all day long.

potty training, went good while we kept up at it. my plan was to introduce audrey to the potty, then when she started daycare (September) to back off and see if audrey seemed interested in it on her own. the answer was no. about two weeks later she would tell us poopy if she was pooping or gas...however the next week our daycare provider was going to be gone (husband having hip surgery) so we didn't really want to start the process and have to take a break while audrey went to her back up provider. so we just thought we'd wait. were still waiting mostly because i feel i have no time for it right now.

ken's job is going good. i think he has a good handle on how the schools up north work and operate. there aren't as many young males in this school as to how many there were in st. michael, so i think it took some to realize that he will just have old friends. :) his cross country team has one meet left, the section meet on Friday. he has been very busy preparing for the upcoming basketball season.

i got a job. it's not my dream job, but it's been a great job so far. i'm the director of little brother/little sister program in roseau, lake of the woods, & kitson county. that job is only part time, but they had another part time job in the head start classrooms for me to assist with. so i pretty much work full time, however the job is sooo flexiable. no two days are alike, i'm in the office and doing a lot of traveling throughout the four counties that we provide services too.

audrey is growing so much. her hair is getting longer, her personality is developing, she walks/runs/talks all day. she sleeps pretty good. i would say about every other night she wakes up at some point and wants to be rocked back to sleep. her last dr apportionment was rather interesting. she didn't want to be in the room/dr office...but we survived.

between audrey and i, we've been to the clinic once a week for the past month. it's a good thing one of my friends works there...i have something to look forward too when we go. :)

this past weekend, MEA, we spent in ada. it was a great weekend, relaxing, watching volleyball, and hanging out with grandparents. ruths volleyball team won the moorhead tourney (alot of a, aa, and aaa schools). they won some huge games!!

enjoy these pictures and i'll post more.

Morning Workouts

This morning was my first day of doing a workout at 6 am. I love the feeling ALL DAY LONG of not having to think....when am I going to work out today? Nap time? No...I like to get other stuff then...Ahhh working out is one of those stresses for me...always on my mine unless it's done. All day today I have felt so relaxed, able to enjoy the day, enjoy Audrey, and get other stuff done without thinking about when I'm going to do it.

I went for a jog outside it was 3.7 miles long, about 30 minutes long. It was very peaceful to enjoy the morning, wave to people headed to work, see other walkers/joggers, and clear the brain time. My goal is to keep working out in the morning before school starts. I'm thinking I want to go run 2 or 3 days and then do circuit training the other 2/3 days. If I do really good at being dedicated to this I'm planning on taking the weekends off. Please help keep me accountable and ask how they are going or IF I'm still doing them.

potty update

The weekend we were up at the lake. Everything was busy and new. She wanted to go go and keep playing. She would still "sit" on the potty in the morning, before nap, after snack, supper, and bedtime....but she would sometimes sit for 2 minutes and sometimes 5. Since being back at home for less than 48 hours she has been more than willing to go sit on the potty for long periods of time (sometimes 2 minutes up to 25 minutes when I tell her were done all done trying). We look at books, play, talk, and eat cookies or popsicle. She has gone pee on the potty two different times, both times being in the morning after she wakes up. After she went pee, we put her diaper back on...within an hour she had peed more in her diaper. I even thought she peed ALOT in the potty. I'm thinking we will need to add in another time in the morning, because the time from waking up to before nap is a long time to hold it/not try. :)  Today after lunch, she sat on the potty for about 25 minutes and then I told her we were all done. She immediately stood up, picked up her diaper and handed it to me. As I proceeded to put the diaper on her, she then sat up in my lap and I felt warmness rush into her diaper!!! That stinker!! Oh the joys of potty training.

Someone suggest to me that kids will purposely hold there pee on the potty until you put a diaper back on because that is their security. They've been used to peeing in that thing for the past year. I was doing some reading at http://pottytrainingearly.com/ and they have two different methods of potty training. One allows your child to go bottomless for a few days or wear underwear...then they lose that security feeling of the diaper. You are prone to have accidents the first days but I guess they say it works.

I talked with our child care provider today as I figured she was going to think we were nuts for doing this. Audrey is starting child care when school starts and I'm subbing. But she was completely on board with it. Plus it helps that her numbers wouldn't be too big right when school starts as a handful of kids will be headed back to school. So time will tell how this will contiune to go....but I'm hopeful. I'm not anywhere near ready to "give up." As that will only make it more challenging later I hear.

:)

call me crazy

Audrey is going to start using a potty to go to the bathroom. She woke up dry 3 out of the last 4 nights and is very interested in playing/sitting on the toilet. We had picked up a little potty chair at a garage sale for at Grandma & Grandpa's house. We will bring that one to there house when her new one arrives in the mail. :) Again, I maybe crazy but I'm willing to try. We have a system down that she will sit on the potty when she wakes up in the morning, before lunch, after nap, before dinner, and before bed time. Now this is just our first attempt at this...there is another method that seemed rather interested to me where you let your baby be naked at home to learn to see the signs of when they need to go to the bathroom (bouncing, fidgeting, rocking...ect). After you learn those signs, every time you see them doing the signs...you bring them to the potty. Strange.

I was starting to think I was crazy for trying this at an early stage, but the more researching I've done....the more normal I feel. There is actaully a thing called "Elimination Communication" where you virtually potty train your baby from birth. Weird, but so fascinating to me! If you know nothing about it (as I didn't), google it...you can learn something new today.

glimmer of potty training hope

Yesterday and today I've had some thoughts when Audrey has waken up. Her diaper has been dry as a clean diaper both days when she has waken up. Could it possible she's ready to be potty trained? Joke, I know that is far away...but hey maybe it's a sign she will be ready sooner than later when we get to that point of parenting days. :)

Here are some photo's form the past week. Audrey is talking more and more. Loves being outside, playing with her baby doll, playing with her new play kitchen, playing with my old drivers license, going to the ball park to run in the out field, and sleeping in! Audrey loved eating veggies from the garden and fresh fish! She is starting to like to eat meat ( turkey with cheese dogs :) )!!

difference in child care

I thought it would be eye opener for some people to see some of the difference between child care in the metro versus rural northern minnesota.

Metro                            

Must put down deposit- 2 weeks      

$150.00 a week, no free days                                       
Pay every week, on a specific day                                                  
Must put money down to hold your spot, if child hasn't started yet                   

 

Rural Northern Minnesota

No deposit required

Can do drop in for $22.00 a day, 3 days (part time) a week $18.00/day, or 4 or 5 days (full time) a week $18.00/day

  Pay every other Friday, or else when it's convenient for you

No money down, just pay when you start

 

Things that are the same:

Paperwork is the same

Praying that the care will be the same

Lots of toys and activities

Spends a lot of time outside

We have had good luck with child care provider thus far in life!!

What were up too....

Everyday Audrey is amazing me by how much she is growing and changing. Her 8th tooth finally came through with the 9th one working it's way in. She has been sleeping great (12 hrs a night/ 2-3 hr nap). We think she must be doing some major growing with all the sleep she is doing. It suprises me how much she can comprehend. If you ask her, "should we go outside?" YAH, get's excited and runs to the door and waits. If you ask her if she wants to eat...she waddles fast to her high chair and hangs on it until you lift her up. She is defently not afraid and enjoys testing the limit. In our house we have a bay window, one day I looked to see what she was playing with and she was standing IN the window trying to wave at her dad, who was mowing the lawn...really audrey?

some days we will let audrey choose what she wants to eat for breakfast or snack. all of her food in the fridge is at her level, so she is able to point and grab what she wants. her favorite food that she will pick EVERYTIME we let her is...snack pack pudding! choclate, vanialla, or butterscotch.

another day we were riding bike and audrey was in her bike cart. she keep tryign to stand up and turn around, even with her seat belt on. I had told her about 8 times to sit down. she immeditally sits down and smiles at me. After the 8th time of asking her to sit down, i got off my bike and looked into her eyes and said "sit down" and pointed at her. She counteracted by pointing at me and saying a bunch of baby words. :) Stinker~

Audrey is very verbal at speaking, some baby word and some are even in the adult english language. She is walking very good, tips a lot whens he is tired. She still takes 2 bottles a day, morning and night.

Kenneth has been busy preparing for the school year, mostly working on things for cross country and basketball...things he can do now and not worry about this fall or during the school year. Ken makes me laugh....he is such a amazing husband and father. Everyday he suprises me about certain things...like how some nights he's in charge of putting audrey to bed, and when she wakes up...i find her in the same clothes from that day :)

 

delicious desert

I stumbled across this delicious desert on my favorite site, pinterest. I took the plunge and tried to make it, simple easy!

Triple Delicious Desert

1st- make a batch of cookies, spread in the bottom of a pan. Full batch for 11 by 9 or half a batch for 8 by 8.
*Spray pan with pam or else line it with wax paper to prevent sticking

2nd- lay oreo cookies on top of the cookie dough

3rd- make a package of brownies, spread on top of orero's. familie size for 11 by 9 or half a box for 8 by 8.

Make at 375 degrees F for about 40 minutes. Test with the toothpick test. :)

To eat: eat them warm, fresh from oven or heat in microwave then add ice cream....Delicious!

jealous feeling

i wouldn't admit this to many people, but it's something i'm feeling. i'm so jealous of seeing other teachers in their classrooms preparing for the upcoming school year. i know some teachers may think i'm crazy for saying that and probably thinking i should enjoy my time at home with my little one....but i can't help it. i'm envious of them. i'm constantly finding new ideas and things i want to use to have in my classroom one day. i think it's part of the teacher in me, that this time of the year get's me excited and wants to be in a classroom. i want to be able to teach to kids and see them grow in the same school year. i think i will have a hard time subbing because you don't get to see that growth, your with this class one day and another class another day....which doesn't allow you to continuous teach the same students. i'm hopeful i will surprise myself with what i can learn while i'm subbing.

i found this website that has $40 free to use, just pay shipping the whole month of august. you can use the coupon over and over....i'm going to order a notebook from this place and write down all the things i'm learning while subbing. ideas i want to remember and things that don't work so well.

https://www.papercoterie.com/  coupone code is: BEGINANYWHERE

Have you been trapped?

We've been trapped, fish trapped that is. Our family enjoys every single minute we spend at Fish Trap lake at Mark & Margs lake home. Words can't even do justice for how much we enjoy this weekend and how thankful we are for everything mark and marg put in to this weekend. It's the big and little things that make things so memorable.

Highlights from Fish Trap 2011

Turtle races

The race thing on the surf board, even Emily did an awesome job.

Ella & Hayden tubbing

The 12 team Bags tourney, the championship game will be played August 13th

Golf Scramble

Talks around the camp fire

The knights of the round table, topics included....public vs private school, bed times, giving kids pop, things you charish, advise from the elders (thanks jim and marvin).

Fishing competition

The fish fry

Having ribs for my first time

Lounging around

Volleyball Games

Scavanger Hunt!!! Girls totally kick butt