Potty Training 101

This little girl is potty-trained. Hallelujah! Wow, what a difference it has been with her than with my son. I've always heard that girls are easier and I can agree. Saturday night, Kevin and I went to a fundraiser for Cystic Fibrosis and left the kids with my dad. He had them to himself for a couple hours until my mom got home from work. She told him twice that she had to "go potty" so he put her on the potty and she went. I was so proud of her & him! I've been putting panties on her during the day when we're at home, but hadn't put them on her to go away until now. One piece of advice I would like to give is to not use the pull-ups except for maybe at night. I bought the panties that are thicker with more absorption and put a pair of plastic pants over them. I even found a pair with the plastic pants built in. It works great. No messes to clean up, which is why I used the pull-ups on my son. I think wearing the panties helps them feel when they have gone better than a pull-up. Although I just had to clean up a #2 mess in her underwear this morning and that isn't so fun with underwear. Accidents will happen, but she is doing great!

Endometriosis

Last Tuesday, I was supposed to have a Dr. appointment with an ultrasound to check the endometriomas (like a cyst) on my ovaries. They've been monitoring them for the past three years. As I was pulling out of the driveway, they called to say that the ultrasound technician was ill and I needed to reschedule. Well, I was glad that I had only made it that far when they called because it's a 45 minute drive there and I left an hour early so that I could drop the kids off at a babysitter. This ultrasound also required that I drink 32 ounces of water an hour before, and I hadn't started that either. So I decided to go shopping that day instead. Yesterday was my actual appointment and I had both kids in the car ready to go...turned the ignition...nothing...turned the ignition again...nothing. OK, Lord do you not want me to go for some reason? I called my hubby, but he didn't answer. To make a long story short, my mom came and picked us up, I dropped her off with the kids at her house and headed to my appointment chugging down my water. I did arrive right on time and my husband was there waiting for me. The feeling of having an ultrasound with a full bladder is not a pleasant experience at all so I was glad when that was over. The ultrasound revealed that the endometromas have grown. I have one on the left the size of a large marshmallow and two on the right...one the size of a walnut shell and the other the size of a large marshmallow. No wonder I've been feeling so bloated. The endometriosis has also spread across my uterus, so next Thursday I will be having laparoscopic surgery as I had suspected would be happening...just didn't think it would be next week. Yikes! Not excited about that at all.

On a happier note, we put up our Christmas tree this past Sunday. Caedmon has been noticing more and more Christmas things being displayed at the stores and has been asking if we are going to have Christmas. So needless to say, the kids were sooo excited when we hauled all the decorations out. It's so fun to see their excitement grow each year.

Oh Deer

My brother-in-law, Clint, shot a buck on our property a couple of weeks ago. Caedmon got to go along to track the deer and watch the gutting process. It was after dark, and I wasn't sure how he would do, but he came back all wide-eyed and super excited and said "mom, we shot the deer!"

This past Saturday we had four hunters on our property for the opening day of gun season. They saw a few, but no one took a shot. I had pumpkin pancakes waiting for them when they came in. Here's the recipe:

Birthday Cake

We finally celebrated Kevin's birthday this past Sunday, a week late, at his parents house in Middlebury. I made the shirt & tie cake the day before while daddy was at a football game with Caedmon, and Kaiya was taking her nap. I colored and rolled out fondant for the tie & shirt pockets. It was pretty easy to work with and fun, but didn't taste that great. The instructions said that you could add flavoring to it, which is what I did, but most of us ended up scraping that part off when we ate it. I did find a great recipe for the frosting though that tasted fabulous. Here it is: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Cake-with-Buttercream-Decorating-Frosting/Detail.aspx. I'm also including a couple of sweet pictures of the kids with their baby cousin, Lincoln (5 months), that were also taken at the party. He has an appointment on December 11th at Riley Hospital in Indianapolis because he has a couple of lumps growing on the back of his head. We love this little guy a ton and are praying for wisdom for the Doctors as they make decisions regarding Lincoln's care and that the lumps would disappear on their own so that nothing further will need to be done. All things are possible with God! Matthew 19:26

Little Stinker

Kaiya Elle is her name, making messes is her game! My daughter cannot be left alone for more than a minute. I will find myself working on something and notice that she's missing and think to myself...uh oh, I'd better go check to see what she is up to. Sometimes her older brother will catch her in the act and come to tell me about it before a disaster occurs, but she can be pretty sneaky sometimes too. Here is a list of the messes she has made just in the past couple of weeks.

1. Got into the spice cabinet and dumped the whole container of salt in the kitchen and on the couch.

2. Emptied the Q-tips all over the bathroom floor.

3. Got into my make-up and put eyeliner on her eye and in her mouth.

4. Got into the spice cabinet again and emptied a whole jar of multicolored sprinkles all over the kitchen floor.

5. Got into the spice cabinet again and emptied the container of popcorn salt.

6. Got into my purse and emptied a tic-tac container all over the couch.

I'm starting to remember when my son did the exact same things right around her age. I was mortified one day when we were at my mother-in-laws and he was supposed to be napping in her room. I thought he was sleeping, but when I went to check on him, at least an hour later, my mother-in-law's room was a disaster. Upon walking into the room there was the oh so familiar oder of a messy diaper along with a very strong powder scent. He emptied a container of powder all over the room, had gotten into her dresser drawers and pulled out tons of items and had eaten the whole roll of tums from the nightstand drawer. It looked like a tornado had gone through her room. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

Pecans, Grits & Satsumas - Alabama

We left bright and early (5:30am) on Friday morning and headed South with Grandpa & Grandma Bontrager to visit the Weber family (my husband's sister) in Alabama. The trip down could not have gone smoother. I packed an activity bag for each of the kids and plenty of snacks. They were pretty content most of the 13 hours except for the last one when their little bodies could not sit still for one more minute. We arrived at the Weber's with warm sunny skies, the smiling faces of our sweet nephew & niece and a fresh baked pecan pie...what a great beginning to great weekend spent with family. Most of our time was spent hanging out at Jason & Joyce's home relaxing, watching the cousins play together and catching up with each other. Kevin went with Jason on Saturday morning to deliver a load of soybeans in Mobile while the rest of us enjoyed pancakes & sausage made by Joyce. Later that day we picked up tons of pecans from their pecan trees and Joyce and I took a walk. The skies were clear and temperatures were in the mid 70s the entire time we were there.


What fun it was to spend the day with my sweet little niece Helen on her first birthday. She's such a happy baby and loves to get her picture taken, smiling from ear to ear every time.

On Sunday morning, the kids woke up bright and early since the time changed. I brought them in bed with us and Caedmon sang a sweet Happy Birthday song to his daddy. We went to Grace Fellowship Church in Atmore on Sunday and enjoyed a message by Jason's brother Conrad. We decided to take a family picture outside since it was so beautiful, but Mr. Caedmon decided to throw a fit and refused to cooperate so he had a talk with daddy out back by the satsuma tree.


That evening was the big birthday party for Owen and Helen. Jason's family attended as well. Lots of kids and lots of noise, but lots of FUN! Once again, Mr. Caedmon needed another reminder to get some control and that he was not the entertainment for the evening. Joyce made a Wheel of Fortune cake for Owen because he loves to watch all the letters on that show, and Helen had a cute little cupcake. On Monday the guys took the kids to a park while the ladies went shopping downtown Atmore at the Economy Shop. It's always a fun place to look for treasures when we are down there. I bought a pair of pants for Caedmon, a shirt for me and a pair of jeans for Kevin. We stayed up late again that night talking then got up at 4am the next morning to head back to Indiana. Caedmon wasn't so happy to come home, he said "maybe we can come back to Alabama next weekend". When we reached the Indiana border and said we were in Indiana, he said "I don't want to go to Indiana, I want to go back to Owen's house" and even as we turned on the road that we live on, he pointed behind him and said "I want to go back that way to Owen's house". Kaiya started wailing the last four miles of the trip.


Thanks, Jason & Joyce, for a great time!

Trick or Treating

Thing 2 - Rylie, Highway - Caedmon, Cute Cow - Kaiya, That 70s Girl - Maci, Thing 1 - Lexi

What a fun evening we had last night in Auburn, trick or treating with my sister's family. This has been our third year parading downtown Auburn to all the different businesses. Some of the businesses really go all out, decorating their whole store and creating mazes for everyone to go through. After going through the downtown, we headed to Walmart where they handed us a map to several different locations in the store that also handed out treats. The weather was perfect for the event.

Kaiya's cow costume was a hand-me-down from her big brother. As soon as I put it on her, she let out a cute little "mooooo". For Caedmon's highway costume, I got the idea from a magazine. It was so easy and perfect for him because he loves playing with his car track at home. He loved it!