Home Alone

What can happen in 2 weeks your husband is gone...  I get sick (I'm pretty sure it was food poisoning), get to go to a great leadership training meeting, go to parent teacher conference (good marks for Josh...working hard on socializing with kids & he doesn't really like his speech therapist...I guess he gives her the evil eye),  Josh colors on our carpet with a highlighter,  forget to avoid I-35 & the construction mess, James screams the whole way home,  Josh throws up at school (he is not sick-must be upset stomach-but he must stay home anyway because of school rules)

Gardner Ward 2011 Craft Day

Details:
Craft Sign up & money due by: Sept 25

Craft Day Info:
Oct 22
9am-1pm
Conestoga Club House (1199 E Santa Fe St Gardner)
We will have lunch at 12pm (signups will come around closer to craft day)
Please bring glue guns & glue sticks, scissors, fabric, old rag and any other colors not listed that you may want for your crafts

• Headbands & Rosettes 
• - Free - Limit 3 per person
• **If you have fabric you are willing to donate for headbands, please bring it and place in box by headband samples 

• Quiet Book- 
• $5 with cover 
• $3 without 

• Watch-Bracelet- 
• $5.50 watch face 
• $4.50 for each double-stranded watchband (colors available: black, white, silver, brown & multicolors)- **if you have your own beads, bring them & just get a watch face 

• PVC Pipe Mirrors-spray paint colors available: black, white, brown & silver 
• $3 for small 
• $7 for large (not shown in picture 1st picture)

• Glitter Trees- $15 for set of three (colors available: red, blue, green, silver, white,gold, ice blue, ice green, purple) 

• Christmas Subway Art (shown with glitter trees) - printout ONLY-does not include frame 
• $6 for 16 by 20 in 
• $4 for 11 by 14 in 
• $3 for 8 by 10in 

• Ornament- $2 each-(includes clear ball, red beads & vinyl lettering "JOY") 

Ready For School

Josh and I are ready for him to go back to school. He is excited to have the same teacher this year, Mrs. Sara. School has really helped him. This summer I have tried to keep him entertained and learning but I'm not very good at it. We have gone swimming, played with James, Jazzercised, read books, & played video games. We even have had preschool once a week with one of Josh's friends. We would rotate each week and teach by topic using the library's 6 by 6 packets. By the end of the summer, we will also finish reading Charlie & the Chocolate Factory & to celebrate, we will have a Wonka party and watch the movie that I checked out from my parents. I finally updated our pictures of Josh that his preschool teacher gave us so here are some of the cute ones in celebration of school starting again.

Shoes

I have been very slowly reorganizing my house. Basically when we moved in, I was still living with apartment mentality. The old ways of my organizing did not really accommodate my growing family and bigger house so that just equalled my clutter taking over. I have been throwing out, throwing things in the basement & organizing the rest. So far I love the way my towel closet looks & my entry way closet (although it could use some nails to hang the broom). Yesterday I started on our bedroom. Its going to take some time & money for it to get to what I want it to look like, but I started the process. In going through some of our closet, I realized that since I have been married (8 years in Aug), I have never bought myself a pair of shoes. I have gotten 2 pairs from my birthday from my mother-in-law & I got one pair from a hand-me down from my sister but I have not bought a single pair myself. Some of my shoes are looking pretty sad now. At least if I buy a pricey pair of shoes, I won't feel bad right. I make my shoes last so it will be worth the price for a good pair. Now in my head I can at least think of at least 7 pairs of shoes we have bought for Jason since we have been married...I thought girls were the ones that bought the shoes.

Photo Opp of My Boys!

So Mom was bored & the kids humored me by letting me take photos of course they wouldn't both have smiles on in the same photo...

Happy 4th Birthday Josh

Josh Celebrated his 4th Birthday this year. When asked how old he was, he said 100.

Here he is opening his gifts...he got clothes, a puzzle, bubbles & a soccer ball.

We went to Chuck-e-Cheeses to celebrate & ride the rides.
I talked to Josh about making a turtle cake a month before his birthday and he really wanted it for his birthday. I thought he forgot about it so I got lazy & thought I could just get by with frosting & sprinkles on cupcakes. The first thing he says when he woke up on his Birthday was..."Where's my turtle cake"... So off to the store I went to get green food coloring and I was able to make his turtle cake and bring it into his preschool class during snack time. He really liked it and all the kids thought they were cool.

The Wonderful World of James in Video

So Here is a video of my dear James..it took me a while to get it loaded. I only could get one to work. If I get the other ones to work, I will add them...(this has been sitting since May and now it is almost August)

1. Was going to capture him eating his first baby Cheetos but he had problems & kept dropping them so it wasn't very camera worthy until I guess he got bored and started doing this... (May 10,2011)

2. I wanted to capture my happy boy. He only cries over wanting milk, tiredness, now teething & if he gets stuck while rolling around. Most of the time he is very friendly & happy. Mom can usually get him to laugh (dad gets jealous of the smiles I get.). (May 16, 2011)

3. Pic-a-Boo is his favorite game. Although I get scared that he will play it when I'm not around li

So I must have thought I recorded this, but I never did. One clip it looked like I was going to but then Josh got in trouble and so the recorder got turned off. Oh, well to late now.

4. He started laughing at himself in the mirror (May 11, 2011)

Potty Training Woes

So I'm still potty training Josh. Bought another box of pull ups :( Don't know what to do with the boy. In public now, he loves to pee. 3 hour church went 4 times. Thought it was a fluke because he had a lot to drink before church. Today got a call from the teacher saying he peed 4 times while at school which is about 3 hours. At Costco, we peed when we got there and half way through he was like "my peepee is coming" really loud. So then I felt like a bad mother saying no you don't need to pee. You need to hold it till we get home. He still wouldn't drop it and was being loud so I lied and said that the toilets were broken and we would have to pee at home. We are now at home. Guess who doesn't NEED to pee. At home he never pees that much. I think he just does it because he is bored or something. At least he doesn't have accidents that way, but I never know when he really needs to go. Poop on the other hand is horrible. He will hold that in and keep getting little poops on his pants until he decides he can't hold it in anymore...usually all of this is done in the underwear...hence why we have pull ups. He doesn't care if it is a pull up or underwear. I do. He also likes to poop outside. Maybe I need to redecorate the bathroom with a tree and some grass. He can tell me where we need to poop but just doesn't DO it where he knows he should...the toilet

Budgeting

So Jason & I have never been very good on a budget. It seems like we talk about and then I feel like I'm the only one striving to be frugal as I order a water and the chicken when we go out and he gets a coke and a steak and other things like that...I then get frustrated he gets frustrated and its not happy times. Our try at budgeting this time is looking bright. We are using mint.com. It will email you weekly on how you are doing with the budget or if you go over it lets you know. For Jason that is really good since I'm the one that does finances and he can't see it all the time. We are also taking a look at all our bills-phone, internet, and insurance & making sure we are getting good deals. Our goal is to save a little each month-right that's the whole point of budgeting. It is pretty tight budget with not a lot of extra, but most of our "extra" money comes at the end of the year with his bonus. I'm excited, hopefully we can get better at living by a budget. I'm having a pretty hard time with food prices rising, Jason on a diet, diapers & formula and the list goes on. I thought this would be easy for me and hard for him. I think it might be harder on me :)

More Josh Funnies & James Update

Josh-

• Went to GM & GP Guernsey's house. Everyone else was talking so I was the only one to witness such a manly comment. Josh goes mommy, points to the TV and says "look mommy its smaller". Their TV is a good size. I would classify it as big...it is just not as big a daddy's TV but the furniture set up is the same so it is easy to compare and see that it is smaller. :)
• He is way into video games. It is so much fun to hear him explain what happened in the video game. He gets so excited and uses his arms to tell you what happened. Sometimes it takes me a couple of minutes to realize we are talking about video games and then it makes sense what he is saying.
• We are back to watching Scooby Doo and in doing so I remember how tender Josh's heart is as he starts crying at "intense" parts. Then as we have watched a couple, I have talked to him about why he is crying, it has become quite clear that he is the son of an engineer. He cries not because the characters are in trouble or it's scary...he cries because buildings or bridges are being broken.

James -

• He smiles
• He coos
• He spits up a lot
• Right now he sounds awful-congested & coughing-I wish he could blow his nose-the nose sucker just can't get it all.
• He loves working out aka mom moving his legs & feet