Yummy toy giveaway

You can win a Chuck E. Cheese's pizza maker and an Icee Slushie Maker from The Mom Reviews. I know my kids would love both. Check it out!

Strange creatures spotted at my home...

They appear to be a wizard, a knight, and a cartoon tiger, but what they're doing in front of my house, I can only guess.

Potty progress

I can't believe my 2-year-old is potty training himself! All I did was buy a small potty a few months ago, and introduced the idea. Other than sitting on it a few times back then, he didn't really start potty traning. Then this past week, he started asking to go and occasionally asking to try underwear, so we bought him some. He has gone to the potty about 10 times in the past three days, and has even kept his diapers or underwear dry in between on some of those occasions. So far it's much less work than with my older two boys! With them, I had potty charts and prize incentives, and they would go no problem if I took them, but they would never ask to go when they needed to if I didn't remind them first. But this time, he's taking the lead for the most part. Wow!

Back to school

School is back in session! It's a new school (and school district) for my 5th and 3rd graders, so that's been an adjustment. So far they still prefer their old school, but they like the school lunches here better. They're walking to school here, which is new for us, and makes me a little nervous. It's gone fine, but I do worry how it will work in bad weather. The 2-year-old isn't going to preschool or Mother's Day Out this fall, even though he did last year! I could use a break to run errands and such on my own, but can't pay for anything extra right now. And considering that he just came up to me while I was typing this and gave me a hug and kiss out of the blue, I don't guess I really need a break that much! He's truly adorable and growing up too fast as it is.

Moved!

We have finally finished our move, just this past week--not including unpacking, though! Seems like that may take ages. We also haven't sold our old house yet, so we need to work on that. Everything is crazy here, not to mention hot! So far the boys seem to be taking the move as well as could be expected, and better than they took our move 3 years ago.

Big news

So we are moving, a few hours away! It's good news because my husband finally has a job! But also sad because we love it here so much. My husband will leave within a few weeks, and I'll stay here & play single mom until the boys get out of school in June...eek!

February already?!

Wow, I missed a month! January was a very busy month around here. My middle son turned 8 and my youngest turned 2! We had a birthday party at a playplace for the older one, and we took the younger one to a place he could ride kiddie rides. He loved it!

Right now we're waiting to see if my husband gets a second interview for a job he applied for--in another city! So we're waiting to find out if we need to move or not. It's a litle tense and a little exciting. We'd hate to leave where we live, because we love it here, but we need a job and we'd be moving near the grandparents, so we're willing!

And as for the groundhog...I'm glad I live in a place where six weeks of winter isn't likely to be that bad. :-) Especially when our heater only works intermittently!

So long, 2008

Good-bye, 2008! Thank you for bringing us a pet cat and many fun new memories of our kids. And now it's time for you to move on and bring us what we hope will be a much better year!

And now for Christmas....

The tree is up (though my 22-month-old has already knocked it over once, and the cat tries every day...). The cards have been sent. The gifts are pretty much all bought (I hope!). Nothing is wrapped. The house is a mess. The food for Christmas dinner has not been purchased. Hmm...let's hope we make it!

Best part of the holiday season so far? Listening to my toddler's glee as he shouts, "Missmas!!" (His way of saying Christmas, a word he thinks only refers to Christmas trees. But just wait until he sees what happens on Christmas!)

Getting ready for Thanksgiving

Wow, I haven't written in a while, huh? We have been busy, busy, busy. The older boys have been off school all week, and this morning we went bowling at 9:30 am! Tomorrow they want to have a day to celebrate our cat, but I expect to be busy getting ready for Thanksgiving.

We're not going anywhere for the holiday this year--it will just be the 5 of us at home. We're getting a pre-cooked turkey from the grocery store that we just have to heat up for a few hours. Of course we'll also have several sides and desserts.

We've had a very hard year...actually, a very hard 5 years. But we still have a lot to be thankful for, like our health, and still having a roof over our heads for the moment, and these 3 wacky & wonderful boys! I had the boys help me make a poster with turkeys on it, and we wrote things we were thankful for on the feathers. We still plan to add some more things before the big day!