A Potty Victory!

I really hate to dedicate a whole post to potty talk, but I'm so excited I just can't help it! We've been working more on potty training with Nicholas. Not too intensely--I figure that can wait until it's warmer and he can wear underwear outside where the price of an accident isn't so high! If I put Nicholas on the potty, he will go. Good. But, he won't tell me before he actually needs to go--I think he is just beginning to become aware of this himself. So the last time I was at Target, I bought a big bag of Dum Dums that now sit on top of the refrigerator and are specifically designated as the "potty treats." Nicholas knows that he only gets a lollipop if he uses the potty (though, he will try several times a day to get someone to give him one when he hasn't used the potty!). My boy loves treats so I was optimistic about making some (even if just a little) progress.

On Thursday, we had a huge potty victory! Nicholas came to me and started telling me he needed to poop. Usually, this means that he's just filled his diaper. Nicholas is very good at coming to me and telling me that! I checked his diaper and it was clean, so to the potty we went. Imagine my joy and excitement when I sat him on the potty and he went!!! I started jumping up and down, clapping and cheering. Then we called Keith into the bathroom where he did more of the same. It was all very exciting!

I'm quite sure that this was just a high on our potty training journey and that there are still many poopy diapers in my future, but I'm still celebrating. There is hope!

Rain, Snow and Home Renovations

As I mentioned previously, March 1, the day of Avery's baptism, we had torrential rain that later turned into snow. Alaina and Amanda both had friends over for the baptism celebration and they were still here when the rain turned to snow. Of course, everyone was so excited about the snow that we all got bundled up and went outside to play. The snow was really wet since the temp was just barely cold enough to turn our rain into snow and there were puddles of water everywhere. It was a mess! We knew that school would be cancelled again (the 3rd snow day this year, even though this was our only real snowfall!) so Alaina's friends stayed the night. The next morning everyone went outside to play some more and Nicholas and grandma made a snowman. What a party!

During our Sunday rain, Alaina and her friends noticed that the window in our foyer was leaking. Over the course of the next week we had a few nice days during which our snow melted, and then it started raining again. Unfortunately for us, during the nice days, Keith had to work and he was off on the rainy days. No luck fixing the window that week! Instead, we decided to use this time to redo our kitchen. Here's the scoop on my kitchen. It's the one room in our house that we haven't painted since we moved in. The previous owners had painted the kitchen this terracotta color. But, it wasnt' a flat color--they added sand to the base color and then sponged on this glaze. It sounds really crazy, but it looked pretty neat and was different, so I liked it. That was nearly 6 years ago, though, and the walls have since endured some wear and tear that couldn't be repaired because there was no way to match the color on the walls. So we decided to repaint and make a few other changes to update the look. My friend Ann is very gifted when it comes to decorating (and in many other areas too :) ) so I consulted her before deciding what to do with the room. Thanks Ann for your suggestions! It's not completely finished--we are going to continue the crown molding into the kitchen, I still have to get a rod and some curtain panels for the doorwall (I ditched the vertical blinds. We never used them so they just hung there collecting dirt!) and I still haven't totally decided what to do with the wall above the oddly placed mini-closet. I want a shelf of some sort where I can put my cookbooks and some knick-knacks but I haven't found anything I love yet. Here is a before picture and a picture of where we stand with the kitchen now. I'll post another kitchen picture once it's finally, totally finished.

Our Kitchen Before

Our Kitchen After

That bring us to Friday (we're up to 3/6 now) when our weather took a huge turn and it got sooooooo nice outside!!!!! By Monday, Keith was off and finally able to get on the roof over our front porch to investigate our leaky window. What he found was a huge mess! All of the decorative wood and trim around the window was rotten and needed to be replaced (a huge problem with homes in the south). Keith immediately started pulling off the rotten wood and creating a plan to fix it. I wanted to hire someone to put it back together because it looked like pretty complicated woodworking to me (and it made me nervous to have Keith on the roof--he's already fallen off once!). I shouldn't have doubted, though. Keith is very talented when it comes to fixing things! He and his step-dad engineered a fix that looks great and nobody was injured during the project. Success!

Window with all of the rotten wood removed. Doesn't that ladder look safe!?!?!

Our window after Keith's repair

Our house. I'm so happy that we're getting leaves on our trees again!

I'm Back...

I think that maybe my blogging rut is over. Or at least I'm going to be optimistic about it. I suppose time will really tell!

So, as I mentioned in my last post, we have had a busy few weeks. We planned Avery's baptism for the March 1, so my mom flew down the Wednesday before and we had a really nice visit. That Friday, we took the kids to the zoo. We have two zoos within a little more than an hour. I've been to the NC zoo before and was unimpressed. Of course, when I went to the NC zoo it was with Alaina's 4th grade class the Monday after Memorial Day in 2006 when I was 9 months pregnant (and had contractions the entire way there on bus!). To make matters worse, it was about 90 degrees outside. We were all so hot and so were the animals--they all were either sleeping in the shade or in their indoor enclosures. It wasn't much fun. Everyone around here says that the SC zoo is much better anyway, so I figured we'd give that a try. We had a really nice time and Nicholas loved it. Grandma rented a wagon for him to ride in (he's definitely getting a wagon of his own for this 3rd birthday) and he enjoyed being able to hop in and out at his leisure. The zoo also had a little train that we paid for Nicholas to ride. It wasn't really a train, though, because it was on wheels and not tracks. Of course, Nicholas noticed this right away and spent the ENTIRE ride pointing to the ground and talking about how there were no tracks. He was very disturbed about it. My mom and I just laughed!

Sunday was here before we knew it. We had Avery baptized in the gown that my dad wore for his baptism. Needless to say, after all these years, the gown is in fragile condition, but it got the job done and it makes me happy to think that both of my children wore their grandpa's gown. After church, we had family and friends back to our house for lunch and cake. It was a very nice day (despite the torrential downpouring of rain that turned into snow at about 7 pm)!

Blogging Rut

So, as you may have noticed, I haven't updated my blog in quite awhile. I've come to it several times over the past few weeks with the intention of posting an update, but I just can't seem to follow through. I open the page and decide that it's too much to deal with at the time, so I let it sit and eventually close it out. My friend Ann just wrote about how much she's loving her blog and it made me realize...I'm in a blogging rut!

I owe an update on lots of stuff. Since I last wrote, we had Avery baptized, we took Nicholas to the zoo for the first time, grandma was here, we've all been sick (and finally gotten better!), we had a big snow storm (well, like 2 inches that was all melted the next day), we've redone our kitchen. Hopefully my blogging rut will soon end and I'll be motivated to write lots and post lots of new pictures!