Potty trained?!?!

I'm confused, i thought it took months, lots of effort, and several accidents to potty train. But i'm pretty sure Ben just potty trained himself over the weekend! He started telling us consistently when he has to go....wakes up from naps and overnight with dry diapers....and hasn't had an accident in his undies yet. wow! i think he knows that's the only way i'd give him the time of day on this right now :) But like Adam, he wakes up with a poop in his diaper so he hasn't done that in the potty yet. But the peeing, he's got down very good! It helps that he doesn't drink much. I don't need to ask every 15 minutes for him to go like i did Adam. He's already gone over an hour. What a boy! Brad hasn't followed suit yet.

Birthday Party

3? how can that be?!?! We celebrated Ben and Brad's bday Friday night. i wish i could have enjoyed it more, i was still having intense back pain. But it was fun to see them smile and take in their evening. God has shown me a lot through the twins lives and i'm so thankful for them! They are best friends, and such good little brothers to Adam. They willingly play along w/ almost every idea Adam gets. They are very good helpers, sometimes if i don't have enough jobs for them to do they get mad!

Rod deserves some recognition for his efforts lately. He made this cake, the boys wanted a police car cake. And after my back started up on Thurs, Rod decided to make it himself. Without me asking, mind you. I was just planning to cancel the party! Rod is a no nonesense, get the job done, type of guy. And even though sometimes i think "i wish he would slow down and have fun", it's times like these when i so appreciate his character and abilities. He's kept this place running the past few days. And has been doing a very good job. I'm feeling better, after a trip to the ER early yesterday morning and a low dose of prescription pain med. Now i'm wondering why i waited 48 hours to do that! It's like night and day. They aren't sure what's causing the pain, but something muscular...a sprain or spasms. Now i know not to shovel, sweep, and wheelbarrow loads full when 36 weeks pregnant! I feel for people who live with chronic pain. That is not for me! Thank you Lord for relief!

SO, back to the party!! Here's a few shots.

ROD'S ARTWORK:

They took turns blowing out the candles, we relit them several times..
Happy early Birthday to my sweethearts!

Twins 3 year pics

The twins birthday is coming up on April 6th. I wanted to get their pictures done before the baby comes. But I woke up at 4am with back spasms. Painful! I had them all day, with a little relief in the afternoon. I took 5 showers and had a hot pad on all day. So i was going to cancel the appointment, but Rod came home and said he'd take them!! It's in York, a new place i wanted to try with great prices and you get the pictures 20 minutes after your photo shoot! Rod enjoyed the time with them and i'm still in amazement that he took them! More on Rod being "Mr mom" in my next post.

They also give you a disk of the pictures. Here's some favorites:

BEN....

BRAD.....

I took a picture of this one, it wasn't on the disk.Their birthday party is tomorrow eve at my parents. I'm praying I will be in better shape till then!

Spring

This taste of spring has been so good. Some highlights:

* Being outside for most of the day, short sleeves, no jackets!
* Getting a farmer's tan in the middle of March.
* Picnics
* Seeing my bulbs come up, some that i forgot i planted.
* Having the chance to finish up my fall flower bed trimming. Getting the beds ready for new growth.
* Bike rides to the mailbox, and to neighbors. We met our new amish neighbors today. They have 3 young children. AND have a huge greenhouse, which they will be selling flowers from this year! Excited about taking our wagon over and filling it up with annuals. Sorry Ken's Gardens, i will not be visiting you this year.
* Watching the kids play, get dirty, and tuckered out. A good reason for early bedtimes and longer evenings for mommy and daddy.
* The park, throwing stones and splashing in the lake and playing on the playground.
* Our first 2010 visit to Jim Mack's.
* Not having to clean up the toy room all week!

My list

I might get a little carried away with lists. When Adam wants me to remember to do something, he tells me to write it down so i can cross it off later! My before baby list is all checked off except for the twins circumcision, which let's face it, i knew wasn't going to happen! Not now. although we made some phone calls, trying to see if it can or cannot be done w/out anesthesia. I wish it could have been done in the hospital but they were too small when they came home.

Still it feels good to get the other stuff done. I really want to spend the first month after the baby is born without doing much, other then taking care of 4 children! Then, hopefully, i would like to plant a garden. More for the boys then anything. They talk about it quite often. And this week, they've been playing out in the dirt pretending to plant their own garden with shovels and tractors. So even if it's tiny, i'm hoping to get a garden in this year.

So my nesting has quieted down a little bit. Although i did sweep out our garden shed today, something i've never done before. We're in the home stretch now, 36 weeks. Today Adam and I met our little twin neighbor girls, they are 7 lbs. I told Adam his baby will be about that size. Surprisingly the girls didn't look that small, i must still have ben and brad's preemie size in my head. Although i see newborn clothing and think it's so tiny!

Here's my last couple crochet projects. I'm so done now, the tractor was hard and drove me crazy! The ladybug was fun.

Brad's profound question for the morning "Who needs to toot in heaven?" i love when they ask questions about heaven, but that one we could have done without :) he was very serious though.

2 websites, 1 prayer request, and 0 baby yet! :)

A friend introduced me to a neat little website for "growing" your own insects, fish and plants! It's kid oriented. You can buy little fish hatchery kits, butterfly kits, and so on. See for yourself, http://www.insectlore.com/ - i got the twins the butterfly larvae kit (for their birthday) so they can watch how caterpillars turn into butterflies! all kits are under $20.00.

Saturday my sister-in-law and I had a surprise brunch for our mother in laws 60th birthday. it was a fun time of blessing her, lots of sweet ladies attended. i did this fruit bouquet that is too easy, give it a try sometime. The best instructions i found online was from this website.. www.plan-the-perfect-baby-shower.com/fruit-bouquet.html

Adam is still struggling with this good-bye thing. It sounds silly, but starting to concern me. He woke up at 3:00 the other morning yelling for me, so i went over and he says "can you make sure daddy says bye to me before he leaves for work?" um, Adam it's 3:00 in the morning, go back to sleep. He was at Grandma's the other day and her cable man was there. He said good-bye to him a couple dozen times and he wasn't even leaving! Again, his good-byes are panicky and not a happy thing. I could go on with the awkard situations we've been in lately with this! He's also not sleeping good at night. We put the boys down between 8:30-9 each night, but he lays there awake until 11:00 or later. He's quiet, so maybe it's always been that way, but lately he's been telling us that he can't fall asleep. I'm trying no naps for a couple days, just quiet time. see if that helps him sleep at night. Seems to me a 4 year old shouldn't have trouble sleeping? So we ask for your prayers for Adam, and for me for wisdom to know the best way to help conquer this minor, but concerning thing going on with him. Thank you!

No baby yet! yay! God is good!! This week is more cleaning around the house, and errand running. Next week is the twins 3rd B-day party....THEN if the baby wants to come after that, i'd be fine :) I keep thinking how much longer can i carry a baby when i look like this....No more pregnancy pictures, i promise. I think my brothers read my blog, they don't want to see that!

Have a great week :)

Deer

We've been seeing a lot of deer around our house since the snow melted. i think they got cabin fever too!
here's a video of yesterday, 3 deer outside our front door.

Grasshopper Dessert Squares

This is a refreshing, not too sweet dessert that i made this week. It's pretty simple too, nothing fancy, but good. Try it if you like minty desserts. Grasshopper Dessert Squares (Pampered Chef "Desserts" cookbook) :
21 fudge mint cookies (1 1/4 c. finely chopped)
1 T butter, melted
1 quart Vanilla ice cream
2 cups cool whip
1/4 tsp. peppermint extract
4 drops green food coloring

Preheat oven to 350. Finely chop cookies, mix with the melted butter and press crumb mixture onto bottom of square baking dish. bake 8 minutes. Cool completely.

Place ice cream in fridge for 20 minutes to soften. Scoop ice cream into mixing bowl, stir until softened and blended. Gently fold in 2 cups cool whip, peppermint extract, and food coloring. Spread ice cream mixture evenly over crust. Cover with foil; freeze several hours.

Before serving you can add extra cool whip to the top. Enjoy!

Miscellaneous family notes

Me: I'm 34 weeks today and so happy things are going well. I'm in serious nesting mode right now. Everything is getting cleaned. I should be cleaning right now :) Praise God my baby is still in there, in spite of my cleaning sprees and keeping after 3 boys.

Rod: Had a very busy winter at the shop, as you can imagine! He had some frustrating times with his employees and their "sick" days, but that goes w/ having your own business. He enjoyed lots of snowmobiling this winter. It's been fun watching him interact with the boys (when he's not exhausted from his day's work!). He thinks of things to do with them that i don't. Like "flashlight time" and "smear the queer".

Adam: Is going through a serious weird time right now i can't even explain it. He gets all panicky when people leave our house, or when he sees someone leave a store we are in. He has to say bye like 5,000 times and gets all worked up about it. Today we ran errands and it was kinda embarrasing. He would say bye to total strangers when he thought they were leaving the store, mcDonalds, daddy's shop, etc. Not just one goodbye, but many! And then he makes everyone else say goodbye and he's practically crying the whole time. It's uncharacteristic of him, he was never very dependent. While they think it's sweet, i'm thinking "what is this boy's problem?" Anyway, we try not to make a big deal about it and hope it goes away soon.

Ben: Was sick this week. It was interesting to see how this progressed. Wednesday he was a perfect angel, on the couch literally the whole day, and didn't make a sound (he had a high fever). Thursday fever was down and he was a BEAR! Today, better but still not himself....He did say a funny on Tuesday after we went to Cabella's. I was practicing books of the Bible with Adam on the way home. So Tuesday night Ben says "do you remember when we went to Lamentations?" oh Ben, he got a little mixed up there. He meant to say Cabella's!

Brad: is Brad. He can be a total goof-ball. And since he hasn't been sick (yet), we've seen it even more. He's the only one entertaining us as of late. He's technically the youngest and the smallest (for now) but he's got the spunk!

That's a taste of our lives lately~~Enjoy a weekend where you don't have to freeze your tush off!~~

Cabela's

Rod surprised us with a family outing today to Cabela's. I didn't know where we were going, but he said it's an hour away and he wants to leave at 6:30AM!!! yikes! The boys did very well with getting up early, and i.....held my own. We stopped for breakfast on the way there, and ate lunch in the store. We were home in time for naps. It was a fun little adventure, we've never been there. the mounts were amazing. And they had an aquarium there too which i didn't realize. That had the boys squealing. They were fun to watch, running all over looking at all the sights. We were there for almost 4 hours and probably could have stayed longer. You can spend a lot of time and money in that place! we came out without spending any! (expect lunch). I appreciated Rod's efforts in making a fun family day before baby comes. I realized after we got home that i didn't take pictures of any deer (i got carried away w/ the safari room!) but there was an amazing deer room also. Part way through we grabbed a scooter for me. I felt like my grandma, but i was very thankful for it! Time for a break! This was disturbing for Adam..."Why did someone shoot a baby deer??" yeah...anyway?