Grant's Birthday

A little late, but Happy Birthday, Granty Pants!

Grant's birthday party was the day after Jill's wedding. It was a beautiful day, there were lots of kids there and we all had such fun.

I cannot believe that my youngest nephew is 5. Grant, with his tiny nose and big voice and love of anything athletic, couldn't be any sweeter. It was certainly a day to celebrate!

Love you, buddy!

Jill's Wedding

I'm such a blogging slacker lately. I have a lot to catch up on.

First is cousin Jill's shower and wedding.

My photos of the wedding are a little awful. Forgive me. I forgot to bring our good camera, so I had to use our Bloggie, which is a great little camera for ease of use, size, videos, and takes good outside photos. But anything inside is washed out and blurry. Ergo, the dull looking pictures of a fun wedding reception for my cousin Jill and her new hubby, Dave.

Congrats, you two!

Lena...

Peed on the potty! Hip, hip hurray, Lena!

Last weekend she told me she pooped in her diaper, which is a first (her telling me, not her pooping in her diaper), so I thought we'd give it a shot. I made her a potty chart and we tried a few times to no avail.

Then last night before bed, I was just getting ready to put her jammies on when she reminded me, "Potty!". So there she sat, naked as a jaybird, all hunched over looking into the toilet like she was expecting something to jump out of it. Sam, also naked as a jaybird, ran in the bathroom to cheer her on. I was telling him to be quiet when we heard it.

We all instantly fell silent and listened.

Then one of a mother's most precious sounds came tinkling from the toilet - her child's first pee on the potty.

I tend to get a little overemotional about potty training (imagine that), so of course I shouted and cheered and clapped and praised. Sam and Daddy joined in. And the smile on my baby girl's face was so sweet and proud. She put her little hands up over her head and cheered along with us.

I had a few tears in my eyes as we ran downstairs to put a sticker on Lena's potty chart...her very first sticker on her very first chart.

Too Much, Too Little...

Do you ever have so many thoughts racing through your head that you can't iterate a single one of them properly?

I do. All the time.

Especially the last two months, hence the lack of blogging. I have about five unfinished drafts saved about religion ("Fan or Follower"), moods ("I'm Grumpy"), disappointment ("Expecting Too Much?"), among others. I just can't seem to bring one thought all the way through to conclusion. It's so frustrating.

Maybe it's because we've been busy:

Sam is really enjoying preschool and was the class leader one day this week;

Sam is still going to weekly 30-minute sessions for speech therapy, though I feel he's kind of plateaued;

We all got flu shots;

We visited the Olentangy Indian Caverns (waste of money was the consensus);

We also visited the Velvet Ice Cream Factory in Utica (which was awesome);

Lena has been talking up a storm, some of which we can actually understand;

Lena has been cracking us up lately, too, showing her personality a little more (which is such a treat to watch);

The kids are all set for Halloween (Sam will be a Transformer and Lena a little bee);

We had a bag of rotten acorns tucked away on the kitchen counter that I forgot about, which created a very small maggot situation (the most disgusting, unnerving thing for a clean-freak, worm/grub phobic woman like myself);

Sam's class was exposed to head lice last week (that was a fun note to find in the bag after school);

I finished The Hunger Games trilogy and am almost finished with The Passage (both of which have also taken up a lot of blogging time);

Mom had a follow-up test and, so far, she's cancer free (AMEN!);

Mom also found the a doctor who finally diagnosed her trigeminal neuralgia and put her on a wonder drug that has relieved the severe facial pain she's been battling for over a year (double AMEN!);

Dad's busy season is as crazy as ever, but we have seen a little more of him this year than years past, which is wonderful;

We've only gotten to one game per nephew this fall, except Jack (hoping to catch his last one tomorrow morning);

Tomorrow afternoon is cousin Jill's wedding; and

Sunday is Grant's 5th birthday (what? when did that happen?).

Lot's going on at our house and in our family!

And lots going on in my head.

Maybe I'll be able to sift though some of it this weekend...though I'm not holding my breath.