Mini-Van Update

Just wanted to update on the Mini-Van. It is the Odyssey by Honda and I have not named her yet. I just wanted to say, and I can't believe that I am admitting it, that I LOVE it. Sophia climbs in the car herself. I just have to put her in the seat. She can climb in while I put James in. It is sooo convenient. There is plenty of room in the back for when we visit Mom and Dad and a place for everything! Ahhh, organization and peace. Lovely.

It's Not Lipstick

Sophia got some paints when James was born and she loves them. She also loves to put on Mommy's makeup with Mommy in the morning. Apparently on this day, she got confused on which one she was supposed to play with and which one she was supposed to wear. It started with the red paint and went on to the blue. I don't think blue lipstick is for her but she might have a future in red lipstick!
James turned 3 Months and is just adorable in our eyes. He always turns his head this way and is starting to get a flat, as well as a bald spot, on the back side of his head. Poor little man! I am always trying to get him to look in the other direction. He is starting too but he still prefers to look to his right.

Updates

Let me catch everyone up on the past few days. We got our Odyssey and I LOVE it. If I knew I would have liked it this much we would have bought one a long time ago. It is so convenient! The wood trim on the inside looks awesome and Sophia can climb into the mini herself, which helps. Speaking of Miss Sophia, she is doing well on the potty. Everyday she poops and pees at least once. Of course everyday she also pees on the floor because we tried to pee to soon or too late. Oh well. Thank goodness for the Little Bissell. She is also saying new words galore and I don't know where she learns it all. She says "Oh Man" if she drops something. Pointed out and names purple and yellow for me (she already knows blue) and finished counting to 9 (I said 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 and Sophia yelled 9). Tomorrow she gets her 18 month pictures taken. Hopefully she will be cooperative because we are going through a big NO stage. Yesterday Sophia also thought it would be fun to sit in a puddle of water on our sidewalk and then roll around in it. I was teaching her how to make splashes with her foot and she decided to take it one and then two steps further. I am sure our neighbors were enjoying the entertainment because it was in our front yard. I wish I had my camera because it was pretty funny.

Master James is doing great and the little man just smiles ALL the TIME! He is so cute and cuddly!! I wish I had all day with nothing to do so I could hold all the time. He is starting to get heavy. I don't know how much he weighs but I can tell he is getting much heavier. His eyes are also getting bluer. Tomorrow he is getting his 3 months pictures taken. I bought a baby blue shirt to go with his eyes so hopefully the pictures will turn out well. He slept through the night last night without waking up to eat. That was very nice! He did wake up at 4:30 but easily went back to sleep once I gave him is paci. He slept from 7:30 until 7:30. Let's hope that is a trend. James also rolled over today too! He was mad and wanted his bottle NOW! So he curled himself up, yelled out and rolled on over. I think he was shocked because he stopped crying.

2 Days in a Row!!

Well, Sophia did it again. I am so proud of her! We were at lunch and she said, "Uh oh, Mama...Poop." While she continued to say "Uh Oh" we ran to the bathroom (which happened to be at the mall) and badaboom...poop. Yeah! I am so glad she is telling me when she has to poop! Then before bath we always sit on the potty. Tonight (for the third time this week - what a big girl) she went pee-pee. I am so proud of my 18 months old. I certainly didn't expect this much success for months!!

POOP in the POTTY!!!

Today at lunch Sophia said "Mama Poop, Poop". So I ran her to the bathroom, set her on the toilet and TA-DA...POOP! I was so excited! Sophia got to choose an item from the "Treasure Chest". She was very happy and tried to call Grandma on my cell phone. This was the first time she pooped on the potty and the first time she told me she had to go potty. Yeah!!

Call me "Soccer Mom"

Well, it's official. I am embracing my motherhood. We have bought a minivan. Granted, it has every feature you can possibly get plus some added accessories ( I wanted to stand out) and is just as nice in convenience as the Mercedes, but it was a hard step to take. It feels like we spent the whole day doing this. We started this morning with Jim and James getting the Honda and Sophia and I getting the Toyota. We met in the church parking lot, crawled through them, drove them around and tried it all out. Sophia sat nicely and watched a Little People DVD and James slept. We decided on the Honda because Jim knees hit the dashboard on the Toyota (you can't recline the seats too far back because of the carseats). It is really nice. I chose a black mini with black interior. I really REALLY liked the ivory interior but just didn't think it was a smart idea to get ivory interior with two small children (milk, juice stains - YUK). The black should at least hide that better and crumbs that may show up on the black seats can be vacuumed out. So anyway, it took me forever to decide (big surprise) but it is done. And, all of the colors I really liked either don't come in the Touring edition or had gray interior (I personally HATE grey interior on big vehicles). Plus, I didn't really want a minivan that everyone else has. Thus, we have black on black. We just have to wait for some of the accessories to be added (I got wood grain interior added, door guard, wheel locks, and 3rd row sunshade). I can't wait to see how it will all be. Hopefully we can pick it up on Sat. Anyone want to babysit Sophia?

She Did It Again!!

Sophia went pee-pee in the potty again today! I am so excited! I need to start a reward system with her this week so she can be motivated to go more often.

Ding Dong the Skunk is Dead

Okay so for those of you who know this, we have had a skunk living underneath our sun room now for the past three weeks. Jim kept trying to catch it but was out of luck until 2 nights ago. He caught it!! We had a tarp over the trap the past three weeks so the skunk wouldn't spray us. Well, 2 nights ago we saw the trap was tripped and heard the skunk inside of it. We were so happy. We called Critter Control to come take the skunk away (I was not going to have that skunk put into my car to be halled off). Anyway, we spoke to the Critter Control people today when they returned the trap. It turned out it wasn't a skunk after all - it was a 'POSSUM!! He apparently had gotten sprayed by a skunk because even the Critter Control guy was surprised when he opened the cage. Anyway, I am just glad the animal is gone. The house is starting to smell normal again.

Sleeping Update

Yeah- James slept through the night. We put him down at 7:15 and by 7:30 he was asleep. James then slept until 5 this morning! I went in and fed him (I guess I thought he would starve to death if I didn't) and then he fell back asleep and slept until 7:30! Yeah!!! Lets hope he does this again tonight.

PEE PEE IN THE POTTY!!!!!

Sophia went pee-pee in the potty tonight!! I am so excited. She had shown some interest (like 5 weeks ago) so we bought a little potty that she picked out and thought we would start before bath time. Well tonight she actually went pee-pee!!! I was SO excited! What a big girl!

Holiday World

Last week we went to Holiday World. Mom stayed at Mary's to watch James for us. They had a great time together. I was told he took a good afternoon nap (something I have been having a hard time getting him to do). Sophia had a great time, although she didn't seem to enjoy the rides. She was funny - she kept getting in lines to ride a ride and she kept pointing to the rides and asking "more" but then when she was riding the ride she would start saying "No, No. Down, Down". Funny Girl. Lucy came to meet us and showed us all the places that Sophia would have fun. It was great! It was like having our own personal tour guide. She would then tell us all the work they had done on the rides, etc. Very cool. I think we will make going to Holiday World an annual event - something of a summertime family tradition.

Sophia and Jim riding the Carousal.

Sophia in the little airplanes that went round and round. She didn't really like this too much. When the ride was over she clapped.

All of us on another Carousal.

The day was all a little much fun for Sophia and at the end of the day she feel asleep in the stroller.

The Farm

Last week we visited Paul and Amy on the farm. I wanted Sophia to see pigs and touch them since she has never seen a real one before. It was fun to look at all the places we (Beck, John, Carol, and I) used to play at when we were kids visiting Grandma and Grandpa. Sophia really liked the farm. She saw Jacob throwing hay in to the cows and so she picked some up and threw some in too. It was really cute. Then when we went to see the pigs. Amy took Sophia in one of the pig pens and caught one of the pigs for her to pet. Then Sophia tried to catch one herself. It was very adorable!!

Kennedy held Sophia's hand while we walked from barn to barn - So CUTE!!

After the farm we stopped by to see Grandpa and Grandma. Of course we had to go the one day that Grandpa had a doctors appointment. We got to visit with Grandma though. She didn't know who I was that day but the next day we went back and I think remember me then.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY

Last week was my Grandpa and Grandma Tempel's 60th Wedding Anniversary. That is quite an accomplishment!!!!

Grandma and Grandpa Tempel

Mini-Van

Well, so I have been suckered in. We are looking for a Minivan. After taking a trip to Southern IN with all 4 of us in the Mercedes, I decided that we would all be happier in a minivan. Not that the Mercedes isn't great but Jim had just gotten finished working the midnight shift so he was trying to sleep on the way down. Well, he practically had to sleep sitting upright because of the car seats. The car seats are so big that you can't recline very far if you are sitting in front of them. Then there was a space issue. When it is just me and the kids, the Mercedes is great but had that extra person and all of a sudden I can't reach anything when I need to hand the kids something. So blah blah blah, we are looking for minivans.

Here is the minivan story. We were test driving a Toyota Sienna - brand new, fully loaded. It is a very nice (an expensive) van. We were only test driving it to see if we liked it and to see if we really needed all of those features. Anyway, while we are in this van (which has less than 20 miles on it), Sophia THROWS UP EVERYWHERE!! Not just a small amount either. It went all down the front of her dress, all over her car seat, and all on the seat and floor of the new minivan. What a place to throw up! The salesman was very nice but I am sure he was wishing he hadn't come up to help us. Needless to say, we are not going to buy that exact one. I think we will choose a different one.

Mom and Dads

Jim worked the midnight shift last week so I took Sophia and James to see Mom and Dad for a few days. It turned out that Matthew and Adam were going to be there the exact same time as we were. It worked out great. Sophia loves spending time with the boys. Every morning Adam would find cartoons for Sophia to watch. Here they are watching the cartoons and cuddling together.

Then the boys would go out to the lake and we would join them. Sophia liked going down to the dock but she didn't like the lifevest. It was a little too big for her and it squished her cheeks up. While we were there, Matthew caught a turtle! It was pretty exciting trying to figure out how to get the hook out of its mouth. The turtle ended up doing it on its own while in a bucket of water. The released to the pond after Dad came home. Matthew wanted to show Grandpa the turtle before setting it loose.
It was a very nice time. Carol, Mark, Faith, and Will came over to visit 2 of the nights. Other than that it was a nice, quiet time. I did learn that having James, Sophia, and I sleep in the same room together was not a good idea. They kept waking each other up and I didn't get much sleep. That's okay though, I did get a GREAT nap one of the days.

2 Month Check-Up

I forgot to let everyone know how James' appointment went! Everything looks great and he is awesome. He is definitely a momma's boy - he smiles and "talks" to me all the time! Anyway, he is 26 inches long (that is 5 inches more than what he was at birth!!!!) and weighs 13 pounds exactly. He is going to be just like his daddy - long and lean. Suz (our doctor) says that he looks perfect. Yeah! Too bad the little man had to get 5 vaccines :(

We are going to Holiday World next week - pictures to come!

2 Month Check-up

Losing My Mind

Here is a tip for any mom of more than one child - Try not to spend the night somewhere with a 2 month old and a 17 month old and sleep in the same room as them. First of all, you won't get any sleep. Second of all, when one wakes up, the other one does. It makes for late nights and early mornings!!! I am exhausted and going to bed. Good Night.