Thanksgiving 2008

Daddy: What are you thankful for, Caleb?
Caleb: My cornucopia.
Daddy: And what are you thankful for, Sadie?
Sadie: (after some discussion) My bear.

Hope you all have had a blessed Thanksgiving Day!

Caleb Potty Update!

I think we've finally had a break through! for the first time today, Caleb told me that he had to go potty and we're on day 3 with no accidents. the key is motivation. Caleb can be a challenge. in true stubborn fashion, basically from the day he was born, the child will not respond if you tell him he "has" to do anything. we've always had to find a way to outsmart him and convince him that he "wanted" to do whatever was asked. for some reason, i always forget this part of his personality and there can be lots of yelling and butting heads when we're both frustrated. this has been especially true of the potty. people have been telling me for months and months that things will just click, that he'll just get it one day. well, i've been working with him on this since March (?) and recently i've been wondering if he's ever going to get it. (i may even be jinxing myself by recording this update)

well, this week, i did 2 things. the first- i found this great little chore chart dry-erase board at Target with the days of the week and little magnet stars. very cute! a while ago Caleb really enjoyed earning stickers for going potty but we ran out of charts and it got forgotten (although both monkeys every now and then ask for a truck sticker). i thought this board might work- and save paper :-)
the second thing i did was offer Caleb the reward of computer time. i don't know what made me think of it or why i hadn't thought of it before but i offered that if he went all day with no accidents, he could have some time on the computer. he really liked that but i quickly discovered that waiting all day for the reward was a little too abstract for him. so adapting as always, i changed it up to if he puts something in the potty, he right away (or almost right away) will get 5 minutes on the computer.

i can't express how easy this has made things. this boy for a while has been refusing to even try to go and for some bizarre reason, if he knows that he has to actually go, he'll hide and refuse to sit. this usually happens in the morning and this morning, all i said was time to go potty and he happily went up, sat down, did his business and we were able to have a happy day in preschool with no accidents. yeah, and that's another relief. it's not good when the director expresses her disappointment in having potty problems when he was supposed to be completely trained before starting school.

well, i'm keeping my fingers crossed that we have turned a corner and that i won't have to fear the preschool director :-)

and of course, now i can think about getting sadie trained and we will return to a diaper free land once again :-)

Sadie's New Smile

yep, our little daredevil chipped her tooth at the grocery store on Saturday. we're still waiting to hear from dentist. just glad it's a baby tooth and not needing a trip to the ER :-)

Dress up Sadie

Sadie and her fur cape. She calls it her "kitty" :-)

Halloween 2008

Caleb- Superman and Sadie- Princess

Fall Fun

Saturday we visited the playground and ended up playing in the leaves with our friend Simon and then later that afternoon we took the kids to Shenot Farms to get some pumpkins. It was a great little trip. It's a small farm that's up in Wexford. They have a hayride that you take to the pumpkin patch (with a fresh apple from the orchard to snack on). Then you can walk around and choose your pumpkin. There's also a corn maze (we didn't try that out- it was almost closing time and didn't want to have to sleep in the cornfield :-)). They also had little samples of apple cider for you to try while out in the fields. Caleb's favorite part was trying to find the perfect sized pumpkin. He wanted to be able to carry it (which was quite a challenge). We had to settle for a pumpkin he could hold for about 2 minutes before letting it drop. Sadie's favorite part was the apple she got to snack on and the hayride. She also had some fun rolling pumpkins down the hill. I thought it was a little risky having a pumpkin patch on the side of a hill :-)

We got our pumpkins and also picked up some fresh cider and apple butter and other yummy stuff.

Now Caleb is very eager to "put a face on his pumpkin". Hopefully we'll get to that tomorrow :-)

hope you like the pics

update

It's been a while since I posted last. Life has thrown us for a loop starting right after Caleb's birthday. My step-mom, Mona (Grammie M to Caleb and Sadie) was taken to the hospital for testing after having some shortness of breath and what seemed like a respiratory infection. We discovered that week that she in fact had uterine cancer that had spread up into her lungs. It was a devastating diagnosis that sent all of us reeling and questioning "why is this happening?" It seemed like every day we were getting bad news, bits and pieces of hope were being chipped away. The only thing that seemed to keep us all together was the desire to be strong for each other and the tremendous outpouring of love, support and prayers for my step-mom, my dad and our family. It seemed like testing went on forever but finally the doctors came through with some hope for us. Mona had her first chemo treatment almost 2 weeks ago and has come through that well. She has several more treatments ahead of her, plus radiation and surgery but there is hope that she'll stay with us and that is a precious hope for our family. We're treasuring our time together, keeping faith that it won't be short and trusting God that he will continue to keep us in his care.