Too Cute For Words

A friend emailed this to me and so I thought I would share...it is stinking cute and actually quite impressive!  Make sure you pause my music player and then click the link and have your volumn turned up.  Hope you enjoy because we sure did.

TOO CUTE FOR WORDS

It's Official!!!

Kierra's potty trained!!!  Woohoo!  Actually, she has been for the past couple days but I've been too afraid to commit to writing the post and jinxing all the efforts...but, she's been so great lately, I couldn't stand it!

She is the first kid we have trained before the age of 3 and we are sooo happy!!!  She still wears pull-ups for naptimes and bedtime because she's still in a crib and the bathroom is upstairs but that soon will change.  In the near future, we plan on converting her crib to a full-size bed, giving that to Jordyn and transferring Kierra to Jordyn's twin sized bed.  Then all we have to do at nighttime or naptimes is bring the potty chair into her room and assuming she wakes up, she'll be done.

She even graduated herself to the regular toilet...at least part of the time.  I think she switches back and forth throughout the day.  She's even so good that she does both "duties" and does it on her own without telling us.  Great except she hasn't quite mastered the art of wiping so we try to notice when she's sneaking to the bathroom.

We are so excited to finally be without diapers.  I can live with pull-ups for a while...but no more diapers, halleluja!!!  We have been changing diapers since August 2001!!!  That's a long, stinky time!  What are we going to do with the extra $40 a month AND the empty drawer in our hall storage?  Ohhh, the possibilities are endless.  Okay, not quite...really, how much can we really do with an addition $40 lying around?

Well, I'm being summoned to the bathroom by the sound of pitter patter and rustling potty chair noises.  Everyone have a charming day!!!!

The Lovely Bones

For those of you who are aware of the newest movies to hit the theatres, I'm sure you're no stranger to these words.

When this book first came out, I bought it thinking it sounded interesting.  I'm not much of a reader unless something really catches my eye and peaks my interest.  For me, to just grab a book and start reading just doesn't happen.  Anyway, I remember LOVING this book the first time I read it that I was extremely happy when I heard about the movie...although, I'm still deciding if I should watch it.

For those of you who are not familiar with this book or film, it is a very good book centered around the rape and murder of a 14 year old girl in 1973.  Not a true story so it makes it a little easier to swallow but a heavy topic nonetheless.  The first time I read this book, it took me a while to convince myself to finish reading it.  I was compelled because the victim narrates the story from Heaven.  The author, Alice Sebold, jumps straight into the heaviness and details the plot of the book within the first chapter.  I must say, it's hard to even think about continuing to read this when it hits you that hard within the first 5 or so pages....but, I persevered and am glad that I did.

This book was fantastic!  Since it had been quite a long time since I had read it and with all the publicity of the movie's release, I decided to read it again.  I hadn't forgotten the complete plot but was still surprised by a lot of things I had forgotten about the book.  This time, I read it in one day...technically two if you consider I started Saturday evening but, I finished it yesterday.  I have never read a book twice before but think I will start making this a trend as it was interesting to have some idea of what was going on but to still be surprised by the little forgotten pieces.

Despite the heavy subject matter, I would recommend this book to everyone.  It's a nice, easy read and really does break away from the heart-sickening disaster and share the beauties (in the author's mind) of Heaven.  It captures like a love story, the growing and changing lives of many different characters which keep you just wanting to turn the next page.  I really think I might watch the movie now that I fully remember all that the book offered.  Has anyone seen it yet?  If so, what did you think?

Jeylin's 100-Day Project

Yesterday was the kids' 100th day of school for the 2009-10 school year.  This usually falls during Catholic Schools Week and the kids enjoy lots of fun activities and crazy dress-up days at school.

This year, I decided to help the kids make really fun and interesting projects.  I forgot to take a picture of Jordyn's project so this is just Jeylin's post.  Jordyn gave her project to her BFF Maddie so when I get a chance, I'll have her bring it down so I can take a picture of it...she only lives next door :)

All 100-day projects need to be created using 100 of some item.  The most common project I think is fruit loop necklaces, paperclip strings and other stuff.  This year, Jeylin and I decided to use pasta...oh and not just any pasta, but big pieces of rigatoni.  And what would a 100-day project be without coloring added...well, just plain boring.  So, we colored 100 pieces of rigatoni in each of the following four colors (25 per color)...

RED

YELLOW

GREEN

BLUE

Then all of the finished pieces were strung onto an extra long piece of orange rope.  Here are two pictures of the finished project and the wonderfully elated 5 year old who was so proud of his craftiness...

Dressing Herself...Part 2

Couldn't resist posting Kierra's outfit of choice for today....

She is so going to hate me when she gets older!