NEW CAMERA:)

Yeah, we finally got our new camera! So I can update the blog with pictures, finally. I was eager to show you their new room, so I will add a video showing the room. You can easily see the energy level at our house too. It seems that by the time of night we took this video, Dan and I are moving at a slow pace, and the kids somehow speed up (I think it is because they know if they slow down, they might actually be tired).

What a week. It feels like the weeks just fly by, and yet some days go so slowly. . .but not this week. Sunday night Kylie decided she wanted to wear big-girl underwear! It was her decision and she has been doing pretty well at the potty training thing. Compared to the boys, she is a superstar in this area! At 2 1/2 when I tried the boys, they had accident after accident. Kylie has worn underwear all week and has only had a couple of accidents. Now, I still have very skeptical hopes that this can really be happening, but we'll see. Today, one time she took me to the bathroom and preceded to go potty when I put her on and another time she ran into the bathroom and I saw her start to push, so I quickly put her on the potty and she went! yeah, Kylie! Now, she has been resisting clothes so mostly she runs around in panties or completely nude. Well, tonight she was "without clothes" and she began to go poop on the floor--so bright hopes mixed with reality. . .

Tuesday, I was expecting a playdate with a friend from church, so we cleaned in the morning, but unfortunately they couldn't come. So in the evening, I got to go out to eat with Allison (her early birthday dinner) and then to a Bible study with her.

Wednesday, I took care of Matthew in the morning so Vonda could go to a dr. appointment and then in the evening we went and bought our tree--It was bitterly cold out there and after taking about 15 minutes to get three kids bundled up to go out and get the tree, we went out walked around for about a minute and then the kids and I went back in the van while Dan finished picking one out. I think the tree guys were so cold they forgot how to tie it on top of our van because we nearly lost it twice coming home!

Thursday morning we baked carmel rolls for Dan's staff at school in honor of his birthday while we anxiously awaited the news of the Miedema family!!! Yeah Carter Dean:) Then in the afternoon we made Strombolli (sp?) because Dan loves it. In the whole baking process, I discovered that my dishwasher isn't working well, so we had a PILE of dishes to do which had to wait because we went to the hospital to meet Carter for the first time.

Finally today, things just keep getting better:) The house is a complete disaster from yesterday cooking, evergreen needles all over (because we hadn't clean-up after we got the tree into the house), some tree ribbons all over as the kids were playing with them, dishwasher still not working, Caleb wet the bed (Bennet wet the bed the night before) and I had invited my neighbors over for a playdate at 10 AM. I am still amazed at how much we got done this morning--I am not quite sure how it happened, but we did it and without any TV for the kids (AMAZING). Okay, so I never showered, but my neighbors have seen me at my best and worst, so I didn't think they would care. We had a great time visiting and catching up--during the winter we don't see each other nearly as often as we do when we can all play outside together. (Our houses just don't hold 7 young kids that well). So naptime arrives and I must say I was looking forward to relaxing a bit. I had just settled down laying on the couch--I got my phone, and my new camera and was ready to look that over, but I wanted to call Allison to see how everything was going. I got on the phone with her and literally 2 minutes or less into our conversation I hear a strange sound upstairs, and I thought I should go check it out. Caleb had been coughing and now was crying as he was trying to clean up his throw-up up with a tissue saying, I can't sleep with "puke-up" in my bed. So, I got that cleaned up, got him back in his bed, head back downstairs, call Allison back, she needs to go because a dr. is there, Caleb is now done with his nap. . .Man. . .frustration. Yet our afternoon went relatively well--I read to Caleb for a while so it was still downtime. Evening comes and Kylie was running around after her bath and threw up in the hallway, coughing. and then Caleb was sleeping and began coughing again tonight, so I ran in there grabbed him and he threw up across his bedroom floor as I got him above the potty. So, after washing the sheets twice today--not to mention a load of blankets, a pillow that smelled of puke and cleaning up throw up 3 times today, I am glad to say that today is done. Aside from the coughing which led to the vomitting, the kids behavior was very good today and never watched one minute of TV (this is a pretty amazing thing for this mamma)!! Okay, this turned out to be an UNBELIEVABLY long blog, and yet my video still is not done uploading, so I am thinking something is wrong. I might have to try that again another time.