potty training?

Potty training sucks!  Oliver came with some potty training skills, not really.  Oliver came with the ability to be compliant and sit on the toilet, it's what he was trained to do before his arrival here.  He wasn't trained to feel the sensation of needing to go and then go, no at the orphanage you sit when you are told to and stay as long as needed, maybe longer.  I taught Oliver his all his upper and lower case letters and letter sounds while sitting on the potty.  Fast forward to present day, he still has weekly accidents and let's not even discuss night time potty training, can you even train someone to not pee themselves at night?  He pees before he goes to bed, around 8pm, again when Jim goes to bed around 9ish, and again when I go to bed close to 11, and he still wakes up wet 75% of the time.  I try not to discuss it with him anymore, I figure he'll get it sometime, at least he doesn't accidents at school.


Then there is Lydia, I'm in no hurry to potty train her.  I really don't mind the adorable cloth diapers, and I'm even okay with washing them.  Lydia on the other hand, she wants nothing to do with diapers.  She rips them off before I can get them fully snapped on her.  Wednesday of last week I gave in.  It was a blah rainy day so we were not planning on going anywhere, I set the little potty outside the bathroom and decide to just let her run around in a dress with no diaper or underpants and see what happens.  She normally wakes up dry so I got her up and put her right on the potty, after a couple minutes she made it happen.  I put her dress on and tell her when she feels she needs to pee she should go sit on the potty...like she can even understand that.  She must have.  At one point we were doing homework and drawing at the table, she crawled down, walked away, and pooped on the toilet.  Hmmm.  No accidents all day.  So I guess we are doing this?  There have been accidents, but also tons of success. I just started letting her nap without her diaper, and go on outings without her diaper, and she's used a few public toilets, she even made it through church on Sunday.  She is pretty adorable in Oliver's outgrown Thomas the Train underpants. Here we go, for now. 

say what? not much...

At Lydia's 6 month appointment I mentioned that I thought she didn't babble much.

At her 1 year appointment she was supposed to be saying about 10ish words...maybe 8, maybe.

The 18 month appointment yielded news that by her 2 year visit she should be saying 50 words.  50!

 Well here we sit at 22 months old and Lydia might say 10-12 things.  Maybe she's just a quiet soul, maybe she is more thoughtful than vocal, maybe she just likes to take in the world around her...all possibilities, but it's my job to help her be as successful as possible so I call up the early intervention folks and request a developmental assessment.

They assess many areas of development, but we focus more on speech.  They ask me questions, they observe her play, and notice how she interacts with them and with JJ and myself (I sent Oliver out to play with a friend).  Now in order to qualify for help you have to be 25% or more below where you should be.  At the end of our time together the ladies tell me that Lydia doesn't qualify for services because she's around 23/24% below the norm for her age, rocking verbal production skills of a 17 month old.  Well, that's about the worst place you can be. Lucky for us, and Lydia, they said that they would give Lydia speech services.  So sometime in the near future a speech therapist will start visiting once a week and giving me different techniques to help Lydia.  Give her a few months and maybe she'll be stealing some of Oliver's air time. 

got tomatoes

We do!

Holy tomatoes batman.  Back in the spring we planted three tomato plants.  1 roma, 2 cherry.  I hoped we might grow a handful of romas to make some BLTs and a few bunches of cherry tomatoes for a couple other summer recipes.  Two of the plants went crazy choking out one of the cherry tomatoes, so we were left with one of each....and they went insane.  They are planted in our front flower garden area and have progressed to partially taking over the walkway and driveway. 

So here's a list of how we are dealing with the bunches and bunches of tomatoes we are harvesting on a weekly basis.

-We give them away to anyone who will take them.  People at church, friends, neighbors.
-The kids pick and eat them while we play outside, even Lydia knows how to just pick the red ones
-We traded two bags of tomatoes for free open gym time at the gymnastic studio ($10 savings)

Slow roasted BLTs -absolutely so delicious and you must make the basil mayo to go with it, really so perfect.  We've eaten these almost once a week.

 



Cherry tomato puff pasty tart.  Yum and super easy, like really easy.  This was devoured at our small group meeting a few weeks ago. 

 



End of summer vegetable soup.  I just delivered this to a friend and she thanked me more than once saying the soup was great.  The tomatoes are not the star of the dish, but they are there and it's a great soup, I think the roasted corn really makes it awesome.  I've made it with the popper croutons before and they are pretty good too. 

Pasta with Roasted Summer Vegatables, just make it.


BLT Salad -Most of the tomato recipes involve cooked tomatoes because I don't actually like them raw.  However, this salad is really tasty and simple.

Salad
-romaine lettuce
-thick cut bacon
-tomatoes

I bake bacon at 375 for 15-20 minutes, keep you eye on it!

Dressing
-1 cup buttermilk 
-1/2 cup sour cream
-1/4 cup mayo
-clove of garlic, grated  -if you like it spicy, my kids don't like it with the garlic
-salt
-pepper

mix it all together and set it in the fridge while assembling everything else

Croutons
-bread, cubed... good bread, something crusty from the bakery
-olive oil
-salt
toss the cubed bread with some olive oil and salt then bake at 375 for 10ish minutes

Pile everything together and yum. 



Go forth and cook those tomatoes you've grown, or come raid my front yard.

zoo train project

 Ages ago, when Lydia was tiny and slept often and didn't move much, Oliver and I made this awesome zoo for his trains to drive through.  He loves these kinds of projects, messy ones.  

Anyway, here is what we used...

-the bottom of a large sheet cake box (we happened to have some left from a baking project)

-paint and paint brushes

-pencil

-rocks

-low temp glue gun and sticks

-tubes of little animals from different places around the world...we got our tubes at Joann's with a 50% off coupon, but you could also find them at amazon

-air dryer, just to speed the process along

plan out a place for the train to go
a place for the people to wait
and spaces for the animals to live

paint and outline with rocks
we used the glue gun to stick the rocks down

speeding the process along

set up the track

get everyone moved in

give rides to all the zoo visitors

been here before...finally

Jim's been asking, are we there yet? 

When Lydia was born she was a second child, but a first baby.  People would assume we'd done this before just because we had an older child, most of the time I suppose it's safe to assume, but we were surely first time parents when it came to that little newborn.  Clueless, baby nervous, is she broken, sleep deprived, first timers. 

As Lydia progresses into the depths of toddler hood Jim keeps wondering, have we done this yet, is she at the age Oliver was when we got him, are we no longer first timers?  Yes!  Oliver came home just over 20 months old and that's where Lydia is now.  We've been here.  Well not really. Siblings were not made for comparing.  One is not a measuring stick for the other. 

The biggest thing that strikes me about this little milestone is that when we adopted Oliver at age 20 months we thought he was so young.  Soooo young.  How lucky were we to have only missed 20 months? 

Only 20 months! 20 months is an eternity! Do you know how many photos I've taken of Lydia in the span of 20 months?  How many hours she's been cuddled and loved?  How many kisses she's gotten? How many people love and adore her?  How many books she's been read?  The numbers are too great to be calculated.  A lot can happen in 20 months and it makes me sad for the time I missed with Oliver.  Not sad that I missed the time, but sad that he missed out on  the wonderful advantages of being a new baby in a family....though we've made up the difference the best we could.


However, regardless of the path or time of arrival to our home we simply adore them both.  They are the best for us and the best for each other and they both got here at just the perfect time for them.

Oliver, 20 months, in Moscow a few days
after leaving the orphanage

Lydia, 20 months, hanging in Bermuda

They both got passports when they were 20 months old....

welcome back

::hangs head in blog shame::

sigh

I can't believe I haven't written since June. 

Just hear me out...it was becoming such a chore.  See I write posts using my laptop.  Well my laptop took a turn for the worse this summer.  I tried just keeping it on always, because if it happened to turn off it would take HOURS to get back on..mama don't have that kind of time.  Then the battery died so it could only be plugged in, that's useful. 

Later this summer it wouldn't let me log on.  Can't do anything if it won't let me type in my password.  Google and YouTube talked me through that issue.

Last week, complete death.  A warning stating my hard drive had reached the end of it's life.  It stated I'd better save everything NOW.  I threw my documents on a jump drive, rescued as many videos as possible and managed to get my 4,441 photos on to 10 CDs (wish I had an external hard drive).  I haven't seen 3am since Lydia was an itty bitty, but if I wanted proof my children existed before last week I needed to get it done!  Note to self...get better at backing stuff up.  I realize that my laptop could still be saved, a new hard drive, but instead I pulled the plug and banished it to the office...where all old technology goes to collect dust until I figure out would people do with dead technology. 

So, what am I typing this post on?  Oh, just a shiny new and functional MacBook Air!

My birthday was last week.  Jim got me a rain barrel.  Rain barrels are awesome,  well I assume they are it hasn't actually rained yet...  Anyway, rain barrels are awesome and I did mention that I wanted one and he did install it while I was away in Boston with the kids, all very wonderful things.  I totally love it.  However, I mentioned that the rain barrel was a great family gift and maybe not a gift special for me.  Then my laptop died, so Jim was so kind to get me a new HP, some hybrid thingy that's a tablet and a laptop.  It looked pretty interesting, online, I didn't actually open the box.  I said I really wanted something that was going to last longer and I felt like a Mac might be a better option.  I suggested we return it and save a bit longer for something a little better.  Upon returning from yoga Jim said, "we have a surprise for you, but you need to find it"  Adorable Lydia kept looking under the couch, that's my girl.  A huge thanks to my husband for dealing with my crazy and taking both kids with him while shopping for two different computers.  

In conclusion, we're baaaaack, get excited.  Vacation highlights, kid projects, recipes,  laundry conquering, and more, that's what you get to look forward to. 

airplane party!

I love birthday parties.  Especially now that Oliver can say what type of party he would like.  Last year it was a construction party, so super fun.  When spring began creeping into Kansas I started to ask Oliver what he might be interested in doing this year.  Construction! was his enthusiastic answer.  Easy enough, I could totally pull that off again.  Though, I knew he was saying it because he loved the cake and maybe he couldn't really think of much else.

I told him he could totally have a consturction party again if he wanted to, but let's just take a quick look at pinterest (yes, he knows pinterest) and see if he might like to try anything else.  AIRPLANES!

For the past 8 months, or so,  Oliver has been set on being a southwest airplane pilot.  See southwest is who brings our family together.  Southwest gets us to Boston and southwest gets our family and friends out here to see us, and I totally think Oliver recognizes that.  Plus flying is so exciting when you're a kid and a southwest pilot once talked to Oliver and made his day year.

In the past I've made a very simple invite that usually involves a photo of him doing some activity that points to the party theme.  I splurged a little this year, not a big monetary splurge, but a big time splurge.  I turned to etsy and found Paper Built Shop.  First off, Sara over at Paper Built is awesome, and she was really easy to work with, even when I needed to make a fairly last minute change she did it quickly and without a problem.  She makes a TON of stuff, so even if the All American Airplane Party theme isn't for you, I'm sure you can find something you neeeeed!  If you like Paper Built on facebook you can even get some freebies.  Anyway, I've digressed.

So I ordered this very cool set of invites.
This fun banner, which is still hanging in the basement.
And these thank-you cards, some that we still need to mail...we are slow.

The shop has a whole bunch of other things to go with the theme, but I don't like being too into a theme so I used my self control.  Everything was really easy, I sent the files on to my friends over at the Office Max/Depot they printed as I instructed then I got to spend a few evenings cutting, gluing, and assembling.  It was totally worth it, we got a lot of compliments on the invites.

Moving on....

Airplane Cake
double layer 9x13

-one layer of chocolate cake
-one layer of yellow cake
-chocolate filing
-vanilla butter cream frosting
-southwest airplane set
-some food coloring and chocolate sprinkles
-grass tip
-airplane cookies (sugar cookies cut like airplanes with a blue icing glaze)

The cake was really fun to make and Oliver thought it was awesome.  Tip, add the sprinkles runway first then add the frosting on the sides, I didn't and there was a little bit of tweezer action involved as I removed bits of runway from the sky and grass.

We served a few other snacks
-veggies and spinach dip, pretzels, crackers, gluten free crackers
-hummus
-bacon cheddar pinwheels
-cake batter dip with nilla wafers and fruits
-gluten free chocolate chip cookies

For Oliver's gift we gave him a zip line and set it up the day before the party so it would be ready for all his friends to play with.  We have some pretty good sized trees in our backyard with decent spacing so it's pretty perfect.  I did get these tree protectors to preserve the happiness of our trees.

getting ready for the maiden voyage 

Tips
-installation will be easier if you don't have your child stealing and hiding the parts
-we added a 6 inch piece of pool noodle near the end of the ride to help buffer the quick stop
-we installed it at a height that Oliver could reach when standing up on a stool, not on the ground
-your child needs to be able to hold on tight even when the ride comes to an abrupt stop or they will come crashing to the ground...I learned that Oliver is indeed pretty strong, some of this friends a little less so.  By the end of the line his feet are only a few inches from the ground, so it's not a big drop.  There were a few bumps, but I think everyone had fun with it, even some of Lydia's friends.

playing at the party

attached the baby swing for the little ones
mostly just this guy, he loved it!

The zip line was the main attraction, but we had a few other activities around the yard

inflatable airplanes
they came in a three pack and the kids
loved running around the yard with them


Stomp Rockets
and a refill pack
we lost a few on our neighbors roof, oops

Then we just threw out some other outdoor toys we have
-balls
-chalk
-baby pool filled with ball pit balls
-sand box

Sadly the weather wasn't as awesome as I prayed it would be.  72 and sunny was the goal, 80, humid, with on and off sprinkles was what we got.  Meh.  Our guests were champs.  Some played in the basement or under the porch, some didn't care it was raining and continued on outside.  Eventually the sun came out.

Each kid took home a little brown paper bag with some airplane themed fun inside, and some other random stuff.  The sign on the bag said, "Thanks for flying"

parachute guy
flying stick things (technical name)
glider plane
side walk chalk
kazoo
airplane cookies

We all had a wonderful time, and are very thankful for all our friends and family who came to celebrate with Oliver.  He loves to feel special, and you made the day totally fantastic for him.  

His party happened before his actual birthday.  On his real birthday he woke up to a shiny new 5 shirt.  Sad news is, this etsy shop only makes the number shirt up to age 5, I wonder if he'll be too cool for a 6 shirt...sigh...time is passing.