My 2 loves

Hiding in his fort!




Watching a show that Daddy turned on.




Playing with cars.

My Valentine's cake

I am not the best baker in the world but I try to do good work anyways =)

Valentine's Day

Hunter signed it on the left corner, Jaxon all over the center and right side :)

Valentine's Day has come and gone. We had very relaxing day. Little to my knowledge the day before, Mark had taken the boys out on the town so I could sleep in (he brought me lunch when they got back :D ) and they had gone to Target and picked me up a Vaentine's gift from the 3 of them. I didn't think we were going to be doing any gifts besides our phones (see a previous entry). I had insisted later that night for us to go to the grocery store so we can do our shopping for the next couple of weeks. Mark had left my gift in the bag on the passenger seat, expecting to come and get in the morning to surprise me when I woke up. So when I get in the car to go to the store I asked what was in the bag. He looks at me and goes "there goes the surprise", I started laughing I apologized and told hiim next time hide it better.He had the boys pick out the cutest card from them and then to encourage my new little hobby he got me a big box of colored pencils (100 pencils, in every color you can think of) since the ones I had been using were a mixture of 3-4 different sets my brother and I had growing up. I also got a pad of drawing paper (I had been using computer paper). I thought it was a sweet gift from my 3 favorite boys. I can't wait till I get some time to myself to try them out.

So the night before Valentine's Day I had made a devil's food cake with vanilla butter frosting with 4 red heart outlines and star sprinkles on top for our dessert for Valentine's Day. To go with this delicious cake I made teriyaki steak (a specialty of mine) for me and Mark (the boys had chicken rings), corn, mashed potatoes, and macaroni and cheese from scratch (got the recipe and idea from Katrina who had made mini mac and cheese bites, and since I didnt have a mini muffin tin I had a regular muffin tin and used that, thanks Katrina;) ). Everything came out great! What a nice day it was!

Rose

New frontier......

We have entered a new frontier with Hunter. Uncharted territory for both Mark and myself and for of course Hunter. Potty training....... duh-duh duuuuuuhhhhh!

This is definitely a learning experience for us. We are trying a variety of approaches to getting this done. Hunter has his moments where he is not willing to go on the potty but he always loses the fight. We are trying to incorporate a reward system for him going on top of the heaps of praise and love we show him when he gets on there (whether he goes or not) and its not just the love and praise for us, if we mention it to family members they give him the same and he gets excited. We tried doing the "if you go potty just once, we will get you a big boy toy". Well it worked, so Mark upped it to 3 times in 1 day and he would get a BIG prize. Well he did it, amid fights, kicks and punches (thrown by him). He received his BIG prize and he is very proud of himself. It has happened one other time and he got 3 Cars (the movie) cars as a reward. Of course this is getting expensive. My mom decided to reward him in a different way to encourage him to go. Candy, but only if he doesn't cry, scream, yell, fight in anyway, then he gets candy (5 m&m's to be exact). That has worked three times since we started that a few days ago, but it didn't last long because he started the fighting again. Most of the resistance happens when I notice he is about to go #2 and then he freaks out when I approach him. All the times he has gone on the potty we have brought him toys to play with, books, his milk and teddy. Nothing really captures his attention long enough for him to actually go. So I had the brilliant idea to go online to www.playhousedisney.com and play episodes for him to watch on my laptop while he goes. It has so far prevented fights and he is distracted and relaxed enough that he is done before he knows it. Then he gets his candy as a reward.

We are still a long way off from no diapers altogether, but we are on the right track. I am definitely looking forward to no more diaper changes. Hopefully Jaxon will be easier to potty train. The consensus in the house if Jaxon will be a cake walk. Crossing fingers!

I'll keep you posted on the progress. If anyone has any tips, I welcome all suggestions.

More

So I did this picture of tulips tonight. It didn't turn out too bad. I like the front 2 tulips the best. The picture I had in my head that couldn't take a picture of that I mentioned in the last post didn't come out the way I thought it would so I am not going to post it.

Hobby (sort of)

Since most of our stuff is packed and in storage there isn't a lot for me to choose from for "ME" time. I read, of course, my first hobby and passion (courtesy of my dad), I am rereading the Twilight series (I love it!) right now, there is also watching tv and listening to music (another big passion, and since my flute is packed, I can't play, so listening is only what I can do right now).

I believe myself to not be especially creative. I don't write well, (English was a hated subject for me in school, least fav, whereas science and math were favorites), I can't sing (I did a semester of choir in 8th grade and did have a solo, but to myself I wasn't that good), I love to dance but no real skill at "real" dancing (even though I took gymnastics, tap, ballet and jazz and cheerleading, each a year except for cheer which was 2yr).

I have tried my hand a drawing a few different times in my life through the years and its not too bad in my opinion. But to think up and draw something imagined is hard for me but if I look at pictures or real life object I think I can do an okay to decent job. In sixth grade, the school had a contest where the students were to draw a picture of anything and then one student from each grade was chosen and there picture would be made out of tile mosaic and placed on the school in different areas. I didn't think I had a shot at winning but I submitted a picture anyway. It was of a hummingbird sitting on a branch, blue sky behind, just the bird and the branch. Well my picture was chosen for the sixth grade class and the picture/mural was made and put on the school permanently.

After my moms parents had both passed away (grandpa in my senior year of hs, 2001, my grandma almost 2 yrs to the day my grandpa died), I went through some depression. My parents thought I should get out of town and go visit with family, so I went to WA for a couple of weeks and while I was there I started to draw a little bit. My grandma has a thing for angels so I tried to draw some of the angels around the house, they weren't very good but drawing was an outlet for me, of course I didn't realize it at the time.

Fast forward to the present. Mark has been working a lot lately, double edge sword, we need to money but we need him here with us. So Mark would be coming in the door when I was already in bed and leave while I was still in bed. I love my boys but being with them for so long without a break was hard. So when they were playing or taking naps I started playing around with the idea of drawing them from pictures I had. Then I decided I need to practice more on other things before I try to do my beautiful boys any justice with a pictures drawn by me. So I started with what I started with back in sixth grade, a hummingbird. This time in flight drinking from a flower. Definitely harder than when I first drew a hummingbird. I think it came out good. Next one was of 2 calla lilies, but I think I rushed it and it is not so good. But I keep seeing things that would be great to try to capture. There is a picture I have in my head that I have been playing around with. I wasn't able to take a picture of it at the time but it has stuck in my head ever since. So I guess that will be out of my head rather than a picture. I haven't had the time to draw it out yet but hopefully maybe this weekend I will have a chance to start it.

Its been awhile....

So it has been awhile since my last post. Not much has happened with us since then. The boys are doing school still and Mark has been working a lot. Nothing has really changed in our daily life. Taxes have been filed. Yeah! So the plan is too see if any of our credit cards are still open so we can pay those first to keep them open then pay some to the closed ones, but I don't think any of them are still open but just paying something towards them makes me happy and relieves some of the stress from that.

Mark's dad bought the boys the Your Baby Can Read series so yesterday was the first day and they seem to like it. We are going to see if anything comes from it. It would be cool for the videos to actually work and my boys would be able to read before kindergarten. Their school is coming along some days being good and some days not. Last week there was one day of school and the rest was not conducive to school work for anybody.

Mark and I each got new phones with an upgrade from Sprint. I love my new phone a Blackberry Curve 8530. Mark got a Hero HTC I think. So that was our Valentine's gifts to each other, plus we got the new Super Mario Bros for Wii as a joint gift. It has been fun getting to spend some time with him since he has been working so much. We are also doing an early Valentines dinner sometime this week (so we don't intrude on any of our "babysitters" valentines days) and then I will probably make a nice dinner for the 4 of us Valentine's Day. Plus I am going to make devils food cupcakes some with pink frosting, some with white and sprinkles for the occasion.

I had dinner with one of my best friends from hs, A, on Thursday night. We went to TGI Fridays and had a blast talking about anything and everything. We are going to try to do a double date with her bf and her and us and also a group thing with my boys included. We also went to dinner with Mark's sister C, her husband, and some of their friends to La Cocina for her birthday 2 weeks ago. I had never been there before, Mark had, and I enjoyed the food and atmosphere. Unfortunately we left feeling like the "charity cases" for the night, since all of the rest of the party were doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs and we were the lowly "third wheel". We love C and her husband it just felt off for us with their friends who were all really nice but it just wasn't our group. But C said she was so happy we came and we had made her night and birthday so that was the bright spot of the evening.

Our good friend L is getting married at the courthouse on this Thursday to his longtime girlfriend L. She is ready to start a family so they decided to just get the marriage started. I don't know if they are going to do a party with all their friends or not, but I told Mark that since they both don't have any other close friends or family out here that maybe we could go and be their witnesses or something and help celebrate their day with them. I asked my good friend B if she would make a top tier of a wedding cake for them as a wedding gift from us, so I need to double check to see if she is still able to do it.

My brother was in town for a few days and it was great to see him. The boys love seeing their uncle, especially Hunter since he knows and understands who he is, Jaxon is still on the fence about him. He never comes to town enough so its a great surprise when he just shows up middle of the week.

As you can see nothing much has been going on. Just putting our noses to the grindstone and doing what needs doing, with stops along the way to take time for ourselves and boys so we don't lose sight of what is important.

Until next time.
M