Happy Birthday Paige!

I will get the pictures on here tomorrow.

Wow, 6 years didn't take long to pass right by! Paige was so excited about her birthday. You would've thought it was Christmas this morning when she came running into my room yelling "Today is my birthday!!"

At around 1:00 we headed to Mommom an Poppop's house. We had some snacks, played outside and then Paige opened her presents. She asked for Barbie stuff, so of course she got plenty of it. After presents Steve and I took her out to a Japanese steak house while the other 3 kids stayed with mommom and poppop. I think Paige had fun having a nice dinner out with us and NO siblings. Although, I must admit, Paige loves having siblings so she might have had more fun with them there. She's soooo quiet that Steve and I were feeling a little lost. I guess we are so used to Kaeli's non-stop talking that the silence with Paige felt almost uncomfortable. At the end of dinner, the waiter brought her some ice cream with a candle in it. The whole restaraunt sang happy birthday to her and she turned a bright, crimson red. Poor thing was so embarrassed. Being the center of attention is hard for her, but I think a small part of her enjoyed it.

After dinner, we went back to mommom and poppop's house for cake and ice cream. We got home tonight just in time to put everyone down for bed.

Babysitting

We had the great pleasure of babysitting Jessica's youngest baby today. I'm so glad that I was able to do this for her because it allowed Jessica the opportunity to spend most of the day being with her dad and taking care of him at the hospital. Jessica's mom is still in the other hospital, but they think she'll be able to come home tomorrow. Jessica did get to spend the morning with her mom before bringing Daniel over here in the afternoon.

Jessica's husband, Garr, brought the baby over around 1:00. My two boys were sleeping and the girls were next door. So, Daniel and I had a good little bit of time to get used to one another without any other kids vying for my, or his, attention. He was such a wonderful little guest and we very much enjoyed every minute of it. AJ and Ryan were just in awe over him. I was very surprised about how nurturing both of the boys were toward Daniel.

Here are Ryan and AJ just staring at him. They did this alot....just watched him play. Daniel has 3 sisters so I'm sure having kids right in his face is nothing new to him. It definitely seems to be taking in stride.

AJ is giving Daniel a hug

And in this picture, AJ is patting him on the head. I was just amazed by how sweet AJ was being the whole time.

I love this picture of Ryan just admiring Daniel

And here is the happy boy enjoying the Jumperoo without kids right in his face for a moment.

A friend in need of prayers

My friend Jessica's parents were in a motorcycle accident last night-- so for anyone that prays, please add them to your prayer list. Their names are Sharon and Dan. You can click here to view Jessica's blog. In addition to being very worried about her mom and dad Jessica and Garr are having to visit them at two different hospitals that are 40 min away from each other. Mr. and Mrs. Orshaw have always been so kind to me and my kids and they are just wonderful people. It breaks my heart that they are in so much pain and suffering right now.

Jessica said her dad has a broken shoulder that will likely need surgery soon. His eye is messed up and swollen so they don't know the extent of damage to the eye right now. The Dr's are concerned about some possible spinal damage, but they aren't really sure about that part yet. He also got scraped up pretty badly. It sounds like he's in a great deal of pain. Mrs. Orshaw has a laceration of the liver, but the Dr's think it's superficial and are monitoring the situation right now.

Also, please keep Jessica's children in your prayers. They are very close to their grandparents and I know they are going to be so worried. Fortunately, the two older ones (close to Kaeli and Paige's age) are at camp this week and are staying busy. But Jessica and Garr also have a 5 yr old and 7 mo old. The 5 yr old is staying with another friend today and tomorrow and I may watch her on Thursday and Friday. The baby is breastfed so he needs to stay near mom.

I guess I just want to ask that everyone who reads this keeps this family in your thoughts and prayers. They have so much on their hearts and minds right now and I can't even begin to imagine the stress on this whole family at this moment.

My latest hobby

Not long ago I shared one of Steve's comments about me....he said "your hobby is finding new hobbies". And that latest hobby is coupons. In fact, I will blame my lack of journaling on that newest hobby. I've been using what little bit of computer time I have to learn all I can about using coupons effectively. I got really good at it a couple of years ago. Actually, it was soon after Ryan was born. I remember it so well because it happened around the same time that I had to switch from breastfeeding to formula feeding. The cost of formula completely shocked me and since I had never formula-fed a baby before I certainly wasn't expecting that expense. Of course, he also had to have the hypo-allergenic formula that was crazy expensive. When AJ came along 19 mos later, I was so busy trying to keep up with a young toddler and newborn that coupons became a distant memory.

Recently, I found myself becoming completely disgusted over the amount of money we spent on groceries every month! When I looked back over grocery expenditures for the past year I realized we were spending close to $1000.00 a month JUST on groceries--that's not including eating out. I know we are a big family, but 1000/mo is just absurd! When I was using coupons faithfully I was only spending about $400-500/mo. It just so happens that as this grocery dilemma entered my mind I came across a coupon link on another blog. It was the perfect motivation I needed to get myself back in the game. Using coupons effectively is HARD work, but definitely worth it!

The added "fringe benefit" of using coupons is the overall frugality that often comes along with it. I find myself weighing in on wants vs. needs much more frequently. A perfect example was today when I realized Disney Store is having a really great sale. They have beach towels for 4.99!! I will admit that I added a few towels to my online shopping cart. Then I went and read a few frugal living/couponing websites before purchasing. The bottom line is that we do not NEED more beach towels. No matter how inexpensive they seem right now it doesn't make sense to buy them. So, I consider this a small victory!

Interruption!! Wow! I just heard little footsteps upstairs so I went up to investigate. I was amazed to find that Ryan had gotten up to use the bathroom! He went potty and then ran right back to his room. He's extremely reliable with potty-training during the day(hasn't had a single accident since the 2nd day of training). But, he wasn't as reliable at night. Tonight seems to be a pretty big step for him. He is a truly amazing kid!

Tomorrow I will post some coupon links and I'll also include a picture of my newly made coupon organizer. I know there are probably some others out there that might be interested in using coupons more effectively as well.

I will also attempt to do some catching up over the next few days. I actually have quite a bit on my mind and I really should get back into the habit of writing out those thoughts. Just typing brings so much more clarity to my thoughts and feelings. Of course, it's a little strange when you know people are reading those thoughts. But, that's also why I named my blog "Bridget's Ramblings" because sometimes that's all it really is!

This is fragile

I don't think Ryan's newest words will ever cease to amaze me! Yesterday he was playing near one of our cabinets in the family room. He was making up all kinds of games and doing tons of pretending. That, in and of itself, still amazes me. It worried me so much that he no kind of pretend play up until close to 3....suddenly it started and I still just feel in awe every time he brings me a plain, ordinary toy and says "this ice cream". I gobble it right up and smile inside over how far he's come in such a short time. So, back to my original story.....the other day he was playing and I walked in. When he saw me he pointed to the curio cabinet in the family room and said "this not toy, this fragile". What an amazing word for him to just pull out of nowhere! If there was ever any doubt that he's taking EVERYthing in, that word certainly put those doubts to rest.

I'm so thrilled that our biggest obstacle now is getting his speech more clear. His speech is more choppy than most kids and he gets the order of words mixed up sometimes, but he can definitely get his point across. We joke about how he's just making sure to keep the listeners attention to the very end because he often says things like "I like salt not". In fact, just about any time he uses a "negative" in a sentence he puts it at the end. It's become one of those endearing little traits that we just love as part of Ryan. So, when he gets mad at me I frequently hear "I like you not!". Sounds kind of cute when it's said like that, isn't it? :)

Food from the garden

I'm so thrilled to say that our dinner tonight came partly from our garden. Actually, I'm pretty thrilled with how things turned out! I was watering the garden this morning and realized the romaine lettuce was ready for harvesting. I brought it all inside and cleaned it up. Afterwards I called Steve to tell him we needed to have salad soon. Steve has a real knack for cooking that I've never possessed, so he immediately started coming up with ideas. My thoughts revolved around what I needed to go buy at the grocery store to make caesar salad. But, Steve suggested I make some croutons and then make salad dressing. As usual, my first thought was "I can't do that!!" To quiet my reluctance Steve looked up a recipe for dressing and as we went through the ingredients I realized we already had everything including the blender for mixing it. Then he reminded me that we had leftover steak and chicken in the fridge from our Father's Day cookout on Saturday--I was beginning to think I could actually do this!

The boys were still napping so there was no better time for me to make the dressing. Click here to see the recipe we used. It calls for just oil first, and then olive oil--I only had olive oil so I just used the amount of olive oil listed first and omitted the second amount of oil. I actually wonder if that was some kind of mistake. I can't imagine it needing even MORE oil! I found a similar recipe on allrecipes.com and that recipe stated that the dressing is better after sitting in the fridge for a day or two. I'll have to check on that in a couple of days. It wasn't bad, but I still think the oil taste was a little strong--but it wasn't bad at all on the salad.

By the time I got to the croutons the kids were all awake. They were all fascinated with the idea of making our own croutons so I decided to enlist their help. I gave them each 2 slices of bread and a plastic knife. They really did a nice job cutting the bread into small pieces. We put the pieces into a big ziploc bag and added some melted butter. I sprinkled it with garlic powder. That's when the idea hit me that I could use some herbs from the garden. The kids and I all marched out to the garden to cut off some oregano and parsley. I chopped it up really fine and added it to the bag. The I lay the bread on a single layer on a cookie sheet and let it cook at 350. Not sure about the time--I just kept checking it. The croutons were a HUGE hit!! I don't think I will ever buy croutons again--they were so easy to make and so good!

The final dish included the romaine, croutons, fresh bacon bits, hard-boiled egg, left over chicken and steak, and our homemade dressing. Steve also added some kalamata olives. It was actually quite good.

I have to admit it was a little weird for me at first to be eating leaves that had been growing in my yard for the past month. I KNOW it's even healthier than the stuff you buy at the store, but it's just a mental thing at first I guess. It just seems strange. The kids didn't have the same problem. They were sooooo excited when I brought the lettuce inside. I can't seem to get Kaeli to eat any vegetables, but she was absolutely loving the fresh lettuce. They really couldn't get over the fact that we were eating stuff that *WE* had grown.

I'm definitely hooked now! Why had I been so reluctant to start a garden? This is fantastic! The weeds haven't been bad and it's been very low maintenance. Of course, I'm so excited about it that I can't wait to check on it each day--that probably helps in the maintenance department. We have the very beginning of one tomato. We also have the beginning of zucchini and cucumber. I think it's only a matter of a few weeks before we start getting food from the garden on a regular basis!

I've been getting back into couponing lately and being much more conscious of what we spend at the grocery store. So, to make dinner without spending a single dime (utilizing what we already had in the house) was so great! I have to admit that is HIGHLY unusual for me. Of course, I couldn't have done it without Steve's help. I keep hoping his cooking skills rub off on me, it's a slow process but I think it's happening. After all, I came up with the idea to add herbs to the croutons all my myself--it's progress!

Oh, that reminds me of a cute thing from Sunday. Steve always surprises me with breakfast in bed on Mother's Day (he's GREAT at cooking breakfast, by the way). The kids and I talked about making breakfast in bed for Steve for Father's Day. I asked what we should make.....Kaeli said "cereal?" I laughed and asked why we would make cereal when he always makes me such a great breakfast. Her response?....."because that's all you know how to cook for breakfast". I still get a little chuckle from that. She was absolutely serious!

Don't mess up my pretty nails

That is what Ryan said to me when I caught him putting on fingernail polish. Certainly not a sentence I ever expected to hear from my son and hope I never hear again.

Ryan was upstairs with Paige and they were supposed to be cleaning Paige's room. Paige yelled down that Ryan was using nail polish. When I got up there my first concern was to find out if nail polish was all over the carpet. I was pleasantly surprised to only find a tiny bit. Once I got the polish out of the carpet my attention turned to Ryan. I didn't know if I should laugh or cry when I saw him. He could see the look of exasperation on my face and started saying "don't mess up my pitty nails". And, while I'm thinking about it....did he HAVE to choose bright pink?

Up until now I've had no fears of my boys being too feminine. I don't worry when they want to clean house or care for babies or cook dinner in the play kitchen. But, this seemed a little over the top even for me. It's definitely time for me to remind them that boys and girls are different.

I took Ryan downstairs where we could sit and clean him up. By the time we got to the bottom of the stairs we had finished our talk about boys not wearing fingernail polish and how boys like to play sports and get dirty. I sat Ryan down on the floor and started cleaning his nails. I can't tell you how relieved I felt when he said "I not do this again". I said "oh good....why not?" and he said "me play sports". WHEW!!!!

The bad thing is that my friend and her son were on their way over to get Ryan. She came to the door just as I was finishing cleaning him up. I was so embarrassed! And, to make matters worse Ryan decided he was too scared to go with them. He screamed and fought the whole way to the car. But, I talked to Stacy a little later and she said he was doing fine. She took him and his little friend to the library and to the playground. I'm glad we went through with it even though he was fighting so hard. Ryan certainly needs other boys to play with. Right now he only has girls surrounding him because even our neighbors are all girls. It's no wonder Ryan thinks he should wear fingernail polish.

Here is Ryan showing off his "pitty (pretty) nails". I have to say I'm impressed (and maybe a bit worried) by how well he applied nail polish to each and every one of his finger and toe nails.

Just not a lot to talk about

I haven't really written anything on here lately because there just hasn't been anything to talk about. The kids are out of school now so I'm pretty busy most of the every day. When the girls are in school I have a solid 2 hour window of time during the day to do whatever I want (during the boys' naps). But, the girls don't nap so I don't get that time anymore.

We've kind of settled into a routine that I hope we can continue. We do some chores or errands in morning. If everything is done in time the kids play in the pool from about 10-12. We come in for lunch followed by naps for the boys. When the boys go down for a nap then it's 30 minutes of individual reading time (I read by myself, too, to set a good example) followed by 30 min of me reading to the girls. The 2nd hour of nap time is a little hit or miss and the girls do various things. I try to use it for exercise. Sometime around 3 everyone is up from naps/quiet time and we all head back outside for more pool time until dinner. I like the routine, but it gives me very, very little time for the computer. Although, it sure does make bedtime easier than ever before. The kids are so exhausted by the end of the day that they go right to sleep.

Kaeli finally finished book 4 of Harry Potter yesterday. She didn't seem as proud of herself as I would have expected. I kept telling her how wonderful it was and she just shrugged her shoulders like it was no big deal. It took her about 2 months to read the whole book, but she did it! I'm pretty certain I never read a book that big when I was 8. I noticed she chose a significantly smaller book to read this time--can't say I blame her.

Paige is currently trying to read Charlotte's Web. She won't admit that it's too hard, but I really think it's a little too much for her. There were 2 boys in her K class this past year reading Charlotte's Web during down time at school. I think somehow Paige got it in her head that she should also be able to read it. For half the year she complained of being "dumb" and saying she's the only one in her class that can't read. Unfortunately, I realized late in the year that she had these thoughts because she was only comparing herself to those 2 boys. At some point she started gaining more confidence in reading and now she's really pushing herself. She's doing very well, but I wish she had just a little bit more realistic expectations of herself.

Today was kind of a quiet day around here, though. Paige had a playdate at her friend's house all day. Kaeli also got to spend the day with a friend. It's so wonderful when they are each able to do things separately with friends. Kaeli is still at her friend's house because they ended up asking her to spend the night.

Ryan, AJ, and I spent most of the day hiding from the heat outside. Here's one cute little story from today. I overheard Ryan trying to teach AJ how to say a new word. Ryan would say "AJ, say hee"...."now say haw". AJ managed to get something out that at least sounded close. They kept doing it over and over. It was so cute and I just kept doing the dishes with a big smile on my face as I listened.

Oh, Ryan is just amazing with his potty-training! I can't even believe it was less than a week ago that he used the potty for the first time ever. He has not had a single accident. He also now just goes without me even reminding him. I often just hear the toilet flush without realizing he even went. Based on this experience, I have to say that late potty-training has its benefits. This was incredibly easy compared to what I went through with the girls. Of course, they trained a year earlier than he did, but I'd be willing to put up with diapers an extra year for this.

Isn't it funny, though, how even when I don't have anything to talk about I manage to write way too much?

Some updates

Most importantly, Ryan is doing fantastic with potty-training! He was in underwear all day today and only had one accident. At least a couple of times he told me he needed to pee. And, at least 2 or 3 times he took care of everything all by himself from start to finish. In fact, he wouldn't even let me into the bathroom one time. Mommom was here today and said he did the same thing to her. He also took a nap without a pull-up because he was so opposed to the idea. I told him he wouldn't have to wear it if he was able to pee on the potty just before taking a nap and he handled it all flawlessly. Oh, and he even pooped on the potty. I'm just amazed at how easily this happened. There's no turning back now--Ryan is potty-trained!!!

Paige is officially out of pull-ups at night. She hasn't had a single accident in the 2 weeks since announcing she didn't want to wear pull-ups anymore. We are very proud of her and I know it makes her feel so much better!

The caterpillars turned into butterflies last week. We finally released them last night. Poor Paige cried so hard. It broke her heart to see all her butterflies fly away. Unfortunately, we did it after Ryan was in bed. I felt TERRIBLE after realizing I didn't include him. It was a sudden decision because 2 of the butterflies were trying to drown themselves in the little bowl of sugar water. We just quickly made the decision it was time to let them go NOW. Not surprising that the first thing Ryan asked this morning was "where butterflies go?". Bad, bad mommy!!

The mealworms are turning into beetles. About half of them are still in the pupa phase and the other half are full-grown beetles. Definitely about time to let them go. We'll have to walk over to the drainage pond to release. I certainly don't want them eating all my flowers and veggies!

The garden seems to be growing nicely. The strawberry plants have produced 3 or 4 edible fruits. Ryan has eaten all of them so far. Almost every day he goes over to check for strawberries. He's not normally much of a strawberry fan, but I guess it's more appealing coming from our yard. I got to taste one of them and I think they are much better than store-bought strawberries. I did have to buy herb plants because my herb seeds never germinated. I'm bummed because I wasn't able to find any cilantro. I did leave the cilantro spot empty in hopes that just maybe the seeds will still sprout. At this point, I'm pretty sure it's a long-shot.

That's all I can think of that needs to be updated for now. The girls have their last day of school tomorrow. They go at 8:30 and leave at 10:30.....seems like such a waste to get up and go through the stress of getting out the door for only 2 hours, but it's all for fun. So, summer officially begins tomorrow in our house.

Sunday at the beach

Saturday ended up being a pretty bad beach day. I think we stuck it out for an hour before making the decision to head back. It was just too cool with a VERY strong wind. But, Sunday was a beautiful day for the beach! All of the following pictures are from Sunday. We were pleasantly surprised that the water temp was tolerable as well.

Here's Kaeli making a "drizzle castle" at the water's edge. This is our preferred castle since anyone can do it with little to no experience. And, even better, it's impossible to mess it up--even AJ can help!

Here's Paige just looking cute. I was hoping to get a good image of her freckles, but it's not close enough. She's has the cutest freckles and they really start popping out during the summer months. I grew up vehemently disliking my freckles so I take every opportunity possible to tell Paige and Kaeli how lucky they are to have freckles. If only I had appreciated mine the way I appreciate theirs!
We just couldn't resist getting a shot of Ryan's face covered in sand.This is probably the only 2 seconds AJ wore this hat the entire day. In fact, neither Steve nor I could remember getting this picture. I just asked Steve about it and he said he thinks he snapped it when I put the hat on him....seconds before he ripped it off.

Ryan, Paige, and Kaeli splashing in the "tidepool". Some summers the contour of the beach is just absolutely amazing for little kids. We were there during low tide and it left behind a HUGE low-lying area full of water. It's really great because the kids are able to play in it kind of like a pool. I do have to admit that by time high tide begins creeping in I'm welcoming a surge of fresh water because it gets a little concerning about the cleanliness of this stranded patch of water.

If I had to come up with a title for this picture it would be "Amazing Cooperation". I have no idea how we got lucky enough for all 4 of them to cooperate toward a common goal without any prompting from us.

Chasing birds on the beach

Here is my first installment of beach pictures (I can't do too many pictures in one entry because it gets a little frustrating manipulating them).

I'm starting here because it's still one of my favorite memories from this weekend's beach trip. I can't really explain why, maybe it's because AJ really thought that if he chased the seagull long enough he might actually catch it. Maybe it's because it's a perfect example of his persistence which is a trait I imagine carrying him through many rough patches in life. Whatever the reason I look back on this moment with a lot of fondness.

We had just gotten settled in on the beach on Saturday. Steve was at the water's edge with Kaeli, Paige and Ryan. I actually fooled myself into believing I might be able to sit and relax in a chair for a moment-until AJ spotted a seagull walking around nearby. AJ started walking toward the seagull while I watched in amusement. I was mostly intrigued that the bird didn't just fly away. Fortunately, the beach was mostly deserted so I was able to let AJ walk for quite a distance before having to follow him. I grabbed the camera before I decided to catch up to him. I believe he followed that bird's every move for a good 10-15 minutes. It really was fascinating. Toward the end I found myself becoming concerned that AJ might actually catch it so I assumed the bird was injured. Finally, the bird flew away. So, I can only assume the wind was so strong that the seagull was doing everything he could to stay grounded. I guess he finally decided this kid was NOT going to leave him alone and so he'd be better off just braving the wind.

Potty-training success!

I am soooo proud of Ryan!! I have no idea what possessed me to start "cold-turkey potty-training" yesterday, but I just made the decision and did it. Actually, I think what pushed me over the edge was when he was suiting up to go in the pool. It seems like such a waste to put those swimming diapers on him all the time. So, once he got out of the pool I just took off the swimming trunks and let him hang loose. I kept reminding him that he couldn't pee or it would make a big mess. We tried sitting on the potty a few times with no luck. Kaeli even brought down his big boy underpants and set them the back of the toilet seat as an incentive. We also added in the promise of ice cream if he went pee in the potty. This went on for probably an hour of on the potty, off the potty with nothing more than a few little sprinkles. I went ahead and put the underpants on him because he really had tried. Wouldn't you know not 2 minutes later he gushed a fountain. Poor little guy was so upset over the mess he made and I did my best to comfort him. I resisted the temptation to put a diaper back on him. We didn't have any more accidents, but he went to bed only about an hour or so later.

Today (day 2) of potty-training boot camp started off very, very rough. I came within a hair's breadth of giving in and putting a diaper on the poor child. He went straight into the underpants upon waking and was still dry 2 hours later. I saw a little tiny dot of wetness on his pants and asked if he needed to use the potty. He refused and we went on a 15 min walk (he rode his bike). I was incredibly nervous that he was going to pee all over the place during the walk, but he did great. As soon as we got home I told him we needed to try to potty. He cried and didn't want to, but the temptation of chocolate chips did the trick to at least get him on the potty. For close to an hour we got on and off the potty. Each time he only could produce a couple of little drips. That hour was incredibly trying and that is when I almost gave in. He was nearing complete panic mode by the end of it. He needed to pee soooooo badly, but just couldn't seem to make it happen "on demand". He was screaming and crying and begging me to put his diaper on. Right at the end he asked to get back on the potty and was just crying the whole time. I was trying to help relax him while he sat there and he finally just yelled at me "I WANT DRINK"!! Let me tell you it was a very intense few minutes. As I was getting the drink I heard him yell "I see pee". I dropped the cup and ran into the bathroom, but he had scared himself into stopping and couldn't get the flow going again. He resumed crying and I resumed getting the drink. I ran back in and handed him the drink. Almost simultaneously he put the cup to his lips and he released a good steady stream of pee. He was able to keep it going and overwhelming joy and pride ruled the moments afterward. He would look down to watch himself and then look at me in complete disbelief. I think he really had a hard time believing he was causing this to happen. It was also good practice for him because he was watching to see what happened when he moved his muscles in certain ways--the pee stopped and started with each change. There was an amazing amount of celebration afterwards!!

Ryan was so proud of himself! He got off and then told me he wanted to try again about 10 min later. He peed a little more and even pooped. I actually had a hard time getting him off the potty because he wanted to keep trying. He told me "I have lots poop!" Once I finally got him off the potty he got his pants on and went about his business. We even went to the grocery store with him in underpants. In total, it was approx another 2 hours that he stayed dry. When we got home I sat him on the potty again. He was still nervous and I had to tempt him with chocolate again. But, this time he only had to sit on the potty about 10 minutes before he started up a nice steady flow of pee.

Another 2 hours later and still dry brought us up to nap time. I put him in a pull-up for nap and after about 10 min I heard him playing in his room. I went up to settle him down. He said "I go pee on potty" because he wanted to try again. He went in there and within only a minute or two he was able to pee without a single problem.

It appears that Ryan's biggest obstacle to potty-training was not learning to hold his pee, but learning to release it on command. When I think about it, I'm sure that is a strange sensation and a difficult thing to learn to do. He was probably trying to push it out when it actually takes relaxing to get the job done.

We seem to have made it over the hump and are on our way to complete potty-training. Now I look back at all his resistance and I'm pretty sure I now understand why he refused. I think he was afraid that he couldn't pee when he tried. So, he just refused because that was the easiest route. Now that he's met with some success he seems eager to continue trying.

And, as an added benefit AJ enjoys sitting on his little potty the whole time Ryan sits on the big one. He definitely seems amazingly interested so I'm cautiously optimistic that Ryan was the hardest and it'll be easier from here on out. Oh and Paige is still staying dry all night!!

That was a close one!!!

I thought I was going to post pictures of our trip to the beach, but instead I spent all my time trying fix a huge UHOH!! When I downloaded the pictures to the computer I accidentally erased half of them before getting them on the hard drive. Yes, if you've been reading you know this is my 2nd time to do this. I guess AJ takes after me in that neither of us learns from our mistakes after only once. The first time I did this it was no big deal because there were only about 3 pictures and just of Ryan swinging a bat. I can live with losing those pics forever. But, when I realized I had lost 2 whole days of beach pictures I was absolutely disgusted with myself. I literally had to fight back tears over my loss. After exhausting all the possible "easy" solutions I was just about to hang my head and go to bed with the knowledge that I had lost all those pictures forever.

I just couldn't walk away without searching the internet for answers, though. The thought crossed my mind that there's no way I'm the first dummy to make this mistake and if it's a common BAD mistake then there just HAS to be someone out there who knows how to fix it. I came across an pcworld article describing a software called file rescue plus. I downloaded the free trial version just to see if it would work. I can't even describe in words how excited I was to see those images that I thought were gone forever pop up on the list of *possibly* recoverable files. My heart was broken when I saw "poor" as the prognosis for actually recovering all my precious pictures. But, just seeing those images gave me hope that there really was a way to get them back.

And now, 40.00 and 2 hours later I'm so proud to say I am posting a link to our pictures in this entry. I'll come back and do some "storytelling" about the pictures tomorrow when I'm significantly less stressed. Right now I'm just exhausted in every way. I had to spend 40.00 to unlock the full version of the software in order to actually retrieve my pictures. That's pretty smart of them--give you a free trial just so you can look at what it is you're so desperate to get back. I'm actually surprised they don't charge more because desperate people tend to resort to desperate measures.

You can click here to see all those pictures that I will now NEVER forget! The ones that were lost are all the pictures of them actually playing IN the water and sand. The pictures of them in their regular clothes were taken on Friday night when we took the kids over just to "say hi to the beach". I just happened to erase all the ones from Saturday and Sunday which, of course, were some of my absolute favorites.