MOM

Alder has taken to starting to call me MOM. Not Mommy, or Momma just plain old MOM. It sounds like a 13 year old with such contempt in her voice. UGH. Why is my baby growing up and why is she calling me MOM??? I want to go back to the days of Mommy.

Advent Calendar

Grandma got the girls Advent Calendars again this year. It is the same kind we had as kids. You open a little door nightly and you get a little chocolate. I remember them being taped to the side of the fridge in our kitchen by the basement door. Cole and I both so very excited for our piece of chocolate every night. Yum!! The girls are the EXACT SAME WAY!!

snow angels

They don’t have the same kind of effect but that does not phase the girls. They are enamored with kids on Frosty the Snowman making snow angels. So they are constantly laying down on the carpet and making “snow angels.”

too early for me

On Thanksgiving Day our Christmas tree when up, even before the turkey was dropped in the hot oil. We were given a fake tree from some friends so we needed to check to make sure all the pieces and parts were included. It only took about 10 minutes and it is all lit and so pretty. It is bigger than we normally buy, but for free how can i complain? So Sunday instead of going out shopping with money I don’t have, instead I stayed home and got out all the decorations and decked the halls. I did not get the tree trimmed that is still in the box to be done maybe this upcoming weekend but the rest of the house is Christmas ready.

dog house

Friday after thanksgiving our friends had a horrible incident. While they were out of state their back shed caught on fire. The fire marshal believes that their neighbors threw a lit cigarette into the trash and that is was ignited the flame. That spread to the fence from there lit the plastic kayak, then the shed that blew out the window and burnt the roof. Lucky the firemen/women did an amazing job and saved the house. We were called because our friends were out of state to take care of their three dogs. Thankfully with Chopper being blind we were able to keep the dogs on the back porch with minimal drama. The girls were in love with the idea of having 4 dogs. We kept reminding that they were not keeping them. We ended up with the littlest of the dogs for almost 3 days. The girls will be sad tonight when they go home and she is not there.

pull up

After Adler turned three and we had to make a mad dash out to buy more diapers, we had a talk. That she is now a big girl and we really needed to stop wearing diapers at bedtime. I know this is mostly my fault as I did not want to deal with it and have to clean up the dozens of messes. Unlike her sister who was potty trained in less than two weeks. Rigby was great and had very few accidents. Adler, on the other hand, took months and there were multiple accidents at home and school. She was still waking up in the morning with a completely full diaper. So I left the diaper (only at bed) last way longer than it probably should have. It has now been weeks since Alder has had an accident at school, she had a dry diaper a few times in the morning, and she turned three. So we started telling her that she really needs to be a big girl and stop wearing a diaper. We put the pull up on and put the potty chair in the bedroom for late night potties. She has been doing it now for 4 days and no accidents. I think she was finally ready and that is what is making this a success rather me trying to force her to do it earlier. She had had to get up normally about 5am to pee. She goes in the potty, but instead of going back to sleep for another hour she comes in and wakes me up. She wants me to clean it up right away and then thinks it is breakfast time. I try to get her to snuggle but that normally only lasts about 20 minutes before she is full blown restless and I have to get up and start the day. Ugh. Keep your fingers crossed that we continue to have success and we can hopefully drop the pull ups soon. ***update since this was originally written. she has had one accident now. I still think that is really good.***

homework folder

Rigby has a homework folder (see her post.) Alder normally gets very annoying once we try to sit and do Rigby’s homework. I have to sit next to Rigby and read the instructions on most pages. So I guess Adler thinks I am ignoring her. So to help combat this I have printed out a dozen or so “homework” papers off the internet for her. I put them in a folder and now she too has homework. Most of hers are coloring papers. Some have some matching, but I try to make them instruction free as I have to dedicate the time to Rigby. She does a great job. She sits still and concentrates and works though each paper scribbling on all of them. She does it with a multitude of colors and really tries to cover the entire character outlines. I know she is not to the step to be able to color in the lines but I am impressed that she works hard to make sure the outlines are all covered and now is using lots of colors to accomplish this. I think this will bode well for her later when she really does have to do homework. We will see.