It's a Miracle!

Finally! I'm so excited I have to share. After trying to get C to use the bathroom for more than a year now, yesterday he decided he was potty trained. He wanted underwear, no pull ups. And he just went to the bathroom when he needed to. He just decided he was down with the whole bathroom thing. It's about time!!!!

Just call her Klutzy K!

How do you spell kama kazi? I spell it just plain K. So on Thursday, I am playing with C and B (the neighbor girl we love to have come over!) and K bounces off the couch and into the coffee table. I knew it was bad when I heard it. Remember, head wounds bleed. A lot. I am trying not to panic and think of how I can get K to the ER with C and B when I can't move my hand off her eyebrow and I am one carseat short. Luckily, my sweet and wonderful, brand new neighbor, CJ, came to the rescue, and K stopped bleeding enough to put her in the carseat. Seven stitches later, she is ready to go again! It barely phased her. She is still climbing on everything. This morning, I heard her calling from the boy's room and went in to find her up on top of the bunk beds! So, if you are keeping count: at 5 months, a broken femur; at 9 months, a broken nose; and at 15 months, her first head wound. I can only hope it will be her last.

BOO!

Happy Halloween! We had a great time with our little magician, knight, and fairy princess.

Ty has been practicing the magic tricks that Grandpa R and Daddy taught him. He even did the ole' "quarter in the ear" trick for his class at school.

C had serious reservations about wearing a cape (you know what happens to superheroes who wear capes in "The Incredibles."), but after Grandma C made it, and T....and Mom....and K....and, yes, even Daddy, wore it and showed him how cool it was; well, now he wants to wear it all the time.

K is obsessed with tutus. How did we get such a girly girl? She loves hair bands and bracelets and clothes and...tutus. Grandma C bought her this adorable black and orange one to wear just for fun before Halloween. She brings it to T or me and throws it at us until we put it on her. Who knew one-year-olds could have such opinions on their wardrobes?

Anyway, the kids came back with quite the load of candy (it will take months to go through, seriously). We had lots of fun with our friends and neighbors. Hope you did too!

So, here is the scariest part of our Halloween. On Thursday, T takes his truck in to have the brakes checked. They work on it for a bit and then tell him he is ready to go, so he hops in and starts to head down State Street. As he is making a right onto 800 North, the back left tire falls off, gets caught in the wheel well, then the truck goes up and over the tire, crushing the back fender. T (who was wondering what in the world was happening) looked up just in time to see the wheel rolling out into the intersection. The guy who worked on the brakes forgot to tighten down the lugs with the impact gun. Oh, also, the crash caused the right side back tire to break off all but two of its lug nuts. He had to leave his truck in the intersection and run back to the shop for help! Needless to say, T did not come home happy. The shop is going to fix it, of course, and do the brakes for free, considering everything. Oh, and our washing machine broke (seriously, when it rains, it pours).

Finally...House Pics

I've been telling my cousin in Alabama for months that I would post some pics of our new house. Finally, I remembered to take some! Sorry it took so long Tami! So this is K's room, C and Ty's room, the kids bath, the entry, and our kitchen/great room. T did all of the moldings and casings and beams and mantels and even the curved rail on the stairs. I call him my wood wizard. I ask for crown molding, he does it! Magical! I'll post some of the pirate playroom and the basement when they don't actually look like a toy bomb went off. We are loving the new house. It's a little bigger and has a much bigger yard (which is full of mountain concrete. While the rest of the state complains about having clay soil, we complain about having rocks with a tiny bit of dirt in between), which we will finish when the snow melts. We are still in the same ward and have great neighbors and new people are filling in the empty houses and lots all the time. The market really is starting to come back!

T's Big Booboo!

So last Saturday, T went biking up at Sundance with our neighbors. On the last run of the day, after valiantly staying up on his bike the entire time, T hits a rock and flies over the handle bars (with his feet still in the stirups, no less) right underneath the chair lift. Everyone got a good view of his biff and said it was spectacular! Thank Heaven for bike helmets. That night I come home from Women's Conference to find him in the same position on the couch that I left him in, and, of course, the kids are running wild without dinner or bed. He can barely breath, so I make him go down to the emergency room. Gratefully, nothing broken, but from his hip to his arm pit is one giant bruise, and he has been loopy on painkillers all week. I'd post a pic, but it is TOO gross. Image a giant blood blister down your side with lots of green and black bruises around it. Pretty, eh. Needless to say, thanks Eric for picking him up from the emergency room so late at night, but T can't play with you any more unless you promise to bring him home in one piece!

Yeah School!

After two years of C asking why Ty could go to school, but not him, C started school at the LRSH! He was terrified the first day and kept telling me he didn't really need to go to school, but now he loves it. He asks every morning if it is a preschool day. He loves Sister R and thinks it is so neat that he can see her at church too.

Ty is starting to settle into first grade. He is really starting to like his teacher and is getting used to the all day schedule. He did great on his spelling test last Friday too.

K is offically walking! I know, I know! How can she be that old? But she has been toddling all over the place for about two weeks now. She claps for herself after she falls down. Ty and C are her personal walking coaches. They love having her walk between the two of them.

First Day of School!

Ty started first grade today! He had a great day learning about school lunch and recess on the "big" kid playground. He is already bored because they have to spend the first little while reviewing last year, but I think he will like it eventually. We did have one small terrifying expericence this afternoon when I went to pick him up...he never came out. After about 45 minutes the principal decided it would be appropriate to look in the other first grade classrooms (I was ready to kill these people; my baby was lost and they were nearly zero help). Finally, trying not to be hysterical, I said I was going to drive home and see if he had gone home with a neighbor. He was dragging himself up the hill. I'm sobbing and all he can think about is that he is hot and he wants a drink!

What do you mean summer is OVER?

So we are gearing up and getting ready to go back to school. We went school shopping with Grandma C on Friday after a final summer romp at the Children's Garden Fountain at TP (the kids are tired of setting up the pool in the driveway because of our lack of grass at the new house. However, this will soon be remedied as we are putting in the front yard right now). T met his teacher,
Mrs. H, Friday morning and is excited that some of the kids from last year will be in his class again. C is still refusing to use the bathroom despite the fact that he is starting preschool in soon. So I guess that means I will continue to drag him kicking and screaming to the bathroom every two hours until he gives up and stops telling me that he can't go on the toilet because he is, "just a little boy, not a big boy." K has discovered that she can go up stairs! This of course preceeds the realization that eventually she will have to come back down the stairs (please refer to January 31, when she fell down the stairs with Mom and broke her femur).