O Christmas Tree

Happy Thanksgiving!! I hope you’re all having a great one! We usually don’t decorate the Christmas tree until after Thanksgiving,but we bought a new tree this year when we bought our oven. The boys have been wanting to put it up ever since we brought it home so last Saturday we finally gave in.

Jonas upset about something. LOL I love this face!!

Jonas helping fluff the branches.

Brynnan doing some fluffing:)

And me too! This picture Mark took so that everyone knows I do more than just take pictures:)

The boys are so creative! They used the boxes of lights as their cameras to take pictures of the tree. Just like Mommy:)

The boys took turns helping Daddy with the lights. They felt so important!!

Brynnan loved hanging all the red ornaments together:)

Daddy helped Brynnan hang some ornaments up higher on the tree.

This is what the front bottom looked like when the boys were done hanging the ball ornaments! I think it looks great:)

Hanging Candy Canes

And the final touch, which the boys had to help with, of course:)

Mark had to put the boys down to get it to stay up. LOL

It was a lot of fun doing it together that night. I Love having the kids help us! Mark took some awesome pictures with all the lights off, but I couldn’t find them so I’ll have to get him to take more when we get home:)

Time with Daddy

The boys love spending time with Daddy! Usually that means watching him play a video game, playing a video game with him or wrestling. Wrestling with Daddy is one of Brynnan’s favorite things to do! Mark gets very worn out after doing this!:) Well, my mom sent Jonas a gift card for his birthday so he could pick out a present for himself. So last Thursday, almost a month after his birthday, I finally took the boys to Wal-mart to let Jonas pick out a toy. Can you guess what he bought?:) He picked out a game for his leapster 2! So at least this game had educational value. I was surprised at the one he picked out! He had been talking about buying Monsters vs. Aliens, but Mark and I kept warning him that they might not have it there so he decided he wanted a Wall-e game before we got there. Looking at all the games made him change his mind and he decided on Go, Diego, Go! They had a Dora game too, but Diego won this time. LOL

He begged me to open it when we got to the car, but I told him he could wait the 2 minute drive to our house and open it there. He waited, very reluctantly. I couldn’t believe how excited he was. After he played the dragon game for a couple weeks I guess he was ready for some FUN! LOL So I opened it when we got home and he played it for about 3 hours straight. Brynnan was so jealous!

Showing the game to daddy and letting him play.

Jonas giving Daddy a helping hand:)

Mark making an angry face at me. LOL

Jonas was upset as well…

But Brynnan was a happy camper:)

Wrestle time…

Daddy got away!!…

Not for long though!!

Brynnan sure loves his Daddy!!

The boys LOVE to climb all over Mark, if you couldn’t tell:) He is often yelling for me to help him. I don’t usually oblige until he’s been calling for me for quite a while. Usually, if I help him early on he’ll lay back down on the floor and there will be another dogpile. Wrestling is a Daddy thing, not a mommy thing! HEhe Besides, I think secretly he likes it . LOL

Potty Trained…Kind of…

I don’t even remember when we started potty training Brynnan but it feels like FOREVER!!! It has been long and rough. The only thing that has come easy is night time. The first couple days I had him wear pull ups to bed and they would be totally SOAKED in the morning! Then one night I grabbed new underwear for him to wear to bed, without even thinking about it and he’s stayed dry every night ever since!! It was amazing! He has had about 3 accidents at night and one of those times was at Mark’s parents house so it was just a different situation for him.

He started out peeing his pants all the time and gradually got out of doing that. Now he’s started peeing a little in his underwear and then holding it until he can get to the potty. This is mainly because he has learned that he can HOLD his pee for an unreasonable amount of time!! Seriously, he’ll go to the bathroom before bed at 8 pm, wake up and eat breakfast at 6am and go potty somewhere around 6:30 am. If it’s a school day he’ll go to school at 7:30 and get home about 10:50. He will tell me that he didn’t go potty at school at all!! so that’s 4 hours between potty breaks!! That’s gotta be unusual and not very healthy, right? But I don’t know what to do. When we first started training him we could make him go pee whenever he did the potty dance, but now we can make him do it or he’ll freak out!! I don’t want to scar him for life, but I want this to be easier on all of us!! On Sunday Mark and I were amazed when we heard him go into the bathroom and do his business without ever calling for us! He never does that. He usually will tell me he has to go and then tell me I have to come with him. UGH!

Also, another thing that is difficult is getting him to pull up his underwear without help! Sometimes he’ll do it just fine, but most of the time he has to lean against me or I have to do it for him. We constantly hear the excuse, ” I HURT!!!” which means he doesn’t want to pull up his underwear and needs someone to do it for him.

Brynnan has a hard time going potty without his potty seat beacause it would go everywhere. Well,we got the advice from Mark’s coworker, to have him sit backwards on the toilet while in public. Great! So while at church and out doing stuff he LOVED sitting on the potty because it was cool to sit backwards. Shortly after we started doing this he adopted doing it all the time:

And yes, he loves to rest his head on the toilet seat lid, which is SO GROSS and I tell him not to do it, but why oh why would he listen to ME?!! I’m only his mother and knows what is good for him and what is not!!

Having him sit this way also makes it hard for him to go potty by himself because I bought his winter wardrobe before we were potty training him. Some of his pants are easy for him to pull off and step out of, but some of them have buttons and zippers and weird clasp thingys:P So I bought him some sweatpants at wal-mart yesterday and he has a few pairs that are elastic wastebands only so I think I’ll start dressing him in those more often. I really want him to start doing it himself!

Oh, and one other thing… we’re kind of an open household. We all pee with the door open, sorry if that’s TMI(LOL!) but it’s true. Apparently it’s too hard to shut the door. Well, since this is the deal, Brynnan thinks it’s ok to flush the toilet, squirt his hands with purrel (I think I’m the worst mom ever. I seriously don’t make him wash his hands with soap and water after peeing anymore. It’s so much of a hassle with him!!) and run out of the bathroom with his underwear and pants around his ankles still. We were babysitting the Heath girls a couple weeks ago and I had to look the door so he wouldn’t do that! LOL And even then I had a hard time getting him to dress himself before leaving the bathroom. He loves to put up a fight to EVERYTHING these days. The stupidest LITTLE thing, like his sock isn’t pulled up all the way and he HAS to pull it up before he takes another step or he will DIE!!!!! No joke!! Megann always tells me how drama filled their lives are with girls…well, it’s no better with boys!! I think kids are just made with drama in their genes or something! LOL

Brynnan still needs work on telling us he needs to go in public. He hasn’t had any accidents in the last couple months because I’ve become a hermit and stay inside all day since it’s gotten so cold. He would have accidents constantly during the summer, and not just pee, lemme tell you!! It was VERY annoying! But I think he’s starting to get the hang of it. Plus he can hold it for a REALLY long time now so he usually can wait until we get home. The last time we were at Burger King he did tell Mark he needed to go potty and so they went. I was totally surprised and proud:) Such a funny thing to be proud about, but that’s what it’s like being a mom! I love it, don’t you?

Ok, so I think I’ve rambled enough about Brynnan…. Jonas is doing great too. When we went to see his urologist in Boise back in October she upped his dosage of Ditropan, which is the medicine he takes to help his bladder not dribble pee all day. So now he takes 1/2 a tsp in the morning and another 1/2 at night. I don’t always remember about the morning dose, but since we got our new phones and I set an alarm every morning and it doesn’t turn off until you make it, he usually gets his morning dose too!:)

Catheterizing him is going about the same. He HATES it and fights me everytime. Usually if I warn him about it well in advance and tell him “the plan” of all the events that will happen after the potty he will be ok with it. But we still do have freak out sessions and mean words said. I get very frustrated with him and threaten him with so many things for him to be good but it never works, probably  because he knows I won’t actually follow through with any of it. I need to learn not to do that, but it’s hard…

Since he’s taking the ditropan more now, it’s helping him hold his pee for a long time! I cath him 3 times a day and he has pretty dry diapers every time!! The only time they’re more wet is in the morning after being a sleep for so long. I need to start cathing him 4 times a day and I’m hoping to start doing that in the next 4 months. I feel like I’ve just barely got 3 times a day down. Now I have to master 4. One of the side affects to this med is constipation, which means he has to be on a laxative and it has been so hard to make it all work! He had diarrhea for a week and then it stopped and so I thought we’d found the right dosage, but then his teacher called me last Wednesday and said that he had had 4 dirty diapers!!! I was like “What??!!” but he hasn’t had any problems this past week so I think we’ve got it figured out.

Now that Jonas is 5 he also qualifies for medicaid to pay for diapers for him! YAY!! I was totally psyched when we got the paper work all filled out at the beginning of this month. I picked up the diapers and brought them home. I  opened up one package and before pulling it out I knew it would be 20 times too big for him!! Would you like to know why??!! Beacause they were ADULT small diapers!! Yes, briefs that could probably fit me!!! SERIOUSLY!! Does medicaid think my 5 year old small boy can fit in those? Who has a 5 year old that could wear something that a small adult should fit in??!!! So I called the Norco guy and was like these won’t fit!! So he told me to get a letter from his urologist stating that Jonas has a lifelong condition and what it is and that he needs to be in diapers, the ones for babies. So, 2 weeks later, I was finally able to pick up the normal size diapers for Jonas. And just in time because we’re almost all out. Now I just hope we can get some more for next month before we run out! LOL Can you tell I’m a cheapo? I’m just glad that it was able to all work out for him to get diapers from Medicaid!!

Here’s the difference between the 2!! CRAZY!!

New Toys

Mark has been wanting an iPhone for a LONG time now. He has been waiting very patiently to get one. I finally gave him the ok last week when I started having to charge my battery on my old phone twice a day! So we now have two new phones. Mark is LOVING his!! Mine is ok. I didn’t get an iPhone since they’re so expensive, plus you have to pay $30 on top of the monthly service charge for the data plan:P My phone was free and I do like it. I’ve always had a phone that flips open so it’s fun having a different kid. This is also the first time we’ve gotten different cell phones. We’ve always had the same ones in the past.

So we’re both enjoying our new phones, but this morning we had quite a scare with the bill! We activated the phones on Nov. 13th and we got a bill this morning in my email saying that we owed $170!!!! And the bill date was for the 13th-15th!! We were like, “WHAT!!” So Mark called them and the guy told him that the first bill comes early and covers the whole first month, plus the activation. We knew it covers activation, but we didn’t know that it came a month early!! Whew. We were totally freaking out.

And the boys are loving their new toys too:) We gave them our old cell phones. Brynnan talks on it all the time!! LOL

So Blessed

I had so many plans for this morning… Laundry, cleaning the house, shopping, tons of stuff to do. Well, I sat down to check my email and some blogs after the boys got on the bus and Mark left for work. I got totally distracted. I was on a friends blog and sometimes I’ll look down their buddy list and click on a few of them(that I don’t know), don’t know why, I just get interested in knowing what other people blog about, I guess.

By doing this I came upon a blog about a family that has lost many babies and had many miscarriages. I’ve been reading that blog for a good while and the trials that this family has gone through. I’ve been balling most of the time because I just can’t believe how well they handled it all. I think, people that have trials like this and others with their kids are just amazing. Yes, we’ve had trials with Jonas and I am so thankful that he is still with us and such a good and sweet boy. I’m glad I get to hold him and love him right now.

I’m so thankful for a loving Heavenly Father who has watched over us the last 5 years and has always been there for us. I’m so thankful that he knows me personally and understands me and has blessed me so much throughout my whole life. I love my Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ so much and am thankful for everything they have done for me!

The Last of the Leaves!

Three Saturday’s ago Mark finally mowed the lawn after a whole month of not doing it! The back yard was filled with TONS of leaves from our trees. He mowed up half of them, but then we ran out of room in the garbage can so he had to stop. He was going to finish mowing them up last weekend, but it was supposed to snow last Tuesday so he had me rake them up that afternoon. Of course it didn’t snow on Wednesday, though!:P

The boys didn’t take a nap that day so when I told them I was going outside to rake the leaves of course Brynnan wanted to come with me! Jonas was contempt watching Star Wars:) Don’t worry, this time I didn’t take 440 pictures! Not even close to it! Maybe about 50. LOL

There were 3 big piles.

Running through the huge piles was so much fun!! UGH! LOL

Brynnan decided he had to run from one end of the big pile to the other end, not cool for me, but tons of fun for him!

I told him to rake up the leaves he spread out everywhere and he actually did it! I think it’s so funny how much he loves to help with tasks like this!! I think it makes him feel like a big boy to help out:)

Of course he had to run through them a bit more before being totally done! LOL I love this kid for his wild antics!:)

It did snow a LITTLE bit on Friday, Saturday and Sunday so it was good that I raked up the leaves. Mark came home that night and I helped him pick up the rest of them. It’s easier to do it with 2 adults and no kids rather than 1 adult and 1 kid! Thanks for your help Mark!! And Brynnan too:)

Ctrl+i

Most of you probably don’t know what Ctrl+i means. Well, in photoshop it means the inverse of an image. So if you have a black & white image and hit control and “i” on the keyboard, everything that was black would turn white  and everything white would turn black. We bought a new oven over the weekend and it’s like we hit Control “i” in photoshop:)

The old:

And the NEW:

Isn’t it gorgeous?!! We decided to buy a brand new oven at Lowes because we had a 10% off coupon from our move. We’ve wanted a flat stove top for a long time but never had the money to buy a new oven or the need for one. I finally got around to claiming all the money from all the trips we’ve taken this past year for Jonas’ surgeries and whatnot (medicaid pays for us to go there and to stay in hotels and for meals, etc. It’s sooo nice!!) The total amount was over $900!! So we spent half of it on this new oven and the rest went into savings. YAY!! I LOVE my new oven!

Since we bought it at Lowes they have free delivery, which is totally awesome! They’ll also haul away your old appliance for you too. We dicided we want to try to sell the old one and get a little bit of money, if we can. The new oven was delivered on Monday the 9th. The guys were really nice and put the old one in the garage for us and hooked up the new one and made sure it was working.

The  old oven took FOREVER to heat up the coils on the stove top. This one, the surface heats up IMMEDIATELY when you turn it on!! Even if it’s just on Low!! Another nice thing about it is that the heating elements inside the oven aren’t exposed, so it makes for easy clean up. Go here and click on the green product demo button to see the inside. It’s awesome and we love it. One kitchen appliance down, only 2 more to go. Oh, not to mention all the other things we want to fix up…. *SIGH*

Bad Habits

I hate that the coat closet in our living room is all the way across the room. This is often what the living room looks like because of that fact:

When we cleaned out the garage on Saturday we found an old coat hanger we haven’t used in years. We hung it up in the kids’ room to reduce the clutter that ends up all over the living room floor. It’s worked pretty well! Now we always know where the kids’ backpacks are and don’t have to hunt for them anymore:)

I took this picture while the kids were at school:)

Fix It Man

Mark has become my fix it man since we’ve moved into this house! It’s really nice! I never thought he would be so DIY, but I was totally wrong. I always suggest calling someone to fix stuff for us, but Mark always gives it a try first. More often then not, he can do it by himself!:)

Last Saturday we decided it was about time to clean the garage and fix the fence in the backyard. The wind was blowing really hard one night last week and the pieces of metal holding it together on one side totally bent up. The fence needs to be totally redone someday, but for now the metal piece will have to do.

See how skewed the fence was?

Brynnan helping Mark hold the fence in place while screwing in the flat piece of metal:)

Brynnan getting more screws for Daddy.

The last nail he screwed in decided it didn’t want to go all the way in and got stripped:P

Taking out the bent up metal on the bottom of the fence.

Flattening the metal so we could reuse it:)

High Five! Brynnan was so glad he could help!

And the finished product. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than it was!!:)

Later on that day Mark took apart our dryer to get all the lint out of the trap. Our clothes wouldn’t dry at all. I was going to call the Sears guy on Monday, but Mark didn’t want to wait for dry clothes! So he fixed it himself! Yay! I love my fix it man!!

Treasure Hunt

One night after dinner a couple weeks ago the boys were bored and wanted something to do. Mark found a piece of cardboard we weren’t using and drew them a treasure map. The boys were so excited to have a tresure to look for! Mark had no idea what the treasure was, all he knew was it lead them to a red X. LOL So we followed treasure map and it led us to the treasure:)