A year later

Iam so embarassed to admit that it's been over a year since I've last written about my children. Or should I say Spiderman and the princess. I suppose that's what a full time teacher, mom, and grad student will do. Time gets sucked away without any time to wonder where it went. A recap of the last month. Sadie is all about learning. Books. writing in her journal that grandma flatherty bought. she's a good mommy to her babies, all over her room, setting up baby cribs, high chairs, and changing outfits, and diapers. Sadie also loves markers, adding and subtracting. and yogart? Yup, a new found love for yogart. No grey pants need apply. Sadie hates the color grey. As we shopped in target one dayI asked sadie if she would like a pair of cheap and cute purple pants. Sadie agreed, and I mentioned a pair of grey pants she refuses to wear. "mom i'll wear those, I just hate the color grey" Well there ya go Sade. Where do I begin about Captain America? The best $20 I've ever spent was his Captain America costume for Halloween. Everyday. and I mean every day, he wears it.THe minute we get home from school, his clothes fly off and his costume comes on. "get my back mom" i hear before my feet have even hit the kitchen floor. Reider's new obession is 'inja turtles. Great. more cartoons that fight. when reid isn't jumping off furniture or pretending to wield numchucks, he's asking us to read an avenger'sbook. super heros are his life. in fact, the one way I can get him to behave is to threaten to take off his costume. "Super heroes don't act naughty reid"

december 2011

i am not sure why i ever doubted that reid would catch on to potty training but when he wasn't walking or even sitting up at nine months i guess i just assumed.
last weekend i had a couple days in between regular school and studying for finals and we (meaning sadie and I) decided to see if reid would want to try potty training. I really didn't think it would work but once i introduced the idea that he would get a piece of candy when he went and sadie would get one too it was like wild fire. within a few hours he was going almost every 10 minutes. what a stink!! he really puts his mind to something and off he goes. our little ham bone is just that, always trying to make people laugh. just yesterday when i was disciplining him for doing something he made a funny face and started laughing at me trying not to smile and laugh at him. he uses low and high voices to talk, i didn't think a two year old knew how to use that much inflection in his voice. he is also very good and hilarious (in his own mind)at knock knock jokes. reid:knock knock me: who's there? reid:banana me:banana who reid: something completely inaudible then hysterically laughing. me: ummmm
sadie: our sweet girl is four! i can't even believe it! sadie is super into glitter, glue, markers, and paper. the girl can work for hours and hours on a project. we've started to call her ke$ha. she's in a new room now and struggling a bit with the transition. her new teacher is so sweet and she knows so many of the kids in her room but it's a huge change from the last room. sadie still loves helping me with cookies, baking, and is a great egg cracker. our new fun activity during christmas is elf on a shelf. she named him boysara (yes pronounced boy-sara) and we have so much fun finding him every morning when she wakes up. sadie is always up for anything, loves to dust, clean, and wipe things down (whose child is she?!?)
we are so blessed and lucky to have such wonderful kiddos

what's cookin ma?

"whatcha doing mom"
"Mom can you color with me?"
"Mom a drink please?"
"Mom watch me be so brave!"
"Mom shirt off!"
"Mom when's halloween?"
"mom a willie doing?"
"mom can we watch a show?"
"mom up-a"

life is so busy and blessed at our house. the kids and i have been spending so much time together since josh's work schedule has been so crazy and hectic. these fall days are spend kicking leaves, trying on our Halloween costumes over and over, and putting away all our summer clothes. life is a lot hectic but still busy. we make meals together, have dance parties, fold clothes, color, and take walks. we've been picking up lots of leaves outside and even carved pumpkins at grandma and grandpa flaherty's house.
sadie is a big help in the kitchen. yesterday as we made meatloaf she did most of the work (besides the onions) chopping the celery, pouring in the egg, cornflakes, and ketchup, and getting her hands dirty mushing up the meat and other ingredients. i had heard once that the earlier you can include kids in the kitchen, even using a knife the more comfortable they will be later. it's all about life skills baby. now reid wants in on the action. and although it was a terrible mess, i did let him try to crack and egg for cookies the other day. oops! :)
reiders new thing is to take of all his clothes and run away from me as he pees on the floor. lovely. at least he is realizing when he has to pee, if only he would sit on the potty. he will go over to it and pretend to pee, laugh then run away and pee on the floor. boys! :)hes going through a milk phase right now where every 30 minutes or so he is veraciously parched for milk and if you don't get it for him right away he screams. boys. he also sleeps on a mattress on the floor right now until we can get him a big boy bed. he was climbing out of his crib and waking sadie up. bed time is a little (a lot) more challenging. as we try to do prayers and settling down at night the kids only seem to wind up. we will keep working on it.

we are just having so much fun together and its even better when josh can be there to spend it with us.
i'm so blessed.

the two comedians.

two funny things that have happened in the last day with my kiddos.
as we were driving home last night, this was the conversation sadie and i had
sadie: mommy?
me: yes sadie
sadie: can we put on squirrel costumes and climb stuff
me: (stunned) umm sure?

reid and i were sitting on the couch
me: reid let's get ready for bed
reid: no
me: yes reider we need to go upstairs
reid: whaat? (like he was surprised)
me: okay punkin head
reider (as he is running away): KATIE!

my two kids are so funny and sure to keep me on my toes :)

in a matter of minutes..

as i was ready to take a shower i brought reid into the bathroom with me because he can cause lots of trouble when he is not being supervised. what trouble could reid possibly get into while i'm taking a shower? after an approximate six minute shower i pull back the curtain and find reid has unrolled the fresh roll of toilet paper almost to the end spreading it across the entire length of the bathroom (which in his defense is n't that long) he was up on the toilet with the tube of toothpaste in his mouth sucking on it, the sink water was turned on and water almost filled to the top of the sink.
he keeps me on my toes, that's for sure.
reiders vocabulary has improved instrumentally in the last few weeks. he is saying short sentences. the best part is since i am home with him more now we are able to work on his vocabulary and do more "school" type activities, reading, letters, numbers, songs, etc. unfortunately the influences around him also are seeping in with words like "spongebob" "pop" "remote" "poop" hmm.. i wonder who he spends time with.. :)
sade continues to grow and change and learn. her sassiness is coming out more, the head roll when she says "i know" or "whaat?" when i tell her she needs to make her bed. we recently discovered that when sadie wakes up in the morning she sometimes will stay in her bed and look at books until reid wakes up. (they are sleeping right next to each other now that reid can climb out of his crib. reid was climbing out and getting into bed with sadie and waking her up in the middle of the night so we put their mattresses on the floor for the meantime)
a few weeks ago we were walking into her class at daycare and we walked by a bulletin board of the things that make her class happy, mad and sad. sadie's answers were" I feel happy "when I give mommy dandelions" I feel mad "when mom pours water on my head when I take a bath" and I feel sad "when mommy goes to work" (which isn't true anymore since i'm not working :) it was so cute anyways. sadie is still in her twirling dress and skirt phase but we have been able to convince her to wear pants in the last few days.
we are so grateful for the opportunities to be able to spend more time together as a family now. it's been such a blessing.

as much as it pains me to say it my reider is growing up.
thinking about where i was a year ago, it makes me rejoice thinking this is our reality. but he's EVERYWHERE. climbing on the counters, climbing on the toilet. climbing on our bed. climbing out of his crib. it seems likle in the last week we noticed more and more words and mannerisms coming through. yeling "surprise" "peek a boo" sitting at the counter for meals now instead of his high chair. he even started calling grandma by grandma. i'm always reminded of how quickly life changes, how each day is a very special gift. i have the joy to be home with my kids during the day. work for josh has dramatically increased. i never quite feel like i am doing the best job i can be as a mother and it's not an easy job.
thank you jesus for the time we all get to spend together. :)

it seems almost overnight reider is using more and more words. perhaps it's the fact that we are spending lots of time together right now or that he really is breaking through but it's been so cool to listen and see him change even over the last few months. in the morning when i get him from the crib he demands two things, waffles which sounds like "wah-wah" and a diego which i really can't even try to pronounce because it sounds nothing like diego other than the d sound at the beginning. sometimes he will ask for something, we won't know what it is, i will say a word i think it might be and he will say no. mind you, he says no for everything even if it's right. you can see how this can be confusing. he's begun shaking his head.
he's such a stink but so cuddly and silly. at any time he could be seen walking with up to two blankets at the same time.
i am finding out just how adventerous our reider is. today he was standing on the coffee table and he looked at me, shuffled his feet and fell straight forward assuming that i would catch him, which i did but holy crap it scared me. he has no fear. he also tried to climb down the 8 ft climbing wall. what a stinker.
did i mention that as we were outside on monday afternoon reid took my phone off a ledge and ran straight for the pool, jumped in waterlogging my phone.

sadie is making her television debut on sunday evening. both sadie and reider had swimming lessons this summer and sadie's teacher was hard core. i wasn't sure what to expect when we signed up but she's been so great, she's totally upfront and strict. we love her. the rules for class are: 1. no running 2. nothing in your mouth 3. no crying 4. no saying no.
everynight lately we've been saying the hail mary. the other night as we were over at my parents house i said sadie what do we say "holy (and the next word is supposed to be mary) and sadie said "buckets!!" ha ha ha it was so funny. our sweet girl has so much personality. it's all about skirts, diego, and has started really liking and carrying around a baby. the baby's name varies from bridget or stella to others.
we've been baking a lot, sadie's really been helping. more pics to come!