Love

Sometimes amidst the fighting, petty bickering, resistance to anything resembling sharing, and the constant frustration, I find it hard to believe that my children actually love each other. But then there are days like the one that we took these pictures....

These are the days that I remember that they actually DO love each other. And in a way that only siblings can. And I remember how much *I* love these children. And in only a way that a mother can.

A few weeks ago we were driving in the car and Kaelyn said to me, "Mommy - I know that I really do want to live a long and happy life. But if either one of us (meaning Cooper or herself) had to die, I would want it to be me. Because Cooper is young and still has a LOT of his life left to live."

Wow.

I love this time of year

This morning we went to the local Farmer's market (well, one of about six farmer's market around here). I was SO excited to see local strawberries that I bought a whole half flat of them. Not sure how we're going to eat them all, but they are soooooooooooooooo good. And I was told that they were picked at 8am this morning. Can't get much fresher than that!

Anyone want to come over for strawberry shortcake?

It's all about the clothes

Grandma sure has good fashion sense. :) She purchased both these outfits for my kiddos for the summer. I love them! Although I will add that both of them look WAY too grown up for my liking.

Making bread

The kids and I have found that making a simple wheat bread is actually just that. Really simple. Here are some pictures of our first attempt - which has been really our most successful attempt. What I'm loving the most about eating homemade bread is that I know exactly what went into it. I know that it isn't full of hydrogenated oils or extra sugar or whatever it is they put into breads these days. And as you can see from the pictures the kids loved it too (both making and eating it)!

I'm sure you haven't noticed

In case you all haven't realized (ok, who am I kidding, I'm sure you have) that I'm a HORRIBLE blogger. I don't know why I start blogs as I just don't have the time and/or discipline to keep up with them. But enough about that.

The past month has been crazy! I've been working out as much as I possibly can (which means if I could blog while I worked out I could TOTALLY keep up) and as a result have lost 23lbs in the last 7 1/2 weeks. I'm so excited about that although I'm just praying I can keep it up. I've also learned a lot about eating healthier and general lifestyle changes. I still struggle with eating right, but it's coming slowly. I've also lost about two clothing sizes. Which means that I have limited clothes available in my wardrobe. I've been to the Goodwill a couple of times so I at least have pants that will stay up, but the rest of my wardrobe is just going to have to suffer until I'm done loosing the weight. My goal right now (not sure if it's my final goal or not) is to loose about 20 more pounds. Then I'll reevaluate. :) If I can do that - I'll be ECSTATIC!

Enough about me. The kids have been great the last month. Cooper has started REALLY potty training. A little friend of his from our homeschool co-op came to class one day using the potty and I think that motivated him to get moving. LOL He poops almost daily on the potty and only has a few accidents throughout the day when we forget to remind him to use the potty. I'm not pushing him at all and there are days when we just put him back in cloth diapers, but he still does pretty well when we go back and forth like that. Naptime and nighttime are still fully in diapers, but at least we're making progress.

Kaelyn is doing so much better with her reading. We've struggled all year with building her confidence when she is trying to read. Basically, she didn't learn anything in Kindergarten and we had to start from scratch when it came to learning to read. We've used a great program called "Explode the Code" which is a phonics based program. She loves it and I've seen her make huge strides in her reading abilities. I still don't think she is at her grade level for reading, but I'm thankful that it's starting to come. Just this week she has started reading street signs and saying "Mom, what does this say? Sh....ooooo....ppp.....". Which means that she asks me the question and then immediately starts to sound it out. Which shows me that the confidence in her reading skills are starting to kick in. For that I'm grateful!

We haven't really "done" a lot recently so I don't have any really interesting pictures to show, but I'll post some anyways. LOL

At the YMCA Easter Egg hunt

Coloring Easter Eggs at home

I think Jeff was teaching Cooper how to do crunches. LOL

Cooper's new hat. It matches his best friend, Paul's hat. :)
We had to take this picture because we thought it was so funny that he fell asleep with a pile of animals while reading Noah's Ark.
Measure twice, cut once.
New big boy underpants!