Bedtime Shenanigans...

So, Aidan was always easy to put to bed. He has two speeds: on and off. He is so active during the day that falling asleep is never any problem. I was hoping that we would escape the bedtime stalling that seems to plague most houses with small children...

And then we got Gresham.

Gresham was recently potty-trained just shy of age 3 1/2. I thought the day would never come! Now that he is wearing underwear, even at night!, he likes to get up to go potty about 47 times before falling asleep. Seriously, he can get up 5 times in 30-45 minutes and sometimes he is still awake at 10:00 p.m. He's very quiet and goes right back to bed, but we are worried about how much sleep he is getting.

This week, he is also giving up his afternoon nap, so we decided to get serious about putting a stop to the bedtime potty trips.

Monday night: Gresham got up. Gresham got up again. Daddy told him that this would be his very last potty trip. Didn't hear from him again.

Tuesday morning: Gresham informed me that his bed was wet because the night before, Dad had told him to only go potty once, and after that to potty in his pants, so he did. I was fairly certain that that was not Dad's intended message. Turns out I was right, and Dad set the record straight after he got home from work.

Tuesday night: Gresham got up. Dad told him that this would be his one and only potty trip.
A few minutes later, I was working on the computer and suddenly sensed the presence of a child standing right behind me. (Gresham does this in the middle of the night, too. I'll be sleeping and then suddenly have this sense that he is standing right next to me. I wake up, and there he is...) Gresham was naked from the waist down. He informed me that he needed clean pants because Dad told him not to get up anymore, and so he had no choice but to potty in his pants. Since it had been about 7 minutes since he last went, I found this hard to believe. Sure enough, he had squeezed out about 3 drops into his pants, and we had to find clean underwear...

Wednesday night: No nap today, and a long day at my school... No potty trips, and Gresham is asleep!!!!

We have a 2nd Grader!

We have successfully finished two days of second grade!

I don't know about him, but I'm totally worn out! Maybe we can call it a year... just kidding.

We are doing some new things this year, and I really like them so far. We're doing Sonlight Core 1+2, which is world history in one year. Our favorite so far, though, is the Apologia science book that we got. It's zoology - birds and insects. It's good stuff with lots of experiments and activities.

Now we just need a nanny to keep Owen out of trouble while we do school, and a maid to do all the cooking and cleaning!

A Shocking Turn of Behavior!

So, I have posted in the past about all our grocery store woes...

The other day, we were at Target, and the boys were acting wild, as usual. I gave them the usual corrective speech. A few minutes later, Gresham started up the silliness again, and Aidan said, "Gresham, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to do what Mom says."

Who is this boy, and what has he done with Aidan??? But, I'll take it!!

My new blog has moved!

My new blog has moved to frugalfun4boys.com!

No blogspot in the URL, otherwise it is the same.

I haven't quite worked out the layout yet, but we're getting there. The learning curve is pretty steep for setting up a new website!

Check it out here, and please pass on the link to anyone who might be interested in this type of blog!

Owen reads... instead of eating the book!

It seems like all kinds of development starts to take place once kids are walking. I was SO hoping this would be the case for Owen (who is into everything) and it seems to be true! He has been walking well for a few weeks now, and he is starting to play with toys more instead of just taking things off shelves and putting everything in his mouth.

The other day, I was reading to the boys before nap time, and after we were done with Owen's books, he took one of them over to the chair and started looking at it! Usually he just tries to eat the pages. Hallelujah!! Progress!! Now if he would just eat his food...

New Blog!

We started a new blog today! I say "we" because the boys are going to help me a lot with this one. We will be blogging about fun activities for boys. Aidan is very excited. He is always bugging me to do crafts or science experiments, so I figured that we will blog about things we have done in the past and new ideas that we'll be trying out!

Click here to see it!

I just bought me a domain name, but I haven't figured out how to get it working... for now it is a blogger address: www.frugalfun4boys.blogspot.com, but hopefully in the next couple days it will move to www.frugalfun4boys.com

Dog Story, Part 4

So we were supposed to get our puppy last Thursday, but...

The breeder let us know a couple weeks ago that our puppy was turning out to be on the smaller side and was a really timid guy, probably because he was the smallest in the litter. Cavachons are outgoing dogs in general, so we decided with the breeder that it would be best if they kept him an extra week and put him with younger puppies to see if he would come out of his shell a little. Well, we called Tuesday night to check on him, and they said that some boys had been in to play with the puppy that they are taking home in three weeks. Our puppy was with that litter. While the boys were there, they tried to pick up our puppy, and he yelped and was very bothered. They said that they have never seen a puppy be so afraid of heights, and that he's also bothered by loud noises. Definitely not the dog for us...

The picture at the top is the dog that we are getting instead! He is going to be bigger (probably 15-16 lb. as an adult) and he is already more outgoing even though he is three weeks younger.

We are supposed to get him around August 26th. We're all disappointed about the wait, but that will give this heat wave time to go away.

Any name suggestions? We had named the other puppy Crockett, and now we're not sure if we should call this one Crockett? Or choose a new name?

Toy Story 4, or also titled "An Afternoon with the Boys"

It was a lazy summer afternoon. The toys were in Andy's room, minding their own business and playing a round of the Memory Game. They were playing for Mr. Potato Head's hat.

Little did they know... some evil bad guys were scheming to capture Sheriff Woody! One of them looked like a police officer, but he was definitely no good guy!

And they knew to never trust a monkey with an ax!

The bad guys quickly overpowered them, and it looked like Woody was a goner! This was a job for Evil Dr. Porkchop!!! Unfortunately, Aidan had talked himself out of buying Evil Dr. Porkchop with his birthday money!

Buzz Lightyear to the rescue! (insert laser noises here) Take that, bad guy!!

Buzz, are you okay?
Whew, the coast is clear.

Until Big Baby came along!!! Help! He's slobbering on the toys!

Big Baby is rearranging Mr. Potato Head!! Help!! Buzz, we need you again!