New Friends, New Tricks

Daphne, Ryan, Sebastian

If you have read my blog since the beginning you will know I have a Facebook Group of ladies known as the Bahama Mamas. They are ladies that were all due the same week that Daphne was due. These ladies are great, strong and encouraging women. It has always been so nice to be able to talk to real moms whos kids are the same age as mine. Monday we finally got to meet a couple of them that live here in the area. It was so fun to get to get out and talk with grown ups and the kids had a great time.

The rest of the week was spent at home continuing to potty train Daphne and I am so proud to say she is a potty trained girl!!! She goes all by herself even being able to pull on and off her undies. She is still in diapers at night, but she often wakes up with a dry diaper so it may not be to much longer before she is out of them completely. I can't even say how proud I am of her. 

Quentin turned five months on Friday and I'm glad to say he is doing well. We have started to feed him baby food. He is also getting a little more balance and I think he may be sitting up pretty soon. He has discovered his feet and its so cute when he grabs them. The two kids are so cute together when they play. They love to play peek-a-boo together and I love to watch them. He has regressed a little in the sleeping department. He was sleeping through the night, but has started waking up two or even three times at night. This makes it hard to get through the day, but I have gotten to take a nap a couple days, but it always seems to short.

Finally I'm doing it!

One of my goals for this year was to write on my blog every week on Sunday. Well that hasn't happened, at least not the Sunday part. Today I'm doing it though. I haven't before because the previous two Sundays we have been on trips. Its not a good excuse, but its an excuse. 

After getting home on Monday we haven't done much...haha. I have been trying to potty train Daphne. The first day was horrible, but it got better until I started making her wear underwear. We may have to revert to a nude bottom, but I think she will get it soon.

Yesterday we headed out after cleaning up the house and went to a new mall. It was nice, but a little far. The only reason we went out there was for $1 Burritos at Cafe Rio!

I had gotten an email from a lady at church and I could have sworn it was for Chipolte, but when we were pulling up Johnny looked at the ad and said it was for Cafe Rio. I was so excited. I like Chipolte, but in my opinion Cafe Rio is WAY better. I didn't even know they had them out here. It has been years since I have gotten to eat there so I was a happy girl. 

We took Johnny to the airport again this morning for another interview. This time he is in Des Moines, Iowa. We will see how it goes. Wish him luck!

Last week

Last week went by so. After we got home from Michigan Johnny only went to school for one day and then it was back on the road for him. He left for Jonesboro, Arkansas Thursday morning.  We didn't do much while he was gone, but we did run a few errands including getting our breaks fixed while we had the car. We picked him up super late  Friday night. It was nice to have him back the next day so I could get us all ready and packed for the next interview. Sunday morning we headed up to Somerset, New Jersey. I love being able to go with him to interviews so I can see the city. New Jersey was the last one I get to see so I am a little sad about that. We drove home Monday after he was done with his interview. I love road trips. It's always so fun to sit and talk and listen to music and books. Our next road trip will be our move to our new home! 

Life in the new year

I am way behind in this post. I meant to post on the 1st. When I missed that I wanted to do it on Sunday and missed that to, but better late than never...right?

Quentin turned four months right before Christmas. He is the sweetest baby. He has the best laugh and is pretty ticklish. He still loves to be held all the time which means I'm making dinner to the sound of a sad baby, but other than that he is a happy baby. He is starting to grab things and we have been practicing sitting up with him. He also seems very interested in the food we eat so we have been giving him tastes of real food.

After Christmas we spent our time playing with our new toys. Daphne definitely loves the train set she got as well as her stuffed triceratops aptly named "Tops". We have enjoyed all the card/board games we got. Its so nice to have some games that don't need other people to play them with. 

Johnny hasn't had to go to the hospital very much since Christmas which has been fun. New Years Eve we had our sparkling cider and lucky pickled pigs feet. We watched about 5 minutes of the "Ball Drop" and it was horrible. Not worth all the junk to watch the ball drop for 10 seconds. 

 

On New Years Day we headed down to D.C. Johnny has really wanted to see the Holocaust Museum. So we went there and then headed over to the American History Museum as well. It was nice to take things slow while we were there. We usually are rushing to hit everything in one day, but we were there just to waste time and it was a lot of fun.

After a couple days of work we headed north for Michigan for Johnny's interview in Brighton. I'm so glad we left a day early. We got to go stay with the Price's which was a joy! I love Katie and we had a good time playing games and talking. We did get there later than planned on Saturday because one of our tires blew out. We did beat the storm though. After hanging out on Sunday we drove over from their house to the hotel in Brighton. The storm was going pretty strong by this time so the drive was long and slow. At the hotel we just relaxed and stayed warm. Monday morning we dropped Johnny off and then just went back to the hotel instead of roaming the town like I wanted to. It was just to cold and to snowy to be out roaming around. We headed home once we picked up Johnny, but we didn't get very far with all the snow on the road. We ended up staying the night in Columbus. We woke up to another flat tire the next morning. So after getting the car repaired, again, we drove the rest of the way home. 

Life is going to be crazy for the rest of the month while Johnny finishes up his interviews. He will be gone a lot since he still has five interviews. We will miss him, but I know it will be worth it. Can you believe he will be a Doctor in three months! I can't wait for him to accomplish his dream and to find out where we are going to be living.  

I LOVE Christmas!!!

We had the best week (and a half)! It started Friday morning picking up Joey. We always have such a great time with him. He was a surprise for Daphne and she was...but not as surprised as Johnny was when he saw his dad sitting in our car when we picked him up from school! Joey, Mary and I did quite a bit of scheming to get him here with out Johnny knowing, but it was so worth it. 

The kids had such a great time with Papa and Uncle Joe! Saturday we went to D.C. to be tour guides. We started our very early morning at the White House. I was pretty excited about this. Its one of the things on my bucket list to visit the White House at Christmas and thanks to Joey we got to. John didn't get to see it because we didn't submit his name in time. 

It was so pretty especially with all the decorations, but a lot smaller than I thought it would be. We got to take pictures too, which is normally not allowed. The rest of the day was spent going to the typical places. We were all pooped by the end of the day.

Sunday was the main event! We blessed Quentin. I actually heard what Johnny said this time and it was so great to have family there.

We were all sad when John had to leave Monday. I think he was the most sad though. I know it was the best Christmas gift we could give him, to see his grand kids and to get to help bless his first grandson. On our way back from the airport we stopped at the temple to see the lights. It was beautiful and I loved getting to see the nativity scenes from around the world. 

The rest of the week we spent playing games and hanging out. Christmas day was full of fun. Daphne loved her gifts and I think Joey and I both felt spoiled. Johnny is such a giver. He loves to give gifts! 

It was a sad day when Joey left too. We went and met Lindsay (Joey's girlfriend) down in Richmond. We had lunch with her and then it was time to say goodbye. Daphne cried for a good ten minutes. She kept saying she wanted to see "Joey and Lindsay NOW". It broke my mommy heart. 

Little Projects

So I have been doing a few little projects to keep myself busy and thrifty.  Besides the ones here I finally stitched Quentin's name into his quilt. 

I found this awesome wrapping paper at Target and was so sad when I ran out of it when I was wrapping gifts. I had a few scraps so decided to.....

.....make some ornaments with them. I just started collecting lids from jars and cover those with the paper. I think they are cute and have helped to round out our tree. I get so excited when we finish a jar of something because it means I get to add another ornament to our tree.

 I also made salt dough ornaments. I should have thought this one through a little more. Once I rolled out the dough I realized I didn't have anything to cut them out with. (I have cookie cutters, but they are some where in a box in Colorado...no help here.) So I used a knife. My stars turned out a little wonky, but you can't really tell on the tree. Maybe next year I will toss these out and make new ones. I also made one for Daphne to paint, and one for Quentin's foot and one for Johnny and I to decorate.

My big project was this changing table. I found it outside our apartment in a pile of dressers and book shelves that looked pretty "used", but the table was redeemable. The top was coming off one of the legs so I glued that. Then after a little spray paint and some fabric it turned out like this...

I'm pretty happy with the result. I think the total cost was about $20. So worth it! I can't believe how nice it is not to have to get down on the ground to change the kiddos little bums. I am also using it for toy storage. Daphne's toys are no longer sprawled all over the floor in her room. They are nicely tucked away on her shelves. Win Win!

Thanksgiving....plus a week.

We had a great Thanksgiving and I hope you did too. Johnny was done on Tuesday so we got a really long weekend with him, which is always fun. I spent all day on Wednesday prepping for the big turkey day. I like doing this because it makes Thursday so much easier and I get to enjoy spending the time with my family instead of in the kitchen. I didn't do all homemade stuff this year though most of it was. We had a TON of food leftover, but that is fine by me. We made our thankful hands on Wednesday as well. We started this little tradition in Dominica with my good friends Katie and Clair. I loved doing it, so we have kept it going.  Thursday I got up and made breakfast and then got the turkey in. We all sat and watched the parade together. I missed Santa because I was started cooking, but that is okay. We ate early so we could get to talk to family and then go out for "Black Friday"(which for some reason starts on Thursday now!) We didn't get much, but we got a couple good deals. 

Friday I usually put up the tree and decorate, but we didn't have a tree yet so we went out to the mall and walked around. Saturday I was a busy girl. I went out to go get a tree and then I had a practice for singing. I also had to go shopping. When I got home we cleaned up the house. I put up the tree and then we waited for our guest to arrive. 

 One of Johnny's classmates, Bryan, is staying with us for two weeks while he does a short rotation here. It has been fun for me because he has taken Johnny to work with him so I have had the car and been able to go out. I took the kids out one day to just walk around at stores and it was so nice. It was my first time being out just me and the two kids and I'm proud to say a survived. We also went to the Lego store for their Free Build. Fun times!