Back to the old ways?

I think I should go back to using my camera, uploading pics and then doing posts on the computer. Seems like evwv though I have the tools at my finger tips with a camera and a posting app right in my phone, I still did way more posts in "the old days" hmmmm!

It's coming full circle for tiernan. We changed his diapers for how many years and now he gets to change someone else's. Ha! Love it!

Crazy hair day at school. The boys weren't that crazy. Just spiked w a mohawk but since their hair is short, it wasn't that noticeable.

Today I showed Justin, the guy who bought the salon from me back in nov, the salon for the first time! That was fun and hopefully within a couple weeks, he will fully take it over, yippee!

Caedmons free hand drawing of the US. So good for an 8 yr old. His spatial ability is mind blowing. He started w Maine & worked his way east.

Nathan put in a new ceiling fan the other day. I underestimated his ability. He actually did it very quickly and it's so much quieter than our old one! Glad that one went out! Although it was kinda scary bc it pretty much melted the whole inside and smelled really bad. Glad it didn't start a fire.

Back to cold

So we had a warm snap recently with temps into the 40s for several days. We'll take it since it's January! All the snow melted and it was starting to feel more like march or April. We know better though and now temps are back down (-5 this morning) w about an inch of snow on the ground.

Mom and Dad made it back from Arkansas this week. They were gone for just over a month. We went to their house yesterday after school and the kids were so excited. Caedmon spent most of his time drawing a map of the US. Boy that child likes to draw! He def doesn't get his skills from his mom though!

We are signed up for a marriage retreat in a few weeks, will be a nice wknd getaway with one of Nathan's brothers and wife. We are looking forward to some time away too!

With Nathan laid off this winter (he kinda voluntarily took it off), we've been staying in bed til about 6:30am. Well, the kids get up at about 5:45 racing upstairs to start their day. The only problem with that is that most of the time, the little ones get in to stuff that they shouldn't bc the older ones leave it out or open or whatever. Out of all the years that I've been a parent, I've never "babyproofed" stuff as in locking cabinets etc but go figure with our 6th, I finally broke down and got cabinet locks and they are the best things ever!! (As long as they are kept locked) One problem we were having w Jaeg was that he was going into the fridge whenever he wants to get whatever he wants. Um, no. But we couldn't watch him every second so Ariella actually had the idea that we should put one of the cabinet locks around the handles of the fridge. Best.idea.ever! That along w keeping the pantry locked, keeps jaeg out of a LOT of trouble!

While I was typing this, jaeg went into our bedroom, climbed up all of our dressers drawers in our walk in closet to get a basket of goodies I have set up their for a friend who's bday is coming up. He got to the basket and ripped open all the candy boxes that were in there. Ugh!! That child is a climber and def starting to get into his 'not so easy' toddler years!! Between him and selah getting into stuff, we can't relax much during the day!!

I write this stuff and take pics of their messes bc one day I hope we will find all of this funny :)

This morning, Jaeg opened a bag of veggie sticks and dumped them all over the table, had gotten a bag of little weiners and a cutie orange outta the fridge and was happily eating whatever when we got up. We might hafta wake up earlier :/

Potty training

Man the day's fly by! So Nathan was bound and determined to get Jaeg potty trained last week. He has pretty much potty trained the other 4 all within a few days so he was pretty confident w this one too. He started off great and is doing well with #1....it's the #2 he's not so cool with. He doesn't get the whole "that stuff goes in the potty" part and has continually pooped in his underwear day after day. Nathan for so frustrated w him today that he put a diaper back on him. I think we might have to go to pull ups so he can go potty when he needs to but we don't have to change any dirty underwear.

"Lucky"

So the kitty is a girl! She's about 5-6 months old and still completely adorable. She's moved into our house and seems like she's been here her whole life. She roams freely and the kids don't even phase her. Jaeg will pick her up and walk around with her, Selah will lay on her and pull her tail...and she just stands or lays there! She's never snapped, bite at or scratched any of them. She's so calm!! We will have her spayed and declawed in a couple weeks and then she'll officially be a Legatt :)

A picture a few down is of our my favorite sign we got on our date at Hobby Lobby in AR :)

And Selah's face plant! We were in our room when we hear Selah cry and one of the kids brought her to us and says that her nose was bleeding. Well, all I saw was just a little red on the side so I wiped it clean. All of the kids were occupied and said that she was over by the front door and then just started crying. Huh, oh well. I put her down for a nap. When I got her up, her face looked horrible!! I didn't see any scratches or marks on her forehead before and her nose certainly didn't look like that before! Poor thing! So she musta fell and scuffed up her face on something but no one saw it! At least it doesn't seem to bother her and today it is much better :)

Kitty

There was a stray cat at the salon for a couple days and to my surprise, when Caedmon and so went to go drop some stuff off there, it was still around! It was -20 wind chill out and the cat was so cold and shivering. It seemed like a nice cat that would let us pet it (maybe it just wanted in?) But I called Nathan and asked if we could bring it home. We couldnt just leave it out in the cold!

We brought it (still really don't know if its a boy or girl, lol) home and for now, has taken up residence in our garage. I stopped at the grocery store quick on the way back home to pick up a bag of cat food while caedmon stayed in the van w the cat. It didn't seem to mind the car ride and crawled all over my lap and even put its paws on my arms while looking out the window.

We left the garage door cracked a bit so it could let itself out to go potty (didn't have a litter box). Later that day, we were going to town to have oil changes on both cars and decided to swing by walmart to get some litter box stuff. While we were gone, we shut the garage door and left the cat in it. Nathan was worried that we'd have a mess when we got back but it was just laying on its blanket when we returned and no messes. Once we had the litter box down, a few mins later the kids exclaimed "it pooped!" So litter box trained it is! Yay!

It is still a kitten we think bc it is fairly small and still a little playful. It doesn't shed much (didn't get any hair on my black sweatshirt), is super cute, and is so friendly w all the kids. It even passed the Selah test. Selah was grabbing (more like pinching) it and pulling its tail and the cat never even flinched.

The kids brought it inside every so often today, only into the bathroom, to let it warm up and give it some attention. The cat seemed to love every minute of it, esp when laying on the rug in front of the heat vent. We will take it to the vet on Friday (tomorrow is new years) and get it checked out and then set up a time to get it declawed etc. Then it will be ours and can most likely have a spot in our home.

We NEVER wanted animals inside and always said wed say no to that but there comes a point where we have to put our anal selves aside and have a little fun. Our kids are only young once and Tiernan is already half way out of the house. We aren't on our farm yet, and seeing how much joy and excitement this little kitty is bringing to us and our kids...well, we think it's prob worth it. :)

Arkansas Trip pics part 2

Arkansas Trip

First day: Sunday, got there around noon. At at Arby's about an hour before, had the kids do jumping jacks :)

That early evening, we went to a live manger scene at their church.

Monday: Hung out, kids played. Selah slept horrible. She started out in girls' room since she's used to sleeping w Ariella at night but that ended at midnight w Leah bringing her down to me. (The rest of the days were bad too...she'd go down fine but would wake up crying or coughing for hours a night. Other kids went to bed perfectly. All 5 boys were in parkers room) Had Abi and her friend Gabby watch all the kids so John, Leah, Nathan and I could go look at a house. After, they drove us around Bentonville and saw some landmarks like the Wal-Mart headquarters, the churches where the Duggar kids got married, things like that :)

Tuesday: Leah and I went shopping. First to Hobby Lobby...which took 2 hours bc I couldn't make up my mind for stuff I wanted! Leah was a trooper thru it all :) then over to Wal-Mart to Christmas shop. It surprisingly wasn't that busy, even though it was the day before Christmas Eve.  Nathan did some work stuff with John and then they went to meet up w Johns fantasy football league at the bar/grill in BV. John won and they got home after we ladies went to bed.

Wednesday: Opened 2 presents after breakfast and played. went to Christmas Eve service at their church. It was hard to keep the kids from playing w the led "candles" that were given to each of us at the beginning.

Thursday: Christmas. Opened presents from Santa at 6:30am. Hung out & played. Got up to 60 degrees.

Friday: Nathan and I went shopping at Hobby Lobby again. Got some more stuff for the house. Got packed up and ready to go in the morning.

Sat: Left at 6:51am. Stopped twice. Once in Kansas City at BK to eat. Other in Ames to gas up and potty. Home by 5:20, made it in 10.5 hours. With 6 kids 9 and under, I'd say that's pretty good!! We had great roads and the kids did perfect.

All in all, it was a great trip!!