Catch Up

I haven't posted for a bit so this is just going to be a big catch up of what we've been up to last couple of weeks! Last Friday was Veteran's Day so Ellie's Brownie troop got to participate in a flag ceremony at their school that morning. It was super neat to see the entire school and especially all the scouts with their uniforms on stand outside and raise the the flag after saying the Pledge of Allegiance. It was very neat to see! Dave went on his annual deer hunting trip last weekend so the kids and I were on our own from Friday to Sunday. Friday night I had book club at my house so Ellie rented "Soul Surfer" and watched that and Jack was asleep before anyone even arrived--bless his little heart! Fri night I decided that I was DONE with diapers for  Jack so I made an "executive" decision to really do hard-core potty training (we've been trying on and off for over 6 mo's with absolutely NO luck!!). So I had the diaper fairy come and take all of Jack's diapers and give them to the "babies" while he was sleeping. So when he woke up the diapers were gone and the diaper fairy had left a Buzz Lightyear costume (Jack is really into Buzz right now).  He was super excited until he realized he had to potty on the big potty :) Let's just say it's been quite an experience this week. We are making a tad bit of progress because he will actually sit on the potty for a little bit as opposed to before when he wouldn't even sit on it! He will pee eventually but we really have to "force" him to sit there and the peeing usually comes amongst screams and cries. Normally I would give up and say we'll try again it's not working but we can't this time!!! He is fully capable of doing this---we are just in a huge power struggle right now and I am going to win :) So this is what we are going to have to do for a while---he is having accidents occasionally but I can deal with that. He usually saves his "poop" for the morning when he still has his nighttime diaper on (the diaper fairy left diapers for nighttime!) This has been super frustrating but we WILL get there and I know this will all be a distant memory soon enough :) So needless to stay we tried to stick close to home over the weekend!! Ellie had a friend over and I watched the Penn State vs NU game on TV (sad with all the events surrounding the game) But we won so that was good!!! Dave got home Sunday night and we were glad to have him back (with no deer--even better :) Monday was a nice day so after school I took Jack to the zoo and we walked around---always nice to do in the middle of Nov. The zoo is totally under construction and will be so nice when they are all done--we are so lucky to live in a city with such a great zoo! Today (Thurs) Jack had his Winter Music program at school--it was the first one he has done because he didn't start school until mid-Feb last year so he missed it. It was so adorable to see his little class on stage. I was video taping so I didn't get good pics of the actual show--my mom took a few but Jack is really far away :( His class sang a Snowflake song and they wore snowflake hats---so darn cute!!! Jack was really cute and when he found me he was super smiley and was waving--love him so much!! We are looking forward to a date night tomorrow night--Dave's mom is going to keep the kids overnight at her house for us and they are going to eat a Columbian dinner with the woman who is staying at her house from Columbia (Leydi). Ellie loves Leydi and is so excited! We are also looking forward to having Thanksgiving at our house next week---it's only the 2nd time we have done this and the first time was before we had kids. It will be fun :) Love, love, love Thanksgiving!!!