Potty Training

     The thing that every parent dreads.  Everyone figures it out somehow, but the grueling day to day business of it can sure be overwhelming!  Potty Training.

     We have almost done it! Last summer we started to potty train our almost 2 and a quarter year old. He did all right at first.  I think that if we hadn't gotten sick so many times with stomach bugs he would have gotten it early on. Now we have reached the point that he is almost 100% potty trained!!!!

He never wets the bed at night and is always eager to water the grass and iris'. He had been doing fine but we had a bad spouts with the stomach bugs, which was a big hold up for him.  After so many bouts with sickness and losing any progress we had obtained we were getting low on ideas. 

We tried stickers, then temporary tattoos, magic grow capsicles, and watching something on netflix and even a little treat.
Yikes.. can you see how some one would give up hope????
Thankfully I am not on this journey alone!!! I was asking everyone who ever had little boys if they could think of anything I would then ask them to ask God to help me out. I tried to do what people had advised me.
My husband had a great idea!

It has been working for us so far! There is a reward for him using the toilet and a punishment for going in his past and underwear. The movie bolt was around 15 dollars.  First I got an old jar that had been clean and then I put numbers on a piece of paper, in three rows of five. After each row completion I make a huge deal about it!!!!!! After each time he goes we tell him how proud we are of him and then give him the dollar, allow him to circle what ever number he is on and then cross it off by making an"X" through it.
If he goes in his pants and underwear we make him give us a dollar back and then he has to earn it back by going in the toilet again. It has been a long process but not something as stressful as cleaning dirty underwear.
Today victory was achieved!!! He got 14 and 15 in one day and we tonight we celebrated!

 It was so awesome to see Malachi finish this huge task.  He has anticipated this movie for so long.  I also have people praying for me and my son and the rest of the family of 4 as we go through this journey together. Thanks to all who prayed and gave advise!!!! I owe this fabulous and wonderful idea to my extremely handsome and wise HUSBAND!!!!!!!!!

Looking forward to doing this idea with other movies after the joys getting Bolt dies down. 

Josiah help by adding 2 coins since  Malachi had just earned a dollar. 

The last dollar!!!!

Circling the number and crossing out the number 15!

 The movie appeared in our mailbox once Dada got home!

 Not sure which face makes me smile more!

Watching the movie in the Club House.  The anticipation was killing them!

 I am so proud to be these sweet boy's Mama!

 God is good!

Josiah..... You're next! 

But not yet, this Mama's needs a little break!

The Letter L Day 2

So now that we now that the letter L has only two lines we decided to make the letter out of popsicle sticks! Long line down and little line across bottom. 

We started with the letter then we had traced it and connected the dots. Towards the end he was confidant enough to do it on his own. We also thought of lots of fun things that start with the Letter L. 

I also decided draw a heart and put inside of the heart a verse from the bible. I use a word such as LOVE and the Letter L with a connect the dots and had everything else spelled out. Malachi then wanted to trace the heart. I had written LOVE and four little heart stickers and was going to have my son tell me the verses that have love in them. He did a great job! He would put down a sticker and then I would ask him what the verse was and then he would tell me.

Now after this project my son, Josiah woke up from his nap, so I decided to distract him with coloring page while Malachi and I finished this project. You can probably tell that Josiah flew threw that coloring book as fast as he could and then was sitting right next to his brother! Luckily this time we were a little more rested and not as grumpy the other post on the letter L. On this project we had some stickers and a leaf. First I drew a Letter L on the paper with a block letter. Now I had ____adybug,  _____eaf, ____ion, _____amb and then I had my son write L in the blank spot. Then I would give him the sticker of the item he had just had written. I plucked a silk flower leaf and both the boys helped tape it on the paper. Malachi was willing to share with his brother and nothing makes a Mama happier then seeing them work together and encouraging each other by saying, "Good job brother!" or "Nice work!" instead of whining with words like "mine" and other silliness. Also Josiah had to have "Pa Grape" from the Veggie Tales "the Pirate's Who Don't Do Anything" in his hand or close by him at all times!

Sure do love my boys even when they aren't happy when I take their picture's, but especially when they really want me to take them!

Necklace MAKING! (For the Kiddos)

My in-laws came to help out while my husband had knee surgery this past week. It was great to see them and I love watching my boys interact with them! My mother-in-law always has a fun craft or surprise for our little boys and this time it was making a necklace out of string and colorful "O" shaped cereal piece's!

Things you need:
Ribbon or string
Scissors
"O" shaped cereal
Ability to tie a knot

The first thing that you do is make sure the ribbon is long enough to fit over the child's head then add a little bit more for the knots that you will need on both ends. After you cut the ribbon to the length that is needed then you do a double knot on one end of the ribbon. This is so that the cereal will not fall off one end while you drop them through the other side of string. I was very happy with the ribbon choice my mother in law and I were talking about it and we said that it was perfect of my boys age (almost 2 and almost 4). We were saying that it was a good thing because it wasn't fraying!!! Even if it was pink.... they had no care what so ever what color it was!

 Once you have gotten all of the cereal strung on the ribbon you then tie a knot and then double it! Then the real JOY for your little ones is once they get it put around their heads. Make sure you tell them to EAT UP! I wish I would of thought of this earlier but it would have been nice to have a glass of milk to enjoy with an edible necklace that they had made!  Oh well!

Thanks for for the wonderful idea!!!! What a fun project that requires 3 things many of you may have. I know that I did this when I was a kid but had forgotten about it until my mother-in-law mentioned that she wanted to do it. She had gotten the idea from her sister who had done this with her grandkids at Easter time!
Now when ever my eldest wants cereal he asks for the one that Nana brought them with the colorful ones and my youngest son wants Abby Cadabby cereal (oatmeal)! Also, thank you so much for all the help that you gave us while my hubby was out of commission, hopefully you enjoyed yourselves as much as we did!

Nest HELPER!!!!

Help the birdies make beautiful NESTS!  I found this in a on pinterest and thought since my boys love looking at a the birds eating seeds out of the bird house with bird seed in it so they would love to do this! We had bought some clementines and thought a perfect way to reuse something that normally would get thrown away. First off I put a twist tie around the top and then the bread closuer thing to make sure it was sealed. Now we never cut a hole we just rip open the bag so I had to "sew" up the side where we tore into the bag and also where I had a hard time getting the of the label. So once that was done I was ready to have some help from my little ones.

My sweet little ALMOST two year old was much more interested in helping me then the 3 1/2 year old until we went outside. I had some yarn from old knitting projects that I had given up on instead of throwing them away  I had fun with my scissors. ; D
Also I had  few dryer lints piled up because I knew were going to do this project soon so we used some pieces of old coloring sheets that my little helper had torn to sheds and twigs from outside.

My little helper simply put in one by one each item to start with and toward the end the clumps got bigger and bigger! Next you have to grab the yarn and the little chunks of the lint so that it is hanging out of the holes so the bird can retrieve them easier.

It is time to go outside!!!!!  I gathered a whole bunch of little twigs and let the boys put them in where ever they wanted.

I wanted the birds to be able to find "The Nest Helper" so I placed it near the bird feeder. I took so ribbon and tie to the wood threw the loop in the bag.

After day one nearly all the sticks were gone and several pieces of yarn where gone too! Not sure if we will find any nest with our bright blue and teal yarn in them but it was a fun and  easy project we could do with out spending any extra money and we were able to reuse the product that normally goes into the trash!
On a nice spring day I love the excuse to be outside. And were out and about for the majority of the day after that 20 minute project.
We may take it down and add some thin ribbon and more twigs just for another excuse to be outside!