I am blessed! I have the best husband in the whole world. He is a great husband and an awesome daddy. Before we had Jake, I always thought he would be a great dad, but now seeing him with our boys just amazes me. Jake and Judd have an amazing godly example to look to as they grow to be men of God.

Wednesday afternoon we left Forsyth County to visit the great Warner Vegas. Actually, we drive past it to Elko since my mom moved, but I still like to say Warner Vegas. We spent several days visiting with my mom, Benny, and my grandparents who live a mile from my mom. It is always good to go home especially when there are five adults to watch two boys. I feel more like a supervisor when we are visiting. 🙂 I just make sure the boys are fed, napped, and living on “the schedule” while everyone else takes care of them. It is such a wonderful blessing to be around family and to have some help. I was even given the opportunity to take two showers and get dressed without being interrupted.

Wednesday night Jim and I met Jessica Perdue at Sonny’s for dinner after our VERY long (long as in the boys screamed or whined most of the ride) ride home. Sonny’s is great and it has so much meaning for Jim and I. (Sonny’s significance in our lives could have it’s on post). After dinner Jessica came out to the house and Dan met her at mom’s. They enjoyed seeing the boys. It was so good to spend some time with them.

When we arrived at mom’s Jake was still running around barefoot with the keys, his Papa gave him, in his pocket, and holding up his pants as he ran around. He LOVES Elko. I think part of his love comes from the fact that he gets to ride the 4-wheeler, go-cart, and the tractor. What’s not to love about the country!!! Oh I forgot about the new kittens….he gave them names this week…Brown, Lil Waser (laser), and Zeb.

On Thursday Jake had another visitor. Jim came out to visit for a short time. Jake loves Jim, but I think Amber is soon to take his place:-)

We had a great visit home. I am excited that summer is coming and we can spend more time in the country! Simple pleasures and children’s laughter!

Week 2-

I know that I left you last week on the edge of your seats wanting to know how Jake was going to continue. Well I am pleased to announced that Jake is potty trained. He is doing great. He still has to work on telling me that he needs to go without me asking, but he is catching on.

Funny moments- I have given him a very elementary explanation of the digestive system. It goes in your mouth, down to your belly, and in the potty. So now everytime he goes #2 Jake looks in the potty and he says there is my chicken, there is my hotdog, bye-bye meat. It is hilarious, and if it works I am all for it.

Judd- What a great little boy! He is so sweet! He is now going to sleep without crying when I lay him down.

I am so glad that the weather is warmer so that we can play outside more.

Jake and I started the dreaded journey of potty training. I have said that I was going to wait until he was close to three to start training him, but ever since he turned two I have really felt that he was so close to started. He wasn’t interested, but I was say other cues that led me to think he would be ready. SOOO…

I started reading information. I was clueless. The only thing I did know was I was not going to buy pull-ups and once we started I wasn’t going back to diapers. So you see why I wanted to wait to start. While I was trying to figure opt what to do I had a conversation with Jim’s mom and she told me about the 7 days and $75 method. The general idea is parents stay at home with the child for several days and allow the child to walk around the house naked all day long. The potty is put out so it is constantly available to the child. Parents regularly remind the child to use the potty when necessary. Rosemond argues that children won’t tolerate urine and feces running down their legs, and will quickly learn to go to the potty to avoid accidents. The $75 is for carpet cleaning.

Well I thought this would be perfect. I need my carpet cleaned anyway why not give it a try. So I set the date Monday, March 26. No more diapers! We started telling Jake that he was going to start going on the big boy potty and we named all of the different ways to go on the potty.

Well D-Day came this morning. When Jake woke up we took his diaper off and he ran around all day with one of Jim’s T-Shirts on. We sat him on the potty and he wasn’t thrilled to be there. But if you remember from my last post Jake loves to blow out candles. So we had candles in the bathroom for him to blow out every time he sat on the potty. He didn’t go. I set the timer on the microwave for 20 minutes. When it beeped we ran to the bathroom. He sat, blew out candles, and got up. Set the timer again…it beeped. Same result as last time. Set timer….this went on for three hours. I knew that he was getting close to going since he continued to drink in between sessions. Around 10 the timer went off and we ran to the potty. He did the same as the previous tries, but he started to really squirm like a worm. I told him what he needed to do to go tinkle and finally HE WENT! HE smiled so BIG! It was great. So his reward is to flush the toliet and wash his hands. He was pumped!

He contined to go tinkle in the potty the rest of the day without ANY accidents today.

I guess you are wondering if he went #2. Well here is that story: right after lunch we sat on the potty. I knew that he would have to go #2 because he ALWAYS does so we tried. NO luck! So we went back into the living room. He was sitting reading a book and all the sudden he stands up takes off his shirts and RUNS to the bathroom saying “mommy I HAVE to go potty.” I ran in there behind him and he is on the potty looking at me telling me to “go back in there.” about 2 seconds later there is #2 in the potty and he is off looking in the toilet to see what just happened. I did the potty dance and he was able to hand me the brand new wipes that we had been saving to use for this very special occasion.

So to sum up 13 hours of potty training on our first day with one word I would say: SUCCESS!!!!

I am so proud of him!
p.s. this is a long post and I am not going to reread it so if there are mistakes please forgive me!

I am a week late blogging about my birthday, but it was extra special this year so I want to be sure to share…..

The day started with me getting the boys up and going to the gym. When we came back there were flowers on the table with candles burning and cupcakes were placed at each of our seats. Jim came running up stairs when he heard us walk in. We all sat down and Jim and Jake sang Happy Birhtday to me and then we blew out the candles. I then opened my cards from Jake and Judd. Jake had written and colored in my card 🙂 Jim gave me a pedicure and a coupon for two shopping trips by myself while he watches the boys. What a great present!!! I haven’t been shopping in forever much less by myself. I am pumped!

Well after we ate lunch we had another round of cupcakes and they sang Happy Birthday again. Jake loves to blow out candles but he doesn’t like to eat the cake.

To end the evening we ate dinner with some people in church and we finished dinner with the last round of cupcakes and Happy Birthday. Right before we went to bed Jim gave me his card which included cash to take on my shopping trips:-)

It was a great day and Jim did a great job making me feel extra special!

All of this is really funny because Jim’s family doesn’t make a big deal out of birthday’s and I think that it is my birthday the whole month of March! He always feels this huge amount of pressure to make me feel special each year! He is the best husband in the whole world. I am blessed!!!!

Well it has been a year since I started blogging. I think that I may have blogged a total of 12 times in one year. Like I said maybe I will get better

My brackett this year is going to be a bust. I picked random teams and can’t wait to see how badly I lose. I will keep you posted!

By the way, I have caught Jake pulling down his pants and taking his diaper off looking to see if he has gone #2 two times this week. Thank goodness his diaper is only wet when he decides to do this:-) I know it is time to start potty training, but I am trying to wait until the summer. The boy is a mess!

Life is going great!

Jake turned two on Feb. 27.We had his party on march 3. I did an airplane theme. We invited several of his friends and all of our family. He had a blast playing. He doesn’t like cake so he enjoyed blowing out the candles. I cannot believe that my little boy is growing up so quickly. He is saying things and making me laugh more and more everyday. Jim and I have been teaching Bible verses and he can now quote Eph 6:1, Romans 3:23, Gen 1:1 and we are now working on Phil 4:13. He is a joy and we are very blessed to be his parents.

Judd is sleeping through the night. He is sleeping from his last feeding at 10 until somewhere between 4-6. He actually slept until 7 last Sunday. He is smiling big open mouth smiles and even giggles.

Jake has mixed reactions to him. At times he can be very sweet to Judd and others he just wants to make him cry. I guess this is the beginning of great years between brothers. However, once again tonight I prayed that they would have a strongbold, they would love each other in a very special way, they would seek to follow Christ and be Him obedient in everything.

i am going to try and blog more often. Who knows! I may get to busy with the boys! 🙂

Six weeks after Judd is born I am still awake in the middle of the night feeding him. As you can see I have found that I can be productive at 2 a.m. I use Jim’s laptop while I am up to return emails, catch up on the latest news, and now I am even updating my blog.

So how is life as a mom of two boys? BUSY! The first few weeks were difficult, but now the main difference is I have very little time for myself. However, I think that once Judd sleeps through the night and I don’t feel like I need a nap everyday I will be able to get somethings taken care of during nap time. I do love my boys. I am sure that life will be very active when Judd gets a little bit bigger. Something tells me he isn’t going to continue to let Jake poke his eyes and shake his feet.

I have started going to the gym and the boys go to chldcare. This has been great for me. I am excited about losing the rest of the baby weight and wearing all of my clothes again. 🙂 I am just not satisfied carrying 7 more pounds.

more to come from the late night brain…..that’s another thing… I am losing my memory more and more each day!

It’s a BOY! After nine long months of wondering, speculating and guessing we became parents of our second healthy baby boy December 14th, at 4:42 PM, at Northeast Georgia Medical Center in Gainesville. Judd was 7 lbs 8 oz at birth and 20 inches long. Judd and I are doing great and Jake is adjusting to his new “big brother” role. Jim is taking some time off to help with the big adjustment. We’ve definitely been BUSY!

But life is great and God is good as always. We couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate Christmas than welcoming our new son into the world. Merry Christmas to all of you and God Bless!

Here is the link to an article written about Baby Sprout! Hot off the press….

I cannot wait to meet this bundle of joy!