potty training is in full force.

neiko is still surprising me with how well he is doing, but he doesn't usually tell me when he has to go.

basically if i follow him all day and put him on the toilet every hour or so he can make it all day with no accidents.

but WHO has time to follow 1 child around all day???

NOT ME. so he has accidents. but i remind myself that every time he pees on the floor he is learning! :)

now what happened at nap time today was different. maybe a bit more intentional.

i put a diaper on him and then put him to bed.

and when i went to get him out of his crib he had at some point taken off his diaper and then peed and pooped in his crib.

i'm telling myself though, that he really wanted to take that diaper off so he could go use the toilet.

i'm SURE he was trying to tell me and i just couldn't hear him......

he turns 2 on thursday. bittersweet. funny how you can long for something and yet dread it both very intensely.

i'm very ready to be done with diapers, pacifiers, high chairs, car seats, and cribs. but i'm a little torn about being done with my babies.

especially after keeping my nieces for the weekend.

little emma (who is almost 1) is so very sweet and cuddly. she fell asleep in my arms and i could hardly bear to lay her down.

i forgot how much i missed holding a sleeping baby.

it was definitely busy around here with two more little ones, but it was fun. and i miss them.

it was great to see my kids all helping out with them too.

shaeya was in charge of livie (who is 2) at night. it was actually pretty funny.

shaeya would come stumbling down the stairs in the morning and say, "i'm exhausted....livie kept me up all night long." or "livie fell out of bed last night" or "livie was crying in the middle of the night so i climbed in bed with her and she just kept talking and talking."

and i would laugh. i was just so glad it was her and not me :)

you know, she can take naps in middle of the day to make up for it......

and once again, we felt the need for that conversion van.......sigh......

while i was writing the above paragraph neiko threw a ball under my chair. he went under there to get it and decided to shut the computer down as well.

i've always wondered why they have to make the power button so appealing.....so round and pushable and with such a pretty blinking green light.....

dave and i had our 12th anniversary yesterday. and thanks to dave's sister maria we had a WONDERFUL night out. it was sooooooo nice.

and we bought our first piece of furniture for the house.

so now we have officially started decorating and now i feel pressure to dig through the rest of our boxes. the ones with all the decorations from our first house that i haven't seen since i boxed them up over two years ago.

something tells me i won't end up even using most of them but maybe there will be a few surprises in those boxes.....

but that's a good WINTER project, right?

and anyway i've got potty training, school orientation, kindergarten physical, school supply lists, birthday parties, and family reunions to keep my mind occupied.

oh the end of summer. always very tragic.

just 3 weeks left of life with no schedule and no alarm clock......

i may be setting my self up for disaster here but....

i actually had a full day home last week and decided to try putting underwear on neiko.

of course i realize that he is a BOY. and he is too busy to be terribly concerned about where he pees.

but my other kids were all potty trained before they were 2. okay i know for sure the girls were, but my memories of potty training tyden are a bit blurry. it was maybe shortly after he turned two.

my mom tells me that since neiko wasn't with us for his first 8 months that i should expect him to be about 8 months behind on some of these things.....

so i'm not entirely sure if i'm fully committed at this point but he's really not doing too bad.

we are about 4 days in now, and he is telling me some of the time when he needs to go, and he usually goes when i put him on the toilet.

i haven't had to change a poopy diaper for 2 days now so i'm pretty pumped.

so we will see.....

it would sure be nice to have him completely trained before school starts and the craziness begins!

he loooooves to watch daddy mow. he talks about mowing all the time.

he is obsessed with other little boys' toy lawn mowers, so i bought him this one from a garage sale but the wheels don't work.

it doesn't seem to bother him too much though :)

bunny is still alive- even through the heat- and even though he doesn't look very alive in this picture.....

wren is still talking about this day-

it was one of the highlights of her life.....

this cracked me up :)

they were being ninja warriors.

so i went to iowa with shaeya and her team this weekend. it was a new experience for me.

i do not love horses but i am learning to love them because i love my daughter.

she loved every minute of being in the horse barn, helping with ribbon, practicing on the barrels, sleeping in a camper, hanging out with her teammates, and having her mom all to herself for 3 days :)

and their performance went great.

http://youtu.be/UF0VZngQGWE

waiting for the awards at the end. she was pretty exhausted. and HOT.

and the team with their ribbons after it was all over :)

and i had fun too. because i was a tag-a-long.

i had only 1 child and no other responsibilities.

i sat and relaxed during the 5 hour drive.

i sat at the campsite and chatted with the girls and played on my ipad (i had no idea that campsites now have wifi- too funny!)

and i sat and watched the competitions and read a couple of books.

i can't remember the last time i sat that much. it was heaven.

......apart from the heat and the flies and the horse smell..... :)

but i was glad to get back to the rest of the fam. i missed them.

even the two that keep me from ever sitting-

.......and even when i'm driving i can't just sit :)

you never know when someone's gonna pee or puke or spill.......or get their finger stuck in their straw hole.

and then you have to take a picture and then rescue them :)

well i apologize for the fact that i am trying to squeeze the last week and a half of our lives into one post.

it's a lot.

i'm gonna do my best to keep it from getting too long....

here goes-

we left on friday at noon for champaign. we hit the children's museum first and

we LOVED it.

they had to kick us out at closing :)

then we checked into our hotel and were very excited to discover a couch with a hideaway bed. our room slept 7 with no problem :)

after settling in, the girls and i walked to a gas station to get ourselves a snack.

then we loaded back up and headed over to trina and destiny's house where we traded neiko for destiny and went to see 'brave.'

really fun :)

we traded kids back after the movie and then went back to the hotel where our friend ryan met us to hang out for awhile. we put the kids to bed and found a place in the hotel to sit and catch up and have a late dinner.

sooooooo nice :)

the next morning after feeding the kids (free breakfast! it was awesome!) and apologizing to everyone else for our noise level we hit the pool!

we met another family there who had seven kids. our kids had a lot of fun playing with them :)

after that we went to hessel park for destiny's party. the kids had a BLAST! :)

and so did we :)

i love meeting new people and the kids did a great job of making new friends that day.

dave and i both fell in love with anthony. he kept coming to me and wanting up :)

sooooo sweet!!!

and caden!

zero expression on his cute little face but when i kissed him he kept leaning back in for more.

MELTED MY HEART.

we brought destiny home (with tyden on the floor- went fine :) and had a really fun week with her.

between the mission, vaulting practice, trips to the lake, dentist appointments, fireworks at glen oak, and a family get together destiny says, "godmom you is always going somewhere...."

:) too true.

here's the glen oak pictures-

we brought squirt bottles to help us keep cool.

i'm embarrased to say that we lost tekoa for a bit that night......she was filling up her water bottle and got a bit turned around. she finally told someone that her parents were "lost" and they called us over the loud speaker.

she was FINE, okay? she was never really that far from us.

plus it happens to other parents all the time.

poor shaeya started feeling bad right when we got there. she perked up for awhile- and got to watch the fireworks- but i had to pullover for her to puke on our way home.

the next morning we had breakfast then headed to the lake!

wren's first try at scuba diving :)

uncle chad helped her out.

there are some BIG FISH all around them.

i love how unafraid she is!!

here's tekoa and i on the new waterslide :)

on thursday morning we made the trip back to champaign.

we took trina out to lunch and then to walmart and then we had to say goodbye :(

destiny wasn't quite ready for good-bye.....

but hopefully we will see her again soon!

and here's one last video.

after the mission yesterday i took the kids to the pool and wren is starting to learn to swim!

she LOVES it!

and that's it for the world's longest post!

tomorrow is shaeya's last vaulting practice- her competition is this weekend!

she and i will be going with the rest of her team to iowa on friday and coming back on sunday.

......say a prayer for dave if you think of it! ;)