The Papa's...

My sister and her kids came to visit us a week or so ago. They needed a place to stay for a few days, you see the Papa's are... moving... *sniff*... to Arkansas. The day before they came John and Jill loaded their life into the back of a U Haul and John drove it to Arkansas. Jill had a few things to take care of before she and the kids fly back so she spent a few days with us. Bode had so much fun with Quinn. Quinn is a few years older than Bode and is getting to big for little kid stuff. Bode had a great time following Quinn around and learning new "big kid" things. I think his most favorite "big kids" thing was watching Iron Man cartoons on the computer.

                                                             It was pretty serious stuff.

Miss Heidi's Preschool...

I have decide 100% that I will be doing a preschool this year. I have chosen not to do a Pre-K but a preschool for children. Here is a little bit about me and some information on what you can expect if you are interested in sending your child to my home for preschool.

• I am Heidi. I am nearly 26 years old. I have been married for 5 years and have 2 beautiful children. I have always love children. I have an Associate in General Studies, as soon as I figure out what exactly what I really what to do, I plan on returning to school to finish my education. I also am 4 credits shy (long story, feel free to ask me some time) of having a second Associates Degree in Early Childhood Education. I have worked in various preschools and enjoy teaching children. I am very ready to start teaching kids again!
• The program I have put together is a 32 week program starting in September 2010 ending May 2011.
• You can expect your child to develop pre-writing skills, work on their fine motor skills, letters, numbers, colors, shapes, days of the week, as well as classroom manners, fun games and songs. I am hoping to arrange a few field trips to the library, fire station and hopefully the Zoo!
• There will be 2 sessions a week on Tuesday's and Thursday's, from 9:45-12:00.
• I am looking to have a class of 6 children. The price per month is $65.00 with a $20 non refundable deposit to hold your child's spot. I will be looking at the Dysart School District to plan the breaks for holidays and loosely follow their calendar. The months with fewer sessions will be discounted accordingly.
• I am also possibly look for someone to watch my 18 month old daughter during the preschool time, we can work out a discounted price for swapping babysitting for preschool.

Please leave me a comment if you are interested and spread the word if you know anyone interested! I would really appreciate your help in getting the word out.

Thank you!
Heidi

The essentials...

Laine Jo is a silly girl. She has always been very particular about sleep. When we brought her home from the hospital she was really not sleeping well. It was tough. I had her sleeping in the little pack-n-play bassinet so she could be right be our bed. The second night of little sleep Jer suggested that we move the big crib to the side of the bed so she could sleep on the cushy mattress. That solved a lot of problems. The little princess needed a soft mattress to sleep on. To this day she hates sleeping in a pack-n-play. She also is a very light sleeper. She must have her 2 blankies, pink bear and a baba.

Oh the baba. She will be 18 months old on the 17th of July. I remember with Bode we wanted to make sure that he was off the bottle by his 1st birthday. We were very insistent on using sippy cup at nap time and only a bottle at night then switched the bottle with a silly cup at his first birthday. That really hasn't happened with this girl. First off any change in schedule or routine she has a hard time sleeping through the night. With Bode I let him cry it out. It took a few nights of a bit of crying and he figured it out. Even now at nearly 18 months Laine won't cry it out. She will cry and cry until she gets a bottle. She is great at taking naps and still takes 2 naps a day. But night is a different story...

Until this week! Yay! Success. Partly I don't want her waking up all the other sleepers in the house so it is just easier to get her a bottle. But this past week Jer was gone with the Scouts so Laine got "trained". Laine goes to sleep between 6:30-7:00, I know this seems early but she is grumpy and tired so she goes to bed. She was getting up between 2-3:00 every night wanting a bottle. And I gave in. So while Jer was gone I let her cry. She is a big girl and can handle it. The first night I nearly gave in, but she fell asleep. Then next night was much of the same. By Friday night she was sleeping from 7 pm - 7am waking up around 5am for a bottle. It is either give her a bottle or get up at 5. I say bottle :) Last night she went to bed at 7pm woke up at 6:30 am got a baba and slept until 8:30. Whoot Whoot! Lucky me. I hope this whole thing doesn't come off sounding wrong or complainy. I am very luck to have my good little sleepers!

Hopefully we can get this sleeping thing down before I go after the bottle. I think I don't want her to loose the bottle because that makes her a toddler and not a baby. I am not ready for her not to be my baby anymore.

Bode and I go to go on a little date the other morning. I...err... Bode... has been really excited to see Toy Story 3. So I found a sitter for Laine and we went to the movies to see it. We both loved it. I decided to go crazy and see it in 3D. It was fun but the movie would have been just as good without it plus I would have save a good amount of cash and I wouldn't have had to keep telling Bode to keep his glasses on. It was fun just the same.

Bode's eyes are looking much better. The swelling has gone down and the sty's have come to a head and started to ooze the yucky stuff inside. It is gross but it means they are going away.

It was a long week with out Jeremiah home. He got to go camping and hiking with the Boy Scouts in our ward. Thank goodness things are back to normal and we have him home.

On the road...

(Many posts below!!)

We set out on vacation this past week.

We have all been so excited to go.

Can you tell?

We kept telling Bode that it would be a long drive.

At this point I don't think he believed us.

Last minute we decided to download VZ Navigator to my phone.

I will never travel without it again.

The one time we didn't type directions into the phone we ended up here...

Not really the beach we were looking for.

But very interesting just the same.

Look at all the fishies...

We visited the aquarium on our vacation.

I think these 2 pictures sum up how Laine felt about the whole experience.

She was in awe of the fish!

We got to feed the birds.

Birds are creepy.

We will never own a bird.

Bode finally got up the courage to touch a sea creature.

He said it was so cool.

I couldn't get this kid to look at the camera once.

Can you blame him?

There were to many sharks to look at.

The aquarium wore us out.

It was really quite crowded.

I think it would have been more enjoyable if there were less people.

(We did actually see another family from our ward though, coming out of the elevator. Small world)

I still think it was a good time.

First taste of the ocean...

Later that evening we met up with the Davis's.

I or we thought we could just go to "look" at the ocean.

You can't really take 2 four year olds, a 2 year old and an 18 month old to the beach to just look.

All the water and sand was worth it.

The happiest place on earth...

Bode and Kolsen with their "1st time" buttons.

These boys were so excited to go to Disneyland!

We only got to see a few characters.

Luckily we got to see Goofy. Bode loves Goofy.

He walked right up to him and said hello.

Then got really shy for the picture.

Walking out of the park Bode was disappointed we didn't see more characters.

He really wanted to meet Micky, Robin Hood and Lighting McQueen.

We convinced him that Mickey was so busy that day, Robin Hood was in Sherwood forest protecting the park (I don't think there is Robin Hood in the park, right?), and McQueen was in his garage.

That made everything ok.

The look on Bode's face is sheer terror.

Jer had his hand on Bode's chest through this ride.

He said right at the drop off Bode got all tense and his heart started beating out of his chest.

We rode all the rides we could. The boys got to ride everyone.

They were very brave. I wasn't exactly sure how Bode would do on all the rides.

But each time after we got off he said, "That was COOL!"

We waited 2 HOURS to ride Splash Mountain. 2 flipping hours. I have never ever waited that long for any ride, ever. Natalie didn't want to ride it so she wondered around with the little girls while we waited, not so patiently, in line.

The little boys stood there the whole time. I was shocked. So we finally got ready to board the ride. There were 10 people in front of us when Jer turns to me holding Bode and says "Bode has to poop, right now". I seriously nearly had my own little break down. 2 hours of waiting and Bode has to poo. This was a no waiting kind of situation for the kid. So I grabbed Bode, talked to the line people, they said we could enter though the exit when he was done going potty and board the ride. I picked up Bode and literally ran with him football style through the park to the closest bathroom. We made it just in the nick of time. I am pretty sure another second in line there would have been more than one "log" floating down the Splash Mountain river.

After Splash Mountain we went and looked at the pictures they take of you on the ride. In the bottom corner there was a picture of Micky Mouse, Donald Duck and Goofy. Bode was so excited. He told us that "Micky and Goofy saw him go down that water!!! We have to find them. They are so close!!" He then walked around for the next few minutes shouting for Mickey and Goofy :) I had to prompt him a bit in this video. I just had to get him saying Goofy on video. So cute :)

Laine was even big enough to ride a few rides.

I can't speak for her but I think her favorites were Buzz Light Year and Pirates of the Caribbean.

We all enjoyed the Pirate ride.

It was a small line, air conditioned and we all got to ride it together. 

All the kids did really, really good.

I have been to the park before but always with older people.

I always thought the people pushing around strollers and screaming kids were crazy.

I was right. It is a bit crazy. But it was so fun to bring my kids to the park.

We decided to go a bit later to the park so we would last later in the day.

There was the occasional melt down and cry fest. But over all the kids were troopers and waited so patiently in all the lines. I am so glad the Davis's could come. I don't think it would have been as fun if they weren't there.