Moving on up

So we are moving to Oklahoma. Next week. We have been contemplating making this move for 2 years and a little over a week ago we decided to quit waiting around and just do it. I would be lying if I said that we aren't having second and third and fourth thoughts about this move, but we think that it is the best long-term decision for our family. So we load up the moving van next Thursday and head to Utah for a few days on Friday. We will probably stop half-way between Utah and Oklahoma as well because I don't think the kids or us can make that far of a drive without stopping.

Other than getting ready to move, things have been fairly normal for us the past few weeks. Benson has gone over a week now without having a pee pee accident, and he is wearing underwear all the time even during naps and at night. Our last potty training hurdle is going #2 - and we have no idea what to do about it. We're hoping that this move doesn't cause regression since Benson has made so much progress. Last week Benson had an accident and Mike told him that he was disappointed in him. So when Benson's friend Dalton came over to play and did something that Benson didn't like he said "I'm so disappointed in you Dalton." Kids say the darnedest things.

Sabrina is full on crawling now and seems to be enjoying having more control of her location. Her siblings are not quite as excited about it. I've heard lots of "Take the baby away, Mom" from Benson the past week. It is exciting to see her progress. She has already become pretty adventurous, crawling down the hall into different rooms and she has even started crawling up on things. There have been a few panicked moments of looking around for her and finding her in the bathroom or a closet.

Below are some pictures from the last week and a half.

Sabrina in her pretty Sunday dress


Gracie swinging


Benson swinging


Rub-a-dub-dub, 3 kids in the tub. Taking a
warm bath after swimming in the cold pool.

Happy Birthday Gracie

Sabrina Crawling

Birthday Princess

Up until today, it has been a long, boring week at our house. I have been sick with a virus that turned into a sinus infection and I haven't been at the top of my game. By Wednesday morning Benson was begging to go ANYWHERE, even to the doctor if it meant that we could leave the house. Thankfully Mike worked from 12pm to 9pm on Thursday so he took the kids to the park in the morning before he had to go to work. If he hadn't I think the kids would have gone crazy, followed closely by their mother. So yesterday we decided to meet Mike at the mall after work so that the kids could go out and so that we could get Grace's birthday presents. While we were there we went into Claire's and found a tiara for Grace that said "Birthday Girl" on it. We put it on her and she said "Princess" and wouldn't let us take it off. She wore it all over the mall and I don't think we have ever had so many people smile at us. It was pretty cute.

Today was Grace's 2nd Birthday. She was the first one up this morning and came and climbed in bed with us. We told her the story of the day she was born and snuggled until Benson woke up and then we went out to the living room to open presents. She was really into opening her presents this year, and so was Benson. He was probably a little too helpful, but Grace didn't seem to mind. She got a backpack, some new clothes, Cinderella, bracelets, a trunk of dress-up clothes, and a Little People Castle. She was very excited when we opened the dress-up clothes and started piling the clothes on. We let her play for a while and then tried to take the extra clothes off so she could eat breakfast, which was our first mistake of the day. She pitched a fit worthy of the title Birthday Princess. Once she ate and had her bath she got dressed up again and the rest of the day was pretty low-key. We watched Cinderella, went and ate lunch at Carl's Jr, took naps, and played. For dinner we had shells which is one of Grace's favorites, and then we had cake before bed. We've decided that Gracie is definitely the fun loving rascal of our family. We are grateful that we have her around to liven things up.

Tonight during scriptues we noticed that Sabrina has learned to "crawl". Our definition of "crawl" meaning that she can now move forward willfully. A few days ago she started getting up on all fours and then lifting up one hand at a time so we knew she was getting closer. I'm sure in a few more days she will have a real crawl down.

Here's a few pictures from our day:

Birthday Princess

All dressed up

Sabrina wearing the princess hat

Grace's castle birthday cake

Gracie with her cake

Benson enjoying every last lick of frosting

Balloons

We have been busy the last few days. On Tuesday I took Sabrina to the doctor for her 6 month appointment. She weighed 16 lbs, 6 oz which is 50th percentile. She is very average. She got 3 shots in her thighs and had to take the Rotavirus oral vaccine which she has HATED every time. The nurse was amazed at how tightly she can clamp her mouth shut. We are very familiar with that because if we try to feed her anything but pears or bananas she does the same thing.
The kids and I went to the library yesterday which they always enjoy. We usually get 8-10 books and a video every 3 weeks. Benson especially enjoys reading the magazines that they have out in the children's section. His favorite is Ranger Rick. After the library we also went to Sam's which is the easiest store to go to with all 3 kids because they are double seater carts. Benson and Grace sit up front and I put Sabrina in the basket in her car seat. We just don't buy much because there's not a lot of room left over in the basket. We bought 3 boxes of diapers which cost us $112. Those diapers will last us a long time but it is still a lot of money to be spending on diapers. So today I decided to give potty-training Benson another go. He was in underwear all day and he really only had 1 accident. Of course I am still just taking him to the bathroom all the time, he never tells me when he needs to go. I think I am being more potty-trained than he is. But maybe this time he'll find the motivation he needs to do it on his own although I'm not holding my breath.
This morning I was changing Sabrina's diaper and Benson was in the girls' room babbling about something. I couldn't really understand at first but then I started hearing "No cost refi" and "No processing fees, no third party fees" and "If you want cash now." He was quoting a commercial that has been on Nick Jr. lately for Countrywide Home Loans. He can almost quote the whole thing. The last time I took him to the grocery store as we were walking down the aisle with paper plates on it he said "Mom, we need some Dixie plates," which he also learned from a commercial. So, obviously the money that they put into commercials on Nick Jr. is money well spent. A month or two ago Ben was sitting at the kitchen table saying something we couldn't understand and then all of a sudden we hear "Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there." We keep wondering if there isn't a way we could make some money off of his commercial quoting abilities. If anyone has any ideas...
I figured out how to embed videos from YouTube as you can see below. Just make sure that you have a YouTube account and that you are logged in or you won't be able to view the video. I blew up 2 balloons for the kids this morning and it provided at least an hour of entertainment which I always find amazing. Simple pleasures.
Our other exciting news is that Mike was promoted today and is now a Senior Credit Manager for Wells Fargo Financial. It came with a raise that was higher than we expected so we are very happy about that.