What We've Been Up To the Past Month...

Life has been so busy for the past month, and with me hardly having time to write, now I'm REALLY behind. So here we go... and I promise to keep things brief. :) (Hopefully...)

Well, hmmm.... Where do I start?! I guess back at the beginning of May when I turned the ripe old age of 26. :) It was really busy - full of preschool, playgroup, naps, T-Ball, shopping, and dinner - but it was still a blast! Thanks Mom and Dad for coming up and making it such a great day. Then a few days later, I celebrated my fifth Mother's Day. It's still really hard for me to believe I've been a mom that long! That day was awesome though. Greg let me sleep in, then woke me up later with a yummy breakfast, along with a sweet card and gift that he and the boys had made. The gift was a jar of my favorite candy (Sour Patch Kids) and Whoppers with the saying, "Thanks for being a whopper of a mom!" I loved it - it seriously brought me to tears. We don't have much of a budget for Mother's and Father's Day gifts as you can probably tell, but this proved to me that you don't have to spend very much money to show someone you love them. Then we spent the rest of the day at my parent's, celebrating my birthday again and enjoying each other's company. It really was an awesome day!

Okay, wow, I'm not being very "brief," am I?! I'll try harder... :) Gavin finished up his first year of preschool in the middle of May and I have to admit, it was kind of a sad day! Gavin adores his teacher ("Miss Hillary") and was pretty bummed that he couldn't go back for the rest of the summer. While I was pretty bummed about that too (just because he is SO much happier when he is in preschool), I was definitely relieved to not have that payment for a few months! :) I have to admit though that after this past year, I am a firm believer in my kids going to preschool! I questioned it a little bit in the beginning just because I didn't want to pay the tuition, but I cannot believe how much Gavin has learned that I couldn't have taught him on my own. I sincerely believe preschool has brought out the best in him and am thrilled he has one more year with his awesome teacher! (In fact, Ty is already on her waiting list for 2010!) And sorry there's no pic - I will try to remember to take one next year!

This past month has also been full of lots of T-Ball for Gavin! I was a bit worried at the first game when he freaked out and did not want to go out on the field and play, but fortunately, he loved every game after that! In fact, his last game was cancelled last night because of the rain and he was so bummed... But all that sadness went away when he found out he got to get a trophy! Ha ha, silly kid...

We've also been busy the past month with some dreaded words... dare I say them?... POTTY TRAINING! It feels like just yesterday that we were potty training Gavin at the ripe-old age of 3-1/2, and here I am potty training Ty at 2-1/2. Honestly, after my experience with Gavin, I would NEVER have imagined potty training Ty at his current age, but when he started showing interest, I thought maybe I should take advantage of it. We've been working on it for about 3 weeks now, and still have yet to go one day without an accident, but overall I think he's doing really well! He's already filled out an entire potty chart and was so proud of himself. Can you tell?! Hopefully within the next couple of weeks, he'll get it down completely!

And for the LAST thing consuming my life recently - one sad boy with one swollen finger! On Wednesday morning, I was teaching piano and the boys went out in the garage with Greg while he was working on a cabinet. During my lessons, Gavin came in screaming because he had gotten a little cut on his finger while playing with one of Greg's drill bits. Greg put a band-aid on it and we didn't think much about it after that, until I got looking at it later that night and realized that Gavin's entire finger was really swollen. It was getting late, so I had Greg call his brother Jeff to see what we should do. He called in a prescription and again, we didn't think much of it for a while until I got looking at it AGAIN yesterday, and saw that the swelling had moved down into his knuckle and a bit into his hand. So I took him to the pediatrician where she soaked his hand in some betadine and started slicing his scab off so the infection could drain. Gavin was a trooper until she found something "foreign" in his finger and started trying to cut it out. He had had it at that point, so she told me she thought something was in his finger and that I should keep repeating the betadine until it came out. Well sure enough, last night I did another treatment with him and a little black thing came out. Whatever it was, I'm sure glad it's out because his swelling has gone way down! What an experience though - who knew such a teeny little cut could cause such a problem! (And if you're wondering what that marker is on his finger, the doctor drew a line where the swelling extended to so I could watch and see if it spread anymore.)

Well, hooray! I think I'm finally caught up! :) Thanks to those of you who were willing to read all the way until the end! :) -Ash