Learning to ride...

Well, Grace finally learned to ride her bike without training wheels!!  Ray took them off a few months ago and she was just too scared to do it.  She kept asking him to put her training wheels back on, but he told her that once they are off they can't go back on!  The last couple of days they have been practicing a lot and she finally go it!

Once she started riding it was like she had been doing it all her life.  She stayed out and practiced for a long time and now she can get started all by herself and stop without the bike falling over.  Great job, Grace!! (She didn't get hurt when she fell, by the way :)

Real Estate

I am so tired of selling houses.  This is the 4th house we have sold in the last 4 years.  We have always been really lucky and have sold our houses really fast.  I keep thinking that our luck has run out (even though it has only been about a week).  I always go through this.  Plus, the housing market has changed drastically in this country.  However, the housing market in Tulsa is actually much better than a lot of the country, at least that is what all the experts say.  Our home prices haven't plummeted.  The market here has always been really steady and stable.  And, they keep cutting interest rates, which is bad for the value of the dollar, but good for people wanting to buy houses. 

But, I hate always having to keep the house spotless, having to worry about every little mess the kids make.  They need to be able to make messes, they are kids!!  I feel like I am being a tyrant mom.  I hate all of the stress it creates, worrying about the future, what will we do if the house doesn't sell soon enough, etc.  We were going to rent when we first moved here, but couldn't find anything to suit our needs in the short amount of time we had to look.  So, we will rent when we get to Spokane, even though we plan on being there for much longer  (we planned on being here for much longer, after all).   The bright side is, we get to move back to the northwest!!!  I am thrilled about that .  But I am so over selling houses.  I just want it to be over with.  I know I need to have faith that we are making the right decision for our family, so it will all work out.  But accepting the unknown is a very uncomfortable  place for me to be.    Anyway, I 'm done with my rant, I need to go to bed (after I get the house cleaned up, of course :).

Spokane Bound (Another couple of Crazy Weeks)

So, it looks like we are going to be on the move again.  We have really been wanting to move back to the northwest.  We miss it so much.  We really like Oklahoma but it just isn't the west.  So, Ray has been looking around for jobs and being very picky about it.  He interviewed for a job in Spokane, WA a few months ago and it has been a long process, but they offered him the job a couple of weeks ago.  Ray and I went to Spokane for his final interview, (thanks Les  and Alex for watching the kids!!), and they basically asked him to tell them everything that he wants, holding nothing back, so he did.  They gave him everything he wanted!!  They were really impressed with him and obviously really wanted him.  They flew both of us out there and put us up in this really nice hotel in downtown Spokane.  He will be doing pretty much the same thing he does now, for a different company.  It is really good for Ray to feel like he is appreciated professionally, something he hasn't really felt in his current job.  We really feel like this will be a good move for us.  They will be paying him more, so I really won't have to work anymore, and we will be so much closer to my family.  

I love Spokane, it is so beautiful.  There are big huge pine trees everywhere throughout the city.  We are really excited!!  Now we just have to sell our house!  We have been working feverishly to get our house ready to sell, here's a hint-flat paint BAD with kids!!  You can't wash it, you have to paint over it.  We have had to paint pretty much everything from 3 ft. down.  Ray's new employer is being very flexible with his start date, they are giving us time to sell our house.   But, it is still very stressful.  Anyway, we are praying that all goes smoothly!  We can't wait to get back to the west!

 

One Crazy Week

We have had a crazy week in the VanderLouw home.  Mostly because we started potty training Elliot on Saturday.  He is doing pretty well, but it seems like one step forward, two steps back most of the time.  He has only had one pee-pee accident, but he still has not pooped on the potty.  He just poops in his underwear!!  And I get to clean it up.  On Wednesday night he went potty alone, without being asked, but hasn't done it since.  It might be because I keep making him go before he really recognizes it (Ray was home with him when he went by himself).  Anyway, we just have to keep plugging along with it, he will get it soon enough.  

Maggie is almost walking.  She took 4 steps on Sunday night, but hasn't done it since, she will usually only take one or two.  She is getting better at standing on her own.  She is such a good baby, she eats anything I give her.  The other night we fed her some black beans and she loved them!!  It is such  a relief to actually have a child that eats (for now anyway).  Maggie is getting 6 teeth, yes 6, all on top, all at the same time.  I feel so bad for her.  She has had a low fever off and on and has had a hard time sleeping, which means I don't get to have much sleep either!!  But she, remarkably, has not been very fussy and has remained pretty happy.  We just keep lots of baby orajel on her gums!!

Grace has just been a good sport through it all.  I feel like such a bad mom.  I took her to the doctor this week because I thought she might have a bladder infection.  She didn't but after I told the doctor that she has been complaining a lot that her stomach hurts, they took an x-ray of her stomach.  Well, she was extremely constipated.  I always asked her if she had to go to the bathroom whenever she said her stomach hurt.  She always said no.  She also always tells me when she goes #2, but I haven't really been looking at it.  Poor little girl.  I felt so bad.  But, we have that all fixed up now!!  I keep telling her that if she doesn't want this to happen again she needs to eat all her fruits and veggies!!  We have been having serious potty issues this week!!

Elliot in his big boy undies, no more diapers for him!!  You can't really see his legs, but he wrote all over them when he was coloring, it is a bunch of letters and smiley faces :)  They are washable markers, but it sure doesn't want to come off of his legs!!

This is the attitude we often get from Elliot these days!!

Grace got a new haircut yesterday.  I told her that she looks like Dora the Explorer!!

Here is a video of Maggie dancing and taking a step!  I love the way she twirls her wrists when she hears music!

Check out my Slide Show!

23 Pounds of Adorable

                                                              I LOVE the leg rolls!

This is what 95 percentile for weight and 35 percentile for height looks like!  Maggie has decided that she doesn't like baby food anymore and will only eat what she can feed herself.  Luckily she will eat just about anything I put down in front of her (as you can clearly see!!)

Video Game Generation

So, Grace got a little v-smile video game for Christmas and she loves it, but Elliot is completely OBSESSED with it. I honestly don't even know how he learned to play it. I went upstairs one day and he was playing it, and he was actually playing it, moving the joystick, making Dora jump, climb latters, everything she is supposed to do. I am baffled at how he learned to do this. Are kids these days just born with some innate ability to play video games?!? I mean, he is barely 3 years old!! It actually made me a little sad for some reason. My knee jerk reaction was to make him stop playing and I took it away. Well, that did not go over well. So now I have decided to let him play the video game for an hour a day. That seems to be working out pretty well. But sometimes I think that is even too much. I kindof worry a little because Elliot has a tendency to get lost in his own head, he plays by himself a lot, he collects things and arranges them in specific ways and he doesn't like to be interrupted. I really try to interact with him when he is playing. I go back and forth over whether it is a problem or just his personality. I talked to his doctor about it and she doesn't think that I need to be concerned, it is just a boy thing, that is just how his brain works. I guess that is just a part of being a parent, worrying over every little thing. It is so hard to know if you are doing the right thing, or permanently screwing up your children!! He has the video game thing down, now we just need to get him potty trained!!