Happy Valentines Day !!!!

Here's cupid in action!!

Bloggity blah blah blah

I'm not certain if it's the limited time I find myself on the computer or lack of something to report but I have been neglecting my blog for quite sometime and it has been bothering me something fierce lately. So here is my best attempt at playing catch up and by no means does it include a promise to do better in the future-cuz let's face it, none of us are perfect.

So I should probably just start where I left off from my last post. Okay so potty training is on a huge hold right now-Brooke just isn't showing any readiness signals and she still wakes up in the morning with a wet diaper (no she doesn't have a sippy cup to bed with her) so I am reluctantly waiting a bit longer, though I pray everyday that she is ready soon.

Amber is continually surprising me with what she knows. She has really started enjoying reading and has read 40 books this year (at her level). I love to hear her read books on her own without any help from me-it really is a great accomplishment. She has found and really loves Pokeman and will come home from the library toting whatever movie they have from the series.

Whitney is playing basketball through the YMCA here and she is doing really great. She is pretty good with dribbling and will switch from her left to right and back pretty often. She almost dribbles better than me...I hate dribbling left handed. She has strep throat right now and the first day she was doing pretty bad-not keeping anything down-chills, fever, sore throat...just a train wreck poor thing. She is on antibiotics and was given a steroid to shrink her throat inflammation and is doing much better.

Trevor now has 2 teeth on his lower gumline and i am in the process of weaning him from me. He has learned to clap his hands. He still isn't crawling yet at ten months-He likes to circle on his belly and roll alot. At times he will lift his belly and i think by the end of the month he will be on all fours. I am content for now that he's not too mobile. He is such a sweetheart. As for me, teaching two dance classes a week, volunteering at the school and ofcourse young womens-keeps me busy enough. If I am lucky I do modern and Ballet with a bunch of other women on Mon/Fri mornings and get my dance on for just me. I cannot wait for nicer weather and the opportunity to take the younger kids on walks. I am so done with Winter.

It finally came to pass...

After sitting for 2 hours straight...Brooke finally went on the potty chair!! Yep it was a double wammy, going both #1 and #2. Some of you may think this just plain idle chatter but at our house it was cause for a celebration!! When Brooke turned 2 I had introduced her to the "potty" chair with not much interest and alot of fighting afterwards. So this has been a non-forced issue but the option was there and offered quite frequently. So we are going to go the no diaper route (except when we leave the house or during sleeping). My biggest worry is that she isn't able yet to feel the urge to go- when she went today, she wasn't really aware that she was going. I was sitting next to her and she too engrossed in her vtech game to notice-I kind of had to point it out to her because I heard her go. For those of you who have followed my blog for a while-you will remember that Brooke had low muscle tone in her lower body. I am wondering now if this could also mean her bladder muscles too might be weaker as well. Anyone else have issues similar to this that caused toilet training delays??

A new year

With a new year comes new goals..or old ones still unfinished.
Here are just a few of mine so far..

1. Potty train Brooke-she just turned 3, yet she is fighting me on this one.
2. Move Trevor into his own room and hopefully get him to sleep through the night.
3. Get Amber independently reading on her own...this one may be the hardest goal of the year.
4. Lose my baby weight-I was hoping by this time I would have got to my goal but alas-I think once again, I will have to quit nursing altogether before my body decides to shed any more unwanted fat.
5. After goal #4 is completed-I want to downsize my closet-get rid of all clothes that don't fit or that i don't wear anymore.
6. Dejunk the toys that I didn't get to before Christmas.
7. Try to get my housecleaning routine back in the schedule.
8. If #2 happens, I'd like to go to bed by 10:30 every night-i'm a night owl, so this one will be tough.
9. Schedule more playdates for Brooke.
10. Take kids to the park more during the summertime-we didn't go much last year.
11. Go to the Portland Temple for my 10 year wedding anniversary.
12. Visit Home(my parents) at least once.
13. Try to be more understanding and kind about everything.

Like I said before-so far, I am sure I will add to this list.

Movies for the New Year- SuperHero Fans will be thrilled

January
From Prada to Nada -twist on sense and sensibility-looks so cute!
Season of the Witch-Nicolas Cage is a knight sent to deliver a witch to her execution- interesting for sure.

February
The Eagle Roman Legion captain"s son travels to Breton to find out what happened to his father.
Waiting for Forever-this movie looks like it could be bittersweet.
Just go with it- Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler-need I say more??

March-Full of suspense, romance and drama
RedRiding Hood-a bit on the erie side..hmm not sure if I will see this one or not.
Jane Eyre I know i posted this before-but now you can watch the trailer!! HERE
The Adjustment Bureau - Matt Damon fights his fate while holding on to love.
Beastly-modern day take on beauty and the beast
Diary of a Wimpy Kid 2
April
Water for elephants-not sure what this one will be rating wise-but looks good!
Robert Pattinson/Reese Witherspoon
May-Adventure Month
Thor
Pirates of the Carribean
Kung Fu Panda 2
Men in Black 3 -man it's been a long time ..hope it's better than the second.

June
Green Lantern
XMen-First Class
Cars 2

July
Transformers-Dark of the Moon
Winnie the Pooh
The Smurfs-I really hope this one is not dissapointing.
Harry Potter-The deathly Hollows pt. 2
Captain America: The First Avenger
August-
Spy Kids 4
Conan the barbarian..This version supposed to be more accurate than Arnolds.

The Avengers (2012)-great cast full of superheros (Iron man, green lantern, incred. hulk, thor..etc)

Okay so all the guys who loved comic books/cartoons growing up are going to love 2011/12

I've read 21 of them..what about you??

My reading list for the future:
Have you read more than 6 of these books? The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here.

• Bold those books you've read in their entirety.
• Italicize the ones you started but didn't finish or read only an excerpt.
Tag other book nerds. Tag me as well so I can see your responses!

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens - On my bookshelf for someday.
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma -Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis (shhh...don't tell anyone)
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas On my bookshelf for someday.
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno - Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Haircut

Whitney has been begging me to cut her hair-so tonight I finally did.

Cut about 4 inches off.

Tis the Season....to be busy

That is one reason why it's taking me forever to get posts up. Well here is what I have been up to lately:

Brooke turned 3!!!


Decorated for Christmas-our nativity stockings!



Made ornaments!! My tree has a Nutcracker Theme!

Enjoyed this cutie!!

Creative Movement and Ballroom Classes

I will be teacing dance starting this week at Solace Wellness and Fitness Cetner

Creative Movement Class (age 3-5) starts THIS Thursday 1-1:45 Preballet and creative movement with a fun Thanksgiving theme!!!

Couple Ballroom Class starts Friday 7-9 includes 1 hour class instruction with 1 hour dancing to follow. I will be on hand to do some individaul coaching and answer questions while you enjoy dancing!! This week we will be doing Swing!

Cost is $10 a person and are drop-in classes. You can purchase a card of pre-paid classes at a discount ($4 a lesson)!!

Visit a time long ago...

Okay so I love historical fiction and have decided to list my favorite Period tv mini series, etc with their links so you can watch them if available.

Okay so here are a few of my favorite TV miniseries that I have enjoyed:

Lark Rise to Candleford- BBC miniseries about a small town Candlefor and it's neighboring country village LarkRise.
Cranford - a rural English town where etiquette rules, undergirded by a healthy amount of gossip. The move forward to a modern time has many residents questioning their traditional living. (based on the novel by Elizabeth Gaskill)
North and South-Also based on the novel by Elizabeth Gaskill, this is the story of one family's move to an industrial town where they are caught up in the drama of newfound money and fair rights to workers.
Downton Abbey-set before the Great War. This is the story of Lord Granthams' family and their struggle to keep the estate in the family while take care of the futures of their three daughters. Servants have their own aspirations and drama abounds and costuming, in my opinion is gorgeous.

Chirstmas Giveaway 2010 Starts today!!

Christmas is just around the corner-so ofcourse-gotta checkout the giveaways!!

B-Ball

Trevor loves basketball!

I think this would make both of his grandpas smile!