Still feeling relaxed...

I think we have been a little distracted with having a "baby" in the house. We saw a couple of BM's younger friends swimming like fish this weekend. Another one knows how to ride a bike (well he is a couple of months older).

BM is getting pretty confident in the water though, and swim lessons will be icing on the cake.

I told dh he should work on his bike riding with him.

To be fair, my parents gave up on me. It took me like 5 years to learn how to ride a bike. LOL. It's funny. I usually pick up things pretty fast, but biking was not my thing. So in my head I am thinking you are like 10 when you learn to ride a bike.

These are single children. It's all I could figure. I wonder how we got so terribly behind (or are we?).

Well I think it would be quite an accomplishment if BM could swim and ride a bike by end of summer. Things to work on.

I thought once you got potty training out of the way, things would be simple. There is still much to learn. LOL.

Anyway, speaking of potty training, things are going swimmingly with BM. We take a VERY relaxed approach with potty training. People keep asking what we are doing, or MIL, why aren't we doing more. Everyone's got their charts and stickers.

We don't really push it. There isn't much to our "method." It is the "when you are ready" method.

So anyway, BM was trained 24/7 before the time he was 3.

& surprisingly, LM is rapidly approaching that same end. He was a lot more slow and timid on the potty, so I didn't expect much. But peer pressure is kicking in I guess.

Warning - TMI:

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Anyway, I bring it up, because both our kids were #1 on the potty well before 3 - got it down. But they both refused to #2 on the potty. This is the problem with our method. LM takes it a step farther because he refuses to #2 with anyone around. It means he has worn underwear for a long time because he only #2s at night in his diapers. Phew. BUT he refused to #2 the entire time we were in Disneyland because he was sharing a bed with BM. Egads. (Our conclusion...)

Anyway, he couldn't have had better timing, but yesterday he asked to go #2 on the potty. We had told him for a LONG time we would take him out for ice cream when he did. Dh exclaimed this was the best Father's Day present ever (gross, but you know, means the end of diapers is very near - he really only uses them for #2). So anyway, it was nap time, and we had all just unwound from our busy day, and so we all threw on our clothes and got dressed back up to go get ICE CREAM. As promised!

We had offered him fancy ice cream and I had even found a $2 Baskin Robins gift certificate over the weekend. BUT he just wanted to go to thrifty for their 99 cent ice cream (which is DIVINE). Good choice.

So, woohoo!

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Anyway, yes, so dh got the best gift ever. LOL.

Well, Saturday night when the fam got home the kids played outside with sidewalk chalk and ran in the sprinklers. It is becoming a nightly ritual really - let them run around outside. I don't think our yard was great for smaller kids, but I am pleased how it is evolving into a great play place for them. I Can actually sit at the kitchen table with a laptop and relax and keep an eye on them. But the shade in the evening is great (it usually bugs me you can't go outside without melting during the day, but I realize soon enough they will be in school and all that anyway. I guess the shade in the evening is what matters).

The weather has been DIVINE. This is not the June Sacramento weather I am used to. Warm, but nice cool breezes. Unusually cool for June, I think. LOVING it. I was just telling dh if this was how summer was, I could deal.

I took the kids to Fairytale Town yesterday in the a.m., to get out of dh's hair. The freeway is closed again for major repair (a few more weeks off and on) so we had to take a bit of a detour and wasted gas. It's usually such a quick drive. But oh well!!

We were going to see this puppet show there, but the show was rather late. Decided to head home instead.

The weather was PERFECT. Wearing shorts, nice breeze, not cold, not hot. Was just right.

We came home and got dressed for the pool and headed to a community BBQ. ("Free" Food!!!).

I worried it wasn't quite enough to swim, and then sweltered on the walk over there. With a newer neighborhood we just have NO shade. It was HOT on the walk.

They had a bounce house and the kids just had a blast. Ate and got in the pool. Not sure I ever saw it so CROWDED. (We usually go in the mornings and there is no one there). But yeah, just packed, but it was still fun.

I told dh I could see hanging out there and really enjoying if there was ANY shade. We just need more shade. Life would be good with shade.

Who builds a luxury community in SACRAMENTO with no shade? LOL. It will decades before the trees mature to create REAL shade.

Came home, went to ice cream.

Oh yes, and I made dinner. Tried a new recipe called "Spicy Bronzed Chicken" and it was DIVINE. Was about 10 spices mixed up. Dip the chicken in butter (yes, BUTTER) and sprinkle with spice. I rounded it out with pasta roni (because we had some and I am terrible at planning ahead).

Not Bad.

I also did 4 loads of laundry. The first one came out with all this "gunk" and I was at a loss to what it was. Oh, hindsight 20/20. I threw it in the dryer - I didn't see much. Well, when I pulled it out I found the culprit. A DIAPER!!!!!!!!!! We were lucky it did little damage. Dh decided MIL had thrown it in with the dirty clothes (like underwear). Ugh.

I tried to do most of dh's work yesterday, and I have to say, I came out exhausted. Admittedly, he was behind on laundry. LOL. HE has been so distracted by our cable situation (spent all day working on our new internet - having issues). & so the dishes and laundry were way behind. I didn't even attempt dishes. HE has today to catch up a bit.

But I told him I did his work all day and was exhausted. Sometimes a day like that is good to extra appreciate all he does.

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I spent a good chuck of the weekend clearing the house of crap. BUT the house looks like HELL!!!!!!!!

LOL.

It just looks awful.

I got some clutter to clear now.

We have been ordering a lot of stuff for our camping trip and such, so just lots of boxes and stuff everywhere. I have so been enjoying the time to do deep cleaning, the surface stuff has gotten wildly out of control.

For that, I still feel overwhelmed.

I feel like we will never catch up! But we'll keep at it. A little at a time...

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My Craigslist sales are up to $30 today. (Sold some prints).

I was trying to sell them with some crib bedding/decor. I think it is adorable, but it is pretty unique. I know if I find that right buyer I can get a good price for it. But I might have to just give it away.

Too bulky to ship ebay. Though it might be a better venue... *sigh*

I'll just leave it up on Craigslist for a month or something. There's got to be someone out there with my taste in baby room decor. LOL. I will probably steadily decrease the price too. I am the point where I just need to get rid of stuff. !!!!! Though this was something we paid much for and is really nice. So it sucks to give it up for nothing. Bah.

I imagine this is how many people feel much of the time. Most of our baby stuff we bought used and sold for what we paid for it. So, I think this is why this is so extra disheartening. My NICE stuff is useless???? LOL. Yeah, that's why we usually don't buy baby stuff we can't turn around fast.

If dh gets to selling all the strollers we may clear $100 this week. We paid $20 or so for each of them, used, so I think we can clear $20 each too. Will help make up for the crib stuff not selling...

We've already turned around a few strollers because we bought a few to try them out until we settled on what we kept. Just kept buying/selling. Once they are used they keep their resale value pretty well.