General Conference and a New Job

We enjoyed General Conference as much as possible between me being sick and having to go to the hospital and Charles trying to run the house without assistance while trying to catch a little bit of GC.  This will definitely be one of those conferences where I have to re-listen to every single talk because I was really out of it even though I was sitting right in front of the computer watching.  Here is a cute picture of the men to make it all better though.

Charles' company, to say the least, isn't very loyal to their employees and is constantly hiring and laying off employees all of the time.  Charles got cut since the product he was in charge of wasn't selling like the company thought it would.  So they let him go with a ton of other people.  But, there is already a bright side to all of this.  The Monday just before Charles lost his job I had invited a new family in our ward over for FHE.  I hadn't felt like I had felt the Spirit tell me to, but it absolutely was the Spirit.  The family came over and the husband told us about his new job as a manufacturing engineer.  He then said, "They need more engineers so if you want a new job they have positions."  Charles politely said, "That's good to know, but I have a decent job."  That night both Charles and I had the same thoughts of, "Maybe Charles should just switch jobs."  Totally the Spirit.  Then on Wednesday Charles lost his job.  Charles got things going with the new company and will begin work on the baby's due date.  And just incase you only look at our blog for cute pictures, here is another one.

Sleeping

The boys are really good at sleeping when they are tired.  We really don't have to struggle much to get them to go to sleep.  It is a little difficult now that it is still light outside at 7 PM for bedtime, but they are still pretty darn good.  Henry is good at taking naps during the day and will put himself to bed.  Just today Charles told Henry to go take a nap so Henry walked to his room, crawled into bed and went to sleep.

Being pregnant I have been sleeping a ton during the day.  This is how Charles found the three of us one day when he came home from work.  Charlie, Henry, and I are all sleeping together with the stuffed animals on Charlie's bed.  I am glad Charles took a photo.

We needed to wake up the boys so that they would be ready for bed.  We knew it would be difficult to get them to awaken so we decided to video it, here is the YouTube link http://youtu.be/UpWRDHBZ9BY (Blogger kept not being able to find this video from my YouTube channel even though it could find my other videos.  So, I hope this works.).

They are so good at sleeping through noise.  At night if one of them needs help and is crying the other will totally sleep through the entire thing.  A while ago Charlie threw up in bed and I had to change all of his bed sheets and such and bathe Charlie.  Through all of the noise and lights Henry stayed completely asleep.

Charlie's Schooling

Charlie has been learning lots of things in his little school.  My main goal with school is to introduce the ideas to him and so the second he is ready to learn something he will already have a background in what it is.  Another goal is to teach him to follow a routine in school and be able to sit down and pay attention.  He does this part perfectly.  He loves school so much!  He will tell me multiple times a day that when Henry takes his nap that he gets to do school.  Anytime that Henry cries for whatever reason Charlie immediately tells me it is Henry's nap time and that he wants to do school.

Charlie likes learning the nursery lesson each day and coloring the picture.  I cut open a plastic page protector on one side and taped up the bottom so that I could slide it over the coloring pages in the book so I don't have to photocopy the pictures and I just have to wipe the page protector clean at the end of school.

Charlie loves learning what the animal-of-the-day is.  We are almost done with animals and will soon get to start working on the solar system.  I am pretty excited for the solar system.  We are also going to start another section of school introducing and maybe memorizing the LDS prophets.

Each day we review some relatives.  Either a family or a set of families.  Charlie always asks to review my sister's family.  Why?  I don't know, maybe because they have kids about his age and he knows them the best from spending so much time with them at Christmas.  Or maybe because he seems to really like Colleen since she and I look alike.

Charlie is enjoying learning about his body.  He is more specific now when he gets hurt.  He has learned his facial features (eyes, mouth, nose, hair), bones (minus his skull, that will be later),  lungs, and the digestive tract.  He knows all about his digestive system and has no qualm in telling us about how it works while we eat our meals.  Next we will add the heart and blood, kidneys and bladder, skull and brain, and muscles.  I am super excited!

Charlie knows all of his letters and is pretty good with their sounds.  We are now working on basic reading.  He enjoys sounding them out and is starting to memorize what they look like.  At the bottom of the board are five plastic holders for index cards with words on them.  We make new sentences and read them each day.  I write the sentences on a paper and Charlie traces the words and will then draw on the rest of the paper.

He learned his colors, shapes and numbers so we started combining the information in lots of different ways.  On the left of the board is where we counted 10 different shapes in 10 different colors.  I had him write the numbers on every shape.  It was a great activity.  We are currently using Rummikub tiles to help him to recognized each number visually and not just know the order by sound.

(sorry it is blurry)

On the right of the board we learned about reading the clock.  I have the hours from 6AM to 7PM in digital format and then next to specific hours we have pictures of waking up, meal times, and bedtime.  He is pretty good at reading the clock and being responsible for when he eats.  Now I don't have to be the "bad guy" when it isn't time to eat yet.

The Boys Growing Up

I have been gathering a photo of the boys every two months of their life.  I don't try to purposefully take photos of them at the intervals, but there is always something, even if it is a really funny photo of them.  It is fun to watch them grow up and to see them next to each other at the same age.  I put the photos in age order with Charlie first and Henry's corresponding photo next.

Newborn

2 Months

4 Months

6 Months

8 Months

10 Months

1 Year 

1 Year 2 Months

1 Year 4 Months

(Henry is showing me how to pray.  Folding his arms and pointing to his "eye" to signify closing them)

1 Year 6 Months

1 Year 8 Months

1 Year 10 Months

2 Years

2 Years 2 Months

  

2 Years 4 Months

2 Years 6 Months 

2 Years 8 Months 

A Little Bit of Cuteness From Our Life

Henry loves textures.  The touch and feel books were his favorite when he was little and now his favorite textures have to do with fabric items.  He loves the really soft blankets and the fabric that I hang for curtains.  He loves to pull the fabric off and cuddle with it or run around the house with it.  This photo was not staged.  He wandered off and this is what I found him doing.  Cuddling with the curtains and looking at a Greg Olsen book.

Here is peek-a-boo with the curtains.

Charlie wanted a photo taken of himself after Henry got his picture taken.  When Charlie gets hurt and I ask him what is hurt he tells me that his bones got hurt.  He loves learning about his body in school and is obviously remembering the things that he learns because he uses it in his every day conversations.

Some of Henry's words:
Bath: bah
Ball: ba
Baby: bay
Bed: beh
Box: boh
Ice: ICE!

Both Henry and Charlie love their trucks.  Its a good thing that we got this second truck for free so they can each have their own.

When the turkeys in the store all went on sale after the holidays we got the smallest one that we could find.  I finally got up the courage to cook the entire thing by myself with no help.  I think that the only other turkey we have cooked in our marriage was by Charles.  Well, despite winging the entire thing  (that's how I normally cook) it turned out pretty darn good (and that's coming from someone who doesn't even really care for turkey).


I think that pregnancy cravings or food aversions are the funniest thing ever; they never last my entire pregnancy, but sure change up our routine.  With Charlie I wanted cereal every morning (I hadn't eaten cereal since about 3rd grade since I don't like it normally).  I also could not stand the smell or taste of pickles or peanut butter.  With Henry I wanted ice cream all of the time.  I ate two large bowls a day which meant I went through about a gallon tub of ice cream a week by myself.  Charles was lucky if he got a bowl once a week.  With this little baby in the womb I have been wanting spaghetti and disliking ice cream (so sad!).  Thankfully I am finally over my cravings and food aversions for this baby and can go back to buying ice cream (yummy).

Here is a picture of me in case you forgot what I look like since I am usually the one on the other side of the camera (I'll never forget when I asked my mom why there were so few photos of her and she said, "That's because I am always behind the camera."  I had never realized that.  It was a real eye opener to me as a little kid.).  I know it doesn't show my cute little belly, but I'll try to get one of those soon.  Everyone at church thinks I am super small and are always shocked to find out that the baby is due so soon.  I am looking forward to labor and delivery (I know I am weird for saying that, I am such a freak) to see how it compares to the boys.  I am also excited to meet this cute little girl.

Here are the three most important men in my life.  I love how handsome they all are.

Charlie and Henry Using the Potty

Charlie has been potty training off and on (mostly on) for nine months.  Yes, NINE MONTHS!  I have officially declared him potty trained a few times (usually right before a vacation or other large interruptions in daily life), but then he regresses.  We have struggled for a long time even though he knows everything, but he is really just lacking the motivation to use the potty.  What really seemed to do it for him was that we took away his undies.  He went around with a bare bum which he did not enjoy.  I let him know that once he keeps the floor clean (or wherever the current accident was) he can have his undies back.  It worked!  He had two successful Sundays at church and has gone on lots of outings without any accidents.  He really thinks he is a big boy now.  Such a big boy that he doesn't need his potty seat anymore.

So in one of my last blog posts I told you about Henry using the potty for treats.  Henry really got into eating treats and so whenever he was hungry he would sit on the potty and get a treat and then a minute later want to repeat the whole process over and over again.  I had to hide the treats and tell him they were all gone for him to stop sitting on the potty just to eat tic tacs.  He still loves to use the toilet and about half of the time things happen.

He goes into the bathroom, lifts the toilet lid, and signs to me that he wants to use the potty.  I put the potty seat on the toilet and then hoist his 24 lbs on to the toilet.  He does his thing and then lets me know he is all done and signs to be taken off of the toilet.

I Think I Know Where We Live...Maybe

I know, I know, we have lived in Pennsylvania for about nine months (has it really been nine months already?  Wow, time is flying some how) and we are just now figuring out where we live.  In states with city planners (aka the west coast) the layers within a state are easy to identify: state, county, city.  In Pennsylvania there are lots of layers (if they can even be called that, more like splotches): state, county, township, borough, city, town, village.  And these aren't easy to figure out.  Our realtor couldn't even explain it to us.  I had to look up what municipality we lived in for a tax form and I had no idea what to put down.  I came across a Wikipedia page that explains it the best.  Here is where we live:

State: Pennsylvania

County: York
(those two are the only easy ones to answer)

Township: Newberry Township
(this is easy to answer, too, once you know about this level. FYI township abbreviation is Twp.  We couldn't figure out what Twp. stood for forever)

Borough: none

City: none
(Twps, Boroughs and Cities are all on the same level and you can only live in one of them.  Twps are more "country side" while Boroughs are main local areas and Cities are the large "metropolitan" areas, kinda.  Definitions very from each location, kinda)

Town: depends.  Weird I know, but it really does depend.  Our correct and technical town is Goldsboro (not to be confused with Goldsboro Borough).  The USPS renames us as Etters.  Why and how did this happen?  I don't know.  If you mail something, our town is Etters, but when Googling us Google will change Etters to Goldsboro.  We are both, but yet not...

Village: Valley Green.  We get this name because there is a golf course near us called Valley Green so they named a lot of clusters of homes, including our townhouse complex Valley Green.  So they decided to make us a village.  I never knew we lived in a village until today.

Here is a map of our county.  You can see our village in blue as a "Census Designated Place" near the top of our county in the Newberry Twp.

(Map swiped from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/York_County,_Pennsylvania#Municipalities)