Well, it's official. Brooke and Kyle will be starting pre-school at Ontario Christian starting in August. We took them down on the Friday before Easter to check out the school and to look around. We got the paperwork and I just turned it all in. They will actually be placed in the 4 year old room and they will be placed together. I am so excited for them. They were excited to look around. We showed them that they would have their own cubbie where they would place their things and they would be able to meet new friends and learn. The school even has mini toilets and lowered sinks. It was too cute.
The only thing now is to turn in the pastor form and the doctor papers. Yes, you read that correctly, the PASTOR form. The Bierbaum Family is now a member of Grace Fellowship of Alta Loma. We went to church this past Sunday. It was actually pretty nice. I found the gentleman who married us and this is the church where he works. The kids were able to go with his wife and play back in the rooms while we sat there. I am thinking I am going to have to get the "cliff note" version of the Bible. Pator Roy kept referencing it and I have to admitt, I have never read it. Perhaps we will have to learn right along with the kids. The church is a very small church and there were only like 15 people in there. They all seem like nice people and the kids and I will be going again on Sunday. Steve is working for the next 4 Sundays in a row. When Janet called and tried to get ahold of me, her son jason jokingly told her we were at church. She about passed out when I told her he was correct.
Anyhow, that's where we are at right now. I am looking forward to summer getting here and having the time off. I am ready for some cocktails and bathing suit time.
Potty Training Boot Camp!
Friday, April 17th
Kids are informed that as of tomorrow, they will NO longer be wearing diapers during the day. They seem OK with what I am telling them. However, I am guessing they had NO clue as to what I was telling them.
Saturday, April 18th
The kids get up around 7am and I again tell them that they are NO longer wearing diapers during the day. Brooke tells me that she doesn't want to wear underwear. TOO BAD! Potty Training Boot Camp has officially started!
I did some research a bit earlier in the week and found a wonderful little ebook online. It's from the potty training expert. It basically prepares the parent/adult who is going to do the potty training and it has the child going to the bathroom every 20 minutes. You set a timer and when it goes off, the child knows. I am here to tell you, this method TOTALLY worked for us. I came down and set the timer and every 20 minutes, the kids were on the potty. At first I gave them a teddy graham if they sat on the potty and a fruit chew if they actually went pee in the potty in addition to a sticker on their chart. At one point, I gave them a small container of cranraspberry juice. BAD IDEA! From about 10am - 11am, I was chasing pee pee EVERYWHERE! It was nightmare. Once we got rid of that, we had lunch and I put both of them down for a nap. At this point, Brooke was telling me that she had to go to the bathroom. Low and behold, they both made it through naptime without peeing in their underwear. Things definitely were awesome after naptime. I actually even took them to Target to get another toilet seat adapter for Kyle for upstairs. I set my phone for 20 minutes and by this point, they totally know when the timer goes off that it's potty time and they even yell it.
I am so surprised that the kids are so good at this and that it is so much easier than I had anticipated. I think I made this potty training thing out to be a monsterous task and was just not quite up for it until now. My main motivator was the kids going to school this next fall. In order for the kids to go to pre-school, they have to be potty trained.
Sunday, April 19th
Steve comes home from work and is amazed that the kids are doing so well with using the potty. We go the ENTIRE day without an accident and Brooke is telling us quite frequently that she has to go potty. Again, we venture out to Costco with the entire family and again we set the cellphone. We do our major shopping trip and don't have any accidents. We are religious with the 20 minute deal and the kids are doing really well. What a breeze!
We are now on day 7 of potty training and it is still going really well. I still put a diaper on the kids during the nighttime but they are already to the point that they want NOTHING to do with a diaper. They actually cried the other night because we put diapers on them. I am so glad this was not the monsterous task I was making it out to be. Brooke is actually doing so well that the other night I was on the phone with my girlfriend getting a salad recipe when I heard her come back up the stairs telling me that she went pee pee. Here she is in her Thomas shirt with nothing else on coming up the stairs. She knew she had to go so she went downstairs, took off her pants and undies and sat up on the toilet all by herself. These 2 never cease to amaze me. We couldn't be more proud of them. They are growing up so fast right before our eyes!
Kids are informed that as of tomorrow, they will NO longer be wearing diapers during the day. They seem OK with what I am telling them. However, I am guessing they had NO clue as to what I was telling them.
Saturday, April 18th
The kids get up around 7am and I again tell them that they are NO longer wearing diapers during the day. Brooke tells me that she doesn't want to wear underwear. TOO BAD! Potty Training Boot Camp has officially started!
I did some research a bit earlier in the week and found a wonderful little ebook online. It's from the potty training expert. It basically prepares the parent/adult who is going to do the potty training and it has the child going to the bathroom every 20 minutes. You set a timer and when it goes off, the child knows. I am here to tell you, this method TOTALLY worked for us. I came down and set the timer and every 20 minutes, the kids were on the potty. At first I gave them a teddy graham if they sat on the potty and a fruit chew if they actually went pee in the potty in addition to a sticker on their chart. At one point, I gave them a small container of cranraspberry juice. BAD IDEA! From about 10am - 11am, I was chasing pee pee EVERYWHERE! It was nightmare. Once we got rid of that, we had lunch and I put both of them down for a nap. At this point, Brooke was telling me that she had to go to the bathroom. Low and behold, they both made it through naptime without peeing in their underwear. Things definitely were awesome after naptime. I actually even took them to Target to get another toilet seat adapter for Kyle for upstairs. I set my phone for 20 minutes and by this point, they totally know when the timer goes off that it's potty time and they even yell it.
I am so surprised that the kids are so good at this and that it is so much easier than I had anticipated. I think I made this potty training thing out to be a monsterous task and was just not quite up for it until now. My main motivator was the kids going to school this next fall. In order for the kids to go to pre-school, they have to be potty trained.
Sunday, April 19th
Steve comes home from work and is amazed that the kids are doing so well with using the potty. We go the ENTIRE day without an accident and Brooke is telling us quite frequently that she has to go potty. Again, we venture out to Costco with the entire family and again we set the cellphone. We do our major shopping trip and don't have any accidents. We are religious with the 20 minute deal and the kids are doing really well. What a breeze!
We are now on day 7 of potty training and it is still going really well. I still put a diaper on the kids during the nighttime but they are already to the point that they want NOTHING to do with a diaper. They actually cried the other night because we put diapers on them. I am so glad this was not the monsterous task I was making it out to be. Brooke is actually doing so well that the other night I was on the phone with my girlfriend getting a salad recipe when I heard her come back up the stairs telling me that she went pee pee. Here she is in her Thomas shirt with nothing else on coming up the stairs. She knew she had to go so she went downstairs, took off her pants and undies and sat up on the toilet all by herself. These 2 never cease to amaze me. We couldn't be more proud of them. They are growing up so fast right before our eyes!
Happy Easter
A few days before Easter, Brookie got sick from God only knows what. I came home from the cruise on Thursday afternoon and that night I actually had a mommy 1st, my daughter threw up on me....2 times! Oh the smell! Good times! She made it threw the next day OK but had some MAJOR runny diapers. On Saturday morning while she was sitting at the breakfast table, WHAMO! Projectile. Nice breakfast for the in laws to see. That afternoon, after calling the nurse line, I took her to urgent care on their recommendation. She had been acting a bit better so on a whim, I decided to swing by the mall on the way home and have them both sit on the Easter Bunny's lap. From last year to this year, what a difference. They look so big with the Easter bunny. Of course Kyle is smiling and Brooke sort of has this half smile. I'll give it to her that she was not feeling 100%. It's still a cute picture though.
Easter was Sunday and the kids had a blast and I had a blast watching them. When they woke up, they had Easter baskets from Grammy waiting from them. I told them the Easter bunny had delivered them from Grammy and Pop Pop. After they opened those up, Steve had come home by then and we let them come downstairs and find their baskets from us in addition to finding the real eggs. We had decorated them on Friday and told them that we were going to leave them out so the Easter bunny could hide them in the house. We had a ton of eggs. We decorated 16 of them and then I stuffed 30-40 plastic eggs for them to have an Easter egg hunt outside with. Steve gave them their buckets and told them to run around and pick them all up. Kyle had been a champ that morning finding all of the real eggs. This time it was Brooke to take the lead and she won by collecting a lot. Uncle Dave made the most appropriate comment stating she was preparing herself for shopping since she found all of the ones with money in them. I had stuffed a lot of them with candy so we let them have a few pieces but mean mommy took the rest to work. Watching the kids on sugar is funny. Talk about hyper.
Steve's parents were in town so everyone came over and we had a BBQ. It was a fun day topped off with a little Wii at the end. The day flew by and it was a nice ending to my spring break. I will have to post more pictures of Easter and the Easter egg hunt.
Spring Break
Whoo Hoo! Spring Break is finally here and I am outta here. No more teachers, no more books, no more.....ANYTHING!!! Steve got my girlfriend and I a carnival cruise for Christmas and it's finally time to go! It's a four night trip down to Ensenada Mexico and back. Let's hope the banditos will leave us along long enough to let us get off the boat and get our drunk on at Whosongs and Papas and Beer. If not, we are bringing plenty of stashed liquor in a luggage and I'm sure we can find a way to terrorize the discotec!
Steve's parents are also coming in tomorrow for a visit. We will celebrate Easter when I get back. I of course was running around like a chicken yesterday getting all the easter basket stuff together so when I get back and am going through withdrawl, I will have everything here. We are going to decorate Easter eggs and stuff the plastic ones with tons of goodies. They are going to love the ones with pennies in them. They just love money!!
Also in the works is to visit a pre-school. I am ready for the kids to move on from a nanny. It's a huge long story but I just LOVE my iPhone. There is a program that allows me to monitor the house and I have 3 cameras set up and I can check in whenever I want to from my phone. I love it and it's been a huge eye opener. Funny! Steve turns them off when he is home!
The kids are coming along so wonderful. Kyle already knows his entire alphabet in the uppercase. I made a poster board that hangs on the pantry door which states the letter of the week, number of the week, shape of the week and color of the week. Both kids already know all of their shapes, even a pentagon. They also already know all of their colors. I went to this teacher store and got them all these cool learning games and flash cards and have even made quite a few games myself for them. They are eating it up and want to play "games" all the time. I made
the alphabet on clothespins. I took my hot glue gun to Parent Teacher Conference night at work and I sat there and hot glued. Let me tell you what a kid magnet I was with the little ones. I work at a high school so the big kids could've cared less what I was doing. Anyhow, the kids take the clothespin alphabet letter and pin it to the correct lamenated card. They love it and I am excited that they are so excited to learn.
Well, I am going to put the finished touches on my packing and CRANK the tunes cuz I am OUTTA HERE! VIVA MEXICO!
Steve's parents are also coming in tomorrow for a visit. We will celebrate Easter when I get back. I of course was running around like a chicken yesterday getting all the easter basket stuff together so when I get back and am going through withdrawl, I will have everything here. We are going to decorate Easter eggs and stuff the plastic ones with tons of goodies. They are going to love the ones with pennies in them. They just love money!!
Also in the works is to visit a pre-school. I am ready for the kids to move on from a nanny. It's a huge long story but I just LOVE my iPhone. There is a program that allows me to monitor the house and I have 3 cameras set up and I can check in whenever I want to from my phone. I love it and it's been a huge eye opener. Funny! Steve turns them off when he is home!
The kids are coming along so wonderful. Kyle already knows his entire alphabet in the uppercase. I made a poster board that hangs on the pantry door which states the letter of the week, number of the week, shape of the week and color of the week. Both kids already know all of their shapes, even a pentagon. They also already know all of their colors. I went to this teacher store and got them all these cool learning games and flash cards and have even made quite a few games myself for them. They are eating it up and want to play "games" all the time. I made
the alphabet on clothespins. I took my hot glue gun to Parent Teacher Conference night at work and I sat there and hot glued. Let me tell you what a kid magnet I was with the little ones. I work at a high school so the big kids could've cared less what I was doing. Anyhow, the kids take the clothespin alphabet letter and pin it to the correct lamenated card. They love it and I am excited that they are so excited to learn.Well, I am going to put the finished touches on my packing and CRANK the tunes cuz I am OUTTA HERE! VIVA MEXICO!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
