Party Time!!

Bradley and Kiersten are turning two next month!
We are having a Birthday Party at one of our favorite parks, Caper Acres, to celebrate their birthday.

Since the blog is public, if you would like to come and play with us please comment or email me. I don't want to tell the whole world wide web the time and day.

Anyways- we LOVE this park!

They have a humpty dumpty on a wall, a pirate ship, a dragon tunnel you can crawl through, swings, swiss cheese to climb through thats like one at Fairy tale town, a teeter totter, etc!

Can't wait for our party!!

Ugh..Stupid Potty training...

This whole post is about potty training. If you don't want to hear about pee then sorry my friends, this wont be fun!
So yea it didn't work. I did my best to do it though! I was so excited to start in the morning- I pep talked myself to get ready for it and hype myself up for the misery that would soon follow. One major problem was trying to attack it by myself with two kiddos. Adam worked from 2-7 that morning and had to sleep for a few hours. After going crazy around 9 I woke him up to join me. With two of us we got about 5 successes in their potties.
During nap time Adam left and was gone for longer than I thought. About two hours after nap times the twins and I were hanging out in the kitchen/ dining area. My moment of "I am so done hand me those blasted diapers!!" was when Bradley decided to deliberately pee on my cabinets. I grabbed him and put him on his potty and he got some in the bowl. We did our celebration because at least SOME got in the bowl. When I went to go clean the cabinets Bradley was still sitting down. He jumped up and Kiersten grabbed the bowl and flung the pee all over the room. OMG I AM DONE!
Of course Adam came home about a minute after that.
I really liked the concept of this method and we will try it all again in a few months. Oh and the funny thing was that even though the deal breaker was with Bradley peeing, he was the one who grasped the concept much better than Kiersten. So I kind of debunked the girls are better and faster at potty training. It's all an individual thing.
We'll see in a few months...

Potty Training time?

So I got this email from baby center with a suggestion with a potty training method that works best before 28 months. I read about it and it interested me. Adam and I talked about possibly giving it a shot and I think we are going to go for it!
The method says it takes three days for them to get it down and then they should be good. The first day is obviously the hardest.
Today we prepared for our big day. We got two potty seats and we took them to target and let them pick out their own panties that they would love. I cleared out the dining area so we would be on linoleum for easy cleaning. I moved the TV across the room in case they get board and I need help distracting. The TV is actually further away then it looks and they can't touch it.
Here is what it looks like :



We are starting this weekend because we want them to be potty trained before school starts for Adam in a little over 3 weeks. What we normally do is buy about ten boxes of diapers at the start of every semester and it lasts us. Our last diaper purchase we got 25% off plus free shipping of and a coupon to.... gotta love target! So if it fails and we need diapers still we want to know before Adam leaves target and wont get his employee discount.

Anywho- wish us luck!

Bradley's First Appt

Bradley had his first appointment today for his surgery. This wasn't the actual surgery. We met with the dr and she looked at his bump and tested his eyesight to make sure the bump hadn't affected anything.

The bump is called a dermoid cyst and is just a bunch of cells that form a sack of "junk". Its not liquid filled so they can't just drain it and it has to be surgically removed. If the cyst is ruptured it will cause significant inflammation and cause the cyst to multiply in the area it was spread and get just as big as the original one.

Sometimes with these cysts so close to the eye they form a dumbbell cyst. This is where its a sac on the outside that connects to another sac on the other side of the skull. So the visual would be weight on one side connected to a weight on the other side like a dumb bell.
Bradley has to get an MRI to make sure that this didn't happen. If it did then they have to remove part of his skull to get the sac because they can't rupture it.

We have to schedule an MRI with UC Davis because our imaging center up here in Chico isn't connected with the hospital so they can't anesthetize him here.
Hopefully I can talk with our pediatrician to see if there is anything he can prescribe him so we can get it done up here. Otherwise that means at least four trips to Sacramento- One pre-surgical consultation, MRI, Surgery, and post-op. I know they are specialized with children because they do it all day long. It would just be nice to cut an appointment and traveling out.

I was very nervous for today's appointment. I thought they were going to run a lot of tests, bloodwork, hours of poking and prodding etc.. The only test the really did was dilate his eyes to see the back of the eye ball if there is any damage or it didn't grow correctly. She said everything looks fine and his eyes are perfect. The want to do bloodwork closer to the surgery date so we didn't have to do that today.

I was completely expecting surgery to just remove the cyst off of his eyebrow. But to know that it could be much worse and they have to remove part of his skull it just terrifying.
We will be fasting for Bradley that his test results come back showing the cyst is just on the outside. We would appreciate any fasting or prayers on his behalf. I will keep everyone updated for when we can schedule his MRI.

Potato Harvest

From what I read, potatoes are ready to harvest when the stalks fall over and die. So the time came for my tiny garden to harvest the potatoes. The stalks grew to be about 3 feet in height. The fell over fast so I didn't get a good picture of them all standing up. Here is what is looks like while laying down:



So I dug them up and found nothing! I was so bummed! Well, that's not true- I found another 5 pennies, a button, some glass from a car, and a soda can top.


I tried to loosen the dirt as much as possible before I planted but I probably didn't do good enough. The roots only grew out and not down.


My zucchini only has to sprouts left and both were dying. I wanted to transplant them to two clay pots on the fence so they get more sun. I tried to dig up one and a bunch of ants came out and the sprout looked like it had no roots left so thats why it was dying. The second and biggest sprout looked okay and I was able to move it. but now it looks like its dying too.

The one thing that is working is my tomato topsy turvy. I had to replace it once and it broke in half about a week after that. This is what it looks like now:

There are a few buds on it and we might actually get tomatoes! I'm excited!

Bradley's Bump

Bradley has a big bump on his left eyebrow that is about the size of a nickel. It goes back and forth on how big it is and it worries the doctors up here in the Chico area.
We have an appointment scheduled this week at UC Davis to see a Pediatric Plastic Surgeon for a pre- op appointment. This could last anywhere from 2-4 hours. They fear that the bump might keep growing and either push his eye or cover it. He has to be under general anesthesia to get it removed and we will schedule that after we talk to the dr this week.

He already has really pronounced brow bone so it looks like its on both sides almost. We don't know what caused it and he didn't bump his head. We were asked that at every dr appointment for about 6 months until we moved to a new DR. It first appeared around 9 months.


This picture was taken on the 4th of July before we cut his hair. Its even more noticeable now that he has a buzz cut.


Michelle McConkey, a friend from our ward, is going to watch Kiersten for us so we don't have to bring her with us for the very long appointment. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers. I will update everyone after our appointment this week.

Naptime Nightmares!

Naptimes don't always work out too well. I am almost at my wits end!!
Friday I took a shower after putting them down for a nap. When I was done I heard high pitch screaming coming from Kiersten. I get dressed and go in their room to investigate. Bradley had pinned Kiersten down into a tiny ball in the corner and was bouncing up and down on her.

Yesterday we put them down for a nap and found this


They had pulled the drawers out of the dresser to use it like a ladder and climbed up. Then pulled the blanket off that I had on a curtain rod as a black out curtain and were playing with the blinds.
They were quiet about it to and we were across the house so when we heard the blinds being played with we knew something was wrong.
We let them out of their nap time and re arranged to room so the dresser in on the opposite wall and nothing in under the window now.

Maybe I should push nap times back further so they are more tired and will actually sleep.
All I know is that the kids love climbing the dresser, stealing pacifiers, and even the socks off the other ones feet.
Sometimes I will stand in the corner and be silent and wont look at them and when they climb out of bed I quietly put them back in bed. But it gets frustrating really fast. This was also how I found out about the sock thief Bradley.
Oh and now Bradley is throwing huge temper tantrums because he's tired all the time. I mean like monumentally huge and screaming and thrashing on the floor bad.
Ugh... help??

Our 4th of July

We went to the big city celebration at 10:30 in the morning at Bidwell park. It was so hot we went home after about an hour of being there.


We let them take really long naps and then we went to our friends Megan and Mike Meyer for a BBQ. They live in Oroville and are allowed to have personal fireworks there. I was SOO excited!! This is our 4th year being in Chico and we haven't been able to bang a piccolo pete, blow stuff up, or burn ourselves- needles to say I was over joyed with a chance to do so. The Meyers had another family come over for the BBQ so there were 7 kids under 7 and 5 of them were under 3.


We got this great idea to take the car seats out of t he car and strap the kids in so they wouldn't jump up and run for the fireworks. I thought it was brilliant! So the three girls helped the kids cover their ears or hold sparklers and the men blew the stuff up.

Here is a picture of Adam and I... and a little bit of Mike too, while we lit the fireworks off.



I have never in my life made jell-o. I don't really like it all that much. I got a wild hair this year to make a layered jell-o flag mold for the BBQ. Because I had no clue what I was doing, I thought an hour would be completely fine to make a jell-o and let it set. Haha not so my friends!! I went to take it out of the fridge and I spilled it all down my white shirt so I had to borrow a shirt from Megan.

Here's how my horrible mold turned out. I am never doing this again....