The first nice day in forever…

It was nice today (57°!) so we took a walk to do a photo scavenger hunt and leave chalk notes on people’s driveways!

Marking found and photographed scavenger hunt items by punching a hole with a stick—making do because we forgot a pencil.
There was quite a bit of chalk art around the neighborhood.
It was so nice seeing friends on our walk today and being able to chat, even if it was from a distance. ❤️❤️

The kids went across the street to decorate the driveway of a single older lady. Owen also told me her brought her trash up to the house. ❤️

As far as for social distancing? Every single person that we saw and had to pass kept the right distance. Sometimes we moved out of the way, sometimes they moved out of the way. Thankfully we didn’t see any kids at the park but I would’ve lost my mind.

I was really happy about all this because I keep hearing stories about how parks are FULL of kids with and without parents around?!?! GRRR. I just think a lot of people are in the “it’s not going to happen to me” camp. And, of course, in the best case scenario, we won’t see anything happen at all and we will think all of this was for nothing. But that just means that it worked.

Anyway, they really had a lot more fun than I thought they would. Now we just need lots more nice days…

I treated myself when we got back… uncovered my egg chair and had a drink!

The best bug we’ve ever had!

So the girls were tracing each other like they like to do and Tom came down to have a drink with us, so Katie coerced him into tracing her. Well, he did something special, of course…

And this was the resulting conversation:

Me: This might be the best bug we ever had!
Owen: Nooo!! She’s the best bug we ever had!
Me: 😯 😀 :heart: :heart: :heart:

Her first pout of the day. Then bubbles. 

She wanted to do chalk. Fine, we went out to do chalk. Within two minutes she wanted to do bubbles. But not the bubble machine—she wanted to blow actual bubbles. Well, she just had a bath this morning and I really didn’t want to deal with the mess that is blowing bubbles so I said no. So she stomped off.

She got over it within a few minutes after I told her it was either go inside or do the bubble machine. She picked the bubble machine…and all was well with the world.

And some great action shots!

   
           

Potty Training, Day 2

Tom got Katie up this morning and her diaper was dry! He said she really didn’t want to pee in the big potty, but once she sat down she peed and peed! Yay!

8:35 I told Katie she had to pee if she wanted to go to the bus stop with Owen. And she did! She had to take her lunchbox. 🙂

When we got home, she wanted to play outside and do chalk.

She ran in a few times to pee but they were all false alarms. She wanted to ride her bike, so I told her she could after she peed again. So she came in about 20 minutes later saying she had to pee, didn’t pee, but tells me she peed in the grass. Yay…but no. I didn’t see it so no sticker…and no bike ride.

11:40 She’s very good about sitting on the potty without any direction. This trip earned her a new book!

1:00 Katie just peed in the potty and I said I was proud of her. She looked at me, did a curtsy, and said a drawn out thank you. Where do they get this stuff?

She continued to pee in the potty all afternoon—assuming each time she’d get to ride her bike. She finally gave up on asking for her bike but still kept peeing in the potty! She even earned another book!

I had treats set up for every five pees…and she filled the sheet and just kept sticking them on.

And then when we were outside eating dinner, she had to go in and pee. She even emptied it into the toilet herself. 🙂 Then she said she had to pee again and went inside. Owen happened to be inside at the same time and came out singing “Katie’s pooping in the potty!”

Wait. What?

I’d been reminding/asking randomly all day and she just kept saying she didn’t have to go yet. I believed her, but I also kind of thought she’d try to hide. But now she just went on her own? I raced inside and…yep! She pooped in her potty!! WOOHOO!

So daddy took her to get a special treat (a milkshake from Burger King).

Day two is in the books and she did amazing! Let’s hope it continues!

Owen’s day off!

Today was a teacher work day so Owen didn’t have school. I also picked today as a day for no technology—no TV, no iPads, no iPhones—so I try to do at least one fun project. Today I picked cake. 🙂 Owen did pretty good cracking eggs and mixing and I just let Katie dump things into the bowl and mix (with help). 🙂 

      

Taking a Lego break.

  

Doing chalk in the back yard (on the steps—and as you can see in the next picture, any cement surface) since it was very sunny and the front doesn’t have shade OR anywhere to sit. 

  

I told Owen he looked very dapper in his shirt (I had sent him upstairs to get dressed in his own) and this was the look I got: Yeah, I know. 🙂

    

That look. All I did was ask her to smile for a picture. Stinker. 

  

I then surprised Owen with a Brick Loot box so he had fun building the Lego-ish toys. This was a 3-in-1 toy and I was surprised he actually built all three!

     

Sidewalk chalk paint, Day 2

They weren’t nearly as excited as they were the first day, and I’m not sure why. (They were eager enough to WANT to do it, but once we were outside and painted for 10 minutes, they were about done.) And of course, since they stayed perfectly clean the first day, I didn’t make them change into different clothes…and it’s the day Katie got paint all over her.

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So I pretty much did all the painting just so it wouldn’t be wasted.

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Sidewalk chalk paint!

Even though I was the one that bought the paint, I really hadn’t been looking forward to it at all (because…mess!) but then I read this article on Facebook: Why You Must Let Your Kids Jump In Muddy Puddles (about the Muddy Puddles Project) and I instantly knew what we were doing today. If you read the article, get your tissues handy.

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And a few close-ups of some of the drawings (taken the next day after they were completely dry):

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Farmers Market Day

Owen was coloring with chalk and Katie wanted to see the moo. 🙂

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Not a great pic but they were enjoying their treat—s’more bites. 🙂

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Checking out the pond behind the market.

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Back to the moo to give it a hug.

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Checking out the udders (they have water coming out of them so she was excited about watee).

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Wasting time at Lowe’s afterwards while daddy looked for stuff.

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Chalk, hopscotch, and more chalk!

Owen desperately wanted to go out and draw with chalk, so out we went. He is big into writing words (well, letters and numbers) and trying to spell things, so this was the first thing I saw—can you see it? Right by his feet: STOP 🙂

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Then, what follows STOP? GO! (He’s finishing the O.) He spelled these on his own!

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Then he was talking about hopscotch so I drew it for him. I showed him how to play and he understood but after trying it for a few minutes he said he wanted to go back to his way. 🙂

It’s a blurry pic but I caught him mid-jump.

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Then it was back to chalk, where he drew…a snowstorm! And a snowman!

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Katie loves chalk!

This is one area Katie definitely differs from her brother—she loves drawing at a much younger age! She saw the chalk sitting out and wanted to use it…so we went out to the driveway and she Had. A. Ball.

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The tongue is out!

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“Here, mama!”

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She was scooting all over, legs and feet going a mile a minute…

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And then she’d lay her face right down on the driveway…

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She was covered.

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Then she stuck her hand in the exhaust pipe and was covered in black. 🙂

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She did this by herself! No prompting from me!

Two weeks old!

Long story short, we no longer have to travel to the base hospital for appointments! When Tom went in to add Katie to our insurance, they asked if we wanted to change our PCM to someone in town and we said YES! (That’s what we initially wanted to do when we moved here but they told us we HAD to be seen on base. Ironically, Tom was dealing with the exact woman he dealt with before that gave him such attitude and she tried to tell him that he could have picked a PCM a year ago when we moved here. But anyway.)

So we only have to drive 15 minutes now and can park about 20 yards from the office (instead of driving 30 minutes and parking 200 yards from the office)…it really does feel like a HUGE difference. The office is small and a bit outdated (i.e. the scale they used to weigh Katie was an old-fashioned one where you slide the bars to get it to balance instead of the digital one at the hospital that takes three readings and averages them)…but the staff and doctor were nice and it was quick and easy and I’m glad we made the change.

So, Katie’s stats. For reference:

She was born 8 lbs. 1 oz.
She left the hospital at 7 lbs. 12 oz.
At her one-day check-up she was 7 lbs. 6oz.
At her three-day check-up she was 7 lbs. 11 oz.
At her two-week check-up…she was 8 lbs. 14 oz!!

I didn’t think about it until after we left that they didn’t measure her length or her head…but maybe they don’t do that until the one-month appointment. I just chalked it up to something else I don’t remember, and will make a note of it for her next appointment.