Long Overdue

Okay so I've been told not once but twice today that I need to put more pictures up here, so here we are. We've all had head colds these past couple of weeks, making even the most normal of household tasks seem monumental. But the last few days have been progressively better. I don't know what it is about being ill, maybe it just breaks down their defenses, but the kids have been getting along great! Not that they are usually fighting all the time, but they do tend to get on each other's nerves after a long day of being together. Who wouldn't? But they've been recently playing like best friends, rarely resorting to video games or movies or anything apart from each other. This may be a result of Alex's getting back into school after the holidays (fondness makes his heart grow stronger) or the fact that Avril grows up more each day, making her a more entertaining playmate. Whichever it is, I've been taken aback plenty of times this last week just watching and listening to them play together.
Alex is doing exceptionally well in preschool; he really enjoys learning. He loves to count, add and subtract; he knows money denominations and loves to count money too. His new thing though is learning to read - something I am going to have to supplement at home with phonics material because the school system here teaches reading by sight words. **ugh!**
Avril is doing well with the potty training. I'm not pushing her at all, and that seems to work well for her. She loves the whole experience of the toilet and the last thing I want to do is to bring punishment into it, so we're staying in pull-ups for the forseeable future, but she will go pee when asked to and twice last week told me beforehand that she needed to go. So it's improvement. I pottytrained Alex this same way, and after a few months of letting him experiment with it himself, it only took a week to get him in underwear with no accidents once I tried. So hopefully it will work with Avril too. She's growing up so fast these days it's weird. She loves church and goes everytime the doors are open even though I don't. Her and Alex ride the church bus together to Awana on Wednesday nights and it is the highlight of her week. She is definitely a social butterfly and Alex the brain. Lol. Avril has several friends her age that she talks about all week and is so excited every time she gets to go to church to see them.
Just this week I have volunteered to join the janitorial staff at our church, and I'm actually pretty excited. If I can do nothing else, I can clean. And it is something I can do to help. Tomorrow I go to learn the ropes and see exactly what it is I've signed up for. Looks like twice a week I'll be cleaning the main church building - once thoroughly and once lightly. Anyway, that is about all that is new with me. I've just about finished the bedroom makeover; isn't it aweful that it can take me only four days to do the majority of the work, but now that it is just down to filling in holes in moulding I'm putting it off for weeks? I'm having motivational issues getting that last step done. Next comes replacing the terrible tile around the tub with fiberglass walls and installing new faucets and handles. That will begin in a few weeks.
Frank is doing well. This semester he is retaking a couple of classes he didn't do so well in last time around, so it is going pretty good so far. He's going to school full time and working pretty much constantly from Thursday afternoon till Sunday night. So we don't see him a lot around here.
That's all I know to give as an update for now. Here are a couple of pictures.


This is Avril being a tired puppy dog. Her new thing is to walk around on all four's saying she's a "puppy gog" and saying whatever it is the puppy is doing. She prefers to do this while wearing shoes on her hands. Don't ask me why.


Here they are rolling a ball back a forth (until Arwen decided to steal the ball) but you can't see the ball in the pic, so I thought it looked kinda funny. Oh well.


They decided just to give in to Arwen after she had been pestering them for awhile.


Mommy and kids.


Daddy and kids.

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They really are quite affectionate sometimes.


The faithful Arwen, recovering well from the hit to the eye with the tennis ball two weeks ago.

Getting On With Life

Our house is starting to get back to normal. I've spent the last few days finishing Alex's bed, and I'm soooo happy to finally have it done! I think it took a total of six months, but couldn't have been done at all without the help of people smarter than me that own better equipment than me. Now on to my bedroom, but this is what I love - redoing a house one room at a time. Frank doesn't like being in a constant state of project doing, but it is my hobby. I'm mainly posting this on here so Grape can see what we finally did with the slide. We brought it down about eight inches but kept the length the same and brought it out at an angle so there won't be any neck injuries on the wall.
But I really don't have to worry about any injuries at all for a while because Avril refuses to slide without holding a hand. lol. Here are also a few pics of my little princess doing what she does best.

Christmas at Nana's

And here are some pics from the evening at Nana and Papa's house.
Alex and Papa got a few minutes to bowl in the hall.

Alex has a habit of beating Papa at crazy 8's. He's actually pretty good.

I've never seen Avril so excited over something than when she opened the gift from Nana that included at tutu, tiara, jewelery box full of bead necklaces and rings, and the Cinderella movie. But it got even better when the next one was a princess placemat, bowl, and silverware set. She immediately had to have dinner. It was pretty cute.

The kids loved this duck shooting thing. Alex is frighteningly good at it. I'll have to get it on video sometime.

Avril and daddy.

Christmas at the Cole's

Here are some pictures from Christmas at home. I'm learning this year, since Avril is old enough to care, that Christmas with two small children is not only fun and exciting, it is stressful and exhausting. I've had kids for five years now, and this is the first year I've been thankful the day is over. I can't figure out what exactly I can change about next year, but I'll spend alot of time trying to figure it out. Although all four of us are dealing with a nasty head cold, so that may have had something to do with it. All that aside, the kids really did have a great time and Frank didn't have to work, we spent time with the people we love. All in all a fantabulous time.
Here is Alex enjoying his new camera.

Avril really does love her robe, but I had just wiped her nose and she scowled at me. lol.

Alex.

Stockings.

Pics

Here are some miscellaneous pictures from Christmas. Busy day. Still recovering. This is my beautiful answer to prayer niece, Abby.

Alex being handsome.

Avril being cute.

Boys being boys.

Avril with her new love, playdoh.

Moving

So we've spent the last week or so moving my parents into their "new" house. Here
are some miscellaneous pictures from our adventures. The kids are having a good time and things are going smoothly. Not really a whole lot more to report than that.




Merry Christmas to all.

Saturdays

Avril has recently taken up an interest in potty training, but the problem is she has no clue what she's supposed to do when she's on it. It is actually pretty funny; a couple of times a day she enjoys going through the steps of getting the stool, putting on the seat, climbing up, climbing down, putting toilet paper in, flushing, putting everything away, and washing her hands. As you can imagine this takes about ten minutes each time and it can be quite frustrating because we go through all that and she thinks that is going potty but really doesn't get the point. But the last thing I want to do is tell her no when it comes to the toilet, so we go through the ritual. Maybe someday she'll catch on.

This past week has been a bit weird because none of us have felt very well, and now it is Saturday and I've got to clean the house, but all I want to do is sit around - I'm so tired. But the kids are feeling better, so we are doing the laundry and this is how they help. Their favorite laundry game - taking turns getting under it. I don't understand why, but this can occupy a half hour's time.


Mom and dad are getting ready for the big move. The current plan is to keep boxing up this weekend and next week move a little at a time as each room gets its final coat of paint. Friday and Saturday are the big moving days with the U-Haul. So one more week, and we'll be putting things away in the new house.