In an effort to get Sophia potty trained, BJ and I will offer Sophia to go potty at various times. On Monday we had success!! Sophia went peepee in the potty! BJ and I were so excited and proud of her. I am sure those of you reading this that don’t have kids won’t think much of this, but those of you who do have children (potty trained kids at that!) will join BJ and I in our triumph.

Sophia knows her name but has been unable to say anything but “Pia”. She finally said her full name, correct pronunciation and everything! However, BJ and I are so used to calling her “Pia” and have come to rather enjoy it. No reason for her to be simply Sophia all the time!

Sophia continues to hug me and say “love you”. She did it to Phoebe this week and began doing it to her toys and random kitchen appliances. BJ had still not been graced with this sentiment until the very end of this week. He was so happy when he finally got her love.

Sophia, Phoebe, and I enjoy a morning at the Wiggly Play Center. Sophia played hard core for 2 hours and both kids passed out in the car on the way home. Sophia didn’t have much of a nap once we got home for such an active morning that she had. Proof of that became evident later that afternoon. She did something I thought she could and would never do: Sophia fell asleep on the couch amidst the noise of the dishwasher, Phoebe yelling and crying, and BJ and I talking. We dared not to move her and kept on with life as usual. She slept for almost 2 1/2 hours when we decided we should wake her at 6pm!

I received even more confirmation that my little Phoebe is one cute kid. While at the Play Center, a little girl who looked about 5 or 6, approached me out of nowhere and rubbed Phoebe’s head and said “You have such a cute baby!” I thanked her and she walked off.

Phoebe, still having no teeth, got to enjoy new foods—string cheese, tomatoes, and goldfish (but only the tails). She also discovered cow’s milk out of one of Sophia’s sippy cups. Once I discovered what she had she was not pleased with me that I took it away.

Phoebe is progressing even more with her mobility. She can now transfer from one piece of furniture to another that is very close by, she can track along the couch, and has created her own version of crawling. She is up on both hands and one knee, then on the bottom of her foot on the other leg. She has really started to enjoy taking steps and lets us help her whenever we can.

Sophia gets an even bigger girl bed this week. Just a twin sized mattress on the floor, really, but she doesn’t know the difference and likes her new “princess bed”. Phoebe gets the large crib and is out of that little pack n’ play. She seems to like the change too.

The weather is really warming up and we have spent some afternoons in the backyard. I think Sophia is just glad she can wear her floppy summer hat, and I like that she can start wearing all the cute summer outfits I have accumulated!

We end the week with both girls getting sick again with colds. Argh! Will this never end?!

Tags: family,kids,Phoebe,Sophia,weekly update
Categories: Heather, Weekly Family Update
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Still struggling with this darn cold I go to the doctor to get drugs. Phoebe goes the next day and seems to be getting over an ear infection. While there the nurse discovers Sophia has a fever so she gets checked in as well. Turns out she also has sores in her mouth–yay for random viruses! By the end of the week the girls are well, but I still have remnants of snot in my sinuses and am just about ready to shove a vacuum hose up my nose!

Sophia struggles with the letters S, P, F, and R. Needless to say her name has been difficult for her to say. I occasionally find myself making fun of her and her struggles with speech and learning to talk. She says “ham” like “haim”. So I said back to her the other day “Cory Haim?” And with perfect pronunciation she comes back with “Cory Haim!” BJ laughs and I join in. What more could I do?

My constant battle with Sophia at her Granny and Grandad’s house is getting into the litter box, cat food, cat water, and the toilet. All very nasty and all she could potentially get sick from. Two weeks ago she was found sitting in the cat box tossing out poop and kitty litter. My sister Jennifer found her and I think almost had a stroke. She was found this week once again in the cat box. My dad asked what her fascination could possibly be–my theory–it’s just like a small sandbox. Now this week she was found eating dry cat food. Her response? “Yum!” Will she ever learn?

We have often said Sophia has probably had her picture taken far too much. While taking a picture of her this week, with no help from me, she smiles real big and says “Cheese!”

The Atchley’s are all off this week for Spring Break. We spend Friday cleaning out our garage to make room for more furniture to come from BJ’s grandpa’s house in Oklahoma. We spend Saturday cleaning out the Atchley’s garage for the same purpose. Sophia at least got to dye Easter eggs. Not very successfully I must admit. She enjoyed dropping them in too hard or on top of another one so we ended up with quite a few cracked eggs. We didn’t mind since this is her first time and she enjoyed herself regardless.

The Atchley’s joined us at church for Easter Sunday. BJ and I were excited thinking we had other people to be able to entertain Sophia and we could actually enjoy the talks. Nope. She was only entertained by Mike and Catey for about 15 minutes before she was all over us and wouldn’t leave us alone.

I make a delicious Easter dinner and have the Atchley’s over to enjoy it with us. Sophia has her egg hunt after dinner and is very excited to find eggs in the yard. We only do plastic eggs and I put jellybeans inside. Once all the eggs are gathered we bring them inside to inspect the ‘loot’. I am busy in the kitchen so Catey helps Sophia to eat quite a bit of candy in the meantime.

We have been working on counting to 10 with Sophia for several weeks now. On Sunday while she was walking down the pew to us she walked by and counted everyone. It was only to five since that’s all there was, but she did it correctly and without prompting from us so BJ and I were really excited. We are enjoying the progress.

We started having Sophia say “sorry” to Phoebe when she hits her or makes her cry. She picked up on it right away and I have been able to get her to apologize to her sister several times, but now she uses sorry for so many things. She says it if she bumps herself, or drops something, or any little thing she might see as an oops. As sweet as that is we are trying to focus her back on really only saying it if she hurts someone. She can be so sweet.

Tags: family,Heather,kids,Phoebe,Sophia,weekly update
Categories: Heather, Weekly Family Update
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Sophia’s unexplained fever was apparently the start of a sinus infection. She lovingly spread it to Phoebe and myself. I can’t remember the last time I was so sick with sinusitis.

The apple juice obsession has ended, and so begins the milk phase. We ran out one day and she cried and cried for milk until I decided to use daddy’s type of milk to pacify her until he could get back from Braum’s with her whole milk.

Sophia comes up to me out of nowhere, hugs my leg and says “lub (love) you”. She repeats the affection several more times throughout the week, even when I come home from being gone. She hasn’t done it to BJ yet, much to his sadness.

Phoebe pulls herself up on the furniture–no help included! She also takes a few steps when we hold her hands while standing. I think she is progressing almost too fast!

BJ steam cleans our living room carpet and decides to switch the couches. We rather enjoy the change and neither the cats or the kids notice the difference.

Sophia has increased her desire to swipe at, kick, or hit Phoebe and does so on a daily basis. We don’t know what it will take to get this child to understand being gentle with her baby sister.

With winter not far behind us Sophia had gotten used to wearing her full outdoor winter gear to play outside. Now with the warm weather she still thinks she needs it all. We know she wants to go out when she starts asking for her gloves, hat, jacket, and boots. We think she looks like a street urchin in this photo or as if she is trying to sell flowers on a corner.

Sophia enjoys a Nickelodeon show called “Yo Gabba Gabba.” They have a part in the show for ’silly faces’. Most of the time it is of the kids sticking their fingers in their mouths spreading their lips and rolling their eyes. She seems to have picked up on it. Now presenting Sophia’s silly face…….

Tags: family,kids,Phoebe,Sophia,weekly update
Categories: Heather, Phoebe, Sophia, Weekly Family Update
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Another productive week for Phoebe. She sits up on her own, can pull herself up to her knees completely on her own, can get to a sitting position from her stomach, can also babble more letters and syllables.

Auntie Jennifer and cousins are in town again. Sophia has a lot of fun playing with Gwennie and sometimes Linus. Gwennie spends the night one night. I let the girls paint before having a bubble bath. I took off their shirts to avoid paint on their tops. Because of this, Sophia realizes she can paint on her body. Gwennie so appropriately comments that Sophia is “ooey gooey”. I figure no big deal, the paint is washable, but one bath later and her stomach was still green.

Sophia has unexplained fever again for 2-3 days. (we went through this back in January)

Forgot to mention this in last week’s post: The Sunday after BJ’s talk mishap he was unable to go to church due to allergies and one sick child. I was able to attend and the subject for that sacrament meeting was–you guessed it—TEMPLES!! Poor BJ.

It snowed twice this week! The first day was not all that much, but Sophia didn’t seem to mind. The second day we had about 3-4 inches in our area. Daddy and Sophia have fun playing and building a snowman. She also enjoys that she gets to throw snow at us.

BJ, thinking he was doing a sweet thing, scraped my windshield one of the mornings of snow. He did it with a metal spatula….need I say more? Once all was melted I discovered scratches all up and down my windshield, the whole length of my windshield, each about 2 inches apart. Hope it’s fixable without having to replace the entire thing.

I woke up one morning with my right shoulder and neck hurting really bad. It was stiff, tight and very hard to move. I had my dad put this really great massager on my neck and shoulders that I have used before. Only this time he got too high up on my neck/head and a chunk of hair got caught. Our only solution was to cut it out. Luckily my hair is thick enough and curly it isn’t even noticeable.

I’ve received a jury duty summons. BJ’s immediate reply is “You’re exempt since you are the primary caregiver.” My response, “Who says I don’t want to do it? I don’t want to get picked, of course, but to go that initial day might be interesting.” BJ gets wide eyed and then says, “You just want to get away from the kids.” Me, with a smile, “Yep!”
***Note about the above: As much as I say I want to get away from the kids, the funny thing is, when I am away from them more than 3 hours I really start to miss them. Funny how that works….

Another rough thing for me this week—On the worst day of snow I was in Carrollton, typically a 30 minute drive from my house. It took me 3 1/2 hours to get home!!! Traffic was so awful I wanted to scream, and almost did. My one saving grace was that I did not have the kids with me. Now THAT would have been a nightmare.

Tags: family,kids,Phoebe,Sophia,weekly update
Categories: Heather, Phoebe, Sophia, Weekly Family Update
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I received this e-mail from a friend of mine and rather than forwarding it on into the depths of spam filters everywhere I though I’d post it here.

Thinking of Having Kids? Do this 11 step program first!

Lesson 1

1. Go to the grocery store.
2. Arrange to have your salary paid directly to their head office.
3. Go home.
4. Pick up the paper.
5. Read it for the last time.

Lesson 2

Before you finally go ahead and have children, find a couple who already are parents and berate them about their…
1. Methods of discipline.
2. Lack of patience.
3. Appallingly low tolerance levels.
4. Allowing their children to run wild.
5. Suggest ways in which they might improve their child’s breastfeeding, sleep habits, toilet training, table manners, and overall behavior.
Enjoy it because it will be the last time in your life you will have all the answers.

Lesson 3

A really good way to discover how the nights might feel…
1. Get home from work and immediately begin walking around the living room from 5PM to 10PM carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 8-12 pounds, with a radio turned to static (or some other obnoxious sound) playing loudly. (Eat cold food with one hand for dinner)
2. At 10PM, put the bag gently down, set the alarm for midnight, and go to sleep.
3. Get up at 12 and walk around the living room again, with the bag, until 1AM.
4. Set the alarm for 3AM.
5. As you can’t get back to sleep, get up at 2AM and make a drink and watch an infomercial.
6. Go to bed at 2:45AM.
7. Get up at 3AM when the alarm goes off.
8. Sing songs quietly in the dark until 4AM.
9. Get up. Make breakfast. Get ready for work and go to work (work hard and be productive)

Repeat steps 1-9 each night. Keep this up for 3-5 years. Look cheerful and together.

Lesson 4

Can you stand the mess children make? T o find out…
1. Smear peanut butter onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains.
2. Hide a piece of raw chicken behind the stereo and leave it there all summer.
3. Stick your fingers in the flower bed.
4. Then rub them on the clean walls.
5. Take your favorite book, photo album, etc. Wreck it.
6. Spill milk on your new pillows. Cover the stains with crayons. How does that look?

Lesson 5

Dressing small children is not as easy as it seems.
1. Buy an octopus and a small bag made out of loose mesh.
2. Attempt to put the octopus into the bag so that none of the arms hang out.

Time allowed for this - all morning.

Lesson 6

Forget the BMW and buy a mini-van. And don’t think that you can leave it out in the driveway spotless and shining. Family cars don’t look like that.
1. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment.
Leave it there.
2. Get a dime. Stick it in the CD player.
3. Take a family size package of chocolate cookies. Mash them into the back seat. Sprinkle cheerios all over the floor, then smash them with your foot.
4. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car.

Lesson 7

Go to the local grocery store. Take with you the closest thing you can find to a pre-school child. (A full-grown goat is an excellent choice). If you intend to have more than one child, then definitely take more than one goat. Buy your week’s groceries without letting the goats out of your sight. Pay for everything the goat eats or destroys. Until you can easily accomplish this, do not even contemplate having children.

Lesson 8

1. Hollow out a melon.
2. Make a small hole in the side.
3. Suspend it from the ceiling and swing it from side to side.
4. Now get a bowl of soggy Cheerios and attempt to spoon them into the swaying melon by pretending to be an airplane.
5. Continue until half the Cheerios are gone.
6. Tip half into your lap. The other half, just throw up in the air.

You are now ready to feed a nine- month-old baby.

Lesson 9

Learn the names of every character from Sesame Street , Barney, Disney, the Teletubbies, and Pokemon. Watch nothing else on TV but PBS, the Disney channel or Noggin for at least five years. (I know, you’re thinking What’s ‘Noggin’?) Exactly the point.

Lesson 10

Make a recording of Fran Drescher saying ‘mommy’ repeatedly. (Important: no more than a four second delay between each ‘mommy’; occasional crescendo to the level of a supersonic jet is required). Play this tape in your car everywhere you go for the next four years. You are now ready to take a long trip with a toddler.

Lesson 11

Start talking to an adult of your choice. Have someone else continually tug on your skirt hem, shirt- sleeve, or elbow while playing the ‘mommy’ tape made from Lesson 10 above. You are now ready to have a conversation with an adult while there is a child in the room.

Tags: e-mail forward,family,funny,kids
Categories: Entertainment, Heather
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Last night Heather had a meeting with some people from church. They convened at our house so it was my duty to distract the kids enough to allow them to have their meeting with as little interruption as possible. At first we just played with toys, but obviously an almost 2 year old is going to want to show off as much as possible when any visitors are around. So our old stand-by came out. Since the living room was used and the TV off limits, this left with using the laptop to watch either Finding Nemo, Cars, or Kikis Delivery Service, possibly Toy Story. After starting the movie we went to her bedroom and I brought her foam princess chair (a tiny pink chair with disney princesses on it). She chose cars.

We started the movie and I found it a convenient time to take a nap. She was completely enthralled, so I didn’t think anything of it. Apparently while I was falling asleep she I had bumped up against her princess chair. I felt a pat on my shoulder and heard her say, “shhhh, Love you daddy.” Which when we’re putting her to bed seems to be our ritual. When she’s making noise we’ll say, “shhh, night night, love you Sophia.” When I roused after a few minutes I looked and Sophia had moved her chair over to give me room. She smiled at me and gave me a hug then went back to mimicking storyline elements from cars.

Tags: family,kids,miyazaki,movies,pixar,Sophia
Categories: BJ, BJ's Life, Sophia
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Sophia has always been interested in the phone and when I talk on the phone. In the past we have tried to get her to talk but without much success. Starting this week Sophia has really taken to talking on the phone. She will now respond appropriately to questions and enjoys taking the phone around to her different toys and books and “showing” the person on the phone her stuff. One time with Granny she held the phone to a book and asked her to “read”. Granny and Nana sure love it!

There are a lot of things I teach Sophia (words, dances, movements) and then there are certain things that she does that I have no idea where she gets them from. She started doing this (what I call) “knobby knees” dance. She bends her knees with her legs apart and wobbles them back and forth.

This week a major thing happened for Sophia. She is now in a big girl bed! She began to crawl out of her crib with more frequency. Daddy and I were worried she might hurt herself one day by doing so, so we made the decision to take down the bars. Her initial reaction to the change was pure Sophia. She thought something was wrong and said “uh oh” a few times before moving on to “broke”. We had to reassure her that the bed was not broken, we meant for it to be that way, and it is now a “big girl bed”. The first few times of putting her down she cried really hard and more reassurance was needed. BJ and I wonder if she feels insecure from the bed being so open now because she doesn’t have the bars. Sunday night was the first night she didn’t make a peep so we hope she is adjusting.

We decided not to get each other anything for Valentine’s this year. I baked chocolate chip cookies and chocolate cupcakes with homemade frosting. I delivered some to my visiting teaching ladies and my companion and BJ, Sophia, and I enjoyed the leftovers. BJ cooked up some wonderful rib eye steaks he bought at Central Market. They were at least 16oz and we completely ate way too much. Sophia enjoyed it very much too and ate several bites of my steak. In fact, she kept asking for more and eyeballing my plate when she didn’t have a bite.

Sophia got to paint for the first time this week as well. Granny gave her lots of fun craft stuff for Christmas. I hate messes and cleaning up afterwards so I have been putting off letting her paint, but I broke down this week. She had a lot of fun and thought she was so smart when she realized she could paint using her fingers too. We can’t wait to do it again!

Two weeks ago BJ had been asked to give a talk on “temple preparedness”. Usually couples are asked to give talks on the same Sunday regarding the same subject matter. BJ thought it strange that I was not asked to speak too, but we simply disregarded it. On Sunday the brother conducting the meeting said “Brother Atchley and Brother Hill will be speaking with us today on temporal preparedness.” Right after he said that it was BJ’s turn to get up and speak. I think BJ had a mini-stroke in those few seconds. BJ got up and pointed out the mishap immediately. He thought he heard temple and not temporal. But in Texas with varying accents it probably came out as “temprilpreparedness” on the phone. BJ covered himself as best he could given the circumstances and pulled off a decent talk about temporal preparedness with a few comments about the temple mixed in. It all made sense why I had not also been asked to speak. BJ’s calling is the Employment and Welfare Specialist, so it is his duty to speak with families about budgeting, debt, you know–being temporally prepared! BJ says next time he is asked to speak he is going to get it in writing.

BJ claims on Friday that Phoebe crawled (about 3 coordinated movements worth). I have not witnessed any of this, but I have seen her on her hands pushing with her knees and feet. Not quite considered crawling but very close. She is progressing so well and can pretty much get to any toy she wants within about a 5-10 foot radius. I think she is enjoying her new freedom.

I believe in an effort to propel herself forward Phoebe has started to headbang. She lies on her stomach with her head up and bangs it up in down to try and move forward. When she realizes she has not moved she decides to army crawl, push herself, etc. However, we do find this new quirk very entertaining. What will she think of next?

Daddy has come up with something very creative to end any bath time exiting drama. Typically Sophia is a good sport about getting out of the bath, but there are times she just doesn’t want to leave. Daddy created “ding-bump”. He wraps her in her towel and gently taps her bottom on things like her dresser, the wall, doorway, her bed, etc. while exclaiming “ding-bump!” Sophia has absolutely fallen in love with this new activity and if daddy asks if she wants to do “ding-bump” she is more than ready to get out of the bath.

Tags: baby,cake,church,kids,paint,Phoebe,Sophia
Categories: Heather, Phoebe, Sophia, Weekly Family Update
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