Highlights

Here are the highlights of what's been happening with our 5 for the past few weeks:

Sophie is potty trained! I took the advice of a friend and put her straight into panties (instead of Pullups), and she got the hang of doing #1 on the potty pretty quickly. Actually...a little TOO well, because she'd have a hard time going to sleep at night because she was worried about wetting in her sleep (she wears a diaper or Pullup to bed). She's calmed down about that now. After about a week of going #2 in her Elmo panties (which devastated her--you know how much she loves Elmo!), she figured out how to do that on the potty too. AWESOME!!

During the first days of her potty training, I was sitting on the edge of the bathtub waiting for her to potty and was praying out loud (I'm not sure if my praying out loud all the time will strengthen the faith of my kids or make them think their mom is schizophrenic...but that's another post for another day). I was praying "...what a blessing it would be if I could get one of the kids out of diapers..." and Blake walked in and said "potty?" I took his diaper off, and I'll be darned if he didn't sit down and pee pee in the potty! God has a sense of humor! Blake hasn't been interested in the potty since, but I'll start working on his potty training next.

Graham had another hearing test last week, and they confirmed that he definitely has significant hearing loss. His tubes have already fallen out and his eardrums are concave, so it feels to him like he's in the mountains or on an airplane. The tubes usually last about a year, and his have only lasted 5 months. He goes back in for surgery next week, and while he's sedated the doctor will insert a different type of ear tubes that should last longer. He'll also have an extensive brain stem auditory test to determine the cause of the hearing loss. They've prepared us to expect that the hearing loss is irreversible, but I'm praying for a miracle.

Brent and I are taking a Dave Ramsey class at church, which we both love. Like I mentioned yesterday, we have a budget that's almost painfully tight but will hopefully pay off in the long run. The LONG, LONG, LONG long run. Will we ever eat out again?! We're trying to cut expenses, so I've been shopping mainly at Aldi, cooking all of our meals at home and making homemade waffles and freezing them (Brent and the kids go through SEVEN waffles each morning). This week I even made homemade laundry powder, dish soap, foaming pump hand soap, detangling spray and baby wipes. The dish soap and baby wipes aren't cutting it, but the rest are awesome. If you want the recipes, let me know! They all took less time to make than driving to the store to get them--I wish I would have heard about this years ago. Brent is changing the oil on our cars himself this weekend, which also helps a lot. I can't bring myself to wash ziploc bags yet, but know people do it. Any thoughts on how to do it without the kitchen being covered in drying baggies all the time?? If you have any "budget living" ideas, let me know!

My neighbor put heat-reflective tinting on their house windows and said it's made a tremendous difference, so yesterday we put it on a few of our windows. First of all, it's exactly like hanging wallpaper with your spouse, so prepare yourself for marriage counseling before you start! We finally got the hang of it and figured out a good system, though, and are really pleased with the results. It made an immediate difference in how hot the "sunbeams" were. Our living room and bedroom have vaulted ceilings and are usually like a furnace by the time I get home from work, and the poor air conditioner runs constantly until late evening to make up for it. I'm anxious to see how the house feels tonight. I'd love to see our electric bill go down!

Sorry for the long post!