Brianna

September 6th Catching Up

September 6, 2009 By Sherra Leave a Comment

JR starts back on day shift after tonight’s shift. That means I have to share the bed again, darn. But, that also means we’ll be on the same “schedule”, so it’s not so bad. Our anniversary was the 31st and we didn’t get a chance to celebrate it. 13 years. Maybe we’ll get the chance to go out to dinner together – just the two of us – now that he’s back on day shift.

Delaney has fully entered the phase where she copies everything Brianna does and says immediately after she does it. Sometimes it’s cute and adorable and Brianna thinks it’s funny so she makes a game of it. Other times it’s just downright annoying and it ticks Brie off. I just have to keep telling her that’s the kind of stuff that goes along with being a big sister and she has to deal with it. Delaney can also reach all the light switches now.

Brianna’s doing well in school and she loves earning “class cash” and shopping in the classroom every week. She got Delaney a toy this week. I thought that was sweet.

One of the neighbors made a comment the other day that Shiner had lost a lot of weight. I knew he had been loosing some since I’d put him on the diet and been trying to exercise him a little more. I guess I didn’t realize how much he had been loosing since I see him day in and day out. So, JR and I weighed him the other day – JR weighed himself, then held Shiner while he weighed himself again. Shiner’s lost about 20 pounds (in our non-scientific process). I need to take him down to the vet’s office sometime this week to get a quick weight on their scales there.

I’m keeping busy with client work and PTA stuff. The Fall Festival & Silent Auction is coming up next month and we’ve got a lot of stuff going on with that. A meeting each week for the Fall Festival Committee plus our regular monthly PTA meeting and all the work that goes along with that, I also have a client meeting once a week with two different clients and I’m on the planning committee and marketing sub-committee for the 2010 IVAA Live Summit in Phoenix, so I’ve got meetings for each of those at least once a month. I’m just glad Brianna’s back in school now so I can get some stuff done during the day instead of refereeing for the girls all day and then having to catch up on my work in the evenings.

Speaking of evenings, it’s almost 10 PM and I’m going to pack it up and head to bed early tonight. I was up until 3:30 AM working on a problem with a client’s web site and then, of course, the girls didn’t sleep in all that late, so I was up with them. So, tonight I’m going to enjoy my last night (for a few months) of having the bed all to myself.

Filed Under: Brianna, Delaney, JR, Sherra, Shiner

Catching up on stuff

August 29, 2009 By Sherra Leave a Comment

It’s been a few weeks since I updated the blog, so I have a lot of stuff to talk about.

Delaney said her first “I love you” a couple of weeks ago. She didn’t say it to me or to JR, she said it to Brianna. No big surprise since she loves her sissy so much. Brianna missed the bus one morning, so we had to take her to school. As she was getting out of the truck, I said “Be good today. I love you.” So, Delaney said, “Love you.” She said it a couple of days later to. She has only ever said it to Brianna…not me or JR yet.

She’s also doing pretty well at potty training. Most days she stays dry all day. The past two nights she’s had an accident, but prior to that she was dry for a couple of weeks. She’s even gone #2 by herself a time or two. She’s only had two pee accidents during the day in the past few weeks.

Brianna’s been back to school for 2 weeks. Her classroom job is “book critic”. She has to do a book review every week. Every kid in the class has a job and they get paid for it in class cash. They also get class cash for bringing back their reading log signed and homework, etc. They get to go shopping once a week in the class store with their class cash, but only if their “check register” is balanced. They get to change jobs every 9 week period. She put her application in for computer technician also. She’s hoping to get that one next. She’s also got her eye on the librarian job.

Soccer practice started this past week. So, I get to schlep her back and forth to Camden 1-2 times per week for the next few months.

JR’s due back from Ohio tomorrow. He’s been up there this week. His dad got out of the hospital this week after his heart valve replacement surgery several weeks ago.

I’ve been keeping super busy with client work and PTA stuff. With the new school year, switching from a PTO to a PTA, Fall Festival Committee and the fall fundraiser, I’ve got my hands full!

I spent all afternoon today cleaning the shower and stripping out old caulk. I even took the doors off and took them outside to use the high pressure hose to get down into the nooks and crannies of everything. I’m not looking forward to doing that again anytime soon.

Filed Under: Brianna, Delaney, JR, Sherra Tagged With: Brianna, cleaning, Delaney, JR, potty training, school, toilet training

First Morning of 3rd Grade

August 17, 2009 By Sherra Leave a Comment

Today was the first day of 3rd grade for Brianna. I was rousted awake this morning at 5:40 by doors opening in the hall. I figured it was Delaney waking herself up to go potty or something. I walked out into the hall to find two bright eyed and bushy tailed children, fully dressed and ready to go…including shoes! At least we weren’t rushing around. Tomorrow morning will be a totally different story though.

View all

Get your own

Filed Under: Brianna, Delaney Tagged With: 3rd grade, Brianna, Delaney, school

Our Visit to Historic Camden

August 15, 2009 By Sherra Leave a Comment

I took the girls to the “festivities” at the Historic Camden Revolutionary War site for the Battle of Camden Remembrance Day (actual battle was August 16, 1780). Brianna didn’t want to go at first – “Why can’t I stay home with Daddy?!” But, once we got there, she had a great time looking at all the houses and buildings of the period and playing some games the kids “back then” played. I had to drag her away when it was time to go. Fortunately, she will get to go back for a school field trip in a few months. Plus, I told her we could go back and walk the nature trail another time. She wanted to do that earlier, but by the time the reenactment was over, it was just too hot and muggy for my taste.

View all

Get your own

Filed Under: Brianna, Delaney, Sherra Tagged With: Brianna, Delaney, Historic Camden

School starts soon

August 10, 2009 By Sherra Leave a Comment

School starts back next Monday for Brianna, so starting this morning we’re doing our modified wake-up routine. I know it won’t go smoothly this week, but my main goal is to keep the girls from sleeping in late and trying to get them back to going to bed at a decent hour since 6:30 is going to come awful early next week!

Of course, I knew this morning’s early (7 AM) wake-up would go over like a lead balloon. After multiple attempts to wake Brianna, she FINALLY got out of bed at 7:30. It took her about 2 hours to finally eat breakfast, get on clean clothes and I’m still not sure if she brushed her hair before we left the house!

We’ll see how tomorrow goes and if bedtime tonight is any easier since the girls had to get up “sooo early”.

Filed Under: Brianna Tagged With: Brianna, school

Trying to Get Back in the Groove

August 7, 2009 By Sherra Leave a Comment

After WAY too long of doing NOTHING, I’m trying to get back in some sort or “working out” groove. I’ve been taking the dog for a walk (about a mile and a half) 5 out of the last 6 nights. The girls have gone with me all but last night. Brianna rides her bike and Delaney sits in her stroller. Sometimes one of the neighbors and her little girl walk with us. Delaney really loves that because she’s got someone close to her age sitting in a stroller right next to her she can “talk” to and pass toys back and forth.

Brianna has been getting a lot more reading done this past week – but only because she lost her DS. Literally lost it. She took it to the library – after I specifically told her NOT to – and it apparently fell out of the truck in the parking lot and, of course, whoever found it probably kept it.

Anyway, she’s about halfway through the 3rd Harry Potter book. She read the first one last month and the 2nd one last week. She’s really enjoying them.

Filed Under: Brianna, Delaney, Sherra Tagged With: Brianna, Delaney, exercise

The Girls Singing Happy Birthday to Grandpa

August 4, 2009 By Sherra Leave a Comment

Here are two videos of the girls singing Happy Birthday to my dad.

Filed Under: Brianna, Delaney Tagged With: Brianna, Delaney

Random Stuff

July 14, 2009 By Sherra Leave a Comment

I have several things to catch up on.

Delaney’s refused having the potty seat sitting on the “big potty”, preferring to balance herself on the big seat by herself. She’s also has been trying to go potty by herself the past couple of days. We also had a poop in the potty again yesterday! (Unfortunately not so for today.) She’s still having pee accidents every so often, but that’s usually when I’m not paying a lot of attention. She had an accident this morning, but it was in the bathroom floor when she was trying to get to the potty by herself. At least that’s easy to clean up!

School registration is in 2 weeks. I’ll be at the school all day, volunteering at the PTA booth. 34 days until school starts and some resemblance to routine returns to the household. Unfortunately for me that also means I’ll be getting up early again. No more sleeping until 8:30!

Brianna read the first Harry Potter book this past week. She really enjoyed it and is looking forward to reading the next book. We let her watch the first movie the other day. I wasn’t upstairs when she was watching it, but JR was. He said she was talking about the book the whole time…”that happened in Chapter 2″ “that happened in Chapter 5″, etc. There was a lot of stuff that was left out of the movie, but thankfully we explained to her ahead of time about how they would have to leave stuff out, otherwise the movie would be a mini-series.

JR bought some Steelers stickers and added them to his motorcycle. I’ll post some pictures when he gets back. He took Brianna to go for a ride and buy her some new shoes and himself a holster for his backup weapon.

Filed Under: Brianna, Delaney, JR, Sherra Tagged With: Brianna, Delaney, Harry Potter, JR video, poop, potty, potty training, school, steelers, toilet training

They're Sharing a Room Now

June 6, 2009 By Sherra Leave a Comment

I’ve had a very productive day today. Brianna and Delaney are now in the same room, per Brianna’s repeated requests since before Delaney was even born. Delaney’s crib was moved into Brianna’s room and converted to a toddler bed. All toys (almost all toys anyway) were moved into Delaney’s old room and reorganized. Everything looks so much cleaner now with the reorganization.

Nap time was quite a challenge. Delaney kept getting out of bed and playing. I kept putting her back in bed. It only took a couple of times for her to get the idea to hide her pillow and blanket so I couldn’t find it (or so she thought). I guess she thought that if she didn’t have a pillow and blanket that she couldn’t take a nap. The first attempt was putting it all on Brianna’s bed – easily found. The second attempt was putting it all in the drawer in Brianna’s nightstand. Again, pretty easily found because I heard her opening and closing drawers right before I went in the room. The third attempt was hiding it all under Brianna’s bed. That one took me just a tad bit longer to find.

Finally, after just over 2 hours and JR going in to holler at her to stay in bed, she cried herself to sleep and slept for about 2 hours. She normally sleeps for about 3 hours for her nap, so she was cranky when she got up.

Tonight she didn’t even get into bed until after 10 (her bed time is 8). I thought that would mean she would fall right to sleep (she was very tired). Nope. I heard Brianna in there hollering at Delaney to be quiet and go to sleep….several times. So, I went in to see what the issue was. Brianna said Delaney was clapping and singing and just generally making noise. I told Brianna that she would just have to deal with the noises because that’s what happens when you share a room. And I told Delaney to be quiet and to go sleep. It was quiet for a while, so I just went in to check on them. Brianna is sound asleep, but Delaney is still awake. Just laying there looking at everything. I’m not going to get too freaked about it since I know she’s just trying to get used to the new surroundings and her bed looking so much different now (same bed, just without the front bars). I figure she’ll fall asleep eventually…at least she’s not trying to get out of the bed.

I swear, Brianna never gave us this much problem with sleeping and such. Totally different kids. Brianna was sleeping through the night (on her own – no “training”) at 8 weeks. Delaney was more than a year and a half old…and LOTS of effort on our part to get her there. Brianna climbed right up in it and put herself down for her nap without us having to say anything. Delaney, well, she’s been quite a handfull today. There is only 2 months difference from when we moved Brianna to a toddler bed and when we moved Delaney to one, so it’s not an issue with us moving them to toddler beds at different ages.

Also, JR decided to pull out Brianna’s old training wheeled bike to see if Delaney was big enough for it yet. We lowered the seat all the way down and she was able to reach the pedals with no problems. Making the pedals work is another subject. She completely enjoyed having us push her around the driveway on the bike though. She felt like such a big girl with just moving into a big girl bed AND riding around on a big girl bike!

Filed Under: Brianna, Delaney, Sherra Tagged With: big girl bed, toddler bed, toddler sleep issues, training wheels

Spring Break is Over

April 13, 2009 By Sherra Leave a Comment

Well, Spring Break is over, and things are on their way back to normal here in the house. JR is sleeping (worked last night), Brianna is at school, Shiner is napping behind the couch, and Delaney is trying her best to build something to climb up to get Brianna’s Nintendo DS off the mantel. She has pulled everything she can find that’s even remotely stable over to the fireplace to try to stand on it. She’s going through Brianna withdrawls. She’s gotten so used to having Brianna here every day. I just told her to get down off her toy horse (she’s standing on it trying to get to the game) and she looked at me and pointed to my computer and said “puter’, like she wanted me to stop looking at her and look at the computer instead…little stinker.

I made the girls be outside most of the weekend. At first Brianna was not too happy that I didn’t want her sitting in the house watching TV and playing video games. But, she did end up having a good time outside – mostly by herself of all things, oh the horror. She did find a couple of lizards and caught them…she had one of them sitting on her hand for almost a half hour.

I seriously need to post more pictures.

Filed Under: Brianna, Delaney, JR, Shiner