Baseball

Sweetie

Sammie has really developed leaps and bounds with in the last month or so. I think that A LOT of this has to do with discipline changes that Ryan and I have made, less yelling, more positive reinforcement and attitude changes. Do we still get frusterated with Sammie? Yes. Do we still lose our patience? Yes. Do we still yell at her? Yes, but only ocassionaly. However, when these occurances happen, it is a "shock" to her with our yelling and a possable spanking because those are very few these days. It clicks with her that her actions have a consequence.

Sammie has been making an effort to be kind and nice and to treat others nicely, not always meanly like she had been. She will hear Ali crying and say, "its ok sweetie"~that's her line. Then the other night at bed time, I laid down next to her after Ryan read and sang to her. She started kissing my forhead and rubbing my arm like I usually do to her. It was nice to see that she has accepted the positive and is passing it on. Six months ago, maybe even four months ago, it was very difficult to show Sammie love. But with persistance, we have made some progress.

Earth Day 4-22-10

The Retzer Nature Center held a 2-3 year old nature walk on Earth Day. This was a free event, so off we went :) It was about 1 hour of a walk and they provided us with brown paper bags to pick up any treasures we found ON THE GROUND :)

Sisters

My Favorite :)

A close 2nd

Friends

The kids name their stuffed animals, so I wanted to get the names and photos down so that someday we have a place to go back to if we forget their names. This is just a few of their animal friends. Bella~Sammie's
Monkey/Barney~Sammie's

Carebear~Sammie's

Broadie~Sammie's

Rose~Ali's

Mary, Scruffty, Chocolate Chip(Maddie's)~ Sammie's

Moo, Dudley, Buckaroo~Dash's

Dudley~Dash's

Daddy's Girl

New Tooth

Ali has popped tooth number 4! It is the top left one.

Grant Update

Today we had the city inspector by(the next step in the process). Things went well, we were told we needed to pull permits for the work my dad did that we did not pull them for. So that's the bad news, the good news, if things can work according to his plan, we might have a very nice basement in our hands some day :) whooohooo to a bedroom and play area downstairs!

Please continue praying that things will follow God's plan.

Monkey Joe's 1-19-2010

I have been trying to teach the kids to save for the fun things we do. Then I dont have to feel bad over spending the budget. I do some babysitting during the week and we take that money and put it in the save jar. This then goes towards the "big" event for the winter months. The kids wanted to save up to go to Monkey Joe's and to Country Springs Water Park. Today we went to MJs.

The kids waiting to go in.

Ali enjoying the "baby" area

I just thought the shot was a cool one.

Drinking our Icee :)

Beth and Ali

Needless to say we had a great time!