Pop pop

View Photo Message from Merriett Ferris: Mom my called me this morning to share the news that my grandfather passed away last night. Of course he will be missed here, but I totally imagine him right now chillin in heaven working on a giant puzzle :-) I am so grateful that we made the stop to visit them on our drive to PA over Christmas. He was able to meet Lance and Cosette for the first time and was able to see Javan a little grown up (he was only a month old the last time we saw him). We will see him again. In heaven. And Lance and Cosette and Javan will be able to meet the "Pop-pop" the way I remember him - with his occasional funny little comments and working on crossword puzzles. :-) If you are having problems viewing this email, copy and paste the following into your browser: https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/74bKrqmAFpc89kJFVGIgNMdMgBzfcO7p83HW6kk2-Yo?feat=email To share your photos or receive notification when your friends share photos, get your own free Picasa Web Albums account.

Last day of Kindergarten

Tuesday was Javan's last day of kindergarten
He got a couple of "awards"
This one is the one for completing all of his "homework all year.

That was easy considering his homework was counting the books he read. :-)

All the kids got an award for completing thier first year of school

Raising it up high!

This one was my favorite. He got the award for reading THE MOST books of all 3 kindergarten classes.
That's my boy! He loves reading like his mamma :-)

And next year we will start a new journey as a homeschooled family.

There was a time that i thought I would NEVER EVER homeschool.

I also thought "but he will miss out on so much at school"

I know many people think that same thing.

I don't blame you.

I was one of you.

But, since then I've done A LOT of research, found an amazing community of homeschooled families that get together several times a week, and of course God changed my heart about it.

So, the journey begins.

We are all very excited!

da da da da

Cosette has been saying mama since, well, her birth day.

Yesterday she finally figured out da da. I don't think she know's what she is saying when she says either word but she is definitely getting lots of practice with those sounds :-)

my little talker

Cosette has always been a little "talker". She likes to try making all different noises. She will just lay on the floor  and "sing" and "talk".

Today, she was sleeping and I was working.

I KNOW I heard her talking in there and I thought... sheesh she just doesn't want to sleep today.

I let her be for awhile because sometimes she will "talk" herself to sleep.

But, I kept hearing the occasional noises from her room so I decided - oh well, i guess she's not going to sleep.

So, I get up, walk in her room, turn on the light expecting to see her adorable little smile that she always gives me when I come and get her....

AND SHE WAS SOUND ASLEEP.

So, either I'm hearing things OR

MY BABY TALKS IN HER SLEEP!




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My hair is getting long enough to put bows init!

Javan's Kindergarten field trip

With all of the craziness with work and mom visiting and, well, life. I never got a chance to post about Javan's field trip.  I took the day off of work and went along to help the teachers control this wild group ;-)

I was assigned 4 kids that I was in responsible for. Here they were looking at the baby cows. It was so crazy there...sooooo many kids that day.

Of all the animals to see and things to do...the kids had a blast ringing the bells. haha.  

Riding "tractors"

Here Javan is feeding the goats

 

This was my little group of kiddos. It was a lot of fun except that Deanna Rose Farmstead is HUGE and we only had 1 hour to run.. okay walk really really fast to get through it. I kind of thought it was a little ridiculous (couldn't the 1/2 day kids stay for the whole day for a field trip??)  but whatever the kids had fun. :-)
We will have to do our own "field trip" with him and some of his friends this summer so he can actually enjoy all of the things this farm has to offer.

The kiddos were being silly while waiting for everyone to meet up at the exit so they could catch the bus back to school.

Elimination Communication

My mom was here last week. It was nice to have her. Of course - Murphy's Law - it was the busiest week of work in a looong time. But, maybe it was a blessing in disguise. It was nice to have her help while I got work done.. :-)





Anyway, since she stayed with us we revealed our little secret.



Cosette is potty trained.



Well, its actually more like Cosette is potty training. If we lived in a culture where its normal to carry a baby around without a diaper and a slit in her pants and "potty her" on the side of the road then she would be potty trained. But, we don't so she wears a diaper most of the time and she pees and poops in it from time to time too.



But... we are very aware of her potty schedule so we give her well planned "potty-tunities". She tries her best to hold it for us, especially if its part of her routine and she knows we will take her potty soon.



It all started with an awful awful red oozing diaper rash that started in her first few weeks of life and lasted for over a month. I tried EVERYTHING (I did find out the culprit but that's for another blog post) but what worked best was when she was naked.



So, she was naked.



All. the. time.



And I was getting peed on and pooped on.



All. the. time.



And it was getting a little ridiculous.



So one day, when she was about 2 months old, I did a google search on infant potty training... and came across "elimination communication". Its actually quite common in many other cultures. I remember my sister telling me stories of everyone whistling in the bathroom because that was their cue sound as a baby.



We started by making a "cue" sound when she would pee or poop while she was naked. We did that for about a week until she started to make the association.



Then we would hold her over the sink and make that cue sound - and she would remember "oh that sound happens when I pee and poop so I should try to go" (well, that's probably not what she is thinking exactly but something along those lines). It only took about 2 weeks and she was going potty in the sink whenever we "cue".

Why the sink?



1. its a lot easier on my old back ... I am over 30 ya know.

2. it was helpful for her to see in the mirror what she was doing. Now, we just still potty her in the sink out of habit. She will go in a potty if I use one.



After her nap I take her potty and leave the diaper off because she usually wants to eat. As soon as she's done eating she always goes potty (poopy this time). I usually try to take her about 20 min after that too (depending on how much she goes after she ate). We also give her a pottytunity before naps. Other than that, we just take her when she "tells" us.



Yes, she does tell us. I know. Its so wierd, but she does.



She just gets all fussy and wiggly and then we'll run her to the sink and out it comes.

So there ya go.. the secret is out.


Why was it a secret?


Because....well... I know you all think we are totally weird now.


oh wait, you probably already think we are weird....I don't blame ya. We definitely do things a little different around here. :-)



I'm OK with that.

Cosette's first boyfriend :-)

Our friend Harrison just loves his little Coco.