Man O Man does time fly

I just realized that it has been forever since I last blogged. Sorry about that! It has been a long time but time flies when you have two little girls. A lot has happened since March. Lets see where to start.
For me, things are going well. I am still working, thankfully. My hours dropped to an average of 32 hours a week starting in April. Last week was the first week since April that I had 40 hours. But the time off has been a blessing, I have been able to do some things that I have been putting off, like eye appts, dentist appts, spring cleaning and all that fun stuff. Plus I got to go on a few of Allison summer field trips with her which has been so much fun! I realized that God gives us what we need and for me that time off is what I needed. We often say that God will provide but often we forget that he is going to provide us with what we he knows we need not what we think we need or what we want.
The girls have had a pretty good summer so far.
Allison had soccer this summer. She was so excited about it until the she actually had practice then the excitement quickly moved to dislike. She was OK after things got started but she would cry as soon as we got to the YMCA, luckily it was only 4 weeks long. Now we know. This spring and summer has been a long test for Allison. We have had to deal with some attitude from her. One night a few weeks ago we were having a particularly tough night and I ended up taking all the toys out of her room, putting them in Elizabeth's room and not allowing Allison to go in and play, that went on for 3 DAYS!!! The next night she got home from daycare ate dinner and got to sit in her toyless room for the rest of the evening. That was the toughest we have had to be on her so far. Since then she has gotten better about listening and not being mouthing back. She is a constant work in progress but I think that is all kids. Allison also took a test in June to see if she qualified for Public Pre-School. This is a free program in the county we live in. They said that typically they have 60 to 80 people apply for 40 spots, we found out in July that she is on the waiting list and come mid August we will know if she gets in otherwise she will start kindergarden in 2011. I can't believe it!!! Kindergarden!
Elizabeth turned 3 in June. It is hard to believe that she is 3 already. She is very active and very independent!!! She is finally completely potty trained. The weekend of 4 of July she started sleeping through the night in panties and we have only had a few accidents since then. We are so proud of her! She is getting tall too. She is catching up to Allison. There are things that I take out of Allison's closest and it goes directly over to Libby and she is able to wear it right then. She is also almost in the same size shoe as Allison. I think she is going to be tall like daddy. She is just so loveable too. You get a million kisses at night and when you take her to daycare. The other thing that she does, that I love, is every time we are going to be apart, like bedtime, daycare, whatever, she says to us 'When I come back (or wake up) I'm gonna give you a hug and a kiss', she just melts my heart! She still sleeps with her wipe (check an older blog to understand), we are slowly getting her out of it, but a lot of nights she still asks for a wipe at bedtime. Strange! Now that Allison has given us a break with the attitude Elizabeth has stepped in, b/c that's what a sisters do, lol. Lately she has been our difficult one. We have seemed to have a routine down. Every night we set down for dinner and Libby melts down about something (wrong seat, wrong cup, Allison too close, something), she gets sent to the steps for isolation until she changes her heart, she decides to say she is sorry, comes back sits down and we eat dinner. Almost every night for the past week and half we have done this.
This parenting stuff is hard! LOL The other night while we were going through this, Allison chimed up and here is the conversation we had:
Allison: (with a very serious face)"Mommy, you know what I think you should do with Libby?"
Mommy: (trying not to laugh) "Allison, what do you think we should do?"
Allison: (again with the serious face) "I really think that you need to take all her toys out of her room!"
Mommy: (holding my breathe for a second to stop the laughing) "You know Allison that is a good idea but right now we are going to do this and see what happens, but thank you"
She is learning. She knows that she lost her toys for a few days b/c of her attitude and not listening. It made me feel good that the message got through to her but it made me laugh that I was taking advise from my 4 year old about how to deal with my 3 year old.
Our other parenting trial is trying to get Allison to face some of her fears. She and Elizabeth both completely melted down when we went to the beach the beginning of July, well we decided that we need to go to the beach more often and teach them how we act at the beach as well as that the ocean is not as scary as they are thinking. Last weekend we went back to the beach. Allison amazed us. She played and played in a little tide pool and went down and put her feet in the actual ocean a few times. Elizabeth on the other hand completely melted down again and screamed and cried, so I finally took her to the car and made her sit in the car while Daddy and Allison played and had a good time on the beach. This was Allison's reward for doing so well and facing her fear of the ocean. It wasn't any fun for mommy having to sit in the car and not in the sand but it was worth it to help Elizabeth to understand. In the end she had a change of heart and we took a short 5 minute trip to the beach so she could put her feet in the sand before we left, but she never did get to play in the sand, which is what she loves to do. Just another reminder that you don't get to a vacation from being a parent.
Last but not least Jim is doing well. His work is picking back up. He is in a basketball league, 2nd this year, and he is enjoying it. We all are getting ready to take a trip to visit his parents. He and his dad are going to Montana for a week to do some male bonding and me and the girls are going to have some girl bonding with Grandma Habeck and Great Grandma Byers. We are all very excited about the trip. We are going to miss Jim and Gary while they are gone but we know that this is something that is going to be so good for them! Plus Jim will get to see his Grandma Brunette while he is in Montana.
WOW, I just wrote a book. I will try to blog more often so it isn't so long all at once.