February 18, 2008

Well, it's been over 2 months since I've last updated my blog. Christmas has come and gone so I no longer have the holidays to use as an excuse for not keeping this up to date. We had a wonderful holiday and enjoyed spending a week with my parents while they were visiting. Santa was good to us again this year as usual and brought the kids all kinds of fun things. Sam's big gifts were a train table with lots of Thomas the Tank Engine trains and a play kitchen. Claire mostly got smaller toys and clothes but preferred to eat the instruction manuals that came with the toys.

Shortly after New Year's we started to actively potty train Sam. He had been using the potty some over the summer, mostly before naptime and bedtime, but once he started school the novelty wore off and he decided he didn't want to sit on the potty anymore. However, around New Year's he started taking off his diaper during nap and bedtimes and peeing on the floor. We decided that it was time to start potty training again. We started slowly by just having him sit on the potty a couple of times a day but once his preschool teachers told us that they prefer that we send him to school in underwear we jumped right in. We bought "big boy" underwear and starting wearing them exclusively (well except for nap and bedtimes)and he is doing very well. We had lots of accidents to begin with but now accidents are pretty rare and he's finally starting to tell us when he needs to go potty.

Sam is going to The Little Gym on Tuesday nights at 6:30 and learning some basic gymnastics but mostly just running around and having fun. We are planning on having his 3rd birthday party there in April.

The start of the new year also meant a new work schedule for Bill, at least temporarily. Mary Kay was implementing their software in the Mary Kay China office and several of Bill's co-workers were sent to China to help. Luckily Bill did not need to be in China but he did have to work the same hours as his co-workers which meant he had to work overnight shifts since China is 14 hours ahead of the US. He had a very hard time getting his body to change to a different sleeping schedule and just as hard a time getting it to change back at the end of the 2 weeks but he is back to normal now and still keeping very busy with work.

Bill celebrated his 37th birthday on January 17th. We were able to go out for dinner the night before and then on his actual birthday we just had dinner at home and then his parents came over for presents and cake and ice cream. Sam had lots of fun helping daddy open all of his presents.

Claire is now 10 months old and gets into everything. She has lightening quick hands and will grab anything in her reach. She is also not content sitting anymore. She is determined to stand and walk but isn't trying to crawl. She will scoot on her bottom to get things she wants but can't go more than a couple of feet that way. It's starting to get very hard to get things done b/c all she wants to do is walk and stand and since she can't do either without some assistance that means that someone has to be with her all of the time. We think that she will be walking by her first birthday and we're not sure we are ready. She is definitely a very different baby then Sam was and we're very worried about what she will get into once she has the freedom to move around.

I am still running regularly and have my eyes set on a half marathon in April. My friend, Kim, and I are up to 6 miles now and have about 6 more weeks to train so I think we will be ready for the 13.1 mile run by then.

Well, hopefully this has caught everyone up to speed on our lives over the past couple of months. I hope to be better about keeping this updated. I've included some pictures from over the past couple of months as well.