Do you ever just feel like whatever you do is wrong? I’ve been feeling like that a lot lately.
For once it’d be nice to be right. To do things right. And to have other people agree it’s right.
Sigh. For now I guess I am wrong. But tomorrow I strive to be right.

So our Beautiful girls are growing up WAY to FAST! However it sure is fun watching them play together. Olivia is now into exploring toys and trying to play with her sister. They dance and sing together (no Olivia can’t walk yet, but she sure can bounce that bum!). They even let me leave them alone in the basement to play! (only for short times while I cook lunch etc).

Olivia has discovered that it’s loads of fun to toss her food on the floor! We skipped this step with Joy, Joy was always a neat and tidy kind of kid so that would just be to messy! Olivia isn’t like that at all! She is also at the stage where whenever we say “No” she bursts into tears and has a good cry. She is trying to talk, and her words are becoming clearer.

Joy is doing AWESOME potty training. We were at a friends the other day and even though she was in a diaper she asked to go pee on the potty. She did so at Starbucks last night too. She’s only had one successful poop on the potty, but that’s okay, it’s coming. She woke up this morning very upset, if I understand right she had gotten up and while leaving her room she went pee. So she got all upset and went back to bed having a little cry ’cause she went pee. She didn’t come see me or anything, this is just what I figured from what I heard. She was wearing a diaper so it was no big deal, but she sure was upset by it! She is also working on her words. I think it’s in part due to visiting our friend. Her daughter turns two at the end of this month and she speaks more clearly than Joy, I think Joy took notice of that and is working harder (and it’s about time too). Now she seems to pick a word out of every sentence I say to her to repeat back to me. She just said Meat a minute ago. Never heard her say that before! It’s so exciting to hear her clearly repeat a word back to me, especially since I didn’t ask her too! And to top it all off she’s putting more words together, she’s always rattled off sentences but there was only a word here or there that we could understand, now it’s becoming that we understand more of her words and just a few are still her own language.

~~ A little side note ~~
Saturday night Orlund returned from the men’s conference. After he and his dad finished unloading Orlund’s stuff and Hugh headed home I got a big surprise. I was expecting Orlund to be excited about God etc like most of us get after a conference, however what happened next I would have never expected. Orlund gave me a great big hug, and while holding me tight said “I am so Thankful that you are my wife”. SMILE. He’d done a bunch of talking I guess to people with broken families and he was feeling very thankful for our relationship etc. It was truly God’s timing. I was feeling Thankful for everything (read my last post?) and here he was feeling the same way. It made for a special evening of lots of talking and hugging.

Do you ever feel like you think to much about yourself and your own situation? I do. I know I think of myself to much sometimes and sometimes not enough.
The start to this year has been a rough one to say the least(Thankfully not as rough as it could be.). I don’t really remember January, most of it was spent with my family and us fighting off colds and flu bugs. The end of January, start of February, Olivia had her UTI. One week in hospital (bummer). Orlund worked every SINGLE day after that except for two days for the remainder of February. March has swung around. The first week we started to get back into the swing of things (I will post soon about my struggles in that time). Then this Monday Orlund headed to Vancouver for training. He returned at 9:30pm Thursday night. Then Today (Friday) we spent the day as a family as we were both off work, then at 3:00pm his dad picked him up for the Men’s Conference. The conference is supposed to be 24hours, however tack on the 3 hours before it starts that he was with his dad and the at least 1 hour drive back home after the 24hours and we are looking at at least 28hours. Joy has been running a fever over the past week, and Olivia finally popped out another tooth (still working on two more).
Lets just say, it’s been a long week.
Tonight I lost it. ~ Yeah I get the award for worst mom moment here~ I finally got Olivia to sleep and came out to the living room. Then I heard Joy opening the door. She opens it noisily as she can hardly reach the door knob. Olivia woke up. sigh. I went in and calmed Olivia down. Joy then informed me she needed to go pee ~ hence why she was  trying to escape their room. I rushed her out to the bathroom. rushed? sure. Hard to rush a half sleepy kid. Olivia woke up screaming and Joy wasn’t moving fast enough. We got to the bathroom where I lost it. I screamed “Dam it!”  then pulled my hair and just screamed….. yeah…smooth mom…. I try to never lose it like this in front of anyone, but I was feeling exhausted, it wasn’t even really due to what was going on so much as I was feeling sorry for myself that Orlund wasn’t around to help… Poor Joy! She started balling her eyes out!!! I apologized and snuggled her letting her know it wasn’t her fault and I wasn’t mad at her. She then ‘told’ me why she was crying by saying “Dam it”….GREAT! first I screw up royally  then she learns a bad word from me! The good news she was still able to go potty and soon enough they were both asleep again.
The point of sharing that story is ~ I then went on facebook and complained about wanting our lives to return to normal…. A friend replied saying; “What’s normal? I forget what that feels like.”. Her husband has MS. It has turned their lives upside down and to say the least~ I have nothing to complain about in comparison! It got me thinking. My Cousin’s daughter has had Cancer (Thank you JESUS!) so their lives are anything but normal. They just finished the radiation and are now home waiting until it’s time to take the next MRI. And Japan! Thousands of people wont be able to return to ‘normal’ anytime soon. Who am I to Complain?
THANK YOU JESUS! That although I’m tired and want my husband to be home with us, that we have it a lot easier than so many people around us. THANK YOU GOD for keeping us safe and sound and healthy. There is so much to be Thankful for! I have two beautiful healthy daughters, a wonderful hard working husband (who treats me like a Queen), a wonderful family (and family in law), a roof over our head, a car to drive, work etc etc etc. The list is endless.
How are you doing? Do you see what God has given you to be thankful for?

So we have decided to try potty training…. The thing with Potty Training, once you start you can’t (shouldn’t) stop! And well I hadn’t really thought about that… I had purchased two ‘panties’ for Joy (the padded ones). Found out we needed more than that, thankfully a friend had given me some previously. Day one was great! I kept reminding her, and asking her, and she only had one oops (and one poop oops). But other than that she was good! We even made a “Joy’s Potty chart” for her to put stickers on every time she’s successful.
Day 2~ Not so good. I had the boys and she’s running a fever. We were only successful twice. sigh.
Day 3~ Today. Again not so good. Again I had the boys and she’s still running that fever. I think we were again only successful two or three times. But I’m sticking to it. She knows what’s what, it’s just a matter of her doing what she’s supposed to do. I kept asking her if she had to go, figured if I asked her then it would get her thinking about it. At one point when I was asking if she had to go, she came over to me, put her hands on my cheeks ~ holding my head so I had to look at her and said “No pee” then went on to explain in her own language that I’m bugging her and she’ll tell me when she needs to pee……..Okay dokay. She didn’t but it was cute that she held my head still to tell me what’s what.
Wish me/her luck for day 4!
Oh and one other thing I just want to share. When Olivia and I were in the hospital Joy started calling Orlund’s mom Didda. Then she called my mom Didda. So we figured that was her word for Grandma, she calls both our dad’s Poppa (although we call my dad Poppa and Orlund’s Grandpa). Then however one night Virden and Kerry were over and Joy called Kerry Didda….hmmm, perhaps it’s a way of talking to a lady…. Now however she calls Solomon Didda on a regular basis and occasionally calls Gabe Didda as well… I don’t know what it’s supposed to mean, someday perhaps she can tell us. Right now however whenever I ask her what Didda means she just starts laughing hysterically!

Here is the update on the girls I promised ~
Joy~~
~She is growing up so fast. During my time away in the hospital she’s started to say ‘real’ words more and more. It’s about time too! We’ve been keeping an eye on her speech as it seems a little bit behind.
~She goes pee on the potty every night before bed. And sometimes she’ll randomly ask to be put on the potty to pee. I think she’s ready to be potty trained, however is just to busy to bother. So I’m going to bunker down and work with her on it. (we are now trying to potty train).
~ Joy has always been a child that never got into anything! Until her sister started crawling…. I guess it’s Joy’s way of getting attention? The other day she went into the bathroom and painted her own fingernails (and ONLY got it on her fingers and nails). Then a couple days after she went into the bathroom, found my powder foundation and watered it down, I heard the water and by the time I got there she was trying to dry it off on a towel! And again two days later as we were waiting for the boys to arrive she dug in one of my plants getting soil everywhere!
~She is an instigator! We don’t allow spitting, however she taught Olivia how to ‘spit’ (tongue between lips kind of spitting), and so now she just has to put her tongue between her lips and Olivia will follow suit ~ however Olivia actually spits while Joy just does the motion, so Olivia gets in trouble not Joy…I’ve obviously caught on now.
~ Joy is going through that ‘almost 3′ attitude…..Can’t wait till it’s over!
~ Joy is 33months old!!

Joy trying things out at Walmart

Olivia~~
~ Since being in the hospital she learned to nurse when it’s not dark (and not in her bedroom). She also learned to take more than one nap a day. She went from one (or two) naps a day lasting anywhere from 15min-1hour to napping 3 times a day nap1= 1hour, nap2= 2hours, nap3= 20minutes!! LOVING THAT!
~ She’s been having a few rough nights, however now her second tooth has finally popped out! Yup she got her front right upper tooth in… so it matches her front right BOTTOM tooth…….good for chewing I guess?
~ She’s so close to attempting to walk! She walks along furniture, and is starting to let go with one hand (sometimes both hands).
~ Anywhere the action is you’ll find Olivia! She can crawl so fast!
~ Olivia has decided that she wants to eat everything we are eating. So I now feed her off my plate.
~ She has a favorite Blanket. I tried not to get my kids to have a favorite blanket or toy that they always have to pack around, however since being in the hospital she doesn’t like to sleep without her blanket… she is starting to get better, and I now don’t pack it around with us everywhere.
~ Olivia has learned how to clap, it’s a joy to watch her clapping away.
~ She is talking already too, she can say (in her own way) Mama, Dada, More, Down/Done (not sure which), thank you (said 2x only). And she points at what she wants.
~ Olivia is 10months old!

Olivia showing off her 'club' in the hospital.