Corner time success!!!

So we started putting Ethan in the corner on Saturday 7/31, and it was an huge success! It was like he was born to stand there! We would put him in there and tell him to stay until we called him out and he did! Are kids born knowing what the corner is and how to stand in it? God really blessed us with this corner time and it working so well. We can even tell him go stand in the corner and he does it all by himself! As you can tell I am over joyed! Ha, It seems silly when you think about how jazzed I am over this! Oh well it is the simple things in life I suppose.

We also started potty training and that didn't go over too well. I don't believe Ethan is quite ready yet. So instead of continuing on and possibly scaring him from ever using the potty again, we just stopped all together. I would rather wait a bit longer then risk a scare that could make the whole process ten times harder. So hopefully when he starts to exhibit more signs we will try again. As for right now we are having fun sitting, watching, and learning from others.

He is enjoying splashing in his pool, and laughing! Making his silly scrunchy nose face and running around playing monster with daddy. He loves to tickle others he thinks that is a ton of fun! He likes to jump up and down! He likes to help mommy with mopping. (he takes a wet wipe out and scrubs the floor so cute!) He runs from the vacuum screaming because it is too loud. But when it is off he shows it who is boss! He is enjoying running outside and spending time with family. He loves his swing grandma bought him he will sit in it for hours if you let him. Everyday and everything is a new adventure for Ethan to explore and learn, and he is soaking it all up. He takes it all in as not to miss one thing God has blessed him with!

We are so thrilled God blessed us with him (and his brother Austin of course!) and excited to see what God has in store for him in his walk!

He is going to get terrible before he hits two!

Ethan is quite a ham as of late! He is talking much more these days! His newest word he has learned is Auntie. My little sister is up and staying with us until today. Ethan loves his Auntie. They laugh, they dance and they play! Spending time with her is such a joy (when she is not in her I am a teenager and am always right state of mind!)

Ethan's other newest thing is pretending he is a monster! He comes up to you and sticks his hands in the air and says "RAWR" and then runs away! He is so silly and super sweet!

But let's get down to the nitty gritty. The reason for this post is that Ethan has become a child who throws fits! And when I say "throws" I mean literally! He gets upset about something and he goes into a rage and lunges aka throws his body on the ground and rolls unto his back and kicks his feet and stays like that for at least 5 minutes. This boy doesn't even care where he is when he gets mad! And if he so happens to get mad while standing on tile then oh well he still throws his body down and then hurts himself and cries more! I made the comment last night over dinner to the hubs that "He is going to get terrible before he hits two" My husband laughed, not because he thought I was way of base or being silly. But because what  I said (meaning how I said it) was funny and he agreed it is getting pretty terrible! Hence forth the title of this blog! I have noticed that it doesn't matter whether we ignore him or not when he does this because he just keeps on until he finds something else to occupy his time or until he is just plain tired of it! Is 18 months to young for corner/time out time?

I am really drawing at straws here trying to find something that will,
1: not make him feel abandoned.
2: not make him think it is ok.

I mean if I put him in his crib for time out he would just continue to cry and if I acknowledged what he is doing then he thinks it's ok?!?!

Austin never threw temper tantrums so I have never really handled these before.

Any suggestion's on how to resolve these temper tantrums? I'm pretty much open for anything (aside from corporal punishment of course)

Trusting in God with all your heart...

Well the past week has been busy and quite eventful. I have been busy spring cleaning the house and getting all our ducks in a row before I start back at work on 3/30, (Monday). So I have enrolled Ethan in Daycare, to me that was a scary prospect. I mean my tiny little baby in a daycare, In the hands of others. What ifs always come to mind in that situation. But I love God so much for providing a wonderful daycare facility. They only take 8 infants at one time, So I know my son is not going to be in a crowded room with way too many kids. They are very careful. At the end of the day they do laundry and disinfect everything. When you go into the room to drop/pick up your child you are required to take off your shoes (So no zip up boots for me). So God has proven to be very wonderful to us and has been giving me lots of peace about this decision.

Also this week I found out that I was possibly losing my job. So I was really scared and worried about that and well, God again gave me strength and peace about this whole situation. Well after I first had a oh no session. But the next day I got a call about not losing my job! God is so very good! But of course everyone knows that and well if they don't then they need to!

So this whole week has been long and emotional! But it has all been good!

Recently I joined a small group for women and I am loving it! I feel like I am becoming closer with God everyday as I walk with him! It is so good and refreshing to have other women to talk to and worship with. Jon and I are also getting more involved with our church which is making me feel even better! We signed up for habitat for humanity last week! Our church is helping 4 families by raising walls for their houses! I have been excited about this opportunity ever since we signed up for it! Also this weekend we are signing up to help in kids zone and bigenuff our two kids programs at church and also we will be signing up to help put up and take down equipment. I feel like my heart is opening up more and more each day and all I want to do now is serve my God! It is the best feeling in the world and I can't believe it took me so long to figure it out! I have been thinking a lot about possibly taking a mission's trip to Uganda. I have been tossing it around in my head but haven't yet voiced my opinion about it. I think I just might in the next few days. Also our small group is sponsoring a girl named Sarah from Uganda, She is very ill and needs looks of medical attention, Please pray for her! She has a smile that melts your heart. With all she has been through to still smile is amazing!

Ethan is now 10 weeks old, (wow time flies). He is getting so big already! He is and has been rolling over for about a month now and he is more able to hold up his head without looking like a bobble head doll! He is already trying to crawl. He is so very wonderful!

And Austin, Well he is such a blessing also. He has been doing really good with his manners and saying yes ma'am and no ma'am! We are so very proud of him! He is also doing much better in school! So we are very happy with the progress he has made! God is really working with him!

Jon is good. Him and I have started to take the kids out for walks now! It is very nice to do this at the end of our day! I feel like it is good exercise for us and we all get a chance to talk and it keeps us away from the TV! So that is very nice! Just this past weekend we took the boys for a walk in our neighborhood and then afterwards we decided to go to the park and we spent an hour there watching Austin play and Jon and I played sudoku while Ethan slept in his stroller! I feel like we are getting our lives in order and more active!

I have decided that I might be doing the 3 day walk for breast cancer in October. It is 60 miles in 3 days and we sleep in assigned pink tents! I think this will be really good for me! I have always supported breast cancer research for finding the cure and I feel like maybe I should finally take the next step and get involved with it in a more hands on sense!

Well in some more recent news my brother and sister in law will possibly be adopting a 3 week old baby girl and a two year old boy! This is very exciting news and Jon and I are praying that this whole transition goes smoothly for them and that (as my sister in law Holly put it) they will become part of their "forever family"!

An eventful weekend...

Well my weekends are usually crazy if you have ever read my blog you would know. This weekend was less crazy then others but still crazy nonetheless! Lets see we had to ground Austin for the first time friday night and it broke my heart! He has never been grounded before and well this was very new to him! So he spent the whole night in his room. And well there was alot of crying. So that was our eventful friday evening. Then saturday Austin already had plans with my mom and sister for over a week and I didn't want to brake them so we let him go over and spend the day with them. And I told them no tv he is grounded from the tv. So he didn't watch any! And Jon and I went a did a little shopping for his mom's birthday. We decided that, that evening we were going to go over to her house and make her a yummy birthday dinner and surprise her which we did because we got there and she was still out shopping at the mall and I started on dinner and ended up braking one of her dishes. I felt awful after doing this. And we all sat down and had a nice meal. And then afterwards we headed home. Austin went to bed and Jon and I stayed up and talked for a bit. Then I started having false labor pains that was really fun. And here is where the crazy weekend comes into play! Jon went into over protective husband mode and thought I was going to go into labor that night and the whole time I am trying to sleep he is running around our bedroom like a mad man packing my overnight bag for the hospital! And everytime I would start to doze off he would ask me what I wanted for the hospital. I finally told him I don't care what is in the darn bag I am trying to sleep and I am not going into labor tonight so just come to bed. But noooo he was dead set on this fact and everytime I moved or made a noise he was like is it time to go. Oh Lord I love my husband! I think that is what I kept repeating over and over in my head! Yes, I know this was very sweet of him for caring so much but he was up until 1am and everytime he moved I woke up. Or everytime he asked me a darn question. So ontop of the pain I had saturday night and sunday morning which kept me up when it didn't keep me up my husband did. So neither of us slept well and I was tired all day sunday. I finally got to lay down for a nap around 2:30pm and then I guess after an hour of me sleeping Austin decided to come and join me for a nap. I woke up at about 4:30pm to Austin pressed up againist my back snoring. Which I thought was sweet! Then Jon made us dinner while I laid down on the couch in the front room. I was still tired but refused to go back to sleep because I knew I wouldn't get any sleep that night. So we had some yummy Chili Jon made and then gave Austin a bath and put him to bed. And then we followed shortly after about 9pm, I think. Which didn't do me alot of good because at 9:30pm Austin came in our room and told me he couldn't sleep so I was up for another hour dealing with that. And then once I finally fell asleep I woke up at 2:30 in the morning wide awake with Ethan kicking me. So yes another sleepless night. And that folks was the extent of our exciting weekend!

A very eventful weekend....

Well lets see this weekend was very busy for us! As most usually are but this one more so. Friday after work we went and did our grocery shopping that was a first for us because usually we do our grocery shopping on Saturdays. But we had so much to do Saturday that I opted for Friday evening. So we got all that done and then came home and unloaded all the food and put it up. We had company over Friday night so after we put the groceries up we just waited on our company and played a few games of cards. Then Manders can over and see made us yummy beaner lasagna! (That is what she calls it.) I call it mmmmmgood! So then after dinner we all hung out and talked lat into the evening. Jon fell asleep on our love seat and Manders and I continued our conversation up until I think about 11pm. Which if anyone knows me they know that ever since the pregnancy I have been in bed by 8pm, 9pm at the latest. So I was very tired. So we woke Jon up and said our goodbyes and then I went into the room and went to sleep.

Saturday....
I got up at 8:30am. Which was very hard for me to do. The bed was so warm and comfy and I didn't want to leave! But we had a lady with progressive coming over at 9:30am and I needed to get the house cleaned up a little and get ready. So she got to our house a little after 9:30am, we talked over what we needed and then she left. So then we left for the day and headed out to do Christmas shopping. Whew it was a long day! We got home about hmmm 3:30pm I think. And we went to town wrapping presents. There were a lot of them and were not even close to being down yet! And then while we were doing that Jon washed all of Ethan's laundry, which was very sweet of him! And then once it was all done we folded it and put it all away. Ethan's side of the room is so clean now and all we are waiting on is the change table and then the room will be complete! So after all that was done probably around 7pm we just hung out and watched a little TV and then went to bed.

Sunday.....
Another busy day. We got up at 8am and got ready for Church. We headed down to Naples about ummm 9am for the 10am service and arrive early which was nice we got to talk to The Todd's for a bit. Then after the service we went out to lunch with Lee and Julie (Jon's father and step mother.) It is always fun when we spend time with them! Then we went to the Christian book store we had some things to buy and Julie had a coupon which was great! So we got what we needed at a much cheaper price! I love sales/coupons! Then after the Christian book store we said our goodbyes and headed down to my mom's house to see my little sister and her new dog. Her dog was very pretty she is a chocolate pit bull and very friendly. For some reason she really took a liking to me. And kept jumping on the couch by me and licking my face and nibbling my ears! Silly little thing! So we spent some time with them and then headed out yet again on our next Sunday adventure... We got to Nadine's (Jon's mother's) and helped her out with a few things. She didn't know how to work her DVD player, she thought it was broken, and of course it wasn't. It was only a matter of turning it on and putting in the DVD and pressing input on the TV. She flipped out once we did this and asked us how we fixed it. Which Jon and I got a chuckle out of. He told her it was never broken and showed her how to work it. So now hopefully she will know how to operate her DVD player in her front room! Then the next task was printing her off a map with directions to the hospital that we will be staying at once Ethan is born. That was yet again another simple task, and third she had bought an mp3 player and wanted to know how to get music onto it. So then Jon spent the next 45minutes downloading the software and putting music onto her mp3 player. She was very happy once she heard a song on it! So yes 3 easy task and we didn't even break a sweat! Will we were there she had some stuff she had gone through that she didn't want anymore so we got to pick through all of it and we ended up with... Ton's of picture frames and ton's for the fridge too. This cross stick thing she made and hung in Jon's nursery when he was a baby and a VCR/DVD player. We actually are trading the VCR/DVD player for our DVD player at home. But trust me it is a great trade! And this way when we use the video camera she gave us for Christmas and when Ethan is born we will be able to hook up the camera to the VCR/DVD player and record the camera tapes onto DVDs. So we were very thankful for that and all the other stuff she has given us. Which has been a lot! So after Nadine's we headed home and got there around 6pm and then Jon went back out and got us some dinner since we hadn't been home all day and I had nothing out to cook. While he was out I finished wrapping all the presents that we hadn't finished Saturday evening and then Jon got back,So we ate dinner. After dinner we hid all of Austin's wrapped presents away and both of us sat down and took a load off! And well that was it for our eventful weekend folks!

Ethan will be here soon.

Well I have been starting to feel really ill lately which lets me know that more then likely I am not going to make it to January with out giving birth to Ethan. Exciting but crazy I guess is what I would call it. I want him to stay in there as long as he needs but I also want him out at the same time! He is causing me way too much discomfort. Besides fretting that he is coming early, there is so much going on this month! We have a Christmas party were attending this Saturday and then were busy all day Sunday. Then next weekend is Jon's mother's birthday and we have decided that we are going to make dinner and a cake for her and we are going to surprise her. So busy that Saturday too! And then the following weekend after that we are going out of town to celebrate Christmas with part of Jon's family. So we probably wont be back in town until that Sunday. Then the next weekend is Christmas and then we have 2 other family Christmas' going on. The the following weekend is New years and that is the only weekend we don't have anything going on! So yes one big cluster! But we love it and in between all of that we still have Christmas shopping to do! And well I am suppose to be taking an easy so I will be walking slower ha ha.

So back to the subject at hand. I have been going to bed every night at 8pm and waking up at 4am very annoying since when I wake up at 4am I am no longer tired and then I just basically lay in bed and wait for the alarm to go off fun fun. And the pain well is horrible. So Jon says before Christmas I say after only time will tell....

Ethan is having a party in my belly!!!

My stress levels have actually subsided! I feel so great lately, well when it comes to my mental state! As for my physical state, well lets just say Ethan is taking good care to see to it that he kicks in every possible spot that just causes the most amount of pain! ha ha, But what I have come to realize is that I wouldn't have it any other way! Every move, every pain, everything is a blessing from God! I am so truly lucky to have this little one growing inside of me and to be a vessel for God! To carry his child and to be able to care for him! Wow... I feel so blessed! I have never looked at it that way before. But lately it's like I have been seeing things that I have never seen before, experiencing things I've never experienced before! I love it and am thanking God immensely for opening my eyes to all of this!

I was so young when I had my first son and when I was pregnant with him I didn't know how to enjoy it, I really didn't know how to enjoy anything back then! But now I feel like I can truly enjoy everything God has blessed me with!

I just hope and pray that we continue raising Austin in ways that bring glory to God! And that we will raise Ethan the same always bringing Glory to God! I want to raise my Boys to be humble servants of the Lord most high!

Life...

Well today didn't start out very well for me...

After dropping Jon off at work I was heading to Austin's school to drop him off at his before school program and well the school was closed! I had no knowledge of this and well this was rather frustrating. It was about 6:40am and I had to be at work in 20 minutes. So I called Jon and told him about what was going on and that I was calling my boss to let him know and heading home. So I called my boss and told him I would try to reach my mother and see if she could watch him. So I reached my mother and she told me she was sorry but she already had plans today. So I was basically sol. I called Jon back and told him and then he told me he would call me right back. So Jon decided to talk to his boss and tell him what was going on and he called me back and said I told my boss that we had no one to watch Austin so come and pick me up and I will stay at home with Austin and you go to work. I thought that was so very sweet of him but I told him no it was really okay and he insisted of course so I was almost home and I turned the car around to head towards his work because it isn't far from our house and well on my way there my mom called while I was still on the phone with Jon. I clicked over and she told me to bring Austin over to her house that she would watch him. Which I thought was very nice of her. So then I made my second u turn and headed towards Naples.

So I made it to Naples and dropped Austin off at my mom's and made it back up to work by 8:20am. So I only ended up being an hour and 20 minutes late which was very nice!

So my morning started out all stressful and well my day has been okay pretty uneventful though.

I have been really sad today and well all weekend. Ethan has been putting me through a lot lately and I am always either in pain, or tired, or sad, depressed, My emotions are running wild and I can't control them and they wont stop and well it is hard to keep up good spirits when you feel the way I do!

I am hoping that once Ethan is born my emotional distress will be over and I will be my happy go lucky self again and not just the image of happy go lucky. Because I am so tired of putting on a happy face and making people think I am fine when I am really not and I feel like a mess.

So I have 4 hours and 20 minutes left in my day and that seems like forever away.

Jon and I are finally catching up on our house work slowly but surely. Jon got a lot done yesterday! He cleaned the kitchen and swept and vacuumed the whole house and started laundry and I folded a load of laundry and cleaned the bedroom and cleaned the bathroom. I still have a ton more to do like actually finish the laundry and clean the living room up and grocery shop, clean the fridge! The list just continues to go on and on. But I am determined that by this weekend I will be a cleaning machine!