Taygen is in panties all the time now. She only wears pull-ups at nap time. We only have a few diapers left, so she is wearing those at night at bedtime until we run out then she will go to pull ups at night or not...

The last 2 nights (Friday night and Saturday night) she wanted to wear her panties to bedtime so I let her. She woke up dry both mornings, so I will continue to keep her in panties until she has an accident. That's how Keira started wearing panties to bed, she just wanted to wear them one night and never had an accident, so we just kept putting her in panties at night.

One of my really good friends is having a baby in the next week or so (due the day before Taygen's birthday), so if we do not use all the diapers or pull-ups I will just give them to her to use.

You always try to set a good example for your kids when ever you can, right? Well, I would like to believe that's what everyone intends to do.

There is a mom who is constantly late dropping her daughter off at preschool. School starts at 12:30, not any sooner and not any later. They open the doors at 12:25, you take your kids in, sign them in and leave them to do their school stuff. It never fails, when I am leaving the mother pulls up, I look down at my dash clock and it says 12:34, every time. This is not an exaggeration...it is 12:34 every time she pulls into the parking lot. I said pulls in, that means she still has to park, get her child out of the car and walk her inside, so we are looking at a good 5 minutes from when she pulls into the parking lot. Super annoying.

One day, the mother was actually early for school and all the parents were waiting in the waiting room for the doors to open for preschool when the little girl comes running in. She ran in so fast, ran up to the preschool door, opens it and runs inside. The mother (who is constantly late) says, "what are you doing, silly?" As she walked into the room to get her daughter, I said out loud,  "She is used to being late and having to run into the classroom every day." The mothers turned around and looked at me. I just shrugged my head and smiled.

She also babysits 2 or 3 extra kids and brings them with her. It doesn't matter how many kids you have...1 or 5, you still need to get your priorities straight and manage your time more wisely. You know what time school starts, you should know how long it takes to get from your house to the school, you should make time for anything that should go wrong....this means leave at least 5 minutes early just in case.

If you are constantly late, what is that saying to your children? That it's okay to always rush. That it's okay to show up late for anything. It is not the child's fault, the child cannot control the time. I just want parents to be more responsible, but that is just too much to ask of parents anymore!

You don't realize how loud certain things are until you have to be quiet in your own living room. Aden was zonked out on the couch and Taygen was napping. We are usually pretty quiet for Taygen, but she sleeps in her room so we don't have to be super quiet.

Tuesday, we went swimming (for the second day in a row). We came home and had lunch then Aden sat on the couch and was out. He must have been worn out from swimming.

Anyways, Keira was being extremely good and quiet. So, I decided to get some stuff in the kitchen done that needed to be cleaned. I decided to sweep the floor, thinking that would be quiet. Nope, it is louder than you think. Then Keira goes up stairs to go potty, even with the door closed, flushing the toilet is loud. Even whispering seems loud when you are trying to be quiet. Then Bandit decides to eat some of his dry food, that was super loud. Why haven't I noticed him eating his dry food before? Probably because it is never quiet in my house, so I don't look for that sound. The T.V. even seems loud when you have it turned almost completely down.

Keira wanted to play with the iPad, so I let her. Of course, the iPad has to have the volume on to play a game. Finally, I turned off the T.V.  and wouldn't you know, the T.V. has a loud beep when it turns off and Keira and I went up stairs to my bed and sat and played.

Now, I know why Dan doesn't like it when I sleep on the couch. It's too hard to keep everyone quiet.

All three kids had their 6 month dental check up and cleaning today. The kids were great and none of them had cavities. The kids are 5, 3 and 2 (in March) and have never had cavities. I am very proud of this because all of our hard work with brushing, flossing, using mouth wash, watching the sweets, drinking Crystal Light instead of juice or Kool Aid and chewing sugar free gum after meals and snacks are paying off. Even the gummy vitamins are bad for teeth because they are just like fruit snacks or any kind of gummy candy that will stick to the teeth.

Keira, Aden and Taygen were actually entered into an excellent brushing contest. I didn't have time to see what that was all about, but it's a contest, so it has to be good, right?

All three kids had excellent hygiene, no gingivitis and no cavities! Aden and Keira have 'good' teeth and Taygen has 'excellent' teeth. They rate their teeth and use a 'poor', 'fair', 'good' and 'excellent' scale.

The bad news is that all the kids have small mouths so there is not a lot of room for new teeth to come in, so they all will need braces when they get older. I had to have braces when I was younger and I am so glad I did. My teeth are straight and pretty ;) and that's what I want for the kids.

Keira has big grooves in her permanent molars, they are not cavities, it is actually pretty normal for her teeth. At her next 6 month appt. they are going to put some sealant on her permanent molars to protect her teeth from cavities. She is also losing 2 of her top baby teeth and if she loses those soon then it will make more room for her permanent teeth, meaning that she may not need braces if her teeth work right. I know, sounds funny, of course there will be room if she loses 2 teeth, but according to her dentist, the faster it happens the better. Her dentist wants her 2 top teeth to come out before she gets her wisdom teeth. If her wisdom teeth come in before she loses her top teeth then she definitely will not have any room.

When I first got on Facebook, I thought I'm going to have more friends than so and so. So, the first few months I was on fb, I was adding about 50 friends a week, people I knew, of course. Before I knew it I was up to about 500 friends.

Then I came to realize, who are these people? Yes, I went to school with them, I worked with, they are acquaintances and it is nice to keep in touch, but do they really know me and do I really know them? If I saw them in public would I recognize them? So, I did a little "Spring Cleaning" and deleted about 200 friends, keeping mostly family, close friends and some high school friends that....being honest here.... I was just nosey about ;) Then after a couple more months and seeing a few of them in the stores and them not recognizing me, I deleted them.

It's that easy. You make someone mad, boom...they are not your "friend" anymore. Can we do that in real life? Can we just ignore someone? If we actually "liked" something every time someone texted you or was talking to you, that would get a little annoying.

According to the free dictionary.com the meaning of a friend is a person whom one knows, likes or trusts. Well, I do 'know' most of my friends on facebook. I can't say I 'like' some of the people on my friends list. I definitely cannot 'trust' most of the people on my friends list, so what does this say about me, nothing too exciting, just that I am a little nosey ;)

The other day, as I'm going through my day, I realized that we (the husband and I) do the same thing each night. After we put the kids to bed, he goes in the room for a little bit and plays on his computer, doesn't really play, he owns about 10 websites that he has to keep updated, and I sit on the couch, watch some of my DVR shows and update my websites. Then about 10:00 p.m he comes down stairs (by then I am usually done with the computer and just watching shows), he grabs a snack, I grab a snack and we put one of our favorite shows on, usually Grey's, Dexter or whatever is on at the time, watch it and then go to bed, usually about 11 p.m.

We really do need this hour. It gives each of us an hour (9p.m-10p.m) by ourselves and lets us get caught up on our work, but we do this every night, we just need a little change for our schedule at night.

We've thought of doing this sometime during the day or early in the morning, but we don't want to take any time away from the kids, (that's why we do it at night when they go to bed) and I really don't want to get up any earlier than I have to ;)

If something works, why change it? But sometimes you need a change. So, from now on, we are going to take 2 or 3 nights a week after the kids go to bed to do some different things. I have a couple things in mind that we could do and if you have the same problem you could use some of these ideas as well.

• Just sit on the couch and talk about your day
• Play a game of cards or an adult board game that you both like
• Sit and relax together and read a book
• Foot Rub for each other
• Take turns giving each other a back rub
• Sit outside, if it's a nice night and just relax with each other
• Sit down and make the grocery list together

There are a million possibilities, but this is my favorite list ;) 

I will probably get a lot of controversy about this post, but you have to let your feelings out, right?

I was at the YMCA one day when Aden and Keira were in art class. Taygen and I were sitting out waiting for them to get done. We were sitting right in front of the preschool room, in the waiting room (Cooper YMCA), this was Thursday, so it was the Tuesday, Thursday 3-4 year old preschoolers. It was parent/teacher conference day and some of the moms were outside the room waiting their turn to talk to the teachers.

I over heard one mom talking to another mom about her child's conference (hadn't had it yet, she was just waiting her turn). She was saying, "I'm a little nervous, ______ doesn't even know his ABC's or numbers yet. It's ok, he's only 3, he's not supposed to know his stuff yet, plus isn't that what school is for?" The other parent says, "Not too worried, my daughter is doing good for her age." I saw the look in her face, she was trying to hold back, just like I was.

My question was, Why doesn't he know his ABC's or numbers? It doesn't matter how old he is. Taygen is 23 months and she knows how to count to 10 and knows her numbers on her fingers.

I understand and know that you can't just judge people through their actions or things that they might say, but when you hear these kinds of things, you have to think....."what does this mom do in her free time with her kids?" You know, maybe she is the best mom ever and sits and plays with her kids in her free time, maybe she is the opposite and doesn't even talk to her kids when she needs to.

Some moms do go by that rule, that "they will just learn it in school"...but, what does that say about the mother?

This is why family time, reading time, quiet time and just talking to your kids is so important. Kids learn so much from you, if you never have conversations with your kids, they will never have any kind of social skills and will not know how to talk until about the age of 4 or 5 when their verbal skills are higher. Kids who sit or lay around all day will not have any kind of verbal skills because they learn from what they see or hear and if they just get ignored they will never learn!

Sorry, I could go on and on, but hopefully my point comes out. The moral of this post/story is...please spend time with your kids, teach them, talk with them, ask them how their day was. Any kind of conversation is good for your kids. Don't count on teachers to teach your kids, yes, that is their job, but it is your most important job EVER!!

Valentine's Day is just another day for me. What is just one day to tell someone how much you love them when you should be doing this everyday?!

Valentine's Day is just another holiday for gift giving. I would rather get roses, chocolates or jewelry on a random day than a day that is "designed" for gift giving.

Yes, I'm the guilty one who has done the whole "14 days of Valentine's Day" for the hubby. Where I buy him a gift everyday for 14 days until Valentine's Day. I have had flowers delivered to his work, I have tried to make a romantic dinner and I've tried to make the whole desert thing. Why do this on a "special day" when you can do this any day and impress him even more and show him/her how much you love them on an ordinary day.

For all of those who do celebrate... Happy Valentine's Day!

I just realized that I haven't updated since the end of January.

The hubby and I recently went on vacation for 6 days with another couple, one of my best friends. We had a blast. We missed the kids, but we knew they were in good hands, so we weren't worried about them too much.

We are talking about taking our kids and their kids on another vacation with us. We are going to do a Disney Cruise with the kids. They have 2 boys and our 3 kids. It should be fun! Looking forward to it!

Nothing new and exciting going on with the kids.