December Vacation Melbourne

The next leg of our trip took us to Melbourne, FL to visit Nick's dad.  

We just hung out, went shopping, and let the kids play the first day.

The second day we headed over to Tampa to take the kids to Busch Gardens.  We were able to get into the park for free through the Waves of Honor program.

While we were in Tampa, we headed over to the mall to see the frozen castle and characters.  Come to find out it was a Santa Frozen display.  Since we just saw Santa at Busch Gardens, we bribed the kids to leave, and it worked.

Sterling loved the rides and Xander loved the characters.

On the 19th, this handsome man turned 34!  His dad gifted us a spa package for this day.  This was our first time going to a spa so we had a lot of anxiety built up of what to expect.  In the end, we went with the flow of everything and enjoyed ourselves.  Opa kept the kids all day and spoiled them by taking them to the duck pond, park, a barbecue with his friends, and shopping.

That evening we all headed to Carraba's for dinner.   

Another fun stop along our vacation journey.

December Vacation Savannah

Our next stop on vacation was Savannah.  It was a last minute decision, but so glad we stopped.

We stayed downtown in the historic district because we knew we wanted to walk around the area.  People, this place is beautiful!  We obviously didn't get to do everything we would want because we only had 5 hours the first day and 3 hours the next.  We made due with our time restriction and enjoyed the historic town.  Definitely will make plans to go back and explore more.

Sterling loved the moss trees all over the place!  She'd say, "Mom, moss tree, look!"

We took a trolley ride, like Daniel Tiger :).  Kids loved it! 

December Vacation Charlotte

We pretty much were on vacation the entire month of December.  We hit the road on the 10th and we drove the entire thing.  Just over 5000 miles were spent in the car traveling to the east and south coasts.  We had a lot of fun.

We saw a lot of sleeping kiddos.  The most beautiful sight!


We had an episode of vomit everywhere on the first night.  People, it's not fun having a motion sick child.  Dramamine kids every 7 hours has worked for the rest of the trip.


We made it to North Carolina!

Dec 11th-14th were spent in Charlotte, NC.  We stayed at the Residence Inn next to the stadium.  It was the most uncomfortable hotel bed I've ever been in!  The hotel and staff were nice though.  We had tickets to the Panthers game that Sunday and we're wanting to retire in the area so it was a perfect opportunity to check out the area communities of where we might want to settle down.  We both fell in love with Weddington, NC.  We also took our Saturday and drove up to Winston Salem to visit our friend and her kids.  So much fun.

On Friday we walked over to the Discovery Place.  We got in for free because of our museum pass in NE.  Kids loved discovering everything.  Although I felt a lot of it was over their heads because it was a science center and they are only toddlers.  They still had fun and that's what our outing was for.

On Saturday we headed up to Winston Salem to visit our friends!  It was so nice to catch up and let the kids play. 

On Sunday we had tickets to the Panther's game.

I love this picture of Xander.  He's all about posing with his hand on his hips and his feet crossed in. 

Kids got tattoos on their cheeks.

We sat in the nose bleed section.  

 

Packed house! 

In the end, Panther's took the win! 

Such a fun start to the vacation!

Merry Christmas

From our family to yours, have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Five on Friday

Linking up with the lovely ladies for another round of Five on Friday

{ONE}  Do you all read Mix and Match Mama blog?  I've been reading it for the past year after coming across it when searching adoption blogs.  I love reading other peoples adoptions stories.  This week Shay and Andrea from Pinterest Told Me To are hosting Five Days of Fabulous.  I don't typically enter myself in giveaways because what's the luck?  Yesterday was my lucky day!  I won!  Holy Fabulous :)!!  What did I win?  A $250 Kendra Scott gift card for myself and FOUR friends!  Yep, totally fabulous!  It was hard to pick just four friends, but I narrowed it down to who I thought would actually like the jewelry.  It's going to be fun picking out new jewelry to make me fancy :)  Thank you Shay and Andrea for hosting such an amazing giveaway!  If you haven't entered todays giveaway, GO ENTER!!  It's worth the try.

{TWO} We were chosen to be this little man's Godparents.  How exciting to watch him grow through his journey in faith.

{THREE} I had to take a look at the gifts for the "little's".  I'm going to take one of Sterling's away and put away for later.  I know that Xander won't like Sterling opening one more present than him so to save the headache, one present will be saved for her birthday.  This picture don't include their LeapPad Ultra's.  Those will be given this weekend by our elf...or "Santa's helper" according to Xander.

 {FOUR}  I actually didn't plan on bring out the elf this year.  With being busy, I didn't want to fuss with him.  But, my awesome sister convinced me and I'm glad that I did.  Xander loves looking for him every morning and Sterling loves talking to him when she gets home from school.  He showed up 3 days late, but this is our 3rd year of him making this season extra special, so late or not, welcome elf!  (Found the printable on pinterest, of course)

{FIVE}  Beautiful weather.  Oh my, we've had the most beautiful weather this week.  I love when the kids can play outside for longer than 10 minutes.  They love it too.

School talk

As I'm at the end of my first semester with my new school, I'm ready for it to end.  The first 3 months were smooth sailing.  I've enjoyed all four classes.  A lot of work was done.  A lot of things were learned.  I've especially loved the opportunity to observe a little preschool girl and then the opportunity to help in the classroom.  I'm definitely in the career field that I'll be most happy.

There was an incident last month where one classmate took my discussion post and made it her own.  Yeah, it happened.  Not sure the teacher did anything about it, but I did bring it to her attention.  The classmate is still in the class, as well as 2 of my other classes.  I guess plagiarism is okay?

The rest of this is a bunch of rubble that only I'll probably understand but I thought it would be fun to document the fun stuff that keeps me busy and not getting crafts done this year

November was a busy month.  A lot of papers were due, but the pressure will hit next week.  Although I have a bunch due in a small time frame, it's nice because all of my classes mix and the assignments that I do in one class are similar to what I do in another.  So, when I do these projects, I already know the terms and cases I need to use.  I have all the following due within the next week:

Testing and Grading

Final Unit Project Steps 1-5 (I have steps 1-4 done) - Due Dec 5th

Quiz - Due Dec 5th (usually easy)

Formative Assessment Project (not started...looks hard, so I'm scared to start, lol!) - Due Dec 8th

Create a Standardized Testing Letter (not started, but this one seems simple or not!) - Due Dec 8th

This class I've learned how to create a lesson plan, create domains and specifics, student learning objectives, creating a rubric, and grading.  

Sociological Foundations of Education

3 Discussion Questions (DQ) (due Dec 1-3, this class I can only submit one DQ a day...sucks!)

2 DQ (due Dec 7-8)

This class we did a lot of learning through current educational situations.  It was fun to learn different views on subjects.  I didn't enjoy the posting because the instructor was so strict.  That's good though, right?!  I only have one week where I got a 16 out of 25 because I used too much of my opinion and not enough outside sources.  All other weeks I've gotten 24 or 25 out of 25.  Not bad.

Development and Classroom Assessment

Project Part D (Due Nov 28th)

Project Part E (Due Dec 5th)

Quiz (Due Dec 5th)

Project Part F (Due Dec 8th)

This class papers are from the observations I did.  It hasn't been as easy to write as I was hoping, but I'm making my way through it.  This weeks paper is the hardest so far.  Doing some bell curve grading, standard deviation and standard error of measurements, comparison of reliability and validity and creating a rubric for the assessment I performed.  What did I get myself into?!

Issues and Innovations in Learning and Instructions

3 DQ (Due Dec 6th)

Quiz (Due Dec 6th)

This has been my easy class.  Only DQ and quizzes.  No real papers...although some of the DQ have been paper length.  

Next semester won't be the same.  I'm only allowed to take 2 classes a semester because the two major courses, CIEC 6950 (theory and research) and CIEC 6900 (master's seminar paper) are only offered to online students at certain times.  6950 is offered in the Fall and 6900 is offered in the Spring.  I can't take 6950 until after I've reached 30 credits.  I'm at 12 after this semester.  So, I'll have to be in school next fall 2016 and Spring of 2017.  Because of that I was recommended to space out my courses.  Part of the graduation requirements are that you must be registered for at least one class counting towards your degree until graduation.  So, if I'd take all my credits now, I wouldn't have any classes to take to fulfill that requirement.  It's confusing and I think I confuse myself over-thinking it.  I'm still working on my plan of study, so once I have that done, I should know where I stand each semester.  Because I won't be in classes full time, I won't receive the GI Bill housing allowance for taking classes full time.  That means, the kids will also get cut back in school because the money I received from that sent the kids to school.  Such a bummer, but I'm hoping it will still work out that they go 4 days a week, just mornings though.  So, as I was hoping to graduate in Spring of 2016 that won't be happening unless I go attend on campus.  Can't happen, so I suffer through 2 classes each semester until I get to the end.

Cruising along...

Potty update

Sterling has been doing amazing using the potty at school.  Notice how I say at school.  For some reason, she does okay at home.  I think its because maybe I stress her out?  I ask her probably way too often, make her try when she's frustrated, and get annoyed when she potties in her pull up, which is usually no more than twice a day  I guess I need to relax a bit with her.  She really is doing great for learning in 2 days.  At home she hates putting a diaper on when its bed time.  She still pees way too much to wear a pull up to bed.

Tonight we had a huge accomplishment with the potty.  She went 'ewwy" on the potty!  I didn't think she'd ever master that task.  Let's just hope it wasn't a one time deal because after she was done she decided she wanted to go again...but she fell in the toilet.  She hurt her back and now is sporting an Elsa band-aid.  Because she's thankful for Elsa this year.  Priorities people.  Priorities.

Sterling you're doing awesome.  Keep up the awesome job!

Five on Friday

Linking up with the lovely ladies again this week to share five random things.

I recently changed my blog address, so if you've followed before, sorry for any confusion.

{ONE}  Hubs and I went to see Interstellar on Veterans Day while the kids went to school.  I cried like a baby more than once.  Love these female hormones that have such a caring heart!  I didn't want to go.  I thought it looked stupid and didn't capture my interest.  But man, did I cry.  It was good.  I got lost at times.  After the movie, we went to enjoy Mexican.  It's not our favorite restaurant, but we needed something close to the kids school since we only had 45 minutes before pickup.

{TWO}  A long overdue haircut and color.  I hate getting my hair done because I don't trust the person doing it.  Because I've been wanting to wear my hair down, a haircut and color was necessary.  Saturday was the day of impulsive cutting and coloring.  I ended up going with someone new because the lady that has done my hair in the past was not there.  Worked out great because I'm switching to this new stylist...at the same salon!  Yikes.  I feel horrible, but I LOVE the way this new lady made my hair turn out.

{THREE}  Last week I finally made my cousin her new baby onesie for Thanksgiving.  My cousin found the saying, but I couldn't find a file for it, so I just created one.  Then I thought it would be cute to applique a turkey to the baby bum.  How cute!  Sterling's teacher liked it too so I made one for one of her friends having a baby just days before Thanksgiving.  Hers actually turned out way cuter than my cousins :)  Although I've had my machine for 3 years, I'm still learning.  I switched up the needle for the the second onesie and that was the trick for a nicer design!

{FOUR} It's inevitable that Christmas shopping would make one of these posts, right?!  Last week and this week I finished up all but hubs, one of my nephews and my parents.  That will be next week probably.

{FIVE} My fav!  We went for a drive the other night after dark, in pjs and slippers, after we were coming back home, hubs pulled over and wanted Xander to come up and help "drive" for the last block home.  Xander loved it.  When we get a true smile from our little man, it's pure joy.  And we saw that true smile that night!

If you want to join in the fun, head over to one of their blogs (by clicking on the image below) to find out how easy it is!

Have a great day!

Sterling's favorite things

I also asked Sterling the same questions.  I'll put interpretations in parentheses.

Sterling.  What are your favorite things?

Nickname:  Sissy

How old are you?  2.5

What is your favorite color?  Pink

What is your favorite animal?  Nothing (I'd say dog because she loves her Hawkeye)

What is your favorite book?  Bubble Guppies The Doctor Is In

What is your favorite TV Show?  Doc McStuffins you silly (LOL!!!!)

What is your favorite movie?  Frozen my favorite mobie (movie)

What is your favorite song?  Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (and continues singing the rest!)

What is your favorite food?  Chicken nuggets

What is your favorite drink?  Apple Juice

What is your favorite breakfast food?  Pop-tart

What is your favorite snack?  Fruit snack

What is your favorite outfit?  Minnie Mouse (it really is, she practically lives in it!)

What is your favorite game?  Puzzles

What is your favorite toy?  Sofia (the First) and Minnie Mouse

Who is your best friend?  Julia and Lily

What is your favorite thing to do?  Nothing (this is totally an answer her daddy would say, LOL!!!)

What is your favorite thing to do outside?  Play snow with my brother Bubba

What is your favorite holiday?  Big Santa

What do you like to take to bed with you at night?  Just my blankie mommy

Where is your favorite place to go?  Lily's house (we haven't been since summer since they moved FAR away :( )

What is your favorite restaurant?  Chicken nuggets (McDonald's...is that sad that my 2.5 year old likes McDs?)

Where do you want to go on vacation?  Lily (to go to her house)

What do you want to be when you grow up?  Minnie Mouse

What do you not like?  not Bubba, Bubba really naughty (LOL!!!)

What do you like about yourself?  So pretty, so pretty

Okay, so I'm pretty much dying over here with some of her answers.  I really didn't expect her to have an answer (and a different one at that) for each question.  She also usually put mommy at the end of each question/response, but I left it out some spots because it was repetitive.

Some things that she didn't mention, but I thought is worth mentioning:
---------

 Playing outside.  Riding bikes.  Coloring.  Playing tea-parties with Minnie.  Singing "Let it Go".  Playing dress up.  Playing Doc Bingo.  Loves a cheese roll-up.  Loves most fruit and carrots.  Picky picky eater!  Watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.  Snuggling mommy.  Loves to wear dresses.  Particular on which shoes to wear.  Always wears a bow or headband, again, very particular on which one.  Future fashionista?

Xander's favorite things

Hubs thought it would be fun to document what the kids are into as of late.  I think he's right.  Its been awhile since I made a post of the kids interest, so now's the time.

Xander.  What do you enjoy?

Nickname:  Smushy and Bubba

How old are you?  3.5

What is your favorite color?  Blue

What is your favorite animal?  Tiger and a Bear

What is your favorite book?  Mickey Mouse

What is your favorite TV Show?  Jake (and the Neverland Pirate)

What is your favorite movie?  Croods

What is your favorite song?  Old McDonald Had a Farm and Jakes song

What is your favorite food?  Hotdogs

What is your favorite drink?  Red juice (V8 Berry juice box)

What is your favorite breakfast food?  Pop-tart

What is your favorite snack?  Cookies

What is your favorite outfit?  Construction worker

What is your favorite game?  Mickey Mouse on the green iPad

What is your favorite toy?  Jake is

Who is your best friend?  Cade

What is your favorite thing to do?  Color

What is your favorite thing to do outside?  Play in the snow

What is your favorite holiday?  The scary house (Halloween)

What do you like to take to bed with you at night?  Jake and dinosaur blanket

Where is your favorite place to go?  To the park

What is your favorite restaurant?  Where cookies is (Eileen's Cookie Store, not a restaurant...but maybe in his eyes, lol)

Where do you want to go on vacation?  The hotel and see Jake

What do you want to be when you grow up?  Shave my face (LOL!!!)...second answer...a policeman

What do you not like?  Spiders

What do you like about yourself?  I'm shy

Some things that he didn't mention, but I thought is worth mentioning:
---------

 Playing outside.  Riding bikes.  Drawing people.  Tracing his name.  Going to school.  Enjoys pizza and pasta.  Cries for Santa.  Begs to eat inside restaurants, any will do.  Likes the color orange.  Working on crafts, any will do.  HUGE helper in around the house.  Jumping.  Spider-man.  Batman and Joker.  Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.  Peppa Pig.  Blaze and the Monster Machines.  Planes. 

Hopefully we didn't forget anything important.

Potty time for Sterling

We decided (mostly Nick, but I had to do the work...love how that works!) to get Sterling started on being potty trained on Saturday morning.  I was not too excited to start the process and be committed because I've tried before and 5 minutes after I'd put panties or a pull-up on her, she'd pee.  She'd be proud she peed, stating, "look mommy, look I did" all while giggling.  UGH!  I was not excited for Saturdays feat, not gonna lie.

What worked?  Staying positive.  No joke.  I put her in a pull up around 830 Saturday morning and every half hour she was sitting on the potty, reading books.  She didn't want to get off the potty and at times sat there for more than 20 minutes.  I sort-of let her run the show and I followed her lead.  staying positive even when I wanted her off the toilet because I wanted to move on.

I also decided to try using stickers to motivate her.  It worked for Xander, so surely it'd work for her too, right?  I made 3 sections.  One for having a dry dora, one for trying to potty, and one for went potty.  She stayed in Dora (pull up) until nap time and then went to her Elmo (cruiser) for the remainder of the day.  I also tried to bribe her with starburst...leftover Halloween candy.  Kind-of worked, got her to potty twice :)

Saturday's tally:

Dry Dora: 6 stickers

Tried to Potty: 4 stickers 

(she sat on the toilet for extended time periods this day)

Went Potty: 2 stickers

Sunday was a whole new game.  Again, around 830, I put her in Dora.  Then took her to the potty, she went right away.  Again, I'd try the every half hour potty time.  We came into my room because I was working on something, so the kids were sitting in the chair playing games.  Sterling shouted out, "uh oh, I got to potty mommy"!  We rushed to the potty and she went!  Not even an hour into this and she's telling me when she has to go.  I felt like it clicked for her.  

I had errands to run and it was her turn to go with me so I had plans to stay until after lunch then go (to give her more time on the potty).  Well she didn't want to put Elmo back on so we went and ran errands 3 hours after starting.  She did great!  When we arrived at the first store, Target, she went potty, then as we were walking to checkout (maybe 30-45 minutes later), she said "uh oh, i got to potty".  She held it until we got there.  Such a big girl!  We had one more errand (commissary), which was 20 minutes away and about 10 minutes after leaving Target she said she had to potty again.  I was hoping she'd hold it, but she didn't.  I didn't get upset at her and thanked her for trying when we got to the commissary bathroom.

When we got home, we put on a dry Dora and started fresh all the way until bedtime.

The one other time she wet in Dora was at dinnertime.  Not bad girl, not bad!

Sunday's tally:

Dry Dora:  12 stickers

Tried to Potty:  2 stickers

Went Potty: 14 stickers, + twice at Target and 3 times in our downstairs bathroom

This day, we switched the candy to skittles.  She calls them skittle bites and loves to get them after potty, she gets 2 for going potty.  Thanks skittles!  Whatever works, right?!  Nick said "she's going to be potty trained and getting her first cavity all in the same day," ha!  Don't judge.  I'm tired of diapers and she's such a big girl that she just needs to use the potty.  She's got this and she's rocking it.  Maybe next week she'll be in panties!  Maybe?!

For now, she's excited to go to school tomorrow in her Dora pull up and show her teacher that she can use the potty.

We're going to keep going with this lead of hers.

Way to go Sterling!  You're such a big girl now!

Halloween

Nick was off work again so after the kids arrived home from school, he had a surprise outside waiting for them.  A fire, fit for the cool day that we were having.  Kids loved it.  

During break time, we watched Casper the Ghost

For dinner it was ghost pancakes...we like a good theme :)

We woke Sterling up so she could eat, she's a sleepy little thing, but perked up nicely

After dinner we got ready for the big night ahead, meet Mickey and Minnie.  And we heard "are they twins" from nearly every house they went to.  No, they're not.  Nick laughed at me and told me to not say it so mean...I guess it gets tiring hearing it, over and over.

and wore layers of clothes, hats, and gloves

Sterling was so funny.  She got SO excited after someone gave her a piece of candy.  She'd jump up and shout, "mommy, look what i got" and come running down the driveways. 

There were a few things that made Sterling stop in her tracks...like a crash test girl 

But, not Elmo...they skipped two houses and ran to Elmo 

After making one pass around the block and freezing my hands off, we came home to pass out candy.  Kids loved it last year so I knew it would be a hit again...and it was. 

Have a great day!