The Straights: Around our House!

So things have been a little hairy canary around here lately, and it's been like pulling teeth just to get back to some sort of normal routine. But lets not get into that!

Amelia is becoming such a big girl lately. She is now completely potty trained, which ended up not being nearly as difficult as we thought. She was totally ready, and aside from a few accidents here and there, she has been so good! We are pretty proud of her. A few weeks ago I took her to the open house for the preschool she'll be starting in September, and she had such a fun time! She played at the sand and water tables, in the house area with the babies and play food, and, in her words, "did gluing" and loved every minute of it! She will have a great teacher, who happens also to be the wife of our stake president, and is very excited to "go to school and get a new backpack!" She was really sad to go home that night, which made me feel a little bit better about registering her. I had to tell her all about how she would come back, and what would happen just to get her to leave the classroom! She has also been getting very good at praying, and wants to be the one to say it all of the time! If anyone else starts, she'll just repeat what they say. She is such a good helper and a joy for us!

Ben is growing a lot, too! He is getting pretty good at sitting up, although he is still pretty wobbly! He is our hungry man-he LOVES to eat! He hasn't shown any signs of foods he dislikes, which is even better for us! He does get pretty mad though if we are eating and he isn't! He is a wanderer these days, and between rolling and pushing himself backwards he can make it all over our house! This last week we hung some boards in our loving room so that we could hang our jolly jumper, since the doorways in our house are only drywall, no trim. He absolutely love it, and will stay in there and giggle and jump for a long time! This last week we also decided to switch to using cloth diapers on Ben. I have been thinking about it for a long while in the back of my brain, so finally I sat down and did a bunch of research, and talked it over with Paul. We decided that it seemed more realistic than we first thought, and to just go for it. Within the first few diaper changes we were convinced. He has been a little red and irritated for a while, although it's not a diaper rash. It just didn't look comfortable. Not to mention the blow-outs. Seems like every poop these days is a blow-out, causing me way more work and laundry anyway! As soon as we switched the redness went away, and we noticed right away how dry and happy his skin was, even with a really wet diaper! Not to mention that we quickly realized that it wasn't nearly as hard or complicated as it seemed, by a long shot, and that it really wasn't a lot of extra work, since i do at least some laundry every day already! We also came across several different articles in our reading about the amount of chemicals in disposable diapers, and the number of lawsuits and class-action lawsuits about babies getting chemical burns, etc. from disposable diapers. There was also talk about how they are starting to link the increased amount of male infertility to plastic disposables coming out and it overheating babies at a young age. Now I'm not saying that any of this is absolutely proven, but it was enough to make us think and decide that for us, it wasn't worth the risk, on top of the ways we saw it help Ben physically and the cost savings with not having to buy diapers every month. But don't just take my word for it! I encourage any of you out there with kids who are reading this to read and find out for yourselves, and then decide what is best for you and your baby! Then whatever you choose, go for it!

Other than that, the kids and I were really sick for a while two weeks ago, which was pretty scary, but after a stressful trip to the ER with ben and a crazy routine of antibiotics and inhalers, we are back to normal, which is a lot less worrisome!

OH! I also forget! Paul was told in February that His work is sending him to California to do some BMW repair training. We decided after a little research and figuring, that we would use the opportunity to go on the honeymoon we never had, and go just the two of us! We'll be gone for a week, and are really excited! Especially me! Although I am a little nervous about leaving my babies for so long! I've never been away from them for longer than an overnight! But I think it will be really fun and a lot easier to do this one ourselves, at least until the kids are bigger. We plan on doing a few of the parks, and little kids, while it would be fun, would be a lot more work and stress! 67 Days and counting! I can't wait! Here are some pics before I go!!

Cute girl with new 2-year-old molars!

Amelia's first time skating on skates, not her boots!

Look at those baby blues peeking out!

Our cutie boy

Her face after chocolate fondue for FHE on valentines day, she decided to sing popcorn popping with chocolatey hands...if you know the song you know what i mean!