Monday, September 27, 2010

Hallelujah

Hallelujah! Hallelujah!  (Imagine a song being sung here!)  I am, after eleven years of having a little person in diapers, done!  There were some breaks here or  there.  Our kids are far enough apart that I never had two at a time in diapers, but you get the idea!  We have been working on potty training Callie for a few weeks now, we’ve started and stopped a couple of times this summer but I feel safe to say that it is official now.  We started co-op a couple of weeks ago and she goes constantly, four times in four hours, for her teacher (including, ahem, no. 2), so I think we are official.  I think she is a little obsessed with the miniature potty in her classroom at co-op, but whatever works!  Her poor teacher!

I have debated on how many potty training stories to share.  I figured moms and ten-year-old boys would not really care.  Everyone else would be a little disgusted!  It has been quite humorous around here.  We normally don’t talk about pp, poop, etc., obviously.  This is something you keep to yourself.  But, when you are potty training, you don’t have a choice.  That, combined with three brothers, you get the idea.

So, consider yourself warned.  The following stories will include the words poop, potty, no. 2, you name it.  Feel free to click off now!

One day we were grocery shopping.  It was just Callie and me and we didn’t need much so I was letting her walk.  She was looking at the cans of spaghetti and meatballs and said “That looks disgusting!”.  I said “you think that looks yucky?”  She said “yes, someone pooped on the spaghetti!”.

Another day she came to me and said “Don’t go in my room, it stinks”.  I said “ok”.  Then, I thought, “maybe I should go check out why her room stinks”.  Oh my.  Bless her little heart.  She looked at me and with a sweet little voice said “I’m helping you mama, I’m scrubbing it!”.  Helping me she was not.  Apparently she was on her way to take care of business and decided she needed her flowered underwear.  Whatever she was wearing was not making the fashion statement she was looking for while sitting on the pot.  Well, she didn’t make it.  So, she did her business while standing in front of her chest of drawers.  Then she kindly decided to help me by “scrubbing it” into the carpet.  Yes, she did.  I think she could see the look of horror on my face because she jumped up and said “I’ll just wait in here” and ran and just stood in the bathroom.  Lucky for me, I had recently purchased something at Sam’s called “Carpet CPR”.  It actually worked.  I can’t stand carpet cleaners, they don’t work!  I can’t stand carpet!  Now you can see why!  I never feel like carpet it is clean after about two days of having it put in.  But, it is clean.  I dare anyone to come and try to find the place this unfortunate even happened!

Hopefully my potty training adventures are over.  I’m sure we will have accidents here and there, but she has not had any lately and since she will go for someone else, I feel pretty certain this will stick!  She also is so independent that she will go by herself and not tell anyone.  It is so cute to here the potty flush and see her running back to whatever she was doing!

Now, to find the poor girl some undies that fit!  She was still wearing size three diapers.  She has no hiney.  Now that she doesn’t have diapers to hold her pants up, she can hardly wear pants!  She needs an 18 months in the waist and a three in the length.  Lucky for her she is built like Todd’s side of the family.  Tall with no hiney is not from my side, I hate to break it to you ladies!  I had bought so many little panties from Gymboree because they were so cute.  Guess what, they don’t fit!  She is narrow, but the panties are even narrower at the bottom, but wide at the top.  They end up looking obscene once she has them on.  The panties from Old Navy loose all elasticity after one washing!  No joke.  So, those were thrown away.  So, we’ve been making do with something from Wal-mart that don’t exactly fit, but at least stay up.  I bought a pattern to make undies.  I never in my life thought that was something I would make!  I am really not looking forward to trying because the thought of little bits of elastic and such does not sound fun to me.  We’ll see.  I have been waiting until I was sure they would not get thrown away!

Most things about Callie growing up make me sad since I know she is my last little baby.  :(  But, this is one area I will not miss!  I am sure daddy will not miss it either!  I think he was glad he was a little out-of-the-loop on this one!  I couldn’t use the boy excuse to get him to share this with me!

So, here’s to one more milestone passed!  Sniff, sniff.

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Saturday, September 11, 2010

100

Well, from what I’ve seen, it is a blog tradition to type 100 things about yourself when you reach 100 blog posts.  So, since I always like to follow the crowd, ha, here I go!  These are in no particular order, I am just adding to the list as I think of something since I know if I sat down to type them all at once I would never think of anything to say!  It is probably supposed to be things that people don’t know about me, but since I’m pretty sure my readers are all family, you already know all these things!  And, I am sure that it is supposed to be 100 quick things.  Mine will not be.  I am a rambler.  Maybe that should be number one!  So, get some caffeine to keep yourself awake and read away!
1.  I love to blog.  I wish I had more time to blog!
2.  I don’t watch much TV.
3.  When I do watch TV, the volume must be on an even number.  I will even have it too loud or too low just to have an even number.  Don’t even think about watching with the volume 21, just don’t do it!
4.  As of July 6, 2010, Todd and I have been married 19 years.
5.  One show I do watch occasionally is Say Yes To The Dress.  I love wedding dresses.  But, even after nineteen years and many dresses seen since, I still love my wedding dress and would choose it over and over again.  I guess that is why it was “the” dress for me.
6.  In another life I would love to be a wedding planner or wedding dress designer, or even a wedding dress salesperson.  I love everything about weddings.
7.  My parents and Todd’s parents were all in school together at Oklahoma Christian at the same time.
8.  Oklahoma Christian is where Todd and I met.
9.  On our first date, we determined that our mom’s both made spaghetti a lot on Wednesday nights.  This was in between him tying and untying his shoes no less that 620 times.  I decided then and there that he was the one for me since I could feed him spaghetti and he could teach our kids to tie their shoes.  Just kidding.
10.  Todd and I dated about six months, then we were engaged, then we married ten months later.
11.  I have two brothers, Todd has two brothers.  I love having sister-in-laws.  No offense guys!
12.  Todd and I have moved sixteen times.  You read that right.  Moved sixteen.  Married nineteen.  Yes, it is as bad as it sounds.
13.  If you count Edmond and Yukon as part of OKC and Nixa as part of Springfield, we’ve only actually live four different places in all those moves.  I don’t know what this means, except that I wish some of those moves would have been to some fun, exotic places!
14.  I could totally live in downtown Chicago or NYC.
15.  I think I have been to eleven major league baseball games.  Have I mentioned I don’t care for baseball?  Or hot dogs?  I do like apple pie though.  Why don’t they sell apple pie at baseball games?
16.  I love to sew.  I love to embroider.  I’m so excited I have a daughter to sew for.  At least until she tells me to stop, which will probably be pretty soon.
17.  Everyone told me that girls are easier to potty train than boys.  Guess what, they are NOT!
18.  I wish all the time I was ten years younger so I could have more kids.  I really would like more kids.
19.  I am a terrible decorator.  This worked out well when we were renting most places we lived.  I had the excuse that we would be moving on soon.  When we buy a house, that excuse doesn’t really fly.
20.  I wish I had the nerve to have a whimsical, colorful fun home.  Right now my whimsicalness sits at two chairs.
21.  I have four of the sweetest kids I know.  Ok, I’m a little biased.  But, I love them!
22.  Kellen started Kindergarten in Tulsa and was in school until November of that year, then we moved.  We’ve homeschooled ever since.
23.  At this point, I can’t imagine not homeschooling.  I don’t know what the future holds, but I’ve gotten very spoiled having so much time with my kids.
24.  You don’t have to read very many of my posts to guess what my grades in English were.    But, I continue to write them anyway. 
25.  I can’t stand to scrapbook.  My perfectionism gets me too freaked out about the whole process.  So, I blog.  I am printing my blog so I can put it up for my kids to have someday.  They may not care, but it makes me feel better.  At least they’ll have a little notebook to put next to their spouses 65 professionally done scrapbooks of their lives.
26.  I have a tendency to be sarcastic.
27.  My parents will be married 49 years this year.  Todd’s parents have been married 48 years.  For these marriages I am so thankful.
28.  At our rehearsal dinner, Clay said he knew Todd and I would stay married because we are the two most stubborn people he knows.  He was right.  Sometimes it takes pure stubbornness to make it work.  Or maybe the stubbornness makes the work.  I don’t know.  But, we’re still here.
29.  This may be a list of 29 things.  I don’t think I can think of 100 things to write about myself!  I will need at least one more, I can’t end on an odd number.
30.  Todd and I have only had one pet.  Well, we had some fish when we were first married, but then we moved, and well, they didn’t make it.  Abby was our one and only.  The sweetest little daschund .  She was not supposed to be a miniature, but she never got over 9 pounds.  We had her sixteen years.  She moved and moved with us and never seemed to be bothered by it.  She was bothered when we had babies.  She was bothered when we tried to get a second dog for her to play with.  Needless to say that friendship didn’t last long and we found a good home for the new dog.  But, moving didn’t bother her. 
31.  I would have loved to have named Callie Abby but everyone thought it would be too weird.
32.  I am a nervous wreck about having a daughter.  I have no idea what I am doing!
33.  I love pink.
34.  Lucky for Todd we had a girl.  This last moved I changed the color of our bedroom from pink and white blue and white.
35.  Todd always said he wanted three boys and a girl.  That’s what he got. :)
36.  The boys were born in Oklahoma City.  Callie was born in Iowa.
37.  All of our kids names had to have double letters, to go with our last name that has double letters.  Daddy’s idea.
38.  If you look in the right baby name books, all of our kids names are Irish.
39.  Even if we had more kids we could only have about four more since by the time you take out all the baby names that don’t have double letters and are not Irish, you are only left with four.
40.  I love to buy shoes.  It’s not fun to buy shoes for myself anymore since I have to start with comfortable and work my way down.  So, I buy shoes for Callie.  :)
41.  If I won the lottery the first thing I would do would be hire someone to clean my house, regularly.  I am so over cleaning.
42.  I love to fly.  In airplanes that is.
43.  I love to travel.  The second thing I would do if I won the lottery is buy a bunch of airline tickets to all kinds of places.
44.  I spent six weeks in Europe in between my junior and senior years of college.  Loved it!  I was part of a mission group with Let’s Start Talking.  We spent five weeks working with a church in the Netherlands and a week traveling.  One of the best times of my life.  I would love to take my kids there.
45.  Sam’s will not allow employees to take more than a week of vacation at a time.  So, even though Todd has four weeks vacation, it doesn’t do us much good when it comes to traveling great distances.  Unless I go by myself, which I have been known to do!
46.  Tulips are my favorite flower.  I would love to visit the Netherlands when the tulips are in full bloom, except that I am scared it would be too commercialized and then I would be disappointed. 
47.  I am not a fan of Disney.  So, a trip to Disneyworld if about last on my list.  That probably makes me un-American.  Oh well. 
48.  The commercialization of things drives me nuts.  Why does EVERYTHING have to have a sponsor?  I know, because someone has to pay for all the “stuff” that people enjoy, but it is all just too much these days.
49.  I have a terrible memory and that makes me sad.  I wish I could remember every little detail of my kids lives, but I can’t.  Bits and pieces jump out to me every once in a while, but that is about it.
50.  I will not ever win the lottery because I don’t buy lottery tickets.  But, it’s a nice thing to think about sometimes!
51.  I think my second dream job would be to design children’s wear.  I don’t know if anyone would buy it, but it would be fun.
52.  In sixth grade, we had to make a poster titled something like “About Me”.  In the part where we were supposed to draw a picture about what we wanted to be when we grew up I drew me feeding a baby in a high chair.  Being a mama is all I ever wanted to do.  So, I guess my actual dream job is coming true!  Of course now I realize being a mama is way more than one job!
53.  In sixth grade I rode a bus to another school to be in a gifted and talented class.  We were a mixture of kids from all over town that got to be in the most wonderful class with the most wonderful teacher.  I know, how did this happen?  What can I say, I can take tests!
54.  I pretty much didn’t like school except for sixth grade.  I was so very shy that any thing other than sitting at my desk doing schoolwork was torture.  I even volunteered to wash dishes in the school cafeteria so that I wouldn’t have to go to recess.  Should I even admit that?  I guess it doesn’t hurt for people to know I have been weird all my life!
55.  I can’t draw to save my life.  I wish I could.  I wish I was an artist and super-creative.  But, I’m not, I’ve learned to deal.  I’m glad my kids are creative in spite of me!
56.  I was deathly afraid of the dark growing up.  I have outgrown it, a little.
57.  Easter is my favorite holiday.  Three reasons:  Jesus, new clothes and the beginning of spring!
58.  Fall is my next favorite.  The temperatures are just right and even though I would not care if I ever watched another football game on TV, the thought of a high school game with a marching band just makes me happy.
59.  Next would be summer.  I love the freedom.  Don’t love the heat.
60.  I really could live someplace that didn’t have a winter.  I despise being cold and despise snow.  My Iowa friends can attest to this, since I complained the entire time I lived there.  Sorry about that!
61.  I also love to buy socks.  I can’t stand to wear socks, but love to buy them.
62.  I once took a sack with 102 pairs of socks to Goodwill.  In my defense, there were a lot of little baby socks.  My boys never really wore them since they were spring babies, but apparently I couldn’t resist buying them!
63.  I was born in October.  During the OU/Texas football game.  I think that was an omen.
64.  We have four OU football season tickets that we never use.  Don’t worry, we sell them, but it would be more fun to use them!
65.  My parents live in the same house that I grew up in.
66.  Todd’s parents live in the same house he grew up in.
67.  Our kids don’t know where they live.
68.  In the third grade I got chicken pox and glasses all in the same week.  Not a good week.
69.  I have a college degree in Physical Education.  I never wanted to be a teacher, I wanted to work in fitness or physical therapy.
70.  My first job was at Presbyterian Hospital in the Oklahoma City Center For Athletes.  I know what you are thinking, right up my alley.  It was a semi-fun job that only lasted nine months because we moved.
71.  My next job was for an eye doctor.  I decided then that I wanted to work in the optometric field.  That lasted seven months.  Then we moved.  Can you see a pattern here. 
72.  I have a terrible time making decisions.  Big decisions, little decisions, it doesn’t really matter.
73.  We were married six years before we had Kellen.  We wanted to be “ready” before we had kids.  Of course we soon found out you are never ready.
74.  We would have loved to have our kids close together, but God did not have that planned for us.  I think I will trust His judgment.
75.  I really, really try to trust God and His plan for my life.  It is not easy.  I’m a tad controlling.  I would have never laid my life out like this.
76.  I have a pretty good life, so luckily someone else is making the plans!
77.  I don’t remember when Clay was born, I was only 22 months old.
78.  I remember every detail about the day Ryan was born.  I was seven.  While I was initially a little sad he was not a sister, I got over it very quickly.
79.  I am now very glad he was not a sister.  There are some advantages to being the only girl.
80.  Ryan had long curly hair as a toddler, so I curled it and fixed it for him.  The next best thing to having a sister.
81.  People always thought Clay and I were twins.  He was tall, I was short, and we were dressed alike a lot.
82.  I sort of bossed them around a lot.  Sorry about that.
83.  Clay and Ryan both work in public education.  I do not.
84.  Clay and Ryan both live in Oklahoma.  I do not.
85.  Todd still says we will end up in Oklahoma City some day, for good.  I’m beginning to think that is not in the plans.
86.  If we could, we would move back to the first little house we bought in the Village.  We LOVED that house, still do.  Of course, we have added two more kids since then, so it might not really work out.  But, that was the best house.
87.  The second house we owned was in Iowa.  We loved the space.  I loved the laundry chute and laundry room. 
88.  The house in Iowa was supposed to be a work in progress while we lived there.  But, we didn’t live there long enough.  So, it became a major stress to get it done and sell it. 
89.  Todd never saw the finished product.  I wish he could have.  It turned out really cute.
90.  Thank the Lord we sold it in three weeks.  I couldn’t take that house anymore!
91.  The third house we have owned is the house we are in now.  It is new.  Or was new.  We’ve used it now.
92.  It is sooo boring.  Maybe if we built it ourselves, it would not be boring.  But since we just bought it this way, boring.  It is boring because I’m afraid to touch anything.  Something about having an old house makes me think I can fix that, make it look better.  Here, it’s hard to change anything since it is new.  I don’t know if I ever want a new house again.  But, I’ve learned to never say never.
93.  I know I am blessed to have this home, don’t get me wrong.  I am thankful for it every day.  Just bored with it. 
94.  Or maybe I’m bored because I’m not pregnant or packing.  Or pregnant and packing.
95.  I wish I knew the Bible better.  You’d think by going to church my whole life and taking Bible classes in college I would know it better.  But I am finally realizing that you have to actually study it, not just sit and listen about it.
96.  I desperately want my kids to know the Bible.  So, we start our homeschool day with Bible and I am learning right along with them.  It’s the best part of our day.
97.  I love my kids.  I can’t even describe how much I love these four people in my life.
98.  I love my husband.  I am so thankful for him.  He has put up with a lot from me and is still here.
99.  I love God.  I am so thankful to Him for blessing me beyond what I deserve.
100.  I love you for actually reading to the end!  Ha!  Unless your like me and you read the end of the book first to see if you actually want to mess with reading the whole thing.  If that is the case, don’t bother going back to read the list.  It will be ten minutes of your life you’ll never get back!

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

First Day of School

Well, the first day of the Foxx Family School year 2010-2011 has come and gone.  We are now well into our seventh day.  Ha!  It seems like we never stopped.  Except that we did.  The kids and I were talking about our last few years of school and to say they were crazy is an understatement!

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Here they are at the “school table”.  We have already rearranged this set-up.  Hopefully we’ll be rearranging again if I can talk daddy into a trip to IKEA!  We really only sit at the table together for Bible then everyone splits up, but it is getting crowded around here!blogschoolcal Callie.  She’s technically in preschool, I guess.  She goes between playing, writing, and teaching.  Whatever she is in the mood for that day!

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Gannon.  He’s in first grade this year.

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Garrett.  He’s in fifth grade.

blogschoolkelKellen.  He is in 7th grade, which is junior high around here.   Here’s hoping I can keep up with that challenge! 

Here’s looking at a great school year!