Household updates

I'm glad you all enjoyed our WWF video. When I watched it I realized that the last think you heard me say was "good job Catherine" - which cracked me up because it really sounded like I was her coach - which is the exact same thing that Courtney noted in her comment. I actually almost went back and added something to that extent before she commented on it! In case you were wondering - they made this little game up on their own and during Catherine's jump she actually completely misses Ella - lands on all fours on the other side. A couple of the other times she tried she did a full belly flop - after that we figured we needed to get something on tape!

And moving on...

Two weekends ago we had the wonderful privilege of a visit from Mike Sharon and Caleb Koerber. Mike had a week off from classes, so they took the opportunity to visit the PA Koerbers. We were on the first leg of the trip and after a weekend with us they headed on to Clearfield to visit my parents. Here are a few of my favorite shots from their visit.

Isn't Caleb adorable? Don't you just want to pick him and snuggle him? And the answer to your question is no, it doesn't make me want another baby! I enjoyed getting to know Caleb and then letting mom and dad take over!

Look at my little brother, looking so comfortable in his role as a dad. Was there ever any doubt?
I think they are watching the movie Cars and learning an important lesson about enjoying the drive.

Was there ever any doubt that he would be loved by his cousins? Catherine especially wanted to give him lots of hugs and kisses. When we left for church before them on Sunday Catherine cried the whole way to church (only a mile) asking over and over "where's baby, where's baby".

For more pictures, you can always check out Mike and Sharon's blog at http://www.mskoerber.blogspot.com/

I realized that I kind of just left you all hanging with the potty training saga that was going on over in our neck of the woods. Hmmm, how to describe what ended up happening...oh yeah, we quit! It became apparent that although Catherine has the ability to go long lengths of time without peeing/pooping, she really was not interested in going on the potty. One night I gave her a cup and sat her on the potty for about 20 minutes with nothing happening. I even took pictures for proof! I think the cup is somewhere in the tulle-like fabric of her princess dress.
We persisted for almost a week of underpants wearing until she pooped her pants (for the second day in a row) while we were out at Chick Fil A. If the kid just does not care that she has poop in her pants, what can you do? Tell me please, what can you do? Anyway - I figured we'd take a break but still keep the potty out and still talk about it and offer it as an option, but I needed a break from it and I hope we'll start again soon when Matt can be more involved as well and when we don't have as many places to go throughout the week.

One other area that we've been working on for the last few weeks has been the kids' eating habits. We definitely developed some bad habits because the kids tend towards being picky and often I don't have the energy at night to fight that battle. Matt has had a few months of not feeling top notch and if he's not able to be there to support me in enforcing some dinner time rules, I really can't do it. I know, I'm weak. Oh well. But the past few weeks we've had some breakthoughts - especially with Catherine. Last week, there were three nights in a row that the kids ate what was set in front of them without squawking about it - or at least very minimal squawking. That included food like chicken, pork tenderloin, peas, rice, more chicken and meatloaf. The meatloaf was our first real breakthrough with Catherine - I honestly think it may have been the first time she's had red meat, except it was made with ground turkey so I guess that doesn't even count. I'm encouraged by the progress we made even though I know we still have a long road ahead of us. I'm content with baby steps!

I have a bunch of stuff I've been wanting to blog about that I'll save for future posts, just wanted to give you a Demo household update that was a bit overdue!