This week was brought to us by the letter P.

Namely potty, pee, and poop.  I have said and heard these three words more this week than I have at any other time in my life.

Our story began on Monday when I took Adalie and Jackson to the store to pick out big boy/big girl underwear.  They also each picked out their very own potty candy.

Before the story continues I think we should back up and give you a little bit more information about our little three and a half year olds.  Lets begin with sweet Adalie.  Before Monday Adalie had gone to the potty exactly one time, and that time was over a year ago.  Since then she has been an excellent 'trier.' Recently her favorite thing to do was jump on the potty for under one second and then smiling, she would dramatically exclaim "I Cannnnnnnn't."  I must also note that Adalie has woken up with a dry diaper for the last few months.  She gets to wear big girl underwear to bed too!

Jackson was completely potty trained about a month ago.  Notice the past tense phrasing.  He did an excellent job going potty and poop, and then one day he decided that he was done.  This was not unexpected.  The exact same thing happened with Evelyn, and I had mentally prepared myself for this possibility with Jack.

I was so glad that Jack decided to do it himself and I didn't need to worry about potty training Adalie and Jack at the same time.  That would have been nice, but it didn't end up being the case.

On with the story...

Adalie and Jackson were very excited to begin our process. I was prepared to stay at home for at least a full week and dedicate myself to this exciting process.  I planned carefully.  Preschool was at my house this week for A and J, and I planned to begin big kid underwear after Jack's Monday speech class (we warned the teacher that we might not make it to the Wednesday class).

At this point I will summarize in order to make a long story short.  Adalie went potty for the first time on Wednesday evening (yes, that means she went a whole lot before that...) Jackson did a wonderful job going potty, but #2 was a struggle (still is).  It is kind of strange.  He seems to have lost that ability.  The same thing happened with Evelyn.  Is this normal?  He tries really hard, but he is having a tough time.

We DID end up going to Jack's Wednesday speech class, and we took a long trip in the car to pick up Grandma Almond at the airport (more about that in a minute).  With the help of our kid portable potty we made it with out incident!  We even made it all the way through church today.

I have developed a system for laundry during this exciting and messy process.  During the day I throw all of the dirty clothes in the open washing machine. At the end of the day I wash all of the clothes and quickly put them away the next day.  The good news is tomorrow is laundry day and I have about 1/4 the amount of laundry because I have been doing it daily!  There is always a silver lining...

Other fun stories from the week:

In preschool I turned on some wiggle music for the kids.  Immediately Adalie and Jackson ran to each other and grabbed hands.  They both started wiggling their hips (super cute) to the music. Jackson then began to lead Adalie into spins!  I took some video with my phone, and I will put it on here if I ever figure out how to upload it!

This morning Adalie and Jackson were running around dressed up and ready for church.  They ran up to our floor length window and stepped up on the ledge together.  Then they grabbed each other's hand and stood in the window looking out at the backyard together.  Sweet!  It reminded me of when I would feed them together and occasionally their hands would find each other and they would hold on tight!

My mom came into town on Friday!  We have been having a great time.  She is getting a lot of cuddle time with the kids, and we are getting a lot of time with her as well.  She is going to be here for another week and we are excited. My mom and I were also able to go out together yesterday.  We went to Joann Fabrics and picked up materials to finally recover our dining room chairs.  That is our project for the week.  I am sure pictures will follow.

Last night we went to an Alex Boye' concert with my mom and some other good friends. Alex is a member of the Tabernacle Choir and a former member of a British boy band.  He was an excellent performer and a great comedian as well.  He performed songs from every genera from choral to rap.  The diversity was fun, and he was a great entertainer.  We enjoyed our night.

I am going to take some time and try to figure out the photo/video thing.  Hopefully I will be able to add them to this post.

Finding Balance

Balance is hard to find because life is always changing.  I feel like I am consistently adjusting my balance to counteract the changes.  This has been on my mind lately, and since this is our journal you get the pleasure of  listening in on my thoughts... or skipping this post entirely. :)  I promise to include some cute stories though.

I have found that schedules are very important to me (a very close second would be lists).  I realized this in college and absolutely turned my life around (this is a different story though).  I have found some great ways  for me to find balance with all of the demands in my life.  Here are some things I have come up with that work for us:

• Quiet time everyday at 1:30. I feel that I must mention this first because it is the reason for my sanity. 
• I wake up at 5:50 everyday to have 'me' time.  I have found that if it doesn't happen at this time it doesn't happen.  I workout and do my scripture study.
• Tuesdays are 'Momma Days.' Logan does Elder's Quorum visits and is gone until 8:30 or 9.  I use this time to focus solely on the kids.  I make sure to have one-on-one time with each child,we have some kind of craft, and sometimes we will watch Signing Time together.
• Thursday morning is the first day without preschool in the morning.  This makes it an essential cleaning day.  I do deep cleaning in the morning and then I have one-on-one cleaning time with each child. I love this, and they love this!  I select special jobs (windows, washing stainless steel in the kitchen, organizing closets, etc) that I can do with an extra set of small hands.  The kids seriously can not wait for their turn to clean with mom! The main moral of this story is that we would LOVE to have you drop in at our house, and if you expect it to be clean then your best bet would be to come on a Thursday afternoon.
• I have finally conquered the Laundry Monster at our house!  I have found that it is completely impossible to do all of the laundry in one day.  I have also found that if it doesn't get done in one day, then there is clean laundry in baskets until the next time I do laundry. Without fail! I have found a magical cure for me!  Sunday=sorting day, Monday= get all of the laundry loads washed and sorted (unfolded) into baskets for each room (i.e. Jackson's and Evelyn's clothes in the same basket).  Tuesday = fold laundry as I put it away in the drawers. This is totally doable, and laundry never sneaks up on me!
• I have found a great way to get Heartwood marketing stuff done without totally neglecting my children and getting easily frustrated with them. That is what unavoidably happens when I try to do it during the day.  I now keep a good list of things that need to be done and my Heartwood time is on Tuesday and Wednesday during the two hours that all three older kids are in preschool.
• Shopping on Monday while Evelyn is in preschool.  I have discovered that Fred Meyer offers free childcare while you shop!  I have always thought that Fred Meyer was more expensive than Wal-mart, but I always manage to spend less at Fred Meyer.  I have tested this theory multiple times and even made absolute sure that I didn't impulse buy anything.  Cheaper grocery bills is an added bonus!
• A few weeks ago I decided that I would bring one child (plus Maren because she is too young for the childcare) with me shopping.  I have a blast, and so do Adalie and Jackson!  On our shopping 'date' he or she gets to pick out the Family Night treat (shopping day just happens to fall on a Monday).
• We have craft/coloring time after nap time on most days.
• Every Friday morning Logan takes the kids to the Library for story/craft time.  The kids look forward to "Papa library days," and I look forward to 'me' time that is not allowed to be related to Heartwood marketing.
• Every three months our ward is assigned to clean the church on Saturdays.  Logan takes the kids on 'church cleaning dates' with him.  After cleaning the church they go out for ice cream/play time at McDonalds.  The kids love this!  He has come to the conclusion that Jackson is a great cleaner, Evelyn is a good cleaner, and Adalie will one day be a great cleaning supervisor.  
• I promise that all of our one-on-one time dates are not spent cleaning! We also take our kids on random dates depending on their individual interests. 
• One of the most important nights of the week is date night!  Logan and I attempt to go on one date a week. 
• BE FLEXIBLE! It would be great if all of these things happened like clockwork, but they simply don't.  They happen most of the time, and that is perfect.

I have been thinking lately that the last few weeks have been really balanced well for my personal life.  I love it! Here are some highlights...

• I woke up at 6:00 every day and can officially say that this is a habit.
• I went shopping alone and bought clothes!
• Logan and I went on a double date with some friends together
• Logan and I passed our first Karate advancement test
• Logan and I are learning our first guitar songs together, and I have kind of figured out how to sing while I play very simple songs. Kind of.
• I had great cleaning time with each kid
• I snuck in a lot of one-on-one momma time
• We have made a lot of crafts together
• I had an interpreting job
• I was a laundry queen
• I have kept the upstairs really clean. This is cleaned pretty well at least once a day. (did I mention that I keep a pretty clean kitchen, and that having a clean kitchen is directly related to my sanity. You can pretty much gauge my mood by how clean my kitchen is).
• After traipsing around the entire valley Logan and I finally have great new bikes!
• We went on a bike riding date

Wow. You made it this far.  Here are the stories that I promised you.

On Thursday morning I had a fantastic cleaning morning with the kids. I began with Maren in her bedroom where she had strewn the clean clothes all over the floor.  I opened one drawer and gave her a few pieces of clothing to put inside.  She would put one partially in and methodically get the rest of it in little by little.  She talked and babbled the entire time.  Then, she would look at me and say 'more, more, more.' Very cute.

Next, I washed windows with Adalie and the stainless steel in the kitchen with Evelyn.  During this time Jack got out the broom and began sweeping the floor.  He made countless little piles (10-12) and would call me in  every few minutes to help him sweep each pile into the dustpan.  He kept going, and going, and going, and going until he had an almost completely spotless floor.  He is the most persistent cleaner I have ever met! He was very excited when his momma job was to clean the landing and laundry room with the Swiffer. 

After I was finished cleaning with the kids I heard Evelyn say, "Adalie- Lets go clean up the leaves and have some you and me time!" I watched them run downstairs and grab a laundry basket to collect the leaves that were in the living room.  They were both SO excited to be having their own 'time.'  I love it!

I am so blessed, and I love my life!  

I have some great pictures of cleaning time with Momma, but I can't get them off of my phone.   

On a completely random note- Check out this cool blog titled 'Drops of Awesome.'  It is pretty cool and I figured I would share it for those of you who haven't seen it yet click here.

Crazy. That is the word I would use to describe life in the Hazard home.  I am told it only gets more and more crazy as the years go on.  In my heart I know there will be a time that the craziness will morph into a quiet, clean, empty house.  I know that I will relish this time with Logan, but I think deep down I will also miss the crazy, messy, silly, loud, emotional, sweet, tear filled, cuddly, and busy time that is now ours.

Logan and I have always been a fan of live theater.  We were completely spoiled in Cleveland with the Cleveland Playhouse only fifteen minutes away.  It has taken us a long time, but we are finally exploring the theatrical options available to us here.  Last night we attended our first play at the Lakeside Playhouse in Coeur d'Alene.  We were very impressed with the acting and emotional climate the directors created with the play.  When I see a play I generally expect either a comedy, musical, or combination of the two. In general I expect a play to be relatively lighthearted.  The only exception so far was Billy Elliot which which at least had a good moral.  Last night we went and saw Sweeny Todd.  Wow. The cast and lighting crew did an amazing job of creating a mood.  It was pretty cool to watch and be pulled in to the story.  On the way home we decided the three best describing words for the play were disturbing, dark, and... We also came to the realization that there was really no redeeming moral to the story. We did enjoy the play and we will definitely be back to the playhouse.

Logan and I decided that each of us could have a percentage of our tax return to buy whatever we want. We decided that each of us was going to buy a road bike so that we could take biking trips together, and we decided that we would buy a nylon string guitar for us to share.  I have recenly begun learning to play, and Logan has been studying and building his mad guitar skills.  Now we can both play at the same time and we can play together. Logan has recently mastered playing Cavatina.  For those of you who don't know this song, it is pretty amazing.  You can listen to it here. If you listen closely you can actually hear the different parts that are being played simultaneously.  It is pretty cool.  I am proud of Logan for learning this beautiful song.

It is officially that time of year where the weather simply can not make up its mind.  We have had bitter cold days this week along with sunny days in the low fifties.  We went to the big slide park for the first time this year. It is so fun for me to see how much the kids have grown in size and ability even since last October. Kids grow up so fast!  I am excited for this Spring/Summer/Fall with them!

I have a feeling that Maren will keep me on my toes in the coming months. Our sweet little happy girl has begun to become a bit of a handful in church because she wants to be everywhere, and she is definitely the age where she needs to be watched all the time.  She is the only one of our children that has discovered the joy of putting things in the toilet!  She is a curious little learner girl. She is beginning to have  a desire to keep up with her siblings. I love it!  It is honestly difficult to remember a time when she wasn't in our family.  Ok- random Maren tangent is over.

No pictures this week because I no longer have a camera at my disposal.  Something must be done about that...

See you next week!