Finally!

I think I finally have one of the twins successfully potty-trained! The funny thing about it is it's Drew and I thought for sure Lauren would be the easy one. I highly underestimated my boy.:) Yesterday he finally decided he would poop in the potty and he's done it again today. He's been wearing big boy underwear every day this week and has stayed dry. I'm still putting Pull-ups on at night even though he's stayed dry the past 3 nights also. I just don't want to chance it and have to get up in the middle of the night. Selfish, I know! Lauren's a completely different story. She did awesome the first 2 days of training and now she just doesn't care. I decided to back off a bit and concentrate on Drew and we'll get back to her later. She'll go if I ask her to and every once in a while on her own (usually when we're at school picking up Reagan...who can resist those potties that are just their size), but her pull-up is always soaked by the end of the day. We'll keep plugging along. I'm hoping that she'll finally decide she can (and wants) to do it and we'll be completely diaper free in the Noteboom house!

An attempt at funny:)

The kids love to watch "America's Funniest Home Videos" and are always telling us, "you should have gotten that on tape." Of course, their idea of funny isn't always the same as ours.:) Reagan and Drew came up with this video and got Ryan to tape it for them. I don't know if it will win us $10,000, but it got some chuckles out of them!

milestones

We've had a lot of firsts lately. Luke had his first Blue and Gold Banquet for Cub Scouts. He officially became a Tiger Cub and received the mark of the tiger on his cheek (you can see the orange marks if you look closely!) and a tiger symbol (the headband). It was fun to watch and be a part of it.
Drew & Lauren have been working on potty-training. It's proved to be much more difficult than it was with the older two kids. We're just going to keep plugging away and hope we're fully trained sooner rather than later.:)
Reagan had her first dance show. She participated in Pella Christian High School's dance team clinic last Saturday. They practiced during the morning and then got to perform at the show that evening. She said she was a little nervous to dance in front of all of those people, but I think she did a great job and she had a fun time.
We're getting ready for spring around here, although snow is falling right now! Next week is Spring Break and the kids are ready for some time off school. I think it will make the rest of the school year fly by!

Happy Birthday to our first born!

Blogger is acting like a child and not cooperating with me today, but here are few pictures of Luke over the last 7 years.:) Today is his birthday and it is always fun to look back and see how much he's changed and yet remained the same. This past year he has really grown, not so much in size, but in knowledge and behavior. He has been learning a ton at school and has just recently taken a liking to reading without being asked. That's huge for me because I love to read! He still loves Star Wars, Legos and playing the Wii and computer. He's recently begun taking a big interest in science and math. He definitely gets the math from his daddy.:) We celebrated with some friends from school last night. We took them bowling and to the Pizza Ranch and had a great time. Tonight we get to celebrate Luke with our family. I was telling him about the day he was born this morning, although he didn't really want to sit and listen.:) What a blessed day it was for Ryan and I. We can't wait to celebrate many more birthdays with our oldest son.

Snow Day

Yesterday was a SNOW DAY due to the blizzard conditions outside. The kids were excited (and so was I!) and we had a fun-filled day.

We started the day with chocolate chip pancake for the kids...

and lots of coffee for mom!

It's always exciting when they get to watch cartoons in the morning, because that doesn't happen on school days around here.

We did a little dancing

and some bathing.:)

Reagan and Luke worked on their Valentine's.

We had a movie and picnic for lunch.

We played some games

and braved the cold weather.

We made a Valentine's heart craft out of yarn.

We gathered snow from outside and made snow ice cream

Sugar, milk, vanilla, and fresh snow=yum!

And what snow day isn't complete without hot chocolate?

It was early to bed for mommy and kids after our fun, snowy day.

Racers...start your engines

Luke had his first Pinewood Derby race for Cub Scouts this past Saturday. We had a great time watching his car "Big Blue" race. Grandpa and Grandma Van Mersbergen were able to come cheer him on as well. He ended up getting 3rd place in his Tiger Cub den out of 10 racers. Ryan and Luke did a great job working on his car and have a nice shiny trophy to show for it.:)

Some of the tiger cubs waiting for the race to begin.

Luke's car is the blue one on the far left.

Showing off his car and trophy at the end of the morning.

Frozen Noses

We headed down to Pella last weekend to take the kids sledding. We were going to go over Christmas break, but a case of the stomach flu kept us indoors. My parents have a great hill for sledding down. It's a beast to climb back up, but it's a riot going down. Lisa & Kurtis were out of town and their 3 oldest were staying at Grandpa & Grandma's, so we had a fun winter party.

This was actually after the last time down. Drew finally decided he could pull his own sled up. He made it most of the way, too. The other times he would ride on the sled and we would pull him up or he would catch a ride on someone's shoulders.:)

Grandpa Wayne, Lauren, Drew, Luke, Jaren, Bethany, & Reagan. Erica got too cold by this point so she went inside.

I got Lauren to go down twice with me, which is an improvement from her one time last year. She didn't scream all the way down either! She preferred to make snow angels instead.

Reagan ready to fly down on the tube.

This was Drew's typical ride up the hill.

He went down head first on his belly everytime. He loved it. We finally had to make him come inside, because we were all getting cold!