Potty Training Talan

Talan hit a home run tonight. A pee and a poop. We ate candy and ice cream to celebrate. He wanted to save it to show people but it was stinking up the bathroom so I took photos instead. I asked him to bend down near the poop so I could get him with the poop and instead he bends over to show his clean bottom! Funny boy. So, sorry if the photos are graphic.

Can you see Talan's black eye and fat lip? He has been very accident prone lately. Oh, and Mason took a photo of me this morning as some people have asked about the "cute" haircut. :)

Thank you eveyone who sent me congratulations and lots of sweet inspiring messages. I appreciate all your love and recognition. You have touched my heart!

Soccer Week 2

I unintentionally lied in my last post. Those were only the pictures from the first game. Here are photos from the second weekend. I am a bit behind, obviously. My friend Missy's 3 year old Mason Paul is on Talan's team. The team we played against, my friend Harini's 3 year old Aaron was on. What I want you to appreciate is that none of these 3 year olds will play without their parent on the field. It becomes utter mayhem and hysterically funny. This is clearly why no one else offers 3 year old soccer.

Every Saturday Talan has practice at 9:30am and then his game starts at 10:05. There are two 15 minute halves with a 5 minute break. Then we go home and head back to the field at 1pm for Mason's first game. He plays two different games back to back so we are not done until 2:30pm. Then it is time to head home and nap! Hayden is a good 20 minute drive from our house so it is a lot of driving back and forth. But since there are only 6 weeks in the entire season, I am not complaining. :)

Soccer Mom

I have had the privilege to be a soccer Mom for the first time in my life. We are playing in the Hayden little league as they are the only ones who offer 3 year old soccer (now I understand why no one else does). Barclay has been awesome about coming to all the games. I did miss Talan's game last Saturday do to my clinical rotation but I have made it to all of Mason's. Here are some photos from the past three weeks. It was bitter cold and rainy for two of the three games. Crazy weather here in Northern Idaho. Burrr.... Here are pictures from week 1. We are in week 4 and are improving our attitudes and endurance!

Guess What??????

I got in! My acceptance letter arrived in the mail this afternoon. I am so excited! :) My orientation will be May 8th. I need to put a $100 deposit down, get a full physical and fill out a questionnaire (do you work? how many hours a week? do you care for children? etc.) to determine our clinical lab placement for the Fall. My friend Harini did not get in, she wasn't expecting to so she is not disappointed but I am. Only 40 people got in to the program. Last year they accepted 80. Budget cuts are cited as the reason. Who knows? I imagine I will find out more at the orientation. So, three semesters of pre-reqs is paying off. :)
Oh and I got a very cute haircut today before I found out the great news so I literally look and feel fabulous. :) LOL

Waiting for the mail

Well, I just picked up today's mail and no letter yet from the Nursing Program. I will hear from them by May 1st, so it is only a matter of days. Cross fingers! I am so impatient that I want to know NOW. It is painful waiting but I guess it is good practice! :)
This morning, I had my first clinical shift at a local nursing home. We had to be there by 5:45am. It was a long morning. Some moments were sad, some were tedious. Some of the residents were absolutely darling. My favorite part of the day was petting the resident cat Izzy who is very obese and meows for love frequently. My worst mistake was feeding a guy before he had his dentures put in. Opps! I felt bad about that but he didn't want his dentures but that is a whole other story! There are also two bunnys in one of the courtyards and several residents had birds. I love that there are animals there as I think animals are great therapy and an antidote to depression. There were highs and lows but I am glad the first day is under wraps. I slept so poorly last night as I was nervous about hearing my alarm. I am looking forward to nap time today! Tomorrow and Sunday I have 6am to noon shifts and then again in two weeks I have Fri, Sat, Sun 6am to noon. The weekend right before finals. Not great timing!
Less than three weeks to go before the semester is over! Yippee. I can't wait for summer vacation. I am definitely ready for some down time.

Why the Silence

I had my nursing school interview on Thursday and was required to sign a confidentiality statement that I would reveal nothing least I wish to have my application revoked. Since the bulk of the interviews were on Saturday, I have only just run into friends today in class whom also interviewed. None of us said anything more than it was stressful or not. I will say this, its over! :) I will find out whether or not I have been accepted into the RN program prior to May 1st.
I have also been so busy I haven't had time to write. Friday I had an all day seminar on how to be a landlord which was free through the Post Falls police dept although I purchased the training manual for $25. It was a fabulous seminar and I learned a lot. While it may be some time before I use any of it, I am very glad I went. I am appreciative of Barclay's babysitting the boys for the day. That helped me out greatly. They always love being with her even if she questions why! :)
Saturday was mostly devoted to soccer games. Marginal improvement for both boys. Talan would not get on the field without holding someones hand. Mason had some moments of bad attitude but didn't sulk to the degree that he did last weekend. He also made it through both games which was important because, again, we were short on warm bodies out on the field. :)
Sunday we had a birthday party at jump-a-lot for one of Mason's classmates. Talan insisted I be with him the entire time, which actually was a good thing as I did not know any of the parents. The school year is almost over and I have made zero attempt to get to know any of the other parents.
Since we are in between gyms, I took Talan on a hike around Tubbs Hill this morning. It took us two hours as he told me very clearly he was not happy in the backpack. "I be happy when I am down". He is so cute. Also, today we had a speaker meeting at noon which essentially lasted until 2pm after which I scrambled home to get the boys down for a nap. Then when the babysitter pulled up I dashed off to my class which started at 3pm. We went to our facility, Life Care Center, where we will be doing our 36 clinical hours today for class.
I came home to find that Joe had indeed arrived back home. The boys were napping so we got a chance to catch up a little bit. Then I just got onto a roll with my property management work and got out the material that I have been meaning to send the property owners for the past month. I had to write minutes to the annual meeting, a summary to the Owners of the impact of our decisions, the rules and also a Spring Newsletter. Oh and also the operating statements. No small affair. I am holding a community wide Garage Sale in an attempt to facilitate some "community" here and also to help my neighbors unload the junk they have floating around their lawns and garages! LOL
Life is good. It was 82 degrees at 5pm. It felt like heaven. I am ecstatic to be able to wear shorts in Idaho!!!!!!!!!
Hope you are all happy and well.

Easter

Hello Everybody. I haven't blogged in awhile due to Spring Break etc. Hopefully most of you got the link to our Spring Break Photo Album. We had a jolly good time. Mason didn't want to leave when I told him it was time to get on the airplane. Talan said "I'm happy!". See, you can never please both boys at once. It is impossible. :)

Today we went to the 9am service at Unity and then participated in the 10:20am Easter Egg hunt. Sorry, no photos. It was a divide and conquer type of thing. I was with Mason, who needed lots of reminders that is hadn't started yet while Barclay was with Talan (who insisted she pick up the eggs!). Both boys got eggs that had a special slip of paper to be redeemed for a toy. Talan actually got 8 of them but we settled on 3 toys and offered to share the rest. Mason got a big truck which totally delighted him. All the toys were McDonald's happy meal toys but the kids' didn't notice or care. I thought it was funny.

Barclay took some photos of the boys while we were going around the round-about (which Talan always requests we go around multiple times) after Church. I go very fast! :) The other picture is from the night Joe spoke at the Saturday night meeting back in February.

Talan peed on the pot 3 times yesterday. He tried to pee again just now so he could eat an Easter candy but nothing happened. Then he asked for water. Somehow he thinks that will make him pee right away. No luck. We will keep trying.

We are off to have Easter dinner with Matt's family in Hayden. Barclay is coming too. There will be about 20 people so Joe is whipping up his famously delicious Cesear Salad. Yum! :)

Thursday at 5pm I will have my interview for Nursing School. It is the last step in the application process. I am not worried at all. I interview well and I am 100% positive that this is the right fit for me. I'll let y'all know how it turns out. :)

Happy Easter to all of you. We feel very blessed, I hope you do too!