Just another crazy day..

Well, I've been checking everyone else's blogs today while the girls are at a birthday party and Collin finally went down for his nap. I am so not good at keeping up with my own. It sounds like we are going to start digging a hole for our new house next week. I'm pretty dang excited because I think we're going to finish this thing a lot faster than I had originally hoped... now we're saying around Halloween??!! We'll see... anyway, fun stuff.
I was just talking to my friend Annie today about one more good thing about Rexburg... want to hear? There are NO MOSQUITOES!! I haven't seen one! In Perry, you couldn't even be outside around sunset or else you'd be covered with itchy bites. Now, I just put the kids to bed and enjoy myself in our backyard!! COOL!
I've been reading a Love & Logic book (at the suggestion of Annie's old preschool teacher). It has a lot of good points. I've been trying it out a little, even though I haven't finished the book and am convinved I need extra support classes or something. Giving choices and asking questions rather than dishing out orders all the time takes practice. It's whole reasoning is giving the kids choices and letting them have the consequences.. sound easy right? It's not. It's kind of like learning to talk a new language because it's all about how you say something. Instead of saying, "no, you can't go outside until you finish your dinner," you say, "feel free to go outside after you've finished your dinner." Or, instead of saying, "Get your coat on, it's cold outside," you say, "It's cold outside, would you like to wear your coat or carry it?" If you spout off orders all day long (like I do because I don't feel like I have time to negotiate with three kids), then it says you are setting yourself up for rebellion and power struggles and disobedience. If you suggest something or give them choices, they get to do the thinking and they get to live with their choice. I still need to finish the book... I'm only a quarter of the way through... and there are times when I disagree with it. We'll see how messed up my kids become.
Collin man is pretty funny these days. Everytime we go into a public restroom, he starts yelling.... because he has figure out and remembers that his voice echoes in those places. Also, everytime I turn my vaccuum on, he feels the need to yell during the whole time I am cleaning... I guess to make the same noise he hears???
Annie's new preschool teacher told me something very encouraging yesterday. He said that she has taken on the roll of "helper" in her class. There are a lot of younger kids in there, so she helps them by holding their hands or hugging them if they feel sad. What a sweetie! It's nice to hear positive things!!
Jenna, on the other hand, has been crying in school. Her teacher (kind of a socially-awkward BYU-I student so I have to take what I hear with this in mind) let me know that "she didn't cry today so that is good." That's what she told me after I asked how Jenna was doing. I swear, some people need to just be nice. Jenna is a sweetheart, and I know it. I also know that she does cry, but did her teacher have to say it like that?
Here's a funny story about me now. So we inherited a treadmill from our neighbor. I was running on it last night while Matt was practicing his tuba and after I put the kids to bed. It faces the wall in my bedroom because it's a fold-up kind, and that's the way it fits. I am the kind of person who needs to see what is going on around me (mostly because I still invision THE SIXTH SENSE ghosts with half missing skulls walking down the hallway past my doorway behind me and disappear when I turn around). I don't know why I freak out at that kind of stuff, but I do. Anyway, there was a light burned out in our bedroom, but it all of the sudden turned on and scared the CRAP out of me!! So I whipped around to see what happened and fell flat on my bum on the treadmill which then threw me across the room!!! I am verrry sore today from getting my rear chucked off that thing! It's dangerous! I felt sooo stupid after that so I just put the thing away. Funny me.