drew potty training update...current events

so, i sent drew to preschool in a pull-up today...with about 50/50 results. the teachers said he went on the potty two times and wet his pull-up twice also. but, they were super impressed with that! they said he is further along in potty training than any other kid in his class and he is the youngest! after preschool today, we came home and put on diego underwear. drew stayed dry from after school until bedtime--bladder and bowel!!! i took him to the potty every 30 minutes if he hadn't said he needed to go sooner. he stayed dry the whole time he sat in his highchair for dinner, and he told me that he needed to potty 2 times on his own!!! okay, aunt ann...you can stop giving me grief for not potty training my son who was clearly showing signs of readiness at christmas :)

sarah and her gingerbread house...12.28

a few current events

• last night, we had a really terrible wind storm blow through town. our trash can and lawn furniture were tossing around our backyard like leaves! for about 1.5 hours before we put the kids down, the electricity was out. i lit a bunch of candles so we could see. the kids must have sang "happy birthday" and pretended they were blowing out candles a hundred times! they were having so much fun!
• the kids and i picked tim up for lunch today. we saw tim's co-worker mike who is always so sweet to the kids. sarah told mike that she was going to bring him a cookie from costco.
• since we are in the "birthday" spirit after last night's events, when the lady at costco today offered us a sample of chocolate cake, the kids asked if it was birthday cake. and then sang "happy birthday" and pretended to blow out candles the rest of the ride through costco.
• the only reason i can shop peacefully at costco is because of the sweet ladies in the bakery department who always give the kids a cookie to enjoy while i enjoy shopping. when the kids got their cookies today, sarah reached back into the box to get another cookie. when i told sarah that she could only have 1 cookie, she said, "i have to get one for mike and one for tim!" i couldn't believe she was really thinking we were taking cookies back to tim's work.
• one of the kids other favorite things to do at costco is go into the refridgerated section to pick out fruits and veggies. the whole time we are at costco, the kids ask if we are going to go get cold. then they say, "brrrrrrrr!" a million times. the kids were so loud today "acting cold" while we were in the fridge area. all of the other shoppers were laughing at us!
• wow! who ever thought you could write almost an entire post about costco?!? its really like a treat to the kids to get to go there!
• oh, yeah! all of the sudden, drew is saying, "yuck!" when he puts his pacie in his mouth and then hands his pacie to me. is he going to wean himself from his pacie on his own?!?
• speaking of drew milestones, drew pooped on the potty tonight and stayed dry in big boy underwear for 2 hours! he LOVES to wear his big boy underwear! i'm thinking of putting him in pullups for preschool tomorrow!!!

christmas afternoon at mimi and poppy's...12.25

sweet mimi had wrapped ALL of sarah's gifts in pink and ALL of drew's gifts in blue so the kids would have an easy time getting their presents to unwrap. well, within 2 minutes the kids had opened EVERY present under the tree...including the adults' presents and they had NO idea what all they had opened. it was mass chaos! but the kids had a blast!!!



sarah and drew had chocolate in their stockings...which they promptly unwrapped and devoured right before eating dinner. hey...its christmas right?!?
sarah striking a pose in front of the new step stools. looking a little like john travolta there sar!

drew "neighed" at least 1,000 times on his new horsie. notice the chocolate ALL over his face!

christmas morning at nana and pop pop's...12.25

aunt becky brought over a karaoke machine christmas morning and the kids had a blast singing! not the songs that the machine played, but their own songs LOUDER than the songs playing on the machine! the kids were entertained by that while nana prepared the delicious breakfast, then we ate, and then opened presents! it was a wonderful way to spend christmas morning with family!!!

santa loot...12.24

thank goodness santa was able to fulfil sarah's one christmas wish...dora roller skates. which she never plays with...and can't use since she can't roller skate...but EVERY time she sees them, she exclaims, "MY DORA ROLLER SKATES!!! SANTA BROUGHT ME THOSE!!!" as if she were a nancy kerrigan in training or something :) santa also brought sarah some other presents with which she actually plays...that santa is a smarty!!!

getting cookies and milk ready for santa...12.24

poor santa! i hope some other family had a little better luck getting the cookies and milk to the fireplace for santa than we did!!! our cookie was dropped on the floor so many times that it was basically crumbs by the time it got in place, and drew had so many sips of the milk that it was little more than backwash...yuck! drew didn't get that the milk wasn't for him. so, poor santa indeed!

christmas eve at aunt marcell's house...12.24

santa came twice this year!!! 12.24

since we ended up coming home from louisiana on the 23rd instead of the 24th so that the kids wouldn't be complete zombies for christmas eve and christmas day, we suddenly had no plans for christmas eve morning. so tim and i spontaneously decided to give the kids their BIG santa present that morning! so, we took the kids out to the garage and showed them what santa brought early! they were so excited! they have jumped in several of their friends' backyard bounce houses and LOVED every second of it! so, being the insane parents that we are, we decided to inflate the monstrosity in our kitchen! we definitely chalked that one up to sleep deprivation from travelling! the kids, of course, thought it was GREAT!!! i'm hoping that at least sarah will remember the christmas that her parents went crazy! i think the thing that was the most fun about the whole she-bang was how uncharacteristic of me it was for us to be so spontaneous and wild...guess that your rational thoughts DO start to escape you after 30 :)

THE most random story...12.23

when we were opening presents at aunt ann's house, jim didn't have a present from my mom. my mom was so upset because she knew she brought it to louisiana with her. she just gave jim some $$ and told him to go get himself the cologne she had gotten him. but, she was still confused as to what had happened to the cologne. then later, as i was loading the car in aunt ann's garage, i was putting stuff in the car, and then, when i came back with the next load, the original stuff was gone! follow that?!? so sarah's prized possession at the time, a purse that she got from miss emilee the last day of preschool, was missing! i came inside and told aunt ann and uncle chip what had happened, and mentioned that a dog had been in their garage too. aunt ann and uncle chip immediately got SO MAD! apparently, their neighbor's dog is A THIEF!!! so, uncle chip and most of the men go chase down the dog to get sarah's purse. while they were looking for the purse, they found jim's cologne! the dog had stolen the cologne when my dad was unloading their car earlier in the day! how random!?! so, the neighbor who owns the dog came over and apologized profusely. and then she brought sarah a replacement purse from her daughter's collection! so, now sarah has a new, hand-me down favorite purse! isn't that a totally random story?!?

christmas with the stringfield's...12.23

what more could you ask for on your 30th birthday? 12.23

the big one...the wood family...12.22

our wood family christmas...12.22

edited to add: UGH! i just realized that i posted my pics that i had not edited in picasa to crop/take out red-eye. it took about 5 tries to get this post uploaded to blogger to begin with...and i lost a few pics along the way, SO i am not going to mess with it anymore! so sorry for the yucky pics! fyi...if you want a copy of any of these pics and you don't have your own editing software, please email me/comment and i'll send you the photoshopped image!!!

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my uncle rick and vicki have so VERY generously opened their home to us for the past few years to have the wood family christmas there. i think for the first time in a long time, almost all of the family was together...the bill wood original 4 (plus tim, sarah, and drew), the rick wood 3 (plus vicki, haylee, steve, and heath), the susan thomas 2 (plus savannah...JESSICA and new baby in her belly had to work-sad!), and the jodie foster 4!!! i don't think that last sentence will make sense unless you are a wood! even then, good luck!!!

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sarah and savannah exchanging "jewels"

drew took up residence at the bar where he could reach all the yummy snacks--"i do it!"

sweet cousin haylee let the little girls play with her makeup and paint! she is THE BEST with them! its surreal how i used to be the older cousin keeping the kiddos entertained...i am so appreciative of the help!!!

the wood siblings...L to R: bill, susan, jodie, and rick

the wood first cousins...L to R: michael, emily, andy, julie, jack, kelly, joanna
the first cousins and spouses (except jessica)...drew snuck in the pic too!



savannah, joanna, and sarah...i need to brag on joanna for a sec...she is graduating from pharmacy school in the spring! what a woman!!!
as a complete surprise to the bill wood family, the REST of the family decided to honor andy for his service to our country in afghanistan. of course, we were ALL crying, but it was a wonderful tribute and so thoughtful! we even had a playing of the air force fight song!