Bye Bye Binki, parting will be such sweet sorrow

Well, it's time for me to buckle down and be tough. Sammi is now 16 months and it's time to throw that binki in the trash.

Jaxon was a dream. I just decided one day that I would try putting him down for a nap without his binki just to see what would happen. Well, nothing happened, and that was that. I have a feeling that it will be not so with dear Samantha. She seems to be rather attached to the sucker. Mostly she just has it at nap time and when she goes to bed for the night. But oh it's nice to have when she seems to be inconsolable, because she just calms right down. I do let her have her binki when we are at church - just to keep her quiet, she can be a chatter box if she's feeling like it. And I also let her have her binki whenever she wants it if we are at someone else's house just so I can enjoy myself a little more. I'm weak, what can I say.

Sammi really is a great little girl and a really easy keeper so far and I would like to keep it that way if at all possible. So I ask for your help! If you have any suggestions of what the heck to do to easily get rid of such a habit, please, PLEASE, give me your ideas! I welcome them all!

Sammi is now desperately trying to type as I do, I think it's a plea for you all to keep your mouths shut and to tell me to let her keep the bink. Don't let her win - we must prevail!

Sharing, Snow, and Scary Books

Sharing: As Saturday was Valentines day Riley and I thought we would celebrate in the traditional way that most people do - we took our kids and cleaned the church! Jaxon loved that carpet sweeper and I have now vowed to be much more careful with my church snacks as I had to vacuum about a million pounds of cheerio crumbs out of the pews. Jaxon, Sammi, and I all made Riley a card with a bunch of pictures on it that said, "I love Daddy, he loves me...we are a happy family!" Jaxon had a blast making it and was very proud of his work. We gave it to him Friday night. Saturday morning came and Riley and I wake up to Jaxon singing "I love Daddy, he loves me. We are a happy family!" Then he comes in on our bed and said "I was singing what was on Daddy's card!" We sure love him! He was all about making Valentines, he even shared a Valentine's day sucker with "Sweetie" (what he always calls Sammi).Snow:Riley had Presidents Day off so we went to his parents house and took advantage of their snow mobile. It was tons of fun! I loved it, Jaxon loved it - Sammi hated and then tolerated it. We also played around in the snow and pulled them on a sled. We even said hello to the horses and calfs. Now that Sammi liked.

It snowed again this morning and our driveway had a bunch of snow on it, so I bundled up the kids (which takes a while!) and took them outside with me to play while I shoveled snow. I had to hurry and get on the ball with shoveling my snow because if I let any snow sit in my driveway much past 10:30am, my wonderful neighbors will come and dig us out. We have such amazing people surrounding us! Anyway, we all played together for a little while before I got to work. Sammi decided that she actually does like the snow and to go down little hills in the sled. While I was shoveling some snow the kids were sitting together in a snow bank and throwing snow at each other. Jaxon is a great older brother and kindly threw snowball after snowball into Sammi's face; Sammi is a great younger sister and laughed hysterically each time he did.
Yummy snow!
Sammi getting ready to go down the little hill. I'm about to get a snowball from Jaxon.
Smiles in the snow.

Scary Books: Another random thing that I think is hilarious. Jaxon is in the phase where he loves "scary" books. Whenever we read one he half-way covers his eyes as protection. I think it's so funny