No accidents!

Wow! After one week, Carrie Ann went the whole day today with the same pair of panties, no accidents! I am so amazed! It just was not this easy with the other two!

And I posted a new video of our butterfly drinking orange juice.

May pictures are up!

(And it's not even July yet!)

In May I dressed up as a princess, enjoyed tulips and lilacs, raised a butterfly, went to the coast for a wedding and visited Deb and her family, and Matthias turned 10 (isn't that something!).

Click to see the pictures.

And in toilet training news, Carrie Ann was clean and dry until 8 pm today -- wow, this is going a lot faster than I expected!

Yahoo!!

Carrie Ann just ran into the house saying "Mommy I'm peeing!" and holding her crotch. So I stuck her on the toilet -- usually she's finished by this time, though once or twice she has managed to get the second half in the toilet. She was still dry this time, and peed it all in the toilet!! Sorry to anyone who has never toilet trained, I'm sure you don't have any clue why I'm so excited about this -- after all, every child learns to use the toilet (at least, almost every child), right? I just did a few calculations, based on an average of five diapers a day (more when they're younger, fewer when they're older), and I've probably changed over 17,000 diapers. So I think I have a right to get excited! The end is in sight! It is quite a skill to learn to notice beforehand and hold it until you get to a toilet. This is one more of those things we take for-granted (like eating, walking, reading and even breathing, which can be a struggle for some children to learn too) -- but it is actually quite amazing. Thank God for small miracles.

New Posts to YouTube

We raised a butterfly. This video is from an hour after it emerged, before the wings were strong enough to fly.


Carrie Ann saying "Liberry" (her favourite place to go, after Grandma's place and along with church potluck), and "chugga chugga choo choo" with Bethany and Dora.


Bethany's class performed this song for the Homelinks final program:


Matthias' class performed the "Spanish Flea" -- this is an excerpt.


That's it for the May videos, now I'm going to work on the pictures!

Pain and love

I wanted to share this anecdote in response to Brad's blog about Aria's hurt finger.
Last weekend, Carrie Ann had a splinter in her foot, which we had to go to the hospital to get dug out. It was torture for me as much as for her -- but there was another woman there who couldn't sleep because she wanted children so badly and couldn't have them (instead of listening, the doctor quickly prescribed sleeping pills and sent her on her way). We all have our own pain. For Carrie Ann, the popsicle the nurse gave her on the way home made it all worth it!
"Sorry" often means sorry that, not sorry for. I'm sorry that you got hurt, rather than I'm sorry for hurting you. I'm sorry that there is pain in the world, rather than I'm sorry my action caused you pain. What I learned when Mom died was that it doesn't matter which words you use, it is the showing of sympathy which is important.
Parents, including God the Father, can't prevent all pain in this imperfect world. But our children are comforted by our presence, sympathy and unconditional love, just as we are comforted when we let God love us through our pain.
The sunset was beautiful tonight. Someday I'll post the pictures I took!

April Pictures

I finally finished sorting through the April pictures. (Click the link to go to my picture gallery.)

One picture of myself turned out very well.


The kids had a lot of fun with Easter Egg Hunts this April.


We also enjoyed the tulips.