I'm a Big Girl

 "I'm a BIG girl!"  That's right.  The last of my four children is FINALLY potty trained! Lauren was definitely my hardest and most frustrating.  She was very capable of going potty but had absolutely no desire to.  We tried all the tricks, methods, bribery, rewards, etc, and nothing seemed to work...UNTIL...we told her that she could pick out and buy a baby doll.  This seemingly was not working very well either, but after a month or two of saying, "No, I'm sorry.  You cannot buy a baby because you still are not potty trained." she had a change of heart. About 2 weeks ago, she woke up and said, "I want a baby doll.  I want to wear panties."  She has done so good day and night (with only a few accidents).  I'm so excited.  :) 

 She picked out the baby that had the "pretty dress" and had curly blond hair and blue eyes.  She is fascinated that the baby's eyes close when she lays down.  She keeps telling me to be quiet and not to wake the baby.  Too cute. 
Katherine has been home from school all week.  Her teacher called Monday night and said class was being cancelled until next week due to a high number of kids in her class and a few other classes having hand foot and mouth disease.  She had fun making lots of messes with her little sister and getting into all of Benjamin's things while he was at school.  I took her to school today only to find out that they have decided to keep it closed for another week.  So, we get to have both little girls home for the week.

 Lauren and I took a trip with Ayi to the city we will be moving to soon.  It was just the three of u sand was a lot of fun.  We were going to try and find a place for Ayi to live so that she could move with us (she wants to have her own place).  We looked ALL day in the rain and did not have any luck at all.  Everything was above her price range and not nearly as good as where she is right now.  All she wanted was 1 bedroom with a bathroom and a place to cook.  I did not think it would be hard to find, but soon learned how difficult that could be.  Many places either had no bathroom or no kitchen or had neither.  I have to give it to her.  She looked hard.  She loves Meimei (Lauren) and really wanted to come with us, but after the trip and thinking some more, she has decided not to move with us.  We were a sad, but knew that it was the best decision.  We told her that we will get together with her every time we come visit the city we currently live in :)

During that trip, Lauren became very fascinated with Ayi's pretty earrings.  So, the next day, Ayi shows up with some little clip-ons for Lauren.  She was very proud and wanted to call everyone on Skype to show them her earrings.
DISCLAIMER!!!  The next picture is not for the squeamish (you know who you are)  :)
So, the story first.  Saturday evening, we had a good rain.  After the rain, the plague hit our house.  No, not a real one, but I sure felt like it.  I was giving Lauren a shower when I hear the loudest screaming ever.  It was the hysterical, loud, panicky, non-stop screaming followed by Jonathan saying "Kelly, I need your help!"  I  was in the the bathroom with Lauren and had no idea what was going on.  The next thing I know, Benjamin is in the shower with us (standing on top of the toilet) still hysterical talking about all the bugs trying to get him.  I get Lauren rinsed quickly and go to see what is going on.  What do I find?  Our house has been invaded by THOUSANDS upon THOUSANDS of these flying creatures that were about the size of a fly, pesky like gnats, but a body like a small worm...very weird.  They were literally everywhere!  They swarmed underneath the front door, sliding glass door to the balcony and the now apparent cracks in some of the windows.  I immediately felt like I was in the middle of one of the plagues in Egypt.  After 2 hours of stomping on, smashing on walls, swatting in the air, and using tons of RAID (which we are VERY thankful for), we felt like we had stopped the invasion.  I spent the next 30 minutes sweeping up the little guys.  We finally get everyone in bed asleep (us included) and wake up the next morning to find that the RAID bug spray had worked wonders and little dead ones covered our floor once again (and hence the picture below in case you think I am exaggerating..haha)  All I have to say is that I have a new found appreciation of what it might have been like for the families in Egypt so long ago...I had always read about the different plagues and just thought yeah that would be annoying...but add the hysteria of small children in the mix for several days and yikes! 

I did not want to end with such a horrible picture, so I decided to throw in a couple of "old" pictures.  My, how the kids have grown! 

So here is Regan eating at her favorite place...Taco Bell.  WE were on our way to a UT football game.

Benjamin at the same game just waiting for the fun to start.  Ah, he was having fun even before they started.

Katherine in her Christmas pj's with her fantastic grin.  I believe this is the year that she got her bunny for Christmas.

Lauren holding baby Bryan.  I guess this is when her fascination with baby dolls started...only this baby was a real one :)

The Sheddan clan in the Smokey Mountains!