Patience Patience Patience

Have I mentioned that potty training 3 two year olds is no fun at ALL?! ahh! I'm getting so sick of it! Two in a half is a TOUGH age to parent. Ryan and I just sit down at night EXHAUSTED after they finally fall asleep. Crazy that I feel more tired at this stage than I have since they were born! Not sure how that works but they just take more patience, energy, and everything lately! Ahh! The potty training is going great for Addy. She is dry most of the time and just occasionally has an accident - like maybe one or two a week. Emily is doing pretty good too...but again, occasionally just doesn't make it there. (And it's probably because I forget to ask her to go cuz I can't remember who went when). And then there's sweet Hailey. She soooo wants to wear underwear like her sisters. So we let her "try." But then she usually has an accident right away and then says "Last chance Mom?" And "I promise." She totally wants to wear the underwear but doesn't want to "do it." It's just way more frustrating now because we KNOW they can all go on the potty. It's much more "acceptable" for them to have an accident when they didn't know HOW to do it at all. They WERE trained at one point but then they, especially Hailey, regressed. So then it's REALLY frustrating when they just wet themselves! I blame myself like maybe they weren't ready and stuff when we started but then at the same time, they were all trained for like a week! So I KNOW they can do it! It's just waiting for them to TOTALLY want to do it! I feel like the constant cleaning up of poop and pee is just never going to end! This stage is just a tough one for us. Discipline feels like it doesn't work very well. They are always taking each others toys and think they can do everything by themselves so EVERYTHING takes longer to do. Basically, I feel like Year Two is all about the parents developing LOADS of patience!!! Seriously! I find myself often taking deep breaths and asking for His help all the time. We'll get through this year, right? :)

Dealing with them has made me reflect on how God must feel with us so often. That He wants us to "get it" and just obey Him and listen and yet SOOO often we fail and sin again and again and you'd think He'd get extremely frustrated with us! But thank goodness that God IS love!! He loves us through it....which is incredible...and when I think about how He reacts to my disobedience with extreme patience, then it makes it a little easier to have more patience with my girls. By the way, I just wanted to put in a blurb for the book "Crazy Love" by Francis Chan. www.crazylovebook.com My small group just finished it and we HIGHLY recommend it! It was one of the more challenging books that I have read in a long time, not hard to read, but hard to digest the material! Very convicting and VERY good!

Anyway, it's not like it's all bad though. I just needed to let you know how things were going. :) Because they're unbelievably cute and so conversational lately that I laugh a lot throughout the day. Sometimes they act so serious and so grown up it's so funny. I am always amazed how quickly they learn and the phrases they come up with. The other day they were playing and I asked them what they were doing and they said "Organizing." Since when did they learn what that was or how to say that word?! And they say "Actually Mom..." And "Not quite." So grown up. Anyways, my parents are flying in from Denver today which will be GREAT since they haven't seen the girls since October. Can't wait to see them!

Here Grandma Kathy is giving Emily and Hailey their first haircut!

Emily and Grandma
Em - a little concerned but oh so brave..
Grandma and Hailey
Hailey loving the salon. :)
Hailey