Celebrate! (edited)

Well, I thought I would start this post with congratulating Mike - he successfully proposed his dissertation yesterday, so he is set to apply for internship. He has done an amazing job at pushing through (while doing everything really well, I might add) so that he can get done with school as quick as possible. And he is nice enough to humor me in taking his picture every time he is off to accomplish something!

The boys are doing well...

They are little stinkers though. They are fighting a lot lately, but also playing really well together. But, I spend a lot of time mediating. I think I am going to start letting them try to work out their problems...

Jordan is starting to do well with potty training. He wakes up every morning excited to go "on the big potty" but it only lasts until the first time he gets hurt for the day (which inevitably happens about an hour or two into the day...) and then he refuses to wear underwear or go on the potty. So, we're making a bit of progress, we just have to figure out how to get him to stick with it.

Jordan loves to practice writing letters. He gets so excited and calls us over to see. Here is what he did this morning:

I love that he sees the letters as parts, not wholes. Like the P, he divides into a circle and a line. It is so interesting to see how he thinks.

In other news, here is our new aquisition:

We have had a lot of unexpected expenses come up in the past few weeks. The back handle on my van broke and we had have it fixed (for a whole lot more than you would think a handle would cost... :)), and then the day after we did that, my hard drive crashed and we had to get a new (used) one installed. Then this past week our microwave was growling at us... it seriously sounded like it was going to explode at any moment. It has been interesting to see through all of these things that if they were going to happen, they have happened at the best time possible. When my door handle broke, it happened on a week that Mike actually had a day off so that he could help me take the van in and pick it up. And my hard drive crashed about a week after my birthday, so I had money to use to buy the new one. Anyway, last night we decided to get a new microwave. And it so happened that Target had microwaves on clearance for 50% off. Trust me, I look at the clearance racks at Target more often than I should - it doesn't happen that often that microwaves are on clearance. I am so grateful that ours went bad at the exact time that they happened to be cheaper. I seriously have seen so many examples in our lives these past few years to know that Heavenly Father looks out for us and takes care of us.

edit: So, we went grocery shopping tonight and when we got home the handle inside the driver's side door of our van snapped and is now broken. Looks like our streak is still alive!