No T.V. and other randomness....

So it has been almost a month since we canceled our Satellite and packed up our T.V. and DVD player to be stored at our shop. It has been hard to get use to and was a hard decision, but I think it will be definitely worth it. We found ourselves watching too much t.v. and not doing enough reading. Ashley and Hailey both can read OK but they were having problems with their fluency and blending everything they read together smoothly. We are hoping that will definitely improve now. We also felt there is just too many bad things on TV. Yes I didn't let my kids watch bad shows heck I wouldn't even let them watch Sponge Bob, but they saw enough from the stuff we would watch and from those awful commercials! We felt our kids were getting desensitized from the world. They catch on to so many things. Just watching a CSI Ashley was telling me what happened and proceeded to tell me the girl got raped. I asked her what that meant and she said that she just got hurt. But that was enough, so it was a decision that we felt was best for OUR little family. No I don't think anyone else is bad for having TV. I seriously wish I could pull out the TV and veg out to it all the time. Anyway we still have a small TV that has a dvd player attached and I let the kids watch movies on it sometimes. We also have a dvd player in our Tahoe so when we go places that take a while we let them watch movies. Some activities we have been enjoying are puzzles, blocks, walks, coloring, kid zui on the computer and reading. We go to the Library more often and the kids love picking out books. They have been reading more often it has been great! I even finally got Ryan to learn how to write his name. I swear I would just get so frustrated any time I would try to teach him before but last week he finally learned it good! Here are a few pics of the kids reading...even Corbin! OK I staged Corbin in but he does love his book and looks at it often. Ryan was sick but he loves his Scooby Doo books from the Library.


There were a few warmer days last week and we just had to take advantage of them we went to the park and played at home in our own backyard. Corbin is so funny he loves being outside but he doesn't like to be held he just wants down with the big kids! We were in our backyard and I was sitting on the porch just watching the kids and Corbin wanted down so bad I finally just let him. He was all over the porch he even tried to crawl on the grass to go get the other kids. His pants got filthy but he was having the time of his life! He loves when Ashley and Hailey take him down the slide!

Ryan is showing Hailey his super hero castle he built while she was at school!

Corbin has been such a pain. He does not sleep good. The worse part he absolutely will not fall asleep on his own. He has cried up to 3 hours in his crib. He just wants to be rocked and then when I try to lay him down he starts crying right away. Every one tells me to just let him cry it out and he will eventually learn. But I am sorry 3 hours was hell. I couldn't stand it anymore. He wont even lay himself down he stands or sits up in his crib the whole time. So if anyone has any tips it would be great! He has never cried himself to sleep. I have let him cry in his crib so many times and he never stops. I finally just started laying out some blankets in the living room and getting him to sleep and laying him there he starts crying but if I lay right with him for a few minutes he falls asleep good and I can sneak away. I am hoping he will grow out of this. Other than his sleeping issues he is just the cutest thing! He has such a fun personality and everyone just loves him to death!

The kids had some fun dip and I let Corbin have one of the sticks to see what he would do. He loved it but that's all the candy for you Corbin! He is funny he usually doesn't like anything we give him tastes of. He sure loves his rice cereal though!

So everyone tells my Corbin looks just like Ryan did. But I don't think so. I think he is a perfect mix between all 3 kids. He does things that remind me of each kid. Any way I thought it would be fun to throw in a side by side of Ryan at the same age in the same jammies! What do you think...I think there are similarities but they don't look that much alike!

Oh if you can't tell Corbin is on the left and Ryan is on the right! Sorry for the long post but I think I will keep up more on the blogging without a TV...lol!