Potty Training 101!

Obviously, I have two children, so you’d think potty training would be easier this time around… however, here’s my little secret: I didn’t potty train Laney.  Yep, that’s the truth, I got through the first kid without doing much potty training at all… she mostly trained at Cannery Row Preschool (thanks, Tamra), and I had very little to do with it.  I just helped her go at home, and she was pretty much totally potty trained by the time she was 2.  Yeah, that was awesome.

But, no Cannery Row anymore, so I knew I was on my own with Number Two… we got out the potty, and she went a few times, but I kept putting off really trying.  And then I pinned this pin on Pinterest.  And Audrey turned two.  So I decided it was time to get serious.

The blog post I found basically said that the best way to start potty training was to spend 3 days or so doing nothing but potty training.  She said to stay home with just you and the child, don’t play outside or watch movies (both activities that they can get too involved in), shove the kid full of food and drinks, and take them to the potty every 15 minutes (like, set a timer).  And give them a treat every time they go to the bathroom.  After a couple days of this, the kid should be pretty well potty trained.  Not perfect, but pretty close. 
I figured that my only options for being able to stay home, just me and Audrey, would be Spring Break, and the summer… and I didn’t want to wait until June!  So, Spring Break it was.  Armed with pretzels, several kinds of juice, cookies, lots of Easter candy, some plastic training pants, and a timer, we started out on Monday!  I mostly followed what the lady suggested on her blog… I did use her little bath Cabbage Patch doll to practice going potty (thanks, Tim & Mal), and I kept the TV off and we stayed inside and played.  I did not run back and forth to the toilet every time she had an accident, though… felt too goofy for that!  Plus, she really didn’t have many accidents- she just had 2 that first day.  It was kind of fun to hang out just with Audrey, without the TV or any distractions.  We played with blocks, colored (with markers, which are usually off limits to her), and went to the bathroom CONSTANTLY!  :)

Blocks and coloring! :)

Her baby went potty several times, too!  Love the bored look on her face on this first one; I might have made that face a couple of times that day! :)

Too cute… what a good mommy she is!

The Easter candy came in handy… I used it as her treat after she went potty, just kept an egg-full on the shelf in the bathroom!

Anyway, the first couple of days went pretty well; we had about 2 accidents each of those days (including one at WM the second day… awesome).  The bad planning part was that we left on Wednesday for Columbia, so that weekend was kind of a mess!  Not the best time for potty training, since routine and consistency is important!  But we took every pair of underwear we had (and still did a couple loads of laundry there!) and everyone was really good about asking if she needed to go potty all the time (so much so that she started having a lot of attitude when she was asked… “NO!”  It was funny).  Anyway, so she did pretty well.  She did have a couple of accidents at Jessie’s shower, but who could blame her?!  There were cupcakes and bubbles and jewels, and we were all distracted! 
Since then (it’s been about a month), she just keeps getting better and better.  Now we’re down to only having two or three accidents a week, which I think is pretty fantastic for only being a month in.  She still wears pull ups at nap and bedtime, because she doesn’t wake up when she has an accident, so she will have 2 or 3 and just sleep in it.  So, yeah, we’ll let that come naturally!  But she really does a great job, and she's started making it through naptime without any accidents… and I’m happy to be down to using 1 or 2 pullups a day, and no more changing diapers or buying diapers!! 

Plus, no diapers means her pants are a little saggy, which leads to pictures like this:

Hilarious. 

And, speaking of hilarious, check out this video of Miss A from Columbia… she has learned the color orange, and her age... sort of!!  :)

Yep, Audrey thinks she's five.  And no amount of convincing will make her say 2.  Although, now we've asked her so many times she's figured out that it's a joke, and laughs every time she says it.  Our girls definitely have a sense of humor! 

The orange thing kind of happened on accident... she says it with this deep, gravelly voice that is pretty funny.  And, again, now we've asked her so much she thinks it's hilarious.  Just since this video, though, she's learned several other colors- purple and black, and is hit or miss with blue, green, red, etc.  She's learning so fast!! 

So there is my take on potty training.  Kind of a pain for a week or two, but TOTALLY worth it not to have to change diapers, and not to have to BUY diapers!!  Next up: getting rid of the binky!!  But that's gonna have to wait until this summer... don't have the energy now! :)

Easter Fun!

Well, our Easter this year was bound to be better than last year, because we were all together… and it was!  It was also very busy, though, so prepare yourself for lots of pictures! :)

So, sometimes it seems like too much work to hardboil and dye eggs… but after watching how much fun the girls had, I’m glad we did!  Nothing spectacular, I just got the $1 dye kit at Walmart, and hardboiled the eggs we had (9).  Which was about the right number, since they each did several, and then lost their attention span, so Daddy and I got to do a few, too! :)  

Tolerating her mother… I can’t wait until she’s a teenager…

(PS, check out the 2 year old fit being thrown just off screen.  Nice.)

Audrey was not really all about the let-it-sit-and-color technique.  She subscribed to the thrash-it-around technique instead.  She was constantly digging in the water.

Like I said, Audrey liked to dig, so this is what the purple egg ended up looking like… not exactly smooth! :)

All of the final products…

On the Saturday before Easter, our church had an egg hunt for the kids, and the youth helped out, so of course we were all there!  They played some fun games, which Laney absolutely refused to participate in (stick in the mud), but both girls were all kinds of excited when it came to actually finding the eggs! 

Audrey didn’t really get the idea of grabbing as fast as she could- she wanted to pick them up and open them one at a time!

Laney, on the other hand, was moving so fast I had a hard time getting a picture of her!

Laney and her friend, Layne, comparing hauls!

After the egg hunt, the youth took off to do an Easter themed scavenger hunt.  We sent them all over the place to find eggs, sheep, purple robes, flowers… lots of randomness!  We had 2 teams and 2 other leaders, so we sent the teams with the other leaders while Josh, the girls and I chased them around taking pictures.  It was pretty fun!

The teams!

Miss A, helping us track them down!

After the scavenger hunt, we surprised the youth kids with a trip to Kart Kountry.  This is a really neat place about half an hour from Etown where they have the longest go-kart track in the world- 1.5 miles!  And they have a huge arcade, putt-putt, bumper boats… just about everything!  It was a little rough at first with the girls (I didn’t know to bring a stroller, and when we got there Audrey ran one way while Laney ran the other, and I was kind of at a loss), but once we got everything under control, we really had a good time.  And both Laney AND Audrey got to take their first go-kart rides! 

Laney, all buckled in for her ride!!

And… she loved it!!

And Audrey spent that whole time trying to squeeze through the fence and saying “Ride!  Ride!  Ride!” over and over.  So, even though I thought she was a little small, I figured she could take a spin, too!

I was taking Laney on a ride, so I couldn’t take pictures of A as well… but here’s a quick cell phone shot of her car as Daddy strapped her in!

Both girls LOVED the go-kart rides, although Josh and I will probably both feel better about Audrey doing it next year, when she’s a little bigger!  After go-karts, we headed to the putt-putt course, which was quite entertaining, what with a 2 and a 4 year old and all! :)  But we didn’t even get Audrey a club (she mostly chucked her ball down the course) and Laney played the hockey-style putt-putt, where you just push the ball around until it lands in the hole (c’mon, we’ve all done it!).  Audrey was quite entertaining, because she didn’t get the whole leaving other people’s balls alone thing, so she would walk to the hole after we had all made a first shot and start picking up balls and dropping them in the hole.  Pretty entertaining, but don’t think either of them are ready for the majors!!

Check out the pose… this girl is something!!

Too busy to pose- Audrey spent a lot of time digging Smarties out of her pockets, which usually involved yanking her t-shirt up to her armpits!

So, the youth party the night before, and Sunrise Service early Easter morning made for a short, short night!  But we managed to get the girls up and dressed (along with making biscuits and gravy for the breakfast, and Easter baskets made in the quiet).  and they looked pretty darn cute! Love my girls!

I put the Easter baskets out while Josh was loading the girls in the car, so they were surprised when we got home from church.  We thought it’d be better that way- a good reminder that church is far more important than baskets on Easter.  But, the baskets sure were fun, too!

We might have overdone it with the little gifts (chalk, books, etc), so we had to make an entirely separate basket for candy for everyone to share… can’t have a basket without Reese’s and Snickers eggs!

Audrey’s basket with all of her favorite things- sidewalk chalk, crayons, a movie, a book, and bubbles!

And Laney’s basket, which was obviously a bike helmet instead of a basket, which she loved!  Plus the usual goodies- bubbles, a VeggieTales, and a book!

Digging in!

Laney had to try on her helmet first thing, of course!

After digging through baskets (and sampling a little candy) we had a quick lunch and took good, LOOOONG naps!  We all needed them!!  Afterwards, we headed outside to enjoy the beautiful weather, and have a little egg hunt of our own!

Audrey was ready to go enjoy ALL of her new Easter toys!

Audrey did a pretty good job finding eggs this time… and she was quite excited about it!!

Laney was quite determined to get the eggs… she even started climbing the wall!

Anyway, after some outside time, we capped off our Easter celebrations with a yummy spiral sliced ham and all the fixins!  Pretty delicious!

It was hard not to spend this Easter with our extended family, but I was so happy to at least have our family back together!  We had a great time celebrating our Savior, and remembering the joy of the day He rose from the grave. 

Laney’s First Hair Cut

 

It’s hard to believe, but Laney hasn’t ever had her hair cut… yep, 4 and a half years, and no hair cuts.  But, well, she had zero hair when she was born, and I’ve been meaning to get around to it, but just haven’t.  Well, I guess she got tired of waiting.

Tuesday night was pretty normal for us; I have a meeting on Tuesdays at 6:30, so it’s pretty much home, dinner, Mommy leaves again.  The girls and I got home later than normal, so I was rushing to get dinner ready.  I didn’t notice anything unusual, though, Laney was in and out of the kitchen the whole time.  And then Josh got home, and we ate dinner, and afterwards Josh walked into the bathroom and found a chunk of hair on the floor next to a ponytail holder.  He showed it to me because he was worried that so much hair was coming out with her ponytail holders… yeah, I looked at it, and saw that the ends were all even, and figured that hair wasn’t yanked out, it was CUT!  So we started looking around, and found a few more little chunks on the floor.  Not bad, though… and then we saw this:

And then the panic started!  We called Laney in and started looking at her hair, and, sure enough, there were chunks missing.  Thankfully, she didn’t do the typical grab-your-bangs-and-cut-at-the-scalp move, she mostly just took chunks out of the back.  But, it was definitely NOT even:

We talked to her about why she did it (“I wanted my hair to be pretty!”) and why it wasn’t a good idea.  And we tried really hard not to laugh hysterically the whole time, but it was pretty funny!  Poor thing, though, since I had a meeting she had to go to school with crazy hair, because I didn’t have time to cut it Tuesday night!

Wednesday after school I soaked her hair and trimmed it up, and it ended up looking like this:

Actually really cute, and no permanent damage done.  Although, she did manage to cut one chunk considerably shorter than the rest!  You can only see it in the back…

See… right there!

Thankfully, it doesn’t show when her hair is up or anything else.  I didn’t want to cut her hair that short, so it’ll just have to grow out!

It looks awfully cute (and grown up!) in a ponytail, though…

Just as a comparison, here is her ponytail earlier this week… she lost a lot of length!

Anyway, live and learn, I guess… hair cutting was bound to happen, so at least there wasn’t too much damage done!  And it forced me to finally cut her hair… and it’s a hilarious story to tell later!  Much of parenting is one hilarious story after another, I’ve discovered…

Happy Day, Happy Day!

So, Laney is definitely a go-and-do, hang out with lots of people, be the center of attention kind of girl… like her Daddy!  Audrey, on the other hand, is happiest hanging out at home, playing outside.  So, for her birthday, that’s what we did!  We’d just had people over for Josh’s birthday the weekend before, so we decided to keep it simple for Miss A’s party, and she didn’t seem to mind!

We let her pick the food, of course, and she picked hot dogs, of course.  I came to the realization that 3 of the 4 members of our family see hot dogs as a totally viable birthday dinner choice.  Seriously, they can have anything in the world, and they pick HOT DOGS!  Oh well, at least it’s simple!  We loaded up with some of her other favorite foods, like strawberries and french fries.  And we picked up some corn on the cob, which she’d never tried before.  Anyway, it was pretty delicious, even if it was just hot dogs!  The best part for Audrey was she got to play outside while Josh was grilling, and she’d pretty much rather be outside than anywhere else in the world!

Miss A, digging into her birthday dinner on the special plate!

She hadn’t ever had corn on the cob before… but she jumped right in!

Audrey picked a funfetti cake with sprinkles, and I actually got a little creative and wrote her name on it… and we broke out the birthday hat from Laney’s first birthday!

A was pretty funny while we were singing… it was like she wasn’t used to being the center of attention!

Helping (or, mostly watching) Daddy blow out her candles!

Miss A definitely did get what opening presents was about, though!  She was quite excited about the giant box…

…and even more excited when she saw what was in it!  A Sleeping Beauty toddler doll and dress up dress.  Audrey LOVES dressing up, and dolls, so we thought it was perfect!

Unfortunately, someone else thought it was perfect… Miss E is not used to sharing the spotlight, and she really wanted that same doll/dress combo, so she MELTED DOWN when Audrey opened it…

Sad, and kinda funny at the same time… it’s a hard lesson to learn, but gotta learn it sometime!

And, let’s be honest, Audrey has the attention span of, well, of a 2 year old, so a couple of hours later, Laney looked like this:

So, there it is, a fun day to celebrate Miss A!  And, in the interest of more celebration, here are two totally random shots from the last week or so… just hilarious, and great blackmail material! :)

She loves the bath, and has the perfect amount of hair for shampoo sculptures!

As for this one… well, there really are no words…

Look Who’s Two!!

2 years ago we (unexpectedly) met this little baby:

And a year later she had turned into this cake-destroying monster:

And now she’s a bonafide little girl!

Yep, today is Miss A’s 2nd birthday! I haven’t posted about her in awhile, so here are a few quick stats…

Things Audrey likes… she LOVES to color, and will pretty much color on anything she can get to (so, fair warning if you leave something at kid level at our house!). She also loves to read, and will constantly bring a book and hold it up to us and say “REE! REE ME!!” Saying no, definitely not an option! :) She LOVES bananas, and will pretty much eat them until they’re gone. Really, she will eat just about anything, as long as there’s lots of it… and if someone else is eating it, she MUST try it. As if you can’t tell from the picture above, she loves to play outside. However, if she’s not outside (and sometimes when she is) she MUST be barefoot. She loves to play dress up and will often come running into the room yelling “TA DA!” in an assortment of (non-matching) dress up clothes. A likes to dance and sing; her new favorite songs are Happy Birthday and the Hot Dog dance from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. She likes watching Dora, and loves all animals. Probably a little too much, if you ask Truman! She has not mastered the art of petting him gently!

Much like her sister, Miss A is strong-willed and independent. She has mastered crossing her arms over her chest and yelling “Uh-UH.” I’m pretty sure she got that from her DADDY! We are working on potty training, and she’s doing pretty well. She does really well when she’s at school, but not quite as well at home. I plan on taking a few days over Spring Break to switch her to underwear for good… so we’ll see how that goes.

She is definitely not as verbal as Miss Laney was at her age, but she is talking more everyday. She probably knows 50ish words, but she learns more everyday, and you can practically see her mind working. She is always mimicking us… tonight at dinner she watched Josh tap his spoon to sprinkle powdered sugar on french toast. When he put some on her’s, she scooped it up and tapped her spoon to try to sprinkle it. And she mimics hand movements, too. It’s pretty hilarious.

Random other things about Audrey, she still gets the hiccups if she giggles too much (which is pretty all of the time- she loves to laugh). She is still totally binky-dependent, which we’re going to tackle AFTER potty training! Audrey can destroy a room faster than any little kid I’ve ever seen… it’s basically not worth cleaning their room!

So, that’s about it… we have a quiet evening planned to celebrate, which is pretty much what Audrey likes, anyway- she likes to be home! So it’s gonna be us, some grilled hot dogs, and a funfetti cake… just what Miss A ordered!!