Potty Training Fail

Well we attempted potty training last week and we weren't so successful. Even though she's only 19mo, miss Addyson had been showing all the signs of a ready toddler and I figured we ought to give it a shot before baby brother comes along, so this was the week! I had read all the helpful tips, tricks, and advice I could find so that I was prepared. We had all the talks days before hand that we were saying "bye bye {to} diapers" and "Addyson gets to use the big girl potty yaaaaay!", but unfortunately my little Betsy Wetsy wasn't ready. I'm slightly disappointed because I was looking forward to having a break from diaper duty before starting all over again in February! But there's always a bright side to everything and in this case it's that I had plenty of one-on-one play time with my girl, she got in some good sensory play, and I got some pictures of our days in the house!

Most everything I read followed along with the Fellom's 3 Day method so we went that route which means "cold turkey". No diapers, no pull-ups, no panties, no pants. Just bare buns. And she was literally a cold turkey because as you all know we had our first freeze of the year last week. Perfect timing right? So because she was bare bottomed we spent the majority of our time in the kitchen where we have tile floors for easy clean up! I also cranked the heat up and had her in leg warmers and socks all day so don't worry she wasn't actually freezing!

Here was my small arsenal; the throne, plenty of old rags and carpet cleaner, and the rewards!!! Which we sadly only used once. Whomp whomp.

We started morning number one with some good 'ol coloring. Mickey Mouse is her new favorite so I printed off a bunch of coloring pages. She actually did pretty good and only colored on her table a couple of times :)

Then we went into Addyson new favorite "toy"- cloud dough! I actually think it's pretty fun too! I had mentally prepared myself for a day of messes so I really didn't care about the mess that came after these pictures, but next time I'll be saving this stuff for outdoors. Despite being literally everywhere it was a fun tactile activity for her!

Another day full of Cloud Dough!

 

 

 

I also found this cute idea here. It didn't keep her occupied as long as I would've liked, but it was still something new that kept her entertained for a little while. It probably would have helped if I had those little pom-pom balls instead of cotton balls, but oh well!

 

Another fun sensory activity that actually did keep her interested longer than I expected was this box of Scentsy samples!!  I sold Scentsy for all of one day, but I have the whole sample kit that keeps our hall closet smelling ammmmazing. So I got out the box and we sat for a good 15 minutes smelling all of the scents. She had a lot of fun twisting the lids on and off too!

And of course she had to try sitting in the box

 

Although she didn't end up potty trained we both had fun paying indoors together all week! We'll give it a shot again another time, but until then I'll just keep soaking up my little girl's smiles and giggles while I can! By the way, God is so good for giving someone the brains to figure out indoor plumbing! I would hate to try and potty train in an out-house!!

18 Months!

I'm pretty much the world's worst at keeping up with this blog thing huh? Well what better way to start back up than with an Addy update! Little miss just had her half birthday and even though it was weeks ago a late update is better than no update!

It's quite apparent around our house that we have a tiny toddler living here! Whether it's coming from me, Ryan or Addyson you can probably hear the word "no" being said about 100 times a day. Although when Addyson says it it's still kind of cute. She's not being defiant with it just yet, she just likes to use her new word as much as possible. But it is a trick to figure out when she really doesn't want another bite or when she's just saying "no" for fun. "No" isn't her only new word. She's gaining quite the little vocabulary. Plane, car, diaper, mouse, and oatmeal are some of the newest ones, but the cutest are definitely "trash" and "church". It's so funny listening to her make the "sh" and "ch" sounds! She almost sounds Jewish haha. She's also putting together a few two-word phrases like "night-night Dada" or "bye -bye Dada".

Cheese!

Meal times have become a bit of a headache lately. Between telling me "no", dropping her food on the floor, spitting chewed up food out of her mouth and just plain refusing to take a bite it's a wonder how this kid gets any nutrition at all. Fruit is our only saving grace. The girl can pack away some fresh fruit but everything else is hit or miss. One day a PB&J sandwich is her fav and three days later she won't even touch it. Veggies are a joke. I can normally get a couple bites of a baked or mashed potatoes in her but after that it's another battle. Breakfast is our only somewhat easy meal. She'll always eat a plain scrambled egg and oatmeal with out any problems. But no cheese on that egg!!! Or else she'll spit it right back out {even though string cheese is one of her favorite snacks?!} Oh well, one of the joys of having a kid I guess!!

She sure loves her Maggie!!

Night time sleep is great, normally 7:30-7:30. Works for me! With nap time she definitely doesn't follow the norm, but those of you who have been following me for a while know that she was never a good napper! Most kids at this age have dropped their morning nap and just take about a 2 hour afternoon nap. Miss A however dropped her afternoon nap and still needs the morning one! She goes down around 11am and if it's quiet around the house will sleep until 12:30-1. That makes for verrrrry long afternoons for mommy. I've tried putting her down again around 4 but she just sits in her crib and plays. I've also tried keeping her awake until after lunch, but the poor girl can't make it.

"Mouse", Milk, and Bear. Life is good!

At her well baby check-up she weighed 19lbs 8oz which puts her in the 15th percentile. Much better than the 2% she was in last time! Still teeny weeny but still proportionate and consistent so our pedi says we have nothing to worry about. She only has 11 teeth so far and she's supposed to have 16 by age 2. So she's got 6 months to pop out 5 more teeth...that ought to be fun.

She thinks she's big crawling up in our bed

 

Mickey Mouse is a must-have now. Any time I turn the t.v. on she starts saying "mouse mouse mouse!" I've made sure to DVR a handful of shows because she somehow eats a lot better when in the trance of a Mickey Mouse episode. We only watch it during breakfast and when I'm trying to get dinner ready, but it's tempting to keep it running all day so I can watch her do the "hot dog dance". Mommy's of tots you know what I mean!

Driving the car at the park

 

As always God is so amazing for letting me be the mommy to this precious kiddo! Some things have become a lot harder than when she was a tiny baby, but I somehow love her more and more every single day!!!

 

Sticks and Stones...

I'm sure most of you saw a few weeks ago that my sweet hubby broke his arm:( Poor guy. I had a couple FB status updates and a couple pictures about it, but I figured I'd write out the whole story, since this is still my online memory book!

So it was about noon on Wednesday Oct 2. and Ryan had just finished mowing and decided to go for a run since he was already sweaty. He took off, Addyson woke up from her nap and I was about to start getting lunch ready when I heard a scream in the garage. Right then in comes Ryan telling me he broke his arm! He was clearly in a loooot of pain so I wasn't about to second guess him. I told him to go get in the car while I ran around the house like a chicken with my head cut off. As fast as I could I put my shoes on, grabbed a pair of shoes for Addyson, grabbed the diaper bag, threw in a few random toys and a bunch of snacks, picked up Addy and headed for the car. Got Addyson into her carseat faster than ever and then remembered I needed to lock the doors and get her sippy cup! Back in the house for one more run through then back out to go. Ryan had been standing in the garage the whole time because he couldn't get the car door open because he was trying to hold his arm up! Once we were all in the car my gas light came on. Perfect. I wanted to go straight to the hospital but Ryan told me to get gas first because the last thing we needed was to be stranded on the side of the road. Good point. So off to the gas station we went. Filled up $5 worth of gas and then took off again. I was doing my best to safely speed while not hitting every bump in the road causing Ryan any more pain. Easier said than done when there's construction on every. single. road in the metroplex. We finally made it to the hospital which was luckily only about 10 minutes away from our house. I dropped Ryan off at the emergency room entrance and went to park and get out miss A. Once I made it inside they already had him in a room where he had his arm resting on a bed. We were all able to finally settle down for a minute and I got the story of what actually happened. He was simply running along the sidewalk and there is an uneven ledge that he tripped over. He put his arms out to catch himself and then he heard a "pop". I immediately knew the exact spot he was talking about because I had hit the same place when walking Addyson in the stroller and almost launched her out of it! There's a tree with low branches right before the shift, so you're looking up to dodge the tree and completely miss the sidewalk "cliff".

The dangerous streets of Saratoga Springs

After a few hours in the ER, some x-rays, and some much needed morphine (which actually didn't work on him) we got the news that the radial bone in his arm was broken completely through and we would be staying the night at the hospital and going for surgery the next morning. Of fun! I forgot to mention that this whole time Ryan is shirtless and dripping sweat since he had just finished mowing and running lol. And PS- keeping a toddler entertained in an ER room where she can't touch anything, including her daddy, probably made for one of the most exhausting 3 hours of my life! Around 4:00 I took off to get us some lunch, since we never got to eat, and made plans for my parents to keep Addy since I would be staying at the hospital. Of course right when I got back with the food they were ready to move him to his hospital room. Once we got him settled in there I headed back home to let my munchkin run free while I packed bags for all three of us. My dad came and picked up Addy at our house and then took her to spend the night with her Debs and "bampa". Then it was back to the hospital for the night.  Ryan's mom made the trip up from Austin to be with her baby boy and I'm so glad she was there! I think it made me and Ryan feel a lot better to have an adult there lol.

Definitely broken inside there

The doctor required Ryan's arm to be raised to keep from swelling so that made for a long night for him, that is until they got him some Dilatin instead of morphine :) I don't think either one of us slept very good that night. Between his arm being raised and having nurses come in every 4 hours to my being pregnant sleeping on a rock of a couch and having to listen to the most violent vomiting ever from the man next door... well it was just a long night. But finally morning and surgery time came.

They wheeled him away from us right at noon and about an hour later came out to tell us all went well!! Praise the Lord! After one plate and 7 screws his little arm was back together again.

We spent the rest of the afternoon waiting to be discharged and get a flu shot, which is a whole other story. But we finally made it home where both of our mommies and our sweet girl were waiting. I wish we had a better story to tell like "he was attacked by a shark" or something but honestly I'm just happy it wasn't any worse.

It's never fun to see someone you love hurt and being married to a police officer I'm in constant worry and prayer for my husband's safety. Every day that he comes home to us without a scratch is a miracle. I know this was just a simple broken bone but it serves as a great reminder to thank God every single day for His mercies and grace!

 

Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice.

Psalm 51:8

Weekend Fun...last weekend!

I can do a weekend update a day before the next one starts right?? Well I'm going to! Last Saturday was a busy little day full of fun! We took Addyson to the zoo for the first time, had lunch with my mommy, and then went to our friend's Halloween party! Here are a few pics to recap...

*Pointing to the elephants*Watching the penguins be fed*Beautiful blue bird*

*Seeing the lions with daddy*GO ROOS!*More of our favorite elephants*

Addyson wanted to be our photographer the whole time!

Addy and Daddy

 

After the morning fun we met up with my mom for a quick lunch and then it was back home to get ready for the party. We were Addysitter-less that night so our little pumpkin got to tag along for the big kid fun. Once we got there Addyson was a little freaked out with some of the costumes so I decided to not wear my wig. I actually changed clothes right after our pictures so I could chase my tiny ghoul around and be a comfy preggo :)

Johnny Cash, his witch, and his goblin!

Besties!

 

God is so amazing for creating so many different animals to bring Him glory and for giving us such great friends!!!

It's a...



That's right we've got one of each now and we couldn't be more excited!!! I seriously don't think Ryan can get any more excited to have a namesake and a little buddy to taking hunting and fishing. I'm excited too, but I'm also a little nervous. I don't know how to raise a boy?! I grew up with an older sister so there were never any dirty boys running around. Our house consisted of lots of shoes, plenty of hair spray, too much make-up, and a constant stream of girl friends coming over to spend the night and keep our dad awake ;) I've thought so many times how I can't wait for Addyson to be old enough to have all her friends over, squished into the bathroom doing each other's hair before the football game that night like I used to do. But what do boys do??? Maybe our son will be putting on his uniform to play in the football game. Or maybe he'll be a trainer on the sidelines like his daddy was.

Well, either way I've got a lot of time before that happens, but one thing I do know is that this little boy is going to be a go-getter. He is quite the mover right now! Addyson was always calm and moved very little when we got to see her with the ultrasound, but her little brother is flip-flopping and doing barrel rolls! I'm definitely going to have my hands full this time!!!

God is soooo good for giving us a son! I just pray that He gives me all the patience I think I'm going to need for my newest little love bug!!!

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Here's a little look at our mini photo sesh with the wonderful Lauren Sellari! Addyson didn't know what to think about the silly string!!!

Thank you Lauren for our fabulous photos!!!

Weekend Fun

I'm sure everyone had a fun and busy weekend getting their little ones ready to go back to school!! My momma works for WISD, but she's the admin. asst. to the Superintendent and has been working all summer long so this week was barely a change for her :) We actually had a quite a busy weekend ourselves, which has been a rarity lately with me being confined to the house the past 5 weeks.

Friday started out with our normal playtime outside before it got too hot. Addyson loooves to play with her sidewalk chalk, chase Maggie, and play with her toys and never wants to come back inside for nap time.

Friday night this girl actually got out of the house by herself! Whaaaa? I seriously don't know when the last time this happened was. A group of us went to play Top Golf to celebrate one of my best friend's birthday! We went to the Top Golf in Allen, which is an hour northeast of us, so Ryan decided to stay home and keep the angel since we would be out late and he has to be up at 4am for work :/

The girls showing of their skills

Check out these cinnamon donut holes that came with chocolate and raspberry syringes to do your own injecting! They were quite delish once we figured out to take the cap off the syringes...

Saturday morning Addy and I got up and met my mom and sister in Fort Worth for some quick shopping and lunch. Miss A got a few more things for her closet and I got some needed decorations for the house. {House pics coming soon!}

I tried out the piggies on Addyson and I have to say they're pretty much the cutest thing I've ever seen! {I'm not a biased mommy or anything}

That night we spent the night at my parents because we haven't had gas or hot water at our house for the past week - looong story. {And yes we've paid our bills} We got up and went to church in Weatherford and then the whole family went to my Nana's for lunch.

Addyson got to wear Grampa's medal from the Hotter Than Hell race he did that morning

And Monday my two loves took off and went to Abilene to see the grands and great-grandparents. I didn't think it would be the best idea for me to travel 3 hours away from my hospital home base since I just got off of bed rest, so Ryan and Addyson took a day trip without me. I'm not going to lie, I did cry when they left, but I'm not used to being that far away from her and for that long. Plus all you other mommies were posting pics of your kiddos first day at school and I swear it felt like I had just sent her off to kindergarten! I'm blaming it on pregnancy hormones ;) They made it home late that night and I know they had so much fun seeing our Abilene family while I enjoyed being alone for the whole day and getting a million things done without my munchkin in the way. I actually ate three meals without them getting cold! Crazy!

Addyson thinks she can take over her cousin's swing

 

God is so good for blessing us with amazing family and friends to spend our time with! I hope you all had an amazing weekend too!!!

Here We Go Again!!!

So did the blog name change give it away or are you still guessing? Well don't try to guess anymore because...we're pregnant!!! That's right, in February we will be a family of FOUR! Slightly terrifying, but definitely exciting! I love my little Addy-girl to the moon and back so I can't wait to have another sweet baby in my arms.



So for those of you trying to do the math, I'm at the end of my 15th week and will be 16 weeks this coming Sunday. Baby number two is due 2/2, which means I will have two under 2 for two months! Two may be my new lucky number!!



So far this pregnancy has been a complete 180* from my pregnancy with Addyson. No morning sickness with A, but this time I had my fair share. With Addyson I only wanted sweet things, and this time I need salty and savory. Last time not a thing went wrong the entire pregnancy, and this time we've already had some scares and troubles.

The reason we've waited to share our exciting news is because I wasn't sure how long I would have this exciting news. A little over a month ago we had a scare and made an emergency trip to my doctor's office. Once we were there the Dr. did a sono and I saw that perfect little baby and the most important thing; a heartbeat. However we weren't in the clear. The doctor told us that the amniotic sac that the baby is in had started to separate from the uterus. Luckily the separation hadn't made it's way to the placenta which would have been a serious problem. Unfortunately there is nothing you can do for this sort of thing so I was put on bed rest. I've been on bed rest for the past month and it has not been a cake walk. Luckily I have the most amazing family ever who jumped right in to help with Addyson and all of our daily needs. Bed rest on it's own is really no fun, but bed rest with a 1 year old and while right in the middle of moving...really no fun. It has been quite a crazy month around here to say the least!



But the good news is that baby T is still perfectly healthy and growing just as it should be! The other good thing is that we did weekly check-ups, so we got to see our sweet baby every week instead of having to wait a month! We had another doctor visit yesterday afternoon and I'm clear from bed rest, woo hoo!! But I'm still not really allowed to do anything to make sure the separation doesn't tear any further. So while I'm allowed out of the bed and off the couch I still have to take it really easy. But at least life is going to go back to a little bit of normalcy!!

We go back to the Dr. in two weeks for our gender ultrasound so I'll have more exciting news soon! Until then we're pretty sure we already know what baby T will be :) But for now I'm just happy as can be knowing we have a healthy baby!



God is truly good for blessing us with another child of His to watch over. Babies are such miracles and I'm so excited to hold this sweet child in my arms! Hurry up February!!!

**Thank you Lauren Sellari for our wonderful pictures!**