Work trip

I had to go to Atlanta this week for work. I have to be honest, it was nice to travel without kids and stay in a hotel room alone. I even had time for an hour long run and a 30+ minute shower. But it wasn't all fun...the time change was brutal and the meeting I was there for was really long and mostly boring. It went until 9:45 pm the first night! The hardest part is always missing my boys. They were so sweet when they picked me up from the airport. Big smiles and big hugs. 

Christmas in Quincy

After celebrating Christmas with my mom in Leavenworth, we packed everyone up and drove to Quincy to spend time with Mike's family. Both of mike's sisters and there families were also there. 5 cousins this year :-) They have so much fun together. It snowed all day while we opened presents and played inside, so the next morning (boxing day),we bundled all the kids up and went sledding around the neighborhood. Oliver had so much fun pulling all the little kids around. Little Lily even got in on the fun!

Christmas in Leavenworth

We spent the two days before Christmas is Leavenworth with my mom and Lulu. There was over a foot of fresh snow and everything was decorated for the holidays. We went for a horse drawn sleigh ride on Christmas eve. It was a glorious sunny day and it couldn't have been more picturesque. Oliver loved it. He sat completely still on my lap (keeping me warm) and took it all in. Liam would have loved it if he hadn't slept through the whole thing! Fortunately there were two dogs running around after he woke up, so he was pretty happy. We had so much fun sledding, wandering around the shops, eating sausage and drinking beer, and watching Christmas movies. My mom even brought a little tree to decorate so Santa would still find us. She also made a full Christmas dinner before we left and we microwaved it for Xmas dinner. It was delicious! We all had a really wonderful time.

Oliver's 4th Birthday Party

As usual, we had to figure out how to have a party for Oliver amid all the hustle and bustle of Christmas. This year, we were going to be spending 2 days in Leavenworth before going to the McDonell's in Quincy for Christmas day. That meant that we would be on the road on his actual birthday, so we planned a last minute party for the day before. Fortunately most of the people we invited could come and we ended up having a great little party for him. He has two best friends at daycare: Steve and Davey. He was SO excited to invite them to his house (we don't know their parents so we had avoided having them over before). Davey was moving that day, but Steve came, along with two of his PEPS friends (Jackson and Katie) and the Klinges. Oliver was grinning ear to ear the whole time and showed Steve every single toy he owns and every square inch of our house. They are really two peas in a pod. He is always telling us things Steve says that are hilarious and it turns out, Steve has also been telling his parents crazy stuff Oliver says. Things get lost in translation some times, especially when it came to Steve's views on the presidential election. They are fire fighter fanatics and both have firefighter rain boots. They play elaborate make believe fireman themed games all day at school and they are both into Arthur. It is so fun seeing Oliver develop such a close friendship. Oliver picked out this zebra hat in Leavenworth because Davey has a raccoon one just like it.

New year's resolution to get back to blogging...

I got a tablet for Xmas and it had an app preloaded that pulled all my blog photos. It really brought back a lot of memories to see all those old photos. I haven't had time to do any posts since Liam was born, but I think this year I will make an effort to get back to it. So I will start with current stuff and fill in old posts when I have time (from what I can remember anyway). It makes me so sad that my boys are getting older and I really want to have some way to remember the fun and sweet details of their childhoods.....

Adventures in potty training round 1

After having two boys in diapers for 3 months and Oliver about to start preschool, we decided it was time to get Oliver potty trained.  We had been putting him on the potty off and on over the past 6 months or so, but never really put much effort into it and it wasn't going anywhere, so we decided to do one of the "3 day potty training" approaches over the labor day weekend.  This method is basically to get rid of the diapers, fill him full of drinks and salty snacks and stick on him like white on rice for the next 3 days.  The major reason I liked this method in particular was the emphasis on positive reinforcement - you frequently ask them if they are dry and when they say yes, you cheer and hug them, etc.  Then when they say they aren't dry or they are starting to go, you whisk them off to the potty so they learn how to tell when they are about to go and to get to the potty.  We also did a sticker chart, small trucks for pooping in the potty, and the ultimate reward: going to the space needle when he was done. The weekend started off great - we were all very enthusiastic about it and Oliver was loving the opportunity to drink juice, eat jello, popsicles, popcorn, goldfish crackers, fun fruits, and potato chips.  Day 2 was a little more stressful, partly because this method said to get rid of night diapers too, which resulted in having to get up to change the sheets in addition to waking up with Liam...we were tired and bored (you have to stay within running distance of the potty).  Oliver also had only pooped once, which is very unlike him and made us worry he was getting constipated...So we filled him full of blackberries and as much high fiber foods as he would eat.  We were getting the sense that he was scared to go poop in the potty, so I decided to get a little creative.  I rang the doorbell without Oliver knowing and when he answered it, there was a "poop stick" waiting on the doorstep that had been left for him by the "poop fairy" and it would help him poop on the potty without being scared : ) Not too bad for a quick improvisation of stuff I had lying around the house!  On the 3rd day, we were all getting pretty annoyed with the constant "are you dry?" "tell me if you have to go potty" dialog and decided to take the show on the road.  We walked down to Seward Park with the potty and Oliver did a fantastic job!  He peed in it at the park and stayed dry all the way to get a treat at the coffee shop.  He has also stayed dry for all his naps from the very first day.  It has now been a whole week, including two days at daycare (with multiple outfit changes...) and he hasn't had any accidents in 3 days (and counting!).  We decided to put a pull-up on him at night because he has never gone all night staying dry and we aren't sure he is physiologically able to do this yet.  He got really mad when we put the pull up on him though, yelling "I wear underwear!", so we put his underwear on over the pull up and tell him these are just special sleeping underwear...

So today was the big reward! We went to the space needle (potty in hand) and had a great morning (accident free with two potty breaks). Oliver is very proud of himself and random people have been great too - everytime we stop for an emergency potty break on the street or at the park, people cheer him on : ) He starts preschool on Monday where they have a miniature version of a regular public restroom with little stalls and sinks, so hopefully he will get more comfortable using a regular toilet (he is too scared to even sit up on our toilets at this point) and we won't have to cart his potty around with us everywhere...

Way to go Oliver!!!

PS- I finally finished this post 2 years later, and we are just about to start potty training Liam.  Wish us luck!