Potty Talk

I really don't have much to say. We've not been doing a whole heck of a lot...some shopping, some playing outside, some chores...same ol' same ol' really.

We got the Elmo Potty DVD for Dalton at the library yesterday and he loves it and likes to sit fully clothed on his potty and watch it and this morning he asked to wear underwear. So, I let him. Even though he has never gone ON the potty. I figured as long as he stayed on the hard floors he couldn't hurt anything but maybe the underpants and the slippers he was wearing:


Isn't he so cute?

My mom was asking the other day if I was planning to potty train him before Wabie arrives. My answer is that I don't really have a plan. I might let him spend some time pantsless while it's warm out and see what he can do, but I'm not going to force it. Plus I worry about potential regression when Wabie arrives. Actually I'd worry about that from Easton more than Dalton tee hee! But anyway, he'll only be barely 2 1/2 when Wabie gets here so while I don't love the idea of potty training with a new baby in the house I'm also willing to follow Dalton's lead somewhat.

So far: he's not ready! :)

Easton was being super encouraging, though, this morning. And instructive as well. I've heard it's easier to potty train your second same gendered child and I'm sure this role modeling from big brother is a big part of why "they" say that. We'll see if it's true, though.

Anyway...looking forward to the weekend. We have that life/small group tonight with some people from the church. I need to make a little snack to bring so I should run.

Have a great weekend!

A Bit of Catching Up

Sorry for no post yesterday...how's that for a "Wordless Wednesday", eh? :)

Anyhoo, the boys and I went down to Gramoo's for the day--but more on that later. First we have to go back to Monday.

Monday afternoon was E's piano/keyboard class. He did really well once again. While he was in class Dalton and I actually left the premises for a couple of errands. Couldn't be gone long, though. We only had 45 minutes and the last 5 minutes of class we're supposed to join E and hear about what they learned and how we can help them this next week.

Tuesday was my OB appointment in the morning and in the afternoon we had gymnastics. Again, everyone did well. We went to the free play area after class with Tabor and Holton for a bit. Tabor's a real sweetheart, she's cut out to be a big sis for sure. She was even helping Dalton with some climbing he couldn't quite manage on his own. Very sweet. I'm glad we're getting some extra time with them this summer.

Wednesday didn't start out the greatest day for me. I was just in a sour mood, I guess. I'm not sure why, though...just one of those days. Unfortunately it made me really cranky and impatient and I was definitely tougher on Easton and lost my patience with him more than he deserved. :( Luckily things got a lot better for me once we made it to Gramoo's.

A few days ago we noticed that Wednesday was forecasted to be about 88 degrees. That's almost do-able for my kids and swimming so we made plans! Unfortunately, forecasts change and we were looking at low 80s instead. But, the boys were excited so I said we'd give it a try. First we went to my mom's and it was about 74. I wanted to hit the Gymboree sale so my mom offered to keep the kids while I shopped solo. Nice! I picked up lunch for everyone while I was out and brought it back to eat. Still it wasn't even 80 degrees but we couldn't wait all day so we got ready for the pool.

The boys didn't care about the chilly water a bit. They had a blast for longer than we thought. Dalton was shivering but kept denying he was cold or that he wanted to be all done. Easton could keep more of himself underwater than Dalton was comfortable with so E was fine for the most part. Easton can swim great underwater. And he can hold his breath for long periods of time so that he can swim longish distances...but the kid cannot stay above water if the water is too deep. However, he thinks he can and at first wanted to be in the big pool without his life jacket. I wouldn't let that last long because he would sink to the bottom, push off and come up for a breath before sinking down again. He looked like he was having the time of his life but Mama wasn't loving that so much so he got life jacketed and swam all around with that like he likes. Dalton even got to try out his life jacket for the first time but it didn't go as great. It tips him forward too much, unfortunately. We switched to some floaties and that was better but still not great. If I'd let go of him he'd shout, "Help! Help me!" even though he was fine. :) Luckily Easton wanted to get the life jacket off so he asked if we could go to the (warmer) baby pool instead and that's where we spent the rest of our time.

I'd left my camera in my purse in the car so I have nothing to show you. But the boys had fun and wore themsevles O-U-T:


In fact, I tried to stop at Kohl's to use a coupon but Easton could not wake up to go in. So we got back in the car to head home and yet again, he wouldn't wake up. I just left him snoozing in the well-ventilated car in the garage and kept checking on him. He slept until Jason got home and we left to go out to use our TGIFriday's BOGO and he finally woke up a little once we got there. However he was so subdued and snuggly and cuddled on my lap quietly till the food arrived. It was so nice...helped make up for how bad I was feeling about my mood earlier in the day.

Today has been an answer to prayer as far as my patience level goes. Hooray! In the morning Easton asked if we could eat breakfast outside. I agreed so we did that and then the boys played out there for awhile while I started a load of laundry and cleaned out the freezer among other things.

We got ready to head out for the library and ended up staying for Circle Time before heading to Wal-Mart where both boys behaved really well. I'm sure my better mood has a lot to do with their good behavior as well.


Dalton's being a faker:


This afternoon we've got a bit more shopping to do...gonna try to check out the Gymboree near us for any things they might not have had a the one by Moosie. And that's about it for now.

Trimester #3

It started yesterday. 28 weeks. Wow! I'm not gonna lie, I think it's freaking Jason out a bit that we're over 2/3 of the way done. :)

I'm in such a happy spot in this pregnancy right now. I feel great. No real complaints yet. I'm soooooooo glad that nausea that lasted for so long is gone and I'm not too big yet where I'm uncomfortable or anything. The other day I must've done more sitting than I normally do because my tailbone was pretty sore but it's been fine the last few days.

I sleep fine at night getting up just once, maybe twice for a trip to el baño. The weather has been cool if anything so I'm not miserable with the heat. If I keep up with my daily Coke I'm not swelling. I'm really trying to enjoy this last pregnancy and right now that's pretty easy to do!

No stretch marks from this kid...yet. I've yet to hit even the 10 pound mark for weight gain. Even though my belly seems super high I can breathe just fine. Seriously...there's not much to complain about at the moment. And I'm thankful for that, trust me!

Medically speaking, things are going great as well. I got the results of my recent lab work back and my PIH labs and glucose tolerance test came back normal. I am anemic but that's no surprise. I started on iron supplements the other day but I knew I would have to...I did with the first two kids as well and at this practice, pretty much everyone ends up on iron. Anemia during pregnancy is super common.

I had an OB visit this morning and my belly is still measuring right on track. My blood pressure was a mere 96/54 so nothing to worry about there at all. The appointment was very quick. Long enough for those things to happen and the doctor got me the stuff necessary to do another 24 hour urine collection and said it would be okay for me to "travel" rather locally (mountains) up to about 35 weeks or so. The doctor didn't even bother checking Wabie's heartbeat since I'd just come from an ultrasound...


That's yet another little profile shot.

And one of the freakier looking head-on shots of the face:


Wabie looked great! Still growing just fine. They estimated the weight at 2 pounds 10 ounces and she thought that was fairly average for 28 weeks but didn't check for sure. With actual size measurements, we're back to 5 days ahead of schedule, I think. And luckily (for me!) the sonographer didn't hint one way or another as to the gender or anything so that's still a secret, sorry to disappoint so many of you. :) But I'm happy!

Heart rate was 139. Jason hung out with the boys on the hospital grounds during my ultrasound and then the boys came in for my short appointment so J could get back to work. I feel a little bad for keeping him from seeing his smallest child but he's a cheater and can't be trusted not to sneak a peek at the gender when possible! :)


Another profile shot that includes more of the belly and makes Wabie look like a little gloworm. I have no clue what that spirally looking thing is in it's hands. I just love Wabie's little nub of a nose. My kids have cute little noses. All of 'em!

Anyway, that's the latest with me and Wabie, folks. Thanks for stopping by!

Weekend Wecap

We had yet another great weekend. Friday afternoon found the sky just opening up and rain and hail pouring down for quite some time:


Instead of getting to play outside the boys rearranged the furniture in the living room. Well, really they just pushed the loveseat across the room but my little Eastie discovered all the dust bunnies underneath and, all on his own, went to get the Dust Buster, he vaccuumed up the mess and then vaccummed under the other couch too before putting the Dust Buster away! I wanted to reward him but at the same time I want him to always have that helpful spirit without necessarily looking for anything in return, ya know? I gave him a quarter anyway. :)

And with the downpour outside we were starting to worry whether E's first t-ball game would happen the next day or not. Surely the fields were getting super muddy with all the rain. We'd have to wait and see.

On Saturday we started a new "game" with Dalton...I plugged a nightlight into a timer so that it wouldn't come on till an acceptable "morning" time. He's been waking up waaaaaaaaaaay too early most days and I was hoping to train him to wait a bit or even go back to sleep. I wasn't sure he'd get it, especially not right away, but Saturday morning we didn't hear from him till his light came on and him calling, "It's morning! Yook! It's morning!" I was so proud of him--and as a sidenote, he waited for his light both Sunday and today as well!!! Easton always waits till his clock flips to 7 so I wanted to get Dalton where he could wait quietly too for when they start sharing a room. Hooray for not waking up at 6:15! :)

Anyway, no one called Saturday morning to tell us the game had been cancelled or anything so I made special pancakes for my guys:

(That's supposed to be an "E" next to the baseball.)



Then the boys shouted things at Wabie and waited for him/her to respond:




E's game wasn't until 11:45 so after a stop at the post office we finally made our way to the fields. We made sure to pack chairs since the ground might be soaked:


First was a half an hour of practice. They stretched, they followed the coach around the bases, they all took turns batting while the rest of the team tried to field the balls, they tossed balls back and forth to each other. I don't think a single kid caught one but they were having fun:


After practice we went over to another field for the game. That's how it was with soccer last year too, practice for half an hour, game for half an hour. Anyway, the kids lined up to bat, of course they wear helmets for that:


Dalton did really well during E's activity...he entertained himself really well and stayed right by us so we didn't have to chase him all around or anything, he didn't throw fits about not getting to play...I'm sure it won't always go so well but this first time we were extremely pleased:




Easton did really well. He's grown up a lot since soccer last summer. He seems to "get" t-ball and he's slightly more aggressive
Look at that hussle!

But at the same time, he's still a team player:

He never got upset when he didn't get to the ball first or anything...unlike one of his teammates who spent a lot of his time laying on his stomach pitching a fit.

We were super duper proud of him. Here's a bit of video highlights from his first day as well:

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

We came home for D's overdue nap and some quiet time for E. When everyone was up we joined Jason on a drive into Boulder to switch out laptops. It was something to do and then we went out to dinner at what is usually one of my favorite spots in Boulder. I guess dinner isn't so much their thing, unfortunately. My favorite part of my meal was my pickle. And the boys gobbled up most of my sweet potato fries and ignored their untoasted, white bread, too much jelly, peanut butter sandwiches:


Dalton showing off what he'd colored:


Easton saw this statue out the restaurant window and wanted to check it out before we left:


D's finger is in it's nostril. Lovely:




And because I didn't get any special dessert on our anniversary, we made a stop into the Cheesecake Factory for a single slice of cheesecake to-go. Just for me! :)

Dalton amused us the whole way home:


On Sunday we'd decided to go to the second service at church. They were doing a "class" after the church for new people and we'd wanted to go to that. Even though we've been going regularly since January we really haven't made any real conncections or gotten involved in anything. And fellowship with others has been something I've really been looking forward to with finally finding a church. Until now, Dalton's probably the most connected in the church. People recognize him a lot! :) "Hey, it's Dalton!" "Hi Dalton!" Strange but true. Anyway, we showed up to church half an hour too early! It was funny to us that neither Jason nor I caught that...and we've been to second service before, we just went two weeks ago. Silly S's! :) Jason drove me by a Starbucks instead before we headed right back to the church.

We brought the boys in for the worship part with us and then I took them to class. Even without any bribes or promises of rewards both boys did great for their drop offs. Hooray! And when I came back to the service a man was talking to Jason inviting us to join their small group. This was something we've been praying for! So after the sermon we caught up with the man and his wife again...they have a 4 year old son too and we'll be checking out their "life group" very soon!

We picked up the kids, gave them a snack, and then dropped them back off (together!) into the "provided childcare" so we could go to that "get-to-know-our-church" class. They fed us and the kids pizzas and while we learned about the church and listened to other new people introduce themselves it still didn't really do a lot to make us feel more connected...but maybe did help us to see other ways we could become a real part of the church family. But praise God for sending those Life Group people our way during the service as that's really what I'd been looking for. I'm pretty excited!

We came home for D's overdue nap yet again and in the afternoon we just hung around, I ran to Super Targs for some dinner fixin's and that's about the end of our weekend.

Today finds me on my first day of my third trimester and our regularly scheduled doughnuts. Good times!

Another Doozy

If you think you might want to comment later you'd better start taking notes. ;)

With Carson here Wednesday afternoon and yesterday being our 5 year wedding anniversary, it's been a few days and a few bazillion pictures since I last updated. Let's waste no time getting started...quiet time only lasts so long, you know...

So, as I'd mentioned, the boys are taking gymnastics classes this summer. It was something I was wanting to save for a cooler weather time of year but when I heard that they offered classes for both E and D at the same time, I had to sign up. I'll have Wabie here in the fall and I'm not sure if I'll be up for a mom/tot class with Diddles anyway.

It's at a rec center for one of the neighboring towns so it's not too far away. In fact, it's the super cool spot where we had Easton's 4th birthday party and where we sometimes go to the indoor play area for free. Anyhoo...they have a really nice gymnastics facility. The boys were soooooooo eager to get inside:


These are the classes we are doing with Tabor and Holton. When they called the 4 year olds, E and Tabor walked in holding hands. Pretty cute. And Dalton cried because he wanted to go with them and not stay with boring ol' Mommy and Holton. But Diddles forgot about it soon enough when we sat with his little class. There are4 kids total, 3 of them boys (go figure!): Dalton, Holton, and Colton. Ha ha ha! The kids did some warm ups, then we moved over to the balance beams where Dalton rocked everyone's socks off (because he can walk sideways and backwards on the beam so well, somehow). They had a little obstacle course set up for the kidlets as well:


But by far the favorite part (for both my boys) was the foam pit:

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Deidra (Holton & Tabor's mom) and I were advised to stay out with our big ol' bellies and all we might not get out again! :) But Dalton had fun jumping in again and again. When E's class was over there I saw him being wild and crazy of course. That boy has no fear.

I was able to see Easton in his class but couldn't always hear and certainly couldn't get close enough for good pictures, this was the best I got when they were right by us:


The parts of his class I overheard was his teacher telling him, "You can't always go first" but she'd make the mistake of saying, "Who wants to go first???" and my little gymnast would raise his hand...what's so wrong with that, I ask you? He's 4 and he's willing...at least he's raising his hand instead of just jumping up or cutting in line. Anyway...

After gymnastics we walked out to a very ominous sky with funnel clouds! Ack! I turned on the car and they were giving a warning over the radio for right where we were but the kids were being loud and it was hard to hear completely what they were saying. I called Jason for more of an update and we started to scurry home. The sky was much better over our neighborhood so that's why we were heading that way despite the funnel clouds overhead. Kinda crazy. I think they're following Dalton...at my mom's on Sunday and then to gymnastics on Tuesday. :) The news reported that viewers said a tornado had touched down in our actual town but I never did go back and see if that was true or not...sometimes I'm better off not knowing these kinds of things, honestly.

One last thing from Tuesday...this is yet another reason why I try to stay out of maternity clothes for as long as possible:

Those are capris that clearly don't stay up on my belly and a maternity shirt that somehow isn't long enough to cover the stupid maternity waistband let alone my 6 month belly. I'm only going to get bigger...what the heck do I do??? I guess that's what I get for wearing other people's hand-me-downs that are maybe not the best fit for me. I should stop complaining...those capris and shirt were free to me, after all. Beggars can't be choosers, am I right? Still...

Wednesday morning found me fasting, drinking the sorta-icky glucose beverage, then taking the boys up to the lab for my glucose tolerance test and some additional lab work. They did really well while we were there and so Easton wondered why he was not given any stickers by the lab techs. :) Usually they get stickers even when they're not the ones getting poked. Oh well. And apparently too tired to walk, E hopped on with Lil' Bubbs on our way out:


I think he might've been hungry. I had them fasting with me so we could hit Panera nearby after the stick. Jason had a meeting out of town so he couldn't join us for breakfast:




We were still in Boulder when Carson's mom called asking for help that day. But it wasn't going to be till the afternoon so I took the boys to the free weekly show at the library. We got there and apparently 150 kids turned out for last week's free show so they had to move it to a church across the street...a bit of a pain but we got there in time. However, the day's entertainment did not. She got there 15 minutes after the show was supposed to start and still had to do 5-10 minutes of setting up her lame magic act. My poor children...and the others too. That's a loooooooong time to wait. I tried to get a candid shot of Easton sitting with his arm around Dalton but he caught me with the camera and instead wanted Dalton to look at the camera with him:


The show was too long for Dalton's age group and we couldn't get out of there fast enough when it was over. Plus we were expecting Carson soon. That went well. Carson actually slept really well while he was here...the only problem with that was that my boys didn't get to see him much. We were eating lunch when he got here, then my boys went in their rooms for quiet time and nap while Carson hung out with me, then Carson went down just before they came out and Carson was still sleeping when his mom came to get him. Oh well.

Wednesday evening I went to an info session about nursing school. I was wanting to hear about the prereqs and waiting list. It's not something I'm looking to do till all the kids are in school full time so I've got awhile, just wanted some basic info and to see when I might want to start on some of the prereqs. If I go to that school I'll have to repeat 3 classes I took in college because they're not current enough anymore. Some of the other prereqs, however, have no time limit on them. Whew. I came home to boys in bed already.

Thursday morning we woke up and Jason stayed home from work being that it was our anniversary. We went out to breakfast and the lady who ran the nursing school info session the night before was there. Kinda weird. And she recognized me. Also kinda weird. But anyway, we had a nice breakfast and then headed down to the zoo for the morning:






I don't think J's been to the zoo with us since Dalton was about 4 months old!


I had to try and try to get this shot:


Mostly the kids wouldn't look at the camera at the same time:


Or either of them would prefer alternate poses:


Goofballs.

Kinda weird to see hoodies in June, eh?


This was too cute, when we got to the alligators, Dalton pulled off his cap and held it up to the glass to show them the crocodile on it. He just held it there and held it there for them to see themselves on his hat. :)


Easton hopped up on this rock, posed, and asked me to take a picture of him:

Goober.

But it looked like a nice spot so Jason had him take one of us too:


Because we go to the zoo so often, it has become a lot less of a time to see the animals for the boys (especially E) and a lot more of a "what can I find to climb on/ride on/have as a treat"? kind of time. So, some climbing:




And we got a grape icee to share and then took a spin on the carousel:


Then we came home for lunch and regular nap/Q.T. Jason ended up feeling a little sick and we both snoozed on the bed for about half an hour while Easton played in his room. Then J felt better and got up to get E out of quiet time while I asked if I could keep sleeping...we had a late night ahead of us. When I woke up I showered and we waited for Gramoo to arrive.

She took our picture:


And a picture of our "five years later" family...we've been busy, eh? ;)


Jason and I bid goodnight to Gramoo and the boys and drove down to catch the train into downtown. First stop was Bubba Gump's for dinner. Not the most romantic of spots but we did eat there on our Maui honeymoon so it's all good and nostalgic. This is the third time I've been pregnant on June 11th but the first time I've known about it so I had to enjoy an alcohol-free "Lava Flow" (my fave drink from Hawaii). That was the best part of my dinner but Jason enjoyed his big ol' bucket of seafood:


We had wanted to walk to the Cheesecake Factory for dessert but it would end up cutting it close for our next plans so instead we bought candy bars from Walgreens hee hee!

Then we walked over to the Denver Center Theatre for the Performing Arts to see the Broadway Tour of "Rent". I was excited going into it. I mean, it was on Broadway forever (like, 12 years!) and won the Tony back in 1996. Maybe if we had seen it back then or even gotten into it back then (seems to have quite the following) then maybe we would've felt differently about the show last night but it was definitely not our cup of tea. a.) It just seemed sooooooooo dated...from the themes to the music it just seemed so 90s which is still too recent to be "cool" again. b.) It was kinda too predictable and not-so-clever (Spamalot was clever). c.) We're getting kinda tired of all the theatre stuff we've seen recently having the requisite drag queen role. However, that dude was probably one of the more talented actors with one of the more enjoyable roles, still, after The Producers, Spamalot, and now Rent all having a drag queen it just seems like someone needs to try something new. Anyway, we were kinda bored and felt like we were missing something as everyone around us just loved every bit of everything and would cheer wildly with anticipation after hearing the first few notes of a song. Clearly everyone else was allllllll into Rent and we were not:

That's not to say the evening was all bad. We love having our date nights and there really were some talented people up there and some of the singing was really impressive, but the show overall was just not for us. Which is fine.

It was raining and really late when we got out of the theatre so we dashed to the train stop nearby and rode back to our car before driving home again. Gramoo said the boys did fab and asked for some caffiene for her drive home...poor Gramoo. If it was late for me it was really late for Gramoo. But, we're so thankful to have her to watch the boys for us like that. They love their Gramoo!

Anyhoo, morning came a bit too early this morning so the boys and I made a stop for a venti Starbucks instead of a grande (we share) and we came to hang out at home while I did a bit of catching up from a day of being offline. Looking forward to the weekend!