And we're "potty trained"... well, sorta

We've been trying to work on potty training for quite some time now, although it's been intermittent.  Lately, we've buckled down to try to get him to sit on the potty consistently.  He never minds sitting on the potty (especially in the beginning when he'd watch Cars as an incentive), but he never seemed to quite understand what I wanted him to do.  Every once in a while, he'd go on the potty and we'd be excited, as would he. However, in the past two days, he's seemed to have gotten it. 

Yesterday, I walked Thomas upstairs to sit on the potty before going to bed. Thomas sat on the potty, and just kept goofing around, swinging his head, laughing, etc.  After a good 15 minutes of sitting and waiting for him to go, I finally closed my eyes and prayed that God would give me the grace and patience to handle this. I opened my eyes to my adorable son, with his nose practically touching mine and a huge smile on his face. After a good laugh, I said, "Thomas, can you please put water in the potty?" He paused and concentrated and peed!!!!!!!! It was amazing!

This morning, I wanted to build on our success. As soon as I got him out of bed, I told him he had to go pee before we get breakfast. He walked over without a fuss and sat on the potty. He said, "Listen, it's coming," then stood up to show me. I congratulated him, but he said, "okay, I have to go more now," and he did. I was so proud.  Later that evening we had multiple more positive experiences and he seems to understand when he has to go and when he does not.

I'm sure Thomas will love me for posting this later in life. That's what mom's are for, I suppose. It's been a slow process, but it's come with some joys, like hearing a sweet boy cheer every time you flush a potty in the house.

Bridget's major milestones

Much has happened that we haven't documented on the blog.

(From a few months ago)
Bridget loves to sleep curled up on her slide. It's adorable. Her favorite pastime is to play with her fingers. She spends hours a day holding her hands together and playing with her fingers. A few days ago, she discover she has toes as well, so I think she's set for a while as far as entertaining herself.  She's never been a huge fan of tummy time, although when we lay her on her belly, Thomas quickly lays beside her to encourage her to roll over or holds up a toy to distract her. He's a good big brother.



At the end of December, her eyes appeared to be turning green. It now appears they are blue with some green in the middle. They may still be changing, but they are beautiful and compliment her long, beautiful eyelashes well.



She's rolled over several times, most notably New Year's day when she performed for an audience several times. She seems less excited to roll over since she's discovered that she doesn't much care to be on her belly once she gets there.

She loves to be tickled and has started to laugh.

What we've been up to

We haven't been blogging as much as we used to, but part of this is because we've been busier than ever.  We've been....

dressing up like Papa

playing in the snow

growing a mustache

or two

smiling at Daddy

dressing up like Dr. Seuss characters

suffering through tummy time

sledding with Papa

rolling over

drinking

playing with our hands

 and running through the kitchen

How old are you?

A few weeks ago, Monica was watching the kids and asked Thomas how old he was. Thomas responded, "18 months." We've never taught him that. Apparently he overheard us saying this several months back and has remembered it. It's amazing(and a bit scary) to see how quickly he picks things up.

Mon-ca arrives to help

Our friend, Monica, has arrived to help us care for the kiddos for a few months. She's wonderful and the kids love her. She's great at calming Bridget and she has even gotten Thomas to whisper, even when that's not her intention. She's helped Bridget relearn how to take a bottle, which is truly a blessing. It's nice having her here.

And we're back...

So the blog has been out of commission for a while, due to our inability to post pictures and our lack of time.  We think we've resolved the photo issue, so we intend to resume the once a week posts.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

We think we figured out some of our picture problems and hope to post much more in 2013.  Here, in part a test to see if it works, is our family Christmas picture.