It's a...

BOY!!!

Ethan

Okay, so most everyone has heard by now through Facebook, but we have a baby boy! Ethan August was born on August 9, 2010 (8-9-10; yes, we chose that date since it had to be a scheduled c-section). Ethan weighed 6lbs 15oz and was 20 in. long. He had his one week check up yesterday and weighed 7lbs even after dropping to 6lbs 9oz a couple days after being born. He is a good baby and sleeping really well. He has had no trouble with nursing other than he nurses so well that he is making me sore! I have been experimenting with different positions to help reduce the soreness and that is starting to help. All three kids are sleeping in the same room and we haven't had any problems with Ethan waking the other two up. When they do wake up, we just tell them to go back to sleep and they do. Adellyn has been wanting to pick him up and hold him, so I have to watch her closely...just as I had anticipated. Landen doesn't have much interest in him, but he does care about him. This morning he turned on the music on the swing and told me that Ethan needed to listen to the music! Both kids have been a little more naughty this week with hitting, scratching, pinching and generally picking on each other and even Elliot and me. I expected them to show some sort of jealousy, so I guess this is how they are showing it. Hopefully, once we get into more of a routine, they start behaving better. Until then, I will have to continue disciplining them the same as I have been and try to give them as much positive attention as I can so they don't feel left out. That's about all I have for now.

I have returned!!!

As anyone who reads this knows, our lives changed forever just 3 months ago. My parents were involved in a serious car accident that claimed the life of my mom and left my dad and the driver of the other vehicle fighting for theirs. My dad spent a week in the ICU in Kearney and 5 weeks in Madonna Rehabilitation Hospital for a traumatic brain injury. The driver of the other vehicle is still at Madonna and is paralyzed from the chest down. His wife and 2 young daughters (4 and 21 mo.) have been living in the housing provided by Madonna for families of patients who are there on a long term basis. They are hopeful that they will be able to come home soon. Please keep them in your prayers. Dad's recovery since coming home has been as difficult process. In addition to having to grieve the loss of his wife, he came home with restrictions on everything that he can do...no driving, no power tools, 24-hr supervision, no using the stove or going up and down stairs unsupervised, no alcohol, etc. He has been ok with some of that (he has had no desire to drink, which is the one thing I was worried he would struggle with the most), but has really fought the supervision. Those of us who have been there with him since coming home have struggled to let him be home alone because we know that if he should fall and hit his head, he could risk re-injuring his brain, and may never fully recover. However, he has promised us, and is keeping his promise, that if he could be allowed to stay home alone, he will stay in the house and do his exercises, watch TV, sleep or little chores around the house (all of which are allowed). He has been doing well with his therapy and has even been released by the physical therapist. He will still see the occupational therapist and speech therapist for a while, though. He is scheduled to return to Madonna August 10 and 11 to be evaluated by the brain injury team. We are all hopeful that he will pass the driving eval and that they will see some significant improvement all around. I'm sure that even if he passes his driving eval, there will be some restrictions as to what, when or how long he can drive.

The rest of us have been taking one day at a time. I am just a few weeks away from having baby number 3. I have been feeling pretty good and the heat has not really bothered me that much. Elliot and I went to New Orleans in the first part of June, so I guess spending a week in the humidity down there conditioned me for the rest of the summer and it hasn't been too bad. This past Friday at the fair was probably the worst because there was absolutely no wind and you could cut the humidity with a knife. Other than our trip to New Orleans, we have not done much exciting this summer. We have put a LOT of miles on our van with all the trips made to Kearney and Lincoln in the last 3 months, but I wouldn't call that exciting. We are adding on to our house to make room for our growing family. We are enclosing the front steps and extending the length of the garage to meet that wall. Above the garage will be our new master suite complete with a walk-in closet and a bathroom. The bathroom will take some extra work, but it will be so nice to finally have a second bathroom! Where the front steps are now, will be the stairway to the upstairs and double as a mud room. I'm looking forward to that as much as a second bathroom. If you have ever been to our house, you know that once you walk in our front door, you are in our living room and there is only a small area of linoleum just in front of the door. It will be nice to move the mess of dirty shoes out of the living room. Landen has had a lot of fun "helping" Elliot and Larry prepare for the new foundation which was poured last week.

This last week was our county fair. I worked at the open class building for entry day again...it was sure weird without my mom there. Thankfully is wasn't really hot that day and there was a nice breeze coming through the building. I didn't even break a sweat! I also entered some photos, canned food, fresh produce, some jewelry and flowers. I didn't enter as much this year as I normally enter, but I still made $65 in premium money! That night was family night on the midway and we could ride the rides all night for just $25 for a family (including grandparents)! The kids had so much fun and Adellyn screamed every time we had to take her off of a ride. We stayed home Thursday night and went to the second night of the rodeo on Friday. They started the rodeo with a beautiful tribute to my mom. Adam rode a horse, leading a horse with an empty saddle, Mom's chinks draped across and her boots turned backward in the stirrups while a fair board member and friend read about her contributions to the fair, rodeo and community. The flag also flew at half mast throughout the fair in her honor. Landen got to ride a sheep during the rodeo that night! He was pretty excited about it and got a dollar when he was done. Chris Blickenstaff (a family friend who I grew up with) held on to Landen as the sheep started running...that is what they do for younger kids and the first timers! Hopefully next time he will try to hold on by himself.

Landen is growing so much this summer. He has shot right out of his 3T clothes! He can still wear a few things, but he is mostly in 4T now. He is also about to outgrow his size 9 shoes. He talks all the time, now. Some days I can't get him to stop talking long enough to eat...I usually have to leave the kitchen so he can't talk to me. I do enjoy listening to him talk when he is playing with toys. His imagination is really growing. We considered sending him to preschool this fall, but we decided that he is not mature enough for school (that and the cut off is 3 by June 1...he missed it by 10 days). He is not very good about listening and following directions, so that is something I have been trying to work on. Besides that, we were afraid that having a new baby and going to preschool within weeks of each other would be too much change for him. We'll send him next year and if they say he is ready for Kindergarten at 5, we'll send him, otherwise we may wait to send him to Kindergarten when he is 6. Landen is completely potty trained, now. He has not had a night time accident in over a month. His daytime accidents are only because he won't stop playing long enough to go to the bathroom. I often catch him doing a potty dance and have to tell him to go to the bathroom. He will make up some excuse to not go, like, "it's dark in there" or "it's scary in there." My response is always, "turn the light on." At least he is getting better about putting is pants back on when he is done!

Adellyn is also talking all the time, now! She is constantly surprising me with words that I didn't know she knew. Yesterday, I asked Elliot if he wanted pancakes for lunch and Adellyn was sitting on my lap and she looked at me and said, "YEAH!" So, I got up and started making pancakes. Adellyn comes running to the kitchen, climbs into her booster seat saying, "pancake, pancake!" She knows way more words than Landen did at that age, but Landen also back tracked after she was born and he was just starting to really talk. Of course, the 2 words I hear her say the most are "no" and "baby." She LOVES babies...real and toy. I'm a little worried that when this baby comes home, she will try to "help" a little too much. My biggest fear is that I will leave the room for a little bit and come back to find Adellyn carrying the baby. I never worried about that with Landen...he didn't seem to have much interest in babies and still doesn't. When I ask Adellyn where the baby is, she lifts my shirt and points to my belly, then she lifts her shirt and points to her belly and says, "baby." I imagine she will probably start "feeding" her babies like me. She is a little copy cat and has picked up some bad habits from Landen. She used to eat really good, but now she pushes her food away like she has seen Landen do so many times. At least they both eat hot dogs, now. Until the beginning of this summer, neither of them would touch a hot dog, but we kept trying and now they love them...not the healthiest thing we could feed them, but it's easy! Adellyn has shown interest in potty training. In fact, the night before my mom died, I was just talking to her about wanting to start potty training because Adellyn was showing interest then. I was planning on starting that Monday, but I guess God had other plans. I decided that now that I am this close to having the baby, that my efforts in potty training would be lost because I most likely won't have the time to stick with it and she is also likely to back track. We can start working on it about the time she turns 2...maybe she could be mostly trained by Christmas!

Well, I think I have come to a good stopping point. I probably won't post again until after the baby is born! I hope everyone is having a good summer...enjoy what's left of it.

Easter to Fair 2010

Spring has Sprung!

I got a new diaper back pack and Landen thought it was pretty cool and decided to claim it. I think he looks like the kid in the frosted mini wheats commercial!

If you look close, you can see a bruise on Adellyn's chin and by the corner of her mouth...Landen shoved her earlier that morning. The bruises lasted several days.

Adellyn's new obsession...wiping the walls with a baby wipe!

Adellyn and Landen both hugged Peter Cottontail so much that they wore it out and it won't play it's song and hop and dance like it used to!

We put up a marker board for the kids in the play room...they actually drew on it side by side for a long time without fighting!


Things have been pretty normal around here. The kids and I are still going to MOPS twice a month and story time once a month. I still tutor, and the girls have been coming here more often than I have been going to their house...it's been working a little better because they usually come in the afternoon while the kids are napping. When they come in the morning, I don't have to work so much about the kids getting into something they shouldn't. I wish I could say that we are all healthy, but Wednesday Landen started to get a runny nose and yesterday Adellyn's started running. Both have been coughing a little, so I'm afraid they are getting sick again. We'll see how they are feeling after the weekend...but I'm worried we are going to start the week with a trip to the doctor.

Landen is all healed up from his meatotomy. He still seems to have a little bit of an upward stream, but it is not as bad as it was. Thankfully, he didn't back track in potty training! The week after the surgery, I let him wear pull-ups because he was sore and I had to put cream on twice a day that was kind of greasy (I didn't want all of his pants to have grease marks in the crotch). Once he was all healed, I told him that he had to wear under wear during the day and could only wear pull-ups at night. He fought it at first, but now he is fine with that. The best news of all is that he has started pooping in the toilet! I finally decided that his constipation was not going to get better unless I did something about it other than trying to include more fiber in his diet...I can't force him to eat it. I bought some Miralax and started mixing it in his juice everyday for a week now. A few days after starting him on Miralax (last Sunday to be exact), he had his first success in the toilet! Elliot was in the bathroom with him and Landen finished going potty and hopped off the toilet. Then, he got back up on the toilet and Elliot said he heard a "plop...plop." Landen had finally done it willingly, and he got his Hotwheels car that had been hanging in the bathroom for about a month! Later that day, he asked for a pull-up as he was dancing around, so I said, "You can get another car if you go poop on the toilet." Landen said, "OK," and ran to the bathroom. Later that evening we were at my parents' house and he asked for a pull-up again, but this time I couldn't convince him to try to sit on the toilet, so I let him use a pull-up. Since then, he has NOT used a pull-up and has earned 4 more cars! He has pooped more this week than he has pooped in one week for a very long time. I feel really bad that the poor kid had to deal with that painful constipation for so long, but I am glad that we have finally figured out what to do about it. I'm going to continue to give him Miralax daily for a while because I think we are still a ways away from saying he is over his constipation completely. However, he is just that much closer to being completely potty trained. We still need to work on staying dry EVERY night, getting him to go to the bathroom on his own (he wants someone to go with him for some reason), and using public bathrooms. He also thinks he still needs to take his pants completely off to use the toilet. I guess that is another minor challenge is to get him to keep is pants around his ankles instead of taking them off...maybe that would help with issue of him not wanting to put his pants back on! Anyway, enough about that!

Adellyn is really growing out of her baby stages and fully into the toddler stages...seems kind of sad. She is talking so much and she definitely has more words than Landen did at that age. I think her favorite work is "baby." She LOVES babies. I about couldn't get her away from our neighbor's baby the other day. I'm a little worried come August that she will either try to carry the baby like her dolls or she will smother the baby. I know she will give her little brother/sister lots of love, though! She really likes to help me around the house, too. The other day I had some packages of diapers to put away and she was bringing them to me one at a time! She also helped me put some pop in the refrigerator. She will follow my lead when I pick up toys. She is also very good about taking Landen's sippy cup to him. It is so cute to hear Landen say, "Tank you Adewyn," when she hands him the cup! The funniest thing she does is when she takes a wipe out of the box and starts to wipe the walls, floor and anything else she thinks of with it. She still screams just to scream or to get Landen in trouble. The ladies who watch the kids at MOPS have even commented on how she screams as her defense...she is the only girl most of the time and there are usually anywhere from 6 to 9 boys there. I guess there are some situations that I can't blame her for screaming!

It's supposed to be really nice next week, so hopefully we will get to spent lots of time playing outside. I hope it's nice wherever you are! We are definitely ready for spring!

Landen's Meatotomy

Just a quick update on Landen's Meatotomy (mee-uh-tot-o-mee). In case I didn't make this very clear before, Landen didn't pee straight. The meatotomy was make his "v" shaped opening into an "o" shaped opening. We checked into the surgery center a little after 6am on Friday morning. A little after 6:30, they called us back for pre-op. Landen was scared of toilets there, so when he couldn't hold it anymore, I had to force him to sit while he was screaming. Once he finished, he was ok with it, but the loud flush scared him again. He finally was able to settle down and relax after going potty and the rest of pre-op was pretty easy. We got him to leave the stickers with the leads in place by having him name the colors. The nurses and doctors were all impressed with how smart he is! They also couldn't stop talking about how cute he was that morning! We sent him off with the nurses for his surgery a little before 7am and at about 7:10, the urologist came out to tell me everything went great and to tell me how to care for it for the next week. He woke up around 7:30. He wasn't even confused like they were telling us he would be. We sat in the recovery room and watched cartoons until Elliot got back from running a couple errands. We were leaving shortly after 8 and we went to Perkins for breakfast! We decided Landen was doing well enough to stop a few other places before heading home. He slept most of the way home and we got there around noon. He wouldn't nap the rest of the day and even got to go play at Grandma and Grandpa Hoefs' house! He did scream and cry the first couple of time going potty on Friday and a couple of times on Saturday, but today it looks much better and he hasn't been saying that it hurts when he pees. The only thing that hurts now is when I have to put the antibiotic cream on. I have to stick the tip inside to dilate the opening twice a day to keep it from closing up as it heals. When I am finished he says through tears, "That's sharp, Mommy." I feel so bad, but it would be worse if it healed completely shut. We are all finally healthy...well mostly. I am on my second round of antibiotics, but I am feeling much better and the baby it moving a lot now! Thanks for checking on us.

Is winter over yet???

Wow! Where did February go? It’s bad enough that it is a short month, but it really seemed to fly by! Unfortunately, I was sick the entire month. I started with a little bit of a runny nose and a cough at the end of January. I kept putting off going to the doctor; thinking is was a cold that would go away on its own. I even went in for a prenatal check up (more on that later) 2 weeks into my cold, but the doctor didn’t think it was anything more than a cold. When I did finally go to the doctor, it was actually for the kids because they were also sick. Adellyn went 4 nights in a row with a low fever at bedtime and then when she quit running a fever, Landen started running one, only he still had it in the morning. When Adellyn coughed for about 5 minutes straight and Landen just looked miserable one morning, I decided to get them to the doctor. While there, I mentioned I have been fighting a plugged nose for 4 weeks, so she looked at me too. Turned out that we all had sinus infections. I’m still a little plugged up, but not near as bad (the antibiotics are still working) and the kids definitely feel better. They still cough a little, but their noses have pretty much stopped running. Elliot did not escape this round of illness. A few days later, he complained that his head felt like it was going to explode (that’s how mine felt, too). I called the doctor and explained that the rest of us had sinus infections and Elliot had the same symptoms, so they just called in a prescription to the pharmacy without having to see him. I guess we were due to be sick since we had been pretty healthy all winter up to this point.

My prenatal check up went really well. I was pleasantly surprised that I did not gain even an ounce since the last appointment! We also got to hear the baby’s heartbeat for the first time. It was between156bpm and 159bpm. That was at 12.5 weeks, I am now at 15.5 weeks. I have another appointment next week.

Landen is staying dry all day now. He even naps in under ware and wakes up dry. He still is not going poop in the toilet. I have a Hotwheels car hanging on the cabinet handle in the bathroom to give him when he does finally go. For a while, I don’t think he quite understood why he couldn’t have it and he would get upset when I told him he had to poop in the toilet to get it. Tonight, he was telling me that he can have that red car when he poops in the toilet, so now I know he understands. Hopefully he will do it soon! I have been trying to give him any foods that he will eat that will make his bowels move. I have even been adding wheat bran to some food such as malt-o-meal and spaghetti sauce. I am hoping that he will quit holding it for so long. He is also VERY independent and refuses help in getting dressed and doing many other tasks. If you flush the toilet for him, expect a melt down. The phrase heard from him several times a day is, “Let ME try it.” He also prefers to run around the house naked, so getting him dressed (in the morning and after he goes potty) is quite a struggle. He spent most of last week wearing pajamas because I couldn’t convince him to put anything else on. I figured as long as we were not going anywhere, why fight with him. I have found the best way to get him to get dressed is to say, “you do it, or I will.” When he gets distracted, I will tell him to be done by the time I count to 10. This doesn’t always work because I also have the rule that I count to 3 then spank if I want him to quit doing something or do something I tell him to do like get into his chair at the table. So when I am counting to 10 to get him to put on his pants, it makes him nervous and he gets upset because he is afraid that I will spank him if he is not dressed in time. As we keep working on that (and I remember to explain why I’m counting better) he will be less nervous when I start counting as a way to get him to hurry and stay on task. Landen is still a picky eater. If you ask him what he wants for lunch, he either said tomato soup [and grilled cheese] or fish sticks. He does occasionally surprise me and ask for something completely unexpected. The other day he asked for some raisins! I was happy to give him all he would eat. I could go on about Landen, but this is getting long. The only important thing I have left about him is his trip to the urologist. I mentioned in my last post that Landen pees up. The urologist said that having that extra piece of skin is not rare, but it is not that common either. He said the procedure to have it removed is simple and quick and he should only need Tylenol afterwards. It will probably take longer for him to go in and out of anesthetics than to do the surgery. It is scheduled for March 12 (next week). He has been talking about the doctor that is going to fix his pee pee and he seems okay with it. I’m glad we are getting this taken care of now so he won’t remember he even had this done.

Adellyn is little miss attitude. We have occasionally started letting her sit in her booster seat at the table for meals and snacks. If she sees that the booster seat is not in the chair, she throws a HUGE fit. She thinks she is pretty special when she gets to sit at the table! She is still a little too messy to give up the high chair completely. I’m pretty sure that when I am not watching (or when she thinks I’m not) she screams at Landen to get him in trouble. I have a tendency to blame him for her screaming, so I’ve started trying to observe the situation before bursting in to ‘rescue’ her. I even saw her walk away from Landen, throw herself down and scream. If I catch Landen doing something to her, I give him a time-out. If I don’t catch him, I ask him what happened and with the right questions, I can get him to tell me. Then I make them hug and kiss and say sorry. I try to avoid time-outs if I don’t see or hear what happened because Adellyn often instigates the problem by trying to grab something he is playing with. I have given Adellyn time-outs, but it is a challenge to get her to sit. Heck, it’s still a challenge to get Landen to sit even though he knows he is supposed to stay in the corner. She also likes to tease people. She teases with kisses…acts like she is going to give you a kiss, the turns away. She also does this when she holds out a toy or a piece of food, she pulls it away right before you try to take it. She has started doing something funny with our old cell phones that are now toys. She likes to put the down her shirt! I don’t know where she learned that, but it is hilarious to watch, especially when she has on footed pajamas because it gets stuck in her leg. I’m pretty sure she slept all night with something in her pajamas once. Adellyn is also talking a lot now. Most of what is says either not understandable or repeating what we say. The other day, Landen asked for some M&Ms for going potty, so I gave him 2. Adellyn saw them and started signing please to me. I said, “what, you want some M&Ms too?” She said, “M M too.” That was just too darn cute to refuse. She has Daddy wrapped around her finger and she knows it! All she has to do is she “DAAAdeee” and he will give her what she wants. Ok, so not always, but he gives in more often than I do!

Well, that’s about it for now. I will try to update after Landen’s procedure to let everyone know how it went. Enjoy the pictures.

February

Potty Training

Well, only one week (last Tuesday to this Monday) after we started working on potty training Landen, we can say that he is pretty much potty trained! I have potty italicized because we have yet to get Landen to willing poop in the toilet. Right now, he is either holding it for days or going in a diaper (or underwear...we had a big mess on Tuesday because I gave him wheat bran on Monday since he hadn't gone in 4 days). He has gotten up from his naps all this week completely dry! He even wore his underwear for nap time yesterday. Most of the mornings this week he has gotten up dry. Monday morning, he woke up a little before 5, to go to the bathroom. When I saw the light come on, I was worried that he turned on the bedroom light (which he has done before and woke Adellyn up), so I jumped out of bed to check on the situation. I was thrilled when he said, "Mommy, I have to potty," as he started to take his pants and diaper off. Afterward, he went right back to bed and slept in until about 8:30; and he was still dry! I have even stopped giving him M&Ms for going potty. I will still give him some if he asks right after he is done, but he hasn't even asked for a couple of days now. I'm pretty happy about that because I wasn't really sure how I would "wean" him off of the rewards once he got the hang of it!

Even though he potties in the toilet every time now, it doesn't mean we don't have messes to clean up...after all, he is a boy! However, his messes in the bathroom are not entirely his fault. A while back I noticed that he has a little extra piece of skin that causes his stream to shoot up. I was hoping that as he grew, it would become less of an issue, but now I realized that the problem is not going to go away on its own. I am going to take him to our doctor with me when I go for a prenatal check up next week to have her look at it. I'm hoping that whatever she decides to do doesn't interfere with his potty training or take us back to square one. Hopefully she also has some advice on getting him to poop.

New Year's Resolution??

Well, it's a good thing that my new year's resolution wasn't to be to keep my blog more up to date, because I would be off to a really bad start! This year so far has been a little rough, though. As most (if not all) of you have experienced, the first week of January was EXTREMELY cold. I would not have gone outside if I didn't have to, but I had to continue my responsibility of teaching Algebra to the girls I mentioned in an earlier post. My parents got lucky and were invited to join a friend in Cancun that week and they missed all of the sub-zero temperatures. Another reason I that this year got off to a rough start is because in the middle of December, I found out that I am pregnant! The baby is due August 22. I have been feeling both good and bad. I have had a hand full of days that I haven't been able to keep anything down. I have also had days that I feel really good. The kids get to watch a lot of TV the days I really need some rest. This past week I have been feeling much better, so I hope I am done with the morning/evening sickness.

Backing up a bit, this is how we celebrated Christmas and ended 2009: We had planned to go to Wragge Christmas in Pierce during Christmas weekend, but the snowstorm lead to a change in plans. The roads were not too bad around here, and we were able to make it to Becker Christmas on Thursday instead. Christmas Day we opened gifts at home then went to Grandma and Grandpa Hoefs’ for lunch and to open gifts there. That evening we went to Grandma and Grandpa Becker’s to spend the night. That was Grandpa Becker’s wish to have kids and grandkids spend the night and then open gifts in pajamas first thing in the morning! WISH GRANTED!!! That afternoon we went to Norton for Christmas at Great Grandma Nelson’s. We eventually made to Pierce over New Year’s weekend and had a great time. We also had a family baby shower for Elliot’s cousin Nick’s son, Kolten.

The kids received plenty of useful gifts that should help us get through the rest of winter. It has been way to cold to even consider taking the kids outside to play in the snow. We did finally get to go out when temperatures got up to the 30s! Landen lost his gloves the first time we took him out and came screaming back to the house with his icy cold hands. Adellyn wasn’t too sure to about making snow angels, but both kids liked getting pulled around the yard in their sled. The last time we got to play outside, Adellyn stood in one spot and ate the snow in front of her! It wasn't yellow, so I figured a little dirt never hurt anyone and let her have fun for a while!

This week has also been somewhat eventful. We have stayed home this week (except Monday for MOPS) to focus on potty training Landen! This is the biggest goal I wanted to accomplish before the baby is born. He is doing really good. I decided to go with the method where you have the kid go naked from the waist down for about 3 days. When I first read about this approach, I wasn't sure if I agreed with it, but for the last month or so, Landen would tell us that he had to potty after his bath and before we got him dressed. I decided this would be the method of choice because when he is naked, he can recognize the feeling of having to go before it happens. The first and second days, he had only 2 accidents each! The third day (Thursday) we had to put a diaper on him for much of the afternoon and evening because he hadn't pooped since Sunday and he wasn't willing/able to sit on the toilet because it hurt him so bad. He was in tears every time he got the urge to go and couldn't. I felt so helpless. :( Today (Friday) was day four and Landen wore underwear and pants all day today and was completely accident free!!!! I still put a diaper on him when he sleeps. Once he has daytime down pretty good, then we will work on waking up dry. I'm pretty sure he pees once he is awake because his diaper is warm when I take it off just after he is up. He is pretty excited about going potty in the toilet now. He does get 2 m&ms when he goes, but eventually I am going to replace m&ms with stickers. I'm considering doing a prize (like a Hotwheels car) when he gets so many stickers to keep him interested. I also plan to give him a prize for pooping in the toilet. I'm hoping that will help to keep him from holding it so long. Over all, I feel really good about the progress we have made this week and I hope he keeps it up!

Landen is doing and saying so many things that make my stop and realize that he is growing up! He is finally starting to eat better again. His favorite meal is grilled cheese and tomato soup. If you ask him what he wants to eat, he often says, "tomato soup!" He likes to tell me exactly what he did, like "I go potty. I flush it. I wash hands. I turn on fan." (this is, of course, after he has gone to the bathroom) Thursday night, he went into the kitchen and started climbing on a chair to get to the clock and told Connie and Larry that he needed to change the clock to say that it's ice cream time! He told me the same thing in the morning! He got that off of an episode of Curious George when George learns how to change the time on a clock! Earlier this week, he was trying to get me to go into the play room and I said, "No Landen. Mommy doesn't feel very good right now." Landen asked, "Mommy want a kiss?" He crawled up onto the couch and kissed my head and asked, "Mommy feel better?" What a sweet kid!!! He can also put on his pants...but he get frustrated easily and gives up. I have been really working to encourage him to keep trying rather that jumping in and 'saving' him. He can also completely undress himself. I just taught him how to take a diaper off. I'm kind of glad he never figured that one out on his own...I've heard horror stories of kids taking their diaper off and smearing the contents all over...yuck! I also figured being able to take his diaper off would be good for potty training efforts.

Adellyn is practically running now. She is getting better about playing independently for a short time. She really likes the Little People doll house that she got for Christmas. Landen also likes playing with it, so I sometimes have to break up a fight. She also likes to play with Landen's trains that he got for Christmas. Of course, this really leads to a fight! There is definitely no lack of sibling rivalry in this house! Landen has been getting a lot of time outs for hitting and pushing. I really need to figure out how to discipline Adellyn when she is the instigator. I don't want Landen to think I am picking on him because she doesn't get time outs. She is almost old enough to start doing a time out. She tries to copy what Landen does. Tonight, Elliot watched her crawl up on the couch and jump off into a pile of cushions and pillows like Landen does...oh boy! Adellyn loves shoes! She is always trying to put on her shoes. Sometimes she will bring them to me to put on. She is definitely all girl! Her hair is starting to get long and curly. It's still really thin, but I can see shorter hairs where it is starting to get thicker. I'm really looking forward to it getting to a point where I can braid it and put it in pigtails and ponytails! I have tried, but it is just to thin and fine to do anything more than a headband (that she pulls off). She has also really started showing us that she has an opinion and an mind of her own. She DOES NOT like to be fed. She is very independent and will scream and throw a fit if you try to feed her instead of let her do it herself! She also screams and throws a fit if she doesn't get what she wants. She is very moody some days and I wonder what she will be like as a teenager...watch out! She is also very cuddly and if you are sitting on the floor, she will most likely find her way into your lap. I always laugh to myself when she walks backward or sideways to get to my lap. She has had a little cold this week, but she is still pretty happy.

Sorry this got so long. I hope I didn't bore you too much. I'll try to post more updates on potty training efforts. I really hope the news keeps getting better and we are diaper free by summer and his 3rd birthday! Enjoy the pictures!

Christmas and January