Potty Training... oh my

This is a much much overdue post but I debated several times whether or not this was going to be something to blog about or not :).  Eliott decided that going potty was pretty interesting when he was 20 months or so.  He would watch big sis jump up there and a few times here or there would give it a try himself, usually right before bath time.  The potty training 'method' I used with Madison claimed that potty training was ideal at the age of 22 months, even with boys, since they are old enough to know what's going on yet not into their two's yet.  So.... I thought I'd give it a whirl.  The week before Labor Day weekend, the kids and I gathered some at-home activities and committed the next three days to sticking around the house while we stripped Eliott of his diaper and let him wander the house in a t-shirt.  Day one... dream child.  He went a few times down his leg, but seemed to figure it out quickly and headed to the potty for almost the whole day, even a #2 to brag about.  I thought to myslef, 'Wow, that was incredible'.  Well, day two was not quite a good and day three, a disaster.  He managed to poop on the floor several times and rarely made it to the bathroom to go.  Now I was stumped on what to do.  I was not a fan of cleaning up pee, but poop really makes me want to quit.  I said from the the beginning that I was not going to do this 'half-way' stuff... either he was going to have it figured out or we were going to head back to diapers and try again another day.  The problem I had was he was already waking up from naps dry, so I knew his body was starting to figure it out.  Plus, I have a hard time quitting what we had worked so hard on for three days.  I told Matt that I we would attempt to head back to life slowly and see what happened.  I wanted to give it through labor day and then make a decision.

So Friday night we headed to K-Mart to pick out some big boy undees.  I figured we needed to do it with Eliott so he would get excited about the whole deal.  This was a rough point... as we headed through the aisles looking for a 3T underwear, Matt looks over and T is peeing in the aisle at K-Mart without a care in the world.  He actually didn't quite miss a beat.  I thought to myslef, "What in the heck am I doing!?".  Well, I am a woman of my word.  We bought the underwear and I committed to sticking it out for the weekend.  Well, one package of undees was definitely not enough as I spent quite a bit of time changing underwear... the potty accidents didn't bother me too much but when he missed a #2, I was having a hard time with my decision.

Too make a much longer story shorten up, someone must have told T that he had until Monday because by Monday accidents were few and far between.  More importantly (to me) he had figured out when his #2's were coming and has yet to this day had poop in his pants (joy).

Since then, he has had one day of relapse although sometimes has a tiny bit of potty in his underwear before he makes it to the potty.  He is very do-it-himself at this whole process and usually takes his whole bottoms off, climbs up backwards on our 'tall' toilet and does his business... often without saying a word to me.  I am very proud of this little man and so thankful to have a brief moment in time of no diapers (except at night).  'sigh'... :)

Todd and Mallori's Wedding

I sure do wish I would have pulled out my camera a few more times during this fun day but between trying to get two little one's dressed and ready to walk down the aisle at Matt's brother Todd's wedding was plenty to think about :).  What a fun couple of days.  We headed down as soon as we could Friday to get there for the rehearsal and the rehearsal dinner.  I wasn't quite sure what either of my kiddos were going to think of walking down the aisle so I had talked it up a quite a bit to Madison before the big day.  She was very excited to wear her 'princess dress' and often asked when she was going to get to wear it.  We pulled up just in time for rehearsal and Madison thoroughly impressed me with how well she walked.  Eliott on the other hand, wasn't quite as sure.  I walked him halfway down the aisle and then showed him Daddy and he walked the rest of the way.  We had an awesome dinner and it was fun meeting some of Mallori's family.  Matt and his brother look very similar and I think it was fun for some  people to meet the brother... they are so similar in looks and mannerisms!  Todd and Mallori live in Souix City and we don't get to see them incredibly often but was a sweet girl Todd married... I'm thankful for a wonderful sis-in-law.  It's a bit of an instant connection when each marry men that seem so similar.  I am honored to be a Hoffert lady with her... we hope they move closer at some point!  We headed back to the hotel and tried to unwind our children to wake up the next morning for the big day.  Madison got to meet the big girls at the beauty solon and get her hair done.  She felt pretty special with all the attention and watched Mallori like she was a movie star.  We headed back to the church for lunch and pictures and the wedding was planned to start up at 3:30.  At about 3:28 Eliott was in my arms with his head bobbing and his eyes closing.  Madison and her sweet cousin Savanna (with two of Mallori's other nephews) headed down the aisle.  Madison and Savanna got to drop fall leaves in the aisle as they walked.   I woke T up, showed him Daddy at the front of the church and set him down.  He locked in the the leaves and darted for the first one.  Then he meticulously picked up each leaf that the girls had dropped, slowly making his way to the front of the church.  After what felt like a quite a while :), Matt walked up and grabbed him before Mallori walked down.  He immediately clonked out on Matt's shoulder for the rest of the service.  Madison found a comfy spot between the bridesmaids feet and sat on the steps up front for the service.  After a beautiful service we headed to the reception.  My wonderful parents had come down to the wedding and offered to take the kids after dinner (they were so tired!).  Love my wonderful parents (for more reasons than this).  Matt and I got to hang out until the wee hours of the morning (10:00) before we headed back to our empty hotel room for the night.  The perfect ending to a wonderful day.  We were so thankful to be a part of a great day... thanks Todd and Mallori!

Happy Fall...

.... Take time to throw some leaves :).

Fall Bucket List (#3) - Apple Picking

Well I wasn't so sure that 'apple picking' was going to happen this year.  I had heard that many places weren't picking because of an early frost this past spring.  So when our friends asked us to come over and bring a box for apples, we took them up on the offer!  Thanks Lindgren's!

Fall Bucket List Activity (#2) - Pumpkin Decorating

We hope to do some actual carving here soon but today Gramma Sue brought some little pumpkins over for the kids.   While Eliott slept, Madison and I decided to get out the glue and glitter (which she loves) and decorate.

Fall Bucket List Activity (Post #1)... Nature Walk

The kids took extra long naps today while I worked on some pictures so I new we needed to get out of the house for awhile tonight, so... I pulled out the ol' list and decided we needed to check off our first item... A Nature Walk.  My kids are familiar with one of these so when we got half way to the park, Madison asked where our 'buckets' were.  I had thought about bringing them but didn't realize you had to have a bucket for a nature walk... you do.  So we headed back, got our buckets, and arrived at Hartman.  It was a perfect evening to be out and Madison surely did spend the entire walk carefully inspecting each step for perfect leaves, nuts, bark, and whatever else looked interesting to fill up her bucket.  Eliott put a few leaves in here and there but mostly let her sister fill up his bucket.  The kids were especially fond of the camera tonight (a somewhat rare thing... it has been awhile since I've had it out) so we took full advantage.  We even used the ol' timer to get a few family shots.  Overall and great way to see God's creation and have some good family time.  Love my crew.

Fall List...

A couple of weeks ago, Madison and I sat down and made a list of all the things we want to do this fall.  Some ideas came from her and others from me.  Then we worked together to type it up on the computer (Madi chose the pictures) and we now have our list.  Two reasons for the list... I want to make the most of our fall as well as our time before #3 arrives plus I was getting pretty lazy about getting my big ol' camera out of the bag.  I vow to take pictures and journal about each of our activities which hopefully results in more blog posts and more pictures of our fun everyday life.  I 'bucket list' is included :)... look for posts to come.