Potty Training is Draining

Hello, it's been a heck of a week. Potty training is HARD! We started Monday. I do the 3 day potty training method (it takes me longer than that). Day 1 I put Piper in underwear stuffed her full of drinks and watched and waited for her to spill and I rushed her to the toilet. Of course the first time she did was when I was feeding Ryan. I was sitting right in front of her feeding Ryan and watching and waiting. She started to go and I had to hurry and put Ryan down and run to the toilet with Piper. Cute Ryan didn't even fuss he just laid on the ground like a slug until I could come back and finish feeding him. Love him! Anyway repeat a bunch of times that's pretty much day 1. By Tuesday I thought she had it, she actually told me she had to pee and she did it in the toilet! Success! Usually at this point we are pretty much good to go. Day 3 she regressed big time and we had all kinds of fun times that day. Day 4 she did great all day. Day 5 she had one accident. Day 6 one accident. Day 7 one accident. So we aren't quite there yet but we are getting there. After the first night she has woken up dry every morning. That's amazing! She can hold it for like 13 hours. Sweet! Pooping is an entirely different story. It always takes my kids a couple of weeks to get that one down. With potty training you can give them tons of juice and they have all kinds of chances to practice peeing and learn but with poo not so much. She hasn't successfully pooped in the toilet yet. She does know the urges and she will sit but she just can't do it yet. It will come. We will see what next week brings. Good times over here!

That pretty much consumed my whole week. With this method you pretty much do nothing but stay within a few feet of your child and watch and wait. It's really hard but it's super effective and once my kids get it down they are champs! They never have accidents, they have great bladder control day and night, they take care of themselves. I swear by this method 100%.

Saturday night I went with some friends in my ward and we went to Sherri's for dessert. I got one of their pie milkshakes. Chocolate peanut butter pie milkshake...amazing! After a long week that was great! I had a super busy Saturday. For various reasons I was in the kitchen cooking practically all day. Like I said it was great to escape for a while.

Kid Quotes:
Corbin:" Gabby it's me Corbin, let me in!"

Gabby: "Mom, Princess Mi Amore Codenza hates Twilight." Ha I don't know why this cracked me up. Gabby!

G: "My tummy says, "I don't want any more tacos" my tummy says "I want treats and candy."

Piper: "Let's hit him dad. Come on let's go!"

P: "Bye mom going to the ore (store)." She blows me a kiss and walks away, I follow her. "Don't follow me mom."

Oh wintertime entertainment activities. It's January right? Winter you are so long.

Day 1 potty training.

Ha. Piper takes a nap in the kids room and this leaves Gabby and Corbin without a bedroom for a few hours. Corbin got something on his shirt and I wanted to wash it immediately. I didn't want to wake Piper and get a new shirt for him.

I thought I would see how he fit in his exersaucer. He's not fitting yet.

Preschool activity with potty queen and Princess Aurora.

Gabby has her ponies lined up on her pony book along with Piper's Minnies. My other kids do not play with their toys like Gabby does. I love it!

Piper asleep on the way home from church. 1:00 church you are not my favorite!

Weekly Update

Scott went to Texas this week. After having him gone for a full week to Vegas, 2 days was nothing! Of course we missed him but still. We did the usual activities this week. On Friday we went on a five hour date! I think that's the longest we've ever left our kids with a sitter. We celebrated my twin brothers Alex and Lance's birthday on Friday. We drove to Kuna to their famous Mexican Restaurant. It was good! It was crowded! Thank goodness Anna made reservations. We took our little buddy with us. I had him laying on my lap and the server put the salsa on the table and he spilled some and it landed right in Ryan's eye! Oh man! That was sad. He was a cute little bubba. He didn't even cry, but he did let out a few protest yells and pulled some very sad faces. After dinner we drove to Hart and Jory's and had dessert, chatted and played truth, truth, lie. Hilarious! Oh man when 4 of my brothers get together we can have some good laughs! On Saturday we fed the sister missionaries. I made Cafe Rio pork salads. So good! I never make those for just my family so it's good to have an excuse to make them. Yummy!

I'm volunteering in Corbin's class again. I go in for an hour on Fridays and each student comes out and reads a book to me. It's kind of tedious, but I am glad that I can come in and help Corbin's teacher out. This lady teaches my son everyday and I'm grateful. I'm happy I can help her out. I also like interacting with his classmates a little bit.

Corbin quote: "We're potty training tomorrow? Awesome!" I'm going to attempt potty training Piper again. (Woof! and wish us luck). Ha. The kids get so excited because that means juice, crackers, and treats for all.

Gabby quotes: "I'm glad I winned. I like to win." Who does she sound like? Ha. She said that after she beat me in a game of Candyland.
 "Mom, Corbin thinks gooder is a word and it's not."

Piper quote: "Building a snowman mom?" Me: "You're building a snowman?" P:"Lets do it!" Keep in mind there is no snow outside.

Funny kids.

Ryan is such a happy cute bubba. He gives me cute smiles all the time and he is very expressive with his eyebrows as well.

Not a good picture but here's the girls playing at the indoor park.

Gabby took this picture of me trying to give Ryan a toupee.

Selfy! Ha. This is not cute but holding this sleeping bubba like a football on me arm sure is.

Seriously? Some how now that Piper sleeps in a bed she has CRAZY bed hair every morning!

Love!

Cute Gabby. She is such a girl. She played with the trains but she had me help her tape a pony on top.

He's starting to talk more. It's hard to capture it on camera because he doesn't do it for very long. It's like he will start singing and by the time you try to film it he's not singing any more. When he does talk, it is very cute.

Snowman Snow!

This week has been good. It was definitely time to get back to our regular schedules and routines.The Bachelor started again which I am very happy about, not because of the show so much (it's stupid and yet I watch it) but because I go to my friends house and watch it every week. I so look forward to that! So hooray for a new season and a weekly date with my friend. On Wednesday night we had a girls night. We haven't had one for a few months. That is always a good time, we usually just eat snacks and chat late into the night. On Thursday it was my sister-in-law Katie's birthday and all the Beal wives and myself met at Red Robin for lunch. We hardly ever all get together so that was a fun time.

It finally snowed perfect snowman building snow! I really hoped that it would. We woke up to several inches of wonderfully wet snow Wednesday morning. After lunch the kids and I played in the snow. It was a warm day too. I'm telling you perfect conditions!

The indoor park (i.e. a church gym chuck full of toys) opened for another season of cheap indoor fun. I took the three little ones to that on Thursday while Corbin was in school. I try to go there at least once a week. On Friday I ended up babysitting most of the day. A four year old girl was over for 3 1/2 hours in the morning and then in the afternoon Corbin's friend McKay and her 4 year old sister came over for a couple of hours. Their mother is my visiting teacher and she is pregnant and she gets more miserably sick than anyone else I know. She is "fiercely independent" as Scott likes to call her. I was able to convince her to let the ward bring in dinner once a week and she let me take her kids off her hands for a few hours on Friday.

On Saturday I went with a friend to a baby shower. We had a fun time talking there. We talked a lot about labor and delivery which is one of my favorite subjects. Ha. Afterwards we made a pit stop at my house and snagged some lunch. I fed Ryan and then I left with her for a couple of hours to help her shop for a dress. It was fun to get away for a few hours. 

Piper is so happy to be in the big kids' bedroom. I cannot even believe how smooth that transition went. Amazing! All three kids go in their room and go to bed. In the afternoon Piper goes in on her "purple bed" and lays down and takes a nap just great. On Friday while I was babysitting I had her take a nap on my bed and she just laid down and went to sleep great! I think there can be some real lessons learned and skills developed having to adjust to living in a small house. Ryan has been moved into the closet now and let's just say having four kids in this house is just peachy. I mean hopefully we will move into a bigger house someday, but for now less house for me to clean right?

My cute boys.

I love how Ryan is looking at the camera! So cute!

My reading buddy.

Piper did not want to be in this shot. In fact I took her right in the house after I took this picture so she could take a nap.

When I came home from girls night at 12:30 am the snowman was leaning. No surprise it didn't survive the night.

Cute bubba sucking his thumb at church. This little buddy has started sucking his thumb again. I think I'm doomed!

You can't really tell in this picture but Piper has a mouthful of snow. She loves to eat snow.

Cute, wild Piper.

 

Thumb sucker! I have another picture showing him sucking his thumb right next to his binky. He actually pulled his binky out and started sucking his thumb.

Piper with some serious bed head. Gabby's hair looks like this in the morning as well.

Ryan's 2 months

Ryan had his 2 month doctor appointment. He is as healthy as a horse. I just love him! He is the cutest sweetest little bubba in all the land. We also blessed him today. I'm so happy to be this little guys mommy. Wow how lucky am I? He has started sleeping through the night every night! He's a little sweet heart who loves to be held and he loves to smile and he loves to spit up. Ha!

His 2 month stats:
Weight: 13 pounds 8 oz. 90%
Height: 23 1/4 75%
Head circ. 41 cm 75%

Click here to see Piper at 2 months. Scroll halfway through the blog post. You will also find a link to see Gabby and Piper's 2 month stats. If you care! (This is mostly for my benefit).

Scroll to the post below to read about our Rockin' Cannon New Year's Eve Party!

Happy New Year!

We are still on Christmas break over here. My kids haven't hardly left the house all week. I think it's time for us to get back to our regular routines of school and story time, etc. On Monday I had to take Ryan to get his shots. I will do a separate Ryan post in a bit. On Tuesday I got my house ready to host the second annual Cannon Rockin' New Year's Eve party. I was making treats and decorating for my adult party and felt bad for my kids, so very last minute I came up with some kid party celebration things. I blew up 3 balloons with a time on it and each of the kids got to pop a balloon. There was either a treat or game to play in each balloon. At 8:00 they rang in the New Year and went to bed. They were little sleeping troopers because we were LOUD and not one of them made a peep. A few couples from the ward came over and we played games and ate food until 2:30 in the morning. It was a blast! New Years day was pretty low key and boring. I was too busy planning the New Years party to try to even think about making a big dinner for New Years. I decided our family will not have a big dinner on New Years day. I would much rather focus my attention on a fun party on New Years Eve for my family and my friends. 

Scott decided to turn the bunk bed he made for Corbin and Gabby into a triple bunk bed. He took the kids to Lowes on Thursday and bought all the wood and cut it up. I was sick Thursday night with a headache. I even threw up. Not fun. Luckily I felt better on Friday. Scott figured out how to stream the internet to our TV (it's this whole big complicated thing). Anyway he did it and he's so excited he can play his video games online now. We even signed up for Netflix and watched the not so new James Bond movie. There were complications and he had to re-boot or something several times. I'm not sure it's going to be quite the Netflix dream I've been dreaming about. I'm glad he can play his games online at least. 

On Saturday some of our friends went to breakfast at Kneaders for my friend Jen's birthday. We talked a long time at Kneaders and then we went to Hobby Lobby afterwards too. We were gone a long time and Scott was home busily building the kids bunk beds and poor Ryan hadn't eaten (he was asleep most of the time) I thought Scott fed him the bottle I left for him but he hadn't. Poor Bubba. He was sure happy when I got home. I spent the rest of the day running errands and cleaning and cooking to get ready for Ryan's baby blessing today. 

We blessed Ryan today and Scott did a good job, although we could hardly hear him as the microphone wasn't working. Good thing Scott's got a loud deep voice. My parents and Scott's parents came into town for it. My siblings in town came with their families. We had a nice lunch afterwards. It was fun visiting with everyone. Scott's parents are staying the night at a hotel tonight. There's been talk of going swimming at the hotel at 6:00 in the morning. Ha! Count me out.

As each hour passed we would pop a balloon and do the activity in the balloon. 

Awesome bed! First night was a success other than Piper falling out in the night (don't worry she's on the bottom). 

Here's some video of some of our activities. The first two videos are of "the mating game." You got a piece of paper with an animal on it and you had to call/act out your animal and find your mate. Funny!