Daddy Daughter Night--Survivor Style

Autumn and Matt had a great night out at our ward's activity day Survivor Challenge. They won the "Quick Thinking" award. Autumn always loves spending any alone time with her daddy.

I love my girl!!

I promise, she can smile. We just haven't caught it on camera yet. But I still love her.

Blessing Day

Jersey was blessed on February 1st. Matt picked out her dress and I did her hair. Just Kidding! It was such a great day. Matt's sister Kelli had a baby a few weeks before Jersey came so we did a marathon day and had both blessings. It gave us a lot of time to socialize and eat of course. Matt's mom Patty was so willing to have the luncheon at her house which not only is big so everyone fits, but that made it so Kelli and I didn't have to stress getting everything ready at either of our houses. I am so grateful for family. They are golden!

These are the babies with the babysitters. I didn't have to hold Jersey all day except while feeding her obviously. It was a nice little break. Sara with her little brother Mckay and Bronson with Jersey.

You can't tell that Bronson is great with kids at all in this picture..... just precious. Look at those cheeks on Jersey, it's all that eating.

I love that McKay has hair. I didn't get a picture of him in his blessing outfit but it was adorable. It was knitted and had knee-high socks. And he did get his hair done. Sara is so beautiful. She is one of those nieces that had just blown me away, she has grown up to such a great person.

Potty Training Success!!

We made it. Creed slept through the night, in underwear, and woke up dry. He can go 3+ hours between potty trips and hasn't had an accident in awhile. (Minus the time he flooded the bathroom on Monday and got sent to his room. He knows how to play the system.... accident=freedom.) Annie still stays dry every night and can put her underwear back on independently. I am calling it a success and we only have one more to go in about two years. Yeah.

Update.....after 1 week

Potty training has been going on for one week now. Here is the results:
Annie wears a diaper every night and is dry every morning. She can hold it for a few hours. After the first couple of days of reminding her, she now tells us when she needs to go--including #2. She has not had any accidents in at least 4 days.

Creed tried underwear at night for three nights and couldn't stay dry through any of them. He is sleeping on a crib mattress on the floor of our room so that when I am awake feeding the baby, I can take him to the bathroom. Even if he is dry during the night, he is wet by morning. Also during the day he uses the bathroom about every 30 minutes. This has been a little bit of a problem during preschool and church, but thank goodness he has really understanding teachers. He has had a few accidents...usually all from not asking for help when he needs it. So we use a pull-up at night and make sure he is getting his "earned" chocolate candy to keep it positive.

We have been out of the house and didn't need any "change of clothes". For me that is the real success. Things are not perfect yet, but definitely better. In fact all three kids pooped today at the same time and I only had to change 2 diapers. (Both Jersey's of course.) They are getting it and I am thrilled!!!

The Before

So it's no secret that Creed has struggled with the potty training. He is now 3 1/2 and "refuses" to use the potty. He won't poop in it at all. In fact Annie poops in it more than him. Now that Annie is two, we thought maybe we would try a long shot and potty train them both. We have tried everything you can find on google for Creed so I wasn't sure what would work so I made it easy and used what we had. Halloween candy bars from the freezer for #2 and Otterpops from last summer for #1. Creed only had one accident all day and it was at 9 o'clock at night. He even stayed dry during a long nap. Annie on the other hand went through 6 pairs of underwear today. The first pair was the best.....Annie ran in to go potty and forgot to pull down her underwear. She started yelling "mommy" because the pee was squirting out all over her legs. Most accidents were on the kitchen or bathroom floor and I only had to clean a spot on the carpet once. Pretty good for the first day and much better than Creed's first try. That was three days of 10-12 pairs a day and a lot of "deep cleaning". Yuck!!! Two weeks and hopefully it will all be over. Then only one more!!!!!

My Crazy Girl

Annie turned two!! We kept it low key by taking the kids to McDonald's for happy meals and to play in the play area. I know...you are thinking "lame", but we never take our kids to McDonald's and it costs us a fortune. The kids loved it, but we learned that even kids like apple dippers better than fries, not all hamburgers are like Wendy's Jr. bacon cheeseburgers, and if you leave chocolate milk on the table unattended...the boy from the other table is going to swipe it. After all that fun we came back home to open presents and eat dessert. Autumn was in charge of the camera because Matt was trying to finish up a work thing and I was feeding a baby.

So during all that, Annie decided that she wasn't waiting any longer and helped herself to a cupcake.

Then we finally got to blow out her candle. She did great!
(And just so you know...her hair was done twice that day. Annie likes the "mess it up right after mom does it" approach.)