Emmett's Birthday

Here's a few pictures from Emmett's 3rd birthday party!

Before guests arrived he started out the afternoon falling asleep in his room....standing up!

His lawn mower birthday cake I made. I love the way it turned out! I can't claim the design as I totally stole the idea off of someone on Google. Emmett loves mowing the lawn. And when I say "loves" I mean, LOOOOVVESSS. I don't think there was a single day this summer when Mike was out mowing the lawn, that Emmett wasn't out there with him with his toy lawn mower right along side him.







Even the two times I mowed the lawn this summer, I think it threw him off a little bit and Emmett's male ego kicked in and felt the need to instruct me how to mow "properly". "Mommeeee, you go dis way! Den DIS way!!!"

I had a lot of fun making this cake, Mike helped me with the grass as my arm cramps wouldn't let me keep up doing the whole thing by myself. It was my first time trying fondant on the fence and it was so easy. Don't let it intimidate you if you were like me!

 My birthday cakes are progressively getting better every year. But I have to thank my husband for signing me up for a cake decorating class as a Christmas present last year, that helped me TREMENDOUSLY in the decorating department!

Opening presents

His latest passion is guitars and rock n roll. Before he got this guitar as a birthday present he would use a shampoo bottle for his guitar. He loves rocking out to Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire". Except not the old country version by Cash, the Social Distortion version that Mike had on the iPod. (Its much more hard rock if you've never heard it). He calls it the "down down song" because of the lyrics: 'I went down, down, down, and the flames went higher.....'

I have a vision someday when he's a teenager its going to drive me crrraaaazzzy...(I have lots of memories of the fighting that occurred with my brother Tyler and his guitar. "Go upstairs and play your guitar!!! I'm trying to watch a show!!!")

But right now I'll just think he's cute. 

This picture was from last year. He's grown up SO much!!

Halloween

Already thinking its funny to tease his sister.

Halloween was fun this year. We enjoyed festivities at my aunt's "Spooky Party", Mike's work party, and the traditional trick-or-treating. This was Emmett's first time really kindof understanding the concept of Halloween. All month long he's heard various stories and watched cartoons based on ghosts, pumpkins, bats, witches etc. At first he was really unsure about it, and would talk frequently about these "monsters", or he would even confuse things like bats and say they were "butterflies" (haha, that one made me laugh). But eventually as more people started asking him what he was going to be for Halloween, he knew quickly how to reply with "superman!" On Halloween night, Mike couldn't join us due to a class he is taking (the class just so happen to start on Halloween night...it was a bummer) so me and the kids went over to Mike's parents house, had dinner, and went trick or treating with Grandma Gleue. 

Emmett couldn't stop jabbering the whole time we were out. When he gets excited he talks non-stop about everything he sees and hears, and thats how he was. He was so excited about all the jack-o-laterns, candy, and kids that were out in the neighborhood. He loved to touch the "ding-dong" and say "chick-or-chweat!".

Funny side story:

Emmett barfs alot. He always has, since he turned 1 and started eating table foods. He's been tested for it, and medicated, and the only real conclusion we've come to is that he has a SUPER sensitive gag-reflex. So, as we were at the doorstep of one house, the woman bent over to let Emmett pick out his own candy, kindof like in the picture below:

Emmett was looking in the bowl seriously contemplating what piece to choose when he pointed at a particular candy and goes "I barf dat one!!" 

She didn't quite understand his 2 year old dialect and responded with "Oh? You like that one?!" hahaa..PS. If I were to guess right I think the one he was talking about was a package of peanut M&M's. I had just finished telling him not to eat that kind of candy a couple hours earlier at Mike's work party or he might barf. Glad he is old enough now to know what to eat!

Is she not the cutest little kitty in the whole world?

A Camping We Will Go....

We finally got a chance to take out our "new" camper this year for the first time. (Kinda pathetic cause we bought it in April and went the whole summer without taking it out!)

It brought back a lot of memories for me because my family had one just like it when I was growing up. Let me just say...for a woman that doesn't like to get dirty, and a man who loves to, this is a perfect meet in the middle for camping. I've also decided September is a pretty good month to go camping since the crowds are gone, and the weather is much cooler.

Milky Way for breakfast.

The trip just wouldn't be complete without a good ole tantrum from the 2 year old. (This was his time out spot). 

 

This conversation goes with the above picture: 

While holding onto my belt loop Emmett says, "I'm holding onto you mommy"

Lisa: "Oh is that so you don't fall down?"

"No, its so YOU don't fall down mommy!"

Thanks buddy.

We'd been hiking for about an hour and Claire was starting to get a little tired on Daddy's shoulders, when she gets this tired her tummy muscles sometimes give-in and she flops back. haha. She doesn't cry or anything, Which makes it funny because Mike notices that all the sudden she isn't there anymore.

She's smiling in this one.

This is what happens Mike, when you go off the beaten track.

This is one of Emmett's new faces that he likes to make now whenever you ask him a question or say something interesting to him, like in this case "Are you ready for some pudding now?" (Our dessert).

Patience

My thoughts on potty training:


I don't want to bore you with my child's bowel habits, or his irregularity, or his messes and accidents. Because lets be honest, you don't care. But these are my thoughts and lessons learned so far in this "fun" process. 


**Just a side note. Emmett is 100% potty trained going #1 and ZERO percent potty trained going #2. **

• I've learned the hard way that positive reinforcement is much more effective than negative.
• It's one of the big stresses of my life right now. Sometimes I feel like ripping my hair out, and then other times I'm so tired of it I want to surrender and just go back to diapers. (Which I can't because that would mean un-training him with #1 again).
• Its been 3 months. I know that doesn't sound very long (or maybe it does?), but I feel like we've hit a roadblock and I wonder if there ever be a successful end to this. Everyday he sits on the potty I think to myself "Maybe today will be the day?" 
• Emmett's bathroom has never been so sprinkled with poop and pee. And me being the germaphobe that I am, drives me cRaZy to clean it every. single. day. And I've always hated cleaning bathrooms in general.
• I feel like my hands are never clean. I can't tell you how fast we go through handsoap. 
• We are on the short list of preferred customers for the Pull Ups Corporation . 
• Rewards, presents, treats don't work anymore. It got us past training for #1. But we hit a road block going #2 and there's nothing good enough that can convince him to do it. 
• Suppositories don't produce results when he's constipated and only make him cry. 
• A mild laxative on the other hand (added to a beverage) does help, as do fiber gummies (that he calls gummy bears).
• I have to tell myself that he WILL get this someday. And he won't go to college still un-potty trained. 
• I know its not easy for him either. He cries and gets frustrated just like we do. 

My mom sent me an article on potty training 101 in an email the other day, here is a snippet:

On being patient:


....what it takes to do the training:

1) a dump load of PATIENCE. 2) Diligence & follow through. 3) More Patience. 4) Willingness to find creative ways & rewards 5) Did I mention PATIENCE? 6) Thick skin to put up with those friends who never fail to mention how their kid was potty trained in 1 day. 6) Umm did I mention PATIENCE!!!! OK....good cause your gonna need a mine full of it and when you hit China...turn around and dig for more.

 I'm digging real deep right now!

Cowabunga Bay

Last weekend we decided to wrap up our summer with a trip to the water park. You can see Cowabunga Bay from the freeway whenever we drive into Salt Lake and Emmett has always wanted to go. Its been really hot here lately so we decided to do it. The only problem was it was the last Saturday before school started so it was PACKED. Claire cried on and off the entire time we were there so she pretty much hated it. It was really loud with all the people and she hated any droplet of water that touched her. But by the end of the day she finally gave up being miserable and fell asleep on the lazy river in her daddy's arms. Emmett and the rest of us had a great time! It was a little tricky doing the bigger slides because we had 2 little kids. So Mike and I would take turns watching Emmett and Claire in the kiddie area, while one of us would go wait in line and go down a slide, and vice versa. 

Oh Claire....I think this is the only time I saw her smile. She's such a cute little stinker.

I hadn't taken any pictures by mid-day since all I really wanted to do was be in the water anyways. So when we took a break for a snack I decided we should at least try and get a family picture in.

I only had my big zoom lens with me (Emmett broke our regular one...so sad). So I thought I'd take a couple practice shots with the camera to make sure I'd get all of us in the picture. I had to back waaaay up in order to do it. The above picture is Mike trying to tell Claire to look at me.

This one was a decent shot, but I didn't want it to be an up and down picture cause it was too narrow.

Claire with the sun in her eyes and Emmett was hot and tired and only interested in his Goldfish.

Finally I asked a lady to take our picture for us. Mike and I laughed our heads off when we saw it. Claire's swimsuit is just a tad too big for her. hahaa. I didn't even bother trying for a second attempt and I DON'T think this picture will become my next blog header!