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!

A visit to the UP House

This weekend we took a trip to visit the UP house in Herriman, UT! It is part of the Utah Parade of Homes this year. The builders got permission from Disney to call it the “Up House”, and Disney bought the rights to the blueprints from them.  I heard that the builders just watched the movie tons of times and came up with the blueprints. Its done perfectly. It has a picture of Paradise Falls over the fireplace, the hose reel is the same in the front of the house, and I've heard that even the chimney’s bricks and roof shingles are laid down in the same pattern as the house from the movie. On the weekends they put balloons on the top of the house, and they even had Mr. Fredrickson and Russell sitting on the front porch for pictures. It was adorable!!

(Just a note, I stole some of these pics off the internet because when we got to the house I realized that my camera battery was almost dead and we left the memory card at home too). :( I was so bummed.  

Picture from the movie:

The real thing:

Mailbox from the movie:

The real thing:

Front entryway:

Nursery that Ellie paints in the movie:

The nursery in the real house. The finished look also had white crib like the movie as well.

The kitchen:

I really wish I had more pictures to show the rest of it. Obviously not all the rooms were shown in the movie so the builders just made what they assumed was correct. It was 3 floors, with an upstairs, and a basement. In the basement they had a theater room with the movie "UP" playing on it. It has 4 bedrooms, 2800 sq ft and is listed for sale at $399,900.

And here's the only 2 pics I got from Mike's phone: 

Here we are standing at the end of the fence.

Carl and Russell

6 months

Claire is 6 months old!

• She's a little thing at 14lbs (10th %) and 25 inches (20th %), but just like her brother she's got a big noggin pulling in at around 80th %-ile.
• She's a great sleeper. She started sleeping through the night at about 2 months old. She typical sleeps from 8pm-5am, wakes up to eat, then goes back to sleep until 8am. 
• She is NOT a cuddler (makes me a little sad). Even when she was a newborn I could never get her to fall asleep on my shoulder or chest or anything. She will resist if I try and eventually start to cry unless I put her down in her own bed when she's tired.
• Even though she's not a cuddler, she is still very needy for human touch. For the first 5 months of her life I don't think she was ever happy for more than a minute if I put her on the floor by herself. I've gotten really used to doing things with one hand: brushing my teeth, making a sandwich, making my bed, eating meals, or one time when I had to take Emmett potty in a public restroom by myself with Claire in my other arm, THAT was tricky. In the last month however she has gotten much better with being left alone. (Which I think is because she is becoming a little more independent/mobile)
• She is sitting up, rolling both ways, and eating solids and everything else within reach.
• She is very quiet. I've heard in the past that girls are gabbers and they talk alot. Not this girl. She has a very quiet disposition, her cry isn't very loud, and it has taken us months to get a good belly laugh out of her (and even then its still very subtle and quiet). She is however, a very smiley and happy baby. 
• This one is probably obvious, but she is very fair. Meaning, fair skinned. My mom jokes that she is one shade away from albino. With her fair white skin, blonde hair and blue eyes she will have to accept the fact that like her mother, she will never ever tan. 
• Her nick-names are Claire-bear, missy-moo (messy-moo when she's poopy), Cleo, and sweetie pie. 

We love this sweet little girl and so glad she's a part of our family.

PS. Recognize her dress? This was her Easter dress that I bought for her that arrived incorrectly 3 sizes too big!

4th of July

I feel like I just posted about going up to Island Park. Sorry, I know its probably not super exciting to read about again, but here's my post about going back for the 4th of July. I love Island Park for the 4th of July. Its so much fun, its warm, and there's lots to do. Island Park is a popular vacation destination for Utahns and most people you meet up there are from UT. And I think everyone in the state of Utah goes to Island Park for this particular weekend. Church on Sunday is so crowded. It takes about 30 minutes to pass the sacrament, and theres 2 chapels side by side both of which are filled to the brim, and people are scattered around in classrooms as well to listen over a broadcast system. Mike and I "reserved" the cabin for this weekend weeks ahead of time, thinking it would just be our little family all alone up there because we didn't know if anyone would be able to join us (friends, family, anyone). We were excited when most of Mike's family decided to join us! (We missed Derek, and Kyle & Tyne who were days away from having their first baby). 

We started off the weekend with the Bills Island 4th of July parade.

People decorate their 4-wheelers with patriotic decorations and throw candy to the little kids. Or if you have a boat.. that works too. Emmett and Pixton got tons of candy.

After the parade we loaded up the kayak, rented a canoe and boat, and floated the river. Its a 5 mile lazy-river float. It takes about 3 hours to float the whole way down. Its so beautiful and relaxing.

I think the lazy-river was making Emmett particularly lazy....or tired in this case. I was wishing I was small enough to do that!

"Cheesy" smiles:

Emmett's first sparkler experience:

The boys loved playing with the rockband drumset. Being a little bit older than Pixton, we had to keep reminding Emmett he had to share the drumsticks with him. So usually they each got 1 drumstick, and in this case, shared the chair too:

Love my sweet little Claire. She's finally big enough to sit up in the umbrella stroller. We got tons of mosquito bites on this walk. I hate putting stuff like bug repellant on my babies, so I just sprayed a blanket with bug spray and laid it on her. Miraculously it worked, I think she was the only one that walked away without a bug bite.

We also played some fun games, ate some amazingly good food and watched a spectacular fireworks show.

Flooded With a Mess

On Sunday Saratoga Springs got a huge rainstorm. It was coming down in SHEETS, if you know what I mean. The "sheet-rain" lasted a good 20-30 minutes and then it "regular" rained about another 2 hours after that.

After the sheet-rain Mike was outside on the porch and went around to look into the basement walk-out. This is what he saw:

And this is what we saw inside:

The water coming in through the door:

After the boxes were moved:

It most likely occurred do to poor drainage outside (there is a drain, and it was clogged) and the runoff from the neighboring lot as well. All the boxes that got wet were my parents belongings, luckily we think we caught it in time and there wasn't too much damage done. We were probably lucky we were home during the storm because had we been gone (which we almost were) we probably wouldn't have thought to go downstairs and check the basement at all and the water would've sat for who knows how long. (We rarely go down there).

As we were scrambling around I noticed Emmett had escaped the house and saw him tromping around in the rain puddles. He was getting soaked but I didn't have the heart to bring him inside. 

And this was Emmett tromping around in the basement as Mike was cleaning up. There's all sorts of treasures in the basement (I call it our "warehouse" as there's at least 3 families belongings down there so its cram-packed with boxes, furniture etc.) He's got an old ski pole and a bike helmet on. So, at least one of us had fun!