Playing in the Sprinkler

Eli has recently learned to blow raspberries and is usually covered in spit:

Baby Cereal

I just can't believe that Eli is old enough to start eating baby food. Wasn't he just born???

I really didn't get very many pictures - the feeding didn't last very long. But he really did a good job; more in the mouth than on the face! In the week since we've started, he's gotten a lot better and is eating quite a bit more than the first night.

Ethan was so sweet to share his blanket and doggie after his cereal experience. He's such a sweet big brother!

4 month check-up

Eli's official stats:
Weight - 14 pounds, 14 ounces - 50th percentile
Height - 26 inches - 90th percentile

Our pediatrician says Eli's doing great! We can start doing cereal with him; not sure when we'll actually do it, but sometime soon. Maybe that will help him sleep better at night.

Bad Blogger...

I've been awful with blogging lately. We've just been sooooo busy and blogging seems to not be as important. I at least got some pictures up yesterday, but thought I'd actually write a few words today.


Updates on all of us:

--Eli-- About to turn 4 months! Check up on Monday. I think he's going to be a thumb sucker; he constantly has his fist in his mouth. All in the last few days he has discovered his feet and likes to grab at them; he's started reaching for and batting at toys; he finally rolled over from back to front; he's started to blow raspberries; and my favorite, he's started laughing - REALLY laughing. It's hilarious.

--Ethan-- Potty training continues to go well; it's about 5 steps forward and only one step back. We still have accidents here and there, but overall he's pretty much in control. Our biggest thing right now is that he suddenly doesn't want to go #2 on the potty. He held it in for 4 days!!!!! Sorry if that's too much info.
He fell on the pool deck yesterday and has a nasty road rash on his face. It's been a couple of months since our last major booboo, so I guess we were due.

He is such the chatter box. He'll tell me the same thing but in 5 different sentences back to back. "I hurt my booboo. My booboo right there. My booboo hurt. I fall down and get booboo. Need to be careful."
His new phrase right now is "What my doing?" instead of "What am I doing?" If you listen carefully to the right phrase, you can see where he gets 'what my doing?' Funny.

--Me-- I feel like I'm at least 60 years old. My poor old 30 year old body is falling apart. My ribs hurt, my back hurts, my big toe hurts (for real). It's never ending. My big thing is my back though. I actually visited a chiropractor for the first time last Friday and have been 3 times now. I'm beginning to feel better and am going to attempt 15 min. of working out in the morning. It's been hard not being able to work out as I'm trying so hard to lose weight before school starts and I won't have as much time for that.

--Lonnie-- He had his annual review today and got GREAT reviews, which lead to a great raise! Other than that, not much new.

--Us in general-- LOTS going on! We've been spending the last couple of weeks preparing our house for putting on the market. Involved a whole lot of touch up painting, carpet cleaning, gate repair, washing baseboards, removing extra furniture, etc, etc, etc. We got in on the market Monday and are praying for the right person to come along and fall in love with the house. Once the house sells we're going to start building. We've been meeting with our builder and are getting the house plans put together, which is soooo fun! While the house is being built we're going to be living in Lonnie's parents' basement. It will save us tons of money, plus we'll have live-in babysitters! Date night, here we come!!!! ;)

That's about it! Hopefully I can do better about blogging from now on... (yeah right! School will be starting before I know it)

Miscellaneous

Just random pictures from the last few weeks...

I'm pretty convinced that Eli is going to be a thumb sucker. He constantly has his fist in his mouth. He's never actually sucked his thumb, but I'm assuming it's only a matter of time.

July 4th

We had a bunch of our friends over for a BBQ and pool party for the 4th of July. It was very hot - perfect for swimming!

"Mommy's Little Sparkler" - Ethan wore this onesie two years ago!

Swimming

Yep...that's my boy in Dora floaties. Thanks for sharing, Keira!

Is it just me, or does the back of Eli's head look like a hurricane???

Decorating Cupcakes

Sometimes you just need to do something different, so we decided to get really creative and make some panda cupcakes. Of course they don't look as cute as the pictures in the book, but I thought the kids did a pretty good job!

In case you're wondering why there are purple ears and nose, I couldn't find exactly what I needed, so we made do!

Potty Training Adventures: Day Three

Not much to say today, other than HE'S POTTY TRAINED!!!! No accidents since yesterday morning, woke up dry this morning, dry at naptime, PERFECT!

I HIGHLY recommend this program to anyone that's wanting to potty train their child. It's intense, but soooo worth it.

You can find out more information at

http://www.3daypottytraining.com/

I didn't really get too many pictures of our adventure - I was a little preoccupied!

Here we are hanging out on the tarp, trying to stay busy:

Morning of Day Two, showing off his stickers:

Cuddle time with Eli on the afternoon of Day Two, when I finally decided he was trained enough to get off the tarp and go back to normalcy.

Potty Training Adventures: Day Two

Wow...what an awesome day!
Recap last night - we changed wet sheets at 10pm and 3am, but he woke up dry at 7am.
The next couple of hours were much like yesterday - he starts peeing, we take him to the bathroom to finish. Around 10am was his last accident. From then on he started telling us when he needed to go and holding it until we made it to the toilet. WOWWWW!!!! He woke up from naptime dry again. This afternoon he said, 'Momma, I need poop.' We got to the bathroom and he POOPED ON THE POTTY!!!!! We were soooo excited. We had to go get Daddy and show him. Gross, I know.
Since he's done such a good job we removed the tarp and are letting him play as normal around the house.
So, I know I can't say he's 100% potty trained, but we are definitely getting there! I'm interested to see how tonight goes.
I'm so proud of our little man!

Potty Training Adventures: Day One

I've decided to journal our adventures with potty training so I'll never forget all the fun we're having! :) (This will probably totally bore 99% of you)

I decided to go with the 3 Day Potty Training program. I didn't want it to drag on forever and I had heard great things about it, so why not? Basics of the program that are different from others: have the child throw away ALL diapers, put them in underwear and a T-shirt, stay by their side ALL day long, tell them constantly thoughout the day 'Tell Mommy when you need to go potty,' and 'Remember to keep your underwear dry.' If they start peeing, you immediately take them into the bathroom so they can finish on the potty, LOTS of praise, do NOT have them just sit on the potty and TRY, do NOT have them sit on the potty and read books. The theory is that they need to associate the feeling of needing to potty with actually going, not just someone telling them every 10 minutes to go.

So, overall we had a good day. We set out a tarp on the living room floor with a trail of towels to the bathroom. We pretty much just played on the tarp as much as possible (hard to keep him on it, but not too bad). For the most part he would pee just a little bit in his underwear, I'd rush him to the bathroom, and he would finish going on his cool little Elmo potty. I gave him a sticker any time he peed in the toilet - he wound up with 17 in all! That's a lot of peeing. Most of the morning I was the one to catch him and take him to the bathroom, by the afternoon he was acknowledging that he had peed and twice even told me before he went. So definite progress. Oh, and he woke up from nap time completely dry! Unfortunately, he peed right after getting up on our way to the bathroom. I was fully expecting to change sheets after naptime, but was pleasantly surprised.

Bedtime, however, I've already had to change the sheets. We stopped doing liquids at 5pm, and he went to bed at 8. He woke up around 10pm with wet underwear/sheets. But we're dedicated to sticking with nighttime WITHOUT using Pullups, or any other nighttime diaper. They don't recommend doing that if you really want them potty trained in 3 days.

So, that's day one. We survived and it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. We made progress and I'm hoping for more breakthoughs tomorrow!