HALLELUIA!!!!

So we have gone through a couple of periods where Elli will be taking a bath and she'll get out in the middle of it to go to the potty. One of these moments happened earlier last week and I thought, you know, this week is supposed to be crappy weather and so I know that we are gonna be home for the whole week. So I decided to go ahead and buck up and go for the potty training. TUES Day ONE: Elina did great all day with constant reminders, until the evening. We were across the street sharing her success with her friends and I think she was coming to tell me she had to go, but I kept talking as I turned to watch her pee all over Roni's deck (at least she was outside I guess). So then we come home and she pees four more time on my floor within the next two hours. I considered myself relatively patient, until the third and fourth consecutive experience. Then I lost it and I was ready to give up. So we slapped her pj's and diaper on for the night anyways and she crashed early. So I told Roni my woes and she told me not to give up. Day TWO: only one accident, pullup for naptime, poopie in the pullup. Day THREE: probably a couple of accidents, no poopie. Day FOUR: my friend Susie comes over for a play day and Elina gets distracted, has a couple of accidents and so I put the pullup on her to eliminate the problem. Then all of a sudden I notice that she is nowhere in sight. So I call out her name, and she calls down from the upstairs. I go up there and she had taken her pants/panties off all by herself and proudly showed me her poopies in the potty!! I was stunned!!! And just think, had I not been distracted myself, I probably would've kept reminding and bugging her to go and she probably would've fought, which she is doing so well lately!!! Today we are on DAY NINE and she is doing great!! She doesn't want you anywhere close when she's going #2 in the potty which I think is so funny. And she is so tall that she's adamant about using the big potty and won't even use a stool for help. Crazy, crazy. So Halleluia!!! I think/hope the worst is over.

Bummer!!!

We were so rooting for David Archuleta that I thought it was a mistake when they called out the winner and it wasn't him. Way to go though DAVID ARCHULETA!!!!

GOOD LUCK DAVID ARCHULETA!!!

Good luck David Archuleta--fellow Spartan!!! You know, I've never ever voted on American Idol before---but tonight I think I might just make the effort. Feel free to join me :) Go David Go!!!

Tyler's 6 mo #'s

Tyler surprised me with his numbers at the doctor's office yesterday. He weighs a whopping 19 lb 6 oz which is only 79% (I say only just because I thought and still think he's ginormous--it's hard for me to imagine bigger and heavier babies than him) and is 28 in tall which is 90%. Apparently he has a small head--24%--but regardless, he is our bundle of joy and we love him!!!!

Some Pics

Playing Patty Cake.


Here's my Mother's Day Surprise--Tyler sitting by himself!!
I just love my little boy (and my little girl for that matter)!!!

Time sure does fly---6 months old!!!!

How can you not love this boy? Isn't this the cutest smiley face you've ever seen??? Where has the time gone? Tyler is so much fun right now and is such a joy for his family!!! His latest trick--he learned the art of sitting by himself on Mother's Day. I couldn't have asked for a better present from him :) Doctor's appointment is tomorrow--so we'll see if he is maintaining his off the chart percentiles in height and weight.

Introducing Mino...otherwise known as Nemo

So lots of people around the neighborhood have been asking if we have a new little dog. The answer is yes.....temporarily--although I don't know how many of you consider 2 months temporary :) This is Mino--Elina has a hard time saying his name and often calls him Nemo. So Seija--you might just be getting a Nemo back when you get back from Finland. This is my aunt's 6 month old puppy, and we are babysitting him while she spends time her father who is not in the greatest of health. We've had him a week and he's only pooped on the carpet twice and peeed once (that I know of)--(is that really how you spell peeed?). He is a cute little thing though and is now a great source of entertainment for Elina!! However, I think it is helping us realize that we are not quite ready for a dog of our own just yet...but maybe someday :)

Elina's friends, potty, and "tutti" update

Due to popular demand--or just Spencer's opinion--I'm going to try to make my blog easier to read by reporting in more of a paragraph form :)

Here is the princess crown on my little potty princess! We had a small breakthrough--compared to the last potty story :) Elli went on the potty yesterday and I made big deal out of it for her. So I rewarded her again with the princess stickers, princess crown, and princess panties (who knew we'd be into disney princess everything!!) and she kept them on all morning. I reminded her to go potty twice, which she hesitatingly did, but nonetheless did--we even went for a walk and all, and she did great!! So for naptime I decided to put the pullups on, just in case we had an accident--but Elli had no desire to take a nap. I could hear her running and bouncing off the walls in her room. I left her window open because it was such a nice day, and so then when she heard her friends across the street she starts yelling from the window "Hello Kylie, Rissa--I'n just taking a nap!!!" .......Right.... so she skipped her nap--pooped in the pullups and was put back in the diaper so we could head out. So now she is proving that she is fully capable right? I just have to finally decide that we're done with diapers right? Right??? I guess I'm looking for some feedback. Anyways--also pictured are Elli's cute new best friends. In fact as she is goes through her hour bedtime ritual by herself in her room (by this time it's like 9:30 pm) I hear her up and about in her room saying "I go Kylie Rissa's house" over and over again. Watch out Roni--you might just end up with a fourth child!!

As for the tutti" update. Today is day 5 of the no binky whatsoever. I'd been really hesitant about taking it away because everything was just really easy with it--she went to bed like a champ and slept really well. It was working like a charm. So then we started enforcing the, only binky in bed rule. This in addition to the fact that she learned how to open our doors and decided that she didn't need to stay in her room when put there has made it so she'd rather be out of her room playing then go to bed with the binky. She started getting really really really difficult about going to bed. So after finally getting a child proof door knob thing, which keeps her in her room but doesn't make bedtime any easier I decided that if it was going to be hard, then we'll just make it really hard altogether. I took friend's advice and snipped the binky with scissors but it didn't really phase her--she kept using it. A couple days later, I snipped it again, this time in a more obvious place. So Ryan is putting her to bed--she sees the problem and tells daddy to get her tutti a "wambaid"-- Since then it is just "lost" (it really was lost after the wambaid but now I've decided to keep it lost from her). She has had a rough couple of days and still asks for it, but hopefully we are on the downstretch of the screaming bedtimes :) (For anyone still trying to figure out what the heck a tutti is--it is the Finnish word for pacifier.)

(So I keep trying to separate into paragraphs and it just won't let me, so I give up. At least I really did try Spencer, it looks like you'll just have to suffer with the rest of them (: )

Tyler's room--almost finished

Grammy wanted us to post pictures of Tyler's room to prove that we are getting a move on things :) She made Tyler's crib bedding and drapes and diaper stacker, and we love how they accent the color of the room!!! Thank you Grammy!!!---She's the one that does the vinyl too if anyone's interested (check out the vinyl link). The one thing I have left to do is get a shelf put up in his room on the main wall. Maybe Uncle Fran will still help us out with that :)

Just a quick trip to the grocery store...NOT!!!

Are you ready for a novel? Grab some popcorn, you're gonna be here for a while if you stick with this post until the end. So picture this--it's an overcast day here in Utah with the wind blowing a bit giving me the impression that it's too cold to go outside. And then there's yesterday--Albertson's adds come in the mail, usually I throw them away but there was something that caught my eye and sure enough led me to decide that this is where I'm going to do my grocery shopping. They have there 10 for $10 stuff and I was hooked on cereal being only $1 a box. So when Tyler wakes up from his nap, we eat lunch and I decide to venture out with the two kids by myself. You might be asking yourself, why not do it in the evening when hubby is home? Well, I was going to have vb plans, but come to find out the weather cancelled that activity. So my upcoming struggle was for naught, and now, instead of doing grocery shopping by myself I get to be home with a toddler refusing to stay in her room for bedtime and screaming once again at the top of her lungs. All right, here we go, back to the story. When we get to the grocery store--there is no race car cart that Elina loves to ride in, so we have to take the regular Joe cart for this particular trip. So Tyler's carseat sits up top and Elina rides in the base. Well you can imagine, with cereal and a bunch of other things I'd mapped out to get--everything starts to get full fast within the cart so I am forced to take Elina out. She does okay for the first 30 sec. and then it's disaster. We get to the end of the isle and she sees all the mothers day balloons--big ones for that matter. So she grabs the big one and is off galavanting (did I spell that right?)through the store and isles with me on her heels trying to maneuver a huge heavy cart full of food and my baby. In the back of my mind I recalled my last trip to Target where, in a similar scenario, I was chasing Elina through the aisles and had a grandma yell at me for leaving my baby unattended while attempting to fetch my toddler--hence the chasing Elina around with the full cart of food. Meanwhile, Tyler has had it with being in his carseat so I have to take him out and hold him to get him to be quiet and am now maneuvering with only one hand. So I decide to give her one more chance, asking her to stay by me as we go down the soda aisle (which mind you is in the middle of the store). Give her about .5 sec and she is off. But now that I'm holding Tyler I can't run/bounce as fast as I normally would to catch her--but I can leave the cart. However, she is all of a sudden faster than a rocket. So she is just laughing and laughing because this is such a fun game for her and I finally catch up with her in the bakery/produce. I'm getting more and more frustrated, and there is still so much more to get--so I take Tyler's car seat out and stick her up top to sit down. After screaming at me for about 5 min., she accepts her fate and we continue. So now I have a cart full of food, car seat on top of the food, toddler seated, baby in arms and I'm trying to maneuver this cart of probably 100 lbs with one hand, which is very difficult mind you to turn. So I finally get some momentum, only to realize that I don't have control in using only one arm and almost take out this poor lady who wanted some yogurt. I now realize that this isn't going to work--and decide it's best to pull the cart from the front. Well there was something sharp which I didn't see of course which cuts my finger. So now, with blood gushing (ok, so it was really like a paper cut--but still bleeding), sweat pouring from my head from this unexpected workout, cart full of food, car seat on top of food, toddler seated, baby in arms and hour and a half later--- I've had it. By now I don't even care how much money I save, I'm just ready to get out of the **** store!!! I really think that is the ploy of the grocery store--the longer they get you to stay there, the more you spend and the more you are just ready to get out of there. So I get to the register...maybe you'll consider this to be some good news in spite of all of this-- I never expected to spend over $100 in food and actually be told that I saved more than I spent! Go figure--this in a small way makes up for the absolute nightmare of a grocery store experience. And now typing this long novel has taken its toll on my poor paper cut finger and the pain makes it so I am unable to continue. So until next time...the moral of the story again, go to lunch bunch and do not attempt to take two young children to the grocery store by yourself to do long haul grocery shopping!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (that is a shout out to you jonie--hope you made it this far to see it!!!)

Mouse update

I got some good comments on our mouse situation and just wanted to update everyone on what has happened--which has lead me to discover a newly found fear of mice, dead or alive!! So as you'll recall we stuck two traps in the crawl space and I've simply been scared to open that door and check the traps myself for fear of seeing a dead mouse I guess. So yesterday I finally get up the guts to open the door and look, since Ryan had so convienently forgotten to check them before he left for work. I mustered up all my courage and tried to prepare myself for seeing a dead mouse, only to be disappointed (I can't think of the right word/feeling) that the traps were set in place. So then without thinking more about it I was just gonna breeze over the two other traps that we'd laid out. As soon as I peered behind the stereo (where Ryan had first seen the mouse mind you--you were right on about mice being habitual Tara) there was our little friend--dead with it's neck snapped between the trap. (I realize that this description might be a little graphic, but maybe now you'll understand my newly found fear of dead mice!!!!) You know, it even took a moment to register that yes this is the mouse, and yes it is dead, and yes it is disgusting!!! Then I ran upstairs to my kids who were in the kitchen and I was just freaking out. Elina says "what's matter?" and I have no idea how to explain why mommy is freaking out to a two year old. Anyways, I call Jaci to see if Matt will come dispose of it and she tells me--without any hesitation "I'll just come do it." WOW--I felt silly about my newly found fear when for her it was no big deal. Don't get me wrong Jaci---I'm so grateful you came to my aid, too bad I'm too big of a sissy to do it myself :) So to make a long post short--Habitual mouse is caught, disposed of, and peanut butter works!!!!

TAGGED

How to play this game of tag. Post these rules on your blog. List 3 joys, 3 fears, 3 goals, 3 current obsessions/collections, 3 random surprising facts about yourself. Tag 5 people at the end of your post by leaving their names. Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

3 joys: my kids and husband of course, volleyball, great music

3 fears: recently discovered fear of mice--alive or dead :) (and snakes and spiders for that matter), of not being prepared, of something bad happening to one of my kids

3 goals: Food storage, get out on our bikes this summer as a family and make the most out of the time we get to all be together, not complain :)

3 current obsessions: Food storage, American Idol--go fellow Spartan David Archuleta!!, losing a little more baby weight

3 collections: FOOD STORAGE, trophies, anything applicable that I can put in my kids baby books

3 random facts: I knitted my dog a sweater for my laurel project when I was a Young Woman, my dad taught me how to play the melody of silent night on his accordian (although I couldn't do it anymore), I'm much happier when I get outdoors :)

I tag Emily, Kristin, Leisha, Steph, Brooke

New Links

For anyone interested in some awesome links check out the link list I have posted on the right.
1. unameitvinyl.blogspot.com for any kind of vinyl sayings, decor, etc... This is where I go to get all my vinyl stuff. Check it out--We have the night lights and name boards for both my kids, not to mention the "I am a Child of God" in vinyl over their picture in their room. Definitely worth checking out.
2. shelsscraps.blogspot.com for awesome new blog backgrounds. There are even easy specific directions on how to put them on your blog page. If I can follow these directions, anyone can :)

New Pics

What can I say--we get 'em started early in this house! :)



Poor kid has to deal with a lot of pink stuff--but the glasses really are cute on him.



Elina is showing Tyler the proper way to wear them--upsidedown of course.


Every time Elina sees me putting on what little makeup I own, she comes running yelling "my turn!" Having said that--the above makeup is not mine :) She found mummo's stash of face creams and lipstick and as always had to apply them on "by myself "!!

A surprise visitor

So last night about ten o clock I'm sitting at the computer, catching up on my reading (of other friends blogs) when Ryan quickly says my name. I turn to look at him in the other room jumping off the couch and trying to see what it was that caught his eye. IT IS A BLASTED MOUSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So I start freaking out of course and feel like I could go into convulsions because I am so disgusted with this surprise visitor. We have only had one mouse problem in this house before--ironically enough on our first Halloween here (although maybe that isn't ironic), and we caught the one and only intruder with a day or two. So with this one, we figured out the little bugger ran into the crawl space and we plugged it up the best we could, while putting two mouse traps just inside the door baited with peanut butter (because I was told that works better than cheese). Fast forward to this morning--I left early early for my first dentist appointment in two years, and Ryan was left to check the four traps and deal with the problem. (Aren't I a sweet wife?) I haven't even wanted to open the crawl space to look, but Ryan said that dang mouse had eaten half the peanut butter off one of the traps (without the trap ever setting off mind you)--GRRRRR!!!!!! So now we just wait I guess--I get the shivers whenever I think about it so I'm trying to keep it out of my mind. This really just came out of nowhere--with the last one, I at least saw a bunch of poop everywhere that made me think something was up. Does anyone have a better suggestion than peanut butter and mouse traps??? And to think that I just got done putting all my food storage stuff in the crawl space--GRRRRR!!!!! At least they are all sealed, right? HELP!!!!