A Great Weekend

Phew....it is already Sunday night and the weekend is over, where did the time go. Eric started out our weekend by getting in his long run, 12 miles!! Great job Eric. I can honestly say I think we are ready for the 1/2 marathon in St. Louis on the 14th. I got in about 11 this AM and generally felt pretty darn good after 2 consecutive 12 plus runs the previous 2 Sundays. We are looking forward to racing, or well participating, and seeing the Gillaspie family. Saturday morning Eric saw a couple of clients while the kids and I spent some time with Hannah, Charlie, and Jody our neighborhood friends that are moving to the Twin Cities in a few weeks. Charlie isn't crawling yet but certainly had his eye on Kennon's new moves. I think Maddox wears Hannah out with her almost constant talking, moving, hugging etc. Hannah is the sweetest, quiet little girl ( at least at our house). I'm constantly saying to Maddox 'Maddox ASK Hannah if she wants a hug first'. She doesn't seem to be able to really curb her energy when we have visitors but then what 2.5 year old can? Saturday afternoon Eric did some more work on the garage organization project. It is looking really good and has freed up a lot of floor space for KIDDO toys. Saturday night Eric and I had a date night, sort of! We went to a TRIVIA night with several of my co-workers. I can definitely say I just basically held down my chair but Eric definitely was a viable candidate on our team. He is really a smart cookie and knows a lot of facts, which I would normally think of as 'useless' but when it comes to trivia they come in handy. I got to socialize with my good friend Katie while Eric manned the answer sheet. We had Jennifer come and stay with the kids. Of course she said they were good with Maddox really only giving her trouble when it was time to go to bed. She had Jennifer talked into watching the Lion King before Eric and I were even out the door. Sunday morning I put in my long run and then headed home to help get the kids down for a nap because we had BIG plans for this afternoon. Aunt Sue and cousins Zach and Ian were down from St. Paul. We met them at the Schweibert Park in Rock Island for some great outdoor fun. Maddox LOVED the boys despite their tall statures. I thought she might be scared of them as there isn't a lot of height in 5363 Judge Road but she jumped out of the car and said 'C'mon let's go play' asking the boys to take her from the parking lot to the park. It was really cute. Ian and Zach are both 6 foot tall AT LEAST. You can see from the pictures she especially liked cousin Zach. Zach goes to University of Wisconsin at Madison. Go BADGERS....well only if you aren't playing the Hawkeyes :) We had a great time chatting, playing, watching the ducks and enjoying the great sunshiny weather. We capped off the afternoon at Whitey's. Maddox ate a kid sized scoop of chocolate fudge brownie ice cream AND about 1/3 of Eric's mint chocolate chip shake. She didn't seem to be interested in my yogurt pineapple banana shake (hmmmmm wonder why??) So it has been a great weekend!! POTTY UPDATE. Maddox hasn't had ANY accidents since basically Saturday ( day 1 of the boot camp). She is doing SO WELL. We are really proud of her. She just runs in does her business and doesn't make a big deal of it. She needs a little help remembering to wash her hands and with wiping but other than that she does great during the DAY ( even at Kindercare too....no accidents there last week either). Nighttime is a different story. We are working through that. She is unfortunately waking up wet. I am thinking that she just sleeps too deeply to get the sensation that she needs to go. We are waking her up when we go to bed to have her GO in the hopes that this will keep her dry till morning but this isn't quite consistent yet. I know in time it will get better. We are still doing mm's and stickers but really now only for really big events like being dry after nap and in the AM. We are hoping this will stick eventually but for now we are happy to not have to change her diaper during the day. It is really SO NICE!! We went for Kennon's 9 month check up on Wednesday. He got a great review. He is up to 19 pounds 12 ounces and is 28.5 inches tall putting him at the 40th percentile for both height and weight! His ears looked great and his lungs sounded fine too, despite his almost daily cough. We talked to the Dr. about the possibility of Kennon having allergies and she agreed that with Eric's pretty significant environment allergies that Kennon could have some of that going on. The poor kid, today at the park he was just sneezing, coughing, rubbing his eyes and just miserable. She said we could give him a little Benadryl on the days when we know we are going to be outside a lot to help his comfort level. Maddox LOVES to be outside so we'll probably be giving that a shot in the coming weeks. She is hopeful that he will outgrow it but if it continues we might need to go on a more permanent allergy medicine but he is too young for that now. He has been happy happy happy since he can get around the home. In fact he is totally in sync with getting into what he SHOULDN'T be getting into!! He actually has this mischievous little giggle when he knows he is pushing Maddox's buttons and getting into her stuff. I can honestly say he isn't on her good side right now. He loves her lady bug nightlight and the stool she uses to reach the bathroom sink, both of which Maddox does not wish to share. There is going to be a LARGE learning curve for her to understand that he doesn't really get it yet. Wow!! This is getting long. Enjoy the pictures and thanks to the Kies family for taking time out of their busy weekend to meet us at the park, so fun!!

The 'END" of the potty boot camp

So I wanted to give you a quick update on the potty training progression. Maddox has absolutely done so well!! I was a little skeptical Saturday morning when we started and she didn't seem to be 'buying' into the whole deal but I have to say as I sit here and write this on the morning of day 3 of the camp she is pretty well trained. She has woken up dry both yesterday morning and this morning, running to the potty we have set up in the upstairs bathroom to do her business when she wakes up. She has basically been in the same undies since yesterday morning with no accidents yesterday or today so far. This morning I was talking to Aunt Brooke on the phone and she gave me the look of ' I need to go' and ran to the potty to do number 2 on her own!! Yesterday afternoon was her first experience with number 2 and it was EXTREMELY dramatic and scary for her but she finally was able to make it happen. This morning she did number 2 like she had been doing it for years! She even said to Kennon and I at one point this morning after breakfast 'I'll be right back guys' and ran to the potty to do her business on her own. I am so proud of her. We will see what happens at Kindercare tomorrow. We've been talking about using the potty at school and saying to her friends 'I'll be right back guys' while she goes off to use the potty on her own. I am hoping for no accidents but will send her with plenty of extra clothes as I don't know how she is going to do in that environment. We have really stuck to the 'program' that I purchased called the 3 day potty training boot camp. www.3daypottytraining.com We haven't left the house and finally let Maddox outside ( away from the potty) for the first time all weekend yesterday afternoon after she persevered with her number 2 business. We've been using the potty charts which she has responded well to, getting a pair of new sunglasses, a kite, and a new hair bow in addition to lots of stickers and mm's thusfar. Not sure how we will progress off of the reward charts but for now I"m not worried. Technically we are still on day 3 of the camp so we'll keep on for now. We MIGHT venture to the grocery store this afternoon if everything works ok. They have a little potty at the HyVee where I generally shop, so it might be nice to see how she does. This is one of her charts that she has filled with stickers. She gets 1 sticker and 1 mm for pee pee and then 2 stickers/mm's for poo poo. When she gets to the 'end' of the trail she gets a big prize!! ( I have to say I need to go find some more big prizes!!) She is in the process of filling up her 3rd chart. The last hour or two she has been sitting on the potty like every 20 minutes and she is able to produce just enough to qualify as pee pee so she gets her sticker/mm. I think she is figuring out .....the more she pees the more she gets!! Little stinker!! But, hey that's how the training works right? PS Kennon has multiplied his efficiency with crawling like 50x's since I last posted on Saturday. He is into everything and seems to find all the stuff he isn't supposed to be into i.e. outlets, electrical cords, heavy books on the bookshelf, computers, remotes etc. never mind the corner full of toys in the living room. I put him over there in front of it and he makes a bee line for the electrical cords behind the TV. Something tells me we are going to have to do a little heavier duty baby proofing than we did for Maddox. BOY BOY BOY!! PSS Maddox was wet after her morning nap :( But I am confident this was just a little bump in the road. She had a TON to drink before she went down. The bladder control isn't quite there yet when she is sleeping. Time time time.

Potty Time/Kennon Crawls

Oh my!! I am usually so on the schedule of weekly updates on the blog but since the weather has been SO NICE out the last 2 weeks I have fallen off the band wagon. I just picked up my camera and realized I haven't even posted the pics of Carter and Maddox and Kennon at the Children's Museum in Iowa City. I will pick a couple of my favorites. It was so nice to see Aunt Brooke and cousin Carter! Thanks to Grandpa Jim and Grandma Jean for meeting us and to Grandma Ellen for driving the Knowles' down from Waterloo!! We had a great time, despite the very slippery drive home! So the big update is KENNON IS CRAWLING!! I will try to post some video. Miss Lisa ( our favorite teacher at Kcare) was so excited to tell me when I picked him up yesterday. But, he wouldn't show us his new moves until this morning. He is not very efficient yet, and that is JUST FINE for now! He is getting so big. I can't believe he'll be 10 months in a couple of weeks. I keep thinking he'll get another tooth soon as he has not been the best sleeper in the last week or so but nothing seems to be popping up. He is still a happy boy and LOVES to be outside, swinging or going for wagon rides. He'll even just sit in the wagon and watch Eric work in the garage happy as a lark, the thing doesn't even need to be moving!! He doesn't mind all the cute hats we have for him and he has started waving BYE BYE!! Not quite the full arm swing but he moves it just enough to know that he is doing what you want him to do. He is so close to pulling up on his own on whatever he can get his hands on. In fact I think he may just move right to walking and not spend too much crawling. He'd much rather be standing than sitting. He is eating real food pretty well and we've been venturing to sippy cups here and there. Last week he didn't nurse or take a bottle well at all so we gave him a sippy cup. He did well at Kcare but then decided to go back to nursing so we've put them up in the cabinet for now. Today is DAY 1 of Maddox's potty training 3 day boot camp. We literally threw all her diapers away this morning. There is no going back ( well we actually saved them for Kennon but don't tell Maddox that...Kennon can wear the same size diaper as Maddox now!! ) I have to say this morning I thought we were in for a long weekend but this afternoon has proved to be pretty darn good. She seems to be getting the hang of it and has been in the same undies since about noon ( if I remember right). She seems to be starting to be able to let us know when she needs to go but we still have a long way to perfect that. She was dry after her morning nap, which I was completely surprised about. She is down for her afternoon nap now so we'll see what happens with that sleeping experience. We are not leaving the house and have really dedicated ourselves to helping her learn this. We have been baking, watching moving, coloring, playing playdoh and hanging out with Kennon. The principles we are using do not even recommend going outside. Luckily today has been really gloomy so she hasn't even asked to go outside. She has a potty chart that she has almost filled with stickers and will get a BIG prize when she makes it to the end of the sheet. We have been showering her with juice boxes and all of her favorite foods to keep her hydrated and with plenty of fiber. She hasn't ventured to the poop part yet. I'm pretty sure she probably needs to go but I suspect there will be a big learning curve on that. We will keep you posted. She is really loving the swing set too. I can already say it is by far probably the best investment we've made in the last 8 months! The housecleaning is taking a back seat to all the playing we've been doing outside in the last 2 weeks. The entire neighborhood has been out lately. We were sad to learn a few weeks ago that our favorite neighbors are going to be moving away. So we've been trying to spend a lot of time with Hannah and Charlie ( they are almost the exact same ages as Maddox and Kennon). Hannah and Charlie had a bonfire at their house last Friday. Maddox and Hannah got to experience their first s'more. I didn't get a chance to get a picture as we played defense most of the night trying to keep Maddox abreast of the HOT fire a well as keeping Kennon happy in the outdoor environment ( poor guy....we think he has allergies....his little nose just runs and he coughs pretty much the whole time we are outdoors....we'll talk with Dr. Anderson about it on Wednesday at his 9 months appointment). We had such a good time.

Picture Time

So we made a quick trip to the mall today to get the kids' pictures at Picture People. We were primarily going to get Kennon's 9 month shots but whenever we have available people to operate the camera, allowing Eric and I to play 'keep the kids on deck and happy' we take advantage of it. I am practically sweating by the time we get done after chasing Kennon and trying to get both of them to smile AND sit in a semi-posed position. We got a few good shots. Kennon decided to 'find' his lower lip while we were there instead of giving us the big happy grins has been producing at home all weekend. We managed to get a few smiles though. Enjoy!! The clothes and hats ( minus the polo shirts) are compliments of my great college friend Katie! She keeps us supplied with wonderful camera worthy clothes for Kennon. I have barely had to buy him anything. We are very lucky!!