North Carolina

So, waaaayyyyy back in June, we all headed to North Carolina to see my mom's side of the family. It was so fun to see family that we hadn't seen in over a year.

Here is my Nana and almost all of her grandchildren (and great-grandchildren!)

North Carolina: Getting Wet

Asher scowling at the kiddie-pool. He hated everything wet, but doesn't he look adorable in his little rash-guard?

"Char-Char please save me from those waves!"

Evan and Elena, however LOVED everything about the beach.

North Carolina: Double Decker Bus Tour

Our kids now think you go to NC to ride double-decker buses.

North Carolina: Touring Fort Macon

That'll Leave a Mark

Last night, Elena took a tumble. She managed to trip over the curtains, which then propelled her into a chair, with the result being a pretty deep cut on the forehead.

Too bad her hair is bout 1.8 cm long on that spot of her head, otherwise we might be able to disguise it a little better.

She really handled it VERY well! I'm so proud of her.

Checking Things Off

Between the past two weekends I tackled some projects that have been bugging me.

The first project was to organize the school supply closet. For not actually having any school aged children, we have A LOT of stuff! I am a sucker for educational supplies and have been buying them since Elena was born. On top of that, we were just blessed by a family giving us their used kindergarten supplies, so it was time to get a system in place.

Hmm, I feel like diaper boxes lack some of the aesthetic qualities of other storage systems available. :)

And the other project was removing the border in our master bathroom and then painting it. We got our bedroom looking the way I wanted it shortly after moving in, but didn't even touch the bathroom. I think we were waiting to tackle it until we were prepared to pay for the wall to be textured (needed once the border was removed).

But we decided it was better to have freshly painted walls, with no border, and mismatched texture, than the current state.

Good-bye floral wrapping paper! I don't have a picture, but I'm very happy with the result!

Asher - 9 Months

Asher let me squeeze in on his 9 month photo shoot. I've been meaning to get pictures of us together for about... well... nine months I guess.

Our sweet, sweet boy is 9 months old!

Asher is a fast crawler and he loves to climb the stairs any chance he gets. He's already fallen down a few steps on my watch... Baaad Mom Award! :)

He prefers upstairs to down. He figured out that's the "fun zone" with 90% of our toys being up there.

He just started chowing down on graham crackers... it's a bummer they're so messy.

He's pretty sensitive when dropped off at the church nursery, but they are great at getting him to sleep. Apparently, he loves them to sing to him.

He's gotten really good at swatting away things he doesn't want; pureed carrots, a tissue for his nose... he's got a strong swing!

He darts for any "crackly" plastic... loves the stuff.

He has five teeth.. two up, and three down.

He is a very curious little guy... once he spots something he wants to investigate, it is nearly impossible to stop him. That curiosity reminds me of another child of mine, and her curiosity has proven to be TROUBLE. So I'm crossing my fingers that in a couple of years he won't be emptying the shampoo bottle into the toilet, painting his hand and pressing it against the walls, or combing toothpaste through his hair... but maybe that's just life with kids.

However he turns out, we'll take him. We love us some Ash-man!

Stats: 17lb 13oz and 27in long

10th and 25th percentile

Cutie-"POO"-toodie

Ben's comment on my last post reminded me that I really need to write down the cute phrases he commonly utters since starting potty training.

The first, the one Ben already wrote about, is that Evan congratulates himself upon every successful pee. It's not a loud exclamation, just a quiet, "ta-daaaa." And then he slides off the toilet.

The second thing he says that makes us smile is, "MY HOSE IS GOING TO FALL DOWN!!!" This is said loudly... and urgently as he's running to the toilet. I guess he thinks it feels like his "hose" (yes, that's what we call "it") is falling off or something... I'm not really sure.

Potty Training Evan

(Warning: there's an overabundance of the words pee, urine, and poo in this post.)

For those of you wondering yes, we did begin potty training when we reached the end of our count down calendar (August 16th, the Monday after the wedding). And there is no coincidence that with the beginning of potty training began a very long hiatus from posting to this blog.

So here's how it went:

Monday, Day 1, we headed over to my friend's house who was also beginning potty training that day. Her son, Pierson is Evan's buddy, so we thought we'd kick it off together and maybe, just maybe, they would sorta encourage each other in the process.

That first day was spent mainly getting Evan okay with just sitting on the toilet, which he was strongly against. I gave him M&Ms, read him books, and sang songs... all to get him comfortable with just sitting there longer than a second. By the evening he was okay sitting, but nervous about peeing, so I started pouring warm water on him, and that brought about his first "success."

Tuesday, Day 2. Evan was getting better about peeing if he was sitting on the potty, but I had to take him to the bathroom to try every 15 minutes because he was not even close to realizing that he needed to go beforehand.

Wednesday, Day 3. This was the worst of the days... I was weary of the process, I had baking projects that I needed to do for a shower that night, and then it didn't help that the day started with walking into Elena's room and smelling urine. I interrogated her to realize that she decided to pee in her plastic tea-cups and then pour it under her bed... Grrr... So most of that day was just spent cleaning up urine.

Thursday, Day 4. WE TURNED A CORNER!!! Hooray! Evan went poop on the toilet for the first time, started telling me off and on that he needed to go, and he was making an effort to hold it until we made it to the bathroom. Still accidents, but fewer.

Friday and Saturday, Day 5 and 6. More progress. We went on our first "diaper-free" outing on Saturday (a pool party - so pretty safe)

Sunday, Day 7. Headed to church in underwear!!! He had an accident... but only one... yay?

Since then I've been doing laundry every day and making sure we pack multiple pairs of underwear/shorts wherever we go, but we're not going back to diapers! We made it! I survived! Woo-hoo!

(Taken on Day 1. Do those boys look happy to be in underwear or what? Elena's watching a movie and the boys are cracking jokes about their white-e tighties.)

A Post Wedding Post

After Patty and Chris tied the knot, Elena was ready to throw another wedding for anyone who was interested.

I walked into the kitchen to this one day; the puzzle boxes in the background are seats, the plastic cups are the flower petals...

... and she apparently was officiating the blessed affair. Here she is getting ready to read aloud the story of Noah's Ark (a traditional passage chosen for weddings).