Potty Training

Day 3

Things went fairly well. The girls are starting to control their bladders a little better--meaning fewer bathroom trips. I think they had once accident each on Tuesday, so not too bad. They both wet their beds again though. We haven't had to sit in the bathroom as near as much as with the boys, which is nice!

Potty Training

Day 2

The starting of day 2 was somewhat discouraging. Sunday night/Monday morning they both wet their beds. At least Shanna woke up crying. Overall Shanna was doing great, but not Haley. While I was gone exercising/grocery shopping, they both had success! I was very grateful for that! Overall Shanna and Haley did pretty well with only a few accidents during the day on Monday. After they get the "day" thing down, we will really have to start working on the "night" thing. The girls went cold--straight to underwear. That is what I did with my boys and I don't intend on buying any pull-ups for my girls either. I just have to keep reminding myself that we just started potty-training and that they are still adjusting their bodies to this whole new experience. I just hope they will learn to go to the bathroom 3 or 4 times a day instead of 8 or 9 times! But like I said, it has only been 2 days...

Potty Training

Day 1

We started the girls around 4 pm last night. Shanna surprised us because she wanted a diaper back on! I am glad she didn't find any--we didn't put one back on her either. Once Shanna found out that she could get candy for using the toilet she did pretty well the rest of the evening. She probably went to the bathroom more than normal though! With Haley, she didn't use the toilet at all. We are going to have to sit in the bathroom a lot with her. She doesn't mind the wet underwear either. Good thing Lee is home to help me. Of course when it was time to go to bed the girls wanted to sit a lot on the toilet!

A brief update...

We had a fun week, with not too much going on. Tuesday Lee went on a "blitz" to locate people on the church records that haven't been in awhile. Lee made some cookies and brought them for the guys and missionaries to have before the blitz. I worked on Visiting Teaching items again on Wednesday. There was a nice little "storm" here on Friday and Clark had a 2 hour early release from school. Of course with it being stormy and all, I took all the kids with me and we went shopping. It actually was just snowing. People in Minnesota would laugh that school was released two hours early. The trip to the store went pretty well, but because I don't want my kids running all over I pulled around 2 shopping carts with me. Clark and Cal helped a little pushing them, so that was nice. After that we picked up Lee. He even got off work an hour and a half early!

Friday night Clark and Cal went to a birthday party and the rest of us watched The Swan Princess. Kind of a weird cartoon. I am not a huge animation fan, but I had seen clips of this particular movie and wanted to see the whole thing. Saturday was really nice out...even though it was cold. The sun was shining with no wind--not that I noticed anyway--making it a great day to go sledding!!! This was our first time going sledding with our whole family. Well, my friend Kristi watched Elden for us, which was great! Since we aren't very equipped with winter stuff we tried to think of what we could go sledding on. We decided to pull out the floaty tubes. We borrowed some sleds from Kristi too. I have to say, the floaty tubes were awesome! The tiny $1 Strawberry Shortcake tube was the best! I am going to have to stock up on those this summer. I looked for sleds when we went shopping on Friday. One was for $15, the other for $20. No thanks! Our same friend also loaned us Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. We watched it that night. A cute movie. Thanks Kristi for a fun Saturday!

Sunday evening we started potty-training the girls. It's going okay with Shanna...Haley is another story!

Two more weeks have gone by and we are enjoying "normal" life.

Details from Jan 10-16
School was back in session after two snow days, and now the snow is all melted. Tuesday morning three of my friends came over and we visited while the kids played. That night Lee made pea soup, and I some yummy rolls (thanks again Cindy!) and we fed the Elders. It was very very good (great job Lee!). Lee had Friday off thanks to the four-day weekend holiday! We went on a date test driving some vehicles, finishing it off with Lamb's Donuts. YUM! Friday night we had some more friends over and played Bananagrams and Skip-Bo. Saturday we hung out at home mostly. We ALL went to the commissary together...something I am glad we don't do hardly ever! That night we babysat our friend's kids. (See train pictures below)

Now for this last week: Jan 17 - 23
Lee had Monday off to complete the 4-day weekend. The new Relief Society President met with me on Monday and on Wednesday to work on Visiting Teaching. Wow. I now have a new appreciation for all those VT Coordinators out there! We aren't done (and never will be technically) figuring out the routes, but my Pres. is amazing and has figured out most of it. We should be ready to hand out the new routes on Sunday. Thursday I watched 3 different kids and also visited with two of the moms later. I love getting together with other mothers during the day! On Friday I started preparing for Saturday. We went to St. Louis on Saturday, so I switched the laundry day to Friday (normally I do laundry on Saturdays and Mondays). We had a great time in St. Louis. We have some fun traditions (well, I think so) for the kids when we go to the temple. They seem to look forward to the trip too. Also, Lee and I enjoy the time of rejuvenation and helping out with the work done in the temple. Other happenings: I filed taxes last week. It's the earliest I've ever filed. Yep, I like tax time. For anyone who has five kids, what is there not to like?! Lastly, somewhere last week, Cal managed to fall in the toilet with his clothes on.

Speaking of toilets, just one more week and we are potty-training the girls. Any advice? My friend Jeanne potty-trained triplet boys all on her own. I think I will survive okay as Lee will take a week off of work and potty-train Shanna and I will do Haley. It will be nice to have only ONE child in diapers, not THREE. And a little extra money every month will be nice too! Here's hoping that our 1-week training that we essentially did with the boys works with the girls too.

It's amazing seeing Elden go from this...

....to this! We sure love this little guy. I often think of his big fight he had to undergo with his small body.


Shanna and Haley Sunday night...I usually take preparing simple Sunday meals literally. And this was even simpler as Lee made the homemade french fries! Yes mom, we had our veggies.



A picture from over a week ago while babysitting our friends kids. (The see below train picture.)



Enjoy the week!

We've had a few firsts and some hopefully-lasts this week.

I started feeding Elden baby food. I don't like the "baby food" stage, truthfully. I just rather nurse them or give them what the rest of us are eating. But so far it's going okay and I am excited that he is developing well!


We had our first snow day from school! And I am glad I found out soon enough that I could sleep in a little.








Our little guy weighs 15 pounds now!


Another first--Elden has been getting up on his knees lately. I am so thankful that he is showing signs of getting ready to crawl.


Another first (sort of): Elden is now in his own room, which basically means no more mid-night, or early morning feedings. (Breakfast is not served till 6am...at the earliest!) He actually has been sleeping through the night for weeks and weeks, so I am hoping that naturally continues and that my writing this doesn't jinks anything!

Want proof that kids watch what you do?? Shanna did ALL of this of her own accord. I don't know if Lee opened the baby food container, but I didn't! It was so cute!


Elden playing in the closet while I was getting the kids geared up to play in the cold and snow on the 2nd snow day of school.




And for the hopeful-lasts....This month we bought diapers for the girls for the last time! In February Lee is taking off a week of work and he is potty-training Shanna and I am potty-training Haley. They will be 3 months shy of their 3rd birthday at that point. I am hoping we luck out like we did with Clark and Cal and get them potty-trained in a week! This will be the first time since May 2nd 2007 that we will have just one kid in diapers!

And the next BIG first AND hopeful-last: kids cutting kids' hair! Cal cut Shanna and Haley's hair last week. Haley's wasn't bad at all. Shanna's....well, I have to fix her hair in a weird way. So if Haley's hair looks great and Shanna's doesn't, now you know why!

Other than the two snow days, the main happening of last week was the after-the-holiday cleaning. I miss all of my family that was here! COME BACK!

Oh, I did get a new calling! I am now the Relief Society Visiting Teaching Coordinator. In our church we get paired up with another lady in the congregation and visit other ladies from church to see how they are doing and share a spiritual message. It's a great way to get to know the women in our church and to find out how we can serve them. I've had many callings in Relief Society--our church's woman's organization, but never this one. There is a new Relief Society Presidency too. Any tips anyone?

One of my freshman roommates (go Ricks College!) gave birth to boy/girl twins today! Little did we know what excitement lay ahead for both of us after missions and college! I hunted her hospital down, and I am excited to call her and find out the wonderful details tomorrow. After I called and found her hospital, I walked upstairs to lay Elden down for the night. As I went in to the girls' room, I thought about how old they are now (2 and 3/4ths, ha ha) and how quickly time goes. My friend sure has a lot ahead of her in caring for two babies, (our first night home from the hospital was a nightmare!) but she is amazing and has an awesome husband, so I am not at all worried. I am so happy for them!