Potty Training Success - Part 1

Well, after much effort, we've finally had some success on the potty training front!! For about 4 weeks or so now, Evan has actually been telling us he has to go pee-pee, and then going on the potty. Even in the last week or so, he's started standing up to pee. What progress!

We think the turning point was an event at preschool. (Side note: I'm so grateful for his teacher for working so deligently with him on potty training. Being a two-parent working household, we really needed that consistency during the day to make it happen.) He had refused to go potty before going outside to the playground, then had an accident while playing outside. This makes it hard for the teachers and aids because then one of them has to leave and change him, leaving the other kids with less supervision. So one day his teacher told him he could either go potty and then out to the playground, or NOT go potty and he'd have to go to the office during playground time. Being the stubborn little boy he is, he chose not to go potty and go to the office. We think he didn't like being left out of the playground fun, because the next day he cooperated and went potty so he could go out on the playground. The next few days he didn't have any accidents and that Friday night, he came home and told me he had to go potty for the 1st time! He also did great the whole rest of the weekend, always telling us he had to go and doing it himself.

Since then, he talks all about being a big boy and going the potty by himself. He's even consistently done well while visiting my mom for the weekend, and staying the night at my dad's. We do keep him in a pull-up at night because first thing in the morning he still has accidents. Also, right after naptime at school he sometimes has accidents as well. But, at this point, I'm happy for the great progress that he's made! Now, the next hurdle, #2. He hasn't got that down. Doesn't tell us he has to go with that, and still refuses to sit on the potty and go #2. But I'm hopeful I'll be posting Part 2 success in the not too distant future.

Evan's 3rd Birthday Recap

I know I'm a bit behind in posting photos and details on Evan's 3rd Birthday party, but the last two weeks just took off and I haven't been able to catch up until now.

Evan's party was a blast! Evan had a great time with all his family and friends...there were 13 kids total and lots of adults too. The weather was just perfect...not too hot or windy, and no rain! Here's a view of the party in pictures. It was a CARS theme and I really tried to have fun playing on that theme. My cake didn't turn out bad, but ended up not fairing very well in the car ride over and in the heat. The icing melted (think my mistake was using whipped icing) and the fondant was slipping down the cake so it looked squished on the bottom even before the party started. I was pretty diappointed at first, but once everyone started arriving all that disappointment melted away...I think I can look back and laugh about it now! We actually had to put Evan's remote control Lightning McQueen car up against the back end to keep the whole end from falling apart. That definitely makes me smile now! In the end, Evan's only 3 years old and he didn't care if he had a perfect cake, nor did he really notice it falling apart. He just loved his Lightning McQueen cake and kept coming over to it and pointing it out. And many other kid's eyes just lit up when they saw the cake. And I put the time and love into making it for him...that's all that matters!

Menu
Lightning McQueen Race Day Sandwiches (made to look like a checkered flag with dark and light breads)
Mater's Tater Salad
Sally's Spinach Dip
Mack's Mexican Dip (spelled CARS with the tomatos on top)
Fillmore's Fruit Skewers (Evan ate a ton of these - loves his fruit!)
Flo's V8 Cafe (lots of different drinks including capri suns, Evan's favorites)

Activities
Ramone's House of Body Art - painting wooden cars
Playing on the playground - Evan loves the swing and insisted on swinging one last time after we have finished cleaning and packing up.

Here is photos of the cake right after I finished...if only it had lasted, but oh well. That's life. :)

UPDATE: Want to learn to make marshmallow fondant and cool cakes? Check out my latest post.

Celebrating 3 Years with Our Little Ray of Sunshine

Today is Evan's 3rd Birthday! I still can't believe that it's already been 3 years since I gave birth to him and our life got a whole lot brighter! :) He was born at 8:39am and weighed in at a big 9 lbs 13 oz and 22 inches long. (Thankful I had a c-section.) And he's never stopped growing and thriving since then. I just love it!

Last night I made my famous black bottom cupcakes. Evan loves to help put the papers in the cupcake tin, and then put the topping on them, with supervision of course. If not, I'd have had batter all over my kitchen. I sent him to school with the cupcakes today. He wanted to carry them in himself and was so proud to give them to the teacher to share with his class. Right about now is their snack time and the kids should all be enjoying the yummy treats and celebrating Evan's birthday. It would be great to get some pictures of that. So, why am I not there!!??!! Oh, yea, I have to work. :( I am definitely reminising about last year though when I took the day off so Brad, Evan and I could all celebrate together. But we've got a fun CARS birthday party planned this weekend so we'll be doing plenty of celebrating and focusing on this 3 year milestone. And I'll be taking plenty of photos of that! Plus, I set up for Evan to get a birthday call from Tigger tonight using Disney Enchanted Calls. I'm so excited to see his face when he hears it - definitely going to be getting that on video! (If you want to ge a free phone call for your child, I found out about a freebie here.)

Well, now for tonight and tomorrow night, I've got my work cut out for me with final preparations for Evan's party. I'm making a Lightning McQueen birthday cake using fondant...and hoping it turns out half as good as the picture in my head! Plus the other final food preparations. We are having the party at a local park with a playground so the kids should have fun! And I'm praying for no rain or heavy wind! But right now it looks like the weather is going to be beautiful. Wish I could be outside right now actually. I'm loving the spring weather. I actually pulled out my capri pants for work today. I'm enjoying being a bit more casual and comfortable.

Hope you all are looking forward to a great weekend as well!

The Joy of Easter Sunday

On Friday I attended our church's Good Friday service. It was a great reminder that though the world sees the cross as humiliation and death we know it is about love and eternal life. Amazing how God conquered death for all of us! It was a great way to start the Easter weekend.

And today, Easter Sunday, we had a wonderful day celebrating that He is Risen at a traditional church service at the church where Brad and I got married. It's also the church I grew up in. Evan was totally adorable in the Easter outfits I got him...yes, I got two only because I found amazing deals! Pretty much got both for the price I would have paid for one elsewhere. I really don't shop there much but wasn't happy with the selection elsewhere so I ended up finding them at JCPenney. Check out my cutie below! Oh, and he just got a new haircut on Thursday. It's shorter and not so shaggy.

 

Evan and his Aunt Tara (my stepsister)

Jumping for joy on Easter!

I think here he is wondering whether he's going to like the candy in this Easter egg!
(and this is outfit #2)

On Saturday we also got the chance to dye Easter eggs. Evan loved this as he is very artistic. I got these stamps with dye that you could also paint on with a brush.

Here he is concentrating so hard! He has taken to drawing and coloring,
pretty much anything artistic. Takes after his Daddy!

I hope everyone had a blessed Easter! And that you continue to be filled with the joy that God brings through his son's death and resurrection!

Potty Training Update

Well, we are off to a start...thought it's a slow start...with potty training. I still don't have a free weekend until after Easter so no Potty Training Bootcamp yet. But Evan's teacher has decided to work hard with the last 3 kids (all boys) in the class who aren't potty trained. So he's been going without pull-ups at school regularly! Though he is consistantly having accidents and came home with someone else's socks on yesterday! Oops, guess I forgot to put new socks in his backpack. 

I did try him one overnight without pull-ups but even though I grabbed him right when he woke up, he had already wet the bed. :( I've been putting him on the potty before bed for about 10 minutes but he doesn't do anything. Then 5 minutes later after brushing his teeth he'll go pee in his PJs!

Overall, we are realizing he just doesn't get how to tell he needs to go. It doesn't hit him untill he is already going. Last night he told me he was going pee as he went. Not enough time to get to the potty before he was done and we were cleaning up yet another mess. Luckily, it's been more in his clothes than on our carpet. I'm hoping something will click soon. For now, I've got 2 changes of clothing including big boy underwear in his backpack at school because we know there will be more accidents. And I'm still struggling with patience throughout this whole process. I put a pull-up on him for on the way to school the other morning as I wasn't in the mood to clean up a messy car seat cover. And I'm lucky I did because he went #2!

Evan's 1st Class Photo

I can't believe it's that time already! He's just 2 years old (almost 3) but because we have to put him in full-time daycare we went ahead and started him at a Christian preschool. So here is Evan's 1st official school class photo! Aren't the kids adorable! They just crack me up with their smiles. The photographer did a great job getting them to smile SO BIG!!! I think Evan looks like he may be the class clown! There are actually about 4 students missing so his class looks small. He can name every one of his classmates though. And the cute little girl on the left front with the cute pink boots...I found out she mentions Evan and one other kid in the class in her prayers. So sweet! I think he's having a blast at preschool and that just makes me smile. :)

Potty Training: Consistency and Commitment

I'm finding that the key to success in potty training my little boy is going to be consistency and commitment. As a two working parent household it's hard for us to commit to the consistency it takes to potty train him. We've watched videos (actually, I think Evan liked watching the potty training video more than we did!), read articles and listened to parents who have been through it. We are just trying to figure out how to make it work for us. We have the potty chair, the potty chart with stickers, and treats for a reward. He was sort of interested when we first introduced it all but now he just runs away screaming "No" when I say he needs to go to the potty. I really have no indication when he goes pee but I can definitely tell when he is going poo as he does this funny little dance! Oh, and it's usually right at dinner time! Fun! Ulimately we are finding it's really less about whether he is ready, which I think he has been for some time, but whether me and my hubby are ready! :)

Life has been crazy and hectic and so many things have taken priority over potty traning. But I recently heard about a 3 day potty training bootcamp. I was really hoping it wouldn't come to that though many said it's what works, but others also say that kids just "get it" and you don't want to force them. Who to believe? A lot of little boys I know were around 3 years old and Evan will be 3 in April. But he shows the signs of readiness so I've decided we need to take action soon! :) Oh, and he's one of only 2 kids left in his 2 year old class that aren't potty trained. His class is mostly girls though and they tend to pick it up earlier, so at least that makes me feel better.

Unfortunately our schedule and the ability to stay home all one weekend to do the training is hard. March is our month of birthdays, both friends and family, so we have events booked most weekends. Right now I'm realizing I don't have enough big boy underwear (as they tend to have a lot of accidents), and I've got a cold that is just hanging on, plus we are having someone babysite Evan overnight next weekend and I really don't want to put them in the position of having to deal with a newly potty trained little boy! All of these excuses (though valid I believe!) are going to get in the way until the last weekend of March or first weekend of April, depending on when my nephew's birthday party gets scheduled. But once I pin down the weekend, we are going to get him potty trained! I'm putting it out there so I'll have even more motivation to follow through! I need to be held accountable I think.

Anyone have any tips or feedback on their experience potty training? I'd love your thoughts and reassurance that it isn't as awful a process as I think it is and I shouldn't be dreading it! :)

Our First Gingerbread House

I decided to get a gingerbread house for us to make with Evan this year. For our first gingerbread house, I think we did pretty good. I did start by getting a bit frustrated with the icing that started by just beating into tiny little balls (it really takes way more water than the directions said)! Then we had a mishap as I mistook the roof pieces for the side pieces. :) My hubby straightened it all out, and we were on our way, except we had to keep Evan patient as he wanted to get into the candy right away when the house was supposed to dry for 2 to 3 hours! Wish I'd know that in advance. We ate dinner to distract him and then got back to the gingerbread house. We only waited a little over an hour, but it seemed sturdy so we went ahead with decorating it. Brad did a great job piping the icing for the doors and windows while Evan and I were spreading icing on the roof, then he did a lattice pattern on the roof. Finally it was time to add the candy - Evan did one side of the roof and I did the other. It was fun for us all and I'm pretty proud of our first gingerbread house. A new family tradition is born. :)

My side of the roof

Evan's side of the roof - he did really good!

Decorating is coming along slowly...

Well, we never get the chance to put up our Christmas tree and decorations right after Thanksgiving. But it's for good reason - we are spending quality time with my Mom and Stepdad in Melbourne the weekend after Thanksgiving. So, I've had to start getting the decorations up during the work week in bits and peices each night. So far, I've only gotten the tree up and the garland over the mantle and hung our new stockings from Old Navy. Oh, and the table centerpeice I made is out. Tonight I'm hoping to have Evan help decorate the tree. I already put some new candy cane ornaments I got up, and so far Evan grabs every single one of them down calling them "candles" and saying they are his. It's going to be interesting to see what he does once all the ornaments are up! :) And Evan still refers to our stockings as socks, like he did last year!

You can see the decorations as they were last year here. I'll post pics from this year in the coming week. I'm also doing a crafty wreath project and hope that will come together over the next week. I love Christmas time! Don't you?

Halloween Recap

Here's my cutie in his Halloween costume. He LOVES the movie Cars so this was the perfect costume for him. Plus, he had Cars light up shoes (thanks to his cousin Garrett!) to go along with it. He really got the hang of trick-or-treating. Too bad not many of our neighbors were in the spirit with only a few porch lights turned on and giving out candy. Luckily, we had gone to a fall festival at a nearby church first and Evan got a big bag of candy there. Evan's Granny and Papa joined us and we had a fun night.

Check out the pumpkins I carved. Brad ran out of time to do his, but he's the one who picked the white pumpkin and wanted to do the ghost. I did the Owl for the pumpkin carving contest at work, and with a 50/50 chance I was the only loser. :( Oh well. I enjoy carving them, and Evan enjoyed helping me pull out all the guts and stir it around while I did the carving. True boy!

I hope everyone had a very Happy Halloween! Now I'm looking forward to the rest of the Holiday season as we wrap up this year.

Less Words Wednesday

There is a trend in the blog and twitter communities for a Wordless Wednesday, where you post a photo or photos for that day and not any words. Hence the name. But I am not really capable of no words, especially since I got my education and work in communications. So I've decided to change it to Less Words Wednesday. Here's my first one. These are photos of Evan from earlier this month that were taken by Brian Carlson, who goes to our church. Evan was not cooperating at all...typical terrible twos, but Brian still captured some great shots we'll treasure forever.

Making Manicotti's

Well, life has gotten in the way again and it's been months since my last post. Today is the start of our staycation so I'm finding some free time on my hands! Yeah! For the next week no work!

This afternoon I'm in a quiet house (very rare) and enjoying some time cooking...my favorite, Italian manicotti's. This is a family recipe (I'm 1/2 Italian - yes, I didn't get the skin tone!) that I was taught to make by my Mommom (Dad's Mom). I don't get the chance to make it regularly, just on special occasions. The special occasion today - my good friend Jessica just had a baby! Another baby boy for my group of friends. I am so excited and promised her I'd make some food for her freezer. With the new baby to care for she's going to need prepared food that is easy to heat up but keeps her nourished to breastfeed the baby. I'm making a double batch so there will be some leftover for us too! To go along with the manicotti's, I'm making homemade pasta sauce and Italian meatballs. If I have time I'll also be making Gnocchi's tomorrow. I'm getting hungry!

With Jessica's new baby here, it makes me think back to when Evan was born. The time was so exciting and joy filled, and miraculous! It seems like yesterday at times...but Evan is almost 2 1/2 now! And seems like such a big boy already. Where does the time go? I'm enjoying every minute of it though. Today I took Evan to a park, and he meet another little boy who was 3 1/2, and they had such fun playing together. Such little boys...climbing up the slide and then slipping into each other and sliding back down laughing! I'm so glad he gets along so well with other children. By the end of our time there, they were calling each other friends. How easy little kids make friends. Now Evan is thoroughly worn out and taking a long nap...giving me quiet time to make my Italian fare! Boy, it smells delicious!

I'm hoping I'll get to meet little Tristan tomorrow if Jessica is up for visitors at the hospital. Haven't heard all the details on him except he was born sometime before 11am, weighed 6 lbs 15 oz and had a good head of hair! I'm sure it is dark like Tian's. Babies are miracles, and an amazing gift from God. There is no way you can't believe that or feel that when you hold a newborn baby. There has to be more than just us...a higher being, God, who creates. Welcome to the world, Tristan George Chan! Can't wait to give you kisses!

Had to share the photo of the cake I made for Jessica's baby shower last month.

Came out so cute!

Had the baby's name on top with little baby feet.



And a photo of me and Steph (the hosts) with Jessica.

Disney Day

Well, I had a great birthday celebrated over two weekends! What fun! :)

As we did on Brad's birthday, we went to Disney again on my birthday. Taking advantage of the savings in this economy. This time we went to Animal Kingdom, which was definitely the best choice. Being June and HOT in Florida, this was the best park as it had ample shade with overhanging trees on most of the walkways. It really was a big park and we didn't make it to all that we hoped so we'll be going back again in the coming months. Overall, this was a much better experience for Evan. He loved seeing the animals and we didn't really have any lines for any rides or shows. Evan and lines were a big issue at Magic Kingdom, so were out to avoid those this time. We got a fast pass to the safari ride that made all the difference. Otherwise, there just weren't big waits for the shows. He loved the Lion King show, but was a bit scared by the It's a Bug's Life show, though he still wanted to put his 3D glasses back on so I'm thinking he wasn't too scared. We ate lunch at Rainforest Cafe, and had a full day of fun! Brad was even brought up to dance with some African dancers - and I've got it on tape! Finally Evan got a chance to see Tigger and Pooh - his favorite characters right now. "Iggy Pooh" as he calls them. He was really excited. Even though he didn't really smile in the photos he went right up to both of them and gave them a big hug, and gave Pooh a high five! Eeyore was there too but Evan didn't want to get close to him...poor Eeyore.

Evan and I on the safari ride

Evan noticing an animal on the safari ride

Look how close that Garafe was!

Checking out the Gorillas.

Evan with his 3D glasses for the It's a Bug Life show


Look at this big Gorilla!

Brad's Big Debut :)

Feeding these very assertive ducks some funnel cake! :)

Since I never posted photos from our day at Magic Kingdom in March. I've included those here as well.

He kept trying to close the door (which was not made to close) at Winnie the Pooh's play area

Evan still talks about seeing Mickey and getting a kiss from Minnie

(though he wouldn't let me put him down for the photo)