O Christmas Tree

This Saturday morning, we ventured out to pick up a few essentials, the most important being our Christmas tree. We were planning on buying a small real tree so that we wouldn't have to store it but our apartment complex doesn't allow real trees so we had to buy a fake one. With the budget being tight we were worried what we would be able to find. Luckily Wal-Mart had display trees 50% off so we got our little beauty for $12! I absolutely love it and am so excited to have a tree in our home!Morgan is getting to be just the right age for Christmas. He is starting to catch on to the different traditions of the season and is getting really excited. He loved helping us carry the tree into the house and decorating it. He got so excited about every ornament and all the fun lights. Cody and I were laughing and smiling the whole time.

Here's a video of Morgan's first tree decorating experience:

Pepper helped by sleeping through most of it and then hanging out in her jumpy seat while we finished up. What a trooper!

Here's some snapshots from around the apartment. We have limited decorations but build up our supply each year after the holidays when everything goes on sale.

Florida Snow-people

The Willow Tree figurines wanted to help celebrate baby Jesus' birth also.

This corner of my home makes me SO happy!

Last Tuesday night my enrichment committee and I put on a Relief Society Christmas dinner and program. Our theme was "Feeling the Spirit of Christ in the Season."

My friend Heather made those awesome Christmas tree cake bites. Such skills!

We all brought our kids to church all day on Tuesday and decorated the entire gym in two sections. The one side had all the tables for dinner and then we had dividers up to hide the other side of the gym, which we made into a living-room.

Jen M., Jen A. and Julie

Julie, Laura and Heidi

These lovely men, along with a few others, volunteered to serve us all night. They were wonderful and even started cleaning everything up while we had our program. We had a bunch of other men volunteer to be our nursery leaders for the night so all the women would be free to participate. We had almost 90 women come and around 35 children in the nursery!

After dinner, we invited the women to move over into the living-room area where we had hot chocolate and hot cider waiting for them, along with cookies and peppermint sticks. It was magical and very cozy.

My lovely and talented friend Becky was my hero for the night. She bought all the food, prepared most of it, directed everyone else in serving it and stayed in the kitchen through the whole dinner. Then she played the piano for our program. We had a beautiful musical number by two sisters, I read "A Christmas Dress for Ellen" by Thomas S. Monson, Becky then read some quotes from Pres. Monson's Christmas devotional and bore her testimony, we sang a carol, I read a portion of the Christmas story from Luke and then we sang two more carols. The entire evening was perfect from beginning to end. The spirit was so strong and we felt so much love for each other and the Christmas season. Even though I was technically in charge of the evening, I take no credit for the wonderful time had by all.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who participated.

I love Christmas!

Christmas Season Begins

Last weeks playgroup was hosted by my great friend Heather and her adorable son Jack.

She had little magnets for the kids to paint, which of course was a big hit.

Becky, Abby and Jack

Laura and David

Heidi and Lucas

Thanks, Heather for the fantastic playgroup!

The other day I heard Pepper waking up very early from her nap and I went in to my closet to investigate.

This is what I found.

Somehow Pepper had managed to get one arm out of her onesie,

and her binky down the front of her shirt!

Such a crazy girl but you can't really be annoyed with that beautiful smile!

Saturday night was our Akron 1st Ward Christmas Party.

The theme was "Oh, Little Town of Bethlehem" and you were supposed to dress in costume.

We convinced Morgan to wear a hat, only if he got to wear his guitar shirt and that he had a hat like daddy's. It lasted all of five minutes once we got there but it was cute for those five minutes.

Jack in costume.

We had a great time visiting with our friends from the ward and celebrating the season.

I could listen to people read about the Savior's birth everyday! It really made me miss working on "Savior of the World" at the Conference Center Theatre. What a great experience and time in my life!

Potty training has been going great as far as peeing in the potty is concerned. Morgan always tells you when he needs to go, even when we are out and about. He hasn't had any pee accidents and is able to hold it till we find a bathroom. Pooping has been a bit of a challenge. He has pooped in the potty but usually starts pooping somewhere else and then we catch him and take him to the potty. When we are out, he is really good about sneaking off and pooping in his underwear. I know I don't want to yell or make him feel bad or scare him, but I just can't figure out how to make him understand that it is not okay to go in your underwear. I'm open for any suggestions.

Finally, last night I could tell he had to go really bad so I took off his pants and underwear so he had no option and of course he ran in and went on the potty. Poor kid was hurting but we had a huge celebration and I think he is starting to get it. At least he is waking up dry from naps and night-time so we're pretty stoked about that!

On the Pepper front, she is starting to crawl backwards and has moved her hands in a forward direction. She rocks a lot on her knees so it should be any day now!

Here's a video of her progress:

Potty Training in 3 Days...Really!

Let me just start this post by stating that I am well aware that I am no expert at potty training and have only done this once so I should not act like I can give advice. This is simply a retelling of our experience and anything that I feel will be helpful to others. So here goes...

In anticipation of potty training I decided to ask a lot of mothers how they did it and what method they used. In my mind I really thought this was going to be the hardest thing I have ever done as a parent. Most days it just seemed like an impossible hurdle we had to overcome...of course I had not even tried to get over the hurdle yet, I was just very nervous. If you know me very well, this would not surprise you. I love to completely worry and over prepare for something to find out in the end it wasn't as bad or impossible as I feared.

Potty training turned out to be no exception!

After my research, I decided to go with Lora Jensen's 3 Day Potty Training Method. I had a friend who had used it and she just raved about it and said everyone she had known who had used it had been very successful. I had a hard time giving up three days of staying at home but knew it would be worth it. Luckily, Pepper is now taking a bottle during the day so I was able to get others to watch her for the first two days. The first day Cody took her to church and then watched over her during the rest of Sunday. Monday, our dear friends Katy and Todd took Pepper all day long until it was time for bed and then Katy came over and gave Pepper a bath and got her ready for bed. How lucky am I to have such wonderful people in my life! From the first morning this method worked like a dream! I tweaked it just a little but in the end I would recommend this to anyone who is getting ready to potty train. I love that the method lets the child learn to recognize what their body is telling them and never makes them just sit on the potty when they don't really have to go. Sorry if this is too much info but Morgan was even pooping on the potty on the first day and does not seem really scared at all of his potty. All three days he has woken up dry from his nap and this morning he woke up dry from an entire night of sleep. I was really worried about getting rid of all the diapers on day one but it has worked out perfectly and since they are not there for you to fall back on you have to keep going no matter what.
One of the ways we tweaked the method was after two times of wetting his underwear on day one Morgan refused to put on more underwear so he went commando. My sister-in-law Joanna had recommended having Morgan go commando, that is how she did it with her four kids, and I think it worked best. That way Morgan didn't have to fight pulling something down and could just run in and go by himself whenever he needed to. Also, because there was nothing holding him in or catching the mess he was more anxious to get to the potty in time. That is why I think the poop part has worked so well (the only times he has pooped in his underwear is when he was alone with underwear on). Also, now that Pepper is back and I have to feed her bottles and put her to bed and leave Morgan alone for minutes at a time, he can go with no problem. I just take off his underwear before I go in with Pepper and he has had no accidents being left alone, even poop!
Thanks Joanna for that great tip.

I was also unsure about using food as a reward and wanted to do a sticker system. Once again, wise Joanna suggested that Morgan would need an immediate reward not just a promise of something in the future. So he would get two M&Ms after each successful, no mess bathroom visit and a sticker on his chart. Once he got a certain number of stickers he got one piece of a train. It seemed to work perfectly and after he had filled his chart at the end of the second day and had gotten all three pieces of his train we stopped the sticker chart. He seemed to like the chart but also didn't seem to miss it once it was done. Now that the three days are over he still gets candy every once in awhile, mainly when he remembers to ask for it but it is not a must.

It was fantastic getting to spend so much one on one time with Morgan again. I think he really enjoyed having my full attention and I loved getting to play with him. I think we must have read almost all the books in his room and that is saying a lot!

Today is Wednesday and playgroup so it will be our first venture outside and with pants on but I am feeling hopeful. Yesterday I invited a friend to come over for a bit to work on dealing with playtime and distractions. He had one small accident but was able to stop and finish in the potty so I think it was a success. When he woke up dry this morning I wanted to cry for joy! This may not be the end of his accidents but I feel very good about our successes so far and Morgan's ability to know when he has to go.

I really don't think Morgan is some sort of super-potty genius, I just think he was really ready and that the method works great. If anyone has any questions or wants to talk more about how it worked with us, please let me know. I always love talking about the new milestones in our lives. I really loved how much knowledge and helpful hints the other mothers gave me too. I didn't use every suggestion but I felt like I had a really good idea of what we were getting into and I felt prepared. Very key for me.

Thank you to Cody for all of his support and for taking such great care of Pepper and our family. If you doubt how much I've been stressing about this for months and months, just ask Cody about it sometime! He is so great at calming me down and telling me that I am doing a great job as a mother. I have had many panic attacks that I am failing my children in some way or the other and he always gets me back to the reality that I am doing the best I can.

Thank you, Cody. I will love you forever and you will always be my favorite!

Thanksgiving with the Family

Last Wednesday we drove over to Khan's house to spend Thanksgiving weekend. Cody had just gotten home from a business trip at midnight and Pepper had a horrible night so we were a little slow getting started but we were excited to spend time with Khan and his family again.

Morgan and William are getting really great at playing together most of the time. They both don't have to do a lot of sharing at home, which makes for a few disputes but I would say they had more fun than fights.

Luckily they still have just enough baby stuff for us to get by without having to pack it all over. Also, lucky for us Joanna has been slowly getting rid of a lot of baby items and toys, which means we always leave with a bag of goodies!

Aunt Joanna reading to Morgan and William.

Karissa in her favorite spot in front of the computer and Facebook!

Theron's favorite spot in all the chaos!

Our camera has been taking weird pictures lately, I think it is stuck on some random setting, but I thought the sentiment was still nice.

Sharing some candy treats.

Getting ready to feast!

Pies and ice cream. Always a good time!

Morgan, aka Darth Vader

Darth takes a break from ruling the Empire to feed little Pepper.

Going to the Children's Museum again on Black Friday.

I just love the mosaics inside.

The forest area is our favorite. It is huge and has tons of places to climb, slide and explore.

Morgan managed to get to the very highest rope tunnel and then couldn't get down. He just kept going back and forth and getting more upset. I couldn't get to him and was getting panicked when finally a nice older boy helped him get down. Phew!

Taking the dogs and little guys out for a walk.

We had another wonderful weekend with the family and are once again so grateful to live close to them. We have never really spent Thanksgiving with family since we were first married so we were pretty excited to be able to do that.

Cody ventured out for our first Black Friday experience. He and Joanna went to ToysRUs at midnight and got home just before 3 am. Unfortunately, one of the items we wanted for Morgan didn't go on sale till 5 am but thank goodness for Amazon. I was glad I had to stay home and take care of Pepper. One of the first times I was glad to get up in the middle of the night to nurse!

Thanks Cody for braving the madness and to Joanna, Khan and family for helping us so much!