Day 1 of potty training Kate

Kate had the best 1st day of potty training out of all of the kids so far. I'm sure that is due in part to my experience, but mostly to the fact that she has been unofficially potty training for a year now. She has been watching her Potty Power video on and off for the past year and going on her potty whenever she feels like it for the past year. Yesterday was the 1st day to say that she is 3 years old now and she is wearing underwear, so she needs to pee and poop on the potty all the time, not just when she feels like it. She watched Potty Power after the girls left for school and then she went pee on the potty and started wearing her underwear. She went pee on the potty 11 times, had 3 pee accidents, and 1 poop accident. Zach didn't have any successes on his first day and he was completely potty trained by the end of a week, so Kate is off to a great start!

One new thing I did with Kate was to have a different book waiting for her in the bathroom. When I would tell her it was time to sit on her potty, she would get excited to see which book I would be reading to her while she sat on her potty.

Several times yesterday, Kate said, "I think I need to go pee", so we rushed into the bathroom. We didn't make it a couple of times, with pee gushing out one time as I pulled down her pants...fun!, but I was happy that she is already recognizing the need to pee.

Kate turns 3!

We had a fun day celebrating Kate's birthday yesterday! Kate was up at 5:30am and Zoe and Emily were prepared to entertain her until Matt and I got up (which was very sweet of them), but they didn't have to wait long because I got up soon after they did. All of the kids had fun playing with the balloons that I had pumped up the night before and they were excited for Kate's day to begin. When everyone was awake, Kate opened her "new" birthday dress and then she opened her new puzzle.


After I took Zoe to her last basketball practice of the season, we all piled in the Yukon and headed to the children's museum. What fun! My favorite part was writing Kate's name with the huge Lite Brite pegs and then taking her picture by it...even though she didn't want to.


As we were leaving the museum, I told Kate we were going to go home so she could open her presents. She humbly replied that she had already opened her presents. It was so sweet!

We were happy to see Grandma & Grandpa's package in the mailbox when we got home. :-)

We ate chicken fajitas for lunch and then my parents arrived for Kate's party.

Who doesn't love money?






The girls spent the rest of the day playing with Kate's new toys, which included additions to their Barbies and their doll house. It was nice that they all played together and got along.

The no toys at the table rule is ignored for the birthday girl.


Kate is a stylin' 3 year old now!


You're a big girl now Kate. Potty training starts tomorrow!

Use it or Lose it

Emily and Eleanor have Valentine parties at school next Friday. They just completed their Valentine cards thanks to the cards we had leftover from past years and my goal to use them. :-)

Succeeding

I have done as planned and I have had snacks ready for the older girls when they get home from school and I have sat at the table with them as we eat and talk. Yesterday, we got talking about riding horses, which led to talking about one of my favorite movies, "Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken", which led to eating dinner, getting the house cleaned up (the kids are very good about helping each other clean up their rooms when the reward will be a movie), and getting ready for bed, so we could sit down to watch the movie on Netflix. Matt had his High Council meeting last night. The kids enjoyed the movie, although they thought it was sad. Zoe enjoyed the fact that the movie takes place during the depression since she is studying that period of time in school right now.

I heart the $1 theater

I took the kids to the $1 theater last night to see "The Princess and the Frog". Eleanor has been wanting to see this movie since she first saw the preview for it many months ago. She was supposed to go see it with a friend in December, but that didn't happen, so I've been waiting for it to show up at the $1 theater. I know I said I would leave Noah behind the next time I took the kids to the movie theater, but Matt wasn't going to be home in time to watch him, so Noah came along to. I didn't expect Noah to last through the entire movie, so I was prepared to take him into the lobby when he got restless and have Zoe watch over her siblings, but I was able to stay with the kids for the entire movie. Noah did get restless toward the end of the movie as he climbed in and out of his seat, saying "I stuck" every time he climbed back into his seat as he tried to get his leg out from underneath him. Noah was stressing Zoe out, and I almost took him out at one point, but then he was content to sit in my lap for the remainder of the movie. The kids loved the movie and they enjoyed watching it in the theater.

Number 2

That is Kate's code word for Fiber One.

Lessons from Elizabethtown

1) Life is worth living, even when we experience failure, disappointment, and hardships.

2) We need to make the most of our time NOW that we have with our family and friends. There may not be a tomorrow.

Responsibility

The kids have each been assigned a room to be responsible for this week. When it is cleanup time, they go to the room they are responsible for and they make it neat and tidy. This began last night after family council. Kate is responsible for the kitchen (with my help). She was so excited to pick up the toys in the kitchen and put them away last night. I'm sure the fun of it will wear off, but her enthusiasm was encouraging. The kids like having a specific room to take care of for several reasons 1)Everyone has a responsibility, so the younger kids are expected to help out along with the older kids 2) The chore ends when the room is clean 3) They are able to work at their own pace and 4) They know exactly what their responsibility will be for every day this week. We'll evaluate how this all works out next Sunday during family council.

Before Matt, Zoe, and I got sick...

Eleanor, Zach, and I went to Zoe's first band/chorus concert Thursday night. My parents were there as well. The 5th grade band went first ("Zoe's band"). I don't have a good picture of Zoe playing her flute, but I did get a good enough picture to post of Zoe singing in the 5th-8th grade chorus. She is in the second row from the bottom, in the middle.


Zoe felt like she did a good job playing her flute and singing. We had fun listening to her and her classmates. Zach said he was hungry when the performance was almost over, so I told him we would stop at McDonald's before going home. That made his night! It was nice to be out of the house, so I wasn't in a rush to get home. My mom came to McDonald's with us. The kids and I stopped at the grocery store after we ate and I willed myself not to get sick before getting home. It worked. I've been sick and useless since we got home Thursday night, though. The girls had yesterday off from school, so they helped with the little ones when Matt had to go to work for a short while. Zoe and Matt weren't feeling great yesterday, but they were well enough to be up and around.