Gymnastics and Princesses

Kate’s gymnastics program had their end of the year Gymnastics Jubilee tonight.  Kate has loved taking gymnastics and we plan to continue it in the fall.  She didn’t do so well during the show – was in one of her “moods” and didn’t snap out of it until the very end of her groups performance.  But we are so proud of her anyway!  It was very special that Kate’s Great Grandma Sally came out to see the show.  Gma Sally also gave Kate pink roses after the performance.  So sweet and special.

Saturday I got to take Kate to a Mommy and Me Princess Tea.  Kate got to wear her Cinderella dress and her magic slippers, eat yummy food, make crafts, and best of all, meet “real” Disney Princesses!  She got all giggly and smiley when she saw Cinderella and Belle.  Was a fun experience and a memory I will treasure for years to come!

Here are some pictures…

Kate’s mini tot class getting their medals

Pajama Picnic

Kate’s 3rd birthday party was a pajama picnic in our backyard.  It was a beautiful morning for a party.  It was a little wet from rain the night before, but that just made it more fun and dirty for the kids.   I had a lot of fun planning and decorating for the party, of course.  Very happy with the way it turned out.  Thanks to all the family and friends who were able to come celebrate Kate and make it a special day for her!

the personalized pillowcases hanging were the party favors

food and drinks

beautiful cake made by aunt jen

donut cake!

fruit ice cream cups

birthday girl

Carter says, “I’m loud!”

Carter finished off everyone’s juice.  haha!

blowing out the candle

her new bike from gma and gpa

she needed no help unwrapping the presents

although carter was close by to supervise

juice break

eating the fruit loops instead of making necklaces.  way more fun to just eat them straight out of the bowl!

Happy Easter!

Hope everyone had a wonderful Easter!  We had a great day, which included an egg hunt, brunch, and church.  This year was Carter’s first egg hunt (last year he wasn’t walking yet), but he didn’t need any training!  He knew exactly what to do!  When Kate saw the eggs all over the yard, she exclaimed, “What a terrible mess!  We must clean it up!!”.  Haha!

“Oh praise the One who paid our debt and raised this life up from the dead!”  Happy Easter family and friends!

Note to self: next year have brunch BEFORE egg hunt.  Carter is a full fledged Gray when it comes to being hungry.  Keep us fed and we’re happy!   We sneaked out a smile from him just barely.

don’t you love the way she decided to carry the basket?

My beautiful kiddos.  Love them so much!

Egg hunt at Tetee’s neighborhood (Kate named Tracie TeTee )

This was the first year Kate wasn’t scared of the Easter bunny.  Carter LOVED the bunny and kept giving it his eggs.

Kate’s 3!

Our little baby girl is 3 years old!  My how time flies.  She has become quite the independent little girl, saying, “Me do it!” countless times a day.  She is fully potty trained and even goes all by herself most of the time.  She likes to dress herself, put on her own shoes, climb up into the car by herself, get in her swing outside without help, brush her own teeth and countless other things.  She seems to have endless energy and has pretty much completely dropped napping.  She LOVES anything Disney Princess, and her favorite Disney movies are Cinderella, Little Mermaid, Aladdin, and Peter Pan or any of the Tinkerbell movies.  Almost every morning she wears her Cinderella dress, shoes, and crown as she plays.   Kate loves her “buddy” Carter and has already started blaming him for things, saying “Carter make a mess” and “Carter do that” (meaning Carter did that).  Kate still LOVES fruit and it is a staple of her diet.  She is a fairly picky eater otherwise.   She says the funniest things and keeps us laughing and smiling.  She is a precious little girl and the past three years have been so fun watching her grow up!

Her official 3 year stats:

Weight: 28 lbs (25th percentile)

Height: 36.5 inches (40th percentile)

and two cute pictures of Carter….(because I have them and have to share!)

Our little gymnast!

Kate got gymnastics classes as part of her Christmas present from Gma and Gpa Fobart.  If you remember, ballet didn’t go over so well with Miss Kate.  But we really felt like she would love gymnastics and we were right!  The first day she saw the gymnastics gym she said, “Wow…big playground!”  It’s not a mommy and me class, it’s a Mini-Tot class for 2.5 – 3.5 yr olds.   She absolutely loves it and is doing great.  She has the perfect little and agile body to be a gymnast.  Here are some pics of her at gymnastics….

1.5 years!

Carter is now 18 months old!  Here are his official stats:

Height – 33.2 inches, 75%

Weight – 28.3 lbs, 78%

He is starting to talk more and more.  His current favorite word is “bye bye” as he waves.  His other sometimes legible words are  bubbles, uh oh, all done, please, mama, dada, ball, dog, cracker, block, tv, and nite nite.  He knows where his nose is and can point to it when you ask.  We’re working on recognizing all the other body parts.  He also knows the letter A and C, and tries to name the rest but it’s not in English.   He LOVES to play outside, especially in the dirt and water.  He also loves to read books, play with trains, and to sleep!  He is starting to say the right sounds that animals make, and especially loves to say “ooh ooh ah ah” for the monkey.  He can also say “roar” for lions, “baa” for sheep, and “aaagh” for dinosaurs.

He is growing up so fast.  Wish I could just press the pause button.  Here’s a recent picture of our handsome little fella…

Been awhile…

So I’ve not been so great about keeping the blog updated recently.  The kids are still growing up way too fast.  Carter now sits at the table with us instead of in a high chair and he can also feed himself with a fork and a spoon.  Kate is fully potty trained and doing great.  How did they both get to this point?  What happened to my little babies????

More updates later this month after Carter’s 18 month doctor’s appointment, but I wanted to share some cute pics from the past couple of weeks.

Bye Bye Diapers

We finally took the plunge and decided it was time to start potty training Kate.  Instead of trying to wing it on our own, we decided to follow a method that we had heard from others “worked like a charm.”  It’s called the 3-day potty training ebook by Lora Jensen.  I’m SO glad we decided to buy this book, as I would’ve done it all wrong if we hadn’t (or it would’ve just taken a lot longer).  She gave great tips and insight that really made sense, and worked!  Although it ended up taking us 4 days.  But that’s okay, 4 days is still a great success and very quick regardless.  Don’t get me wrong, the process was still very frustrating and full of accidents, but every day showed marked improvement and since it “clicked” on day 4, Kate hasn’t looked back!  Here’s a short recap of our 5 days of progress:

Day 1:

Carter was off at Gma Candi’s house this day so I could focus completely on Kate since it was a Friday and Ryan was working.  I put her in panties after she woke up that morning and said bye bye to diapers!  It was a messy day, and very tiring for both of us.  She had 13 accidents, but three of those started as accidents and ended in the potty. She was very uncomfortable sitting on the potty early in the day, but later in the day got more used to it.  She just didn’t quite understand what was going on and why she couldn’t just pee anywhere and anytime, like she did in her diaper.  This picture best describes how she AND I felt by the end of the day….

Daily stats: 13 accidents, 3 of which ended with some pee in the potty

Day 2:

Day 2 Kate got good at controlling her urge to pee, but still wasn’t comfortable enough with the potty and the process to release on the toilet.  She still had some accidents, but not nearly as many as day 1.  We spent a lot of the day running her to the toilet when she started to do the “potty dance”, only to have nothing happen.  We’d put her down, she’d start hopping around again and crossing her legs, and we’d wisk her away back to the potty. Eventually she’d either pee in the potty or have an accident. She just didn’t have enough practice and didn’t know how to let her pee out.

Daily stats: 4 accidents, 2 potty successes!

Day 3:

Today was a day of hope.  The day our book promised it would “click” and Kate would be potty trained!  Overall, the day was not bad, but it was still very frustrating.  Mainly because she still didn’t know how to release her pee on the potty or just didn’t want to do it.  So we had many false alarms taking her to the potty and it got real old.  But, she did have 4 successful trips to the potty!

Daily stats: 2 accidents, 4 potty successes!

Day 4:

The first part of day 4 was very disappointing and frustrating for me because it started with accidents plus I was just completely worn out and tired of potty training.  I was on my own with both Carter and Kate that day, so I was juggling a crying Carter when Kate and I ran to the bathroom, and a crying Kate on the potty.  Kate not only was able to control the urge to pee, but also got very good and telling us she needed to go or running us into the bathroom with her.  This was great, but we still had many false alarms.  But, thank goodness, it finally “clicked” at 1:00 and she has been great ever since!   She’s still wetting the bed at night, but that’s mainly been because we hadn’t been able to get her to go potty before going to bed, so it was expected.

Daily stats: 2 accidents, 5 potty successes!

Day 5:

Still wet the bed last night, but otherwise she’s had no accidents and even went #2 in the potty!!!!  She also went to preschool today and came home in the same clothes she went to school in!  What an awesome feeling!

Will post an update later with our nighttime progress.  Hopefully in less than a week we can have her fully trained, daytime and nighttime!

Thank you “3-day Potty Training” for making our potty training experience as quick and painless as possible!

A Merry Little Christmas…In Texas!

This Christmas was filled with family.  It was so special to be at Grandpa Bruce’s house for the annual Christmas Eve party and also to get to visit with Grandpa Paul on several different occasions while in TX over the holidays.  There’s not much better than my little ones getting to sit in their great grandfathers’ laps and make them smile.  I cherish each and every moment we get to spend with them.   Here are a couple of my favorite pictures from our time while in TX…

Christmas morning…delayed

Because we were traveling home from TX Christmas day, we had a delayed Christmas morning at home.  The kids are young enough to not know any different….and it just spread out the gift giving that much longer!  They got gifts for DAYS in a row.  Every morning Kate would wake up and say, “open presents?!”    We are so blessed to have such wonderful, healthy children and we had a great Christmas morning spoiling them.

Carter-zilla

Kate made the train go, Carter made it stop.  At least they were working together!

don’t think Carter like the hat daddy bought him

stockings!