Diaper Posse

We had another Sunday Funday bbq at the pool this weekend, and the boys allowed Jaxon to become part of their exclusive club. :) 

 Their expressions with Jill, Lisa and I jumping up and down and yelling to get them to look at us.

But then Everett thought it was pretty funny.

Little Miss Clown Pants

I made these cute ruffle pants for Ella this afternoon, and she got a bunch of comments on them when we went out to dinner so I think they are hit! :)

Photos of Kids...a True Story

It is a fact that it takes at least 5-10 photos to get one HALF decent photo of your kids (and that you will NEVER get a good photo of both kids).  And I will illustrate this fact for you...

Remember this photo I posted from Vegas (which you can see is only half decent- Ella isn't even looking at the camera, and Everett, Mr. Smiley Pants, is far from smiling)?

Here is what it took to get that half decent shot...

G: Ella will you please sit next to daddy for a picture?
E: I don't want to right now (you can see that she is very intently explaining to him why she will not sit).

Me: Ella please just sit next to daddy and smile for one second.
E: What part of no don't you understand?  I don't want to!

E: [moves even further away]
G: Ella PLEASE come sit with daddy and Everett!!
E: [pout]

G: Ok, I'll just move closer to her.
E: Oh no you didn't.  Get your hands off me.

Me: [begging] Ella PLEASE go sit with daddy and Everett...I will give you a yogurt covered raisin!
E: Fine.  I'm doing my fake cuteness though.

Me: ELLA!  Please stand normally and just quickly smile for mama!
And, the grand finale...

Everett Cole is 8 Months Old!

Everett is 8 months today!  We thought he was losing his status as the world's best baby due to the Vegas trip, and his ongoing fussy behavior, but he seems to be pretty much back to his normal happy self because...he has TEETH on the bottom!!!!!  I still can't really see them, but I can definitely feel the 2 sharp little teeth so they have popped through.  So we've become aware of another difference between Ella and Everett...teething never bothered Ella in the least- no fussiness, no lost sleep- Everett, not so much. ;)

 As you can see, he is still Mr. Smiley Pants!

He is really sitting well now- he tips over a lot less.  He loves the remote control, and he knows if you try to give him a fake one.

He wears a size 3 diaper and size 6-9 months in most clothes.  He eats solids 3 times a day and gets 3 bottles a day- he's not a big eater.  He weighs about 17.5 or 18 pounds (Ella weighed 18.5 pounds).

His big sister is still madly in love with him.  The first thing she says every morning when she wakes up is, "where's Everett?" :)

Ella and Everett at 8 Months...

Potty Training- Day 4

So how tired are you of hearing about PTing?!  You can skip this boooring post, but I just had to record the fact that Ella did so great yesterday!!!!

Not one accident, and she decided she is now able to go potty "her big self"!  Everett was a little needier than usual yesterday so I was NOT on top of the PTing- constantly forgetting to ask, etc. so my big girl would just get up, say "I have to potty", march into the bathroom, get herself on the big toilet (she won't use the kid potty cover or mini-potty anymore) and go to the bathroom all by herself!

The downside to this behavior is that her reward for having no accidents all day was this monstrosity:

That's right, a Dora head that you can style her hair, change her hair color with water, add extensions, etc. I thought she'd love it since she is always trying to do my hair these days. She did love it for a total of 8 minutes.

Pool BBQ

We had a BBQ at the pool today with some of our favorite friends, and I think it was probably the most fun Ella has had all summer!  We couldn't tear the big kids out of the pool from 3pm to 6:45pm so this is the only photo we got of them!

Everett was actually LOVING the pool for almost 2 hours...completely chill. 

It's great because all of our kids are almost the exact same ages, and really this is the extent of Everett's circle of friends. :)

(that says 11.5 months for Ryan- not 15 months!)

But come on, this is a pretty bad ass group, right?!

That's right, we all hang out in our diapers.  What?

Look ma, I pinned Everett!

Chillin' with Gav...

My girls...

It was SUCH a great time, but let me tell me you why you are NOT supposed to have such fun (and lengthy) outings on the 3rd day of potty training...

Because Ella is trying so hard to be good about going in the potty, instead of going pee in the pool like every other child (come on, your kids do it!), she kept telling us she had to use the bathroom.

So I'd march her into the bathroom, cover the seat with two seat covers, take off her wet bottoms, struggle for what seemed like eternity trying to rip off her wet and sticky swim diaper (btw, why do these things seem like they stick to their legs??  Especially when you are trying to get them off quickly to pee!), lift her on the toilet, wait, wait, wait, until she finally said, "oh, I don't have to go potty", go find a dry swim diaper, put it on her, put her wet bottoms back on, back in the pool.  This happened no less then 10 times.  I was finally over it and decided to stop wasting swim diapers and just let her go in with just her suit on.

Well of course, she tells Gary she has to poop.  He takes her to the bathroom AGAIN.  Same scenario..."oh, I don't have to poop."  Back in the pool.  Two minutes later, she tells him AGAIN she has to go poop, so they get out, but apparently this time, she really did have to go and couldn't hold it until the bathroom, and now her cute WHITE swimsuit is not so white.  UGH!  I feel really bad for her because she did tell us, and she did try to make it to the potty but couldn't, and I could tell she felt really bad.  And it was totally our fault because everyone knows that you don't take a kid to a 5 hour bbq at the pool on the THIRD day they are potty training!  I'm actually very proud of her for telling us so many times because she was very distracted with all the fun she was having.

Oh well, we still have another kid on which to perfect our technique.

Potty Training Day 2

Life is rough when you're learning to use the potty.

We had a much better day today!  Ella is telling us she has to go potty without any prompting, and she only had one accident!  And the accident was while I was at Target so I don't think that really counts. ;)  She does seem to have some Pavlovian response to the timer (like she'll try 1 minute before it goes off and not be able to go and as soon as it rings, she is immediately able to go- weird) so we'll see how tomorrow goes when we plan on not using the timer.  Look at all this success!!!

Potty Training SUCKS!

Ella in her very first pair of Hello Kitty underwear

For some reason that is beyond me now, we decided to PT this weekend (Friday to Monday).  Little piece of advice...don't PT until you absolutely have to...i.e. it's required by your school.

I don't mind diapers AT ALL, and Ella doesn't have to be PT for school until she's almost 4, so what in God's name possessed me to PT already?!  Temporary insanity, I guess.  But now that we've started, there's no going back.

She was really excited in the morning to wear her big girl underwear...and then proceeded to pee in her pants (thank GOD for hardwood floors) FOUR times.  WTF?  I understand one time, even two, but after that, don't you think, "hmm, this is kind of gross to have pee running down my legs and no fun to clean it up."???  Apparently not.  So then I had to start setting the timer for every 10-15 minutes...I mean, really?

Then we get the, "I want to wear diapers again!!!!!"  Well, the excitement of wearing underwear certainly wore off quickly didn't it?  But then after a few times on the potty and the resulting sticker and m&m, she realized this is a pretty good gig.  So she decided to either sit on the potty for 30 minutes at a time until something would come out OR tell me she has to potty every 3 minutes.  UGH!

I will say, the 4 accidents were all in the morning, and she hasn't had one since morning, and she has gone on the potty TEN times (including a poop- yay!), and she has not had any poop accidents so I do need to give her some credit.

And now I have to be one of those people that carries a toliet in their car and/or has to rush to the bathroom a bunch of times while shopping or at lunching or at the park.  Yuck.  I already miss diapers...

Being stuck in the house all day long turns you into a bag lady :)

For my own records in case I want to the same with Everett, what I did...

*Talked it up for about a week before starting

*Woke up, tried to go on potty then put on underwear (no pants- just underwear)

*Rolled up the rugs downstairs so it was all hardwood floors!

*Had a basket of "prizes" that I showed her in the morning and explained that she got to choose any treat in the basket after getting a row of stickers on her potty chart

*Made a big deal after each time she went pee/poo on the potty- gave her 1 m&m and let her choose 1 sticker and put it on her chart

*Made her clean up the pee herself when she had an accident

*Stayed home all day (and had to cancel a playdate we had in the afternoon- too much distraction)

*Set timer for either every 10, 15 or 20 minutes for her to try on the potty...asked her periodically between the timers if she had to go potty...sometimes when the timer went off, I would just ask her if she had to go and not make her try if she said no, but mostly, she would run to the potty and try when the timer went off

 

Vegas Nightmare

Ok, I'm being dramatic, but we just got back from Vegas with both kids, and I promise you we won't be doing that again anytime soon!

Ella was pumped to go to Vegas...


Let's start with the good.  First, the weather was actually really nice- I was a little scared to go to Vegas in July, but it was perfect at the pool.  Even walking around outside between hotels was fine (I do think it may have been cooler than it typically is in July).  Second, the room was A.M.A.Z.I.N.G.  I definitely recommend the 1 bedroom, 1,300 square foot Tower Suite at the Mirage.  I could not get any good photos, but trust me, it's much nicer than it looks in the photos!

Just arriving at our room...

The foyer with a great walk behind bar!

The family room...

Dining room...

Bedroom...

With a tv that pops up...

The bathroom was gigantic with a huge jetted tub...

And a flat screen on the wall to watch while you bathe!

 

A hallway in the bathroom with a walk-in closet and water closet (with bidet) led to the make-up table...

It kind of went downhill from there!  We had dinner at Tao on Tuesday night, which was delicious...

But that night was a nightmare.  Everett decided to wake up screaming at around 10:30 or 11 p.m., and he screamed and screamed and screamed (for 2.5 hours) until he finally woke Ella up.  We had no idea what was wrong with him since he's never done that before so we assumed it was teething (he had no fever), and Gary had to go out at 1 a.m. to get Tylenol!  That finally did the trick, but then it took awhile to get Ella back to bed.  Needless to say, we were EXHAUSTED and crabby on Wednesday, which was really the only day we had in Vegas.

The pool at the Mirage is fantastic...

But we really only spent about 30 minutes there as a family before Gary had to take Everett up for his morning nap, so it was mostly just Ella and I...

We went to the well known and much hyped BLT Burger for lunch.  I thought it was delicious.  The burgers, fries and onion rings were SO good, and I had the best shake I've ever had in my life.  I think it was called the mocha mudslide with oreos...the whipped cream was chocolate and tasted like chocolate mousse!  I would go back just to have that shake again!

We did get a little shopping in (my girl has good taste!)...

And some dancing at H&M ;)


But because no one really slept the night before, we scrapped our plans to go to Bouchon and ate at one of those little Italian places in Venetian next to the performers in the square.

The most partying we did was in our room on Wednesday night when Gary brought up a frozen margarita for us to share!  We we so over Vegas by Thursday that we just woke up and left instead of going to the pool.

We had a great time last time we went to Vegas with just one kid, but two kids is one too many for Vegas.  At least when one is a baby.  And if we ever do go again with both of them, we'll definitely stay longer than 2 nights.

I need a vacation from my vacation.