A Seven Year Fairytale

Once upon a time (on August 6th, 2005), two 23-year-old babies high school sweethearts got married.  It was a fantastic day filled with family, friends, and love, followed by a rockin' party.

Seven years flew by...

...and after a dog, a baby, and many memories later, they are still living happily ever after.

Even when, right after seeing the movie Ted about a teddy bear that is alive, the husband hides on the basement stairs armed with a bear (about the same size as Ted) and waits patiently for five minutes until the wife turns the corner to come downstairs only to be attacked by said bear/husband and almost pees her pants.

It takes some serious love to put up with those kinds of shenanigans.

But the wife looks forward to putting up with them for many more years.

The end.

Weekend Wrap-Up: The Big Girl Edition

This weekend was the start of some big new things for our self-proclaimed "BIG GIRL."  And her becoming a big girl has been...quite the experience...

Friday

We went to MOA with Jenna, Charlie and Baby Mabel.  The toddlers did a pretty good job staying in their strollers so we could get some shopping accomplished.  We let them free while Jenna fed Mabel in the Macy's bathroom.  They stayed happy with banana bread in hand.

CHEEEEEEEEESE!

On Friday night Callie stayed at G-ma and G-pa's house while Chris and I went out for an early anniversary date night.  Callie had a blast hanging out with them and Auntie cat...

While Chris and I enjoyed biking around downtown/north east, dinner (with 2-for-1 happy hour specials!) and a movie.

Cheers to getting a night off from the sleepy time battle! ;)

Of course, we found out that  Callie went down like a perfect little angel for G-ma and G-pa at 8:30.  Stinker... :)

Saturday

We spent the morning FINALLY converting her crib to a toddler bed.  After we picked her up, we went to Target to pick out new bedding.  She requested something orange, and we found cute stuff.

This was after the first nap in the big girl bed- a success!

Thankfully, the transition has been SUPER easy.  **knock on wood**

Saturday evening we met the Wicks family for dinner and play time at our house.

Watching Baby Kylie yawn!

Sunday
I think today might have been the longest. day. ever.  It was day #1 of our attempt to kick potty training's butt.

As you may recall, for about a month our potty training chart looked like this:

So today, as soon as she woke up, we were off like a shot to the bathroom and in the undies.  It was a rough day.  There were a few different points were I just wanted to give up and give in. 

The morning was ridiculous.  We spent SO MUCH TIME in the bathroom, but seemed to ALWAYS miss the actually peeing episodes.  By 9:30am we were on to the third pair of undies about 0 for 6 on the toilet.  I resorted to searching the iPad for "potty training" apps.  I found a pretty good one that has cute videos and a virtual sticker chart.

Despite our potty bag and iPad, failed attempts continued until nap time.  I was so done.  Thankfully, at the exact right moment, my friend Casey texted to check in (THANK YOU CASEY!).  Then she called me and gave me advice and some new ideas, including setting a timer and getting some little toys/trinkets as rewards.  So during nap time I headed out to Party City to pick up a bunch of cheap little trinkets and a cool new Owl timer. 

We put a diaper on her for the nap time, but as soon as we heard her rustling around we woke her up and got her on the pot.  She was excited about the different "Potty Treasures" and the new timer.

Finally (FINALLLLLY) at 3:15 we had our first peeing in the potty experience for the day.  Yay!  But after that til about 5:00 was THE WORST time of the day.  She would scream bloody murder EVERY time we put her on the toilet and would FREAK OUT every time she peed in the potty. 

But we stuck to our guns, stayed true to our plan and powered through the chaos.  It started to get better, and we had a lot more successes.

At the end of the day, she had 8 stickers on her potty chart(s).

Fancy iPad sticker chart

 She has a pull-up on now for overnight, and we'll see how it goes.  We made it through this day with smiles...

 ...and we get to start all over tomorrow. :)

Potty Training...FAIL

Sooooooo........potty training.

Why, oh why, am I SO daunted by it?  We haven't been pushing it too much, but have tried a few things to get the ball rolling.  Things are not going well.

A story from today:

After nap time I gave her the option to use either the green froggy potty or the Dora potty chair (I have learned to not ask her if she needs to potty, just to ask her which potty).  She picked the Dora potty and we got out the potty bag of fun (detailed below).  We read books.  We sang songs.  I even gave her a bite of the Twizzler to entice her to want more (ugh I'm such a sucker).  After 10+ minutes, she was just getting agitated (well...to be honest, she wasn't the only agitated one).  So I decided to give up, but to also give undies a try.  I figured we'd talked SO much about not peeing in undies that...we had to start somewhere, right?

**If you're an experienced parent who has been through potty training you are probably laughing at my rookie mistake right now.**

I kid you not- 30 seconds after I put the undies on, she peed in them.

So. Dang. Frustrated.

I feel like we are doing all of the right things.  Such as:

1) We have waited til we know that she knows exactly when she is peeing and pooping.  She tells us as it is happening. 

In theory, it shouldn't be too hard to use that knowledge for successful potty trips.  No luck.

2) We went to Target and gathered all kinds of fun potty things for our potty bag...Dora potty chair that fits onto the big toilet, fun potty books, cute stickers, whiteboard and markers for drawing, and various treats.

In theory, it shouldn't be too hard to bribe her into successful potty trips.  No luck.

3) We made a potty chart (about a month ago) to put the stickers on...a pee side and a poop side. 

In theory, it shouldn't be too hard to motivate her to do successful potty trips.  No luck.  Clearly.

The one sticker was TOTALLY lucky

I know that everyone says we need to just wait til she is ready.  But as I have said, IN THEORY, she should be ready.  Now it seems like just laziness and fear of the change...on both our parts.

So I have decided to bite the bullet and put "Potty Training Bootcamp" in my calendar from Sunday through Tuesday.  It's going to be all potty all the time. 

Wish us luck.  I hope we make it to the other side...because there are really cute pairs of little undies waiting over there.

Happy Birthday Auntie Cat!- Updated QOTDs

Yay!  We were able to hang out at Lake Nokomis and go to lunch with the birthday girl and Grandma today.

We love you Auntie Cat!  Have a great rest of the day!

Updated at 8:00pm:

I want to document a few more funny QOTDs from today, especially since Auntie Cat really gets a kick out of them.

While reading an ABC book
Me: There's a C for Callie!
Callie: I'm not C, I'm 2!

*************************************

While watching men's beach volleyball
Callie: Dirty, dirty!
Me: Would you want to play in the sand like that?
Callie: NO
Me: What would you want to do?
Callie: Sit on the sidewalk
Me: Sounds about right

*************************************

While reading a book about the letter I
Me: That's an island
Callie: Yeah.  I'll live on an island some day.

*************************************

Weekend Wrap-Up: The QOTD Olympics Edition

The first half of our weekend was spent at camp and was awesome.

We got home Saturday afternoon and ignored cleaning up/putting away all of our camp stuff in lieu of hanging out in the basement watching the Olympics.  In just a short time, our toddler spewed forth many amazing quotes of the day.  Here they are...

While watching women's soccer:

Callie: Those guys look like Carebears!
Me and Chris: (looking at each other...HUH?!?!)

--later--

Callie: (after watching a *female* goalie dive to block a ball) That man fall down! 

********************************************** 

While watching a women's basketball game, we saw a player with a big black eye.  Later, watching two different teams play:

Callie: Where's the black eye girl?

--later--

(Backstory: Callie LOVES the Lynx mascot Prowl.  Like, LOVES him.)

While we are watching more women's b-ball, Callie is playing away from the T.V.

Chris: FOUL!  How about a FOUL?!?!? 
Callie: (looking up from her toys) What are you saying, Daddy?
Chris: I'm saying FOUL.  They should have called a foul.
Callie: Prowl?  He's funny!

**********************************************

While watching men's gymnastics (a Chinese guy)

Callie: Good job, boy!


While watching men's gymnastics (an Irish guy)

Callie: Good job, man!


**********************************************

That's all we have for now, though I'm sure there will be many more throughout the rest of the Olympic games.

This morning we went to visit Dave, Cherilyn, Sydney and Baby Kylie!!!

Haha...love the faces on these two!

This afternoon we went to a BBQ at Brent and Bethany's house...there were a few other kids there, including Charlie, so Callie had a blast!

Watch out for toddlers and t-ball!

Currently it is 8:40 (she went down 45 minutes ago), Chris is at a movie, and I have turned off the monitor.  For as tired as she is, she is still working her I'm-Not-Going-To-Bed-When-You-Want-Me-To magic.  Listening to her blab her life story into the monitor just gets me worked up, so I've learned to just turn it off.  This is only a phase...this is only a phase...this is only a phase...

Camp du Nord 2012

We are back from the north!

We left for Camp du Nord on Wednesday and have had a fantastic few days up in the beautiful north woods.  Besides doing all the fun outdoorsy kind of stuff, we got to spend real quality time with a lot of great people: G-ma, G-pa, Auntie Cat, Uncle Dan, Anna, Arieanna, the Koch family, the Daly family, and lots of other fun camp people.

Callie did AWESOME (minus sleepy times, but we are used to that by now).  She even went to the two hour age group play time each morning to hang out with other 0-2 year olds (and Anna)!!!!! 

As usual, it is so hard to pare down over a hundred photos to share here, so I did some more collages and will post the link to all the pictures at the end.

Hanging out around camp

Boat trip #1 on the first morning

The beach!!!!!

Boat trip #2

Hiking to Old Baldy

Family

Slack line- Chris was determined to beat it...but no luck.  Maybe next year.

Ready to celebrate 7 years

Annual family picnic table picture

This morning we spent a little time on the dock saying goodbye to the lake.

 During the long car ride home, our little camper slept for less than an hour, but slept HARD.  She was a tired happy girl.

Thanks to everyone who made this trip awesome!  We already can't wait for next year!

Here is a link to all the other pictures: Camp du Nord 2012

Now onto a boatload canoe-load of laundry...

QOTD- Auntie Yoda is Back!

So Auntie Yoda is now officially a Minneapolitan (again)!  She and her roommate moved yesterday and are in the process of putting together their new uptown apartment together.  We went to see the place today and it was awesome.

Callie: (looking around Yoda's apartment) This place is messy. (pausing to look around some more) WOW!

It was pretty hilarious.  Then she did some improv singing into a curtain rod microphone.  Awesome.

And I'll leave you with a shout out to Dave and Cherilyn- their little girl Kylie Kathryn arrived early this morning!  Callie is excited that Sydney has a baby sister and we can't wait to meet her!