Birthdays

We have two nephews and they couldn't be any cuter. We celebrated both of those nephews birthdays in June and July. I was so happy that we would be able to see our family at least two more times before babe #2 showed up.

On June 26th we celebrated our nephew, Jackson's, 3 1/2 birthday. His birthday is in December, so celebrating his half birthday was a great idea and one we were excited about! Dayton loves to play with Jax, so he was talking about going to his party as soon as we got the invitation. Every time he walked by the invitation on the fridge he would say, "I go Jackson's party and eat cupcake." Too cute. So when the party finally came, he was over the moon excited. I didn't think he would fall asleep in the car on the way there, but thankfully he did.

Jackson had a Paw Patrol party and everything was absolutely adorable! Great job, Karen! Dayton loved spending time with his grandma and grandpa, eating all kinds of goodies (especially the cupcakes), and playing with his cousins. Dayton wanted to hold baby Macy the entire party, so after he had eaten and settled down a bit, we let him. I think it's his favorite thing to do. That and play with his cousins. Adorable!

photo cred: Karen Bishop

And thanks to Karen for sending me this sweet photo of Dayton!

Potty Training 101

The night before potty training boot camp. Obviously he's ready!

Sweet baby Day isn't a baby anymore and we have a new baby on the way, so it was time for little man to start potty training. Dayton had shown some interest in going potty - wanting to sit on his potty, asking to use the potty now and then, and best of all asking to wear big boy underwear.

There are probably a million ways to potty train out there and after talking to a few good friends, I decided on the two/three day naked method. There is a book on this potty training method and you can download it or buy it from Amazon here. Honestly, I didn't have time to read a book, so I read this condensed version from Lucie's List. It's not exactly the same, but it's pretty darn close as far as I know. This summary was perfect and worked like a charm.

Items we bought to help with potty training:

organic apple juice - The "special juice" helped our little guy drink more often and also helped have more opportunities to go to the bathroom more.

Potty book - We read this book quite a few times before we started potty training. Dayton loved to "read" it to himself as well while he was going potty.

Munchkin Potty Seat - I bought this at Target. It fit our potty well and doesn't move, but comes on and off of the potty easily. It also has the little boy "guard" in the front to help with beginners.

Summer Infant Lil Loo Potty - I bought two of these from Target about eight months ago. We put one in each bathroom so that Dayton would get used to seeing them and would sit on them now and then. We wanted him to feel comfortable sitting on them and imitate mommy and/or daddy. Half of kiddos learning is imitating! Now that Dayton is potty trained, we keep one in the house and one in our car. This has helped cit out accidents and we've avoided gross public restrooms because of this little thing.

Graco stool - We bought this stool for our bathroom for two reasons: 1) so that Dayton could climb on and off of the potty himself and 2) to wash his hands after using the potty.

What we did:

We started out on a Wednesday and planned to spend three whole days at home. Plus I would then have a little extra help throughout the weekend with the hubs home. I was 34 weeks pregnant and starting to get a little uncomfortable, so sitting on the kitchen floor wasn't the most exciting thought, but I wanted to try this potty training thing before baby #2 showed up.

Day 1:

Dayton and I spent all of Wednesday in the kitchen. I gave him "special juice" (water and organic apple juice) so that he would drink more, therefore pee more. Like clockwork, we went to the potty every 15 minutes to try. We ate breakfast on the floor, snacks on the floor, lunch on the floor, and even dinner on the floor when daddy got home. Dayton stayed naked all day. No clothes, at all.

The first few times that he started to have to pee, he would start to pee and then realize what was going on and he would hold it and we would run to the bathroom to finish. Luckily, Dayton's bathroom is about three feet off of the kitchen, so it was a quick trip. We read books while he was on the potty, we played games, and sang songs all to keep him on the potty to try. Poop was much harder, which I knew it would be. Little man accidentally pooped on the floor twice. Now you know why we stayed in the kitchen. Tile floors = easy clean up. By the afternoon, he was kind of getting it, but I knew we had a long ways to go.

Day 2:

Day two started out about the same. I felt like we were starting completely over. We did go about every 30 minutes instead of every 15 minutes. By 9:30 am, both Day and I were over it. We decided to take a "break" from the kitchen and went to a neighbors house to play outside. I brought his portable potty with us and asked him every 30 minutes if he had to go. His normal answer was "no", but we tried anyways and he didn't have an accident! Whew! Talking to a few of my mommy friends about potty training gave me hope as well because when we got to our play date, I was starting to think this would never work. Mommy friends saved me that morning.

We got back home and had lunch and then it was nap time. I took this opportunity to take a nap as well and refresh. When Day got up, it was like it had clicked. He was telling me he had to go potty, he would run to the potty, he pooped on the potty, etc. It was working. Woohoo!

Day 3:

Day three started out a smidge shaky, but we got right back on track in no time. Day three was our lucky day. It all came together and little man was seemingly potty trained. I did continue to take him to the potty every 30 minutes to an hour to encourage no accidents. We stayed home most of the day, but we did venture out one time with the portable potty in the trunk.

Thankfully, day three was successful and I was one happy mama. Little man was pretty darn proud of himself as well, as he should be!

The weekend and following week:

The following week, Dayton did great with peeing on the potty. He did have 3 poop accidents, but I knew it would happen as it is all so knew. All three of his accidents happened at the gym daycare, so I didn't feel too bad about it. I knew accidents were going to happen as this is a process and not a three day fix. Overall, I was very happy with the three day method and plan to use it with babe #2!

Good job Dayton Thomas We're so proud of you!!

Arboretum Play Date

I love summer. Have I said that lately?! I also love that our small town has a lot of activities for kids. One of the things Dayton and I love to do is go to story time at the library. This week we decided to go to the Humane Society story time at the Arboretum.

A few friends decided to bring their kiddos as well, so we made it into a play date. We met there early and the kiddos played in the children's area for well over an hour before story time started. Two workers from the humane society brought two pups and a story. The kids sat at the benches and "listened" to the story and then got to pet the pups.

It was a hot day, but the kids had fun and I was so glad that Dayton didn't have any accidents. (He's only been potty trained for a week.) He did great! The mommies had a good time too. Our kiddos know each other well and play together great (for the most part). I heart summer.

St. Louis 2016

Now that school is out, we took the opportunity to go on our last family-of-three mini-vaca to St. Louis with our friends Kate, Ryan, and their babe Emma. We wanted to take Dayton to the zoo because he loves all animals in his books and has learned almost all of their names. We started talking about seeing the animals at the zoo and then little man never stopped. We planned our mini trip for the weekend that I got out of school. The hubs took Monday off and we planned to be gone from Saturday to Monday night.

We left Saturday morning and drove down to St. Louis. After one or two stops, we got there around three in the afternoon. We checked into our hotel and headed over to the Budweiser Brewery. The boys had wanted to take a tour, so we all went along for the ride tour. I'd never been on a brewery tour before, so we put the kiddos in strollers and learned all about Budweiser. The tour was pretty interesting, but Dayton was tired and very ready for dinner so most of my attention and energy were spent on entertaining a cranky two year old. Don't worry, we still had fun!

We ate dinner at a local brewery and distillery right down the way from Budweiser. It was delicious and the boys got to growlers to go and we headed back to our hotel to put the kiddos to sleep. We stayed at a Courtyard Marriott and our rooms just happened to be close to the courtyard, so we put the kiddos to bed and headed out to the courtyard to enjoy some snack and beer (minus me). It worked out perfectly. The courtyard had tables and chairs and couches and the nights were absolutely perfect. The weather could not have been better. All of us were more than happy to hang out outside while the babes slept.

On Sunday we all slept in, had breakfast and then headed out to the zoo! The St. Louis zoo is free and you can even bring in coolers with snacks and drinks. Amazing. Dayton absolutely loved the zoo. It was so cute! The first animal he got to see was a rhino and the look on his face was priceless. He couldn't believe that the animals that he was seeing from his books were actually real. He was so serious and then got the biggest grin on his face. He kept repeating the names of his animals and then saying how big they were. We had such a great day and were at the zoo for almost four hours.

After the zoo, we were all famished so we went back to the hotel to change and rest up a bit then headed out to dinner. My friend Sami had recommended a local pizza place called, Pi. It was amazing. If you ever go to St. Louis you have to go to Pi. It might be the best pizza I have ever had - and that was the genera consensus of everyone in the group. Go there. Trust me.

Monday morning we explored the stadium and downtown area around the arch. They were doing a lot of construction around the arch, so we were able to take pictures far in front of it, but not anywhere near it. Oh well, maybe next time! I have never been to St. Louis or seen the arch up close, so I was happy to get down there and see all the sights.

So long St. Louis! We had a great time seeing a few of the sights. We'll be back again soon.

P.S. - maybe next time I won't be 34 weeks pregnant. Whew! I feel like I did pretty good for being so far along, but boy did this mama get tired with all of the walking around! Thank goodness the weather was so great!

It's Summer Time

Today was our final day of getting up early and going to school. No more 4:10 am alarms. No more limit on morning snuggles. No more rushing out the door. No more goodbyes at daycare. No more long, tiring days of work. No more missing each other throughout the day. Summer is finally here!

Dayton and I will be home all of June together. No more daycare! I'm so excited to spend the month of June one-on-one with my first babe. We have lots of fun planned and I know we'll have our moments, but I a going to soak up every minute of it.

I'll be taking a class for a week at the end of June, beginning of July but after that we are free and clear of all things school until November 28th, when I return to work. It's a weird feeling knowing I won't be working for six months, but it's also an amazing feeling knowing I will be home with my babies for so long. Stay at home mom trial run?

Happy summer break!