Potty Training Success

I am happy to announce that 32 stickers and 3 accidents later, Callie is potty trained! It was actually a relatively easy process. I definitely think she was ready. She is very excited to be a big girl and wear big girl undies. The only problem now is that she has the new name "Miss No-Bum-At-All." She is wearing 24 month jeans with adjustable elastic pulled as tight as it will go and her pants still fall down. Actually, her training pants fall down, too. So now I need to figure out a way to gather all of her pants so they won't fall down. I have also given some thought to making her tiny belts. Since she still needs assistance to use the potty anyway, I thought belts might be an option.

Bah Humbug

I don't do Valentine's Day.**Thankfully my husband is not a fan either. Unfortunately this year, Wyatt is in school and is having a valentine's party. That means we had to give in and acknowledge the day with, ugh, valentines. After perusing the isles for appropriate cards, we settled on a 27 pack of animal valentines. Perfect. There are 23 kids in his class so there would not be many leftover. Jason was also quite happy that were made in the USA. When it came time to sign the cards, I opened up my box of 27 and was promptly disappointed to find that they didn't include envelopes. It was just the cards. And the cards were barely larger than a postage stamp. They were larger when I was little. And my box of 27? Yep, it had a total of 18 cards. Lovely. Now what to do? Well, even though this was a few days ago and I had time to go back to the store to return them, I wasn't in the mood. So I improvised. I decided to make his cards using materials I had around the house. Yippee! No need to buy anything. So I used my friend Google to find a few ideas and settled on butterflies. Wyatt did a fantastic job signing his name and thinks they are the best cards ever. And I am pretty happy to use up a bag of dum-dums that have been sitting around since the late '80's and a bunch a brightly colored paper that I never use. I am pretty happy with the outcome of our cards this year.

** If anyone would like to convince me that this day is worth celebrating, I will gladly accept balloons, flowers, chocolate, diamonds and anything else that might change my mind.

Weekend Plans

My weekend plans include this child wearing these clothes, a bunch of stickers, and hopefully, a very patient mommy. Sound like fun?

Except for church on Sunday, we don't have anywhere to go until Thursday. If she doesn't potty train by then, she isn't ready. Hopefully we won't need until Thursday. Monday, at the latest, would be grand! I am kind of envious of people who can bribe their kids with candy to use the potty. My g-tube fed princess doesn't fall for such shenanigans. Thankfully, she has become interested in stickers so she gets to put stickers on her potty chart. Now our only problem is figuring out how to get my petite-sized friend on the toilet. She's so short, she needs a step ladder to climb up.

Another month already!

Time flies.

I told Kelli that we should probably update the blog since it's been a while. I logged in and realized it's been a month already since the last post. Time moves in a hurry.

Here's what we've done over the past four weeks or so.

Kelli and took a birthday/Christmas/anniversary trip to Minneapolis/St. Paul. It was nothing fancy by any means - two nights at a hotel (Priceline!) and a lot of just hanging out sans children. But it sure was fun.

While there, we got to see A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor. It was a great show - very entertaining. It took place at the historic Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul. Here's Kelli standing out front. Fancy place, huh?



And here's a shot of Garrison Keillor himself, with his trademark red tie and red shoes.



While in St. Paul, we also got some candy from Candyland. In case you can't read the sign, it's been famous since 1932. Homemade gumballs, jawbreakers, gummis, suckers, sours... I felt like a kid in a, well, candy store.

Prior to the show, we wanted a meal. Being on a tight budget, someone had suggested Mickey's Diner as an option. When we walked by, I knew we had to go in. It was very cramped inside, and crowded. The food, however, was cheap, greasy, and DELICIOUS! I noticed the cook had a metal kettle on the griddle and he'd pour out of it to grease the griddle prior to putting food down. I assumed it was some cooking oil. He also had a GIANT pile of hash browns that he'd dump a little of the oil into once in a while. It was only later that I discovered he was refilling the kettle - with giant spoonfuls of LARD! One hundred percent, pure lard. No wonder those hashbrowns were so good!

The next weekend, Kelli started helping Wyatt dig out igloo of sorts in the front yard. Here he is in the early stages, having dug in a bit from the sidewalk. Later on, I helped him with the tunnel so that it went about ten feet back into the pile of snow, then turned to the right and came out in the driveway. Now it's a popular hangout for the kids on the block.

My parents came to visit about a week and a half ago. We had a good visit. They ended up staying an extra day because of the bad weather that cut across much of the midwest. It was nice having them around. The kids love to play with them, and vice versa. They'll be coming back for Sadie's birthday, and Wyatt's. In the mean time, we've been munching on gifts they brought us from Alabama. It's things you can't get in Fargo - Golden Flake cheese curls and butter cookies - the ones with the holes in them that we'd stick on our fingers during vacation Bible school. If you're from Birmingham, you're nodding your head right now. If you're from Fargo, you're probably scratching yours. Those are good cookies, I tell you.

Earlier tonight, Wyatt wanted to help make supper. Kelli had made him an apron that she gave him for Christmas, so he had to wear it.

He helped butter the bread.

Here's a tip:

If you let your five year old butter the bread before you heat it in the oven, you'll have PLENTY of butter! In fact, you might even have to wring out each slice before you put it on your plate. If nothing else, the boy is thorough. He covered every square inch of the bread. Every. Square. Inch. Paula Deen would be proud. Maybe he's practicing to be a cook at Mickey's Diner...