Out With the Old & DIY the New

No I haven't given up on the blog, there has just been a whole lot of busy busy days that I find myself having less and less time to write.

I did something yesterday that I had been meaning to do for several months now; I finally ditched Little Dude's crib!

Little Dude 1 year ago

He will turn 3 in less than 2 months so I really have pushed the crib thing as far as I feel I could. We stuck with it for so long because he has always been an awesome sleeper, so why rock the boat?

Pretty Princesses & Polka Dot Dresses!

Little Dude is well on his way to being a 3 year old, and I am definitely noticing some changes in him recently. I love noticing all the little differences, and I especially like to record them because these are the details that I really don't remember well when I look back on the blurr that is my kids' babyhood. These are all pretty typical developmentally speaking, but through this momma's eyes, they are amazing and awe inspiring.

First there are the stories. The imaginations on these little guys are mind blowing, and the connections they make can be hilarious. Toddlers are busy putting 2 and 2 together, though the answer isn't always the 4 you're expecting. I think this is the reason we get some of the really funny "from the mouths of babes" comments that are so common for this age. I have posted several of my own under Little Dude's Special Gems. As 3 approaches, the stories become more elaborate as the imagination kicks in. All the sudden I find myself being informed that puppy dogs like to ride in space ships because there are big bones in outer space.

How to Give Yourself a Heart Attack

Step 1:   Buy a giant Elmo balloon for your child's birthday:

Step 2:   Leave it sitting in front of your entry way door once it is done being played with. You get extra points if its also next to an air vent or fan so that it floats around randomly.

Murphy's Law: The Toddler Version

A funny little example of how "what can go wrong, will go wrong" can often does apply when you have a toddler around.

Once you become a parent, there is no allowance for turning off your brain. Even on the weekend. . .



A while back, I had a couple of sponge brushes laying out on the dining room table. I had just finished stencilling the dining area wall. I had packed away the paint and other stencilling equipment immediately, because I knew that leaving them out was just asking for trouble. I figured the brushes alone would be fine though. Besides, they needed to dry after being washed anyway.

Can't make a mess with these if there is no paint right?

Finger Painting Adventures

Somehow, I let Little Dude get dangerously close to age 3 before doing a finger painting project at home. The sad part is that we have had a set of washable finger paints for over a year now and still managed to never do anything with them. He has finger painted elsewhere (like in his toddler class), but never at home. We draw, cook, and do other creative projects, but not finger paint.

This past weekend was my mom's birthday, so I decided that it was a great excuse to finally get some finger painting under our belts. I bought a couple of 8x10" canvases from Michael's so that the kids could make some masterpieces for grandma's birthday.

I cleared off the kitchen table and set everything up. Little Dude was very excited to start:

The Craziness that is a Two Year Old

There is nothing more entertaining than a 2 year old when they blurt out or do the most random things. I have recently started writing the stuff down more so that I can remember it.

Randomness that has come out of his mouth when talking to strangers at the grocery store:

"O-bots aw awesum!" {he was less than 2 years old - translation: robots are awesome!}

"I am SOOOOO happy!"

"I eated lots and lots of pills" {He didn't, but I walked away quickly before the person could think about calling CPS}

After a day or 2 of potty training boot camp, Little Dude was becoming very familiar with anatomy and we had a conversation about how mommy and sister don't have penises. Well, we stopped by Target a while later, and very randomly Little Dude looked at the cashier and announced, "Mommy have no penis." I was a little mortified. Luckily, the cashier laughed and assured me that she had kids of her own and remembers those years of verbal diarrhea.

One Year Pictures!

As you can probably already tell, we recently had some family portraits taken. I figured it would be a good time to do a blog redesign with some updated photos and colors too.

You might remember some of my portrait brainstorming posts from few months ago (here and here).

For the family photos, I wanted something cute and coordinated, without being super matchy matchy. I think it looks cheesy when everyone in the family is wearing the exact same outfit or even the exact same shades and fabrics. I did want a color theme though so I settled on yellow and white. The only problem with that is I was shopping in late August/ early September for these clothes; Yellow and white clothes aren't exactly all over at the very end of summer. I managed to make do.

How to get Your Toddler to Eat Lunch - Wrong and Right Ways

Here are a couple of scenarios that I have had the pleasure of partaking in recently.

You quickly learn some tricks for dealing with:

The NO monster!

How to get your toddler to eat lunch:

Nature Defecit Disorder - Not This Week!

Fall has arrived with a vengeance and we are absolutely loving it!

The view from my front door this morning.

It really snuck up on me since the end of summer was so busy. Now life is a little more relaxed and being in MN, we know that our days of fun outside are numbered. We are having some unseasonably gorgeous weather lately and I have been trying my best to get outside with the kids as much as possible.

Shoes for Babies and New Walkers

Baby and kid shoes is a topic that most people don't give much thought to before they have their own children. I mean, what could be so complicated about shoes? They should be cute, and they should fit. . . right?

Turns out, it isn't quite that simple - shoes can directly encourage (or discourage) the development of walking and coordination. This means that the right type of shoe actually matters quite a bit.

When your baby is born, he/she doesn't need shoes for a while. Socks work great for keeping feet warm and toasty in colder climates. You might recall my post from last April: Shoes - A Girl's Best Friend in which I professed my love for shoes and how that has extended to my daughter's shoe collection:

Most of Hailey's shoes back in April.

THE Party!

Enough anticipation already. . . onwards with the party pics!

      (If you need to catch up, check out this post then this post)

I feel like I have built this party up immensely, and because now I'm self conscious, I will have to add this disclaimer: I put a lot of time and effort into this party no doubt about that - but in the end - it was just a first birthday party. Don't be expecting no Sweet 16 kind of shiz around here*.
  *No need to comment on my exceptional grasp of the English language either - I already know it's fantabulous!

Phew, now that I got that off my chest. . .

Here is an overall view of the picnic shelter pre-party:

See -- Simple kiddy party!

That's my momma holding the birthday in the middle there.

Birthday Cake Love

Birthday parties can be a lot of work. . . at least if you do them like me they are. I know some people don't feel like it is worth it, and I agree it isn't for everyone, but I love the results and am so glad it all worked out great in the end. Baby Boo's party has definitely been the most labor intensive party I have ever thrown, and it was definitely the coolest looking.

If you missed all the previous posts on the party preparations, check out yesterday's post for a recap.

So lets start with the cakes. Over the last few months I have been ogling cakes on google and Pinterest. I have looked at some pretty amazing inspiration and even baked a couple of practice cakes. I found myself at a point where I was comfortable working with fondant, but I still had no idea what to do for the big party cake. The only thing I knew is that I wanted to make a tiered cake.

The smash cake I had a better idea of what I wanted. I believe it was back in June that I saw this cake on Pinterest:

Originally from the amazing Sweetapolita.

First Birthday Party Prep - Presents and Projects

I figure I should take a break from that mountain of laundry calling my name to share photos and details about Baby Boo's 1st birthday party last Sunday. It was a big success, and we got all sorts of compliments on the decor. Upon last update, I had all sorts of ideas in my head, and I was diligently chopping away at the to-do list.

Here is a recap of the process leading up to the party:

If you weren't already aware, I spent a good deal of time planning and daydreaming about this party. This blog was my journal of sorts to catalogue all of my ideas. It started back in May when I rented a local park picnic shelter, and wrote Sixteen Weeks and Counting. Summer came and I became a little distracted with all the fun summer activities, but I always kept an eye out for inspiration on Pinterest, and wherever else as mentioned in All Over the Place. Finally in early August I lost my fondant v-card and made some homemade marshmallow fondant and a practice cake on Conquering Fondant. With less than 3 weeks left to go, I really started listing everything I needed to get done on First Birthday Party Organization. Finally, with 10 days left to go, I showed off the birthday outfit I made as well as a second practice cake on More Birthday Odds and Ends.

The week before the party was definitely hectic - hence the blog neglect. I was also trying to get everything ready for the family/birthday portraits 2 days after the party. My Amazon account was exercised rather heavily. I would arrive home sometimes to a stack of several (beautiful) brown boxes with smiles on them. They really made this shop-a-holic's heart skip a beat each time I saw them. Of course, now that it is all over, spending is being cut back big time until the holidays roll around.

Sibling Bond Development

I have written a couple of posts about the mommy guilt that comes with having a second (or beyond) child. They are Mommy Guilt - Having a Second Child, and Dealing With Second Child Guilt - Revisited if you aren't familiar. In the second post, I went on about how the gift of a sibling far overshadows any loss of attention that a first born might have to deal with. I used my own sibling relationships to make my point.

Well, it has been a mere month and a half since that last post and I just had to share how much more evident that point is becoming in our lives lately.

More Birthday Odds and Ends - Cakes and Outfits

12 Days To Go!

I'm having a lot of fun planning this party. The hubby is liking it too because he gets to eat the practice cakes. I try not to have more than 1 slice of each because I don't want to gain 20lbs before the party - that would be sad. Hubby has a crazy fast metabolism so he is in the clear for that. He could probably eat a whole cake a day and still have a six pack. . . not that I'm jealous or anything.

First Birthday Party Organization

There are two and a half weeks until Baby Boo's 1st birthday and her 1st birthday party!!!

I'm not usually a list making kind of person - I'm just not that organized. I did make one this time though because I want to try to make the actual weekend of the birthday party relatively stress free and that means I can't leave everything until the last minute. This is what I came up with a few months ago:

1. Rent park pavilion
2. Figure out color scheme
3. Make decorations
4. Try making marshmallow fondant trial cake
5. Figure out design for actual cake
6. Figure out food for party
7. Design invites and order them online 
8. Send out invites
9. Buy Hailey's birthday presents
10. Decide on a birthday outfit for Hailey to wear

Potty Training Boot Camp - The Results

Several weeks ago I announced that I was going to do a potty training boot camp with Little Dude because I really wanted him to be done with diapers. If you missed those posts, check out Potty Training Boot Camp: Prelude and In the Thick of It. Being that the last mention of it was 3 weeks ago, I figured I owed everyone an update on the situation.

First things first, is he potty trained?

The answer is. . .

. . .

. . .

. . .

. . .

All Over the Place

My mind is a bit of a blank hence the lack of posts so far this week. I have also been going to the gym very regularly which is great, but zaps my energy once nap time comes around so I tend to nap instead of write. I gave myself a day off today though. I apologize in advance for the lack of cohesiveness of this post - such is my life right now.

Potty training is going OK, but we have been so busy that it is hard to be consistent with Little Dude. There continues to be too much going on for the rest of the summer so I will have to just keep on plugging away at it when I can, eventually it will click.

I really have to get on top of planning Baby Boo's 1st birthday party stuff as well as her 1 year portraits. I am trying to wrangle up yellow and white/grey outfits for the family shots, but that is actually kind of hard at the end of summer. So far I have the hubs taken care of. I'm not exactly picky. I don't want super matchy matchy so I am very liberal on shade and texture differences. I haven't had to many opportunities to look either since I don't like clothes shopping with the kids. I'm a pro with the cart in the grocery store, but a giant stroller at the mall just ain't happening. If I let Little Dude run loose then it becomes much more about him exploring and having fun than it is about me shopping. I think a trip to grandma's will be in order soon.

Maybe I will attempt some shopping today!

Online I found some cute possibilities, but I don't ever buy nice clothes for me online because I need to try stuff on before I buy it. I hope the local brick and mortar stores have some of these on hand or at least something similar:

Maggy London dress from Nordstrom

Adrianna Papell dress from Nordstrom

Pleated floral dress from Forever 21

Jessica Simpson dress from Zappos

OK, enough online dress shopping now. None of it gets me any closer to actually having something to wear for the portraits.

I need to do a test run cake trying out some homemade fondant. I have heard rave reviews about this recipe from the awesome cookie blog Bake at 350. I don't trust myself to get it right the first time so a trial run will be quite necessary. If you are interested in what ideas I'm entertaining for the cake itself, check out this post. I need to go tend to my babies now, in the mean time I will leave you with some more cake eye candy that I found on Pinterest:

sprinklebakes.com

So girly! I wish I knew where it was from beyond Pinterest

Cool texture and lots of messy buttercream for the smash cake. From Sweetapolita - seriously go check out this site, such pretty cakes!

Maybe I should head back to the gym after all!!!

Little Miss Chatterbox

This is my Little Miss Baby Boo:

She is almost 11 months now and I am loving discovering the many facets of her personality.

Believe me, there are many sides to her.

As of late, she has been:

It's true!

She has been quite the talker since she was a newborn with all her cute coos.

She graduated to cannonic syllables pretty early on. Her favorites so far have been Gak and Bop!

My favorite sound was always her adorable gurgles. She still does them on occasion when she is being goofy.

Around 8 months of age, she mastered dada followed by mama. She was using them in the proper context from the get go.

At 9 months she figured out up and baba. Up she says a lot because she likes to be picked up all the time - she is a needy little momma's girl. Baba means bottle or boob. Let me tell ya, girlfriend can eat!

I believe it was month 10 that brought hat, which actually means cat. No surprise there since she LOVES the cats. 

In the last couple of weeks, she is having a language explosion of sorts; relative to her previously limited vocabulary at least.

Now we have:

• buh - translation: brother
• ah dun - translation: all done
• ball - she gets that one right
• uh oh - she only says the uh part half the time
• bye bye - used in conjunction with a very hearty wave
• She may be saying dog correctly, but I haven't heard her say it more than twice so it may be a fluke.

I don't know when she will slow down again, if ever. She has been mimicking words like crazy too. I only count them when she actually uses them properly though. It is so fun watching her learn language. It is fun watching both kids do it, and seeing the huge developmental differences that 17 months makes. I have been making lots of use of the techniques I discussed a couple of months ago including "parentese". It is all very effective for Baby Boo and is the reason she knows several of the words that she does. Having a big brother that is still learning language himself has also been super helpful for her development. She is always very determined to try to keep up with him.

Ball

Here are 2 more fitting labels for my girl:

Yes she really seems to enjoy getting into mischief. She especially loves to terrorize her sweet, often (though not always) patient, brother. He builds a Lego tower, she knocks it down. He spends 15 minutes meticulously setting up his train track system, she comes and bulldozes over it all. She gets a gleam in her eye when she sees something she wants to take or destroy:

This girl holds no prisoners!

Here is an example of the trouble/naughtiness taken out on a different family member:

Here, both kids were sitting around playing with Mega Blocks:

Baby Boo gets sick of sharing so she scoots everything over to her side leaving her brother with just the ones he was holding:

She squealed loudly at him and swatted at him when he tried to take some back.

Little Dude puts up with it with much more grace than I think I could. She does get separated from the situation once she gets too bothersome or abusive. I also like to let them sorts things out on their own though, so that in the future it isn't always a 'tell mom' situation.

Lately it has actually been working too. Little Dude has gotten really good about sharing with his sister, and she plays with him almost as much as she tries to take or destroy his stuff. It is really sweet when I catch them playing and laughing together. They like to play a game together that is somewhere between peekaboo and hide-n-seek. I can always tell when they do because Baby Boo lets out the biggest belly laughs:

 

Despite her naughty side, she is a sweet girl that is getting sweeter every day. To me she will always be:

. . . and nothing less!

Before I sign off, I wanted to throw a shout out to my amazing little boy. He is a big part of who Baby Boo is, and I am frequently finding myself amazed at his awesome big brother skills.

If I had to choose a Mr. Men character for him it would be:

. . . because my little dude loves to make people laugh, and enjoy the fun side of life:

Potty Training Boot Camp - In the Thick of It

On Monday I posted about how it was high time for Little Dude to get past the diaper stage and onto the big boy stage of his life. I also posted that I was going to start a potty training boot camp as of Thursday (today).

Well. . . I decided that there was no real good reason to wait for Thursday, so I started on Tuesday instead.

So far the results are mixed, but I am hopefully.

- Tuesday -

On Tuesday I woke him up at 9am and immediately took off his diaper. I had the living room rug covered with an old blanket and comforter to keep accidents from happening directly on it. This is what it looked like before I got Little Dude up:

He got to go free for the first half of the day without any bottoms on at all. He usually wakes up dry, but this time when I took off his diaper, it was filled. I figured this meant that he had just gone recently. I fed him breakfast which included a cup of milk, and proceeded to be liberal with the water thereafter. I asked him to sit on the potty and go pee pee several times. He sat on it each time, but never actually did anything in it. This was very frustrating, especially after a few hours, since it was obvious that he was holding it in. I figured that at least that meant that he knew how to hold it, I just needed to out-stubborn my 2 year old.

Eventually 1pm rolled around and I had to put him down for a nap. I did put a diaper on him then because I don't expect him to be sleep trained necessarily. He napped a good 3 1/2 hour nap and it was almost 5pm when he got up. He of course had filled that diaper too. I took it off of him and decided to put him in his big boy underwear this time around. I picked out a pair with Disney's Cars characters on them since he loves those. I told him not to pee pee on the cars or I would have to take them away. He repeated back several times, "no pee pee on cars, use potty!"

Around 7pm, he came running over to me yelling that he was all wet. He had his first accident during potty training boot camp. He had of course had the accident in his sister's room on her rug; One of the only ones not protected. I quickly had him sit on the potty, but he was done. I was glad he had finally had an accident though since that is a great way to learn what not to do.

We replaced the cars underwear with Nemo underwear and I repeated to him that he couldn't pee pee on Nemo. A couple more hours rolled by and it was bed time. I put a diaper on him to go to bed in and that was it for day 1.

- Wednesday -

Wednesday morning I went to the gym and then had a chiropractor appointment. Little Dude got to wear a diaper for all of that. This is very much not ideal since the point of potty training boot camp is to go cold turkey off of diapers until they figure it out. I am trying very hard to stick to my workout schedule though and I needed my chiro appointment, so the diaper was necessary. We were out from about 8:30am to almost noon. By the time we got home, I was really tired so I quickly fed him lunch and set him down for a nap. He woke up around 3pm and that is when potty training boot camp began again.

It took a few hours again, but I just kept pushing the water and a couple of popsicles to keep his bladder working. He was playing in his room when at one point he ran into the room yelling potty. He ran over to it, pulled down his Nemo underwear and sat on the potty. Alas, It was alas too. He had already done his business in the underwear, but he had at least tried to get to the potty this time.

Another couple of hours later, he was playing in the living room when he all the sudden rushed over to the potty. He once again was yelling "potty". He struggled with his underwear, and in his haste, he sat down on the potty with them still on. He had to go #2 this time. I quickly helped him take them off while he sat there, and he finished up in the potty. His first ever poop in the potty! I praised him, and we took the poop to be flushed down the toilet. He also got to wash his hands. He was pretty excited about the whole process so I decided against giving him any treat for doing things correctly. He clearly already had plenty of positive reinforcement.

Later that evening, the hubs came home. Little Dude got all excited and had another accident. He seemed upset about it, but didn't make much effort to go to the potty at all. I repeated to him that it was important not to pee pee in his underwear as I changed them. That was it for Wednesday since he went to bed before there were any more learning opportunities.

- Today -

So that, in a nutshell, is where we stand going into today. I know it will take a little longer since he hasn't been able to be diaper-less all the time, but I am pretty confident that he will get it soon enough. In the meantime, I can't wait to never say the words "do you need to potty bud? Remember, no pee pee-ing on Nemo/car/superman/whatever" ever again. . . at least until its Baby Boo's turn. Potty training is definitely all about repetition and lots of patience.