Mommy, wow! Tom's a big boy now!

Yup, and he's proud of it, too! We started potty training a bit over 3 weeks ago.  The first week was a little rough, but then suddenly everything clicked.  We started having better success and less fights over sitting on the toilet every hour.  Katie was a fantastic cheerleader for Tom because she wanted her Jelly Belly reward, too.  The only accidents we had were when I was distracted with Katie.  And then at the beginning of this week, Tom was waking me up at 7 am to tell me he had to pee on the potty...while he was still wearing the overnight diaper that he was fully aware he is allowed to pee in!  He usually wakes up around 7, climbs in bed with me and we cuddle back to sleep for another hour.  We've had several days with a 7 am potty run, more sleep, and another wake up call for the toilet.  There are plenty of other times that Tom will announce his need to go to the bathroom when he's still wearing a diaper or pull-up from bed or naptime.  And in public?  Yep, he still told me at the library and Pizza Hut that he needed to pee.  And we had some excitement this weekend when we went to Shad's parents' house and he kept up on his bathroom useage, even when I wasn't the one around to help him.  He also pooped on the toilet twice, one being voluntarily this morning! This boy is definitely going to be professional by the time Sundance arrives, which is my ultimate goal.

I am now 7 months, or 3/4 of the way pregnant and enjoy mild third trimester symptoms--having my energy run low on me, needing a nap occasionally, suddenly being wide awake in the middle of the night for half an hour and thus becoming aware of a grumbling stomach and venturing down to the kitchen, and starting recently, the "Woah! There go my hips."  So I'm trying to keep myself motivated to work hard any way I can when I feel able to because I still have so much to do before Sundance arrives.  Aside from keeping up with general housework, I still have spring cleaning, gardening, sewing projects, and a long to-do list otherwise, and a calendar that seems to be filling up as fast as we're approaching our due date.  Luckily, Tom has become a really good helper.  He voluntarily joins me for dishes, laundry, sweeping and vacuuming.  Mallory and I are planning on having our freezer meal prep day next Saturday, so that'll be another thing checked off my "must list" before May.  I did get my spring garden crops planted yesterday--spinach mustard, swiss chard, collards, lettuce, snow peas, cabbage, broccoli, brussels sprouts, radishes...I think that was it.  I decided to wait a little longer for the cauliflower and green onions.  I'm excited to think about how much the snow peas will love this snow!

Katie fell dead asleep in the middle of lunch a while ago.  Lately our naps have been pushing towards 2 or 3 in the afternoon, so it was a shock when, mid-hot dog, she just dropped asleep at 12:30.  She didn't like being woken up by a wash cloth cleaning the ketchup off her face, but welcomed her crib.

 

A potty training picture I can share without exposing my child's body to the world.  I wanted to go to the store, so we grabbed his toilet seat to bring with us, just in case.  He thought it was a fantastic idea to put it on his head!  He grabbed this hammer (axe) and told me, "I be just like Hiccup!"

 

Later when I was watching How to Train Your Dragon with him, he showed me the scene that he was talking about--"See, Mom! Just like Hiccup!"  Sure enough, there's Hiccup with a helmet and axe.  Tom's toilet seat has a warning on the underside, by the way.  "This is not a toy.  Use only as intended.  Do not allow child to place on or over head."

Sometime a couple weeks ago, a piggy bank was brought out to play with the coins inside.  Gosh, do I regret that.  We've still been picking up coins from all over.  But Katie sure had fun when Shad sat down to help her put coins back in the bank.

 

I've never taken a picture of Katie in this little pajama outfit before.  It was cute when Tom wore it at 9 months, but somehow, it's even cuter on a walking, talking 17 month old Katie.

 

Katie has this attraction to hats.  She just loves them.  She thought it was great when I put this one on her head for her, and I thought it was great when she smiled like this for the camera.

 

On Sunday, I was supposed to bake a cake for Haddie's birthday party Monday night.  But instead, I felt like baking chocolate chip cookies.  Because I wanted to eat those.  Nobody complained.  Shad just loved this POOF going on on the back of Katie's head.

 

We've had this box of diapers sitting in our dining room since my parents came last month.  We just didn't get it up to the kids' room, and they love sitting on it.  It also helps Tom reach the light switch.  Katie seriously sits here every day.  She'll bring her doll, or snacks, her phone, or Tom's shoes, sit down and just chatter away.

 

Shad remade this Captain America shield for Tommy one morning.  (He had to redeem himself from the awful freehand star he had drawn before).  Tom loves all things superhero.  Shad said that as Tom looked from the picture on the computer screen to what Shad was drawing on the pot lid, his eyes lit up as he realized what his dad was doing.  He'd help Shad out, saying, "Now color red here.  Now color blue here.  Be so careful!"  They came to wake me up (I slept in til 11 that day after having an awful night of pregnant and kid interruptions) and Tom's excitement just could not be contained!  He told me all about his shield, how it had a star and red circles and blue circles and it's a Captain America shield! He's also getting the hang of how photo shoots work, since I always have to take more than one picture in order to get the shot right.  This was our third try and afterwards, Tom told me, "Alright.  That's enough.  We're all done now."

 

Our friend, Haddie's birthday party was on Monday, and Mallory asked me to make the cake for her.  Haddie couldn't decide between a My Little Pony theme or a Tinkerbell theme, so we went for both.  Vines and flowers on the bottom for Tink, and a shooting star on top for Ponies.

 

 

Wednesday was a fun day for us.  I put Tom and Katie down for naps at the same time, but Tom played for an hour before I cracked down on him.  So then Katie woke up a good while before Tom did.  I couldn't think of anything better to do with the alone time I had with my daughter than to paint our toe nails together.  She was delighted and sat so good and still for it.  Then I felt like we needed to do a little more fun pretty stuff.  She asked for a necklace and I put a bobby pin in her hair.  I was shocked at how she suddenly looked just like a picture of my mom!

 

We had a good long photo shoot of her countertop activities.  She really is a diva.

 

Pretty toes!  Since it's still sock wearing weather, we kept forgetting about her painted toes for the first couple days.  Every time I took her socks off she and I would see the toes and squeel with excitement over her "pretty toes!"

 

And after she had sat still sufficiently for them to dry, she just couldn't stop rubbing her feet on each other.

 

Then we went to go wake up Tom so we could hurry to the post office before it closed.  Katie was so happy to burst into their room to wake him up.  "Tom!"  Such a smile on her face and in her voice.  That dear little Tom, in the hour before I told him to lie down and go to sleep, had found a Sharpie somewhere.  And colored on their foam puzzle play mat...

 

and bookcase and books.  He was quite proud of his art, and, for something that could have been so much worse, I was quite relieved that he hadn't done anything to doors, walls or other furniture.  I actually like the decorated bookcase.  Still told Tom not to do that again.

 

Groggily waking up... 

 

and then showing me his hands.

 

 

And then Thursday morning, Tom wanted to do makeup with me.  He got hold of the lid to my concealer, which had some concealer in it.

 

I had to delicately explain to him that he had done a good job, but that we needed to wash it off so it wouldn't hurt his eyes.

 

We left for Geneva after lunch on Friday to spend the night before going to Omaha Saturday morning for a youth temple trip.  Said trip got cancelled while we were on the road, due to the big snow storm forecast to blow across the plains.  Norton got 6 inches while we were gone, but a lot is melted already.  Geneva's snow mostly melted as it fell, but stuck overnight as temperatures dropped.  We didn't go to Omaha.  So now we're looking at going to Colorado for the temple in April, because we haven't been since August.  Luckily, one of the weekends we're available is one that Lori is looking at going, so we're hoping that works out.  Anyway, Shad and I got to go 20 miles north of Geneva to York Friday night for a Walmart run, just in case we didn't make it to Omaha on Saturday.  We left the kids with the grandparents and had a nice, leisurely shopping trip.  We took our time.  And then got ice cream afterwards.  Tom pooped on the toilet on Saturday after I told him we'd get ice cream if he did.  So as soon as Katie woke up from her nap, we went out for ice cream.  Then he voluntarily went this morning.  So excited for the progress he's making!  This is all coming together a lot quicker than I could have hoped.

 

Tom had a couple funny quotes this weekend, but I seem to only be able to remember one right now.  At dinner on Friday, he started by saying, "Ruthie, shhh!  I'm talking.  Momma, sshhhh! I'm talking." And then when he had everyone's attention, "SO! What do ya fink?"  After we got over our fits of laughter, Bumpa replied, "I just think I'm so lucky to have you here." Tom looked at him and said, "You're not Loki. You're Bumpa.  Loki is on Da Vengers!" (The Avengers)

 

Katie has a little boyfriend that it'd be a shame not to make mention of.  Paul and Mallory have a 3 kids--Haddie, who just turned 4, Eden, who is a month older than Tom, and Micaiah, who is 5 months old and a full year to the month younger than Katie.  Katie is absolutely in love with Micaiah.  Since the birthday party on Monday where she got to play with him a lot, she's talked about him every day, nearly as a waking thought.  Yesterday and today were the only days that we made it past breakfast before she mentioned his name.  And then it was right immediately after breakfast.  She just walks around, asking about, "Caiah! Caiah! Caiah!"  Every baby she sees is "Caiah!" And even my belly is now "Caiah!"  She loves to pull up my shirt so she can pat, hug and kiss my belly.  She'll stroke it softly and say, "Soft!"  When we get together with Paul and Mallory weekly, Katie's first words when we walk into their house are, "Caiah! Paul!" She certainly favors males.  And she'll find Micaiah and just ooh and ahh over him, play with his hands, tickle his feet, hug and kiss him, and try to sit on him during his tummy time.  I was right there with them for that one, though, and stopped Katie, telling her that Micaiah was not Tom.