prayer Time

So, Nate has gone through these phases of praying. He did it for a long time, repeating what we said, and he loved it. He also went through a phase where no matter what we said, what he said was "thank you for Nate." But then he stopped. He didn't want to say any prayers ever. He would listen most of the time, but he didn't want to participate. But then the other day he started again. This time around he can say them by himself. They don't include much, and tonight it was about how he had to go to church and be quiet and eat goldfish and juice, but he is excited to say them alone these days. It's nice, it makes me feel like maybe I did something right. So there's my little guy, I'm so proud of him that he is so happy to say prayers.

He's just so cute

So, Nate is nowhere close to being potty trained. We hit the weekend, and I never want to do something like that on the weekend, so it kind of stalled. But then today I put some underwear back on him, and he cried and cried for a while. (Of course, he was kind of in trouble at the time, so that contributed to it.) Finally I sat and talked to him, and pointed out that it didn't hurt, and it wasn't scary, and he stopped crying. Then I think he kind of felt liberated, and he's been dancing around all day now. And he's just so cute. He's so cute in his little monkey underwear, sitting there with no pants on. When he's grown up, he'll hate me for putting this on the internet, but hey, at least there are no pictures. Anyway, so I'm prepared to do it for the long haul this time. The only problem is that I have trouble with the whole, stay home and don't go anywhere thing, so it's going to take longer. Already this week I'm going to be at my mom's house tomorrow, so he'll only get morning practice in. Then we have somewhere we need to go on THursday afternoon, so that'll pause things. Part of me feels like I have plans on Friday too, but maybe that's just because I feel like I always have plans. But we're going to go out an rent Kung Fu Panda and maybe another movie and just sit and watch movies and hopefully sit on the potty the entire time. Then maybe when he has an accident, he'll be in the right place. Oh the joys of parenting.

Holy Cow! It's a breakthrough!

So our story today starts at Staples. We had to go to Staples today to finally get a new ink cartridge. I've needed one since mid-summer, but it was not until I was called into the RS Presidency and needed to print stuff out for "homework" that I finally got one. So we were checking out at Staples, and Nate saw these cute little frog and pig magnets displayed at the checkout. He begged and begged to get them, and it's possible that we would have since one of the things that I also needed was magnets, but they were like $5, and that's more than I wanted to spend on an impulse buy.
Flash forward to nap time. We were changing Nate's diaper, and he was not being as complacent as I would like, so I said it was time to get rid of diapers and go on the potty. He agreed, which he sometimes does. He said that mommy doesn't like to change diapers, so he needs to wear big boy underwear, and he needs to go wee wee on the potty. So I told him that if we went wee wee on the potty then we could go and get the frog toys from the store. He immediately wanted to go wee wee on the potty. So we got out the potty, and he sat for a little while. Nothing came, so he went to have a nap, and then I said that after his nap we can try again, and he agreed.
This is a major breakthrough. In the past, if I had said that he could have something after going on the potty, he would have changed his mind and said he didn't want it anymore. Not only did he want to sit on the potty, but the major breakthrough is that it was not met with complete terror and disdain. We're going to take this and run with it. That kid is not wearing pants for a week. Wish me luck. (Of course, he'll probably have totally changed his mind by the time he wakes up from his nap.)

File this under: more cute things my kids say

So today we were in the car, and we were talking about Graham about to turn one, and how he is getting to be a big boy. Nate argued that Graham is still a baby, but that he is a big boy. I then countered that big boys wear big boy underwear and sit on the big boy potty. (Nate has a very close relationship with his diapers.) So Nate starts listing all of his friends who wear big boy underwear, and then I say that I think that all of his friends wear big boy underwear. He then says, no, they're not my friends, only Mommy and Daddy and Graham are my friends. It was awfully cute when he said it. Of course, it could be that he feels betrayed by all of his friends for breaking their pact to wear diapers all of their lives, but who knows.
Then also, this morning he was watching a movie that had the Disney castle at the beginning of it, and he turned to me and said, look mommy, is that a Temple? It was pretty cute.
Well, I think that I hear Jesse's car outside which means it only took him 2 1/2 hours to get home today. Of course, it could not even be him, and he could be nowhere close to being home. Poor Jesse.

Another First

So one of the great things about the first year is that there are so many "firsts." The First step, the first word, the first foods, the first time crawling, etc, etc. We have experienced a first this week, and that was the first lollipop. I think that the pictures tell the story.

It's interesting how much more quickly "firsts" tend to come with a second child. I think that Nate's first lollipop was maybe less than a year ago. Of course, it is a food item, so that kind of explains it with him, but yeah, I didn't really think that Graham would have his first before a year old. Oh well.

Shortly after this picture he managed to suck through the stick, so he was not allowed to finish it, and boy was he mad! I guess I'll have to go the push pop route in the future. I remember when we went to Europe many years ago with Erin's little boy who was at the time 5 months old, and she took a push pop for him to suck on at times when we needed to buy a little time of good behavior. Not a bad idea.....

Graham at the Lake

I tried to put a picture of Graham at the lake in the last post, but it was blurry so I took it out, and every time I put a new photo in it messed up my format, so I just thought I'd add another one in a different post.

Deep Creek Lake Vacation

Ok, so Nate really wants me to get off so that he can play his computer game. (What! He's three!) So instead of waiting patiently, he is sitting here randomly hitting keys. What a monkey.

Anyway, we went on vacation with the Markhams a week ago. We rented a house up at Deep Creek Lake and spent the week there. It was our family, Heather and Meckenzie (Jesse's sister in law and daughter) Cammi, Jesse's sister, and his parents. The cabin was big enough for all of us to have our own rooms, so that was nice. Graham even got his own little room, but Nate just slept in the same room as us.

The first day or two we really just stayed at the house. On Monday our big activity was Wal Mart as well as a few sports stores in the area. Nate and Meckenzie had a ton of fun playing together, and whenever Graham could get in on the action he liked it too.

On Tuesday some of the family went to go find some geo caches, or boxes that people hide places and then post the GPS coordinates on the internet, and then other people go and try to find the boxes. You can sign you were there, and generally leave a token in the box. Our token of choice was a pack of gum. Jesse and I stayed home from that since Graham was napping, but then we went out exploring the area trying to find something to do. We failed. The problem with going to a resort town in the off season is that everything is closed. People were closing up the water activities, but the snow activities had not yet started.

On Wednesday we did get to go and find some Geo Caches at Swallow Falls State Park. Nate and Meckenzie thought it was great fun to be searching for treasure. While there we did hike along the trails and see the falls too. We didn't go swimming though.

Thursday it rained, so we were pretty much stuck at home. I think that Heather and I may have gotten out to go to some markets that day.

A couple of different times we took the kids over to the lake area at Deep Creek State Park. Nate enjoyed playing a the playground and throwing rocks into the lake. Graham just did his own thing, but for a little guy being out of his own house, and dragged all over the place, he did such a good job. He was a trooper.


On Friday we had to cram all of the rest of our fun into one day. We started out by going to a corn maze. The kids loved it. Nate as it turns out is a natural at mazes. Every time we had to make a choice, we asked him, and he always knew the right way to go. Then one time he went into the corn, and jumped out to surprise us. That turned into a really fun game. That game was replaced with Jesse going into the corn, and then jumping out to surprise the kids. That was the most fun game. There were other lots of fun things to do there, like bikes, and a cow train (which Nate refused to ride) and a playground, and the animals you can stick your face out of. Plus, there were all of the young calves that you could go and look at. It was a fun morning.

That night Jesse, Heather and I went to a haunted house and mountain roller coaster. It's one of those where they pull you up the side of the mountain, and then gravity takes care of the rest. You are the one in charge of the breaks, so you go as fast or slow as you want. It was actually pretty fun, but freezing, since you need to have your hands out, and none of us thought to bring gloves to our October vacation.

So it was a fun vacation. On Saturday we just packed up and headed home. The kids slept the whole way home, so that made the drive easy. And, Jana even remembered to feed our cat, so when we got home, Lizzie was still alive even!