Potty Training, week one.

While Paige was off for Christmas break we determined that it might be a good time to attempt potty training for Lilly. We found a plan online that involved a full day of one on one time with the Potty trainee, lots of rewards, and methods for responding when there were failures.

By 1 in the afternoon on Christmas Eve it looked like the whole plan was a bust. Amazingly however, by that evening Lilly was consistently letting us know it was time for potty. In the first week she has only had night accidents twice (in the same night), mainly because Daddy was dumb and gave her a full glass of milk before bedtime.

She has not had any daytime accidents since the end of the first day. Not bad. We think we may have gotten off easy with this one.


And before I forget, we don't often shop at Wal-mart, so forgive us if you already knew, but this is the most atrocious tasting lemonade we have ever tried.

SnowDay

Three

Lilly's 3rd birthday we kept pretty low key. Sorry, no massive Pinterest-inspired extravaganza. So, after James went to bed at his usual 6:30 bedtime, we brought out the celebration.

Grandma and Grandpa Olson came over earlier in the day and game Lilly the red purse (with rings ,toy money and a lucky penny) you see on the table. 

Cherry pie instead of cake. We thought Lilly might like it and we were in the mood. :)

Happy Birthday to Lilly

Got them all in one shot

Phineus and Ferb fruit snacks. The best $2 I ever spent. She loved it and inhaled them over the next day and a half.

The idea that there are dresses that you are supposed to wear to bed rocked her notions of the world. She loves her princess nightgown.

Grandma and Grandpa Barlow sent Lilly a coloring book (princess of course) and some play food.

Everything was examined and deemed amazing.

Although we determined that real ban-amas would be preferable to eat.

Happy Birthday, sweet girl. We love you very much!

Lilly's First Hot Chocolate

Having a 3 year old at Christmas is different from having a 2 year old at Christmas in that we can actually establish some traditions that have some meaning to the kids. She's also old enough to enjoy things she could not have before.

Like Hot Chocolate with Marshmallows.

Temple Square Lights

Shortly after School ended for both of us this year we took the kids on an outing up to Salt Lake to see the lights and tour the new mall downtown. The mall is architecturally pretty cool. At night though it's not any kind of sight for my camera, so instead enjoy these photos of us at Temple Square.

Bleh

I got sick Christmas afternoon. I spent Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, in bed. I have not been this sick since being on my own, possibly earlier. Now James, Lilly and Paige are all sick. Add that to the end of the Semester, Christmas commitments, finishing home improvement projects and what not, and you will hopefully understand why I have, once again, failed to provide any blog updates. So, commencing now, I am going to go back through the last month and update. But then I am also going to go through the last year and add anything I might have forgotten as well, as that is something I traditionally do to keep the kids blogs up to date.

I will post some now, and schedule some out for the rest of the year and into the next, and will keep posting until I pass out. Which may not take long in all honesty.

Daycare

With only 3 credits left to graduate, and the one required class I am taking being an evening one, last week my kids went to Daycare for what might possibly be the last time for a long time. Lilly has already asked to go to daycare once since then. She misses her friends.

Yesterday Paige received some photos via Text from the lady who does our daycare of our kids with their Golden Lab, Bella. This is a great dog, and my kids both love her.

Napping

We had been watching music videos on my phone when I suddenly noticed she had fallen asleep. She has not done a snuggle and snooze in a long time.

Frontrunner

The big news here in Utah is the Frontrunner Public transit system The southern stage of which opened this week. Saturday they had a free day, so we went to check it out.

Lilly was her typical in public adorable self. She chatted it up with the other passengers, she played Hide and seak with the people behind her. James got tired of it all really quick.

As far as public transit goes, Where we live this makes no sense unless you are a daily commuter who cannot stand traffic and are willing to pay a bit extra. Between this and driving, the break even point on cost is in Farmington. That's about halfway between Salt Lake and Ogden. Unless Gas hits $4.00 dollars a gallon, or the cost of fares comes down, this is still to expensive and time consuming for out occasional day trips. Other than that, it was kinda cool.

12 12 12

Yesterday, at 12:12 on 12/12/12 (that's YMD European date standard, as opposed to 12/12/12, DMY American date standard.) I was studying for a Final. In fact it was the final Final of  what would ultimately be my penultimate semester. That would make it my final Final of my second to final semester and over all, MY FINAL. FINAL. EVER. Because next semester there will be no tests. Just Projects.

I had to celebrate, of course. I submitted my proposal to Paige, who did not feel like driving around at all but said I could go.

So I did.

In Homage to those crazy single days when my buddy Nathan and I would just up and go somewhere for the evening because we could, I did a mini temple trip.

Payson, Coming along nicely

Provo City Center, with the structural support all gone.

Provo, where these adventures always started. We lived less than a mile from here.

Mount Timpanogos. This is at 5:00PM

Draper

Jordan River

Oquirrh Mountain

Bountiful

Salt Lake. They turn the Christmas lights off at 11. or maybe 10. Either way...

One Last Project

Remember This?

 This is the former furnace room, turned expanded unfinished Laundry room on the downstairs portion of the house. It is also the section of the house that got most of the destruction during the whole sewer thing, which, like this current project, happened in the weeks leading up to Christmas. (Last 2 photos here.)

WELL it sure doesn't look like that now...

It's not finished, but it's functional, which is all I really care about for the moment. Touch up and the rest of the details will come later.