He did it!

Trey was showing an interest in going to the bathroom, or rather, was willing to go many times when I would ask him, so I decided to set aside my fears of potty training and just go for it.  

 And let me just say....all my worrying and built up anxiety was for nothing!  This child was a breeze!!  I had heard far too many horrible potty training experiences and even a few people who said potty training was the HARDEST transition they had experienced as a young mother.  Well if that didn't scare the pants off me I don't know what would!  So... I am very happy to say that potty training Trey was far from that.

   One day, Trey (with a little coaxing from me) went poop in the potty twice!! (When I noticed him sneak away to do "his thing" I quickly asked him if he would go poop on the toilet to which he would respond, "NO!"  So I would say, "oh that's too bad...I guess Trey doesn't know how to go potty on the toilet."...and then start walking away.  And it worked!  He would chase after me saying, "ya! ya! mom, ya!"  So to the toilet we went....  Worried that I was going to miss my golden opportunity, I took the plunge and went for it...like seriously took him to the store that night and had him pick out his underwear.  The next morning I put him in his underwear and that was the end of diapers....well, besides naps and bedtime.

He had two accidents that first day.  One was the very first time he had to pee.  I don't think he quite understood what he needed to do, but after a quick trial and error he picked it right up!

The second time I am blaming myself....he was doing so good all day (even coming and telling me when he needed to go) so I figured I'd be fine leaving him to go shower.  I left him on my bed with his cars (second dumb mistake) and told him to tell me if he needed to go.  Half way through my shower I hear, "uh-oh!! Mom, uh-oh!!"  I jumped out of the shower to grab him but it was too late.  He soaked my pillow and sheets!!  Again, that was my fault.  I put a little too much faith in him.

But seriously from then on out he has maybe had a total of 3 more accidents.  And it's usually when he's playing hard and waits too long to tell me.... like when he and Jeff were playing out in the snow and he was all bundled up in all of his snow gear.  Can you blame the kid?  Not even I like to go to the bathroom when I've got 10 layers on!  He got this look on his face and again said, "uh-oh poo poo!"  Trey still doesn't say much so when he has to go to the bathroom, whether he needs to go poop or pee he always says "poo poo."  We are working on that....  But regardless, at least I know he needs to go to the bathroom!

Some things that may have played to my advantage.... Trey hates if he gets his clothes wet.  If he gets anything wet he will take it off (it really gets annoying), and he really does not like to be dirty.  So while both of those things can be a bit obnoxious, I think it may have helped in the potty training area.

We started out putting him in diapers for the first few days during naps and bedtime.  He didn't like it, so we told him if he could wake up dry two times we would let him wear his underwear.  He mastered the naps like a champ and took a little longer for nights.  But after a couple of weeks of wearing diapers to bed he quickly figured it out, and will now get up in the night and go potty on his own if he needs to!  Of course he still has to come wake me up to put his underwear back on him since he INSISTS on completely taking off his pants and underwear to go potty.  It drives me crazy!! (especially in public restrooms!!)  And ESPECIALLY when I'm holding Kate and trying to help him go to the bathroom whilst avoiding any unnecessary contact with anything in those public restrooms!!!  I must admit, sometimes it is just easier when they have a diaper!

Anyway...it's been a little over 3 weeks and I'd say he's got the whole potty thing figured out.  Unfortunately, {and fortunately} he tries to be a little too independent and do everything on his own.  aka: wiping.  That one might be the end of me.....

Ahhh...potty training.

What an exciting thing.... and probably the thing that brings the most hilarious stories!  Lets hope child #2 will be half as easy as this one!  A mom can only hope!!

There is something so cute about a little bum in undies!

Halloween Festivites Billings Style

We had a good Halloween this year.  Holidays are a lot more fun when you get to celebrate them with kids.  They seriously make all the difference.

We went to our wards trunk-or-treat and chili cook off.  Trey participated in all the kid games and scored himself some popcorn and a cupcake for winning.  He was thrilled!
Trey was the only one in our family who dressed up. (We're lame)  We borrowed a Tigger costume from my sister and I think he made a pretty darn cute Tigger.  Any time someone asked him what he was going to be for Halloween he would hop up and down and grab his "pretend" tail.  It was cute.

Trey loved going from car to car to get more candy... poor kid can't say trick-or-treat, so he'd just stand there all cute waiting for his candy.  He would sign thank you, but not many people know what that means.  I hate feeling like I have to explain to everyone that he doesn't talk.  Especially when they would withhold the candy until he would say trick-or-treat. (obviously not knowing he doesn't talk)

We carved/painted pumpkins one night as a family.
I went the lazy route and drilled holes in my pumpkin and Jeff went all out.  It's amazing what a few dental tools will do for you. :)

I personally like my pumpkin best and it took much less time! :)

Jeff and I were lazy this year and never dressed up.  Next year I told him we have to go all out and not be such party poopers.  Halloween has never been my favorite holiday.  Next year we will dress up...mark my words!

On the night of Halloween we invited our friends Ryan and Taryn over for pizza, pumpkin cake, and wassail.

Then we took the kids trick-or-treating.
To say that Trey LOVED it, would be an understatement.  He really grasped the concept of trick-or-treating this year (not much to grasp other than you get candy!) and kept wanting to go to "more" houses.  His bucket got so heavy he started having to hold it with two hands.  When I asked if I could help him hold it he responded, "NO!"  He wasn't about to let me touch his candy!

The trick-or-treaters:

Next year these two kiddlings will be running along behind them.

They don't get much cuter than this.

My cute little elephant.

I could just eat her up.

After the first couple of days of Trey asking me ALL. DAY. LONG. for some candy I finally started limiting his candy to 3 pieces a day.  We hung a little paper on the fridge with 3 boxes that he could check off every time he got a piece of candy.  And most of the time all 3 boxes were checked off by 10am.  He just couldn't resist!  The candy wasn't disappearing fast enough so after about a week of that, I let him choose 10 candies and told him when they are gone they're gone and I chucked the rest!  Feww!  I am happy to say the candy is finally gone and his bucket is put away until next year.  He was not too thrilled about that.  Our dentist dad can now sleep at nights. :)

Now on to more important things like Thanksgiving and Christmas!  Woot woot!!

Utah trip. Not a TOTAL bust.

We spent the first 3 weeks of October in the beautiful Cache Valley.

Our "vacation" to Utah started out something like this....

(happy and excited to play with cousins!)

(but also missing their dad....)

And ended up being mostly like this...

My personal favorite.

This picture speaks high volumes.

Poor little guy was miserably sick for a good chunk of our vacation.  I felt so bad for him.  I don't know what nasty stomach bug he caught but it was awful....for everyone involved.

He threw up more times than I care to remember and just when I'd think he was over the worst, he'd throw up again.  It was awesome.  A huge THANK YOU to my mom who happened to be there almost every time he threw up.... she helped in MUCH of the cleanup.  Ugh...lucky her. :)  Thank you Mom!! 

I took him to the Dr. after about a week of him having no appetite and being exceptionally WHINY.  Of course he told me there was a bad stomach bug going around that can last up to two weeks for some kids and sent us home with hopes that it would be over soon....

This stomach bug started on a Friday and he didn't start acting himself again until Tuesday. (12 days later).  Which happened to be 2 days before we were going to head home.  Yep, it was fun.

Somewhere in the middle of that, I also caught the stomach bug.  Fortunately for me, it was a 24 hour thing.  And fortunately for everyone else, no one else caught it.  Thank goodness!

We also got to listen to this all day.

What I thought was only going to last two days ended up lasting the ENTIRE trip.

...and apparently it is STILL going on.  That's some serious road construction....

These machines rattled the whole house until I was ready to pull my hair out.

Trying to look for the positive in all of this and the only thing I can think of....my kids still napped through it all.

Thank goodness for loud fans.

Aside from tending to a sick child and pulling my hair out from extremely loud machines....I was able to do a few fun things.

{Huge thank you to all those who helped watch my sick little boy so that I was still able to do some of the stuff I had come to Utah for in the first place!}

For starters....

Girls night with my besties!

{This luckily was the night before Trey got sick.}

We partied it up for Kelli's one last hoo-rah before her wedding.

We ate lots of food and had fun watching her open her honeymoon gifts from all of us....and she may or may not have modeled a few of them for us.... ;)

It was a fun night.  I'm glad I was able to get there in time for it.

Then came the wedding... which was my whole purpose for coming to Utah so I definitely couldn't miss this.  I left a sick Trey home with my sister, dad, and mom who all had to take turns since they all had stuff going on that day (thank you!).... and took Kate with me to the wedding.

She got married up in the mountains of Provo Canyon, near Sundance Resort.  It was beautiful.

Fitting for the beautiful bride.

Some of us were lucky enough to help with a few last minute touches before the wedding.

We were all crammed in to this little closet.  It was great.

Congrats Kelli!  We love you and are so happy you have found a great guy!

 The next week....

I banked on the fact that Trey was feeling better (I swear I thought he was!) and took my kids to visit some of our best friends from Pittsburgh who now live in Layton.  And also to get Jeff from the airport...

We had a great time visiting our friends that we miss dearly.

I'm sooo glad we didn't get any of them sick since I went home that night with the stomach flu.

I'm not so sure Carlee would still be my friend if I had! ;)

Trey at Na-na's (what Trey calls Grandma Wendy)

Getting some fresh air after being cooped up in a house all day long...

Miss Kate stayed healthy the whole trip.  (THANK GOODNESS!!)  She was a little sweetheart.  As I mentioned before, she didn't cry once on our way to and from Billings.  She makes her mama very happy.  And she slept like a champ the whole trip!

Jeff entertained the kids while I was sick...

 And then again when I went to Time Out For Woman.
This is a picture of Trey throwing a HUGE fit when I left.
 (this truly never happens, but unfortunately happened one too many times while he was sick)
I started having to sneak out of the house.

El Sol with Tony and Kathie

We celebrated Carson's 8th Birthday!

Like I mentioned... I got to go to "Time Out for Women" with my mom and sister.

It was a much needed break and pick-me-upper.

For some weird reason, this is the only picture I got.

Later that night my mom watched the kids while Jeff and I met up with Nate and Laci at Maddox.  They took Jeff to Brett and Carlee's in Layton so Brett could take Jeff early in the morning to the airport, and I came back home to this...  So cute!

Apparently Kate loves reading stories!  I need to read more books to her.

Poor Jeff was only able to come home for 5 days and during that 5 days: I got sick, Trey was sick, Tony and Kathie had to go out of town for a couple days, and then I had plans to go to Time Out for Woman and another friend of mines wedding reception.  So ya, I think he secretly wishes he'd have stayed home and worked. ;)

Trey and his cousin playing games on Marci's phone.

One of the few cousin shots I got since Trey didn't get to do too much of that this trip.

We managed to get the whole fam to go to Firehouse.

Lesson Learned:  Next time leave kids home!

I may have left with my pants and shoes soaked in rootbeer... but hey, the food was good!

Grandma Kathie and Papa Tony got to play with the kids while I ran some last minute errands before we took the long journey home the next morning.

We planned to go home over UEA weekend so my mom could drive home with us.  I'm so glad she did because it would be hard work driving alone when my kids need me to hand them a million things and change the dvd about 20 times.  Not an easy task when I'm driving.

Before we hit the road we made a quick stop to the pumpkin walk..  This is such a fun tradition that Logan does every year.  I haven't been able to go in quite a few years so I'm glad we got to squeeze in a visit on opening day.

My two favorites scenes were Clue pictured in the top left, and then all the rest of the pictures are different scenes from Hunger Games.  They did a seriously awesome job.

And that there is Bob the Builder himself.

My mom drove home with us on Thursday and flew out early Sunday morning.  It was too short of a stay if you ask me but I'm glad she got to come if only for a couple of days!

And that about wraps up our trip.
Despite all the sickness, we still managed to have a good time.....but I'd dare say it's not on the top of my list of favorite trips home.  Although, I don't recall too many trips home where someone didn't get sick.
I must be cursed!!

Montana Zoo

 Back in September...we went to the zoo...

The Montana Zoo isn't even on the same scale as the Pittsburgh Zoo... like you can't even compare the two...BUT we had fun getting out and seeing what few animals the Montana Zoo did have.  Plus the weather was great!

And the kids had fun...

It really is a pretty little walk, even if there wasn't a ton to see.

I'm glad we went because now that we're back from Utah it is too dang cold to go to the zoo!!

Aunty Ash and Uncle John come to Billings

Ashlee and John came and visited us the weekend before we left to Utah.  I was so glad when I heard they were coming to visit that weekend, in hopes that Ashlee would be able to stay a couple of extra days and drive home with me!  I wasn't one bit excited about the idea of making the 8+ hour drive with 2 kids by myself.  Thank goodness she willingly agreed...and thank goodness she has such a nice husband who drove home by himself so she could ride home with me.  You're awesome John!

The weekend went by real quick.  I hope next time they can stay a little longer!

We had fun playing games, eating great food, visiting Jeff at his work, eating LOTS of Jeff's homeade cookies (just ask Ash!), and making our daily trip to Target (literally).

Did I mention we hit an antelope on our way to dinner!?  Well we did....about 2 blocks away from our house.  It was tragic for everyone in the car, except probably Jeff.  He was ready to just drive away and leave the deer helpless in the middle of the road.  Umm... what!?
The poor antelope was trying to army crawl across the road since both of his back legs were hit.  It was yelling (not sure if antelope yell, but that's what it sounded like) in pain.  We called the cops and they came and took care of it.  I made sure we left before the cops shot the poor antelope right in front of us.  The saddest part was the other antelope were just standing across the field waiting for the injured little guy to come with them.  So sad. :(

Thanks for coming to visit us!!  Trey and Kate loved all the attention!