Spring Break

This week was TJ’s last ever spring break.
Once we have a “real job” and are finished with school, we will no longer get a week off…therefore, we wanted to take full advantage of this week.
We considered a vacation to someplace fun, but remembered that our loans are going to be due soon, so we stayed home and just made the most of each day.

Monday:
The park

The weather was in the 80s all week long and was perfect for the park.
Riker loves the slides and swings!
It’s the best way to wear him out for a nice, long nap.
(and yes, this was the day of the horrific “poop in the park” incident!)

Tuesday:
We hit the zoo in the morning and the park in the evening.

Another 85 degree day (and humid, too!) but the animals were pretty active which always makes the zoo so much fun.

Tuesday was Riker’s friend Kaylee’s birthday, so we went back to the park to celebrate with her!

Wednesday:
Another day, another park.
Remember, we are making memories while being cheap!

This park had a big green field to play ball in, plus some shade for miss Livvy to lay in.

Thursday:
In an attempt to do something active that was NOT another park, we went to an indoor bounce house.

A warehouse full of inflatable bounce houses…Riker literally cried when we left (and has asked to go back every day since then!)
Livvy loved watching all the kids run around and Riker was completely worn out by the time we left.

Friday:
TJ wanted to do something special with Riker on Friday, so we splurged and went to Chuck E Cheese.
Of course, Riker called it “F@#& E Cheese” the whole time which made the whole experience so much more memorable.

Riker was so excited to get to play all the games and I was happy to see that they did have a “toddler” area with games he could play all by himself.
And with all the tickets he earned, he came home with a little plastic spider that is now lost inside our house somewhere.

And Saturday was our lazy day.
It was chillier today and drizzled on and off, so we stayed home and played outside whenever the rain let up.

All in all, it was a pretty awesome spring break.

Please don’t judge me…

The other night during dinner, I was giving TJ an updated on Riker’s potty training. We talked about pee and poop and underwear. Then I stopped and looked at my husband and said “Remember when we used to NEVER talk about poop?!” Potty training has consumed our lives lately, and it is going to be the main focus of this post. So if things like pee and poop offend you, stop reading.

This week is TJ’s spring break, which means we get to have all sorts of fun outings with him this week. Yesterday, it was a trip to a nearby park.

I was a little worried, since I knew the bathrooms at this park were still “winterized” and therefore unusable. But I figured it Riker did have an accident, we would just head home.
After playing for a while, Riker told us that he needed to pee. Rather than cut our playtime short, I thought I’d just walk Riker over to some nearby trees/bushes and see if he could pee outside. And he did! Quite successfully too…didn’t even get any on his shorts or shoes!

Soon he was off playing again. Up the stairs, down the slide, repeat. Maybe 20 minutes after going pee in the bushes, Riker said he needed to go again. No problem…we were successful the first time, we can be successful again!

I walked Riker over to the bushes, pulled down his shorts and underwear, and positioned him to go pee. Suddenly, Riker started to squat his bottom down a bit…turned a little red in the face…and pooped!

I was so shocked that he just pooped outside at the park, I wasn’t sure what to do! I yelled for TJ to bring me some wipes and all he could do was laugh.
Luckily, this park is dog friendly so there were some plastic bags available to clean up any “messes” (surely they never thought that these bags would be used to clean up after a toddler!)

We carefully cleaned up, counted our blessings that none of the poo ended up on Riker (or me!), and decided to head on home. I was completely mortified that my son had just pooped in the park like a dog…but at the same time, I was incredibly proud of him for telling me that he needed to go potty and for not being too scared to do his business in the bushes!

The last several days, it seems like potty training as “clicked” with Riker. He has finally started to “hold it” for longer periods of time, he’s been successfully pooping on the potty every day, and he is now napping in his underwear (and waking up dry!).

If you read this entire post, I am sorry for all the potty talk…and seriously, please don’t judge me! It isn’t like I intended to allow my son to poop in the park! and I promise that my next post will not contain any potty talk!

Life Lately

1. Riker wears big boy underwear now, except for naps and bedtime.
He’s actually done quite well with potty training…he has finally started to “hold it” a little longer, so we are no longer taking potty breaks every 20-30 minutes.

2. We went to a St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Dublin, OH last weekend…the people behind us had the best view ever!

also, Riker chanted “I want candy” for several days after the parade.

3. The weather here has ROCKED this last week (hello mid-70s!) so we made our first zoo trip of the year (and Livvy’s first trip ever!)
The animals were crazy active.
We were there 2.5 hours and made 5 potty breaks…but we came home with dry underwear!

4. Olivia is still the cutest little girl ever!
If you even glance in her general direction, she will give you the biggest smile ever…however, this is really just a ploy to get you to pick her up.

She’s getting so close to rolling over, if only her arm would stay out of her way!

She detests laying down and demands to sit upright as much as possible.
Her little neck muscles are getting stronger and stronger.

In other news, we have purchased one-way plane tickets back to AZ.
Riker, Livvy, and I will be back in the valley of the sun on May 12.
TJ will be joining us on May 15.
Graduation is almost here and we are giddy!

3 Months

Our little Livvy bug is 3 months old today!!

She is the sweetest little girl and we are so happy to have her in our family!
At three months old, Olivia is:

*sleeping 10-12 hours at night
*drinking 5 ounces every 3-4 hours
*a major cuddle bug
*constantly smiling and cooing
*trying so hard to reach out and grab her toys
*kicking her legs like crazy

The biggest difference between Olivia and Riker is how smiley she is!

Riker always had such a serious expression on his face and we would have to work so hard to get even the teeniest smile out of him.

But with Olivia, all you have to do is look in her general direction and she gives the biggest, gummiest grin ever.
she definitely lights up our days!

love you Livvy boo!

35 Things Update

Another month has come and gone, so it is time to be accountable for my progress on my 35 Things To Do In 2012.

#2: no sweets for one month
DONE! And as I am writing this, I’m totally eating a Reese’s Peanut Butter Egg (the best kind of Reeses ever!). This was by far the toughest thing on my list and I am so glad it is over!

#5: try one new recipe a week
unfortunately, I failed this month. We battled multiple sicknesses in our house this month and stuck with easy, go-to recipes. I did try a couple new recipes but didn’t do one each week.
*Creamy Bacon Carbonara…so good! In fact, we are having it for dinner tonight!
*Pretzel Bites with *Cheese Sauce…the pretzels were decent and the cheese sauce was pretty good. I don’t know that I’ll make them again though.

#8: read 30 books
*The Death Cure by James Dashner
*The Declaration by Gemma Malley
*Outside In by Maria V. Snyder

#9: complete an act of service every month
done.

Still have a lot to do, but I still have 10 more months!