Pictures, Potty and Preschool

Pictures:

Playing in Will's jumper

She LOVES Will!!

My handsome hubby taking a stroll around the lake in Ruidoso

Playing with Dad at the Science Spectrum

Her favorite toy there...it's SO loud and brother hates it!!

Go TECH!

My big boy - so smiley these days!

Riding her zebra...

And now getting bucked off!

Potty:

I know this might not be too exciting for everyone else, but Emma Kate went tee-tee in the potty for the first time last Thursday!! We really aren't pushing it right now, basically just letting her try to go before she gets in the bath, but we were SO proud of her! She has gone a couple other time since...I'm pretty sure her favorite part is the treat (an M&M) she gets afterward. She spends lots of time in the bathroom yelling "TREAT", but then she doesn't want me to take her diaper off once I get in there! Haha, I know it will come with time and everyone says it's so much easier once they are ready so in the mean time I guess we will have to go to Sam's to get more diapers! :)

Preschool:

School starts next week and we are so excited! We will be going to a new preschool this fall; while I usually don't like change I think this change will be really good for our family. We have had inservice this week so Emma Kate has already been up there a few days and had a chance to meet her teacher and make some new friends as well. I will be working with babies 4-9 months this year. I know I will miss being able to actually teach, but at the same time I'm really looking forward to much less prep-work and I'm really excited about the other teachers that in the baby room with me! And an even bigger bonus - Easton will be moved up to our room in just a couple of months. Hopefully it will be a really fun year!!

Easton was especially happy this morning, so I got out the video camera. I couldn't resist sharing, but PLEASE ignore my extremely annoying voice. I'm sure there's a way to edit out the sound, but I don't have time to mess with it right now! :)

2 Months

I was actually planning on writing this post last week on Easton's 2 month birthday while we were in Ruidoso, but I couldn't figure out how to do it on Brice's iPhone (any suggestions?) so I'm just now getting around to it! I think every mom says "I can't believe my baby is already ___ months old" but it's just so true...and I think it goes by even faster with the 2nd. Here's a little of what's going on in our little man's life at 2 months:

• He is an extremely cuddly baby and LOVES to be held, his favorite place to be is snuggled up in your arms with his paci. (just the opposite of his big sister at this age...she didn't like to be rocked at all, anytime she was fussy all she wanted was the swing!)
• Although he prefers to be held, he is starting to be a lot more content in the bouncer, swing or the activity mat.
• His tummy issues are starting to subside as well, praise the Lord! He started going to the bathroom on his own a couple of weeks ago and now he goes every day or at least every other day. This is such a relief to us...I never thought I would be so consumed with poo! haha :)
• He started really smiling about a week and a half ago. And let me just tell you, one big smile will make up for lots of fussiness!! Every time he smiles it just melts my heart! He has also started cooing and it is so sweet.
• We go to the doctor this afternoon so I don't know exactly how much he weighs, but I'm guessing a lot....he is SO chunky!! He is already outgrowing 3 month clothing, and he could probably wear size 2 diapers, but we have a whole box of 1-2's that we're trying to get rid of first.

Also, thanks for all the advice with Emma Kate. We have started letting her go to sleep with her babies and stuffed animals and this seems to be helping. I think our next step will be to put the little things on the door knobs, hopefully it won't come to that because I know this will really make her upset!

I just love her to death and she brings so much joy to our lives. It truly breaks my heart to see her so resistant to authority and have to be disciplined so much throughout the day. I know that much of it is just her age right now (and I definitely know it could be much worse). God is revealing so many things to me through Emma Kate. As a parent I just want what is best for my children, and even though disciplining them is extremely hard, I know it's what is best. Jeremiah 32:41 says "I will rejoice in doing them good, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all my heart and all my soul." It's so comforting to know that God rejoices in doing good for his children, even though at times it means we have to endure discipline. Hebrews 12:11 also says, "For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it." It is my prayer that this discipline yields a peaceful fruit of righteousness in Emma Kate (and myself), and also that next time I am going through discipline that I will rejoice in knowing that God is merely trying to bring about a change in my life!

Random Questions

• How is it possible that my baby is 2 months old tomorrow?? (more to come on that later)
• I had to call the dr's office this morning to get Easton's 2 month well check changed since we are going to be out of town, and they told me that our dr is booked until October. What?! Is this normal?? We will now have to see the nurse practitioner, which I don't mind because we really like her, but I just thought this was really strange.
• How in the world do you get a 20 month old to stay in bed at nap time and bedtime?? Emma Kate has been in her big girl bed for about 4 months now. We had a hard time for about the first 2 weeks getting her to stay in bed, but after that she was perfect! She might talk and play on her bed for a while, but she would never get down. Well, starting about 3 weeks ago she has decided that she IS NOT going to bed without a fight. It started just at night, but now it's both nap time and bedtime. It seems to consistently take her at least an hour or more to go to sleep, and one day last week she missed her nap entirely. We have tried just about everything - putting her to bed later, timeout, spanking, rocking, ignoring....those of you who have been through this, what worked??
• I'm contemplating having a garage sale - is it really worth all the work? I'm usually too lazy and just take all of our unwanted "junk" to Good Will, but I'm thinking we could at least make a little money instead of just giving it away. Anybody want to do it together??

OK, I think that's all random questions on my mind right now. Here are a few pictures from the last week:

Colin and Camron came over to play...Emma Kate was great until we put Camron in her swing and she had a major melt down!! I guess we will have to work on sharing. :)

Yes, that is a pool floatie that Emma Kate likes to wear as a hat! She has to get accessorized before sitting on the potty!

Look at that cute little hiney in big girl panties!

We went to the park on Saturday, we usually just play on the little playground, but since Dad was with us she got to play on the big playground and she even went down the big slide by herself!