The journey begins

The fabulous potty training journey that is. I've been putting this milestone off for quite some time. Partly because Eli just doesn't care and I didn't feel like he was really ready, and mostly because I've just been too lazy to do it. I hate diapers, but it is easy. I've got a baby....that's been my excuse:) Well excuses aside, I figured at almost 3 1/2 it was high time we at least attempt this journey. Otherwise, there is a good chance Eli will be in diapers when he heads of to kindgergarten! Still wishing these kids would just know how to do this on their own at a magic age or something. I had a friend give me some tips and tell me that this was mommy-training.....so true!

So, with Brian home for 2 weeks for Christmas break, I figured we should give it a shot. I would have his extra help and might not totally lose my mind. I pretty much had no high expectations for Eli going into this. I was a nightmare to potty train, and Brian wasn't a whole lot better. I figured I'd get hit with a good dose of child payback.....another reason I've been putting it off. To add to my craziness, I got the wild idea to try to train both Eli and Kamdyn at the same time. She's almost two, so I figured we could at least give it a shot and see how she did. How awesome would it be if I could get them both out of diapers. Bonus for us! But, she didn't even last a whole day in training mode:) I just don't think she's quite ready, and I was in no mood to stress myself out or make her hate the potty in the process. In the 5 or so hours we tried with her, she had three accidents and no successful trips to the potty. Good news is, she hated when she got her panties wet, so maybe there's hope for her this summer sometime.

I let the kids pick out the panties/undies they wanted to wear and sat them on their potties (we borrowed a second one from a friend). Day one went pretty well, Eli went 2 times, and had one accident. I was hopeful for day two. On day two, he had 1 accident again went 3 times. Woo Hoo! Maybe he is getting it?? Then he got sick. So potty training came to a halt. And then we had a crazy weekend of Christmas stuff with family. So I just put it off for the weekend.

I started it back up and am happy to say that today will be day three (of our second go around). Eli really is doing pretty good. He averages about one accident a day (and pooped once too.....that's a whole other battle. Don't think we are going to win that one for a while). I think he may be getting it.....the only thing is that he has never once told me he needs to go potty. He will go on the potty, but only if I'm sitting him on there. So I don't know if he's just being lazy and waiting for me, or if he really doesn't know yet what it feels like when he has to potty. Every time he's gone, he's been sitting on the potty for 10 or 15 minutes. Oh well, doesn't matter to me. A success is a success in my book and I'm going to keep at it. One of these days he's bound to get it entirely on his own without mommy asking him every 10 minutes if he has to potty and every 20-30 minutes making him try despite his answer. Right?? He won't go off to kindergarten in diapers:) And our check book is already happier. We have hardly used any diapers this week.....just the ones at nap time and night time diapers at night. I will certainly be glad when this journey is behind me though.

.....And then it will be time to potty train Kamdyn:)

picking out his first pair of undies to wear.
(Parker had to have his little feet in this shot too:))

Advent Calendar/Jesse Tree fail

If you recall, I mentioned something earlier in the month about doing an advent calendar and Jesse tree with the kids this year leading up to Christmas. That meant 25 days of "Christmas-y" activities with the kids and more than that with the Jesse tree. For those of you that know me well, this is indeed a stretch. I am nothing like my sis-in-law who often does fabulous crafty, fun activities with her kiddos. I often tell her that I am sending my kids over to get their daily dose of craft with Aunt Erin because they certainly aren't getting it with their mommy. Too bad too, they sure do love doing this stuff. Maybe I will get better as they get older. Probably not, but a girl can hope and dream:) I started out with a bang. And slowly began to fizzle out. Honestly, I didn't do as bad as I thought I would. I managed to do something ALMOST every day until about 18th. Same with the Jesse tree. I was doing great about getting the ornaments out each day and reading the scripture that went with it. But the kids certainly didn't care about listening to my bible verses yet this year, and when I would get a couple of days behind, it was impossible to keep their attention through three days worth of scripture. I just kept saying...."Eli, quit playing, mommy's reading the bible. Listen to the bible story!" To which I just got the response, "No mommy!" As he ran down the stairs. So I tried. Truly I did....but I sure did give up easy. Next year. Always my motto:) The kids loved doing the advent calendar part. Probably because it was fun stuff or yummy treats. My only excuse here is that I ran out of "easy" things to do on the list and I was too lazy to do some of the more complex stuff with them. Mommy fail, I know. Good thing they won't even remember (I HOPE!) But the stuff we did manage to do, they loved. So here's a few pictures of all our advent calendar fun!

Cottonball snowmen......this was one of Eli's favorite things. And I have to admit, relatively easy for them. I basically did Kamdyn's for her, but that's true of pretty much everything we did for the advent calendar. I think my problem with crafting with them is that I am a perfectionist and like things a certain way. Not gonna happen with a three year old. And I'm just not very good yet at relinquishing control and letting them do things their way. I also hate a mess. Which is impossible not to have when working with any child and craft supplies.
Paper snowflakes.....if you've had the pleasure of coming over any to our house the last couple of weeks, you will see these bad boys on the door. They are special. That's about all I'm going to say on that. If you didn't see them in person, I'm sorry. There is no picture of the finished product to show you their awesomeness. But one thing is for sure, I've got to learn how to do this before next year.
Here's Eli cutting his paper. He's not very good with scissors. And I can't show him how to do it right. I try, but fail. And I think I actually only make things more confusing for him. Add to our problem, pretty sure this kid's going to be a lefty. What in the world do I do with that?!?! I have no idea how to show him how to do stuff left handed....i'm a righty(and a left side retard)
Ahhhh, the gingerbread house. Definitely a favorite for the kids. I actually think this one is fun to do every year, and have no problem letting them stick stuff wherever. My only problem is the sound of candy hitting the floor when it doesn't stick well. We had a lot of candy on the floor.....
He's actually very meticulous. It occurs to me at times that our poor children are doomed before they are even born......the habits they pick up from us. Sorry kids!
This one on the other hand pretty much just liked playing in the bowl of candy. She just kept running her hands through it. Every once in a while, some would get away, and that's when I would drop and search for the lost piece.
Illuminations at Botanica. I love Christmas lights. You probably wouldn't know that from looking at our house, but we just don't want to show anyone up, so we under-achieve. If we brought our A-game, the rest of you Huttons would be put to shame:)

Just proof that Parker was along and present at all our fun activities. I just wouldn't let him participate yet do to very poor hand grasping skills. But he's sure cute.


Puppy chow. I referred to this as reindeer poop (give me a break, I was trying to come up with 25 christmas type activities....much harder than you might think!!) This is actually the first time I've ever made this. It was good. Most of it went to the neighbors. I tried to get Eli involved......he didn't care too much, so it ended up being a mommy/daddy project. Funny story: I think the problem was that I told Eli this was poop. After I got it mixed up and was stirring it all together, I kept getting Eli to take a bit. I mean, chocolate and peanut butter, who can resist. Even Eli loves sweets, so I thought he would be all over it. I kept asking him if he wanted to try it.

E: "No mom, I'm not eating poop."

Me: "Eli, it's not really poop. It's a lot like candy. It's chocolate. Come on, try it. You'll like it."

E: "I'm not eating poop."

And he didn't. Kamdyn on the other hand loved her "poop" She clearly is not concerned with her food. If it looks good, it's bound to be good. We might have to watch this one:)

Sugar Cookies!!! Yummy. I only make these once a year if even that. But I sure do love them. An extra added bonus was that we got to have our Bff's come over and help. The daddy's were out to dinner, so my bff Liz came over with Eli (and Kamdyn's.....this girl loves Grey) best friend Grey and little sis Violet. They helped us decorate.
Grey liked eating his cookie. Can you tell??
And future husband and wife. So don't bother trying to take one of these cuties.....they are already spoken for. These two are just 4 weeks apart. So much fun. Grey and Eli are only a week and a half apart, so it was so fun that these two are so close in age too. And Violet really does love Parker....don't let the face fool you.
And that's a wrap. All of our fun advent festivities. Next year I'm gonna try to make it the the 21st at least:)

Our blonde haired, blue eyed baby Jesus

Disclaimer: this picture is not very good, you can hardly tell it was Parker, but he was up there rocking it on the stage:)
A couple of weeks ago Parker made his acting debut at church. A friend needed a baby to play baby Jesus in the church Christmas musical. Her youngest is Kamdyn's age, so she needed someone smaller. This is where Parker got his big break:) She asked if she could use Parker as baby Jesus. I couldn't say no to that! He did such an awesome job.

I was worried about him getting fussy or crying, but he did amazing. The first night he just looked around happily and was just transfixed on "Joseph" So cute. I was so proud:) I took some pictures on Sunday morning. He did just as awesome then. He started to fuss just a bit and I was really hoping that he wasn't going to start crying.....instead he just spit up all over the place. So funny! Everyone started laughing. He even started yawning during the song about sleep. What an actor! So cute to see my handsome little man up there on the stage. We just kept laughing about the fact that he certainly didn't look very jewish with all that blonde hair and his beautiful blue eyes. Regardless, he played the best darn baby Jesus ever!

Dipping Chocolates......Oh so delicious

Clearly I'm a bit behind, because my fabulous sister-in-law blogged about this last week:) But, better late than never is the motto I live by these days!

Last Saturday we (meaning the Hutton women) did our yearly tradition of dipping chocolates. This is something Mary has done with her family forever. She did it all growing up and he continued on with the tradition. I have to say, it's one of my favorite traditions too. The first year I ever did this (when Brian and I were engaged, I was a little skeptical as to how much fun dipping chocolates could be. I was wrong for thinking that and am so glad that it's something we still do ever year. My waistline doesn't necessarily need it, but I sure enjoy it regardless:)

Erin and and I are the family dips. Meaning we get to dip our hands in a big ole' pile of chocolate and cover the centers in chocolate. Man do I love chocolate, so dipping is fun. And you get to smell like chocolate the whole rest of the day:)

Now that the kids are older, they always come over for a bit and get to try their hand at being dips. This was the first year for this little miss. And she did a fabulous job. I showed her how to do it one time, and she was good to go and went to town decorating her marshmallows. And she looks pretty cute in an apron too.
I will say, my kids hate having dirty hands though, so dipping for my children was very clean (can't say the same for my niece and nephews, they aren't afraid to get down and dirty with the chocolate!)

Last year Eli didn't want anything to do with dipping. He surprised me by actually doing some this year. He dipped a few candy canes and then decided he'd had enough and ran off to do "manly" things like look at train magazines or something:)

And here we are with all of our chocolates (well almost all of them, Mary and Erin were finishing up the nuts....I had to get home to get a handsome little baby down for a nap). It's a good thing we only do this once a year:)

Handsome

This little man has started to develop quite the personality. He's such a fun loving little guy! He gives tons of smiles and will "talk" with you if you talk to him. So cute. He's growing up so fast!!!
He's also decided that it's fun to wake up in the middle of the night (before it's time to eat). He wants some one on one cuddle time with his mama. I think this is a little dose of karma.....I used to wake up in the middle of the night and be so wide awake and alert and think it was time to play. Not cool. Thankfully, he usually sleeps in my arms (knock on wood:)), but I'm going to have to put a stop to that soon. Good thing he's SO. STINKING. CUTE.

So cute I might just sleep there

Earlier this summer, before Parker was born, we moved Eli and Kamdyn into the same room. Even though we were finishing the basement, I felt like Eli was too young to be down there by himself (why, i'm not real sure, he plays down there by himself all the time). So, we attempted the whole sharing a room thing. It didnt really work so well for us. Eli is not always the best sleeper, and he started messing with Kamdyn's pretty good sleep habits. She wouldn't go to sleep before 9:30 (bedtime is at 8:30) and Eli often woke her up in the morning around 6 when he was getting up. All of it was frustrating, but I told myself it would eventually get better. I waited and waited, and tried new things. There was one night that settled the whole separate room issue for me. Eli kept coming out of their room and it would upset Kamdyn so she started crying. I'd take Eli back to the room only to have him leave 5 minutes later "because sissy was crying". I would tell him she was crying because he kept leaving, and if he stayed in his bed, she would go to sleep. So I took him back to his room.....same thing happened again...and again....and again. Finally by 10, I took Kamdyn out of their room and Brian layed in bed with Eli. At 11:30, Kamdyn was still awake! End of story there for me. Clearly a shared room wasnt working for our kids, and I was tired of poor sleeping for both of them. I asked Brian what he thought about moving Eli downstairs and he said he thought it was a good idea. So, the room switching began! I was excited because this gave me an excuse to do over Kamdyn's room and give her something cute and girly. Eli's room is fun too, but it's still kind of a work in progress, so more on that later.

I'm in love with the grey and yellow color scheme, so that's what we did in her room. I also love damasks....so I got a big ole' stencil and stenciled a wall. I. LOVE. IT. So much so, that I'm jealous of my two year old daughter's room. There are still a few things I want to do in there, but for now, it's done. She doesn't really seem to care much either way, but someday I know she will:) I lovingly asked Brian if he would help me paint the room over Thanksgiving break when his mom had the kids for a granny day. He agreed (thanks babe!)

These are some cute hoops from my friend Mindy, etsy shop. I just thought they would go perfect in her room.
I found a table cloth at target that I loved that was the right colors, so I bought it and made them into curtains (don't look too close please!)
Her amazing stenciled wall. Oh how I love it. I didn't even mind doing it, kind of just got in a groove. It only took me a couple of weeks to finish by doing three or four here and there when I got a chance, and I was able to finish it up last week when I had a granny day (those granny days sure bail me out a lot when it comes to getting projects done! Thanks Mary!!) This picture doesn't really do it justice either. You gotta see this wall in person:)

Just a glimpse of the other wall in her room with my cheap Uppercase living art and the silhouette I did of Kamdyn. Oh, and her awesome clock I got from Hobby lobby:)

There you have it, Kamdyn's "girly" room all made over.

Jesse Tree/Advent Calendar

The Christmas season is upon us. I can't believe that Christmas is just a few weeks away now. Holy Smokes! Not sure where the last 12 months has gone, but it's sure gone fast. This year, I wanted to do some fun stuff with the kids. They are getting old enough to enjoy some Christmas traditions, so I decided we should get some new ones started:) One of those new traditions is the Jesse Tree. This is a fun thing to do with the kids to get them in the bible. We got a special tree for their ornaments.....each day, they get to open up a box that has an ornament in it with a picture on it. The back of the ornament has a scripture reference on it, so we open the bible and read the verses on it to learn about Jesus. The kids really like the ornament part. At three, Eli doesn't care a whole lot yet for the bible verses, but I think the older he gets, the more he will enjoy hearing stories about God and Jesus and his promises to us.

Another tradition I am starting up is the advent calendar (I will post some pictures of our advent activities at a later date). It's the same concept of the Jesse tree (do something different each day leading up to Christmas), but it's more activity based in our house. For those of you that know me well, you know that this might be a stretch for me:) I had to come up with 25 "Christmas-y" activities to do each day. I say this might be a stretch because several of the activities are crafty, or involve baking with the kids. I love being crafty, and I love baking, but not with the kids. I am not one of those moms that does fun crafty activities or bakes cookies with the kids on a regular basis. I wish I was, because they love doing this kind of stuff, but it just sort of stresses me out. So we don't usually do it. SO, December is going to be a special month for them:) And who knows, maybe I will learn to love some crafting and baking with the kids and we can make it a more regular thing.

Thankful

Since it's December 1st, I thought I would blog about our Thanksgiving:) This is what happens when I'm too lazy to get the pictures off of my camera......two weeks between posts. But, don't worry, I have lots of posts up my sleeves for the coming months!

Our Thanksgiving was great. Thanksgiving isn't one of my favorite holidays....mostly because turkey is probably my least favorite "holiday food." I'm a ham girl through and through. I still eat it and enjoy it, but I just don't look forward to it like I do Christmas dinner. BUT, I lucked out this year and got two thanksgiving meals that didn't involve turkey:) Delicious food non-the-less. I think I probably gained a few pounds from two meals. We had some yummy prime rib at Brian's parent's house, and chicken and noodles (one of my personal favorite foods of all time!) at my mom's house. Yum-o!!

We have so much to be thankful for this year (just like every other year too.....we truly have been blessed).

First and foremost I'm thankful for this man that God put in my life. Such a great hubs and amazing daddy. I'm thankful that he knows this mama is often at her breaking point with the kids by the end of the day and stays home and plays with them while I escape the chaos and get out with just the babe. He deals with other people's nutso kids all day long and is still awesome about coming home and playing with our nutso kids everyday (he has quickly become their favorite.....think it has something to do with the fact that he lets them crawl all over him, throws them onto pillows, and just really pays attention to them (helps that he doesn't have daily house upkeep to do!!)) He is pretty amazing:) I'm thankful that he has a good job that pays the bills and gives him so much time off during the year (the kids love this too!).
I'm thankful for family......for great-grandparents that have the opportunity and the ability to love on and watch our kids. Because really, great-grandparents are pretty awesome.
For food on the table, everyday. One of those things that I know I just take for granted. I've never once gone hungry, and that alone is a major blessing. Even our horribly picky 3 year old goes to bed with a full belly every night.
I'm thankful for this sweet baby boy. While adding a third kiddo to our mix has been an adjustment and total chaos:), he is absolutely perfect. Can't picture our lives without him in it. I love him so much and he's already growing up way to fast for me. This face.......so. stinking. cute.
I'm thankful for one child who isn't a particular eater. She makes me smile. This one is a firecracker, but she sure brings lots of joy. She oozes sweetness from every pore of her body (starting to get mixed in with some sour too, but she usually redeems herself very quickly). And she LOVES her food:) She was eating everything her big brother wasn't.
I'm thankful for Aunts and Uncles to play with our kids. Our kids are lucky because they have lots of loving aunts and uncles her in town. And lots of cousins. Family get-togethers are loud, but so fun.
I'm thankful for this boy. Our firstborn......very stubborn. Oh how he tests me daily. Toddlerhood is not a good stage for me, and this kid gives me a run for my money, but I love him so. And man does he say the funniest things!
I'm thankful for sweet moments between family.
And for little girls who are goofy and find no greater joy than putting on her grandpa's boots and trotting through the house (as best as she could...those things were as tall as her legs!) You gotta watch your shoes around this one. It's starting young, she loves to wear other people's shoes around the house:)
I'm thankful for so many wonderful grandparents to spoil on our kids. And they all live here, double bonus.So many blessings. Such a great day full of food and family. Now we can move on to the Christmas season! Wanna take any bets on how long it will take me to get the house decorated?? I'll give you a hint......It's December 1st and while our tree is out, it's not decorated.....the stockings and everything else is still in the attic.