Potty training

So, we thought potty training Zach would be easy. It's been easier than Nathan, but definitely not easy. A month or so ago, he hated having a wet diaper and was very interested in being potty trained. However, we had a vacation planned and had heard that you're not supposed to do any potty training within six weeks of a big event. So, I waited, and I think I wish I didn't.

Anyhow, we started on Wednesday and at first Zach didn't even want to put on underwear. We slowly worked our way into it and had lots of accidents. However, we persisted. That continued through Thursday and Friday and I had thoughts that we should maybe hold off for a little longer. However, we persisted. I think we were starting to making a little bit of a breakthrough Friday, but not much. However, Saturday was much better!!! We're still not the point where I'd say he's potty trained, but he's done much better. I am cheating and still putting him in a diaper at night because I just don't think he's ready for that yet. However, this is still really big news for us. We'll see how this next week goes, but I feel we've come along way. Ok, so this may not be very exciting for other people, but it is for us!!!!

Whining

Sorry. I'm whining. My tailbone really hurts and I need to vent for a moment. It usually doesn't bother me that much unless it's a day I've done a lot of sitting, especially at the computer. Even with that, I can usually change positions, at times even sitting cross-legged on my chair. Right now it's driving me crazy, even with changing positions. My tailbone was broken when Zach was born two years ago and I will thoroughly enjoy telling him, when he gets to be a teenager and/or adult, that he can literally be a pain in my behind! Ok, enough venting and time to be productive.

First talk

Nathan is a Sunbeam and he got to give his first talk in Primary yesterday and he did an awesome job. We sat down together this week and discussed the theme of his talk, "I am thankful that we are all children of God". We talked about what it means to be a child of God, and why we are thankful that everyone is. I helped him with this talk, but he was the one that put most of it together. He wasn't nervous and did an awesome job. He even said parts of it without help. We were very proud of him and he did a very good job. This past year, he had already had the opportunity to give the prayer and article of faith as part of sharing time with Primary and he hasn't been nervous with either part. He has had moments in the past with people where he has been shy, but he's done great with presentations in Primary. I was VERY shy as a child (and still can be) and I'm so proud of how well he's done.

As a side note, Zach just cracks me up. The things he says and does at times just make me laugh. Apparently he doesn't like my cooking, or just likes sweet things, but it can be a fight to get him to eat his dinner. the other day, we had a baked potato as part of dinner and he did not want it. I was finally able to get him to eat some of it, but he had to have multiple drinks of water with it. Then, after I thought he was finished, he ran around with his mouth full of potatoes for the next five minutes. He did finally finish it. I'm hoping my cooking isn't that bad, because the next day he did the same thing with either a drink of water or apple juice! He's a funny boy and I just have to shake my head sometimes.

Counting to ten

Ok, so one of my "parenting methods" is counting to ten to provide them some kind of a warning that something needs to be done, or that we need to be done doing something by the time I reach ten. It's worked pretty well for us, or at least I think so. So, I remember being amazed at how early Nathan could count to ten. So, Zach has been a stinker about going to bed and wants to push back bedtime as late as he can. We have a rocking chair in his room and he really likes to rock at night. I like him to fall asleep in his bed, so we usually have a limit as to how long he can rock before bedtime. He's asked for the "duck book" lately, which I have memorized and can recite while we're rocking. For the last couple nights, we've skipped the duck book and just counted to ten. Tonight, I was amazed because he counted with me. The only number he missed was 6. He jumped to 7, so six must not be a very important number. Anyhow, he just turned two in August and he can almost count to ten on his own. I was pretty impressed.
Nathan also impressed me today. He went to preschool today and told me about all the things he learned. He also told Jeff at bedtime. He talked about cornucopia's, and he pronounced it without a problem, and also told us all about octopus. Jeff was really impressed that Nathan said octopus have eight legs, just like spiders do. We've loved Nathan's preschool and he's had a great time with it. We also talked about germs, and about how we can see them with microscopes. He was really excited about microscopes and we looked online to learn about them. Apparently we didn't look long enough because he asked that we keep looking. I was pretty impressed.

Halloween

So, I've finally got my Halloween pictures downloaded, and I thought I'd share. Nathan was "the hidden face guy". We looked and looked for a Halloween costume, and found this one. I wasn't thrilled about it because I couldn't see his face, but he was really excited about it. Zach was a frog. We had a couple different costumes for him, but he didn't want to wear any of them when we tried them on before Halloween. I thought he'd be a fireman, but his friend's older brother asked him the day before Halloween what he wanted to be and he told him a frog. That was a surprise to me.





The boys had a lot of fun trick or treating. Zach was very excited to get candy. We went to Aunt Britney Aunt Bre, and Disneyland Grandpa's work for trick-or-treating in the afternoon. There was a decorating contest and the boys thought it was great. When we got home, we also did the houses in our neighborhood with Ty and Meg, who my boys just adore. They had a lot of fun, but they were all pretty exhausted by the end of the night.



Here's a picture of all three of my boys. Jeff decided to dress up as well. Both of the boys were not sure about Jeff's costume, and Zach in particular didn't like it. The mask didn't last for very long

Zach has been really funny about his treats. I'm a mean mom and will only let them have so many at a time, so we still have some candy left. Zach's come up to me a couple of times and said "Mom, I need candy". It's made me laugh.