Potty Progress

I refuse to call it easy. But it is definitely not as hard as I thought it would be. We are on day #2 of "unda-pans." We have had 2 official accidents, and both occurred yesterday. One pee didn't get to the potty in time, and an unfortunate accident resulting in poop on the floor happened a little later in the day. However, I am so proud to announce that Joey stayed dry all day today. ALL DAY! We even went to a birthday party. I'm cautiously optimistic in thinking that I may only have two children in diapers in the very near future! Hooray for Joey! Here he is in his new unda-pans.

And The Winner Is...

The winner of the ISpy Product from Briarpatch.com is comment #5: Erin who wrote, "I'm an official follower now." Thanks for reading, and congrats! I'll be in touch so we can get your prize out to you.

Working on it...

Sometimes writing things down helps to motivate me to do them. I am currently in the process of tackling some of the tasks on my lists.

• I am happy to report that I have successfully completed all pending thank-you notes and remembered to enclose portrait pictures before mailing.
• I have also begun operation clothing swap. This involves unearthing many plastic containers from the basement and sorting through items that are "not too boyish" for the babies to wear, as well as tossing anything with stubborn stains, and packaging up size-appropriate items to pass on to my nephew Cody. To make room for the hand me downs, this mission also requires me to sort through the girl's current collection of clothes and put away anything that is too small or too summery to wear in the coming months.
• Potty training will take place in full force this afternoon when I put Joey in his new undies, and ditch the diapers for good.
• Olivia is no better with the bottle, but it is not for lack of trying on our part. We might have to do the "cold turkey" approach to get this little monster to cooperate. Selfishly, I'm pretty sure that I'd like to quit nursing all together. I feel like that makes me a bad mom.

That's the update for now. As for sleep and the battle against the binkie... we're still working on those.

REMINDER: Don't forget that today is the last day to enter my giveaway for your choice of ISpy game from Briarpatch.com. You may do so by clicking here.

Am I Asking Too Much?

I have a lot of things on my to-do list lately, but I'm having trouble motivating myself to follow through with any of them. Aside from my daily routine of laundry, dishes, vacuuming, and general clean-up of the toy tornado, these are some parenting objectives that I'd like mastered in the very near future:

• Get my babies who were fantastic sleepers back on track. How did we go from 10-12 hours to up 3x a night again???
• Stop procrastinating and go full throttle with the potty situation. He's ready, why aren't I???
• Get Olivia to take a bottle in preparation for The Big Day. I have to leave her for my dear friend Kate's wedding in a month, and I don't want my baby to starve herself because my breasts aren't available at her beck and call.
• Ditch the binkie for the walking, talking toddler. We started with bed time only, then bent the rules a bit, then a bit more, and a bit more from there. We're pretty much back to the drawing board.

That is my very intimidating list that is sure to invite many tantrums and lots of crying from JOK. A few less intense, but equally important tasks that must be completed in the very near future:

• Cook, puree, and freeze the sweet potatoes that are in my fridge before they spoil.
• Finish the long list of thank you notes on behalf of my children, and be sure to enclose the portrait pictures that we had taken of them with each note.
• Do the clothing overhaul as we quickly transition from Summer to Fall. This includes: going through J's baby clothes to find some neutral, warmer items that will fit O&K; sorting, labeling, and putting away all clothes that are too small for JOK, locate the clothes that I purchased for J for this fall; put away my summer clothes and find some fall clothes that are a) not maternity and b) not ugly, worn out, or out of style.

I'd like to tackle everything all at once. However, I'm pretty sure I don't have to energy to do that. So creating these lists has helped me to prioritize. We'll start with sleep training the little ones back to sleeping through the night. If I'm able to get a good night's sleep I'll be better prepared to accomplish the rest of my daunting tasks. As of right now, I'm off to bed with yet another hope for a quiet night. Here goes nothing...

Baby Love

Oh, how I love the rare quiet moments that I get to spend with just one child. This morning Olivia woke up first, napped first, and woke up while Joey was out with Ron and Katelyn was still sleeping. As I brought up yet another load of laundry to be folded I could hear her beginning to protest being in the bouncy seat. She's a super faker though, because as soon as I came into the room talking to her, and she caught a glimpse of me she started to laugh with intensity. Luckily my camera was close enough for me to capture this sweetness.

You must excuse the shakiness of this video. Olivia was kicking her feet making the bouncy seat extra bouncy. Well, actually Joey jumping into it from the arm of the couch on a daily basis has made it extra bouncy.... Olivia's kicking just exaggerates this. Regardless, the video may cause some to feel queasy but I swear it's not my fault!