Fruit Loops

To follow up from my last post, we took Callie to church in panties and she did great! No accidents! She went to the potty twice during the first hour and then we sent her to nursery. When I told her nursery teacher that she's potty training and was wearing panties, I got a deer-in-the-headlights look, so I was so worried that she wouldn't ask Callie if she needed to go or that Callie would be too afraid to say she had to go. I pushed away my temptations to go check on her and just waited it out. I was so happy to find out after church that she had gone potty once and had no accidents.

Here's what Callie likes to do with her fruit loops. She bites half and puts the other half on the table. I remember doing this with one of my snacks at lunch in elementary school. 

Bugles, in case you don't know what I'm talking about.

I would take a bite, leaving the small end and have a whole pile of ends that I didn't eat. I don't think I did it every time, and I'm not sure why I did it. I think I was just being silly. The funny thing is I do similar things with my food sometimes. Jason doesn't understand it and thinks I'm crazy. Usually it happens when I eat a sandwich or burger. I eat all of it but the last little bit--maybe a bite or two. Maybe it's because I get sick of eating it or maybe it's because I'm too full and can't even eat one more bite. Maybe I'm just weird. 

Jason told me recently that he's sees a lot of me in Callie. He says that we are both prone to having accidents (dropping things, falling, spilling, etc.). Luckily Callie has not stabbed herself with scissors or anything serious. We have decided it must in my genes and it must be a hereditary thing since Callie has this problem too. Jason doesn't just randomly drop a bowl full of baby cereal on the ground like I do. Nor does he break his toe just by walking through the house (I did that about a month ago). And he doesn't understand how I do those things. I'm laughing now because I don't know how it happens either.

Call it clumsiness, not thinking before acting, not being careful enough, or being accident prone. Whatever you want to call it, it makes life interesting (not always in a good way).

Does anyone else have this problem?

Potty-training: Take 3?

Take 1: Callie was 18 months old. I liked the idea of having Callie potty-trained before Madison was born and before we moved from a house covered in hard floors to a carpeted apartment, but Callie wasn't ready yet.

Take 2: We'll call the next few attempts take 2 because they were all within a few weeks. A few weeks before this, Callie started having issues with dairy products (I didn't know that's what it was at the time). I thought she was all better, so we started potty-training, but halfway through our first day, I discovered her issues were not over...

Take 3! On January 14, we once again started potty-training and this time it worked!! She understood how to do it from our other attempts, but this time she was lacking in motivation. She would get sick of it after a while and want a diaper on instead of panties. That's when, out of desperation, I quickly created this beauty:

I know, it's not cutsie or crafty, but it did the job!

For the first few days, she kept switching from her little potty, to her potty seat on the big potty. Lately, she's been switching from her potty seat, to me helping her sit on the big potty.

Even Heavy Baby potty-trained...

We mostly stayed home last week. When we did have to go somewhere, I usually put a pull-up on her and told her they were our special going-bye-bye panties to try to convince her not to pee in them. That didn't really work. This week, on Wednesday I think, we had to go to the store for a few things and I decided to be brave and take her in panties. On the way, I told her the store had a potty she could use if she needed to. She seemed amazed that the store had a potty. 

Halfway through our shopping, I asked her if she needed to use the potty, but she didn't respond. Then, as we were finishing up checking out, Callie said, "I pee!" (which is what she says when she needs to go), so I grabbed the receipt, and scrambled to the bathroom. She went on the potty just fine. I'm pretty sure I was more excited than she was.

I think she looks adorable in her panties. 

Now for the next adventure in potty-training: church in panties...

Callie and Her Babies

Daddy being a good sport

Our Car is Now a Texan Too

After jumping through all the hoops (getting insurance and an inspection, filling out forms with notarized signatures), I finally made it to the county records office to get our car titled and registered in Texas. My dad bought our car years ago, so it was titled and insured in his name. He recently gave the title to me so we could switch it to my name.

Yesterday, Jason and I had dentist appointments, so we decided it would be a good day for me to go get the car registered and titled while Jason watched the kids at home. The records office was down town, and I was cutting it a little close for time because they closed at 4:30 and I left the house at 3:49. I also didn't really know where it was, but just followed my phone's directions. I had this silly idea that it would just be one building with parking on the street and would be easy to find. Before I even found the building, I saw an underground parking garage labeled "county records parking" so I turned in and found a spot.

I think it was already after 4:00 by this point and I didn't really know where I needed to go, so I sort of scrambled to gather my papers. When I went to get the car inspected, I had to get a particular form from them to take when I got it registered and titled. I put it in the jockey box beforehand because I wanted to remind myself to take my insurance card (I wanted to leave my insurance in the car in case something happened). Well, as I pulled out the form from the inspection, I couldn't remember what else I was supposed to get from the car (it probably didn't help that my brain was still a little foggy from the laughing gas I got a the dentist). I hesitated for a minute and then just decided to go because I was running out of time (bad idea).

Once I got out of the car, the only thing I saw was a sign for the courthouse. Since I didn't even know which direction to go, I headed for the courthouse, hoping they could direct me to the right place. A security guard pointed me to a building across the street, so I quickly made my way there. Once inside the building, I again didn't know where to go. There were lots of offices in the building, so I looked at the directory and saw that I needed to go down a floor. As I was looking at the directory, a lady came up to me asking where she needed to go. I said I didn't even know where I needed to go, so we both got in the elevator and went to different floors. As I got out of the elevator, I found that I was in the right place (phew). While waiting in line, the other lady walked out of the elevator and joined me in line. We laughed as we realized we both needed to go to the same place.

I handed the attendant form after form and was feeling good about having everything I needed, but then she asked for my insurance card and I realized what I had forgotten in the car...She told me to go get it, return, and get in line inside. I looked at my phone and saw that it was 4:21! I ran back outside, found an elevator a ways off that went down to the parking garage, ran through the maze of the garage and found my car, grabbed the insurance card, and ran back. I think I got back about 2 or 3 minutes before they closed. As I began handing over my pile of forms to the lady, they closed the doors. I was so relieved and happy when I walked out of the building with my new Texas plates and registration sticker in hand.

Callie's First Bike

A couple days after Christmas, we finally got outside to try out Callie's new bike (we were all too sick to get off of the couch the day after Christmas). 

First, Daddy pushed Callie on the bike...

 Second, Mommy and Daddy took turns trying to show her how to pedal...

Finally, Callie took matters into her own hands...

She decided pushing, or "purshing" as she says it, is more fun than riding it.

Christmas Day

Christmas morning gets more fun every year as Callie gets older and understands more. I loved the look on her face as she walked into the living room. 

I love how Callie would take the time to play with everything she opened. In fact, we had to keep reminding her there were more presents to open. It made me realize what I realized last year and apparently forgot. We really only need to get her a few things and she will be plenty excited and happy. Jason and I have a hard time not going overboard with Christmas.  

As expected, Maddie preferred to eat the paper rather than see what was in it.

It was soooo hard trying to keep every little piece of paper, trash, etc. off of the floor and out of her reach! She finds everything and puts it all in her mouth. I felt like I spent most of the day picking things up and yet she still found plenty.

Callie wasn't able to ride her bike outside because it was raining all morning and then it turned into snow. I didn't get any pictures of the snow, but it was really pretty. Big clumps of snow that covered the cars, roofs, and grass. 

Later that day we were able to Skype with Jason's brother, Kyal, who's serving a mission in California, along with the rest of his family in Utah. It was so good to see him and hear from him again. He comes home in May.

Christmas Eve

We had a really nice Christmas Eve with just the four of us. We had a nice dinner together. Then we told the girls the story of Christ's birth using the Little People nativity set and we listened to President Monson's Christmas train story from when he was a boy (it was an illustrated book with a CD of him telling the story that my mom bought her grandkids this year). After that, we put the girls to bed, watched Elf and I got things ready for Christmas morning.

Family Christmas Party

While my parents were in town, we had a Christmas party at my sister's house. Other than Jason (who was at home sick), the entire family was there. Here are some highlights (my sister, Andrea, took these great pictures):

Gingerbread House Competition

Team Grandma: Ethan, Katelund, and Grandma

Team Grandpa: Abby, Cloey, and Grandpa

Christmas Minute to Win It Games

marshmallows through a wreath

Rudolph the red nose reindeer challenge

(Ryan was the only one successful at the Rudolph game)

Fruit Loop stack

Nativity Re-enactment (while my dad narrated with the Luke account)

In the middle of our nativity, two of our shepherds had a fight over baby Jesus! It was hilarious! I wished that Callie had been a part of it, because I'm sure she would have joined in on the fighting and crying over the baby doll (she was too busy playing with their other baby dolls in a different room).

Aside of our games, we ate a yummy Christmas dinner and had a lot of fun just being together. 

Andrea's Graduation and a Visit from Mom and Dad

My sister, Andrea graduated on December 15 with a degree in Elementary Education from UTA.

Andrea and her cute family: Ryan (husband), Ethan and Abby

She started her degree many years ago, but had to postpone finishing because of her miracle premature babies. Andrea went back to school taking classes at night or online while working at a school and being a wife to her working husband and a mother to her two school-aged children. She worked incredibly hard doing all of those things (not to mention she's incapable of giving herself any sort of break as far as grades are concerned--below an A is basically failing). She is such an inspiration! I was so glad I was able to go!

Sisters! (We all got degrees in education--pretty funny.)

My parents were in town for a little less than a week, so we were able to have lots of Black family fun.

I made Christmas cookies with my mom and sister.

Notice the little indentations on the pink star cookies? Callie had asked if she could have more "coo-keys", and I said no. After a while she came over to me and I saw a little pink sprinkle on her lip. I asked, "Callie, did you eat another cookie?" She said, "no, I eat sprinkle" and she ran off. I peeked at her a little later and found her pinching the sprinkles off the cookies. It was so funny and cute. 

My parents took everyone to a really fun place called Going Bonkers.

Cousin Hailey and Callie

Callie was beyond worn out after our fun time that night. She didn't even wake up when we took her out of my parents' rental car.