Crazy Saturday and Potty Training!

NO more Sick kids!

Good news, I am happy to say that everyone in our house is healthy again and free of any illness! I have gone so paranoid about germs that I am constantly washing mine and my kids hands all day to the point that mine are dried out! I even have hand sanitizer attached to all backpacks and purses! Now I have to use soap followed by lots of lotion! It's all worth it if I don't have to deal with poor sick kids!

 Emma's Last sick day! How cute is this? I sent Emma up to her room to get a book on Friday and 5 minutes later I came to check on her and this is how I found her. She must have really been not feeling well!

Shopping ROCKS!

Emma got invited to a "boy's" birthday party and was a little uncomfortable going alone. She only wanted to drop off the gift and just say Happy Birthday. So we made our way to Jumping Jacks and got there in time for the cake. They were nice enough to give Tay a piece to share with Chasers. After Emma was there for a few minutes she didn't want to leave. Funny how that works with kids! We ended up staying for the rest of the party before going on a LONG shopping trip! and yes I was brave to go solo with 3 kids to 12 different stores on a Saturday all so that Chad could go paint-balling! Yes I do believe I deserve the awesome wife award! Ha ha ha

Taylor and Chase were being so good while I ran my errands at Costco!

 Emma thought this was cool that she could lean back like this. Of course, Emma has to goof off! Silly girl!

They wanted me to push 3 individual cars around while we were shopping! I know I multi-task a lot but that is just impossible! So, they had to walk! Interestingly, I have at least 7 strollers at home and none in my car!

I told them to pretend they had road rage! I was surprised that they knew this one so well! Uh-oh I must be a great teacher!

The kids holding hands looked so cute to me! :D

Taylor wanted her turn with the camera before we got in the car and took all our cool loot home! Can you see the exhaustion in my eyes? You should be surprised because it takes A LOT of shopping to get me this tired! I guess part of it was the disappointment that I missed Dillard's HUGE sale the weekend before! No worries though because I have it scheduled in my phone now and I vow I will NEVER be missing their sales again! Sorry does that sound a little like I need to attend shopaholics anonymous? Ha ha ha

This was one of the hoodies I got Chad. I thought it was so cool. Not only was it a Volcom hoodie, but it zipped ALL the way up!

 This pose was great!

This is part of the disaster after we finished trying on our new clothes/shoes!

FUN Dinner!

All 8 of us (Chad and I, Gary and Linda, our nephews Zack and Brenden, and friends Ken and Peggy) went out to dinner at Samarai 21 for fun on Saturday night. I swear we had the most hilarious chef! I loved it! If I was brave I would post the video of when he serenaded us ladies with his uhh beautiful oriental signing voice! I laughed so hard my stomach hurt! ha ha that night was epic!

 When we were leaving I hurried and snapped this one. Yes, That is Gary carrying a "satchel" ha ha lol I had to take this for blackmail even though he was just carrying Linda's purse for her! How funny! :)

Daddy-Son Date/Chocolate Monster

 I sent Chad and Chase out the door on a short Daddy-Son date and this is how they come back from the ice cream store! He kept saying "Rarrr Mommy I get you wif my ice cweam"! It was funny! Ohh how I love good times!

All I had to say was "BATH TIME BUDDY!"

SOCCER!

We signed both the girls up for soccer again this year because they loved it so much last year! Emma was so happy that her team was the "lavender" colored team! I asked her to smile for me and she posed like this! What a Drama Queen! 

Taylor was so excited for her first soccer game that she was begging me to miss dance class so she could go to soccer. I thought it was funny because her dance is at 3:15 and her game wasn't until 5:30! I love her enthusiasm!

New Family Schedule

I don't know what is wrong with me but I feel like if I don't schedule something then I will definitely forget to do it! So this where my laminated schedule comes into play. I use it almost like a chore chart for an adult. I look at what day it is and what needs to be done and once I accomplish all those items then I can be lazy(which some days I don't finish all the items!) If you have ever been to my house and seen my last laminated schedule you will not notice a large difference other than the types of activities and the days/times have been rearranged to fit our busier schedule. I got so sick of my old outdated schedule that I finally updated our family schedule to this cute one! I know I am crazy, but I sleep better at night knowing that I have tried my best to do everything I can to make our family happy! :D

POTTY TRAINING 101

In this course you will learn how to adequately potty train your toddler in 5 days or less...ha ha ha who am I kidding?! I am NOT an expert but maybe the things I have done you will find helpful. I have been asked by a lot of my friends what I have done to help Chase get potty trained. So here is my list of things I have used. Below I underlined and put in bold the items that are essential.

These are the potty inducing techniques I use, Juice and Instant Breakfast for drinks, and animal crackers and goldfish to snack on. I used more of the goldfish because they would make him thirsty more and then would lead to more...you guessed it...peeing!

 The underwear is important! I have about 10 pairs just in case and he loves that we call him a big boy when he gets ready now!

This is the timer that I use. I needed one because I would get distracted and not remember how long it's been and it helps Chase because when he hears it go off he knows to run to the potty. I set it for every 15 minutes and if he has an accident I decrease the time to 10 minutes. Because it was the first day we went almost every 5 minutes for the first hour. It seemed like we basically stayed in the bathroom the whole hour! After that I increased his time in between.

These are the treats he gets when he attempts to go potty even if nothing comes out.

These hotwheels are his reward every time he poops on the potty.

The books are essential to keeping him entertained while he sits on the potty for 2 minutes each time.

Here is his potty and book basket. This is in his bathroom(AKA the guest bathroom) because it is closest to his room.

This potty is so fun because when he pees it plays a song. You can see the red sensor that is inside the potty. He loves it! The only problem is, when you throw your toys in there the song plays too. Yuck... thanks Chase!

I quarantined him to only hard wood areas so I shut the doors to mine and Taylor's bedroom and kept him in the living room/kitchen. I did this so that if he had an accident it wouldn't be hard to clean up. This technique helped because I was able to keep a really close eye on him to watch for any clues that he needed to go potty.

Here he is with his favorite truck!

He got cold running around in just his underwear so we put on a shirt. If you look really close you can see the treat he got for going pee...It's a Samoa (Girl Scout Cookie) and they are his favorite! He loves to go pee on his potty now. I am glad I found something that gives him enough incentive to go potty. Hopefully he won't get sick of them or I might be in trouble! Ha ha ha!

Pull-ups are a must for nap time or car rides. Chase loves these because they of course are themed around cars! Pay no attention to the sparkly pink and green cars he is playing with...looks like Taylor forgot to put away her polly pocket cars so Chase snatched them!