I can attend storytime too!

I have been taking Katelynn to storytime since she was probably six or eight months old. Justin, however, has been attending the toddler storytimes since he was 2 weeks old since he has to tag along with his big sister. In the past few weeks, he has seemed to enjoy them just as much as she does. Normally we just attend the library storytime, but today was a special day at the Ikea store in Charlotte and they hosted a storytime by an author. Katelynn had no interest as it was geared more for older children, but Justin actually sat down and listened to it for a few before losing interest himself.

The worst of parenting...

.. has got to be potty training. It just HAS to be. Nothing has been so aggravating and time consuming and overwhelming up to this point than the ongoing saga of potty training. I had a picture to post with this story, but to be honest I'm too lazy tonight to upload it to the blog so I'll add it later. The picture was of Katelynn eating a chocolate bunny sucker. Why? Because she not only went potty yesterday, but she actually TOLD ME SHE HAD TO GO POTTY before she went. That was HUGE. Up until now, the only times she has went on the potty are when I have placed her on there and by chance she has went. Yesterday she was in the bathtub and all of a sudden out of nowhere, she said, "Mommy, I have to go pee-pee!" I ran her to the potty and within minutes, she was going. I was so proud of her. We made a really big deal over it (however, we have made the same big deal in the past with no continued result), and she was really proud of herself. I offered her undies to wear the rest of the day since she had went potty, but she said she just wanted to wear her pull-up. Jonathan and I stressed to her how easy her pull-up could go on and off to go potty in the toliet all day even though she was wearing one, but it didn't really help. She didn't tell me any further that day that she had to go. She decided to try before bedtime though and she went again. Today she has sat on it twice, but she has had no results. I wish I had hope that we were getting somewhere after yesterday, but today kind of made me lose hope. We have went through phases of going potty for a few days, and they have never progressed into anything. I hope Katelynn can prove me wrong. It seems though that she has the most interest in trying to go potty when it's naptime or bedtime... imagine that!

I keep trying to figure out what the missing piece to successful potty training is. I don't want to force her to get on the potty and sometimes she flat out refuses to go. Days when I put her on the potty every 30 minutes, she still manages to go to the bathroom between those 30 minutes, and we have tried just going straight to undies, but the accidents were far too many for my nerves to deal with. I really struggle with wondering if she REALLY knows and understands the feeling of needing to go before she is going and just doesn't want to take the time to go to the potty or does she really not understand yet? I guess we'll just keep up with the positive efforts and hope she gets potty trained soon!

Updates on K&J

Our kids seem to be growing and changing so quickly. I figured it was about time to update you all on all their new little interests and milestones!

Katelynn is our ball of energy. If you let her, she would probably run and jump and climb for 24 hours straight, barely stopping. I have found that although she fights sleeping, she does NEED sleep so the struggle has become getting her to relax enough to fall asleep and get some rest. She doesn't want to miss anything.


It seems that everyday she comes up with new phrases, sometimes they are random ones we never hear again (still funny nonetheless) and sometimes they become a common thing. Her most recent phrase that she says constantly is, "Sure. I do dat tor (for) you." Whenever we ask her to please clean up her mess or help us with getting Justin a toy, etc. that is what she says to us. It is really pretty cute. Then there are the less common phrases that come from nowhere. Yesterday it was, "Mommy, you're a great girl." It was pretty cute, but it was also totally random.


Katelynn continues to attend playgroups regularly. She loves playing with her friends. She also has quite an imagination of her own and is playing more and more on her own. Her top things to do are play with her dollhouse and her babies. She has taken a special liking to her very first baby doll she ever had lately. She calls her the "cheerio baby" because she fed the baby a cheerio several months ago and part of the cheerio got stuck in the baby's mouth for quite some time before I got it all out. Katelynn has also just started a creative dance class at one of the local children's gyms around here. She loves going, but we're still working on following directions from the teacher rather than just running and jumping (her two favorite activities). I think she did better at listening at her first class than she did at the second one.


Katelynn has also become very good at trying to come up with excuses for everything. She tries very, very hard to get her way by making a reason why it needs to be that way. The best examples I can think to give are at bedtime. Of course, she tries everything to get out of falling asleep. She will say she needs her closet shut, a drink of water, ask for whatever baby or bear or bunny that isn't already in her bed, and when she can't come up with something specific but wants to delay things, she simply says she needs "something". Today as we were leaving playgroup and I informed her that it was naptime when we got home, she made a point of closing her eyes in her carseat on the drive home. When I went to take her out of her seat upon getting home, she said, "Mommy, I sleep all the way home." (She thought this might mean she wouldn't have to nap. Great try, Katelynn!). Little things like this make me realize how much she will keep us on our toes for years to come!



And now for an update on our little guy! Justin really is a very happy baby. He is so much fun! His very latest trick is blowing raspberries. He did it for the first time yesterday, and he thinks it is quite fun! He is also quite verbal, chattering and chattering at certain times during the day (especially really early in the morning when mommy wishes she could still keep her eyes closed and sleep!).


In addition to the talking, Justin is now really wanting to be mobile. In the last week, he has figured out how to move himself around on his playmat by arching his back (tummy in the air) and pushing off with his feet. He does this on his back and slowly will rotate his body 180 degrees on the mat. He has rolled over a few times, only belly to back, but he doesn't seem to be doing it consistantly yet. He will roll to his side and sort of try to spin himself, but he isn't often rolling all the way over. Some days we think he'll be crawling in no time with his motivation to get places. It's amazing how much more active he has wanted to become in a week's time!


Out of all Justin's abilities, his smile and laughter is by far my favorite. Making him laugh seems to be getting easier and easier. Katelynn can almost just walk in a room lately and he'll laugh and watch her with so much interest. I know he's just itching to be as big as she is, and something tells me that he's going to be our little daredevil, even moreso than his big sister. I guess only time will tell.


Sleeping is about the only issue we are having currently. Justin is still not sleeping very long periods at night on his own. I am just crossing my fingers that this improves in the next few months. For a while, he was sleeping a good 8 hour stretch for me, and I was able to pump and get some things done, but lately he is not giving me much time between wakings at all. Just today I told Jonathan our days of him sleeping in the car may be coming to an end. Two days now this week I have tried leaving when I know it's naptime for Justin and instead of him sleeping in the car as planned, he just skips that nap. Surprisingly, he isn't crabby while awake, but I have found skipping the nap means for a really hard time getting him down for bedtime. I suppose this means I probably have two kids that don't like to sleep. Can I blame them though? I'm always up all hours of the night! Ha,ha.


I am sure Justin will start hitting milestones left and right these next several months. It is both exciting and sad... exciting that my baby boy is learning new things but so sad that he's growing so quickly. Stay tuned for carseat pictures- we are about to switch him over to a big boy carseat this week!



For those of you that have just made it through my novel, thanks for letting me brag about the two little ones that bring so much happiness to Jonathan and I. I know we have our hands full with the two of them, but they are so worth it!

Happy Father's Day!

After such a busy few weeks, we spent the entire day at home being lazy. Sadly, being lazy with two active kids means a messy house at the end of the day. We napped with the kids and hung out in on PJ's all day. It wasn't a great photo opportunity (and the lighting is not great in our living room), but I insisted on a Father's Day picture anyway. This was the best I got: Katelynn was very excited for Daddy to open his gift that she made JUST for him. (can koozies decorated by her!) She made sure to assist him in the opening of the gift and "read" him the card she made with stamps and stickers.

Disclosure: No, we did not pick out Katelynn's outfit for her to wear. She likes to get herself dressed every morning and since we weren't going anywhere, we let her keep on her outfit that she chose (which of course she decided to change out of halfway through the day). As you can see, we typically have to assist her in finding new outfits after breakfast every morning. A USA dress with pink fleece pants doesn't really work, especially the fleece in the summer. And although it's not visible, she was also wearing a different dresses' bloomer underneath her pants.

Very Busy Week

So I have abandoned my blog for an entire week. No worries- I have been taking pictures like crazy. Many, many more than I am going to share with you right now (and I'm sharing quite a few). This week was just very busy. As a result, I am sitting her sick with a cold probably half due to lack of sleep (but that's nothing new) and half because we haven't stopped going, going, going this week!

This past week Jonathan's youngest brother, Matt, returned from a 6-month stay in Sweden studying abroad and got to meet Justin for the first time (no pictures yet as he hasn't gotten to hold him- he's been sick since traveling). Then days later, Jonathan's other brother arrived for a visit from Michigan. We haven't seen him since Katelynn was 2.5 months old (yes, MONTHS) so this was a very special visit. We tried spending as much time with them as we could and, therefore, had a busy week full of fun!

Our first day together started last Sunday out boating:

The following day was a day of lunch and shopping so I didn't really get any pictures that day, but then we headed to the indoor go-cart racing track for the boys to enjoy some riding. This is some serious go-carting. They had to dress up in helmets and full jackets to race. Katelynn enjoyed watching!My husband would be very disappointed in me for posting this particular picture of himself (in back) and his brother Matt in front of him. I will state for the record that he DID pass Matt before the end of the race. Hopefully that will make him feel better about the fact that I posted it to begin with :)When we returned home that day from go-carting, Katelynn decided she had an itch for speed herself and jumped in her jeep. Boys being boys, her uncles hopped on the little kid dirtbikes that Daddy has acquired and rode around the cul-de-sac with her. (She made sure to grab her "earmuffs" pretty quickly when they jumped on. She's not a fan of the loud noise.)Justin didn't mind the noise of the dirtbikes. I think he'll be our daredevil- itching to get on them. Too bad for him, he's just a bit too small to do much more than hang out in Grandma or Mommy's arms for the timebeing.We had a few day break in activities when Jonathan's brothers and parents headed to Myrtle Beach to spend a few days, but the fun didn't stop for Katelynn and I. We were busy hosting playgroups and getting ready for Father's Day. I'll post pictures of that stuff later. Today we got back together for Daniel's last day in Charlotte before heading back to Michigan.

We started the day at a Kiddie Indoor Water Park. Justin LOVED playing in the zero-entry pool.
Katelynn- not so much. They had a huge water playground with slides and all sorts of fun stuff. The problem? Well, they all spray water and dump buckets of water. Katelynn was NOT a fan of getting her hair and face wet. Not at all. I finally got her down one slide today only to realize that when they hit the bottom, it is purposely filled with lots of water to cause a big splash. Well, that ended the slide fun REAL fast. Hopefully next year Katelynn will find these a bit more fun!She did love just regular swimming with her Daddy though!

We ended the evening back at our house cooking out on the grill. Uncle Dan spent some quality time getting acquanted with all the girly toys including doll house and Barbie.

And then snuck in a few minutes of time with Justin before saying his goodbyes.

In all, we had a VERY busy week filled with lots of fun. But, now everyone has to go back to work and go back home so I'm back to updating my blog regularly again. And, if anyone knows of any jobs in Charlotte for Uncle Dan, we're trying to recruit him down south! :)

Mommy got excited again today!

And it's not just because I am the mommy of these two cuties..... But because Justin went from his belly to this....

All by himself!! Now, the big question is will he continue to roll or take after his sister and hate every second of rolling. As you can see from the picture, he didn't mind that he rolled on over. Katelynn screamed the first time she did it and pretty much rarely ever did it after that. We'll see if Justin learns it will take him where he wants to go....

Imagination at work

Katelynn has quite an imagination. I personally think it's a great thing to have at her age, and I love seeing what she comes up with. She is very good at playing "pretend" as she likes to call it.

When Jonathan is gone, we tend to eat out a lot more than we should- it's so much easier for me. So, I'm going to admit that I took her through Wendy's drive-thru and we had chicken nuggets and oranges from there. Well, on the way home she says, "Mommy, Be quiet!" I looked in my rear view mirror and she was "talking on the phone". She has at least three or four play phones, but low and behold, she made her nugget container a phone.. and she kept playing with it all day! Here's a side view so you can see it really is a cardboard food holder!
And another one of her favorite things to do right now is carry her baby in her newest designed baby carrier- one of mommy's old bikini bottoms (old meaning I no longer wearing bikini's). She has loved my bathing suit stash for months now, but making it into a baby carrier is the newest invention this week. I think we're on day three or four where she carries her baby around all day long. Can you tell mommy wears Justin often? This is a little off topic but the other day I went to make sure she was taking a nap, and she had her baby against her chest and a towel over the baby. When I walked in she said, "Shh.. I'm feeding my baby and she is going to go to sleep."

And don't forget to notice her fashionable shoes she's wearing in the picture. Yes, she has the matches to each high heel, but I guess she found this to be a little more in fashion.