Times, they are a changing!

We haven't posted for a while. Not that great at keeping this blog up to date, that's for sure. This year is flying by, I cannot believe we are 3/4 of the way through April already!

Potty training has been excellent! We haven't had any accidents, and we haven't had to use diapers/pull-ups during the day! Only sometimes at nap time, and every night. Otherwise it is big girl panties all the time and we are loving it! We were able to cut out the chocolate milk at night for bedtime, although she still insists on having her "empty cup". I know it's still not good for her, it's the equivalent of a binky or thumb sucking..but we're making progress and I know in time we will get there.

Both Jace and Leah had birthdays that we attended. Jace's birthday is in January, and Leah's is in March. They both had their parties at the Middletown MCSO builidng which was great for the kids to run around!

 Jace's Birthday Cake - Pirate themed party!

 Jace being silly blowing up balloons

 The kids digging through wonderful 'booty' from the pinata!

Very yummy cake!!

Leah's cake - Hello Kitty theme

 The kids are scrambling to get the goodies!

Happy Birthday, make a wish!

 Mmmm More cake!

Easter came and went pretty fast this year. We did the egg hunt at the Penbrook Community Park again. Addi didn't get as many eggs this year as she did last year. One of her eggs broke open in her bucket and when she saw candy she slowed down and became more interested in getting the candy out of her bucket rather than finding more eggs. The Easter bunny sure was busy this year because he of course came to our house, but also to Nanny & Pappy's house, MawMaw & PopPop's house, and to GG's house! We had candy coming out of our ears! This year we painted eggs rather than dying them. 

 Addi had her first dentist visit and came through with flying colors! I took her with me to my appointment so that she could watch and see what happens, and hear the different noises that the instruments make, etc. We schedule her for her own appointment. They let her wear sunglasses, and had a t.v mounted on the ceiling over the chair which she thought was cool. The hygienist was very friendly and patient, answering all of Addi's questions. She did excellent, and no cavities! She was especially thrilled that she got a new "Mater" toothbrush.

Addi is really getting into a stage where she loves to be a helper. If you give her a task or a job to do, she just loves it. She likes to help clean, do laundry, and especially feed the dogs. Of course we still have fits about picking up our toys and things like that, but overall she is a great helper.


This is going to come in handy for us, and for her, because she is going to make a great big sister! We found out on March 24 that we are expecting another little one! Addi will be a big sister right after her 4th birthday. Our due date is November 27. Addi is very excited and asks lots of questions about the baby. We talk about how long it's going to take until the baby is done growing in Mommy's belly, and about how the baby will come out (we have looked at a lot of her baby photos with her), and she loves to hear the comparissons of how big the baby is (the baby is currently the size of a raspberry!).

 
 We had our first camping trip of the year. This was our first family camping trip just the three of us. We went to Bellefonte, Pa. It was a short weekend trip but it was nice to get away. We went to Penns Caves and did the boat tour through the cave. Addi made a friend at camp with a dog named Jasper. We later found out that he belonged to a farmer who neighbored the campground. He was very sweet and Addi enjoyed playing with him a lot! We aren't sure where all we will travel yet this summer/season, we do have a week vacation planned to go back down to the Outer Banks in July.

In the meantime we are going to do some things around the house to get ready for the expanding family. Addi will be moving bedrooms and going to the third floor where she will have a bedroom and a playroom to herself. We need to prep the walls and paint, and then we will freshen up her current bedroom for the baby. Addi will be moving to a big girl bed (twin bed) when she moves bedrooms so it will be some very big adjustments for her in the next few months.

Potty Training Update & Turning 3.. Yippee!

So very long overdue for a post! When we left off last, Addi was turning 3 and we had begun some potty training. Potty training was going VERY well, we were quite surprised on how quickly she picked up on it. The pants off in the house technique was working...until that is, we had a few accidents on the furniture. Then Addi came down with a cold and she had gotten sick a few times and had gotten sick on the couch a few times.. Needless to say that our furniture was getting pretty disgusting pretty quickly. We got rid of our old smelly couch and got a new living room set. With our very first brand new pieces of furniture we decided we didn't want to take the chance on any more "accidents" so we reverted back to diapers/pull-ups for potty training. This just didn't seem to have the same effect for Addison because she wasn't telling us when she had to go to the bathroom, she was used to just running to her potty and going because she wasn't wearing pants. So we fell backwards in the potty training and kind of let it slack off.

For Addi's 3rd birthday she had a Chuck E Cheese birthday party. We had a total of about 30 guests and she had a BLAST! She was so upset to leave, and now every time she sees a commercial for Chuck E Cheese, or if we drive past it, she talks about her birthday party. She wants to go back, but I don't know if Mommy and Daddy are quite ready for that yet!

Of course the holidays follow closely behind Addi's birthday. We had a great Thanksgiving and Christmas. Addison was s-p-o-i-l-e-d per usual. This holiday was our first holiday with some new members of the family. Uncle Bubby has a serious girlfriend, Danielle, and Danielle has two children; Leah who is almost 5 and Jace who is almost 3. The holidays were even better with more little ones running around! It really makes you feel like a kid to see things through their eyes, and to get excited about things like they do. It was a great holiday and we are looking forward to many more together!

On New Years Day we decided to try to get back on the wagon with the potty training. We decided to try a slightly different approach than before, this time we were going to do away with diapers/pull-ups and go straight to "big girl panties". This way she would have something on, but still not a diaper so she would hopefully realize the difference. We asked her frequently if she needed to go to the bathroom, and other times she would tell us. She went all day in her big girl panties without any accidents. Fast forward we're almost at the end of January and she has been in big girl panties all month long, during the day. For naps and bed time we still do pull-ups/diapers. There have been a few accidents here and there, but in all honestly she is doing absolutely fantastic! We are well on our way. I was worried about her getting older and not being potty trained, but they really will do it when they are ready. This is something you cannot force them into. 

Potty Training

As Addi's 3rd birthday fastly approaches (can you believe it?), the topic of potty training has come across my mind quite a bit. Over the last year and a half we have attempted (although not very seriously) to introduce her to potty training, without any luck. This weekend I decided we were going to make another attempt at it.

Saturday we went pants-less around the house. We didn't have any luck going on the potty, but we also didn't have any accidents in the house.

Sunday we had plans to go get pumpkins and we were going to run some errands, so we didn't get a chance to try more potty training. Mid-afternoon, Addi asked Jason to take her pants off because she had to go potty. Now she had said many times Saturday she had to go but never did, so we assumed she wasn't going to do anything. Low and behold she peed on the potty! We were so proud of her! We had previously bought her Rapunzel and Flynn Rider dolls that we were going to give to her for her birthday, but thought they would be a good 'reward'. Daddy told her that she could have one of them now (she chose Flynn Rider) and that if she went to the potty again she could have the other one. Well didn't she keep going and sitting on the potty and trying, until she did it again! Again we made a big deal and then gave her the Rapunzel. Daddy told her how proud we were, and that when she finally goes poop on the potty that she would get a really big surprise. Daddy and I stepped outside and Addi came running to the door to tell us she went again, and this time to our surprise she had pooped in the potty! We can't believe how successful our first weekend was, and of course we hope she continues doing this well. At least we have started in the right direction!

It's funny how proud of your child you can be for doing something as 'simple' as going to the bathroom on the potty. It really is a reminder of how old she is getting. Definitely not a baby anymore and although it makes me sad at times to think of it that way, I'm also very excited to watch her grow into a smart, funny, caring and sweet little girl.

Day Out With Thomas!

We got to spend the morning with MawMaw, PopPop and Thomas the Train! How much better does it get? We had such gorgeous weather for our day riding the rails with Thomas. We got some great photos of Addi with MawMaw and PopPop, and of course Thomas!

Labor Day Vacation

We went on a 5 day vacation over Labor Day weekend to Wellsboro PA, home of the Pa Grand Canyon. We met up with MawMaw, PopPop, Uncle Eric, Aunt Sissy, Sammy and Scottie. We had a campsite directly behind the cabins they were staying in so we were pretty close which made it convenient for meal time and hanging around the fire! It was a great weekend, which went too quickly of course! Here's a breakdown:

We arrived on Friday August 31 in the afternoon and set up camp, then relaxed for a bit before cooking dinner together. After dinner we went for a drive and stopped at a local ice cream shop for a treat, The Frog Hut. It was a Blue Moon that evening, and Daddy had just gotten PopPops old celestron lense for his camera and was looking forward to taking some pictures with it.

 

Saturday morning we went for breakfast in town, and then did a little bit of shopping and window shopping at the shoppes throughout town. We drove to Benezette to do some elk watching. This year we stopped at the Elk Visitor Center (Last year when we were there it was very crowded so we didn't go in). We watched an interactive movie that Addi really enjoyed. We did see a few elk, but not nearly as many as we have in the past. On the way back to camp we got an extra treat, we saw two bears in the brush along side the road! It was too dark to get a picture of them, but it was a very neat experience to see them in the 'wild'.

Sunday morning we were up pretty early, and didn't want to wake anyone else so we went for a quick drive to the Pa Grand Canyon  which was a short drive from the campground.  It was pretty foggy out, and because it was so early there weren't any other visitors yet (except one nice lady who offered to take a picture of us).

We drove back to camp and made breakfast, got cleaned up and went out driving  to see what other wildlife we could find. We spent most of the day driving around bird watching.

 Pa Grand Canyon

 A beautiful church in the country

 

On Monday everyone else packed up to head home. We were staying until Tuesday, so we drove to State College so that I could pick up a few bottles of my favorite wine! We took a tour of the campus and then headed back to camp.

We are Penn State!

On Tuesday we packed up to head home, but on our way out we stopped at the little zoo right beside our campground. After we finished the zoo we loaded up and headed home. The trip went way too fast and we were especially sad when it was over because we knew it was the last one for us this year!