Happy Hanukah!

Happy Hanukah!  It's crazy that we're celebrating the first night of Hanukah the day before Thanksgiving!  I'm looking forward to latkes and turkey tomorrow!

Tonight the kids each got a sticker book as a present.  Ian got one with all the Avengers in it.  And Sammy got a Disney princess sticker book.  I guess they're living up to certain gender stereotypes but I had two very happy kiddos!

Potty Training Success for Sammy

I'm happy to report that Sammy is officially potty-trained at the age of 2 years, 7 months.  She has been consistently peeing in the potty with very few accidents.  And, for the last 5 days in a row, she's pooped in the potty.  And we didn't have to lurk and spy on her to make sure she wasn't squatting and pooping in her pants.  She actually said that she needed to poop on the potty.  And she did!  We're so proud of her and she's so proud of herself.  Smiles all around!

I feel like we've been in some sort of potty training mode for Sammy for so long now.  Daycare started putting her on the toilet very early and so at 18 months, she was sometimes peeing in the potty.  But it's been on and off since then and we certainly didn't have any consistency.  And she CLEARLY did not get the pooping thing.  But I think the long haul is over.  She gets it now and I am psyched that we only need diapers/pull ups for nap time (although often she wakes up completely dry) and night time sleeps.

Halloween 2013 - Goodbye Nana

Today was an extremely sad day for our family.  My husband's grandma, our warm-hearted and loving Nana, passed away.  Despite the fact that she was 90 years old, I didn't expect her to go so suddenly.  She had been having heart issues and was in and out of the hospital over the past 2 weeks.  But they had put in a pace maker and I had just assumed she would come out of it fine (just like she has quickly come out of other hospitalizations in the past).  But she slid downhill quickly.  Luckily, my husband was able to be with her in her final moments and was with her when she died.  She knew he was there and I think that's comforting to him.

I tried to keep it together for the kids because they're really too young to understand what happened to Nana.  They just know that they won't see her again and that "she died".  My husband loves Halloween and is normally the one to take the kids trick or treating.  But understandably, he didn't feel up to it tonight.  So I took the kids around the block with some other neighborhood kids.  They had a blast and Sammy really raked in the candy.  At 2.5 years old, she knew she could take the candy offered to her.  But she had no inhibitions about grabbing one, two, three and even four pieces at a time.  So she ended up with WAY more candy than Ian (who apparently understood social conventions a bit more).  I ended up putting some of her candy in Ian's bowl so that he wouldn't get bummed by it.  Here is my bumble bee transformer (this is what he asked to be) and my princess (she asked to be one).

And here's what our front stoop looked like.  This year, we added a skeleton in the lawn, which you can't really see in the picture.

Fall Fun and Halloween Prep 2013

We can't let autumn go by without a little leaf jumping fun!

In preparation for Halloween, we also carved pumpkins.  

As usual, my husband did one easy one and one complicated one.  I made fun of him for the complicated one because I wasn't sure the time he spent on it was worth it, given how it turned out.  But once we put a candle in, it was awesome.  One, Two Pumpkins...ah ah ah!

Rainbow

Tonight, after I picked up the kids from daycare, I took Ian to get his hair cut.  When we got into the car after the hair cut, we saw the most unbelievable rainbow from the parking lot.  It was so massive that I couldn't capture the entire rainbow with one picture.  It was SO bright.  I don't think I've ever seen anything like it before.  Here's the proof, taken with my iPhone 4:

Apple Picking - Tougas Family Farm

Today, we went apple picking at Tougas Family Farm.  We had the day off for Columbus Day and absolutely gorgeous weather!  It was really quite warm out and we didn't even wear our jackets.  The farm was fantastic - they had a little animal petting zone, as well as a kids play area.  And of course, there were a lot of apples to choose from.  I was disappointed with the Fuji apples - I think it was already too late in the season for them.  But the Macouns were unbelievably amazing (so sweet and crunchy!) so we picked a lot of those.  We also picked up some pumpkins at the very end.  Here are some pics:

Potty Training Disaster

We tried to potty train Sammy over the last 2 weeks.  She's not even 2.5 years old yet, but she was peeing on the potty consistently whenever we put her on it.  We had our ups (there were multiple days where she had no accidents), but we also had our downs.  At the end of the second week, I picked her up from daycare and discovered that she'd had 3 accidents.  I was disappointed because I figured she'd have made more progress after 2 weeks.  We then went to the park where she pooped in her underpants.  I was *so* mad at her (since this was the second night in a row where she pooped herself).  She's only a little girl and doesn't deserve for me to be so mad at her.  And I didn't want to be so mad at her.  But I couldn't help myself.  So we quit potty training.  I want to enjoy my time with my happy little girl and not scream at her.  She doesn't understand.  So today we went back to diapers and had a much nicer day.  We'll try again in a couple of months.  I'll wait until she's ready.