Cookie Pa-looza

Katie likes baking cookies.
Mommy went a little crazy.

The end result is a freezer full of 4 different types of cookies plus some banana bread bites all of which have been made in the past week! Today we take some out to do the decorating to get them ready for our trip.

I'm afraid she is going to ask to bake now every day for the rest of our lives:)

oops...

These are the BEST LEMON Cookies I have ever eaten!!! I made them once by chance for the ladies at the library and EVERYONE wanted the recipe... I got it from Giada on the Food Network website. They aren't iced yet but the end result is a cross between an AWESOME cookie and an AWESOME scone! I made them smaller than they call for because I found them to be too big the first time I made them.
I will ice them tomorrow so they will be fresh for Thanksgiving... yum!!!

Maternity Clothes

One reason baby boy is already trouble - My clothes don't fit.
I was lucky with Katie that I didn't have to buy too many maternity clothes and that I could actually wear some of my regular stuff pretty much up until the end.

I'm 22 weeks with my new buddy and he has taken over my stomach. I am already unable to wear some of the shirts I was wearing with Katie at months 8 and 9 - and I feel like every shirt I have tried on at a store just ends up screaming HUGE BELLY COMING!

It's making me sad - because I have a long time to go still and if nothing fits me now, that means I'm gonna have to break down and buy new stuff... and who wants to spend money on new stuff that will (hopefully) only fit you for a few months out of your life.
GRRRRRRRRRR - this mommy is frustrated and to make matters worse - the stores around here that have maternity clothes don't have much to offer whenever I'm in there - so it's not even just a matter of spending the money - now I have to HUNT down stuff that fits and looks right too.

Boooooooooooo

Shopping while huge and pregnant is not fun. I now know why women normally complain. I was lucky with Katie - this guy isn't cutting me ANY slack....:(

What we've been up to

This morning I woke up at 5:50 am. Ever since we changed the clocks back to "gain" an hour - I've been waking up by 6 am every day....... No matter what we do, she wakes up at 6 and I don't want her waking up the neighbors with her singing so I tend to go in there right when she gets up.

When mommy went in to get me, I asked for Grumps. Then mommy said it was early and that everyone else was sleeping so I told her, "no mommy, carry you go find grumps" (she says carry you instead of carry me)

So I put her on the couch with grumps and she watched TV and he went in and out of sleep for about 45 minutes.

Katie likes to keep all her toys together - I was at the computer the other day and turned around and she had lined them all up on the windowsill.

The other day I asked her to help me make a salad. So I cut everything up and put it in front of her and asked her to put it in the bowl. It was going well until I realized she was taking a bite out of a carrot and then putting it in the bowl! Lucky for us it was just me and Dave for dinner!

Today we started baking cookies to give to our family up in Maine on Thanksgiving. She seemed to have fun with the cookie cutters. We will put them in the freezer for now and decorate them another day:)


Here she is after naptime tasting the first batch of cookies. She approves:)
Happy Wednesday!

Blog needs a name change!

Say hello to baby boy Metcalfe! Due to make an apperance March 26th, 2011

Yup, that is exactly what you think it is, right there in the middle!:)

Katie's closets are getting cleaned out this weekend to start making room for an entirely new wardrobe which I am sure is already starting to be procured as I write this by Mimi and Grammie! The doctor says everything looks good and we go back in a month!

Potty Trained

Yup... that's right - we did it.

She's waking up from both naps and bedtime dry and this morning instead of saying.... Daddy come my room - she woke us up with Pee Pee Potty!


She is even telling me when we are out (like in the car) and holding it until we can get to a bathroom or set up her portable potty. She even told us she had to go and then waited during a car ride and then went in the potty in the back of the CRV in a parking lot yesterday on the way to a family party!

This potty is the coolest thing ever... you put this baggy thing in it and that little absorbent pad sucks up all the pee and you can just close up the bag and throw it out! And she uses it because I showed it to her at home before we tried to use it out.

She has no problem going in public bathrooms either as she stayed dry during the WHOLE party and never went in her pull up.
This nifty portable potty is also a training seat you put on the toilet so she can go in other bathrooms!


She also has gone poopy on the potty 3 times which gets her her train tracks to play with which is a huge motivator for her.

We also have a Dora training seat for our bathroom and she has no problem using that in fact tonight she only wanted to use that - which is GREAT because it's less clean up for us!


We have had no accidents for 4 or 5 days now and she hasn't gone in her pull ups since that first time we went out in them. We are so proud of her!!!!

Of course I had a ton of diapers left over... but I'll just hang on to them for baby number 2 and in case something happens and she decides using the potty is overrated.
Our little lady isn't so little anymore!

P.s. yes those are Thomas the Tank Engine boy briefs... she got to pick out new panties last week and she INSISTED that we get those... so I said - GO FOR IT! if it keeps her dry - I'm fine with it:)

Update

Katie had a completely dry day. We went to Target and she used the potty there. (with our portable potty seat of course) I couldn't believe it!!!

I put her in a pull up for the trip out and when we got home it was just a teeny tiny bit wet - which I think happened while she was playing trains or on the way home.

As you can see she is playing with her train tracks because she went poopy on the potty this afternoon, which we never thought was going to happen because she is so sensitive about it - so we will take for her after every time she goes poopy on the potty and hopefully that will be the motivation she needs to keep going. We have a long, family party to go to on Sunday... so with our portable seat and pull ups... we will see what happens:)

This was our picnic dinner in front of the first 20 mins of Toy Story 3, celebrating Katie's awesome potty day.

This was last night when Dave went to the soccer game... Katie and I had a girls night in the kitchen. I painted her toe nails (her color choice) and she did a paint with water while her toes dried....

Just wanted to throw some pics up for you - it's time for me to relax after a long 2 weeks. Dave brought me flowers for all my hard work and now we're watching Toy Story 3:)

More to come later! Happy Weekend!

Holy Crap it's working

OK so when I decided to try potty training this week I wasn't entirely sure that it was going to work... but yesterday we only had 2 VERY small accidents where she was telling us she had to go and then she finished on the potty which is big because the day before she wasn't finishing on the potty. So, 2 accidents in a whole day made me VERY happy.

Then she went to bed last night and had her ceremonial bottle of milk, (the last of our big girl series of changes to make because she won't drink milk out of anything else) and when we all woke up this morning late at 7:30 - she was DRY and went pee pee potty first thing... and it was a good amount!

Could it be working? She is doing SO WELL! I promised to take her to the train table today as I had told her at bedtime that we would go somewhere to have fun today because we've been in the house for 2 weeks and she immediately said Train Table.... So I am kinda nervous about going out, but I think I will put her in pull ups and maybe take the portable potty thing I had bought for her way back when I started thinking about this months ago.

Of course, now that I think about it, the train table is as far away from the bathrooms as can be at Barnes and Noble... which was a dumb design as I've been in others where the bathrooms are right next to the kids area.

Her big prize is going to be a Thomas Beginners Roadway Set... it's the most basic one AND we have a coupon for it - so it will will be super cheap too!
I know she doesn't need ANY MORE toys AT ALL for the rest of her life... but I figured we had to use something to really motivate her to go poopy on the potty - so we'll try that.

Cross your fingers for us that we don't have any HUGE mishaps on our first trip out trying to use real potties......

Potty training take 2

update

I decided since we were stuck in the house this week as I'm trying desperately to completely get over this cold - that we could try potty training.

Today is the morning of day 3 and I am happy to say we have had 4 successful pee pees on the potty and one 1/2 accident where she told us she had to go and started but then finished on the potty!

She's very interested and loves her Dora and Elmo panties. I put her in a diaper during naps and for nighttime and I think pooping is going to be an issue because she has issues pooping anyway (holding it in because it's hard, etc....) but if I can get her to pee pee on the potty for 80% of the time... I'm happy! I wanted to try to make sure it was well established before the baby comes ...

more updates later - we are getting ready for a play date.