February 2014

The boys loved Mario Kart N64 so much that when I saw this Toad hat in Ikea for $3 I had to buy it. 

My mom is so good at sending little packages for the boys for each holiday. Camden was pretty excited when we got the Valentine's day package. Grandma Jodi is so fun!

More and more Camden wants to be like his brothers. On this particular morning I lowered his high chair so he could eat breakfast with Ryan and Brady. He thought it was pretty cool.

Ryan and Brady got really into Ninjas this month. To break in our newly finished theater I bought Season 1 of Ninjago on DVD for family movie night. The boys were instantly hooked. One evening they found some masking tape and went to work making themselves into Ninjas while I was cooking dinner. This was the result:

February means BYU basketball! We went on a family date one evening down to Provo to go to one of the games. Before the game we went to the Nickelcade in Orem. The boys love that place. I was helping Brady with a game and asked Zach and Ryan to keep an eye on Camden. When I turned from helping Brady this is what I found. Such is life as the third child.

Brady won one of the jackpots. He was pleased with himself.

It was fun to be back in the Marriot Center with my three little boys. I remember, not so long ago, going as a freshman to every BYU basketball game. At least, it didn't seem that long ago. When we got into our seats and saw the students in the student section, however, I realized that it was FOREVER ago! I am so old. Three kids? What?!

Brady's face is amazing and I love his tucked in t shirt. 

One morning we played pin the cheerio on the baby. It was a fun game. If you have a baby and cheerios, I highly recommend it.

Roxy and Camden continued to define their relationship. Roxy has been so good with all my kids. She lets Camden use her as a drum, pull on her ears and roll all over her. And she loves it.

We went to the Thanksgiving Point Dinosaur museum with Brittany and her kids. I set Camden down in the sand box at the end and he loved it!

Camden started crawling like a pro in February. He could get around before, but we hadn't had to block anything off because of the step down into the living room. He never really tried to get past that step. One day, however, I ran to the bathroom and came back to find him halfway up the stairs and standing! My heart skipped a beat. He was very proud of himself. That night I instituted the baby blockade. It was made up of an ottoman and a bench. It looked ridiculous,  but it kept Camden safely enclosed until he mastered the stairs a few weeks later.

On Valentines Day, after we dropped Ryan off at school, we went to Zach's work and had lunch with him. It is always surprising to me how having one less kid makes life so much more manageable. And it doesn't matter how many kids you have. If it's one less, it's a piece of cake.

Brady loved playing oldest brother on our little lunch day. He got to do the ball ramp and play on the arcade machine in Zach's office. It was a really fun afternoon.

While we were busy with Zach, Ryan was busy having fun at his school Valentine's Day Party! He got Valentines from everyone in his class and his teacher made these cute personalized Valentine mailboxes for each of the kids. She was a super teacher. I assume that the kids cut out their own hands- either that, or she has a thing or two to learn about using scissors. Chop! Chop! (notice the baby blockade in the background)

After dinner on Valentine's Day, we headed over to the Dinosaur museum for a little family date. It was a good night to go. It wasn't crowded at all and the kids had a lot of fun.

Just because the basement was "finished" didn't mean we were done making trips to Home Depot on a fairly regular basis. The older boys loved the "race car carts" they have there and were always really good sports about going.

My sister, Anne, gave Camden these Batman pajamas at my baby shower before he was born. It's always crazy to get 12M clothes when your baby is still a newborn. It all looks so big! I was excited to finally get to pull these pjs out and try them on him. They fit perfectly and he looked so cute! Thanks Anne!

With the theater up and running, Zach and I started spending our evenings in the basement watching TV instead of in the living room like we used to. Ryan and Brady seemed to get a sense their new bed time freedom because we found Brady sleeping like this when we came upstairs to go to bed one night. Perched on the top step, totally asleep. Crazy kid.

Camden and Roxy have a cute relationship. One or the other of them seems to be getting on the other ones nerves 90% of the time. Either Camden is trying to pull Roy's tail or Roxy is licking Camden in the face. There are those 10% moments, however, where they both seem to genuinely enjoy each other. When those moments happen, you take a picture.

We reached a HUGE milestone in February. Brady finally was officially potty trained! He was so tricky. We had a gigantic potty training fail in October 2013. It was a traumatic experience for both of us. So you can imagine my trepidation at attempting potty training again with him. He started showing interest on a Monday and said he wanted to be done wearing diapers. We went out that day and bought a potty chair and I let him pick out potty treats. We brought it home and I was thinking we'd jump right into it, but when we go home he was over it. So the potty sat in our front room for a few days. Then on the way home from an outing on Saturday night he said he was ready to wear his underwear. I couldn't think of a worse time to start potty training. With church the next morning and family coming over for dinner in the evening, I was so stressed. I totally turned it over to Zach (bless his heart).

Brady wore underwear that night and kept his bed dry! He even got up at 5am and peed in the potty all by himself!  Things were looking up! But when it was time to go to church at 11am and he still hadn't gone again- in fact he was refusing to even sit on the potty- I realized this wasn't going to be as easy as I thought. I tried to get him to put on a pull-up for church but he saw right through it. He knew it wasn't underwear and refused to put it on. Zach said to let him go in underwear and we did, but I refused to even sit next to him in Sacrament meeting. We were just waiting for the inevitable accident and I couldn't handle it. Sure enough, about halfway through, we noticed his pants were wet.

Zach took him out to get changed and put a diaper back on him. When they got into the parking lot Brady threw the most epic freakout he has ever thrown. Zach had to physically restrain him from running half naked back into the church. It was all a little too much. So Zach took him home and Brady continued to throw a huge fit. He threw all his stuffed animals down the stairs, he was crying and yelling. He did not want a diaper and I think he was so frustrated about having had an accident. Finally he calmed down enough for Zach to talk to him. He ended up in underwear again and came back to church for the rest of Primary.

After church, Brady was still very resistant whenever Zach or I asked him to sit on the potty. What finally clicked was setting a timer and having the timer tell him when it was time to sit. By the end of the day he was coming up to Zach or I and asking "Did the timer go off?" This was code for "I have to go potty." We played the timer game for another day and on Tuesday morning he told me he didn't need the timer anymore and from then on out he used the toilet all on his own. Even when he was playing outside he would come inside and go to the bathroom when he needed it to. He had enough success that he finally earned the fishing toy he had been working toward back in October. It was a happy day for all of us. Potty training is the worst part of parenting for me to this point. I shudder to think that we have to do it all over again with Camden in the future. My stomach hurst just thinking about it!

Brady with his hard earned fishing toy. 

Toward the end of the month, Ryan got his first ear infection. I got a call from Ryan's teacher about 15 minutes before school let out. She said that Ryan was complaining of an ear ache- so much so that he had his head on the desk and was crying. I told her I'd be right there to pick him up. Then she said that he didn't want me to come get him. I talked to him on the phone and he said he didn't want to leave school. (His love of school astounds me. Is he even my kid!? I hated school.) I met him at the door and I could tell he felt poorly. I found a sitter for Brady and took Ryan into the doctor as soon as I could get an appointment. It was my first ever sick child visit to the doctor's office with one of my kids. The doctor looked into Ryan's ear and sure enough he had an ear infection. The doctor wrote a prescription for antibiotics, but told me to wait to fill it until the ear ache persisted for 24 hours. It was dinner time by the time he got out of the appointment so we went to McDonalds on the way home and stopped at WalMart and bought the second season of Ninjago. By the next day Ryan was feeling much better so I never did fill the prescription. I was mad that I broke my no doctor streak when all we needed was time, but I was more happy that Ryan was feeling better.

Good thing my kids don't get sick more often. I feel so bad for them that I give in to whatever they want when they're sick!

*Written on June 19, 2014