Winter Gathering

A few weeks ago we had our annual "winter gathering" with our friends from UW-Whitewater. All of us went to UW-Whitewater, but most of the guys were all roommates at some point. There are two times a year when we get together with this group - Labor Day weekend and "winter gathering" (original right?) Occasionally we see eachother in between as well, but these are typically the only times when everyone (or most everyone) is able to make it at the same time. Even though at times it seems we hardly see eachother - getting together each time seems like no time has gone by at all and we pick up where we left off. It's great to have these strong friendships and know they will continue for years to come...even when life continues to get busier and busier :)

Brian, Adam, Scott, Justin & Rob...Rob never had the chance to live at 123 Cottage, but he still shared in a lot of the fun times of UW-W (Greg is missing)

Oh how things have changed...all the kiddos added to the mix in the last 5 years (less than) Brian with Grant (3) (and Alayna (2) is borrowed to Scott for the picture) along with Brian having a baby due in August, Adam with Lana (1), Scott (holding Alayna for the pic, but expecting their first baby in August of this year!!!), Justin with Kayla (5 in May) and Leah (2 in April), Rob with Tyler (16 mos) with another baby expected in June

Adam and Grant

Becky with Kayla and Alayna

Grant - the Fish

Grant loves to show off his swimming skills any chance he gets! :)

WI Dells - we almost forgot

At the end of Feb the kids and I went to The Wilderness in the Dells while Brian was out of town at a conference. My parents and some of my extended family have gone for the last 3 or 4 years. We've only made it twice now, but had a great time!

Grant and Alayna LOVE the water, swimming lessons, bath time, etc - so I thought this would be just endless hours of fun! Well - turned out they don't like to be cold, more than they LOVE the water :) So - after the first little slide - Grant was ready for a towel and we couldn't even convince Alayna to go down one in the first waterpark. So we moved on to the park with the wave pool and some other little slides - this one was more up their alley. They had a lot of fun, but were very different in what they wanted to do. Grant wanted to jump in the waves coming in the wave pool and tried at all times to be covered as much as possible by the water (this kept him warmer!). Alayna on the other hand - wasn't such a fan of the waves and much rather wanted to be going down the slides at the other end of the pool.

Big thanks to Grandpa and Grandma for your help!

Grant's attempt to stay in the water as much as possible - for warmth

Alayna preferred the slides

He can't pass up a good shower though!

Warming up by Grandpa when she was all done

Movie time with Brayden before bed

They had lots of fun, but it didn't last too long once they were cold - so it was time to go!

Baby Update

Our 16 week Baby Meidam doctor appointment was today. Everything checked out "normal". It's such a short visit. I go in, step on the scale, get my blood pressure checked and leave a "sample". Then when the doctor comes in he listens to the heartbeat of the baby with the doppler (which was way quicker to find todayat 16 weeks than at the 8 wk appt!), makes sure I'm measuring about right and that's it.
Seeing it is pregnancy #4 - I don't have a TON of questions when we go. Maybe 1 or 2 that seem somewhat silly, but need to be asked. Today it was - are you sure there is only 1 in there? I feel like I'm gaining a bit more earlier on than I did with the others. You're sure it's only 1? His answer was - only one. That is just great for us! :)
And - I'm excited to say I'm feeling the baby moving now. Sunday I was almost positive I felt him/her and then Monday felt much of the same little flutters. So - 15.5 weeks I started feeling him/her move.
The ultrasound and 20 wk (I'll be nearly 20 wks) appt is set for Mon, April 11. Can't believe it's ultrasound time already in one month!

Happy Birthday Grandpa

Last week we celebrated Grandpa's birthday with him! We had some brownies with ice cream and candles.

We think he was most excited because now he has Crocs - just like us!

It was lots of fun!

Snowman

Last Sunday when it was super nice out Daddy and I built a snowman.

Radish eyes...
A carrot nose, asparagus arms and half of a twizzler mouth. Guess where the other half of twizzler went :)

Potty Update

Alayna's been doing great on the potty lately. Sunday (3-12) was our first day with no accidents all day - she even stayed dry for her nap in the afternoon. That is the only day we've had like that. Typically we have a least 1 accident at some point throughout the day.

We are slowly getting the hang of #2. It still seems a bit "scary" at times, but last night she conquered it like a charm. We'll see how things continue.

I'm doing things a bit different than with Grant. For the most part (unless we are about to leave the house or a bathroom is not going to be close by) if I ask Alayna if she has to go potty and she says no - I leave it at that. With Grant - I was convinced his bladder would give out after 30 mins :) - so was taking him even when he said he didn't have to go. That lead to no fun for both of us - so this time I'm just not going to do that. If she says no and 2 mins later has an accident - hopefully she will remember that the next time I ask her. She hates to be wet - so that is a good thing!

After Alayna goes potty she washes her hands, puts 2 stickers on her chart and tries to get "two gummies" out of me :) 1 gummy for #1 and 2 for #2 - usually she realizes she has to settle for only 1.

So proud of her for how she is doing! Hopefully things continue to go well!

Baby Update

Tomorrow I will be 15 weeks along already! That's 1/3rd of the way to meeting this new little member of our family. How exciting!

I'm getting bigger. You'd think - with pregnancy #4 that is what you would expect right? Bigger - earlier. I'm just excited for the day I feel like I actually look pregnant instead of like I'm just adding a thick winter coat. Right now it still feels like it's more "chub" than baby. I mean - the baby is getting bigger and I wouldn't say my abs were in any sort of great condition to hold my muscles from realizing they were going back into prego mode - so what can I expect right? Whatever - it's all worth it :)

Grant is not wavering from his prediction that this baby will be a girl. It was pretty funny yesterday when I was going through trying to organize a bunch of boys baby clothes. Grant walked over by me and I said "look at all this clothes. If the baby in Mommy's belly is a boy - he will get to wear all this stuff, but if it's a girl - that's not gonna work is it." He looks at me and says "I think I'm going to start calling her a boy now." To which I questioned "Really? So what do you think Mommy is going to have a boy or a girl?" He answers - "A girl." :) Crazy kiddo! Pretty funny!

Pregnancy symptom: Weird dreams - they usually involve people I know and I remember that those people were in the dreams, but what is done never makes sense and jumps all over the place. When I'm not pregnant - I rarely remember a dream - now I have crazy ones every night.

At about 8 or 9 weeks I finally got back to running a couple times a week. I had fallen into a slump with the weather change (or season change rather - basically when the snow fell I stopped running outside). So - I now head to the Y about 3 mornings a week before Brian leaves for work. Only running 2.5-3 miles, but better than nothing. I'm sure all the people around me think I'm crazy b/c I have to watch something on tv that is completely pointless to make the time go by faster - so I watch Boy Meets World or Saved By the Bell. Gotta love it!

Our next appt is on Wed, Mar 16. Praying all is well. Then at the April appt I will have my ultrasound already! CRAZY! No we are not planning to find out the sex of the baby. There are very few REAL surprises in life - especially in Adult Life. So - we like to keep this a surprise until the day of delivery. We have no control over it and really would be just as happy with either a boy or girl. We simply pray he/she is a healthy and happy baby.

Potty Training with Alayna

And we officially entered the world of Potty Training with Alayna. Friday, March 4 was just a plain old rainy day and there was nothing to do - no playgroups, no storytimes, no groceries that needed to be bought - so why not right? And we had a rather uneventful weekend planned - so we went for it.
Considering she before Friday, Alayna would harldy sit on the potty for more than 5 seconds - the fact she is happily reading her wagon full of books was promising in itself :)

Daddy happened to stop by just in time to see her first pee in the potty! LOOK!!!

HOORAY!!!!

But after all the fun of the little potty in the kitchen - she decided if she was going to do this potty thing like a big girl - she better be able to use the big potty too. (I tried telling her a couple weeks ago she had to be 3 to use the big potty - but she's not buying that one. I simply don't want her to because she can't get on and off it by herself and with a stool I worry about her falling - because I've seen her almost fall a few times already. But - if it's train on the big potty or not at all - we'll go for the big potty!)

Thumbs up! Super excited!

"Look Mommy...poopy!" I think this one was an accident, but whatever - we'll take it!

So - Friday went a little like this. I was excited when Alayna took interest on Friday morning and would actually sit longer than 5 seconds on the potty. We put on training undies and pants to start the morning. After going through 2 pair of pants in a matter of min - we went to only undies. After a couple more pair of undies we went to bare buns. We stayed in the kitchen pretty much all day so I could stick to cleaning up puddles instead of scrubbing carpets. She did pretty good - once she started going she would stop herself and say "potty mommy potty". So we continued with that for most of the day - no undies, cleaning up puddles, but putting lots of tinkles in the big potty.

Saturday went pretty well also. We wore undies most of the day. Things went better. Less puddles and wet undies. We even went to eat pizza with some friends that night and she only wet once while playing. I was a bit bummed though b/c with Grant when we went away we always put plastic pants over his undies. They kept his pants dry longer even if he had an accident. WELL - Alayna HATED them. She cried when we put them on and said they hurt. I'm not sure if she just didn't like the crinkling or if maybe they were really pinching her legs. So - no plastic pants for this girl :(

Sunday I was really impressed. I didn't know if we should attempt church or not. I was on for nursery duty though and since pizza went well Sat night - we went with it. She went once when we got to church and once when nursery was all done. She only had 1 accident all day...even did #2 on the potty (which was scarier for her that day for some reason).

Monday was a bit different. Quite a few accidents. Not usually all out accidents though. Enough wet to need to change undies, but still more left to go in the potty too. Staying completely dry and going on the potty is earning a piece of twizzler and a half and half (stopping it after wetting) is earning a skittle.

Proud of you Layna! Keep up the good work!

Cookies

Thursday we helped Mommy make some cookies!

Frosting sure was fun! I (Alayna) enjoyed the frosting :)

This was a FUN idea!

A little bit more frosting on Grant's. They did great! After frosting - came the sprinkles!

LIFE as IS

Just some random pics of what has been going on around here lately :)

We've been playing a lot of hide and seek lately. Daddy helped Alayna hide in the laundry basket. Grant is getting really good at being quiet once he is in his hidding spot...however doesn't really understand yet about NOT telling me where he's going to hide :)
You may not be able to see great - BUT - Grant is working on dressing himself too. Rather than picking out his outfits though (like Alayna wants to do) we are working on him getting all the clothes on and off himself. Well - some things happen to go on backwards, etc (Undies are typically on backwards :))

Lana came to visit last week. Her Mommy is going back to work part time again tomorrow - we hope she has a really good day! And Lana too - playing with all her new friends at her daycare!

"Hold me" - often what is spoken after getting out of the tub :)

SNOW

We got some more snow.......it was super fun! Daddy burried me in it :)

Yup - Daddy and I have fun when we're outside!

Basketball

A couple weekends ago, Mommy and Daddy really did some cleaning in the basement. We were finally able to get my basketball hoop set up that I got for Christmas. Daddy put it together Sunday afernoon.

While we put the hoop together, Alayna rode in her grocery cart

And we all know that the box is WAY more fun to play with than the actual toy itself. SO - we fought over this one for a while...both had tears.

More Nail Painting

Grandma painted my nails! Thanks Grandma!

No More Nukie

Feb 16 was the first night of no nukie for Alayna. The teeth are now in and this is the next step to potty training...so Daddy cut the tip off so it no longer "worked". She still held it and took it to bed with her. The first night we bye-o-byed for an extra long time, she cried once - I went back and we rocked a bit longer and then when I laid her down (not yet sleeping) she went right to sleep.
The second night on the other hand...didn't quite go like that. I went back once - we rocked again, but when she went back down this time - she wasn't happy about it. She didn't really want anything to do with the broken nuk. I did see her a few times within the first couple days or so with it in her mouth again, but other times when going in to get her in the morning - found it on the floor. Anyway, the second night she cried for about an hour before going to sleep. I would go in and try to at least calm her down - without taking her out of her bed - but she was ticked. Then the third night was about 40 mins of crying.
About a week and a half after the nuk "broke" I didn't put it in her bed with her at night and since then it's just been gone. Now if Alayna asks about her nuk I just have to say "remember it broke" and she says "yeah - its broke".
It was sort of (I can say this now after the fact) funny that first week b/c while getting ready for bed at night she would tell me she was going to cry. When we rocked she'd say "bye-o-bye 2 minutes Mommy". So I would and then she'd cry...what she meant was - I needed to come back in and bye-o-bye again for 2 mins.
Well - we're finally past it all. About 10 days or so and it was all gone. WAY TO GO LAYNA! Proud of you!

Outside

Mommy forgot to post pics from a few weeks ago when it was so warm outside and a lot of the snow melted around here. It was Feb 16 and 40some degrees.

We played outside one afternoon - shoveled snow onto the driveway and then we SPLASHED in the PUDDLES!

We had A LOT of fun!