Shhhhhhhhh.....

I don't want to jinx it...but CADY IS POTTY TRAINED!  Almost two whole weeks accident free!

We have been really frustrated with the whole idea of potty training as of late and had almost given up.  The Sunday before last Brady and I decided to give it one last try with some new tactics that I got from a bulletin board online.

How did we do it you ask?  Well here is what we did...

Step one was to move the potty out of the bathroom and put it in plain sight.  On Saturday before last we put the potty in the foyer.  It is in the middle of the house and very easy to get to from just about anywhere that doesn't already have a potty.  Also Cady could see it pretty much ALL the time.  We did not mention the moving of the potty.  Cady commented on the change of location but we didn't explain why we were doing this.  

Step two was on Sunday.  We put Cady in some underwear (she picked out some princess underwear and we bought three weeks worth so we wouldn't be washing it ALL the time should we enter accident heaven).  We showed Cady were the potty's were (all the potty's in the house) and then gave her instructions on how to go potty, something like "When you have to go find a potty, pull down your underwear and sit on the potty until you are done.  Then you wipe and pull up your underwear and flush the potty."  We did not ask her if she had to go or if she would like to go.  We let her tell us.  The day started off pretty good.  Her only accident was a Number 2 accident.  We told her that she had an accident and that since is was her poo/pee that she had to clean it up.  She did most of the work and we would help when it was clear that she needed it, but we did not do it for her.  She was miserable cleaning it up, and I felt bad, but we stayed consistent.  We really wanted her to learn that this was her responsibility and that no one else could tell her when except for her.  Part of that responsibility is cleaning up her own messes.  

Step three was to just keep doing as we had the day before.  By day four (Wednesday) we were accident free and have been ever since!  I really couldn't believe that it worked, but even when we go somewhere or are in the car Cady lets us know if she needs a bathroom!  She is SO proud of herself and still claps and tells herself good job whenever she goes.  It has been awesome to see her so confident and happy.  She hates to put a diaper on for sleeping now.  Claims she is a big girl and that diapers are for babies.  That we should save them for her little sister.  

So CONGRATS CADENCE!  We are so proud of you!

Here's to Four Years!

Today is our 4th Anniversary! I can't believe it's been that long already...and at the same time it feels like so much longer! I just wanted to tell Brady how much I love and appreciate him. It has been an awesome four years and I look forward to many more!

Family Visits

Whitney and Cord came to visit to meet Tyson and we had so much fun hanging out with them. I also got some new shots of Avery.
New things I have learned about Ave...she almost always looks surprised and she almost always has her mouth open. I love it!


Cadence was mad cause I told her that she had to wait to go swimming and this was the look she was sporting for about 15 minutes....


More of darling Avery...


After Whitney and Cord left Cadence was refusing to take a nap. She needed one badly...I know this because she was throwing fits left and right about things she normally doesn't have issues with. So she had to go to time out (put her nose on the wall). When her 2 minutes were up she went and found her Eeyore and just about every baby doll she could find and climbed up in a chair and told me that she didn't like me. I left her a lone for a bit since I was on the phone with Dr.'s office and by the time I finished (we are talking like 5 minutes) I looked over and found this...
This was at 4:45pm...much to late to be taking a nap. I only let her sleep for 40 minutes and then woke her up. She was still up till about 10pm that night. It was insane. But the picture was priceless.

Pictures of Tyson

Tyson is here!

My sister, Cecily, and her husband Donald welcomed Tyson Kai (hope I spelled that right!) into the world yesterday, June 7th, at 3:30pm. He was 6lbs 15ozs and 19.5 inches long. He has big feet and crazy long fingers and a head full of "nappy blonde hair" (my sister's words not mine!). If any of you have ever seen my sisters husband (his genes are very islander) then you understand how odd the blonde hair part is...Donald is very dark and we were of course expecting crazy, curly, dark hair. Apparently our family's blonde genes are a bit more powerful than we ever thought! lol. So it is crazy, curly blonde hair!
Cecily is a champ. She had contractions for about 24 hours at home before they were regular enough to be admitted at the hospital. Once she got to the hospital (at about 8:30am) she just clipped right along and Tyson was here a few hours later!
I will have plenty of pictures very soon!
The funny thing about all this...my mom's birthday is June 4th, my grandma's is June 5th, my dads is June 6th and now we have Tyson on the 7th! Talk about a busy week in our family!
Yeah for my first NEPHEW!


P.S. Stef...Cecily says that she was copying you...you know since the 7th was such a good day to have a cute baby boy! Happy Birthday Caleb!

Cecily's Babyshower and Cadence and Avery

So much has happened in the last little while!  To start off, on the 10th we had my sister Cecily's baby shower!  I know some of you didn't know she was having a baby.  She is due to have a little boy (the very first boy in our immediate family!) around June 9th.  Her shower was AWESOME!  So many people showed up and she and the baby made out like bandits!  I can't wait to meet her son and see what a great mom she will be.  

Whitney and Avery flew out a couple of days before the shower and we had a great time hanging out.  I don't think Cadence left Avery's side unless one of them was sleeping!  She was such a big help and still asks when Avery is coming back to our house!  We took some pictures while they were here.  Much thanks to Whitney, Mom, Cecily, Cadence and Avery for going with me out to the JW Marriott to scout some places to take photos for my shoot on the 10th!  We had such a great time!

We also got to go up to Cedar City this past weekend.  Brady, Whitney,Cord, and Cord's brother's and sisters (some in-laws) all went paint balling!  They had a great time.  Cadence and I had a great time baby sitting Avery!  Cadence was once again a huge help.  Avery is teething and was a bit grumpy from time to time (who wouldn't be...I remember my wisdom teeth...not fun!).  I need to pick up some food stuffs at Walmart while everyone was gone, so I packed up both kids and went.  Both kids were being so very good.  Cadence was sitting in the basket with Avery in the seat.  We were getting a goodly amount of attention though...I think most people were trying to figure out how old Avery was and just how far along in my pregnancy I was.  Only one person actually asked me about it.  We managed to get everything we needed before Avery had a complete meltdown...lol...poor girl was hungry and tired.  We made it out of the store alive and I am happy to say that I think I will survive having two little girls out in public.  The weekend was great fun, but I am happy to be home.

Other than that things are going as usual for us.  We are waiting to hear more on our house.  I will drive over this week and get some pictures of the lot.  I hope to do that every week so we can keep track of the progress!  

I hope that everyone is having a happy May and that all you moms out there had a great Mother's Day!

In other news...

Well...our lives have been totally crazy lately.

First things first...we are buying a house! I have been waiting to post this because we weren't sure if the loan was going to go through in time. It went through at the last minute on our last day to get approved before losing our "Good Faith" money! That was yesterday and it was one of the most nerve wracking days of my entire life! But it is going through and with any luck it will be done in August just in time for us move in and have a baby! So wish us luck!

Speaking of babies...we can't find a name! Well that's not quite true. We have found some that we like but nothing that just sticks. I feel like every week we find a name that we both like, but it just doesn’t feel “right” after a few days and the whole thing starts over again. It’s probably because I am a head case. We had such and easy time with Cadence. I had always wanted to use that name for a girl and when I told Brady, laid back guy that he is, he totally agreed and we never had a change of heart. It was meant to be her name. This time around we keep finding great boy names. Soooo not what we need since this baby is totally all girl where it counts! Plus Brady really wants to be involved this time around since my favorite ended up working out perfect last time. I am totally all for that! If he find that perfect name I will be so very happy because I am going crazy thinking about it! Thank goodness we have a few more months to decide.

Speaking of Cadence…I really need to start a weekly Cadenceism post! Most of you know what a talker she is. Very articulate and we totally have to watch what we say around her since she is soaking everything in! The other day I asked her if she was excited to have a baby sister. She said the following: “I love my baby sister! She is gonna be little and cry but I don’t want her to cry. I just give her some loves and she will be happy.” About made me cry! When asked if she wanted chicken nuggets or a hamburger for dinner she told me, “I don’t want chichin nuggies. I think a hemburber would taste just yummy though. But it’s only yummy if it has chocolate milk too! Can my hemburber have some chocolate milk mommy?” Just tonight, at Stake Women’s Volleyball, one of the ladies that I play with asked her if she was ready for a little sister. Cadence said, “Yeah, I am. I have some money so it will be okay.”

The best one of the week happened a couple of nights ago. She had been in watching sports with my dad in his room, so I was watching X-Men: Last Stand in the living room. It was the end of the movie right before Hugh Jackman’s character kills another character who had turned evil (long story and hard to explain unless you have seen the movie). Anyway, Hugh Jackman didn’t have much of a shirt left in this scene. Cadence comes waltzing in (literally, she was singing too) and takes one look at the screen and asks me “What’s he doing mommy?” In that split second I am frantically thinking of what to say when Cadence then says “Mommy! He NEEDS to get a shirt on!” She was so appalled that he didn’t have a shirt on…it was SO FUNNY! I couldn’t stop laughing, but I managed to tell her that he sure did need a shirt on! I am really glad that she has a feel for modesty already. That will make my job so much easier down the road! She is certainly keeping us on our toes these days!

She is also letting me take some pictures of her without getting mad! Yes! So here is one of the best ones. I will post some others on the photo blog for your viewing pleasure!