Potty training

Yesterday marked Day #1 of serious potty-training here in the Atok house. I got the boys all excited about their new Disney-themed underwear and the prospect of a "candy" reward for using the potty. (I know, I know, I'm a dietitian and I shouldn't use candy. But they rarely get candy so it works well as a reward.:)). Monday started out great. Both boys were using the potty and we only had one accident. I put them in diapers for their nap. The afternoon was great for Collin - he continued to do very well with no accidents. Brendan was half-heartedly trying and I was having to make him sit on the potty. He didn't have any accidents put he was definitely holding it all in until bedtime!

Today Collin has done such a great job! I reminded him about every hour to potty and he will go in, take off his own underwear and do his business! Then he likes to help me flush the toilet. No accidents today! I decided to give Brendan the choice today. I told him if he wanted to wear underwear he had to use the potty. "No way!" he told me...he didn't want to use the potty. So diapers it was for him today and he was happy as a clam. I figure that sooner or later he will want to be just like his brother and wear underwear. Until then, I will just enjoy buying and changing half the amount of diapers!

Over the weekend Collin had seen a commercial for Chuck E Cheese and kept asking Mike and I if he could go there. I have taken them there only once, like 6 months ago!! We told him no,it was closed! ;) Well, he didn't forget about it,of course and asked me again on Monday if he could go to Chuck E Cheese. So I told him that if he can use the potty this whole week that we will go to Chuck E Cheese on Friday. That will be his big reward for becoming such a big boy. He is SO excited about it!! He was kind of not wanting to use the potty tonight, so I reminded him of his Chuck E Cheese reward and he went running into the bathroom and took care of business. :) I'll have to be sure to take my camera to document the party!

Some smilies before the sickies

The stomach flu attacked the boys this week, so it's not been a great one around here! I guess it's a good time to be stuck inside though since it turned cold and rainy.

I did manage to catch a few smiles early in the week, so enjoy!

Brendan is my budding artist. He loves to color. This picture depicts exactly how serious he is about it!! He is getting really good at coloring inside the lines!


Collin only colors for short bursts of time, because he is always on the move!


And here are a couple of them just being silly. Brendan is in a stage where he doesn't like to where clothes, especially pants.

Video Tuesday

I thought I would share a few videos today that I took of the boys last week.

The first video is them (and me, sorry!) singing ring around a rosey. I thought it was funny because each time they started the song, Brendan wanted to put his arms around Collin!



The second and third videos are us playing outside on their playset. The boys had collected a few rocks around the yard and then took them up to the top of the fort. Brendan was insisting that Collin and I play a "rock" game with him. Collin wasn't too interested, so I played along. It was a little windy that day, so sorry for the extra noise in the video.

Birthdays!

The boys have decided that they love birthdays! Because there is cake involved, of course! The morning of Mandy's birthday I worked with the boys on saying "Happy Birthday!" when they see Aunt Mandy. They picked it up so well and shouted it to her as she was walking up our sidewalk. :) They were also wearing their "My Aunt ROCKS!" shirts that she gave them at Christmas-because she does ROCK!

We had a great time eating lunch and catching up with the family. Then it was time for birthday cake!


Quickly followed by presents, which the boys had a hard time understanding were not for them! They even wanted to rip open Aunt Mandy's cards.

Grandma decided it had been way too long since they had taken a picture with the boys, so the paparazzi got out their cameras!





We hope you had a great birthday Aunt Mandy! We love you a ton!! Sorry for the bad cold we gave you a few days later. Here's a funny picture to make you laugh! :)

Conversations with Toddlers

Toddlers say the funniest things. Sometimes I wish I had the video camera at my fingertips to document them. Here are a few of the funny conversations that I can remember from the last few weeks:

We were driving home from story hour and were stuck behind a school bus,
I say, "This bus is stinky!"
Collin says, "Bus poo-poo, Mommy?"

Brendan picks up his rolling Handy Manny backpack and says, "bye, bye Mommy." I said, "where are you going?" He says "chicken and dip." Which is their word for Mc Donalds! Nice, that makes me feel so good, considering I had just made them cheese tortellini and they didn't eat any of it!

I was getting ready to go out to dinner with some girlfriends, so I said "Mommy's going to put some make-up on." Collin says, "me make-up too." And he and Brenny follow me to the bathroom. I give Collin a powder brush and Brendan my eyelash curler. Brendan picks up the eyelash curler and says, "Camel walking", as he imitates it walking, and "Camel sleeping", etc. He has such a good imagination.

We were reading a book and one of the pages was torn. I said "Who tore the book?" Collin says, "Collin tore it, sorry Mommy." Too cute. (Although most of our books that aren't hard pages have a page ripped.) Ugh.

And since a post wouldn't be complete without a few pictures. Here are a couple of pictures of the boys washing their red wagon. They helped Mike wash our SUV and they wanted to keep washing, so we put them to work!


And for more fun, a video of the process:

Christmas Cheer

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and has started a great New Year! We had the best Christmas. The boys are at such a fun age, the pure joy that they had was infectious. :)

We spent Christmas Eve at my parent's house, with them and my sisters. We stayed the night and had a great time! That morning before we left we let the boys opening their stockings at home (I know, before Santa even came :))


We opened the family presents that night- here are a few pictures from that:
More stockings from Grandma:

Teamwork:

Collin:

Brendan:

O
Oh the trouble they can get into with these stools Aunt Mandy gave them!

Aunt Shelley gave them a double-sized easel which is perfect for my aspiring artists:

Happy Faces

And then there was Christmas morning-Santa's gift. The boys left cookies and milk for Santa, but he didn't finish them so they did that morning - it was the first thing they spotted! Then the presents...


Christmas Day we headed over to Mike's aunt's house for his family celebration. As always, it was a full house! We had a blast and filled the car up (again) with way too many toys.




We had a very nice New Year's as well, but I didn't take any pictures! We are sad as our 2-week vacation with Mike home is coming to an end - now back to reality. :)

Merry Christmas!

We would like to wish all of our friends and family a very Merry Christmas!!! I hope everyone stays safe and happy. Here are a few of our photos over the last couple of weeks.

We saw Santa! They were very excited about the idea of him but once they learned they had to sit on his lap, they weren't too excited! At least they didn't cry.



They also got to help us put up the Christmas tree a few weeks ago.
Brendan really wasn't too excited about it. He just wanted to play with his toys.

Collin was a lot of help!

Here they are helping Daddy:

And a finished one of the tree:

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!