Giving oatmeal a whirl

Last week I made a small batch of oatmeal for Mason to try and put a tiny amount in a bowl before putting the rest of the batch in the ice cube tray to freeze for later. He was in a good mood and seemed fairly receptive to it. He's only had it twice since then but hasn't shown a ton of interest in it yet so I think I will just try periodically until he is better at using his tongue to push it back instead of out of his mouth.

Mason is 4 months old

Mason turned 4 months old on the 9th. Time is just flying by! He is so full of joy and happiness. He LOVES to laugh and smile, especially during diaper changes and I love his big, meaty thighs! At his well-check, he weighed 16 lbs 2 oz stark naked and was 28 inches long. At his 2 month appointment, he weighed 13 lbs 7 oz and was 24 inches. Doing the math on that means he gained 2 lbs 11 oz and grew 4 inches in 2 months! I am just in awe at how fast he is growing! I do have lots of pictures of him that I have taken on my phone and have uploaded to Facebook but have yet to get them here on the blog. Maybe one day :)

4 months old and a BIG boy!

Building a Nest

Last week, I put together small little preschool lessons for AnnaBeth. Our theme for the week was birds and I chose a parrot, owl, flamingo, hummingbird and peacock. We focused on one bird each day and we had a coloring page, a Bible verse, a slide show of pictures, and we also collected items from the yard to make a bird nest. At the end of the week, we took everything we had gathered and constructed it to make a nest. We'd had a couple of pretty decorative rocks in the back yard that AnnaBeth had gotten from Nana's front yard (that came from Aunt Kay's house) and we used those as the "eggs".

 Taking a survey of our materials

 Starting to construct the nest

 

 Very proud of how it's looking so far

 Checking to see if we need to add anything else

 Added one more leaf to complete our nest

 Was walking out to the retaining wall when I almost walked face first into this crab spider that was swinging on it's web

 We also saw this bug that blended very well with the plant/tree that randomly sprouted in the retaining wall

 Another shot of the crab spider

One final picture of our nest

AnnaBeth was SOOO very proud of the nest we made. It's all she talked about for the next few days. It was a fun project to work on with her!

Chocolate Feet and Monkey Feet

This morning AnnaBeth was playing with Bondo on our bed and he was getting all excited and flailing his feet around. At one point (in between my warnings for her to be careful because he tends to be careless and can really hurt you with his feet) she exclaimed, "Bondo had chocolate on his feet!!" I couldn't help but start laughing and informed her that those were his pads, not chocolate.

And little mister has little monkey feet. He was creatively trying to figure out how to reach the toys in his play gym today.

Biggest Giggles Yet!

An AnnaBeth Thought

This afternoon after lunch, AnnaBeth and I were in the backyard kicking a ball back and forth to each other. At one point she picked up ball and said "Mommy, you can't turn me into a ball. I'm AnnaBeth. I'm not a ball. This (patting the ball) is a ball." I have no idea where she came up with this but it was cute and made me laugh. :)

Let's get this potty training party started!

I think I can officially say that potty training is underway for AnnaBeth! A few weeks ago, I made AnnaBeth a potty chart so each time she goes in the potty, she can put a sticker on a square and also get a piece of candy as a reward. I borrowed the design from a cyber-friend and in the middle of each row is a heart. When AnnaBeth gets to the heart, she will get a more significant treat. When she finishes a row, she will get some new stickers or a hot wheel or something small like that. She will get something super cool when she finishes the whole chart but I haven't figured out what that will be yet.

Last night after she finished her dinner, she went and stood by the end table where she likes to stand if she's filling her diaper. I asked if her if she wanted to sit on the ducky potty (the seat that goes on the big toilet) or the froggy potty (a portable potty seat). She said she wanted to sit on the froggy so I got her completely undressed (she was going to have a bath anyway) and she sat on the potty. She kept asking me if I heard any peepee and would cup her hand behind her ear while she said it. I finally thought to explain to her that she needed to let her peepee spill out of her bottom like when she knocks her blue cup over and it spills water on the floor. After a little while, I walked away to do something and then all of sudden she's yelling "mommy my peepee is spilling out!!!" And sure enough, she had gone pee in the potty! She was SOOO very excited to get a piece of candy and pick out a sticker from her booklet of Cars stickers to put her on chart.

Today I kept asking her if she wanted to use the potty and like usual she told me "No. I don't want to go on the potty." I tried again tonight to get her to try to use the potty and she was willing to try. She hadn't pooped yet for the day and I fed her oatmeal for dinner (it almost ALWAYS makes her go) so I thought that we might get lucky. Well after quite some time, Mason was no longer patient as he was really tired so I told her to stay on the potty while I gave him a bath. I was almost finished with his bath when she came running in to our room saying "I did it! I did it!" So I wrapped Mason up in his towel and went with her to check the potty and lo and behold, she had pooped in the froggy potty! She was SOOO proud of herself! I had decided earlier today that I will give her a piece of chocolate for successful poops in the potty so she very happily accepted her piece of chocolate and then picked out another sticker to put her on her chart.