First without, then with...both good.

KIMBALL WITHOUT:


KIMBALL WITH:

BOTH GOOD!!!  He is so handsome and studly either way!

Tinkle, tinkle

(my beautiful girl last July)

Last July, around her 2nd birthday, we made a first attempt at potty training Sloan. She was very excited about it.  She sat on the toilet and acted very pleased with herself, but nothing ever came out.  I don't think she quite understood that going pee-pee means that something is supposed to come out of your body.  So, we took a break and I vowed to try again in 6 months....which brings me to January...

We began potty training again this week.  She is very excited this time too!  For a couple days, she would sit and nothing would come out, again.  But instead of giving up, I decided that we would persevere!  She wears pull-ups during the day when we are at home.  And just Wednesday morning, she went pee-pee on the toilet for the 1st time.  I happened to catch her when she needed to go.  And afterwards I showed her that I was so proud and acted over-the-top excited about it...and she gave me the funniest look.  Kind of a 'THAT'S what you wanted me to do?????' 'why didn't you just say-so' look. :) Silly girl.

We haven't been very gung-ho or high-pressure about going potty...we have been SUPER busy this week, but since Wednesday morning, every time she sits on the potty, she tinkles.  She won't leave the toilet until she pees.  Now that she knows what she is supposed to do, she DOES IT! Yay for Sloan!!!  And her favorite part about going potty - - washing her hands!!!

Good thing she's too young to HATE me. :)

Last night after a successful tinkle.

Hopefully she'll soon figure out what it feels like to NEED to go.  She hasn't quite gotten that down yet.  She goes when she is on the potty, but she also goes in her pull-up in between. :)  To help her have more success, I've been setting a timer to go on the toilet every 20 minutes which I thought was a lot.  Unfortunately, her pull-up is wet almost every time the timer goes off.  Man, that girl pees a LOT.  :)  Maybe I need to ditch the pull-ups and let her wear underwear to feel what it's like to be WET.  But I just bought a new package and don't want to waste them. Wish us luck!

*UPDATE:  I wrote this post this morning, and Sloan has gone potty ALL DAY!! Every 20 minutes without fail, she tinkles.  And has had dry pull-ups since this morning.  What a good girl.

Inevitable

The inevitable has happened.  Or will happen within a week.  My sweet, super handsome oldest child Kimball is going to get....gulp....glasses.

Even though I've known for pretty much my entire married life that most of, if not all of our children would need some help in the eye department at some point in their childhoods, it still makes me a little sad.  I'm not sad because glasses are nerdy (unless you were ME from about 2nd grade on, with the GINORMOUS frames someone whose name I won't mention made me wear), or uncool, or because they don't look good on him.  I just don't want anything to cover up that beautiful face.  And I don't want him to be made fun of, which he probably will, since kids will be kids. :(

He seems pretty excited about it, which does make me happy.  And we've had the "four eyes" discussion about how kids might make fun of you when you wear glasses.  I guess I just need to change my attitude and show him how excited I am about it so he will have that super cool confidence he always has had.  And he doesn't have to wear them all the time.  He will need them at school, and when we go to movies or do something where he'll need to focus things far away.

He picked out his frames today.  He wanted to take them home with us, he was that excited.  I finally convinced him that a freshly ordered pair would be here before he knows it.  My sweet boy is growing up.  And if anyone can make glasses look cool (besides me)...it's him.

Merriment

Holy cow...where has the time gone? I last posted in late November. Over a month ago. LAST YEAR for crying out loud. And I can only imagine the turmoil that I've caused by my absense. I bet that you are all on the edge of your seats waiting, aching for that next bit of news from the Waddells. Well, you're in luck. Here's one now.


I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!  Ours was pretty special.  Pretty special, indeed.

We did the North Pole cruise across the lake again this year.  It's pretty fun.  The kids love hearing Santa read their names from the nice list.

Waiting to see Santa's dock light up

Santa reading the list.  Exciting stuff.

The kids decorated some yummy sugar cookies for Santa on Christmas Eve.

And Sloan had a big moment on Christmas eve night.  She decided to give up her binkie.  We had talked about it for a few months to get her comfortable with the idea, and she went for it.  She was actually quite excited about it.  She left it near the plate of cookies so Santa could take it to a baby elf who needed a binkie.  Santa, in exchange left her a Barbie.  That's how Noah got rid of his binkie too and it has worked like a charm both times.

Saying farewell.

Considering if it was worth it. :)

We got to stay home for Christmas day this year.  I love having Christmas at home.  We had our traditional Christmas breakfast of pull-aparts and eggs, and spent the wee hours of the dark morning opening gifts.

The one thing that Noah asked for was jammies.  He begged for new pjs.  Partially because I had just a few weeks before bought Sloan & Kimball a whole slew of new pairs, and none for Noah.  Poor guy.  He's starting to figure out the whole hand-me-down thing.  He cried and cried the night that the other two put on their new jammies.  Talk about breaking my heart.  It was SO sweet when he opened the present with his new jammies.  He pulled them out of the box and hugged them tight to his chest like it was the most wonderful, valuable gift ever.

The boys simutaneously opening their Nerf guns.

And this was Sloan's face with EVERY present she opened.  Each one got more and more exciting.


My favorite gift this year:

Bahahahaha!!!  Brian put it in my stocking.  What a clever fellow. Guess I took that one Edward blog post a little too far. :)  Luckily, he let me exchange it since it was just a joke. It was $8 for heaven's sake! I'm not just gonna let that go to waste.  I traded it for the Jacob version.
(totally kidding)

The kids spent the entire day playing with their new toys. And we got in some quality family time playing everyone's new Wii games. The favorite was Brian's gift from yours truly - Cabela's Monster Buck Hunter. I gotta say that I am surprisingly very good with a gun. I beat Brian. He of course blamed it on beginners luck, but I know better. He has had plenty of practice since he and his cohorts at work spend quite a bit of time at Pizza Factory in front of that game. Pure skill, baby! :)

Here are the boys just getting started on their new skateboards from Santa.

After several near disasters...

they started getting the hang of it.

And here is Sloan enjoying her new scooter, also from Santa.

I swore I would NEVER buy anything "princess" themed for her. Crap.

The next day we drove down to Boise.  That was interesting, stressful and downright scary at times.  At about halfway (just north of Riggins) the radiator broke on my rig.  Lucky for us, a really nice maintenace worker that lived on the Nez Perce Ranger Station where we were stranded was able to patch up the radiator for us, enough to get us safely into Boise.  I don't know how he knew what to do, but I do know we pulled off there for a reason.  My panic when we first pulled off the road soon turned into peace when I realized he was the answer to our prayers.

The stress of the radiator calmed temporarily just in time to turn into major stress about the blizzard we were heading into.  From New Meadows all the way to Smith's Ferry, we were in a white-out storm.  We were able to see about a foot around us and went maybe 30 miles an hour.  Holy cow.

We safely made it into Boise about 12 hours after we left home (which normally takes only about 8 hours).  We were watched over and cared for during that drive and I am so thankful.  As for our car, we took it into Peterson Motors on Monday and the news of it's repair didn't bring me such joy.  It was going to cost a ridiculous amount of $ to fix all that needed repaired, so we had to say goodbye to my beloved rig.  I loved that car and really miss it.  We were able to find a great car from a very trusted family friend and are happy with it.  It definetly wasn't on the agenda to buy a newer car any time soon, but are thankful for all of our blessings and for the way it all worked out.  The drive home to Coeur d'Alene on Saturday was MUCH less exciting.  We made it with no real incidents after a measly 8 1/2 hours.

We hope you all enjoyed a wonderful holiday season with your loved ones.  We are so thankful that we could see lots of family and friends while we were in Boise.  We weren't able to see everyone we wanted, but hope you all know how much we love and miss you.  Best wishes for your 2011.