September Fun Days

It might be the end of October, but we had a couple of fun outings in September that I still wanted to share pictures from.

When we were in San Diego this summer for vacation, we went to Sea World.  It was only a few dollars more a ticket to buy a 2 day ticket, so we splurged.  We used our second day in early September and had a great time.  All the schools had started and the lines were super short.  We started by watching the Orca whales at their tank (not the show).  The trainers had them jumping in and out of the water right by where we were standing.  It was pretty cool.

Watching the dolphins.

Kyle rode the tea cups with the girls.

Katelyn met Elmo & Ernie.

Katelyn's first big kid ride.  She's pretty tall for her age, so she was tall enough for it.  She loved it.

She loved it so much she rode it first with Daddy & then with Mommy.  She giggled the whole time.

Each September we make a trip to the county fair.  It seems like each year we focus on a different area and have a great time.  This year, a few of the highlights were seeing the large trains, seeing all the animals, walking through a farm to table exhibit where the girls were able to 'plant seeds', then harvest fruit, and then shop at the grocery store, the girls rode a couple rides and then just before leaving we walked through a very large miniature train town.  Another fun day.

Checking out the steam engine with daddy.

Inside an old steam engine.  They have a TON of control knobs.

Chilling out in the caboose.

Katelyn rode down the big slide with Daddy, on the far right.  (Brookie was too small to go on.)

Sister love on the tractor ride.  It was a huge hit for both girls. (This was what they went on when we figured out B was too small for the slide.)

We love our family days!

I'm a soccer mom now

That's right, I'm a soccer mom.  We enrolled Katelyn in her first soccer league this fall.  It was only for 6 weeks, which ended this past Saturday.  It was for one hour a week on Saturday morning.  Perfect for our family.  She loved it - kind of.


Here she is the first morning.  She was so excited.  We used some of her birthday money to buy her a new ball, shin-guards, and socks.  This league does not allow cleats.

Before the first day

Not quite sure what to do.

First attempt at stretching (she is to the right of the coach, standing completely straight up).

Getting the hang of it during the passing drill.

The first day was interesting.  A bunch of three year olds (20 in her group) in a totally new experience.  Many, including Katelyn, followed their parents off the field constantly.  It ended up being about 1 parents per kid out on the field while the drills were being taught.  This got a little better each week as the kids began to understand what was expected.  By the end, we didn't have to really help Katelyn at all.

She learned a lot about waiting and going to the back of the line after she had her turn.  The first couple weeks she kept telling me how hard waiting was and how she didn't like waiting, but by the end, she just understood that was how it worked. 

The 5th week was so windy outside that they played in the gym.  The balls rolled EVERYWHERE.

The second and third weeks, she did well in the short scrimmage that the kids did.  Going to kick the ball and running in the right direction.  The weeks following that though got tougher.  It seems like as some of the other kids understood what to do, it got harder for her to actually get to the ball, and so she got frustrated and didn't want to scrimmage.  She still liked the drills though because she could kick it in the goal.  She is quite the little perfectionist.

Katelyn's fan club for on of the weeks.

On the last week (this past weekend), they took photos, scrimmaged another group of kids and then got trophies.  She did not like the scrimmage and informed us when she ran of the field that 'this is not fun'.  That was when we finally got it out of her that she was mad because there were too many kids and she couldn't score a goal.  - Haha, love that girl.  After she got the trophy though, she was loving soccer again.

Here is her team the last day.  The group got smaller as the weeks went on.

Overall, it was a great experience for her.  Our main goal was to have her in a different environment with other kids and learning from a coach, since we do not plan to enroll her in preschool.  We didn't really care about how much she learned about soccer.

Oh, and the bonus was that her team was the orange team - 'Go Tigers'.  She thinks that she was put on the orange team because it is her favorite color.  I'm not sure what we will do next time she is in something and she doesn't get on the orange team.

Potty Trained!?!?!?!

This post is going to get pretty detailed so that if I have friends who are curious what I did, I can look back and remember, or I can refer them here.  If you aren't interested in potty training details (which I wouldn't be if I didn't have kids), you might want to stop reading after this paragraph.  So for those of you not going to continue reading - Brooklyn is now potty trained!  End of story. ;-)

Now, for those of you who might be curious for what we did,  here's the nitty gritty.  As some of you may know, potty training did not go very well with Katelyn.  It took FOREVER.  Close to a year for her to finally stop using a pull-up and let me know when she needed to go all of the time.  She did great at first, but consistency was the problem.  I would try to make her wear underwear, and some days were great and then others she would pee 3 times on the carpet, I would get frustrated and go back to pull-ups.  So, when I had a couple of friends tell me that they had been pretty successful with the 1 or 3 day potty training, and after some internet research, I decided that was the route I was going to take for Brooke.  The idea of it is that you completely transition to underwear.  No more diapers and no pull-ups (although we are still using pull-ups at nap & bed time only).

These were the three main resources I used (found all of them through Pinterest):
http://yourmodernfamily.com/potty-training-in-three-days-2/
http://www.themoesfamilyintexas.blogspot.com/search/label/Potty%20Training
http://happyhouseof5.com/2012/09/potty-training-in-our-happy-house.html

We did use the kids toilet seat ring that sits on the toilet for Brooklyn and not a kid's toilet.  We had to use the little toilet for Katelyn because she was scared to death and would not even get close to the big toilet.  I prefer the toilet seat toppers because they are so much less work and I also was concerned that Brooklyn would try to empty it out herself and we would have pee all over the bathroom floor (which did happen with Katelyn, at least once).

As for seeing if she was ready or not  - I honestly just decided it was time.  Most of the above links suggested that if the parents decide it is going to work, then they didn't necessarily wait for cues from the kids.  She is closing in on 2 1/2 and I didn't want her to reach the point where she is too stubborn to try it.  We started telling her a couple weeks before that she would start being a big girl soon and using the toilet, wearing big girl underwear, etc.  She was pretty excited by the time we started.

So, here is what we did (and I'm not an expert, but this is what seemed to work for us).
Day 1:
I had Katelyn go to my parents. Kyle took her there in the morning and picked her up after work.  This was huge as I would have been completely overwhelmed trying to keep Katelyn busy while running back and forth to the toilet.
I put Brooklyn on the toilet right away when she woke up, even though she had never before actually used the toilet.  I put underwear on her then and she wore just underwear and a t-shirt all day.  I made plans to pretty much camp out in the kitchen, which has tile, all day so that I wouldn't be stressed about cleaning pee out of the carpet.  The day started off a little rough.  She didn't go to the bathroom the first several times that set her on the toilet and I was worried that she wouldn't get the idea.

We brought the toys into the kitchen.

We brought the kid table into the kitchen too.

I started pumping her with salty snacks (pretzels, fish crackers, etc.) and giving her capri-sun (a huge treat in our house) shortly after 8 AM.  She had one small accident, and then after drinking the capri-sun had a large accident which totally freaked her out.  After each accident I did what the 2nd link above did (that was the website I used most).  I did not have wetting doll, but after each accident we ran back and forth about 3-5 times between the accident sight and the toilet and said 'No pee pee on the floor (run to the toilet), pee pee in the toilet'. It sounds dumb, but I think this is what actually stuck for her.  I had my timer set for either 15 or 20 minute intervals, but after the 2nd accident, she ran to me before the timer went off and told me she needed to go potty.  And she did!

She loves the 'juice.'

She had one more small accident after that, but the rest of the day, she was accident free!  By lunch time, she had downed 3 capri-suns, gone potty 5 times on the toilet and only had 3 accidents.  After lunch time and a nap, she actually went potty another 13 times on the toilet before bed!  Now, this might not be normal, but she never actually went when I set her on the toilet at the timed intervals, but instead told me (or started wiggling or whining) when she had to go.  She also had MANY false alarms.  At times were were going to the toilet 3 times in 15 minutes.   I was super glad that I didn't have Katelyn at home.  I was so happy it appeared to be working!

I laid out towels all the way from the kitchen to the bathroom, haha.

For the first day, she got 1 M&M and 1 sticker for her sticker sheet each time she went on the toilet.  We also called a couple people the first couple times she went.  This all had her really excited and I think was part of the reason there were so many false alarms.

Day 2:  
I had read that you need to have at least 3 days at home with no plans before you venture out into the real world.  So we hung out at home.  My plan was to just have a normal food/drink day and not pump her full of liquids on Day 2.  Brooklyn started off the day by wetting her pants twice.  I was pretty discouraged, between that and having Katelyn around again, it was a difficult morning.  (Katelyn isn't a difficult kid, she just likes attention, as all 3 year-olds do, and putting Brooklyn on the toilet constantly and being in the same room as Brooklyn all the time gets a little difficult.)  However, after the initial crankiness and accidents, we had a much better day and stayed dry except for an accident just before dinner.

Day 3:
Pretty much the same plan as day 2.  However, she didn't have any accidents!  Yeah!  I think we are on our way to declaring her potty trained.

 Day 4:
We went to a birthday party at the park for a friend and Brookie did great!  Another day with no accidents, even with going out of the house a few times.


In General: 

I did ask her constantly if she needs to go to the bathroom and make her sit on the toilet before meals, bath, bed, etc.  The timer didn't seem to help her a ton as she didn't really go to the bathroom on command.  However, I do anticipate setting the timer for a few weeks just to remind myself to ask her if she needs to go.

She is still sleeping wet, and I don't feel like cleaning sheet all the time, so I am going to try to wean her off the pull-ups when she is sleeping dry more consistently.

The above posts don't really mention #2 as this has been an issue for Brookie for a while.  We are going to have to take a while to see how that progresses on the toilet.  Currently, she tries to go while in the pull-up for nap/bed.

I really suggest reading the above links.  They are much more detailed.  I adapted some from each for our approach.



Update: 
It has now been two weeks since we started potty training.  Overall, things are great!  There have been a few accidents, but so far, all at home, and none when running errands or anything (although I make sure we aren't gone for too long).  Brooklyn started sleeping dry, so we made the switch to underwear at night and nap.  She has wet a few times at night, but overall, still going very well.

Wow, this got long, I hope it wasn't too boring for you.