Potty Training.. ALreaDy??

(Don't mind the hair... Stella thinks that she needs
to do it like this on a regular basis lately)

For about a month now I have a little friend that thinks she needs to visit the bathroom with me. She will watch me potty and then intently watch me get the toilet paper and wipe. She has started thinking she needs to join this little adventure along with me. At first she would sit on the scale in the bathroom and act like that was her toilet and have her toilet paper in hand and stand up and wipe her bum.. then we went to her wanting to start throwing it in the toilet and needing to flush it and wave bye-bye! Well, now we have taken it a step further and she is actually wanting to sit on the toilet and do her duty in the BIG girl potty!!! It's not an all the time thing which I'm ok with right now. I'm just trying to make it a fun thing for her... but I'm an soo excited! I feel like I need her to talk more before we start this completely. She cracks me up!

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She is my little coppy cat right now. Whatever mom does she does. The morning routine take double the time by the time we get things done but I love it! We have some good laughs.. We brush our teeth, do our hair ( which she has to do..wet her hair and comb it) make-up..YEs, i said makeup and then put on our pretty jewels. (thanks to grandma ellis & aunt Alyse).. We are ready for the day!

Activities..

I decided the other day that the only way to make it through the winter months without is to come up with an activity or two for Stella and I to do through out the day. Sometimes before I started doing this I felt like Stella was getting super bored of me and that we needed to make some adjustments...
I found this website '101 things to do with your kids' it has been a great help for idea's. Here is just a few of the things that we have been doing...

She loves to carry this clip board around and draw... We try to draw or color a picture everyday. I think I'm finding myself enjoying coloring a little more too!

What would we do with out play doh.

I took Stella to the store let her pick out a mix and frosting. She got more into this then I thought.. she would she loved putting the cupcake liners in the pan it turned into a fun game
for her.

We are working on some fun Valentine things, more to come soon!

BYE- BYE beloved Binky

So, the other day we dropped off Stella to grandma Ellis' house and we forgot the beloved BINKY! I just happened to call mom at lunch and she said "So, did you forget to tell me that you took something away from Stella?" I was very confused and said "NO".. she said well I have no binky today...my heart stopped Stella loves this thing way to much and felt terrible that I was putting my mom through HELL! My mom said they were going to make it through the day. I called Dale and we both decided that this was the week that we were going to finally do it! This has not been an easy task at all.. first night she cried way to LONG, nothing we did would make her stop. We were both ready to give in... but just as we about did she STOpped!

(Can you find Stella?? I kinda got nervous for a second but then spotted her. Half of her body is crawled under the bed... I'm assuming that she was trying to find the Binky cause sometimes it drops down under the bed.)

I had to take a snap shot of this! I went to check on Stella and this is what I found, bed tore apart and no Stella in bed... I hope the nights to come will be better I feel very sad about doing this to her, it's the first thing that she hasn't lost interest in and has been the toughest thing yet! Dale said" For sure the next one isn't having a Binky... I cannot do this again!" I totally agree, but I guess we will see:)

Nursery

I think that they should change the rules on the whole nursery thing, I think about 14-15months you should be able to take your kid to nursery, that is when I feel like they are ready to leave you.... when they reach about 17-18 months this is when you start to see them start to get clingy again! First week of nursery was great... she walked it and started playing with the toys... second week complete opposite! She knew it was coming after the closing prayer she started screaming and holding back not wanting to go! I walked her to her nursery and we get to the door and she starts screaming even louder and now we are getting the stares like I just did something terrible to her.... The nursery leader said just go it's better this way. I do as she said and start to walk away hearing her scream and me feeling like a terrible mom! I go to class and can still hear her screaming and I cannot even pay attention in class.. I go to get her and I meet the nursery teacher in the hall, she says "That they couldn't get her to stop and to try next week!" I felt so bad. We couldn't get her to stop crying we tried everything! We ended up leaving church early because she was getting so bad, I felt like we were being more of a disruption than anything! I hope next week can be different.... if not we may have a child that will never wanna do the whole nursery thing!!

New YEars

We got together with some of the neighbors for New Years! We ate some delicious treats, played a games and let the kiddo's play! We brought in the New Year a little early with the kid's... Stephanie had some glow bracelets and some noise makers. Stella loved these!! (Great idea Stephanie.) Thanks again for a fun evening!

Sledding

We don't have much snow but were determined to find some... We went out to Burnett's for a little get together.. we did a little sledding, ate some yummy food and caught up on lives adventures!

This was perfect snow weather for the little kids (at least for Stella) sun was out not to cold. It was her first adventure in the snow and she did great!

The perfect sledding hill

Stella and I testing out the sled.. We never could get a really good reaction out of her if she liked it or not

The cousins

Dad pulling Stella on the BIG tube!

I don't really like the winter weather but I do wish we had a little more snow so it felt more like winter and not just yucky blah weather... hope we can get some sooner than later!