What a week

Sorry it has taken a while for me to update but we have been busy. We have hit a little bump in the road on the way of being diaper free. Ethan knows how to pee in the toilet but it is the other one that we are having a problem with. He was doing so great and we weren’t having any problems than he must have just decided to get back at us for something and has gone on strike. I wonder if something just rubbed him the wrong way or if he is having a hard time remembering when to go. He always tells me when he needs to go pee but then goes and hides and once he is done comes and tells me about his little mess. Now, I am basically watching him like a hawk and asking him all the time. I hope we can get pass this fast. Besides Ethan testing me, he took it upon himself to embarrass me at the store today. We were in line and I was buying some clothing items including undergarments that go on the top of the body. While we were waiting for the clerk to ring them up, Ethan starts to inform her what they will be used for. Of course it is packed as can be and the clerk was cracking up. I was dying of embarrassment and was just ready to dash out of there. I can still hear my child with a huge grin on his face pointing at them as she was ringing them up and yelling, “Chi -Chi’s Chi-Chi’s. I tried explaining that we don’t say that word out loud but all I got was a confused look.

Gracie is doing great and just smiles all the time. Every now and then when I get her going I can get a little giggle out of her. She is such a good sleeper that Eric and I joke she should have been our first born because we would’ve gotten much more sleep. I put her down at 8:00 and I have to go and wake her up at 8:00 the next morning. One time I let her sleep just to see if she was going to wake up on her own but by the time it got to 9:00 I knew her whole day would’ve of been messed up so I woke her up. She moves all over her crib and we find her in different spots all the time. She hates being on her stomach and protests it every time. Ethan and I lay down right next to her to entertain her but she just seems to get more annoyed. I told Ethan we put her on her tummy so she can learn to pick up her neck just like he does, but being the kind big brother that he is, goes and tries to help her pick her head up. Thankfully, I was right there to correct him that she had to do it and we don’t touch her head. I knew he was just trying to help. During the mornings I have started walking in my attempt of shedding extra pounds because they don’t shed off so easily the second time around but anyways Gracie seems to really like it. Ethan and her sit right next to each other and enjoy the ride. I sometimes have to tell him to leave her alone but normally he is bugging me with his different questions and telling me for the hundredth time “Car coming.” Although it does reaffirm that he is paying attention to his surroundings and knows that we don’t want to get hit.

I have no idea what happened to Ethan's Cheek but we were outside before his was taken so who knows

Daddy's little girl

Now that Gracie has been sleeping through the night and she is getting too big for her bassinet I figured that we were going to move her into her own room. Ethan was about this age when we moved him. Well bedtime came around and Eric put Ethan to bed while I put Gracie to bed. She passed out without a fuss like she always does but I think that the fact that her crib is far more comfortable than her bassinet helped out. Once Eric and I came up to bed, Eric walks into our room and asks me where Gracie is at. I tell him that she is in her crib in her room. As soon as I said that, I realized Eric wasn’t ready for her to leave our room. I told him that Ethan started to sleep in his own room when he slept through the night and if I remember correctly it was Eric’s idea to move him out of our room. He said that she was still too small (she is bigger than Ethan was) and promptly goes and gets her from her crib and places her in the bassinet. I just smile and mention that a certain little girl has someone tightly wrapped around her little finger. That happened about a week ago. However, last night Eric realized that she is too big for the bassinet when she scooted down and her legs were all scrunched up. She just looked uncomfortable. He finally agreed that it was time to move her. Hopefully, Daddy will take it okay.

Ethan is still doing really well with the potty and we haven’t had an accident for awhile now. Not giving him anything to drink after dinner time has helped take care of the early rising. He still gets up early but not 5 o’clock early. A couple nights ago Ethan woke up screaming and Eric and I couldn’t get him too calm down. I figured that he had a nightmare so I told him that he could sleep with us ONE time. Anyone who knows us knows we really don’t like co sleeping. Ethan was already 1 the first time he slept with us and it was because he was really sick. We don’t like it because we think it is too dangerous when they are Gracie’s age and just starting a bad habit with Ethan’s age. Well sure enough, Ethan came into our room the next night at 4. He walked to Eric’s side first knowing what my answer would be and asked if he could sleep with us. Eric knew that if we said yes again, we would have lost our bed to our children. Ethan wasn’t happy with the decision and cried the whole way back to his room. It took him awhile to go back to bed but we had to be firm. Thankfully, he hasn’t come back to our room since then. I don’t know what was going on with him.

Have a Happy Mother's Day!

A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie. ~Tenneva Jordan

Switched Places

Now that Gracie has started to sleep through the night, I thought I was golden. However, at 5:00 this morning I feel that someone is looking at me. I wake up to my son’s face about two inches away from mine, just standing there. I about had a heart attack. He tells me he needs to go to the potty. I still have him in diapers at night because I thought he was going to need a little time to get used to controlling his body during the night. But things seem to be moving faster along. Of course, despite my begging Ethan was up for the day. The irony is that Gracie slept till 8. Just my luck.

Learning to "aim" for success

Now that we have settled into our new house. The potty training needed to be started and I was dreading it the most. It is the one thing that as a parent you don't have full control over. When he turned one WE took the bottle away, WE took the crib away and yet WE can't go to the potty for him or make him go. This is entirely up to him.

Monday: Accident as soon as I put on the underwear but does great during the day. However once Dad gets home everything goes south because he doesn't want to miss a thing. He was having to much fun playing outside and kept getting distracted.

Tuesday: Was great all day! I didn't have to ask him a single time. He just yells "Potty Mom" while running to the bathroom. Even though he slept in a diaper for nap time he woke up dry, yelling for his potty. Throughout the whole day he only had one accident.

Wednesday: No accidents today! He is doing really good on letting me know when he needs to go. It helps out because he is getting a little annoyed of me asking him all the time. After nap time he woke up with a dry diaper and asked me to put on his underwear. I think he is realizing that they are way more comfortable than diapers. Later on we went to the store and I was worried he would get to caught up and forget, however as we were checking out he tells us that he needs to go. I hope this continues.

Thursday: No accidents today! It is about 7 in the morning and I hear Ethan crying in his room. I knew something was wrong because he always wakes me up by coming into our room. I walk in and he is sitting in his bed crying that he needs to go potty. He had a diaper on but I rushed him to the potty. His diaper was completely dry and normally it is soaked by morning so I knew the poor guy really had to go. Next step is teaching him that he can go without me. He also woke up from nap time with a dry diaper.

Friday: No accidents so far! Woke up to Ethan yelling for the potty again, this time he was in the bathroom waiting for me. His diaper was dry again. I have to say that I am surprised how well Ethan has done because I always anticipate the worst. He has always done well when it comes to transitioning, even though I underestimate him. I think it is due to the horror stories that other mothers tell. We will give it a little while longer and more dry diapers before we tackle the night time. We will be out and about this weekend so hopefully there won't be any accidents but I am taking extra clothes just in case. I think I am just going to leave an outfit in the car to always have as a backup. Wish us luck :)

Singing his ABC's

Here is a video of Ethan singing his ABC's! He does pretty good, but just always seems to skip the second to the last sentence. He must of thought we were doing this for Grandma because at the end of the video he says "Love you Grandma"

Fiesta

This weekend we went to the Children's Fiesta here in San Antonio with our good friends from San Angelo. It was nice to see them and their little ones. Ethan had a great time playing with the boys and they all enjoyed riding the rides together. Hopefully, we will be able to make it out there to visit them real soon.

Joaquin, Noah and Ethan

Daisy lounging and trying to stay cool

Gracie and her crazy hair

Measurements

Yesterday we had Gracie's 2 month appointment and she was all smiles for the doctor. She is in the 95 percentile for her weight which is 14lbs and 4 oz, 75 percentile for her height at 23'' and finally 50 percentile for her head circumference at 39 cm. The doctor was talking to her and she was just cooing back to him as if she was answering his questions. It was cute. Afterwards we went right down the hall to immunizations for the dreadful shots. She got three of them and was not happy. Once we got home I went to change her diaper and she started to scream. I think her legs were still hurting so I gave her some Tylenol and off to bed she went. Once she woke up she was back to being her happy self. Here are some pics of her in her crib enjoying the mobile.

Corpus Christi

This past weekend we drove to Corpus Christi to visit with some of our family. We had a great time and there were a lot of laughs. While we were down we were treated to an excellent Cajun Boil dinner and I was pretty happy to get a copy of the recipe. It is so simple but really good. For those of you who have never had Cajun boil. It is a blend of Cajun spices boiled with seafood, corn and potatoes in one large pot. After draining the pot, you throw it on a clean tablecloth in which you eat right off of. Once your done you throw away the tablecloth. It is such an easy clean up, I love it! The weather was really nice which helped because it wasn’t too hot to enjoy the outdoors. Ethan enjoyed playing with the dogs and being a normal two year old, i.e. getting into everything. We also got a chance to play in the sand at the Padre Island National Seashore. We searched for sea shells and enjoyed walking in the water. It was such a nice trip and we hope to make it out there again.

Us with Aunt Sharon and Uncle Craig

Us with Carrick and Keri

The day before he walked right in with his jean shorts on but now that he has swimming trunks on he decides to sit this one out.

Our footprints in the sand

Gracie feeling the water on her feet

What a cute face!

Today Gracie turns 2 months old. Time has flown by and I know it will continue to move faster than I want it to. She is already wearing 3-6 month clothes due to the nice Buddha belly. She is becoming more attentive and while in her bouncer she grabs onto the toys in front of her. She really enjoys when Ethan comes around. I try to keep him from getting all up in her face but she loves it. She always has a huge grin when he is playing with her. She is a lot like her brother was towards the swing. She only enjoys it for just a couple of minutes and then she wants out. Ethan never would sleep in it and she hasn't yet. However, she loves the bouncer which happened to be a favorite of Ethan's. Another odd thing is that she doesn't like to be rocked to sleep. She does the exact same thing that Ethan did where it feels like she is pushing me away. So lately I have been doing the same thing I did with Ethan where I just put her down, turn on the mobile and leave the room. She passes out every time without any crying. If I wait to long and she gets too tired then it is a little harder. She is now waking up only once a night which is very nice. Although, if you ask Eric both of our kids have slept through the night since birth. It is that selective hearing kicking in. We have her doctor’s appointment next week and she will be getting her shots. The first shots are the hardest. The screaming doesn't last as long with the other shots. It is going to be tough because she is now doing the bottom lip whimper where her lip shakes.

Ethan cracked me up today being his sneaky self. Eric left his coke on the counter and walked away. Well, here I come downstairs to find Ethan drinking it. A soon as he sees me he puts it down and bolts. I ask him what he was doing –like I don’t know- and he replies with, “I was drinking diet coke” clear as day with this guilty grin on his face. What made me smile was that he wasn’t just drinking a coke but he also made sure to tell me it was diet. It reminds me that he is listening to everything we say and takes it all in. Yet, I don’t understand why I get the blank stare when I say it is time to clean up.

End of the cardboard!

We are finally finished with unpacking! It felt like forever with these two but we finally did it. It was driving me crazy looking at all of the boxes. We also have been busy decorating our new house. Eric and I spent less time choosing our children's names than picking drapes and wall hangings. We both have different taste so trying to find a common ground was a little difficult. Thankfully, he left the dinning room up to me but everything else we both had to agree on. The poor sales lady must have went through tons of selections and I am sure she was happy to see us go. Ethan's room was done first because I wanted him to see how everything was going back to normal. Gracie's room was barely finished yesterday. She doesn't sleep in it because she is still in our room so it was on the low priority list. It was nice though to see her crib up with her cute bedding set. I sure do hope she likes pink, as much as I do. Eric still wants to paint some of the walls because the entire house has a tan/neutral color on it. We have some busy weekends ahead of us.

Sweet Gracie

She is getting bigger everyday and just looks so cute with her chunky self! She loves to eat and never seems full. I can tell the difference in my arms after holding her that she is growing fast. She is doing really well on holding her head up and is constantly following voices. Eric will talk to her while walking around the room and she will follow him around with her eyes. She still doesn’t cry all that much but she will let you know when she is hungry. She is sleeping pretty well at night, not as well as Ethan was at this point but I can’t complain. She goes down at 9:00 and wakes up at 2, 6, and then anytime between 8-9 and it is usually due to her big brother. She seems to like the outside so we have been relaxing on the porch while the boys play or water the lawn. Ethan really likes to water the lawn because he tries to jump in front of the hose and plays it off like it was an accident. He thinks if he gets a little wet might as well get completely wet. They both keep me busy but it is the best kind of busy.

To infinity and.....the wall!

I didn't have the time to wait for three videos on one post so there are three videos and three post. The first one describes what happens when you are busy trying to unpack your house and not paying attention to your daredevil child. The other one is Ethan counting and finally sweet Gracie on her swing.

Ethan Counting

Gracie Smiling

What a Month!

I have no clue where to begin because so much has happened this past month. The last week of March we had family visiting for Eric’s graduation. It was great seeing them and introducing them to Gracie. They were such a big help with both kiddos and it definitely made the transition from one house to another a lot smoother. Eric’s graduation went really well and we are both happy that he is done with school. I am proud that he has gotten his Masters Degree but what really puts icing on the cake is that he also received Distinguished Graduate due to his 4.0 grade average. It makes 18 months of “Sorry, I need to work on my homework/thesis” response all worth it.

After graduation had passed it was time to prepare for the wonderful 3 day drive with two kids, a dog, two parents and two cars, one pulling the old truck. The kids and the dog did better than expected and I just want to say whoever thought of having a DVD player in the car was a genius and must have been a parent. I owe that little machine so praise. But before that adventure would take place, we had to say goodbye to all the friends we had made. I tried postponing it but time was not on my side. Eric and I enjoy the military and always love meeting new people and doing new things. At each base, we always try to explore the area around it and meet different people we would of never meet outside of the military. Of course, it is always hard to leave friends but I have connected with so many here that it makes it especially difficult. What really made it harder is having Ethan. He thinks as these people as family and heck since we don’t see our family as much all he knows is our military family. Now he doesn’t understand why his buddy Ty can’t come over. Those two have known each other since they were 6 months old and have been by each others side since then. As Eric calls them “Brothers from another mother”, or how when the doorbell rings he runs towards the door yelling the neighbor kids’ names. It breaks my heart. However, like any PCS you just try to keep in touch and who knows we may be stationed together at another base.

Now we are busy getting accustomed to a whole new city and base, but I am pleased with what I have seen so far. We are soaking up the warm weather and enjoying our new house. Ethan loves his new room and the bigger backyard. I love shopping for our new house which Eric doesn’t seem to love as much as I do. Oh well!

At Graduation

Ethan and Ty playing one last time before we left
Hanging out with Grandma Teresa and Grandpa Dan

Gracie on the way to Texas

It was an exhausting trip

Goofing around with Grandma DeAnne and Grandpa Kerry

HAPPY EASTER

Typically we like to have friends over for Easter, but since we have an empty house cooking is really not an option. Therefore, this Easter has been pretty mellow. We enjoyed our brunch out and hunted for eggs at the Easter Egg Hunt that the base held. Ethan couldn’t wait and he kept inching his way closer to the eggs behind the yellow tape. Once they did blow the horn, Ethan started to run and kept running. He was like Forrest Gump. I thought he was going to keep running because he was passing some of the eggs. Nope, he just ran to the middle and grabbed them all there. He didn’t pay attention to the ones on towards the edge. Eric and I couldn’t stop laughing. He knew what he was doing. When it was over he started to unwrap all of his candy and dug in. Afterwards he saw the bunny rabbit making his rounds and ran up to him and gave him a big hug. I was worried that he was going to freak out like most kids do, but he knew who he was. Since the weather is still cold here in wonderful Ohio, Gracie slept bundled up in her car seat.

Run Forrest, Run

Rockin' with the Doodlebops

We have been so busy these past couple of days with the movers and Gracie, we thought it was time for Ethan to get a little extra attention. So, we came across some really great tickets and jumped on the chance to go to a rock and roll concert with the Doodlebops. Maybe not the rock and roll concert we would generally pick, but we had to appease a two year old. Becoming parents really does affect your entertainment venues. You would not believe how many parents were singing the songs and rocking out. I thought we were the only lame ones who know the words to kid songs. What really mattered was that Ethan had a great time. He was like a fourteen year old girl at a Hannah Montana concert. As soon as they came on the stage, Ethan was in total shock and couldn’t believe that they were right in front of him. He even started dancing to the music. Ethan’s favorite Doodlebop is Deedee and once when she left the stage, Ethan kept yelling, “Where’s Deedee?” He really likes her for some reason. We all had a great time including Gracie who slept the entire time even though there must have been thousands of screaming kids (Even some parents!!).

Our pair of critters